So right, it’s been a year or so and I have a few quick thoughts about Google+. In that year I’ve loved and hated this product. I care about this product because the Google+ experience is nigh unavoidable and many of their other products (GMail, Drive, Calendar) range from good to great. Google helps me organize much of my personal and professional life.
And while oft criticized I would’t call Google+ a complete failure. I get Google+ as an integrated Google Experience. The Google structured data platform adds information via +1 buttons (and other slices of ‘structured’ code embedded on sites everywhere) to Google’s own ‘open social graph’. When this data is linked to ‘real’ identities (your profile and +1s) this can be both useful and creepy.
But the Google+ user experience, for the most part, is fairly marginal and reeks of bureaucracy.
Google+ makes sense as a place to connect ‘real’ (spam aside) identity to ‘real’ interests at vast scale. And to maybe post something and comment on something. Maybe. The Google+ social network (the plus.google.com site and news feed – the thing you share things to) feels cold, calculated, and poorly-executed.
Google+ plays host to a lot of spam, nearly-spam, and bakn. According to Google my ‘real’ profile has well over a million followers. This is laughable. Scroll through this list and discover that most of these profiles have little to no activity. I have little-to-no ability to vet the veracity of these ‘followers.’ If these followers are not spam, they’re reasonably useless as they rarely interaction and Google+ does not converts (send out a ton of attainable traffic) audience poorly. Open comments could help, but sadly public comments reinforce the ‘spam’ conclusion and rarely yield more than spam. I have my Circles set to ‘friends of friends’ (or whatever Google calls it). This should be my most engaged group of friends, family, and colleagues. Yet the engagement is nil. I get random +1s on content but that helps me not at all.
The follower spam on my public profile became such a problem that I decided to create a new primary private profile. Here I do see a smaller and more relevant flow of auto-posts from ‘news’ accounts. This is mildly interesting. Sometimes a real human comments. There is a loyal and dedicated Google+ community and I’m generally fond of these people. But this is a very limited, a-herm, circle of friends and acquaintances.
(Interstitial Rant: WTF is up with the newly-redesigned justified-left content stream? This makes utterly no sense and severely hampers my ability to comfortably consume content on Google+.)
Google+ as an integrated data-centered experience makes sense. Google doesn’t (and never had to) ‘beat’ Facebook at social, they simply had to be in to social. They’re figuring it out and I’m glad that the product continues to evolve.
I recently spoke with Loren Feldman on a KoPoint Creators podcast about Google+, a year later. Our conclusion that Google+ is simply Google. Google+ is a company-wide integrated data-and-identity product and the expression of the product (the sites you go to and click stuff and search for stuff) can iterate and change with the times.
Yes, Google+ sucks when compared (justly nor not) to Facebook and Twitter. And I’m glad it sucks. A competent Google+ social platform tied to the already-competent data platform is as terrifying proposition. It is my hope that the larger conversation remains on the ramifications and potential blowback of structured data tied to identity and privacy (and lack-thereof).
Anyway, we’ll see where this goes. Just my #twocents.
- DHP
How nice, another uniformed negative screed about Google+. “Followers”? Way to mistakenly let your audience know that you’ve probably not spent more than 5 minutes on Google+, dude. There is so much wrong with that mess you wrote, I’m not even going to address all of it, just call bullshit and move on.
We’ll, I’d hardly call my thoughtful post a ‘screed,’ but you’re welcome to your opinion. And, of course, were you to check my profile http://gplus.to/danpatterson you’d see that I’ve been using the service for ages. No worries, though – good luck!
Huge difference between use and engagement. Assuming a large number of followers means influence, is a big mistake. All you did was invite a ton of spam.
In what way did I ‘invite spam?’ But using the service legitimately (check and see for yourself – scroll back to the beginning)? By having great conversations until every post was covered in spam? By limiting my profile only to real humans and having conversations with them? If I did something wrong here let me know.
The spam for those with large follower counts like you does stink. Some of it isn’t even spam, just crap like “Having this are interesting to!”. I don’t know what you do about worthless comments. There are times I’ve wanted to add a comment (hopefully not worthless) to a post of yours only to find out it was disabled. I understand that is an unfortunate necessity for you.
I think there is a sweet spot for people who appeal to a limited audience. They have targeted expertise that doesn’t attract a large following, but does present the opportunity for engagement for those of us who are interested. In those cases Google+ has been great.
I think you’re probably on to something…
And the spam may not really be Google’s fault. It certainly caused me to depreciate my use of the service, though.
And I do really like seeing the quiet-but-relevant posts from my actual friends in small Circles.
Dan Patterson,you have been posting to Google+ but you have not been using it. You have not been interacting or participating as far as I can see.
Your claim that your 1m plus followers are dormant or spam is a ridiculous claim to make..as you have obviously barely a fraction of those added back and are unable to see much of anything anyone posts,unless they are posting publicly and I truly don’t believe that you have actually taken the time to see what anyone has been posting.
Yet another expert that doesn’t know how to be social,yet knows all about social networking,not.
I have. Privately.
Why would I follow back someone with a half-baked profile in Portuguese?
You seriously cannot claim that you have over 1million followers and none of them are worth circling back?
That they all have half-baked profiles?
And that sir is where you are going wrong.
Please take the time to read this:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/109563753552764279998/posts/GjZ4S9Kvefa
No where do I make this claim. I follow several hundred different accounts.
Interesting take. My experience on G+ has been quite positive. I do have a twitter account, although I rarely check it. Too adhd for me. I enjoy commenting on people’s posts, and the hangout feature is awesome.
I have been following you on G+ for a long time, and I remember when you started complaining about spam. I found it odd, though, because at most I would see 10-12 comments in your posts. Maybe you were just deleting them, I don’t know. Or perhaps it was before the muting/block feature was well-known.
Anyway, I read most of the things that you post, but hate not being able to comment. Kinda defeats the purpose of a public post I think. Perhaps it would be more beneficial just to blog?
I’ll keep reading your blog here, but without a comment option on G+, your posts are just a doubling of information. Good luck.
Thanks for the heads-up, Ryan. It’s really great to hear from folks who DO like and use the platform. Ping me with your account and I’ll follow, thus permitting comments (I have this information on the profile itself).
And yes, I was working with Google to mark and kill spam.
Dan, he’s right to a point. You see Google+ isn’t Facebook. You have to learn it and use it differently. Google+ is like a Tamagachi (or a Sims family if you prefer). It requires you to plan, participate, and actively provide input to its output for it to grow and survive.
If you do this, eventually you will reach a breakthrough point. It will take on a life of its own, grow, and become more self sustaining. It took me over 3 months to reach that point. Three months of active participation and actually reading some of the many how to articles that get posted fairly often. Finding a few good circles is also key.
It often seems that people that already have some level of net celebrity status often don’t reach this point or don’t “get” Google+ because they treat it like their blog. They open an account, invite their blog readers, get a quick bunch of followers, then slowly watch activity die and declare Google+ a failure. Well, sorry, but it’s not Google+ that failed in this example, it’s the blogger.
Some of the more successful “already famous” plussers seem to be real life celebrities. In particular Sci-fi personalities who are used to working at their celebrity status and interacting with fans. They do the trade shows and conventions, make chit chat, sign autographs, and generally know how to genuinely engage with their audience. Check out Wil Wheaton and Jeri Ryan if you want to see how to make the transition from other forms of celebrity to Google+.
For regular folks, it’s like moving to a new town or school. You won’t make any new friends at home on the couch. Get out there, join some clubs, participate, enjoy.
Good advice, Chris
I just posted a well-thought-out, complimentary comment to your G+ post (rejected), then here (had to login to wordpress which deleted my comment).
You are begging for lame interaction.
Anyway – when you started complaining about spam, you would have at most like 10-12 comments in a post. Perhaps I never saw the spam you were complaining about. And very little of it was “I like post most interesting followme http://www.spamvirusindia.com“. Just saying, I havent heard Thomas Hawk or Guy Kawasaki complaining about spam…
Good luck, though.
You probably saw only a small percentage of the in-bound spam. It came in waves and was quickly reported and blocked. But my Gmail and other accounts suffered. It’s cool, though. I understand that these things happen. As I stated in the post, G+ continues to evolve and I don’t see this as a terminal project.
Dan,
I found your post pretty thoughtful. What I find interesting is how different your experience is than someone like Mike Elgan, who really seems to have found something on Google+. I find Google+ to me more interesting at this moment because the people I follow seem to be trying to do something different with G+ than others, especially when it comes to Hangouts. I really like the vision Google has for it, and it’s just a matter of how well the execute it imho.
Totally agree, especially when it comes to ‘doing something different,’ as you say. +Eric Skiff has done a great job working Plus. For example, a few months ago Eric wrote an entire fictional story using Plus on the subway. Great idea.
I have to say my experience has been nothing but positive. I’m anything but “internet famous” so my circles are rather modest at under 1000 people. I have no shortage of interesting, thought-provoking posts in my feed. I post 90% publicly and the level of interaction I get really depends on the content of the post itself. Still, engagement is never a problem for me and the Hangouts by far are the best feature.
@Dydan I too have had fun using G+ in a very small group.
hahahaha, what butthurt… fact is you got on suggested users or whatever, and I get more reaction than you with 1/200th of the followers. Guess that means what? you don’t have anything very interesting going on.
You’ve gotta be kidding me. Did any of you bother to actually READ my post? Clearly not.
Your biggest failure was not organizing your circles. Moreover, you should try using chrome and installing some of the extensions that help you manage your stream.
Additionally, the left justified look is easily remedied either by extensions in chrome, or userscripts dot org for every other browser (except IE).
If you’re still using IE, then that would explain why your experience is subpar.
There are tons of extensions that help you do this or that in G+, I suggest you check them out.
Your site eats comments of people who are not logged in and for some reason, lazarus extension doesn’t work with your textarea inputs. This is bad.
Please un-fuck your comment system. I highly recommend using the Disqus comment plugin system. You don’t even have the option to sign in using my google account!
***Original post***
Your biggest failure was not organizing your circles. Moreover, you should try using chrome and installing some of the extensions that help you manage your stream.
Additionally, the left justified look is easily remedied either by extensions in chrome, or userscripts dot org for every other browser (except IE).
If you’re still using IE, then that would explain why your experience is subpar.
There are tons of extensions that help you do this or that in G+, I suggest you check them out.
To prevent spam, WordPress.com hold comments in a queue. I approve eveything written by humans, regardless as to how negative or nastiy the comment may be.
Also: how in the WORLD do you know what ‘my biggest failure is?’ How do you know I
failed to organize my circles?’
You don’t know these things. My biggest failure has nothing to do with Google or the internet. Perhaps you should reconsider both your priorities and how you speak to complete strangers.
God you are thick.
You don’t even understand how your own website works… Ok. Lets try this. Your comments system is pants. The free disqus plugin at wordpress plugins repo would give you far greater control over your comment system and make it easier to manage. Your comment system eats comments of people who are not logged in, because when they try to post, they are prompted to log in to wordpress . com. After they do that, the comment that they typed out is now gone. Ffs.
I read this article, and all of the comments on G+. Your biggest problem is that you are full of yourself, completely unwilling to accept or understand free assistance provided to you, as a result, you fail in basic understanding of things. I was wrong, your biggest failure was not your usage (or lack thereof) of extensions and userscripts to make your life easier, your biggest failure is your own life.
The funny part is, I know you won’t allow this into your site’s comments, but I know that you’ll read it because of how obviously narcissistic you are, thereby accomplishing my purpose.
You are worse than a simple troll. Why? Because trolls have thick skin. You are a troll and wield what little power you have to spout drivel and snide comments to people trying to help you. You are a sensitive troll.
Sensitive trolls are elevated to the status of “Douchebag” in modern society. Congratulations sir! I know you have worked long and hard to deserve this title!
Sidenote: You are not a total stranger to me, dumbass. You post publicly, therefore putting yourself on the public eye. Moreover, when you respond to your comments, your true character shows even further.
Before you decided to be such a douchebag to me, maybe you should have googled me first. I did my research. Clearly, you did not do yours.
This statement:
“Perhaps you should reconsider both your priorities and how you speak to complete strangers.”
Is rich, coming from someone like you.
Well, this is full of fun. Where to start?
First, you stated:
“God you are thick. … You don’t even understand how your own website works”
Perhaps I am a complete dolt and perhaps I am indeed every terrible thing you claim. I don’t know who you are, but I am smart enough to know how to copy/paste/report your IP address and Gmail address to your Verizon FiOS provider and Automattic (host of my sites).
For the record and as a general posting rule of thumb: I am willing to tolerate all kinds of funky language and lively conversation as long as the discussion remains intelligent, articulate, and respectful. Threats, excessive foul language, ad hominem attacks on me – or anyone else – on this (or any site I own/operate) site will simply not be tolerated.
Second: there are so many ways you could express your opinion. You’re opted to be a dick. It’s weird, dude, and kinda creepy. Chill.
#flameon
Ahahahah he deleted my reply xD
What exactly are you planning on doing with my IP/email? Are you even sure that that is my IP? You never know these days.
Report for what? Disagreeing with you? OMG STOP THE PRESSES SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH ME ON THE INTERNET!!!
“Second: there are so many ways you could express your opinion. You’re opted to be a dick. It’s weird, dude, and kinda creepy. Chill.”
LOL, now that is hilarious, coming from you.
Go ahead, report my IP, report my email address. Write it down and take a picture of it. Then walk away in shame when everyone looks at you like you’re a grotesque apparition (not far from the truth).
Also, deleting replies is not the correct way to argue on the internet, but from someone like you, I am not surprised.
I’m not really sure what you’re talking about. I’ve thus far published all of your comments. But this will probably be the last one.
Again, I have no problem with lively discussion, but comments like the one above cross the productive/troll threshold. Also: this is creepy and weird.
You didn’t know you were on the SUL. Period. Otherwise you wouldn’t have needed to make another account or call your followers “someone with a half-baked profile in Portuguese” As an SUL user, you are the first thing a brand new person sees on G+ around the world.. what do you expect? Instead of accepting the help of some of the best users in the G+ community you immediately insulted them and made yourself look more foolish.
Instead of posting ONE MORE TIME about the internet not reading or doing homework, Why not contact your “sources at google” ask to be removed since you clearly do not want the attention. Why are people upset about this post you ask? LOTS want the attention of the SUL you are insulting! Is that so hard to understand really?
It’s sad that google never had this conversation with you, but more sad that when you realize whats going on here that you pretend to “still be working with google” and “private beta dynamic SUL” lies instead of simply admitting a mistake.
Shame on you. Regardless of middle east coverage, Interviews with Tech celebs or media channel creation… your hubris displays here for all to see quite clearly. Good day Sir.
The sad thing is that you’d rather cast aspersions and be rude than to read what I wrote. I DID get hit with several thousand spam comments for Portugal. At no point did I say that the HUMANS who follow me are bad. It’s too bad that my writing was so inarticulate.
Did you read your own article? ” I have little-to-no ability to vet the veracity of these ‘followers.’ If these followers are not spam, they’re reasonably useless as they rarely interaction and Google+ does not converts (send out a ton of attainable traffic) audience poorly…. The follower spam on my public profile became such a problem that I decided to create a new primary private profile.”
That’s where you said your followers were spam, completely unaware of the gift of promotion that Google has given you. The gift you waste, by not trying to understand different ways to use the platform, or change what you are doing to “convert that audience to drive traffic or interact”…
Interaction tips and driving traffic is the same thing that people repeatedly told you both here and on plus how to do and you simply stated.. YOU KNEW IT ALREADY AND DIDNT YOU READ over and over. We read.
I understand you must feel frustrated, not realizing that this is what was going on an resorting to techniques like create a new profile to deal with what must have seemed like annoying spam. You’ve been doing social media since “Jesus was a sophomore”? You obviously got this covered.
I would seriously sit down with your Google contacts and have that conversation with THEM, instead of being so abrupt with people who were simply trying to help you when you posted an article stating… “followers = no traffic conversion”. G+ responded with how you could change that and you simply shot yourself in the foot. The exact response you said in your article was missing, those “larger conversations” from friends of friends. It take a large person to admit their mistakes, so i don’t blame you for this route.
Congratulations too as this is now the most talked about post on your blog. Guess this all worked for you, after all.
But I don’t have this ability. Nor do you. And I am.
And NON of this excuses the very poor behavior of many commentors here and elsewhere.
You stated:
“That’s where you said your followers were spam, completely unaware of the gift of promotion that Google has given you. The gift you waste, by not trying to understand different ways to use the platform, or change what you are doing to “convert that audience to drive traffic or interact”…”
I’m pretty sure I never made this claim. I WAS hit by a wave of spam during SXSW this year. A ton of people were also hit. We dealt with it. But it did happen. And I never asserted that my ‘followers’ are spammers.
Also: I wasn’t ‘given’ a ‘gift’ by Google. A few people on this thread seem to be upset that have not acted more of a sycophant. How odd.
Um, but you’re wrong. I did know. And you can go to gplus.to/danpatterson, scroll to the early posts and see for yourself. It’s right there. On teh internetz.
And why use such hostile and unproductive language? So weird….
Dan Patterson If you dislike Google Plus and all the awesome people there then why don’t you agree with the simple point. GTFO. k thanks.
P.S. Don’t be a Dick Dan, go home and cry to your momma.
I’m UTTERLY baffled as to how you folks got the idea that I don’t like Google+. I never made that claim. At what point was I a ‘dick?’ When I called out a few people for mischaracterizing my blog post? Or when I pushed back at your poor behavior?
So weird…
Ha! This is so awesome!
Boy there sure are a bunch of numb skulls trolling this post, Dan. Classic (lol)
Fer serious, dude. I don’t get it. Thanks for being cool. Oh, and thanks for coming on the show tonight.
By the by, this post is going strong on Google Plus as well. I made a hilarious link http://kpnt.co/hilariousgtrolls
Facebook is for getting in touch with friends. G+ is for getting in touch with enemies. It’s where Google engineers go to heckle people, and gifs go to die.
I hope you will write soon about what you mean by the “competent Google” scare thing.
Ha! So very true! And thanks for responding to the post itself. After the baffling flames here, you’re focus is refreshing.
I’m not really sure I can add much more to the conversation – tons of folks far smarter (and maybe with more degrees) have articulated the general and evolving concerns about the relationships between identity, community, and data. Fascinating stuff.
I don’t really like linking to my own stuff—so I won’t—but, I recently wrote about how a small group of friends and I have functionally turned Google+ into everything we wanted Path to be. There are about 7-8 of us and we have longer conversations there than Twitter would allow without the terrible noise found on Facebook. Has it replaced either of those? No. Do we really care? No.
Sidebar: I’ve noticed a ton of people that joined Google+ early on get the updated app, post “This app is so pretty, I should use this more often”, then disappear as quickly as they reappeared.
Also, Dan Patterson uses G+ often and is one of the better tech people to follow. I find it a strange angle the he chose to make two separate accounts, though. It would be interesting to hear him expand on that one. Technically, I have two accounts—but, one is for my company’s apps account and is used exclusively for Hangout-Meetings.
Yep – I use Plus very similarly. The ‘public’ profile is nice but some times feels a little over-exposed. It’s nice to have a private place to talk with friends.
You should totally post a link – I’d love to read it!