Losing My Patience with Google+

Nothing to add. Luke Wroblewski​, can you tell us your thoughts ? What’s next with G+ ?

Am just as frustrated as you are. Trying to get Google to notice, much less do anything about it, is like crying into the void.

I’m with you!

David Amerland​ Oleg Moskalensky​ Summit Medical Group​ Zara Altair​ Gina Fiedel​ Ramón González​ HealthQuotes.ca​ Truehope Nutritional Support Ltd.​

I second everything you said. My stream is getting quieter and quieter.

I remember thinking of the innovations, and how Google was a step ahead of Facebook. They have up the advantages and then lagged. It feels like a legacy no one is inspired by.

I want the promise land. I want a circle full of forums. I want to seamlessly share documents, images, and video. Google has the power to make this a special place, it’s not a competition with Facebook. It never should have been measured that way. That makes it feel like a failure. If this political cycle showed anything, it was this is still a viable place.

So Google. Own this. Make it your own.

What a waste of my time. Why don’t they just sunset the service and move on?

I agree, it’s amazing how the quality of the stream differs over time (independently of user input factor) and it is very difficult to spot the logic that is supposedly behind it. The best indicator (at least for me) that something is being seriously messed up, are the “recommended for you” posts: There I got consistently over long periods low quality crap, often conspiracy theories, outright rightwing posts and things like that…

Gideon Rosenblatt like others my feed is becoming much quieter. G+ never worked like FB for which I was glad. I joined to read science writers and others and also develop an audience on G+ for my sculpture. Unfortunately the science writers are leaving and the audience for my sculpture never materialized on G+.

So far G+ has worked out to be as large a waste of time as FB. Is G+ going to have a new & improved version coming out soon – could care less. Same with FB.

FB will still be around in some way or another in 5 years. G+ probably will not. FB’s main business is keeping FB going. G+ is just an appendage of ABC. It will wither and die.

Gideon Rosenblatt – Joanne Manaster and Cathy O’Neil just posted good stuff. I mean just now.

Someone at the helm who either understands the product, or someone interested and willing to learn.

That’s all it needs.

Well said, Gideon. Well said.

Still here creating content into the abyss.

With you on this. Disappointing.

Vic was always here. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting one of his posts. He was… interested. Not so our current overlords… I bet they are all on twitter though… And who knows, perhaps even on facebook.

It’s been massively disappointing and just keeps getting worse and worse. I haven’t seen the slightest evidence the Google cares about this. Everyone who was a power user here wanted “interest channels” but instead we got “collections” which totally flopped.

I’m still hanging on by a thread to my big entrepreneurs community here, but Google has made it next to impossible to have an actual online community- they even removed Google Hangouts, which while never properly integrated could have been fantastic if they did it the right way.

Meanwhile on Twitter ….

Facebook is pounding out the updates and Google+ shares a Collection of the week.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/KVBm_o1K9FPxRe0H2-RVV-YXNm6ly5ly0t5xybparC-Q0ojC4vc4Apg8JyBBwVmLXRfOm9xG670

I know I hate the new formats and it has become difficult for me to blend into the new . So I just pop in and out. I loved here but now it is all different no long personal just a cold format that is also twitchy and jumpy from just a user point of view. It takes several ttys to get pictures loaded so I rarely bother now….I am depressed by the changes and all good things always get “improved” to death.

Gina Fiedel Good Girl !!

Totally Agree here !!!

Donna Williams

Thanks !!! Love your Comments …

Alphabet is Getting like The Wizard behind the Curtain ..

So Sad !!!

Tom Rolfson​​​ and I have had the same frustrations for a long time.

G+ was/is the perfect way unite all Google products and services. I was convinced and fought the anti-G+ wars and simple silliness.

Like you I’ve been here a long, long time. This is the only place I’ve found with intelligent discussion plus wonderful art, music and photography.

The horribly named Hangout were the first of their kind and offered so many capabilities that my heart began to break when the new shiny toys began to attract the spotlight.

No one can tell me the Google couldn’t create a one touch ‘hangout’. If freaking Facebook did it with one way communication and G+ already had true 2 way communication finding. A new start button should be a snap.

I agree Gideon Rosenblatt​​​ that perhaps bad management, or worse, lack of interest is the root of the problem.

I’ve not participated nearly as much this year as I have previously. Partly I was dispirited at the ‘hangout’ dwindling and partly for personal health reasons.

I hope Tom Rolfson​​​ is feeling up to the cricitcal analysis he has considered writing for some time. He was in this space before most of us thought of a platform that could unite so many function and products.

G+ is still the only substantive network that, to my mind and heart, encourges new relationships worldwide. I could start a list of the people I have met, face to face, all over the world.

An example of relationships with mutual respect is Gideon Rosenblatt​​​ , David Kutcher​​​, David Amerland​​​, songstress and composer Daria Musk​​​, Australian musician Paul Platt​​​ and it goes on and on…And I would know none of them without G+.

I hope we remain the place where we can have real interactions.

Thanks for the topic, Gideon. It needs an even deeper discussion. G+ still has the capabilities. Perhaps we need to throw more deliberate work into using its many assets.

Good one !!! Stuart O’Neill​

Thanks

Couldn’t have said it better. I admit I’ve pretty much gone MIA except for a few posts here and there. Other than David Amerland I’ve noticed everyone else has done the same. And rather than a place of conversation it seems to have become more and more a place of self promotion for many.

Hypothesis: Google Plus’s declining ‘engagement’, promoted by a series of design decisions divorced from informed and innovation-driven use cases, is a classic example of a wicked problem gone unrecognised and unaddressed.

Wicked problems were defined in the late 1960s and early 1970s by University of California Berkeley professors Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber as the kind that could not be addressed with methods and techniques derived from a dominant engineering-scientific-management paradigm (ESMP). The paradigm used almost exclusively in IT-related disciplines, and most hostile to any development, product, or service which relies on social evaluation and judgement for its success or failure.

Social media can work only if a critical mass of people finds in the platforms available a useful function or functions that doesn’t/don’t alienate their economic, social, or political sensibilities. You could call that a use case, or cases, which provide more perceived value than costs.

Google Plus ‘created’ a use case early on mostly because its user base found their own value in the, as yet, relatively unrestricted and flexible architecture of the place, often contrary to the deliberate design of progressive and inherently anti-social fragmentation of interests and compartmentalisation of confirmation bias bubbles. But ESMP interventions turned it progressively into a forced march through an anti-social conception of the social.

ESMP people are exactly the wrong specialists to drive Google Plus engagement because they will always attempt to subject human behaviours to algorithmic certainties. Alphabet would be better to put together a team with anthropologists, public affairs specialists, and social scientists to consider what kind of features ESMP types should build to encourage the commitment of time and effort that is called engagement.

The social is messy, noisy, vibrant, annoying, delightful, and … engaging. Human, not ESMP. Serendipitous, not menu driven. As unpredictable as it can be and still meet Alphabet’s data mining objectives.

Conclusion: Alphabet seems wedded to the idea that you shed experiments rather than try to build on them by re-examining first premisses to understand why something didn’t work the way it was intended (double loop learning). A corporate culture immune to double-loop learning will only ever create a series of rolling failures, even if these are profitable for a time. If Google Plus is considered at all valuable, it’s time to put a person or team in charge that doesn’t have a primarily technical perspective. ESMP specialists should serve human needs, not determine them in their blundering, Frankensteinian fashion.

ghosttown.gif

David Amerland​

#Amerlandia is Calling MyFriend …

Oleg Moskalensky​

Zara Altair​

Summit Medical Group​

Ramón González​

Gina Fiedel​

Not alone.

This is the most relevant post I have read here for a very long time. I too am an early adopter. I have been hoping for 18 months or more that G+ will do something to repair the damage. One of the best aspects, as mentioned by others, was the interactive nature of hangouts and photos. Separation of those seems to have caused a void that has not been filled. Gideon Rosenblatt​ thanks for this post.

We all knew this was Google’s management style years ago. None of these complaints are new, or unique to G+. Google has never successfully managed a community of users outside of YouTube, which is run somewhat independently of all of Google’s other services. We here at G+ saw very clearly what happened when Google tried to merge the communities here with Youtube. What happened was we lost.

G+ is currently an appendix. It serves no useful function and fills no specific niche in the stack of even dedicated users. I keep using the service only to keep contact with some of the weak ties I’ve developed here. I’ve been urging those ties to migrate to other services so the network remains in tact.

From the beginning, Google approached G+ from the perspective of their tech ecosystem: how can we fit this (fb/twitter-like) service into our product offering? This purely instrumental approach is never the way to grow a community. It was doomed from the start.

If Google was smart, they should have taken their model from services like Tumblr, whose organic and self-motivated communities generate the content that continue to drive the memespace. Tumblr doesn’t see users at Instagram levels, but it sees engagement and creative content production that should be the envy of anyone tasked with developing a social network.

If the people at G+ had sat down with the community leaders trying to cultivate the service (people like Gideon Rosenblatt and others in this thread) and asked them what they wanted from the service, and really catered the product to its natural audience, we could have had a beautiful thing.

Instead, it was squandered on playing catch up with the Silicon Valley Joneses. What a waste, what a waste.

Gideon Rosenblatt I feel the change. I have made friends and engaged in true conversations here on G+ more than any other social medium. I feel the lack of growth. I’ve seen people I met here leave although I see them on other SM. G+ is where I turn to have real interactions with people all over the globe.

Recently I’m seeing non-interactive responses to my posts–Hi, Hello, Where do you live?, I want to be your friend, and the like. At first in G+ fashion I was responding, but discovered there was no conversation.

I would be bereft of conversation and friendship without Google+, but the shift is noticeable.

The shift from Circles/people to Collections/concepts was a huge change. Some groups like Google Create are attempting to address this shift but the conversations are not the same probing and questioning I experienced early on.

I have no resolution suggestions. I will continue on with the friends I have made here until Google leaves us truly high and dry.

George Station pinged me into a share of this Gideon Rosenblatt. It is a perfect example of things that I’m missing unless I spend, literally, all day here and I’m simply not willing to spend that much time sifting through Notifications.

Maybe I do, maybe I don’t have a different perspective than laying this at the feet of the interminable IU/platform/design/feature changes…but all of that said, instead I’m going to lay this at the feet of Users. I know that’s harsh, but it is my own observation that Users themselves fell pray to the ever-changing UI ‘stuff’ instead of staying true to their own courses and instead of championing and supporting one another here.

When I first came to this Medium Klout scores were all the rage and they quickly were replaced by the importance of Follower count and umpteen posts about ‘how to’ Properly Do G+…post all the time, share all the time, comment all the time. Honestly, it felt like nursery school and children being lectured to about how to make really nice thank you notes.

And, just like in school, individuality…all of the interesting people who flocked here because it promised freedom from external packaging, freedom from being chained and bound, from being brutalized into submission…submitting to the way, the how, the why…was squashed, dismissed, disregarded and it became a competition for influence, for importance and there was a total and complete disregard for and appreciation for a diverse palette.

Woe be unto you if, like I did, you championed a way to just simply find things here by using Collections, only to discover that they were designed to completely replace a free-form expressive stream, unpredictable and wild, like wandering the streets of New York.

Woe be unto you if, like me, you dared post, a lot, about politics…head for the hills…because you would have been virtually beaten to death by trolls.

Woe be unto you if, like me, you didn’t spend all your time here and you were therefore thought not to be a player, a Power User…because you would fall of the veritable radar screen.

I have actually been told, that politics and serious issues are not welcome here.

Better to share pictures of butterflies and landscapes. Better not to make waves.

Yes, that is all dictation coming from the powers that be at G+…but it was all accepted by Users.

I share your sorrow, Gideon, at time spent doing something you believed in. But that is, quite frankly, the artist’s way. Artists write poems, novels, make films, paint, sculpt and spend years of effort doing things never knowing whether it is going to work, whether there will be an audience, whether there will ever be a ‘pay off.’

The only thing that anyone can count on is their own website, their own work.

Themselves.

I invite you all to a Hangout On Air about this. On what day will you take time to continue this dialogue?

#SEC

#NYSE

#FINRA

Take a Look !!!

Giselle Minoli​​​​ about the “you miss posts unless you spend your lifetime here” issue remember that’s by design – there is no “mark as read” button as there was on Google Reader that would let you make sure you have read all your friends posts even if you hadn’t been here in a while. Like you said Google wanted “the stream” so we were supposed to post here all the time.

The problem with trolling is another design issue. The human brain reacts to negative input far more than it does to positive. That is just the we are wired. On Twitter, when people post negative crap it ends up on their own profile. On Google+ they can post crap all day without repercussions.

I think this post indicates there are still quite a few people who follow you and who care about G+. Unfortunately the greatest predictor of future behavior is past behavior and I’m afraid Google/Alphabet is just no longer interested in investing anymore money/effort into this platform. We have become the 20% project for the new interns/employees. The problems with G+ were caused on purpose…for whatever reason. I think you should definitely be exploring new options for social Gideon. I have tested out Twitter and for the average user….it’s like standing in an alcove and shouting at people as they pass. Instagram is like showing everyone you know pictures of your food, pet, kid…very limited engagement. Facebook…is like going to a party with everyone you have ever known…with all the annoyance that comes with. Snapchat…filter fun with a bit of the creepiness of a voyeur. Take your pick.

https://plus.google.com/photos/…

I think it’s pretty simple, really; the interaction that we received in the early days of g+ were an anomaly. We all knew this, we often remarked “I don’t receive nearly this much incredible interaction on Facebook or Twitter!” And now we don’t. G+ has moved to collections, forget your profile follows. They’re dead. And if you post to a collection you’ll get lots of new collection followers, most of which are passive. And your interactions are drive-by like Twitter. Forget about converting any of the collection people to your profile, it’ll never happen.

But regarding the rest. .. as I said about Dunbar, I think many of us are just burned out. I spend more time lurking then posting. Or I’ve changed the nature of what I post. Or the Interaction ROI simply isn’t there anymore.

But that’s what happens. .. everything good must come to an end someday.

I agree with your analysis except the “scarce resources” part, unless by resources you mean skilled management and creative, strategic thinking, which does indeed seem scarce at Google these days.

Clinton Hammond Agreement

Rob Gordon I understand, but don’t share, your view that people are wired to respond to negative input. That is true of some people, not of others. What changed between the early days and now is that, like a new neighborhood discovered by people charting out new territory in a city…the unafraid flocked to the new, the untried, the untested and showed up fully present. Then gentrification happens and everyone flocks to the cool eateries and coffee shops. Then those who had nothing to do with planting the garden discover the nice space and throw their soda cans and cigarette butts all over it.

There is a difference between what the ‘owners’ of this medium do…and what the Users themselves do. When something is free…it is easy not to tend to it…and to shrug…oh…there’s another soda can another cigarette butt. And you hear people say, Ignore them there’s nothing you can do.

Yes. There is. But it didn’t happen here because the expectation was that the ‘owner’ would tend to it. You would not drive around in a car covered with bird poop…at least I don’t think you would.

I know I am not the only one who wonders what social media means in this context. Perhaps it…and we…go through phases of acceptance depending on where we are in our own lives at any given moment.

I won’t repeat what so many have written here as I agree with the assessments and disillusionment. I, too moved here, lock, stock and barrel. Now I visit. I don’t live anywhere else, unless it’s my own blog/site from where I now share almost all my content to here, Twitter, Instagram.

One thing baffles me. Who are Google creating this brave new iteration of the platform for now, if not for us? They answer that it’s for us and we will like it, just be patient. But there are hardly any of ‘us’ left and we who remain don’t. So who?

Giselle Minoli are you on any other social media platform? I ask because other than Snapchat (where only my kids even know I exist there) and Instagram (where people silently post photos) the comment sections of posts are a mix of toxic, absurd and thoughtful. G+ was only really an intellectual and thoughtful platform during beta. Once the general public came with their agendas and spam and scams… it became just like any other public platform. You can sort of control it by settings and blocking and limiting who can see/comment but really… Gordon has a point. I’m compelled to address your previous comment because I disagree. People who leave ratings are usually compelled by a negative experience. The political posts…All of them are inflammatory. It’s a divisive subject. Social activism posts are inflammatory. You have to expect that there will be people who really hate what you stand for. When they do… There will be negative comments, trolling, name calling. Social media is the easiest place to disagree. There are no consequences. If you hate my comment, opinion, stance, you can block me, tell me to eff off, mute the post or any number of options, but expecting a dignified, intelligent conversation when you post to the public forum seems to me to be an unreasonable and illogical expectation. That’s why some told you to post puppies and butterflies. The message was… your expectations about how people interact with each other on social media​. I’ve been here since the beginning and never once did Google say they were going to require a certain level of decorum. The terms of service never stated… You can’t be mean to someone. I was trolled by someone within a month of coming here and Google never once said… We’ll take care of him. Some guy created a copy cat profile of me along with my own picture and a nasty tagline and yonatan himself said… Whelp… Nothing I can do. So the owners never tended the garden. What happened is the people who cared about the garden got tired of dealing with the cigarette butts and soda cans and they moved away. You have to be your own gardener.

Wow, I wasn’t anticipating this level of response. Just trying to catch up to all the great thoughts shared above and in various shares….

I agree – it’s as if they want Google+ to fail. I’ve watched my follower count decrease slowly although I’ve not changed my behavior. And yes the people engaging have changed and become a smaller crowd. It is sad – because I really have loved G+ as a place of intelligent and thoughtful posting.

Peter Strempel, that’s an excellent way of explaining the problem.

Your first point about understanding the messy human behavioral aspects is so very critical. Lots of people here on G+ like to poo-poo Facebook, but one thing that we have to acknowledge is that they really get emotional intelligence. I mean, just as a simple example, on Facebook you can “@” mention someone and then delete their last name so that you’re just referring to them with their first name, just as you would in real life. It’s way more social, and the kind of subtle nuance that Google+ just completely misses. I share that not because G+ needs that specific feature, but because stuff like that matters.

Your second point about failure is also bang on. And I would add one crucial fact. By abandoning what it considers failures, Google is externalizing much of the cost of those failures onto its users. At some point, people start to say “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” That’s when people begin questioning any future investment in any kind of co-creative investment with Google. I have already heard this many, many times from people.

I used to work at Microsoft, which suffered from its own brand of hubris in the 90s. While it sometimes takes a while to come full circle, that kind of behavior doesn’t tend to end well for the companies that practice it on an ongoing basis.

123 DIGI • WIN Service GbR I would.

I agree – I think G+ is a precious space – it’s not ‘creepy’ like Facebook

– but more it’s a very positive – open space – of sharing in many ways. I

want G+ to flourish.

John Verdon

Complexity and Foresight Consultant

@johnverdon

+johnverdon

4 Ashbury Place

Ottawa, ON

K1M1H3

voice 613-518-7872

searching for the pattern which connects….

knowing the difference that makes a difference…

Sapere Aude – The true is the whole.

Compassion is the natural condition of what one really is.

Lowly, unpurposeful and random as they may appear, sidewalk contacts are

the small change from which a city’s wealth of public life may grow. – Jane

Jacobs

Pam Adger​ While a real user I didn’t experience any heavy negativity. Perhaps I simply followed the right people with my small following but happily most of my interaction is in the comment streams and haven’t drawn out the trolls.

Hey! I recently joined Google+ and just started liking it, but everybody looks so unhappy.

I will stick to it and I hope it will help me with my blog.

Agree – that an engaged group is way better than just a swarm. It’s that

there is no coherent explanation – it started happening when I had to adopt

the new G+.

John Verdon

Complexity and Foresight Consultant

@johnverdon

+johnverdon

4 Ashbury Place

Ottawa, ON

K1M1H3

voice 613-518-7872

searching for the pattern which connects….

knowing the difference that makes a difference…

Sapere Aude – The true is the whole.

Compassion is the natural condition of what one really is.

Lowly, unpurposeful and random as they may appear, sidewalk contacts are

the small change from which a city’s wealth of public life may grow. – Jane

Jacobs

Blogging.ThreadsRift Welcome, and perhaps you and your fellow newcomers can help us rejuvenate this place! Many of the commenters here came a long time ago, for something very different from what exists now; we might not have come for what there is today, but we’re still here for our friends, teachers and students, audience.

Daniel Estrada, I think you’re right about Google’s struggles with community, and this echoes some of what Peter Strempel was getting at above.

One thing that is interesting is that when you look at the original motivations for Google+ from way back (“sharing is broken on the web” — see link), you see how they inadvertently stumbled onto a slightly different problem than just the social graph. In those early fumblings, they had the very early edges of what the other opportunity was: the “shared interest graph.” In their concern for keeping track of human signals about the value of various pages out their on the web, they had the early inklings of something that could have been really different from Facebook.

Unfortunately, something happened, and that nuance was lost on the management of Google+. It ended up becoming a war with Facebook in some convoluted battlefield that was probably quite confusing for the people working on this project in those first few years.

Eventually, the ship was righted to a good strategy with the new focus on shared interests. But by then, internal relations with the rest of the company had been sorely tested, resource allocations started to become a question, and, as we’ve noted, the execution of this new strategy ended up being quite ham-fisted.

blogs.msdn.microsoft.com – Why I left Google

So many good points of views here. Most of you may not know me. I am a reader / follower, and not a content provider, or large scale distributor. This is my only active social network. On facebook I may find more people who know me. On linkedin I can find most people who have been my past colleagues. But the people I follow here are 99.9% unknown to me personally. So, is this a social network for me in the same sense? I guess it is a network where I am trying to get the future society with which I get to interact, as against the past society other networks have been reinforcing.

I viewed social media on the lines of producers of content, distributors of content and users of content. I have found quite a few great producers of content here. It was a great learning experience. This dimension was not possible for me in facebook or linkedin. I accessed the great producers, thanks to the great distributors. I do find posts from many of the people whose writing I enjoyed have been diminishing. There were times when I thought I am being victimized by an algorithm. I started marking the posts I liked with a plus so that the algorithm can typecast me better. Then I thought I need to moderate this as my appreciation for a cute cat picture does not mean I need more cat pictures on my stream. So I carefully avoided ‘liking’ some posts even if I appreciate them, for fear of getting flooded with any marginal interest topic. Once in a while I used to find some change in the nature of the stream, and these instances were followed by a survey query asking me if I like my stream. I was worried that I am now a lab rat being experimented upon, and apparently the algorithm could not clearly classify me and is making some periodic effort. This is a ‘user category’ perspective. Most valuable contributors would not be in this boat.

I guess the category of past friends or past colleagues adds an emotional bond element in facebook / linked in. The comments there are not necessarily of high quality for a discussion, but there is a greater degree of acknowledgement from a larger number of people. Many here seem to engage comfortably, while I do not. I guess engagement has 2 dimensions. One is I should be extrovert enough to express my thoughts in a domain where I am learning. Two, I should have some thing profound to say as there is no past relationship to condone any thing trivial. Then I realize I am not an adequate trader in the information economics. So many of you invest time and build a following while making valuable contribution. What can a consumer like me do to ‘pay’ for the value I receive. Generally they say, attention. Which translates to plus, share, and comment. As an introvert, I am slowly beginning to comment. My following seems lean, and most of the shares do not get much traction. Still, I think I should do more of this.

When we benchmark other forums and feel we are not getting traction here, we need to also wonder if the benchmark factor is right. A baby elephant calf is heavier in weight at birth and also grows in weight faster. A human baby gains weight much slowly, but its brain has a greater potential to grow. Are we going to benchmark body weight or innovative brain? I still think with all the dilution that happened, G+ is different and closer to my liking than other networks. Up to a stage the technology and infrastructure facilitate. Beyond a point, the network should perhaps be growing organically on its own. As I am not a producer, I am not able to empathize adequately with the frustrations on what G+ is undoing or not doing that affects you. Let me know as a reader – who has been enjoying your posts – what is that I can do to better show my appreciation. I do not need a network that has a billion members. I only need a network that has 100 great contributors that I can follow. What is that a great content provider desires?

Sebastien LOPES ping on linkedin? Good choice.

plus.google.com – How to tell G+ is dead. Want to discuss the future of Google products with …

I think Google does well with mature product categories where only small incremental changes are required to keep going (e.g., search, email, word processing). But for dynamic, rapidly evolving product categories like social networking or messaging, Google doesn’t seem to have what it might take to succeed: dedicated people who pour their hearts into a product, who want to see it grow, evolve, and succeed. Vic Gundotra seemed to be that kind of person. Many Google products have frustrated me with their glacial speed of development over the years and I often thought that a bunch of motivated and spirited summer interns could have done more (and better) with Google+ or Hangouts, for example, in a couple months than what Google did all year. Why Google so often starts strong and then fails miserably is anyone’s guess. But the fact that it happens over and over again points to a deeply flawed culture within the company.

Mark Bruce I have the same worries as you when checking my notifications, it’s given me anxiety and I’ve been depressed lately and everytime I see the notification pop up in the corner of my screen I get this instant stab of worry and dread. I have to take breaks from this site days at a time, I fear to just keep my sanity. Often the only notifications I have are people angry at me for enforcing rules in my communites, often immature and just plain senseless people. It’s everyday and I almost never see interaction that’s just a pleasant conversation between subjects me and someone else are interested in.

Sowmyan Tirumurti Be yourself. If that means mostly lurking, fine. If you can, once or twice a year, tell the content creators whose work you enjoy the most: “you may not hear from me much, but I just wanted to tell you I really love your work; thank you for sharing it with us.” The pluses are nice, but sincere comments like that are always special for me as a photographer.

Blogging.ThreadsRift In brief, what we used to have that has been stripped from us is our identity. I am an artist; I have a voice. If you like my work, you should probably just see it all (I don’t post anything else). My collections are not my “interests,” it makes no sense to break up my work by style or subject, and I regret ever creating them. I want you to come visit my profile, see my albums (!) of photography, decide if you’d like to follow my work or not. Now albums are gone, everything is fragmented into collections, and you can’t come see who I am as an artist (at least within G+).

Heh, hopefully everyone in this thread will join Gideon Rosenblatt and I on Mastodon. 🙂

I visit here less and less. Seems it’s just become a dumping ground for memes. I get that on Twitter.

I’ve noticed the decline as well. Like most, I agree it started around 2 years ago. During the great “get rid of photos and Hangouts and Hangouts on air” movement.

I’ve expressed opinions and even managed to get people like Carter Gibson​​ to reply back, but it’s usually the same old PR routine.

My opinion (it could be right or wrong) is that G+ started out as an original idea. To do social media with stuff from twitter and Facebook but with stuff like post editing tools like bold and more robust controls for things like streams (I miss circles).

However, it did the reformation into this collections and Pinterest thing. No more reverse chronological streams (making it impossible to follow news), and regular posting was replaced by following topics and hoping the creators weren’t bat shit crazy (some weren’t).

Frankly, G+ feels like a network without an identity. There’s no clear, logical use for it anymore. It’s too impersonal to replace Facebook now (the revamps have done nothing but lessen the importance and usage of circles in favor of a follow dynamic like Twitter, although it is buried deep down if you search for it). It’s not chronological so you can’t use it to find news and trends like Twitter. And Pinterest does a better job at being itself than G+ does.

I’m sure there are plenty of reasons why, but frankly, G+ was its strongest when the user could define how they wanted to use it. Just friends? Fine. Just like twitter? Fine. Just like Facebook? Fine. Like Reddit with communities instead of subreddits? Sure!

It was never better than Facebook at being Facebook or better than twitter at being twitter. But the fact that you could switch your stream from “friends” to “news” then hop into a community to talk about hockey was something those other sites couldn’t (and still can’t) do. It was a reason to come here every day.

I dunno, I’m just rambling lol. I’m also salty that my following dried up like California during the drought. I’ll admit that. Like many, I had a good sized, loyal following and I followed a ton of people. I don’t see their posts anymore, they don’t see mine. We weren’t a huge community. Not like Facebook or Twitter big here at G+, but at least we were happy and loyal. Now? Well, time to go see the hockey scores on Twitter since G+ doesn’t show me NHL’s posts anymore (assuming they even post here anymore).

Stop Digital Sharecropping, peeps

And if you are, then diversify.

plus.google.com – Losing My Patience with Google+ Over the last six months or so I have watche…

Also, beware the Minimum Viable User;

mastodon.cloud – dredmorbius on mastodon.cloud

Stuart O’Neill I don’t believe either. It was just because I read some conspiring theories how Google+ would end up being shut down, in the previous comments. I honestly and usually think how my life is interesting with Google+ because of the interesting contents that get shared around in my circle, forget Facebook! I can’t imagine Google would just decide to end that on many of us no matter what. I also believe that Google needs to keep up with upgrading the media.

Well said! I miss the old community. The interaction used to be great.

I want to ask everybody on this thread, what’s the conclusion of this whole discussion?

Should we all stop using Google+ together and run away as far as we can? lolz

Right before this thread, I was thinking of new ways to use Google+. Now, I am wondering have I only wasted my time setting it up.

I want to ask everybody here, Is Google+ Dead? Be Honest..

What an engagement I got man…

Christian Nalletamby Ah, you signed up as Moderate1@mastodon.technology so mastodon.technology is your instance, same as Gideon’s. I’m ocdtrekkie@mastodon.cloud 🙂

They say millions of people make a living on eBay, tens of thousands do with Amazon affiliates, likely millions do on Facebook with ads, the ability to sell products, book events, etc… I made thousands per month there with ads before I quit being fed-up with their disrespect for individuals private info and selling the same. Many of us invested a lot of time and in many cases money in hardware for studio sound broadcasting of Hangouts On Air, developing peripheral service sites, etc. But Google failed the tens of thousands that came here capable of marketing legitimate products and services. Their lack of advertising and policies prohibiting the sale of goods and services (while turning a blind eye at Kohl’s and other large retailers… or even hosting the fashion show Hangouts that sold merch.) I’m fortunate, retired at 35 with a passive income and security for life… but I watched hundreds of people essentially go broke… investing their time and becoming Google+ experts and Google simply ignoring that commerce is what makes the world go round. The thing that made Google… is what they forgot to put here… the ability for millions of people to be their partners. So… we go back to Facebook and Twitter and make money, we invest our time and money where it gives us the greatest return… and Google loses the asset that they most need and sought but apparently never realized… the people…who make money.

I’m fascinated by Mastadon and looking forward to the jump. Maybe it will still be alive when I over overcome my inertia.

The end of G+ is a good thing, if we can get a more decentralized “social” experience on the net.

Ironic that this thread is such a wonderful example of all that is/was great (read: engaging) about G+.

I noticed that Yonatan Zunger​ is apparently more active on Medium and Twitter than here. Bradley Horowitz​ hasn’t posted for ages, if he still is responsible he doesn’t seem to care. Dave Besbris​ was responsible shortly after Vic Gundotra​ left, but was replaced soon and is now VP of something completely different. It doesn’t look good for Google+​. But then again it doesn’t look for Twitter either, the Twitter stock dwindles for the last 5 years, and despite the support by Trump it doesn’t recover.

Alexander Wait Zaranek I personally don’t think G+ really has an end anytime soon. It is integrated with YouTube, search results, your google account and Allo will be connected with that as well.

People are not that active on Google+ as compared to FB and Twitter, but Gmail is still the major player in emails. My point is everybody who owns a Gmail, can become active on Google+ without even having to create an account.

Plus, it offers some great features. It is just that people, in general, are more habituated with FB and Twitter.

It seems to be a good business tool, especially because it is Google and well integrated with its different services.

There are great features like Hangouts, Collections can be used well too. So the end of G+, I don’t think it’s happening anytime soon.

Alexander Wait Zaranek For the mechanics of it: Mastodon and several associated projects have donation and Patreon pages. So there’s that.

I’ve been researching media and its history over the recent past — no more than 10,000 years or so. Short upshot is that media tend to attract funding from two types:

1. Those who have some message they specifically want spread. We’ll call them the Sophists.

2. Those who seek and help others seek the Truth. We’ll call them Platonists.

You might gather by the names that the rivalry between the two has been ongoing for some time.

It’s the debate between rhetoric and dialectic. It’s a battle Google ended up on the wrong side of, despite having anticipated the problem. Go read Faust.

If Mastodon, or OSocial, or Diasapora, or PostActiv, or some other open, Free Software, federated, open-protocols system is to become widespread, it’s going to be because it’s attracted attention from the Platonists. Including some larger interests and donors.

I’m hoping that might happen.

patreon.com – Maiyannah Bishop is creating microblogging software | Patreon

I’ve been investing myself in G+ since 2013 and I’m beginning to feel that it was a useless endever.

Zachary Kew-Denniss How many people do you think have had the same experience?

Buzz was better than this.

I didn’t read all the comments because reading a comments stream is so painful. There’s so much javascript in the page that this comment is painful to write. On Chrome on a top of the line Dell.

If G+ fails and is closed it’s now no great loss, because there’s nothing much happening here. The centre of attention has moved to Facebook, Twitter (ugh!), Reddit, Mastodon. What’s really sad is that G+ is not the only Google property being broken by bad UI, bad function and bad management. Youtube, Maps, News, Googlegroups. Even Search.

And then there’s the evil. As Edward Morbius frequently points out.

I think (maybe I’m wrong) mastodon behave like a kind of techno twitter…?

I’m not even half way through reading the comments, but I have seen a whole lot of very interesting insights. Thank you Gideon Rosenblatt and everyone else for reminding me that the smartest and most interesting people in the world are on G+.

G+ is the only social network I ever wanted to join, and was super excited when I got in during the first week of the public field beta back in June 2011. I was on G+ so much that it got in the way of everything else. I’ve met a whole lot of people here. Even though I have never met any of you in real life (but one of you came within 60 km of me without realising), you have had a huge impact on my life and many of you have helped, and still are helping, me to get through things in real life, big and small, from simple and difficult.

Now things are slowly going downhill, just like everyone else here has observed. I don’t want to think about what would happen if G+ goes the way of Google Reader, Buzz, Wave, or other Google products, but with the way things are going, I may actually have to think about that. I might end up becoming a virtual hermit again as I’m not particularly excited or even slightly interested in any other platform.

And now off to read the rest of this really interesting comment thread and hope that my fears never come to reality even though one day they might.

Martin Seeger A definition of “stupidity” I’ve seen:

Reducing value to others without increasing value to yourself, or worse, decreasing your own value as well.

I think part of the problem is that no one ever falls on their sword for a Google product. Google has fetishized “failure” but of course failure doesn’t mean the same thing to them as it does to us. As I understand it, Google will even pay bonuses for being on a failed project and no one ever goes down with the ship – not even the executives in charge of the service. Is it any wonder none of them care about what’s happening Here?

Pam Adger I see your points. Stay here and active is my only thought. I’d happily block obnoxious people.

There is now so much censorship in Germany at Facebook, that Google+ becomes very important.

Roland Mösl Now there’s a topic deserving of exploration. Love to hear more. Tom Rolfson​ frustration about the free video conference ability also has the live free uses to broadcast events. Like to know more about censorship v G+

/wondering-this-myself

I continue to post here on Google+, because I still BELIEVE. Plain and simple.

Yes…there is not as much engagement as before, but I continue to chug along…because that’s in my social DNA.

Thanks everyone! ONWARD…the Google+ way.

For the first: It’s lovely to see so many familiar faces from the past in this thread! I don’t know how you were all lost to me – I blame the G+ changes since 2 years back.

I have been as frustrated as many of you with the New G+ and the loss of Photos and Hangouts. I feel betrayed. I have put enormous amounts of time into this platform, have been one of the most ardent evangelists, been coaching and giving free advice here and on other social media.

It doesn’t help that I can’t even speak my mind or give critique in private dedicated communities, because “people don’t want controversy or negative posts”, ? must be because they’re too busy brown-nosing the powers that are. Well, I never could do the “fluffy” or “googley”, not even for the 4 years of being a G+ Top Contributor, until summer 2016. Blunt equals a Finn. So I’m grumbling in my Public Google+ collection instead – I need a vent for frustration.

So: How do you think this one went, +Google+? (See, I still can’t +mention many profiles / accounts, this has been going on for years).

One should give constructive feedback… It’s a bit thick when you have been reporting bugs and glitches since the beginning of New G+ testing and nothing has happened – no fixes! If things are still broken (especially for Brand pages) and there are no fixes or any admittance of a problem even, I for one have lost patience. I wanted the New G+ to be a success, I really wanted it to work. However, it is a horrendous waste of time!

So many clicks… The things which I was able to clear in an hour per day, now take up to three or four hours. Managing several Brand pages has become a chore and I have stopped recommending Google+ to my clients.

I’ve stopped managing many Pages, from 15 I’m down to a handful. Ain’t nobody got time for that s**t!

Engagement is down, also from my part because the new notifications are slow, stupid and buggy and take up a lot of time to check – I get several hundreds per day. I wish the +1’s and the follows could be hidden, I just want the comments for spam checking.

So I engage in my stream – or what’s left of it: Silly recommendations and idiot trendings on G+, no chronology, posts from a source bunched up so that I get a dozen from some community all at once…

Google+ has gone to the dogs since Vic Gundotra left. They now only think about mobile users, simple folks from developing countries who love commenting HIIII! on posts. Dumbing everything down.

I’ve been told that the power users are no longer important.

Huh! Where do they plan to get the content when even us stragglers finally stop posting?

George Kiriyama Please no.

Or: Only to finish killing and burying what he didn’t the first time around.

“It has been my office and my school” Gideon Rosenblatt you nailed it. No other network enables conversations and discussions based around shared interests. In theory LinkedIn should work but in practice it is still like a stuffy business conference with everybody shaking hands and congratulating each other.

BTW I saw a recent post where G+ were looking for beta testers. I thought it was a joke plus.google.com – Become a Beta Tester for Google+ If you’re a user who’s as passionate for Go… What have we been doing for the last 6 years? And why did nobody listen?

You hit it right on the nose Jean-Loup Rebours-Smith. Thank you!

I may not get as much engagement on my posts anymore…but that will not cause me to quit a platform that I fully embraced in the summer of 2011.

Onward!

Steve Bertolacci What do you mean by your marketing comment? What people don’t do it and why should they?

Peter Strempel , when G+ first came about, the media topic was about Google and how G+ was a ghost town. All the media types kept looking at it from the business of social media marketing and missing what was actually happening. G+ had always been based off interests and conversations. But as time rolls on the popular groups and popular topics have shifted. Plenty of interaction still happens, but not always where it used to.

For me personally, I have my own little silos of interaction where I’ve noticed some have totally dried up. Others still attract new people. For my work where I find influencers for work related topics, I don’t have much trouble finding those heavy-interaction areas of interest.

When the comScore data was readily available, the usage kept climbing and oddly, the demographic stayed the same. I think the platform tweaks that come out now have little bearing on the people using G+.

Sooo many good comments in here, and a fabulous post to start with. I only recognise one name Charles Strebor​​​, and that is a shame, as you are the people that i have always wanted to meet on here to interact with!

I only use g+ now, and although i have insta/twitter etc its only to catch the odd interesting thing that people post on there. Fb is gone and i seriously hope i never have to open another account – it was like a daily wade through the cesspool of life looking at the shit posted on there, none of which stirred up any sort of emotional response from me.

I still love hangouts as an instant chat tool, and will use it until its no longer there, which i hope never happens.

G+ itself i have noticed is quieter than it used to be, and i have found it harder than it used to be to find new and interesting content. As an aside i really miss the loss of the nearby function that helped me initially connect with many of my now friends on here.

As far as g+ itself goes, i dont have all, or maybe any of the answers, but i do know i dont want to move, and would rather that google either get some crowd support to workshop and fix it, or maybe even cut it loose, open source it, and let some of the talented people in here have a go at adding to what is still an incredibly important platform to a lot of people.

Rob Gordon Giselle Minoli

I wouldn’t mind the stream being long and difficult to track. But the decision to remove from my stream the people in my circles in some random fashion is unconscionable. they post. I don’t see it. Instead Google Plus pushes communities at me I have zero interest in. What sort of fucked up idea of ‘social’ is that?

Alex Lapidus set yourself free … there is no point in worrying about things past, only moving forward with excitement and enthusiasm for all things new.

Google really don’t care, and I certainly no longer spend hours on here, it merely serves me a purpose and I treat it as such … much the same as google do me, I suppose! ?

Tom Rolfson So very well said … bang on the button! ??

Rev.Dr.Sharon A. Wozencraft it’s up to us all to moderate our posts and steer conversation to uphold the levels of politeness and respect that we ourselves wish for.

– Cropping of photos in posts ??

– photosphere support ??

– Shared circles ??

– Sharing a post with public and contacts ?

– Ability to notify/email contacts ?

Peter Strempel Hello. I agree with you. It isn’t social. It is advertising. TBH I have absolutely Zero interest in Communities and I belong to only one group, in which I don’t post. My experience here is that Communities and Groups lead to sniping and if I’m going to be sniped at I prefer a good public stoning. As physical brutal as it is, It’s more honest.

As for Collections, I was a fan of using them as a way of curating for myself, but as I’ve reported that they are now used only for Trolls to find a way to harass me when I’ve written something they don’t like.

I have always been committed to the random public stream. Having anything pushed on me, being squeezed into any sort of box, being labeled because some people need to do that in order to function in life…it is all offensive and I run from it.

As for trying to figure out how to manage Notifications…it’s a personal decision. Life is too short to spend all of it in front of a computer, something I was personally and quite painfully reminded of three years ago.

Gideon Rosenblatt but that they also require good leadership. Which IMHO is the crux of what is missing.

Where will I go if Google+ is a ghost town? I am not going back to Facebook. I’m on Twitter, but that place is noisy and not a place to build a relationship. Where will I read interesting posts about science, education, politics, etc?

Robert Wallis I know it’s not going anywhere. But if there isn’t interesting content and interaction I need to find another place to go.

Kyle Beatty I learnt a long time ago that the only way to find interesting content was to produce it myself. By that I mean I only post things I’m interested in and eventually people started to follow along.

I guess it can be a problem if you’re someone who likes to read things but doesn’t share anything. If a social media platform only had readers there would be nothing to read if that makes sense.

Please let’s not let this conversation turn into a discussion on the pros or cons of Mastodon. Please.

Totally agree with your assessment Gideon Rosenblatt

Giselle Minoli mostly I “talk” not about the platform.

At least not on the platform ?

Gideon Rosenblatt I agree with your analysis. Made the same observations. Google as FB and Twitter are dying as they became involved in massive censorship. The future are blockchain based social networks without a middle man.

ref:

Endemic Censorship Raises Urgency for Blockchain Based Social Networks

http://bit.ly/2fds7YR