That sounds like the "dumbing down" argument again. We hear that people don't want options or settings, they want to be told how to do things. Not me, I like to tweak stuff until it does exactly what I want.
Actually Google's experience was "beautifully simple" and "intuitive" already; it's this mad gold rush towards social networks that's destroying it. There was a time, not too long ago, when the typical Google interface was functional, intuitive and unobtrusive, but now everywhere I look there's tons of buttons and slide-out menus, and not a label in sight.
Please Google, stop fixing what isn't broken. Rather than have Google out-Facebook Facebook, I'd better keep Google as the anti-Facebook – sleek, concise, user-friendly and heavily biased towards productivity, not pointless time-sink "games" and such.
Not only social, Google is pushing ads much more now than in their simpler, easier days. I find that many first pages of Google search results these days are 80% sponsored links.
Plus we have graphics/flash ads (disguised under the "Adchoices" banner), when in earlier days all Google ads were text only.
It's a mad gold rush alright, but towards real gold. But understandable, Google has to please their real customers, users are just eyeballs.
Yet another reason for me not to sign up to gmail. More social network integration I don't need/want.
Heck I actually LIKE WinPho7, but as I have no interest in Facebook et al, given all the integration it would be somewhat pointless.
etc, etc
Eventually it will be impossible to avoid such integration, but until then, FUCK OFF!
"Of course, it's a move that also means Google can finally start to plump up those user metric figures over at Google+" - the cynic in me interprets that as: "fluff the stats to pump our share price" al la Farcebollocks > $50bn nonsense.
Still Gmail, Docs, Android integration, Maps/Street View, etc. remain handy enough to sacrifice a chunk of one's privacy for. However I won't be sentimental if & when alternatives like YaCy mature and we can leave the Chocolate Factory behind. Glyn Moody had some excellent thoughts on this recently: http://www.h-online.com/open/features/What-should-free-software-do-in-2012-1401813.html
Once the spambots start using their G+ accounts to talk to each other, SkyNet is but a hop-skip-and-jump away!
They mean king at Mountainview; referring to the urgency of integrating social into all of their offerings.
In the hall of the Mountain View King?
Pom-pom-pom-pom-po-po-pom, po-po-pom, po-po-pom...
Has anyone noticed that the Like/Dislike buttons have vanished from YouTube? You used to be able to gives a thumbs up (or down) to videos but that seems to have been disappeared and all that's left is a Google+ button now. The thumbs are still there for the comments section at least.
I suppose we've all failed to want to join Google+ so now we're going to be made to join it. It's bad enough that every time I sign in to YouTube it tries to prize my mobile phone number off me under the pretence of it helping with security...
Google, et al are just getting way too intrusive now.
It's just that YouTube allows the person who uploaded the video to disable them.
In amonst all the dross, there are some suburb services, for free. G+ being one of them.
Facebook is killing itself, with crud like the timeline, whilst G+ is doing good stuff bringing things like Picasa into the fold and such.
I never thought of it like that - marvellous Freudian typo-profundity!
"good stuff bringing things like Picasa"
And that is why I deleted my Google+ account. I like to tag faces in my Picasa account so that _I_ know who's in what photo, I do not want everybody emailed to say I have tagged them (even when they don't have a G+ account). It looks like you can turn this off in the desktop product but I use the web albums.
"good stuff bringing things like Picasa"
And that is why I deleted my Google+ account. I like to tag faces in my Picasa account so that _I_ know who's in what photo, I do not want everybody emailed to say I have tagged them (even when they don't have a G+ account). It looks like you can turn this off in the desktop product but I use the web albums.
I hope they don't decide to do this automatic Google+ account thing retroactively... If so, I'll be turning my gmail account into a spam account and moving on elsewhere. All I want is an email address. If I want to join a social network, I'll join it myself, thanks.
I hope not or their facist real name policy will delete my account and cause me all sorts of headaches with my Android phone.
certainly my YouTube account suddenly became welded to my Google account, because I had created both with the same email address.
Just tried a signup with an obviously non-real name, and it seemed to work. However, now you have to verify your account by providing a phone number! In the UK, it seems that land-lines aren't supported, either.
They *claim* the number is only used for verification.......
How long till google, like apple before them, try to copyright the English lexicon by placing a + trailing after each word?
Bloody Diots.
C programmers are in so much trouble, between Apple and Google...
no different then twitter sticking a # in front of every word.
Gutted I missed that - well done sir, award yourself a pint!
Does that mean this also means the "acceptable real name" fascism applies to (new?) gmail accounts now? Sounds wonderful, just peachy fine suburb to me. (Typo stolen and promoted.)
It's easy to change a product that people love. What's hard is doing it in a way that means that people *still* love it afterwards. For me, the recent changes to Googlemail have moved it from "useful tool" to "necessary evil".
Oh, and where did the "advanced search" button go from the main Google web search page? Or am I just hopelessly behind the times?
There are (at least yesterday), three different www.google.com interface designs. Depending on where I am, my bookmark to https://www.google.com/advanced_search gives me one of three different (enough to be frustrating) interfaces.
On one of them, after an advanced search, the link to "advanced search" is at the bottom of the page, on another it's at the top of the page, and on the 3rd....it isn't there at all.
I wish they'd stop.
Not Sky Map, I love that app. Oh well hopefully someone will love, cherish and develop it.
And if I want to use one I will a) find one and b) get psychiatric help.
Until then, just sod off
So, what we have here is another giant tech company that over the past couple of years is relegated to playing follow the leader with half assed attempts.
Basically they stopped innovating. Apple: transformed phones; google follows. Facebook: established "social" in our lexicon; google follows. Microsoft: dominates the desktop; google follows.
Outside of search I can't really think of anything google does that is even halfway decent. their browser is full of bugs and pretty much any ui they put together is overly complicated for even the simple stuff.
Nobody really seems to know whether Google+ is the walking dead, or whether it actually has life?
Anyone I chat too has an account, hardly ever uses it and wonders exactly the same thing.
What amazes me, is a company with such massive clout, seems to be struggling to get this one off the ground.
To all intents and purposes, it's Buzz v2.0 - and Google simply cannot afford it to fail, for to do so would be a fatal blow to their social networking ambitions - nobody would take them seriously on that front again.
I sense desperation at the Chocolate Factory...
i still miss 'sets' - having a memory like a thingamijig i found it really useful.
I always feel that Google, despite their billions, are flapping around desperate to catch up with everybody else who's much cooler than them.
@ StC "more search tools" on the LHS google for it.
Does Jim48 get 3 or 2 thumbs up?
Attempting to force people to use something is rarely a strategy for success.
You're merely being given the opportunity to be a part of the splendid world of Google+!
And if you buy that, I have some miracle cures for sale as well!
Brad Fitz's Social Graph was (is!) actually an awesome idea, but it's perhaps no surprise that the Social Graph API is a casuality. The Facebook horse bolted a long time ago and there's too many monopolies at stack to get all caring and sharing. This is a real pity and still worth a look as it does point towards what social networking *could* have looked like.
Not that I'm much of a measure for anything in this life, but... I hadn't heard of any of those things. They won't therefore be missed by me.
who else can increase the length of forum comments but you!
Sky map is probably the single best thing on my droid tablet. Compared to how many hours you can spend idly trying to work out just how the ancient greeks imagined a collection of dots looking like a bull, google+ is pure suckage.
So, its all down to Carnegie Mellon to keep the flame lit....
Fingers crossed.
It's Yahoo! all over again. The Register will never let this joke go!
The+ Register+ will+ never+ let!+this+ joke+ go+