The Goog is at it again in an attempt to be social with Google Plus. Can I tell you about it? No, because at the time of this writing it’s in "limited field trial" mode:
Note at the bottom that even if you do have an invitation, sorry! Losing horns for you!
Anyone who’s been following Goog’s attempts at social knows that every time they try it, they fail miserably. Either it’s something nobody understands nor wants (ex: Google Wave, Google Lively) or it’s something deployed in an unbelievably stupid manner that throws privacy right the window (ex: Google Buzz).
But this thing called Google+ is supposed to be different.
Different how?
That’s the confusing part: I don’t know.
Let’s break this down a bit. Google+ has "Circles", which is nothing more than friend groups. It also has "Hangouts" which is nothing more than a watered-down copy of Foursquare. Add to that "Sparks"; a worthless suggestion service that will always get it wrong. Then there’s "Huddle", a group chat mobile service. Um, hello? Brightkite? Yeah, they did that already a long time ago.
If you’re thinking there’s a whole bunch of reinventing the wheel going on here, you’d be correct.
I suppose it would be cool having all this stuff contained in a single social service, but if it’s anything like the mess that is Google Dashboard, pff.. no thanks. Dashboard to this day still isn’t finished. What confidence does this give anyone that Google+ will be any different with its separated-yet-not-separated stuff within?
When Google+ is gracious enough to actually allow users to use it, I’ll write more about it because I’d like to believe the stuff they label as new isn’t just watered-down copied crap from elsewhere.
And yes, only Goog launches a social network people can’t join, then makes the excuse they’re over capacity even though they have enough computing power to run bases on every one of Saturn’s 31 moons. Quite ironic.
Maybe they forgot to install the tower.
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Rich, which would you rather have – the service open to everyone day one with slow load times and every problem magnified (and they get vilified in the press), or a limited release where they can get it right after a few thousand people put it through it’s paces? Just because they have enough computing power to keep Enceladus from crashing into Hyperion, it doesn’t mean they have the personnel to have it running at full speed right away. For all we know, Google+ could have started as someone’s 20% project.
A hypothetical – Say there’s 20,000 people using it in “closed beta” right now. Twenty thousand select people who know how big tech projects work, like, say Veronica Belmont and Chris Pirillo and some of their invited friends. (How you and I got left off the list, I do not know.) Five hundred discover an issue with, say, people vanishing from the circles they’ve been put in. They report it, and some reasonable time later, they are made happy with a code fix. Now instead imaging that Google opened it up to everyone and twenty million people sign up day one and the same percentage have the same problem. That’s 500,000 people all shouting at Google (and each other) for a fix NOW. They’d be torn apart on the blogs and on Twitter, etc., and have to rush out that fix and maybe not get it right the first time. I can wait. I waited for Gmail and I waited for Google Voice, both of which I use every day now.
Give them a chance to get it ready for you. (And me. I was asking for an invite in the comments of a Gizmodo article yesterday. No dice. Yet.) Google may be this giant monolithic presence in our lives, but it’s still just people back there, working as hard as they can to get it right. They don’t want to put out an incomplete, unpolished, unworkable product. They’re not Microsoft, you know….
“Rich, which would you rather have – the service open to everyone day one with slow load times and every problem magnified (and they get vilified in the press)?”
Yes. Google subscribes to the “release early/release often” method of doing things, and while I’m ordinarily vehemently against that, for a social platform it actually would work.
“Twenty thousand select people who know how big tech projects work, like, say Veronica Belmont and Chris Pirillo and some of their invited friends. (How you and I got left off the list, I do not know.)”
Dave got in. He showed Google+ to me earlier today. The selection I believe is just random.
“Give them a chance to get it ready for you.”
If it were for anything but a social network, yes I’d wait. But you need people in there, a ton of people, to run it through the ringer. Social is about social and you can’t do that with limited sets of people. It has to be for all or nothing.
This is exactly why it is confusing as crap. Nothing is going as should be, and I feel this will be as “innovative” as any Steve Job creation. It might even end up like a Final Cut Pro Fail. I would be more believing of this Plus crap, but Google’s new UI let me down. Now that is something to talk about. Jeez. What happened to Google and it’s simplicity?
It came in and destroyed Youtube, now it’s changing it’s Homepage, *and creating a social network!?!? What has it come to?
I got in last night Rich. There was a period of about two to three hours where Google allowed users to send invites, but it quickly got out of hand. I understand your confusion, but some of your skepticism is way off. Hangouts is nothing like foursquare. Hangouts is a group video chat where users can come and go as they please. It allows a user to start a “hangout” and other friends can join in. This is in no way similar to foursquare which allows users to check into “places”. Comparing Hangout to foursquare is comparing apple to oranges. They are in no way similar. Hangouts is closer related to skype. Hangout is the major concept which I look forward to.
Give Google time and I am sure this will turn out to be something much better than Buzz or Wave ever was. If you wan’t you can check out my + profile here. https://plus.google.com/107687360106460490199/
When they start opening up invites I will be sure to send one your way.
“Hangouts is nothing like foursquare”
I’ll have to take your word for it as I don’t have a Google+ profile yet.
“When they start opening up invites I will be sure to send one your way.”
Dave sent me an invite today because his Google+ profile is live. I’ve yet to receive it.
I agree with your confusion Rich, but some of your initial skepticism is way off. Hangout is in no way similar to Foursquare. Hangouts allows people to start a group video chat where up to 10 friends chat video and text chat about whatever they want. Foursquare allows users to check into places and earn awards. I see no similarity here. I see more of a similarity to Skype rather than Foursquare.
I got in last night with the help of a Lifehacker posts, and I also helped people get in last night with invites. Google has shutdown the invite engine because it got way out of hand. Either way the fact that I am in the beta is fact that it is not all the “Big Name” techies out there who are checking out Plus.
Give Google time and I am sure this will turn out to be more promising than Buzz or Wave ever was. If they ever open up invites again I’ll be sure to throw your email in. If you want to check out my Plus profile you can go here{https://plus.google.com/107687360106460490199/}
Even after being in Google Plus for a few weeks now I’m still confused by it. Only a few people I know use it and even that is sparingly. I even got the App for my iPhone and even that doesn’t make sense. That seems to be Google’s problem at times, trying to reinvent the wheel by calling it different names. If this stuff is confusing to those who are familiar with tech stuff how is the average person going to jump in? My Dad, who’s retirement age, can figure out stuff like Facebook because it’s easy to jump into right away with a small learning curve. Google seems to forget they need to design it’s stuff for the average person and not just the tech junkies.