6 ms·

Google+ Topical circles?

16 points by gravity7 15y ago

We have circles for people. Would it make sense to have circles for topics?

erik_p 15y ago
I had a similar concept pop in my noggin after reading this post on G+ from matt cutts: https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202/posts/NEif81aW2FA?hl=en https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202/posts/NEif81aW... Where he's trying to gauge audience interest (good) so that he can adjust his publishing style (I think this is bad). They should apply the "sparks" concept to the circles -- and do some automagic filtering to the type of content I'd like to see from a particular publisher/user.
nkassis 15y ago
Sounds like he wants to have something like Google groups in G+. I don't see why this is a bad idea. In fact i'd also like to see by topic recommended follow list made by people.
- jbigelow76 15y ago
  Agreed, but then it starts to sound like you're just participating in a really unstructured forum. I like the thought of public Circles but they really have to nail the implementation.
  - gravity7 15y ago
    But I wonder if unstructured forum isn't precisely the model for sustained conversations best suited to feed/stream interaction? My sense is that time-based content consumption (streams) beg for solutions that allow activity to preserve and sustain the good stuff. This is essentially how FB updates work. But in FB there's no navigation back to active posts. Which is where I think G+ could provide a real solution.
    - intellection 15y ago
      "Objet petit a" ...in technology it is data loss. History and timeline. Lack of archiving and activity indicators is haunting every time I post. Will I be able to go back? Some sites are vulnerably unsearchable, deleterious, bankrupt, block, unfree or datalock: same problem. My voice gets lost. + could - devastation Maybe set a +example.
      - gravity7 15y ago
        Not often you see a Lacanian reference in this industry. It's more than data loss -- or rather, data is as often the product of interaction and a form of communication as it is just data. So preserving interestingness and relevance by sustaining attention, which is easily accomplished by action (not data), is I think possible. Features simply have to be designed to privilege communication over raw information.
jbigelow76 15y ago
One thing that I currently use Circles for that is related to the original article is book mark managing. If I see something I'm interested in and want to read later (mostly programming stuff) I'll post it to a Circle that has no followers. Pulling the meta info and providing a thumbnail is really handy. And if I think a link would be of particular interest to one of my friends I can easily share it.
- gravity7 15y ago
  I would never have thought of that! Now, if you could grab your content circle and drag that into an audience circle... But as convenient as that would for sharing, I suppose it would create a lot of noise!
eykanal 15y ago
Introducing a feature like this would dilute Google+. As it stands, Google+ is a social network; it's primarily intended as an online place to connect to people you know in real life. This feature would make it more of a broad "discussion center", where you talk about topics with people you don't know. That's a pretty fundamental paradigm shift. In fact, the only similarity between Google+ and this feature is that both involve groups of people. That's about it. I don't think implementing this would improve Google+ at all; it may be a good idea for another site, and the groups thing may be a good way to go about it, but not Google+.
- gravity7 15y ago
  Whether topical circles would enhance or dilute G+ is a matter of opinion of course. You might be right -- I tend to enjoy deep dives more than most. But I see no reason, either in functional integrity or in social practices, that topical circles would diminish G+. Those not interested would simply not use them -- this is true of FB groups and lists. It is incredibly difficult to achieve the network density and connectedness required to make a social network stick. Attention is in short supply -- witness Ning's failure to become the social network of interest groups. Perhaps it's not feasible for vertical and niche networks to match the success of the generic social nets. For this reason strikes me as in the ballpark to enable sustained topical conversations where the audience already exists, and where shared topical interests could augment individual profiles and deepen engagement.
- saurik 15y ago
  I am hard pressed to come up with anyone I know that uses Google+ the way you seem to say things currently "stand": nearly every user in the system has people like Zuckerburg, Gundotra, 50 Cent, or Scoble in their circles, and most of the activity seems to be around "more minor celebrities" with blogs like Geek Feminism. The model itself /is/ the Twitter model (circles as lists, reshare as retweet, comment as reply), with only one fundamental addition: "limit visibility of this tweet to these lists", which drastically helps specific use cases where otherwise people currently end up with multiple Twitter accounts (and then "awkward stuff" starts to happen due to how Twitter publicizes the resulting interaction with that tweet).
r00fus 15y ago
It would really be great to have "shared circles". It would re-cast the "groups" concept in a social manner. I believe this is the next logical step... only question is when Google+ will be ready for it, and how well implemented it is. I think the Circles concept that Google is pushing is very powerful and easy to visualize.
- gravity7 15y ago
  They're working on it and purchased Fridge to help get there -- as far as I understand.
scrrr 15y ago
The number 1 feature of G+ I'd like is federation. Something like that would be immensely cool (and for Google, still very profitable) if it would work like email. If I could log in to the network with any vendor I like. Or run my own box that talks to the rest of them.
Hyena 15y ago
Screw topical circles: I'd pay cash to use Google's knowledge of people to guide follows. For example, I'd like to be able to follow a bunch of people who talk about mathematics; presumably, Google could pick these people out based on what they've said in posts. Not interests. Not communities. What the people actually say (as estimated by an algorithm somewhere, naturally).
- gravity7 15y ago
  Right. And I think the right features will help to produce the conversations in which people will more likely say the things that the algorithms need ;-)
dakoller 15y ago
A good point: today only the Sparks in Google+ bring some light to what can be possible: for me the key enabling social network development through topic related information exchange.

16 points by gravity7 15y ago

We have circles for people. Would it make sense to have circles for topics?

I had a similar concept pop in my noggin after reading this post on G+ from matt cutts: https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202/posts/NEif81aW2FA?hl=en https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202/posts/NEif81aW... Where he's trying to gauge audience interest (good) so that he can adjust his publishing style (I think this is bad). They should apply the "sparks" concept to the circles -- and do some automagic filtering to the type of content I'd like to see from a particular publisher/user.

nkassis 15y ago

Sounds like he wants to have something like Google groups in G+. I don't see why this is a bad idea. In fact i'd also like to see by topic recommended follow list made by people.

jbigelow76 15y ago
Agreed, but then it starts to sound like you're just participating in a really unstructured forum. I like the thought of public Circles but they really have to nail the implementation.
- gravity7 15y ago
  But I wonder if unstructured forum isn't precisely the model for sustained conversations best suited to feed/stream interaction? My sense is that time-based content consumption (streams) beg for solutions that allow activity to preserve and sustain the good stuff. This is essentially how FB updates work. But in FB there's no navigation back to active posts. Which is where I think G+ could provide a real solution.
  - intellection 15y ago
    "Objet petit a" ...in technology it is data loss. History and timeline. Lack of archiving and activity indicators is haunting every time I post. Will I be able to go back? Some sites are vulnerably unsearchable, deleterious, bankrupt, block, unfree or datalock: same problem. My voice gets lost. + could - devastation Maybe set a +example.
    - gravity7 15y ago
      Not often you see a Lacanian reference in this industry. It's more than data loss -- or rather, data is as often the product of interaction and a form of communication as it is just data. So preserving interestingness and relevance by sustaining attention, which is easily accomplished by action (not data), is I think possible. Features simply have to be designed to privilege communication over raw information.

jbigelow76 15y ago

One thing that I currently use Circles for that is related to the original article is book mark managing. If I see something I'm interested in and want to read later (mostly programming stuff) I'll post it to a Circle that has no followers. Pulling the meta info and providing a thumbnail is really handy. And if I think a link would be of particular interest to one of my friends I can easily share it.

gravity7 15y ago
I would never have thought of that! Now, if you could grab your content circle and drag that into an audience circle... But as convenient as that would for sharing, I suppose it would create a lot of noise!

eykanal 15y ago

Introducing a feature like this would dilute Google+. As it stands, Google+ is a social network; it's primarily intended as an online place to connect to people you know in real life. This feature would make it more of a broad "discussion center", where you talk about topics with people you don't know. That's a pretty fundamental paradigm shift. In fact, the only similarity between Google+ and this feature is that both involve groups of people. That's about it. I don't think implementing this would improve Google+ at all; it may be a good idea for another site, and the groups thing may be a good way to go about it, but not Google+.

gravity7 15y ago
Whether topical circles would enhance or dilute G+ is a matter of opinion of course. You might be right -- I tend to enjoy deep dives more than most. But I see no reason, either in functional integrity or in social practices, that topical circles would diminish G+. Those not interested would simply not use them -- this is true of FB groups and lists. It is incredibly difficult to achieve the network density and connectedness required to make a social network stick. Attention is in short supply -- witness Ning's failure to become the social network of interest groups. Perhaps it's not feasible for vertical and niche networks to match the success of the generic social nets. For this reason strikes me as in the ballpark to enable sustained topical conversations where the audience already exists, and where shared topical interests could augment individual profiles and deepen engagement.
saurik 15y ago
I am hard pressed to come up with anyone I know that uses Google+ the way you seem to say things currently "stand": nearly every user in the system has people like Zuckerburg, Gundotra, 50 Cent, or Scoble in their circles, and most of the activity seems to be around "more minor celebrities" with blogs like Geek Feminism. The model itself /is/ the Twitter model (circles as lists, reshare as retweet, comment as reply), with only one fundamental addition: "limit visibility of this tweet to these lists", which drastically helps specific use cases where otherwise people currently end up with multiple Twitter accounts (and then "awkward stuff" starts to happen due to how Twitter publicizes the resulting interaction with that tweet).

r00fus 15y ago

It would really be great to have "shared circles". It would re-cast the "groups" concept in a social manner. I believe this is the next logical step... only question is when Google+ will be ready for it, and how well implemented it is. I think the Circles concept that Google is pushing is very powerful and easy to visualize.

gravity7 15y ago
They're working on it and purchased Fridge to help get there -- as far as I understand.

scrrr 15y ago

The number 1 feature of G+ I'd like is federation. Something like that would be immensely cool (and for Google, still very profitable) if it would work like email. If I could log in to the network with any vendor I like. Or run my own box that talks to the rest of them.

Hyena 15y ago

Screw topical circles: I'd pay cash to use Google's knowledge of people to guide follows. For example, I'd like to be able to follow a bunch of people who talk about mathematics; presumably, Google could pick these people out based on what they've said in posts. Not interests. Not communities. What the people actually say (as estimated by an algorithm somewhere, naturally).

gravity7 15y ago
Right. And I think the right features will help to produce the conversations in which people will more likely say the things that the algorithms need ;-)

dakoller 15y ago

A good point: today only the Sparks in Google+ bring some light to what can be possible: for me the key enabling social network development through topic related information exchange.