Google Plus

[sigil]

I must live I some parallel universe from you  people.  I have more time spent on G+ than I do with facebook now.

[Margalis]

Every big company eventually over-extends. This was it.

Google already has probably one hundred half-assed failed products.

This is more high profile than most, but still. I mean FFS this is their third social networking site.

[Ironwood]

It's just like that open letter said though :  they don't really have a strategy.

[KallDrexx]

For those that care, apparently Google+ now works with Apps accounts.

[01101010]

It's just like that open letter said though :  they don't really have a strategy.

Google seems to build empty structures then try and find people to use them and give them purpose whereas other companies start with a purpose and build that structure to fit.

[Ironwood]

Yes.  Which is a shit idea.

[DraconianOne]

It's just like that open letter said though :  they don't really have a strategy.

Google seems to build empty structures then try and find people to use them and give them purpose whereas other companies start with a purpose and build that structure to fit.

There is a reason for that - or at least there was. Apparently the guys who work at Google are given free reign for a day a week to work on whatever projects they want. They end up developing tools mostly for internal use that they sometimes release to the public (as never ending betas generally). You get a lot of tools (like http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/ and all the stuff at the Google Webmaster page) that hardly anyone knows about which are just there because someone working at Google put it together for their own use and then made it public (albeit unsupported).

Or at least, that's the way they used to operate two years ago before my mate who worked there left. No idea how much the culture has changed since if it all.

[Quinton]

Google calls this "20% time" and it's still alive and well.  Not everyone takes advantage of it, but some interesting stuff has come out of it (Google News was a 20% project originally) from time to time.

[TripleDES]

I take it that the Google+ chat superseedes the Google Talk one? So if I want to chat to the people on Google+ via Trillian, I do the usual Google Talk account shtick?

[Quinton]

I believe it's all the same infrastructure - same backend for gtalk in gmail, chat in G+, etc.

[TripleDES]

Thanks. I meanwhile discovered the same in the Google Apps settings. Google+ makes Gtalk a mandatory dependency.

[MuffinMan]

Judging by all things I have liked on facebook posting about their Google+ pages it looks like they've opened it for businesses now.

[Ironwood]

They have.

Just right after everyone stopped caring.

[Sand]

Slate's article on why Google+ sucks.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/09/google-plus-pages_n_1083919.html#comments

Shortly after Google launched its new social network in June, many companies—including several online magazines, Slate among them—attempted to create “brand profiles” on the service. The rush was a testament to Google’s power to drive a flood of users to any new site it launches. Though Google+ was pretty rough around the edges, many observers called it a credible alternative to Facebook, so it made sense for companies to get in on the ground floor.

Yet Google seemed completely surprised by this turn of events. A product manager posted a message discouraging businesses from creating Google+ profiles, and the company began shutting down the profiles posted by renegade firms. This prompted many creative workarounds—TechCrunch jokingly created a page for a fellow named Techathew Cruncherin—but Google was unmoved. (Cruncherin’s profile was shut down.) The episode illustrated a persistent and likely fatal problem for Google’s effort to take on Facebook: There’s nothing to do on Google+, and every time someone figures out a possible use for it, Google turns out the lights.

[Sky]

My father just invited me into his circle.

 

[tazelbain]

I am toying a round with building my own social networking site.  (I know that's retarded)

So my question is why does F13.net exist when Facebook or Google+ do the same without the server bills?

[Rasix]

Because we're not real people here.

[ezrast]

There's something to be said for controlling your own server as you're not subject to Facebook's bizarre organizational whims and whatnot. A lot of people like to keep their FB identities separate from this kind of thing anyway.

T&A thread violates Facebook's ToS.

[HaemishM]

We were here before Facebook. 

[slog]

Slate's article on why Google+ sucks.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/09/google-plus-pages_n_1083919.html#comments

Shortly after Google launched its new social network in June, many companies—including several online magazines, Slate among them—attempted to create “brand profiles” on the service. The rush was a testament to Google’s power to drive a flood of users to any new site it launches. Though Google+ was pretty rough around the edges, many observers called it a credible alternative to Facebook, so it made sense for companies to get in on the ground floor.

Yet Google seemed completely surprised by this turn of events. A product manager posted a message discouraging businesses from creating Google+ profiles, and the company began shutting down the profiles posted by renegade firms. This prompted many creative workarounds—TechCrunch jokingly created a page for a fellow named Techathew Cruncherin—but Google was unmoved. (Cruncherin’s profile was shut down.) The episode illustrated a persistent and likely fatal problem for Google’s effort to take on Facebook: There’s nothing to do on Google+, and every time someone figures out a possible use for it, Google turns out the lights.

The first thing I thought of when I read this was how a new MMO has to compete against Wow.

I know this sounds unfair: Facebook had years to add all the features it has now, so why should we demand that Google create a perfect substitute at launch time? But that’s just the thing—taking on a behemoth like Facebook is an unfair fight. Google seems to think about its social network in the same way it thinks of any other kind of software—as a “product” that it can design step-by-step, starting with a small number of innovative features and working up from there.

[Count Nerfedalot]

I am toying a round with building my own social networking site.  (I know that's retarded)

So my question is why does F13.net exist when Facebook or Google+ do the same without the server bills?

So far here I haven't been forced to reveal anything that would connect my presence here with my physical self; there is almost no way for my employer, my financial institution, my creditors, business contacts, my wife's ex, marketers, political marketers, religious zealots, neighbors, enemies, crackpots, identity thieves, or anyone else I interact with or wish to avoid interacting with in the real world to figure out that I'm even on this site much less which posts are mine unless I choose to tell them; I'm fairly confident that nobody is selling information about my reading/posting habits, interests, or anything else I reveal here; we have moderators who actually moderate if things get out of hand and outright ban those who are just plain untrainable or unwilling to learn how to behave themselves.

It is a place where I've found people with similar interests and oftentimes interesting viewpoints from whom I can learn stuff about some topics that interest me and with whom I can exchange ideas, banter and bullshit in the limited context of those shared interests, with full accountability within that community for my behavior within that community but without any repercussions crossing over into other communities in which I am involved.  What happens on F13 stays on F13 and isn't used against me anywhere else, and vice versa.

[MahrinSkel]

Facebook replaced Myspace (yes, I know it's not dead, if you're 13) and Friendster by working all the time while they were crippled by excessive load.  Google+ can't hope to compete with FB unless it does nearly everything FB does, plus some things that FB simply can't.  How?  If I knew that, I'd be planning how to spend my billions.  It might not be possible, social networking may be a "natural monopoly" and there's only room for *one* working version.

--Dave

[Ingmar]

I've thought that all along about the monopoly thing. Once you get a platform that finally achieves ubiquity, like Facebook did, it becomes nearly impossible for the next one to displace it, because you have to convice *everyone* to move, or the platform just isn't useful for its core purpose.

[MahrinSkel]

If Google+ had launched truly feature complete, with some critical secret sauce that FB couldn't just copy, it might have worked.  There's certainly a lot of people that would like to give Zuckerman the finger and not look back.  But there's no point in a social network that your friends aren't already on except for Teh Shiney.

--Dave (I blew a pitch a few years ago because the VC just wanted to hear how our social network features were going to make us into an FB killer, and I made the mistake of telling the truth: Even with billions to burn, I didn't think it was possible)

[lamaros]

Facebook was also less clique-y than myspace, less associated with music, and a hell of a lot less ugly. It didn't really replace it, so much as take some of its features to a much wider audience.

[Mosesandstick]

Facebook was initially only accessible to University students, it seems to me that one of the reasons it was popular was because at the beginning it wasn't publicly available.

[Chimpy]

The big reason it killed myspace was that there is ONE format. You didn't have to deal with the ridiculous eyesores which were 2/3rds of mySpace pages with their auto-loading-no-way-to-turn-off music videos. Well, that and it uses real names which makes it easier to stalk your high school crushes/whatever.

[KallDrexx]

If you need to ask why F13 "succeeds" where Facbook doesn't, then you really shouldn't be working on a social media site (if you are serious about it at least).

[Count Nerfedalot]

If you need to ask why F13 "succeeds" where Facbook doesn't, then you really shouldn't be working on a social media site (if you are serious about it at least).

I thought the question was why F13 even exists in a world where Facebook and Google+ are available?  A very reasonable question to ask if you want to introduce a new product into that space and not loose your shirt!

[KallDrexx]

I thought the question was why F13 even exists in a world where Facebook and Google+ are available?  A very reasonable question to ask if you want to introduce a new product into that space and not loose your shirt!

You are right, I had the original question wrong but my point still stands.  Yes I agree it's something to ask yourself if you want to introduce a new product, but the fact that you can't answer that question yourself means you shouldn't be working on a new social media platform.  If you don't clearly know ahead of time why you are creating a social networking site you end up with another Google+, a site that (functionally) has everything a social site has but doesn't have the "magic" which is what makes currently successful social media platforms succeed.

[tazelbain]

How do you know I don't know the answer myself?   Really I just wanted to see if you guys could come up with something I hadn't thought of yet.

[Ironwood]

I come here because I want to loose my shirt.

I like that bitch real loose.

[Xanthippe]

I am toying a round with building my own social networking site.  (I know that's retarded)

So my question is why does F13.net exist when Facebook or Google+ do the same without the server bills?

So far here I haven't been forced to reveal anything that would connect my presence here with my physical self; there is almost no way for my employer, my financial institution, my creditors, business contacts, my wife's ex, marketers, political marketers, religious zealots, neighbors, enemies, crackpots, identity thieves, or anyone else I interact with or wish to avoid interacting with in the real world to figure out that I'm even on this site much less which posts are mine unless I choose to tell them; I'm fairly confident that nobody is selling information about my reading/posting habits, interests, or anything else I reveal here; we have moderators who actually moderate if things get out of hand and outright ban those who are just plain untrainable or unwilling to learn how to behave themselves.

It is a place where I've found people with similar interests and oftentimes interesting viewpoints from whom I can learn stuff about some topics that interest me and with whom I can exchange ideas, banter and bullshit in the limited context of those shared interests, with full accountability within that community for my behavior within that community but without any repercussions crossing over into other communities in which I am involved.  What happens on F13 stays on F13 and isn't used against me anywhere else, and vice versa.

Well said, thank you.

This is exactly what is lacking in Facebook and Google+.  See, I don't give a shit what games my friends are playing, because the games my friends play are not the games I want to play.  I would rather talk to you guys than my friends about games, because games are my hobby, and you guys share that hobby as a primary interest.

It's similar to the music sharing social network bullshit.  I don't care what music my friends listen to, because they mostly have shitty taste in music.  (You guys probably do as well!).  I liked old Napster, because when you downloaded a song from someone, you could see what else they had in their library.  I had more in common in music with people who I didn't know than I do with my friends.  (Shitty taste in music is music I don't like, btw, just like shitty taste in hobbies is hobbies I don't care about).

There's a context to social networking that is completely lacking in usefulness when you're connected to those you know in real life.  Zuckerberg's what, 27?  So maybe the only context he has in his entire life is around his friends - what he likes, what he listens to, and so on.  There's a whole wide world of people out there - nay, communities out there - where people congregate that has nothing to do with in real life friends.  That was the internet pre-internet2.0 or whatever the fuck it's called now. 

For people who are supposed to be the best and brightest, they sure are stupid about social networking, online communities, and giving people what they want.  The usefulness of Facebook to me is minimal - seeing pictures of old high school acquaintances' children and grandchildren is about it these days, oh and keeping up with my nieces and nephews.  It's like a little reunion site that I barely spend any time on.

[naum]

I know it is lore about how Facebook "replaced" MySpace and Friendster, but truth is, Facebook was the 1st to scale to ubiquitous height hitherto not achieved. MySpace had millions of users, but your Dad and grandmother were not on MySpace, nor did it have "critical mass" outside of some societal segments. Facebook, OTOH, is used by everybody except those few lone renegades that shun the man and his privacy stomping ways. Everybody is on Facebook and most everyone there shares their life, via photos, status updates, links with their "friends" -- even if Facebook continues to assault the sandbox notion and elevate the service to encompass all that Twitter and other "social networking" entities also perform.

Advantages forum communities like F13 here hold over FB?

As pointed out already -- anonymity, or at least pseudo-anonymity as "reputation", even more so, looms for "members". And control / ToS too -- do not have to fret over somebody pulling the rug out from under you because somebody was offended. Yes, standards are still imposed, but by the site owners, admins and moderators, not a faceless 3rd party answerable only via a Python (or PHP or $OtherScriptingLanguage) script.

Superior search and archival -- have you ever tried searching for something on Facebook? Posts roll off and the culture and context is exceedingly ephemeral. Posts roll off here too, but they're still easily accessible, and it is 100X more effortless to search here.

[Margalis]

How are F13 and Facebook even similar, beyond the fact that they are both websites?

By the way, maybe this is only true for my Facebook friends but when I first got on Facebook basically all my friends updated a lot. Now the updates are dominated by the 10-15% of my friends who update constantly, while the other 85% or so rarely if ever do anything active on it.