10 ms·

Google+ Opens to All

300 points by Umalu 15y ago

BvS 15y ago
For me the public Hangouts (Hangouts On Air) seem even more interesting.
carterparks 15y ago
Except for Google Apps users
- suivix 15y ago
  Could you please explain what this means? The blog post says that anyone can join the project.
  - goldensaucer 15y ago
    You can host Google Apps on your own domain, like s.archer@isis.org, but you can't register for a G+ account using that email address. You can only use gmail addresses, and not everyone uses or wants to use a gmail address as their primary account.
    - kanamekun 15y ago
      Awesome Sterling Archer reference! http://archer.wikia.com/wiki/Sterling_Archer http://archer.wikia.com/wiki/Sterling_Archer Although it's unclear that Archer is set in the modern day and would have access to Google. << The characters wear 1960s clothing and hair styles and several episodes feature references to the Soviet Union as a current nation (the episode "Movie Star" hinges on the assassination of "the new Soviet Premier"). The technological sophistication within the series varies, with characters using computers that are dated i.e. reel-to-reel mainframe systems, dot-matrix printers and punchcards, yet also use cell phones, GPS devices, laser gunsights, and modern day insults (such as "suck it", "screw you", and "douche bag"). Adam Reed was asked about the conflicting style, and concluded, "I just think it's ill-defined." >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_(TV_series) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_(TV_series)
    - seabee 15y ago
      I actually set up another Google profile using an email account managed by Apps, and this works fine for me. But it's not the solution I want since you have to switch users whenever you want to use Plus.
      - suivix 15y ago
        It's advantageous to have them on separate accounts in case you are arbitrarily banned from Google Plus. This way it has no chance of affecting your other services. It would devastate me if I lost my main email.
  - jamesgeck0 15y ago
    Google offers a service called Google Apps. With this service, you can use a branded subset of their products at a non-Google domain. For example, you could use Gmail with a bob@mycompany.com address. Because Google Apps is largely targeted at business/enterprise customers, it takes a while for some new updates and products to make their way into it; presumably the lag time is so that the the paid product can be kept as stable as possible.
- andybak 15y ago
  It's pretty astonishing that this is still not fixed. Some of the most enthusiastic evangelists for Google products are locked out of Plus. Really bizarre oversight.
thunga 15y ago
Google+ Opens to All other than for people with google app accounts...
sjs382 15y ago
...almost everyone. "Google+ is not yet available for Google Apps. Learn More." I should have known better than to get my hopes up...
- ryandvm 15y ago
  Indeed. It's tough to be a fan of Google's when they do this to paying Apps users with every new product.
  - matthewcford 15y ago
    Part of the reason I would imagine is the SLA they have with paying customers: > 99.9% uptime guarantee SLA and 24x7 support" I would imagine they will only open up new services once they believe they can meet the SLA on them. As a paying apps customer I am miffed on how long this takes though.
- binaryorganic 15y ago
  This. They must have really backed themselves into a corner somehow when they were building Google Profiles. I. Will. Not. Open. A. Secondary. Account. Ever.
  - pilif 15y ago
    I had my Gmail account way before they even introduced Apps accounts, let alone before I migrated my company mail to Google Apps. So, let me tell you this: You made a good decision. While dealing with multiple accounts on the desktop is annoying, it's utterly terrible on mobile because their slow-as-hell multiple sign-in feature doesn't work on mobile. Yeah. While on the desktop it's annoying but not that much of a hassle to sign out and back in, it's terrible to having to do that on a phone - especially once you enable two factor authentication. Before they "fixed" (note the quotes) the apps accounts so they can use (not quite) all of google's services, I could at least stay signed in with both accounts. Not any more. This ended up with me having two browsers, one for plus, reader and all other google services I had much prior to creating the apps account and one for reading mail in gmail. Yes. I could migrate to an Android phone. Been there. Done that. Multiple times. I really tried. Over two years on and off. While Gmail works much better, everything else is just full of paper cuts and annoys the hell out of me over time, so I'd rather stay with the iPhone. So. If anybody from Google is seeing this, I admit it freely, rant: Please, please, please, please fix this. At least give us multiple sing-on on your mobile apps, at best let us stay signed in with multiple accounts at once or, alternatively, give us the Android Gmail app on iOS (it's not much more than a website anyways).
goldensaucer 15y ago
Why is there even a set number of invites left for each G+ user? I see that I still have 94 Gmail invites even, and in both cases, I'm not seeing the point.
- Lewisham 15y ago
  So that it can't be used as a spam vector: Gmail trusts all mail that comes from Google.
w1ntermute 15y ago
Too little, too late. Facebook already aped all of their innovations.
- william42 15y ago
  I thought Facebook's video chat was still only one-on-one, and frankly, multiplayer video chat was the only thing about Google+ that interests me.
- calloc 15y ago
  Yeah, with a circles implementation that absolutely sucks. When my co-worker placed me in his "work" circle on Facebook I automatically received a request to verify that I indeed do work at "Company X" with "John Smith", when I clicked that this was correct it automatically added it to my profile. I keep my profile on Facebook clean. I don't have many page "likes" nor do I have my full employment history on there, I don't want it there either, I've got LinkedIn for that, or my personal portfolio site. Why did Facebook consider it a good idea to automatically send me notifications when my co-worker categorises what "circles" I should be in? This is not limited to just work, if you add someone to your family "circle" they get asked what relationship they have to you (parent, sibling, stuff like that). As a friend of a friend said: "So if I add someone to my douche bag does it ask them to confirm they are a douche bag? Or does it just scan their photo for aeropostale and their comments for their use of, "bro"."
Hyena 15y ago
Time to see whether it will fly or the slowdown was a sign of trouble.
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  I think this is probably one of the key things they are thinking. Which is it has enough users that they probably have a handle on scaling it and knowing the resources needed per 1000 users, and its fallen off the front page (its not the 'hot ticket' it once was). I've always found that multiple people editing a document was a killer feature. And with hangouts that seems to make it even better.
  - suivix 15y ago
    I find it very interesting that they aren't using Gmail or Google search to heavily push or advertise it.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- dredmorbius 15y ago
  I see too many bumps, particularly the Nymwars / privacy issues. My suspicion is that the calculus was to allow more people in as a bid to keep momentum, rather than fix the problems first. The user experience is going to (or at least should) change very significantly to fix numerous bugs. With more (and less sophisticated) users on board, this will be more problematic.
  - Hyena 15y ago
    I'm of two minds about this. As a Nymwar veteran, I naturally see this as a problem. But lots of people don't, especially outside early Internet app adoption groups. Adding scale may make the problem less pronounced by dilution. Privacy seems to be less concerning outside this group as well. But I don't know how it will play out.
sp332 15y ago
Why is everyone complaining about Apps accounts not being able to sign up? It says right on the "features" page http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/features.html http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/features.html "99.9% uptime SLA" which means that if they add a service with less than 99.9% uptime, they're going to lose money. They haven't even finished writing Google+ for normal users, there's no way they can make promises about support yet. Edit: according to this, you're not even logging in to the same service. http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=29934&topic=29935 http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/static.py?page=gu... That's... not optimal.
- fortes 15y ago
  Non-apps services aren't subject to the same SLA. If you go into the domain management UI, they are very explicit about this.
  - zmmmmm 15y ago
    But then I have to imagine that the tentacles of all these services intertwine in such a way that introducing G+ to Apps may not only cause G+ to fail but also supported Apps services.
- laacz 15y ago
  I don't think that's the reason. 99.9% uptime is plenty. Uptime in SLA is defined as "Monthly Uptime Percentage", which is explained as follows (http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/sla.html http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/sla.html): "Monthly Uptime Percentage" means total number of minutes in a calendar month minus the number of minutes of Downtime suffered in a calendar month, divided by the total number of minutes in a calendar month. For average month of length 30.4 days (~43776 minutes in total) that means acceptable downtime of 437.something minutes or 7 hours of combined unavailability. Minding all of that, there is also a term "Google Apps Covered Services", which is explained as: "Google Apps Covered Services" means the Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs, Google Groups and Google Sites components of the Service. This does not include the Gmail Labs functionality, Google Apps - Postini Services, Gmail Voice or Video Chat components of the Service. So, legally speaking, there is no uptime guarantee for Google+.
pycassa 15y ago
google plus is like the bing of social networks
- noarchy 15y ago
  I'm almost willing to be that more people are using Bing, relative to Bing's main competition. G+ has to get the buzz back, or this risks becoming Wave, Part 2. Edit: I deserve some flack for using the word "buzz", I know ;)
  - SandB0x 15y ago
    > G+ has to get the buzz back Not a great choice of words there!
  - orblivion 15y ago
    Or catch the wave, or risk becoming Buzz Part 2.
naner 15y ago
The whole "real names" fiasco[1] diminished my excitement for the platform. 1: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-names.html http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-na...
- andrewcooke 15y ago
  that's still not been fixed, has it?
  - naner 15y ago
    They changed how they punish infringing accounts and then Schmidt said that they have to have real identities in order for planned future products built on top of Google+ to work.
  - syeren 15y ago
    I find this quite funny considering they are doing a world-wide unveiling of one of their new Hangout features with such a profile: https://plus.google.com/u/0/109351399938437494273/posts https://plus.google.com/u/0/109351399938437494273/posts
    - ajross 15y ago
      You're missing the point, I think. "will.i.am" is a stage name, not an anonymous handle. Whatever you think of the validity of the rule, surely you agree that its spirit is to make sure you can always clearly associate the account with the real person it belongs to. Surely you agree that the existing name achieves that better than "William James Adams, Jr.", right?
      - Dylan16807 15y ago
        They don't accept "the name most people know you by" either unless you're special enough. Look at Skud. http://infotrope.net/2011/07/22/ive-been-suspended-from-google-plus/ http://infotrope.net/2011/07/22/ive-been-suspended-from-goog...
kadabra9 15y ago
Too late, guys. Facebook is already copying the features that make G+ cool/useful (circles, etc), and the one big, inherent advantage you had in your favor (Your user base, e.g every Google account) you alienated by keeping it "invite only" for too long. Either open it to everyone sooner, or hold off on this prolonged "invite period" so you don't risk confusing / alienating people that want to try G+ but can't. G+ feels like its the same 10 guys posting the same thing over and over, while Facebook feels like, well.. Facebook.
- digikata 15y ago
  For all their other faults, Google at least tries to protect privacy and keeps after data export too. Those are two key attributes that are important to me.
  - suivix 15y ago
    Facebook has had privacy since the very beginning. Only friends can see what you post, by default.
    - digikata 15y ago
      I don't know about your experience, but for me there was a period when my privacy controls kept resetting to different defaults, as well as adding categories of sharing that defaulted to very open settings.
      - davorak 15y ago
        Yep that is how I remeber it as well.
- brador 15y ago
  Agreed. I wouldn't use Google+, I would also recommend to everyone I know that they never use Google+. The implications of loosing my gmail account over a trivial name change are just too seemingly random and risky. It's just not worth it. Facebook won by default. Google+ had a chance, it really could have succeeded, but something went terribly wrong with it's management. Piss poor execution and hints that Google is really struggling to find good talent to run it's new enterprises.
glhaynes 15y ago
Not at all sure if it was stupid of them to wait this long to let everybody in (you want socializing on your social network!) or brilliant because now they'll get a lot more press right when the buzz seemed to be dying down. One also wonders how this route will affect their demographics long-term... it's got a bit of a "geeky" slant so far, which seems to be working for them, but might not be in their best interests against Facebook. Edit: kadabra9 makes a good point in saying that Facebook can (and rapidly seems to be!) copying/nullifying any advantage that Google+ provided so perhaps they shot themselves in the foot by not growing as big and as fast as they could. Time will tell.
- RegEx 15y ago
  The hype from weeks ago is long past over. Google plus came out of nowhere, took everyone by surprise. They instilled a sense of scarcity through invites in order to make the people want it. Eventually the people just forgot about it. I wanted Google plus to work, but it lost momentum long ago.
sorennielsen 15y ago
Open to all... Unless you're using Google Apps like I do ಠ_ಠ
infinite_snoop 15y ago
Great! It's just a shame that all of my friends have died of old age waiting for the invite period to finish. Seriously, what was the reasoning for this? It's not like Google don't have the infrastructure/capability to scale quickly.
radq 15y ago
Looks like you still need to be "over a certain age"... :(
- tomkarlo 15y ago
  That's true of Facebook, too. Complain to your legislators, it's because COPA is so impractical that nobody bothers to attempt to comply with the measures necessary to allow kids on a social media site.
  - bunnyhero 15y ago
    Facebook is 13+, but Google+ is currently limited to 18+.
    - tomkarlo 15y ago
      I believe they've (the G+ team) already publicly stated that's coming down to 13.
xnxn 15y ago
I'm alarmed that the comments here are so bitter. Am I the only one who's had a positive experience with G+ so far? (Is my perception rose-tinted because I really, really want Facebook to die?) The new Hangout stuff is great, and the addition of screen sharing has now obviated my need to use Skype. Maybe when On Air opens up I'll be able to broadcast my programming sessions.
- ineedtosleep 15y ago
  Overall, (and, forgive me, since I'm going relatively OT here) I've noticed a lot of hostility towards Google in every Google post. I've not been with HN for too long, so I don't know if this is what partially defines HN, but I'm starting to get irked by it.
  - Kadrith 15y ago
    I really saw the hostility start to show when Google required "real names" with G+. Before that I don't recall as much hostility; at least not more than any other large company would receive.
  - noarchy 15y ago
    I think that there is a perception that Google is turning to the "dark side", whether true or not. Recent examples include: Android isn't open enough, Google wallet is going to be used to track you, G+ puts you at risk of losing your Gmail account, and so on. I happen to agree some of the points that get raised regarding Google. Whether or not they're "bad guys", is something I'll leave for others to decide.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - nickknw 15y ago
    To me it seems like HN comments have been getting more hostile in general. More often than not the topmost comments on a link now are pretty negative (in my subjective opinion).
eps 15y ago
The line-up at the door must've been starting to thin out :)
zeratul 15y ago
I wish there was a way to merge this post with a related one: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018236 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018236 Google+ offers quick and continuous iteration of new features.
0x12 15y ago
This is like the person that plays 'hard to get' for 15 years, then finds out everybody's taken. Windows of opportunity come and they go just as fast. Google+ had a chance, I think they've missed their connection.
hasanove 15y ago
I find it interesting that out of ~50 comments in supposedly early adopter crowd, there is not a single positive comment about Google+. As much as I want them to succeed, this looks like a pretty bad sign. And yes, I am one of those who cannot participate with my Google Apps account.
- belthesar 15y ago
  I really wanted to like G+ too, but I think most news.yc users have migrated their email in one forum or another to Google Apps... muchly because it was the perfect thing for us bleeding edge users who fell in love with Gmail to be able to use a properly branded address for our mail.
zerostar07 15y ago
They 've released a hangouts api, yet there's still no way to retrieve someone's friends? (or is there such an API? couldn't find it). Come on google, we haven't got all day!
willy1234x1 15y ago
Maybe I'm just missing something but does anyone else here not give a flying fuck about the "real name fiasco"? What's so damn bad about using your real name? Can't be an internet tough guy when you have to use your real name? The most I think all Google should do is allow you to use a screen name for following purposes but still show your real name as well (kind of how Twitter has the screen name and name fields.)
- muyuu 15y ago
  - Privacy considerations - Identity theft - Stalking
  - toyg 15y ago
    Yeah, because Facebook is SO private, and completely devoid of impostors and stalkers. Honestly, if this is the worst that anti-googlers can come up with, well... it isn't much.
    - muyuu 15y ago
      In facebook one can at least use nicknames, and it doesn't force you to link everything to your account (picasa, youtube, email, etc). One can have no real data searchable in facebook. I'm no anti-nothing, by the way. Grew up past that long ago.
    - Jem 15y ago
      I'm not anti-Google; they virtually own my entire life (slightly scary). I still think they fucked up over the real name issue.
Kylekramer 15y ago
The fact that dozens of comments think 90 days is too long for a service to be invite only shows we are really in a instant gratification news bubble here. 90 days! People act like we are talking about Chinese Democracy or Duke Nukem Forever here (not to mention that for about 80 of those days getting in was merely a five minute search process for anyone who really cared). The majority of comments here are about too long of an invite window, nymwars, and Google Apps. While I appreciate those are important issues for people, acting like they are going to kill Google+ is extremely shortsighted and uninteresting. They are about as much of a factor in Google+'s success as the quality of the concession stands at Fenway to the Red Sox's success.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- jonnathanson 15y ago
  Those ninety days felt like forever, and it's because they kept opening and closing the invite windows seemingly at random. There were a lot of false starts and stops -- confusing the users on the inside, and frustrating the users on the outside. On any given week, for instance, the floodgates would appear to be randomly open or randomly closed, and I'd send out a small trickle of invites while I could. I would have little indication of when the gates opened and closed, so eventually, I just stopped bothering trying to invite people. Needless to say, this did not make for a robust graph. Sure, I had my "inner" circles up and running just fine. But whenever I wanted to broadcast something -- in the true sense of that word -- I'd have to go back to Facebook for the bigger friend set. At the end of the day, you can't toy with people on the inside or outside of a product like this. Users on the inside want their friends inside. And users on the outside want in, to be with their friends. The seemingly capricious, chaotic, and extended open/closed period really caused an inordinate amount of frustration for both groups. Social networking is about one's social network, and when people already had extant social networks, they were extremely anxious to port those networks over. [Bear in mind that I remain a loyal G+ user and really do believe it's a great product. I just think the extended beta was a bit too extended, and bit too schizophrenic in its betaness.]
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
tnorthcutt 15y ago
Could a mod edit the title? As it is right now, it's rather misleading to those of us hoping that they've finally made + open to apps accounts.
- ElbertF 15y ago
  It's open for everyone, meaning you can sign up without an invitation.
muyuu 15y ago
Google+ first didn't let me to use a different name for my account, and then showed me a nice dialog, in words to this effect: "do you want to link Picasa to your account? (yes) (cancel Google+ account creation)" So long, Google+
- calloc 15y ago
  Picasa is what is used for Google+'s photo backend. You are not required to share anything from Picasa on Google+ and vice-versa.
  - muyuu 15y ago
    Google has it though. Well, this made me go to Picasa and delete everything except for random funny internet pics. Same as youtube made me go and delete all my personal flicks when they forced me to link it to my gmail account. After creating another gmail account to link it to.
gamma_raj 15y ago
Its high time they opened it. Google+ seemed like desert.
Jun8 15y ago
I didn't have a bad experience with G+. I didn't have a uniquely good experience either, though. My only friends over there are techie types. For my circles, after the initial chatter, the postings have decreased significantly, and coming to HN is better than the technology news posted there. Many people talk about how quickly G+ achieved N million users, but the import part is the engagement from users. I don't think G+ has achieved anything like that yet. Many people start using it due to the integration with Gmail but then just stop and go back to FB and Twitter.
joelhaus 15y ago
If Google+ doesn't become a much more integral part of future Android releases, it will be a huge surprise. For me, the Google+ Android app has a killer feature: instant upload of pics/video taken with your phone to a Google+/Picasa folder that you can set to private or share with select circles. To the extent that Google does integrate these two products, G+ will greatly benefit from having the huge Android user base as a source of growth and content, attracting many more engaged users to the platform.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
jsz0 15y ago
Is anyone actually using Plus? My stream is so dead I don't even bother checking it anymore. It's a ghost town over there.
- jasonwilk 15y ago
  my stream is dead too. I've since left.
- ElbertF 15y ago
  I do. It's not that busy but even with just a couple of active friends it's fun to use. Just like Twitter three years ago.
gurkendoktor 15y ago
One thing that could maybe have won me over to G+ is a great iPad client. Tablets are almost made to relax and scroll over your friends' updates. The nymwars ruined it too, though.
sheabarton 15y ago
Except google apps users..
cwp 15y ago
Well, everyone except Google Apps users.
jigs_up 15y ago
+1 for pissed off Google Apps users.
calloc 15y ago
I've been using Google+ since it was first made available, I've got may main personal account on there, and several accounts for fake persona's and a business account for my business (still hasn't been tagged or removed by Google for not being a real name). The only people who I've seen are affected by the "nymwars" seem to be celebrity accounts or people that like to go by pen names on social networks. With my various fake accounts I have had no issues yet, most likely because they don't get a ton of traffic and fly under the radar. It is not like Facebook hasn't had these issues either, whereby they will lock people out of their account until they send in a photo ID (locking out out of your Facebook mail/text messaging stuff as well). I keep hearing stories about how people consider it a desert or that certain articles and stories are claiming that there is 40% less activity. I've noticed that I have started to become more careful as to who gets to see my posts and if they are allowed to share them. More information is shared in specific circles rather than publicly. I've also found that there is much more engagement on Google+ than any other social service. When I post something on Google+ I get more feedback, more people commenting on my posts and more people having intelligent discourse than on Facebook or Twitter, or even my blog. Since I can target specific circles I am able to categorise my friends based on what I think they would be interested in, so instead of having non-tech friends get techy stuff from me and thus becoming disinterested they only get my personal stuff that they might find interesting, like how it is going in my life. Yes, Facebook has had that for a while as well, however it was always more tedious to set it up, get people into the various circles, and now that it has been made easier they have cocked it up royally: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018403 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018403 For me so far Google+ has become more interesting, more targeted and has much less noise compared to the signal. Will that change as more people join? Maybe, I'm not so sure, as I think people will realise that with circles they don't have to include me in a conversation (nor will it show up in my stream) with a mutual friend... (public walls ...)
- sssparkkk 15y ago
  About posting techy stuff: what do you when you don't want to bother your non-tech friends with posts like that, but you _do_ want all the people (that you don't know) following you to be able to read these posts? Have you manually put everyone of those in a circle as well?
sssparkkk 15y ago
I got all excited when I saw 'Huddle' had been replaced by 'messenger'; thinking this would mean google talk and huddles had been integrated. I mean, wouldn't it be great to have an alternative to the closed stuff like whatsapp/kik/etc? Google would have to start by releasing a native google talk client for the iphone (why isn't there one yet?!). I'm amazed that after all these years there's still no real open standard for instant messaging that is also actually the defacto standard.
- lukesandberg 15y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Messaging_and_Presence_Protocol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Messaging_and_Presen... XMPP is pretty much the standard instant messaging protocol these days and it is supported by google talk... im not sure about Huddle though... i assume it is also through google talk just with a special ui for selecting circles.
badclient 15y ago
Google+ is dead.
- tintin 15y ago
  And why would a company bother to continue a services that is dead?
  - badclient 15y ago
    Desperation.
twidlit 15y ago
Here is why Facebook will not lose any momentum over Google+. They are too agile, well-run and nimble at the moment. That and google+ architecture is too similar to Facebook. Facebook is doing a good job matching Circles, improving photos on the feed, improving chat, etc. Almost every unique features of G+ are now competing with a 'good enough' counterpart on Facebook. Expect Facebook to match any new ones popping up from Google's camp all the while rolling out more new stuff around music, videos and photos.
bad_user 15y ago
It isn't open to Google Apps users.
samrat 15y ago
And when will it be open for those under eighteen years of age?
yason 15y ago
Is there a Facebook application already that posts from Google+ to Facebook and imports replies and likes back to Google+? The mass of people on Facebook is a barrier to entry and they have to consider it somehow.
diamondhead 15y ago
Everyone except the users of Google Apps. Nobody talks about this bullshit. http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/answer.py?answer=1407609&hl=en http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/answer.py?answer=1407609... http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Apps/thread?tid=08f56168a00dc731&hl=en http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Apps/thread?t... They blocked lots of active users of many Google services, this way.

300 points by Umalu 15y ago

BvS 15y ago

For me the public Hangouts (Hangouts On Air) seem even more interesting.

carterparks 15y ago

Except for Google Apps users

suivix 15y ago
Could you please explain what this means? The blog post says that anyone can join the project.
- goldensaucer 15y ago
  You can host Google Apps on your own domain, like s.archer@isis.org, but you can't register for a G+ account using that email address. You can only use gmail addresses, and not everyone uses or wants to use a gmail address as their primary account.
  - kanamekun 15y ago
    Awesome Sterling Archer reference! http://archer.wikia.com/wiki/Sterling_Archer http://archer.wikia.com/wiki/Sterling_Archer Although it's unclear that Archer is set in the modern day and would have access to Google. << The characters wear 1960s clothing and hair styles and several episodes feature references to the Soviet Union as a current nation (the episode "Movie Star" hinges on the assassination of "the new Soviet Premier"). The technological sophistication within the series varies, with characters using computers that are dated i.e. reel-to-reel mainframe systems, dot-matrix printers and punchcards, yet also use cell phones, GPS devices, laser gunsights, and modern day insults (such as "suck it", "screw you", and "douche bag"). Adam Reed was asked about the conflicting style, and concluded, "I just think it's ill-defined." >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_(TV_series) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_(TV_series)
  - seabee 15y ago
    I actually set up another Google profile using an email account managed by Apps, and this works fine for me. But it's not the solution I want since you have to switch users whenever you want to use Plus.
    - suivix 15y ago
      It's advantageous to have them on separate accounts in case you are arbitrarily banned from Google Plus. This way it has no chance of affecting your other services. It would devastate me if I lost my main email.
- jamesgeck0 15y ago
  Google offers a service called Google Apps. With this service, you can use a branded subset of their products at a non-Google domain. For example, you could use Gmail with a bob@mycompany.com address. Because Google Apps is largely targeted at business/enterprise customers, it takes a while for some new updates and products to make their way into it; presumably the lag time is so that the the paid product can be kept as stable as possible.
andybak 15y ago
It's pretty astonishing that this is still not fixed. Some of the most enthusiastic evangelists for Google products are locked out of Plus. Really bizarre oversight.

thunga 15y ago

Google+ Opens to All other than for people with google app accounts...

sjs382 15y ago

...almost everyone. "Google+ is not yet available for Google Apps. Learn More." I should have known better than to get my hopes up...

ryandvm 15y ago
Indeed. It's tough to be a fan of Google's when they do this to paying Apps users with every new product.
- matthewcford 15y ago
  Part of the reason I would imagine is the SLA they have with paying customers: > 99.9% uptime guarantee SLA and 24x7 support" I would imagine they will only open up new services once they believe they can meet the SLA on them. As a paying apps customer I am miffed on how long this takes though.
binaryorganic 15y ago
This. They must have really backed themselves into a corner somehow when they were building Google Profiles. I. Will. Not. Open. A. Secondary. Account. Ever.
- pilif 15y ago
  I had my Gmail account way before they even introduced Apps accounts, let alone before I migrated my company mail to Google Apps. So, let me tell you this: You made a good decision. While dealing with multiple accounts on the desktop is annoying, it's utterly terrible on mobile because their slow-as-hell multiple sign-in feature doesn't work on mobile. Yeah. While on the desktop it's annoying but not that much of a hassle to sign out and back in, it's terrible to having to do that on a phone - especially once you enable two factor authentication. Before they "fixed" (note the quotes) the apps accounts so they can use (not quite) all of google's services, I could at least stay signed in with both accounts. Not any more. This ended up with me having two browsers, one for plus, reader and all other google services I had much prior to creating the apps account and one for reading mail in gmail. Yes. I could migrate to an Android phone. Been there. Done that. Multiple times. I really tried. Over two years on and off. While Gmail works much better, everything else is just full of paper cuts and annoys the hell out of me over time, so I'd rather stay with the iPhone. So. If anybody from Google is seeing this, I admit it freely, rant: Please, please, please, please fix this. At least give us multiple sing-on on your mobile apps, at best let us stay signed in with multiple accounts at once or, alternatively, give us the Android Gmail app on iOS (it's not much more than a website anyways).

goldensaucer 15y ago

Why is there even a set number of invites left for each G+ user? I see that I still have 94 Gmail invites even, and in both cases, I'm not seeing the point.

Lewisham 15y ago
So that it can't be used as a spam vector: Gmail trusts all mail that comes from Google.

w1ntermute 15y ago

Too little, too late. Facebook already aped all of their innovations.

william42 15y ago
I thought Facebook's video chat was still only one-on-one, and frankly, multiplayer video chat was the only thing about Google+ that interests me.
calloc 15y ago
Yeah, with a circles implementation that absolutely sucks. When my co-worker placed me in his "work" circle on Facebook I automatically received a request to verify that I indeed do work at "Company X" with "John Smith", when I clicked that this was correct it automatically added it to my profile. I keep my profile on Facebook clean. I don't have many page "likes" nor do I have my full employment history on there, I don't want it there either, I've got LinkedIn for that, or my personal portfolio site. Why did Facebook consider it a good idea to automatically send me notifications when my co-worker categorises what "circles" I should be in? This is not limited to just work, if you add someone to your family "circle" they get asked what relationship they have to you (parent, sibling, stuff like that). As a friend of a friend said: "So if I add someone to my douche bag does it ask them to confirm they are a douche bag? Or does it just scan their photo for aeropostale and their comments for their use of, "bro"."

Hyena 15y ago

Time to see whether it will fly or the slowdown was a sign of trouble.

ChuckMcM 15y ago
I think this is probably one of the key things they are thinking. Which is it has enough users that they probably have a handle on scaling it and knowing the resources needed per 1000 users, and its fallen off the front page (its not the 'hot ticket' it once was). I've always found that multiple people editing a document was a killer feature. And with hangouts that seems to make it even better.
- suivix 15y ago
  I find it very interesting that they aren't using Gmail or Google search to heavily push or advertise it.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
dredmorbius 15y ago
I see too many bumps, particularly the Nymwars / privacy issues. My suspicion is that the calculus was to allow more people in as a bid to keep momentum, rather than fix the problems first. The user experience is going to (or at least should) change very significantly to fix numerous bugs. With more (and less sophisticated) users on board, this will be more problematic.
- Hyena 15y ago
  I'm of two minds about this. As a Nymwar veteran, I naturally see this as a problem. But lots of people don't, especially outside early Internet app adoption groups. Adding scale may make the problem less pronounced by dilution. Privacy seems to be less concerning outside this group as well. But I don't know how it will play out.

sp332 15y ago

Why is everyone complaining about Apps accounts not being able to sign up? It says right on the "features" page http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/features.html http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/features.html "99.9% uptime SLA" which means that if they add a service with less than 99.9% uptime, they're going to lose money. They haven't even finished writing Google+ for normal users, there's no way they can make promises about support yet. Edit: according to this, you're not even logging in to the same service. http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=29934&topic=29935 http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/static.py?page=gu... That's... not optimal.

fortes 15y ago
Non-apps services aren't subject to the same SLA. If you go into the domain management UI, they are very explicit about this.
- zmmmmm 15y ago
  But then I have to imagine that the tentacles of all these services intertwine in such a way that introducing G+ to Apps may not only cause G+ to fail but also supported Apps services.
laacz 15y ago
I don't think that's the reason. 99.9% uptime is plenty. Uptime in SLA is defined as "Monthly Uptime Percentage", which is explained as follows (http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/sla.html http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/sla.html): "Monthly Uptime Percentage" means total number of minutes in a calendar month minus the number of minutes of Downtime suffered in a calendar month, divided by the total number of minutes in a calendar month. For average month of length 30.4 days (~43776 minutes in total) that means acceptable downtime of 437.something minutes or 7 hours of combined unavailability. Minding all of that, there is also a term "Google Apps Covered Services", which is explained as: "Google Apps Covered Services" means the Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs, Google Groups and Google Sites components of the Service. This does not include the Gmail Labs functionality, Google Apps - Postini Services, Gmail Voice or Video Chat components of the Service. So, legally speaking, there is no uptime guarantee for Google+.

pycassa 15y ago

google plus is like the bing of social networks

noarchy 15y ago
I'm almost willing to be that more people are using Bing, relative to Bing's main competition. G+ has to get the buzz back, or this risks becoming Wave, Part 2. Edit: I deserve some flack for using the word "buzz", I know ;)
- SandB0x 15y ago
  > G+ has to get the buzz back Not a great choice of words there!
- orblivion 15y ago
  Or catch the wave, or risk becoming Buzz Part 2.

naner 15y ago

The whole "real names" fiasco[1] diminished my excitement for the platform. 1: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-names.html http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-na...

andrewcooke 15y ago
that's still not been fixed, has it?
- naner 15y ago
  They changed how they punish infringing accounts and then Schmidt said that they have to have real identities in order for planned future products built on top of Google+ to work.
- syeren 15y ago
  I find this quite funny considering they are doing a world-wide unveiling of one of their new Hangout features with such a profile: https://plus.google.com/u/0/109351399938437494273/posts https://plus.google.com/u/0/109351399938437494273/posts
  - ajross 15y ago
    You're missing the point, I think. "will.i.am" is a stage name, not an anonymous handle. Whatever you think of the validity of the rule, surely you agree that its spirit is to make sure you can always clearly associate the account with the real person it belongs to. Surely you agree that the existing name achieves that better than "William James Adams, Jr.", right?
    - Dylan16807 15y ago
      They don't accept "the name most people know you by" either unless you're special enough. Look at Skud. http://infotrope.net/2011/07/22/ive-been-suspended-from-google-plus/ http://infotrope.net/2011/07/22/ive-been-suspended-from-goog...

kadabra9 15y ago

Too late, guys. Facebook is already copying the features that make G+ cool/useful (circles, etc), and the one big, inherent advantage you had in your favor (Your user base, e.g every Google account) you alienated by keeping it "invite only" for too long. Either open it to everyone sooner, or hold off on this prolonged "invite period" so you don't risk confusing / alienating people that want to try G+ but can't. G+ feels like its the same 10 guys posting the same thing over and over, while Facebook feels like, well.. Facebook.

digikata 15y ago
For all their other faults, Google at least tries to protect privacy and keeps after data export too. Those are two key attributes that are important to me.
- suivix 15y ago
  Facebook has had privacy since the very beginning. Only friends can see what you post, by default.
  - digikata 15y ago
    I don't know about your experience, but for me there was a period when my privacy controls kept resetting to different defaults, as well as adding categories of sharing that defaulted to very open settings.
    - davorak 15y ago
      Yep that is how I remeber it as well.
brador 15y ago
Agreed. I wouldn't use Google+, I would also recommend to everyone I know that they never use Google+. The implications of loosing my gmail account over a trivial name change are just too seemingly random and risky. It's just not worth it. Facebook won by default. Google+ had a chance, it really could have succeeded, but something went terribly wrong with it's management. Piss poor execution and hints that Google is really struggling to find good talent to run it's new enterprises.

glhaynes 15y ago

Not at all sure if it was stupid of them to wait this long to let everybody in (you want socializing on your social network!) or brilliant because now they'll get a lot more press right when the buzz seemed to be dying down. One also wonders how this route will affect their demographics long-term... it's got a bit of a "geeky" slant so far, which seems to be working for them, but might not be in their best interests against Facebook. Edit: kadabra9 makes a good point in saying that Facebook can (and rapidly seems to be!) copying/nullifying any advantage that Google+ provided so perhaps they shot themselves in the foot by not growing as big and as fast as they could. Time will tell.

RegEx 15y ago
The hype from weeks ago is long past over. Google plus came out of nowhere, took everyone by surprise. They instilled a sense of scarcity through invites in order to make the people want it. Eventually the people just forgot about it. I wanted Google plus to work, but it lost momentum long ago.

sorennielsen 15y ago

Open to all... Unless you're using Google Apps like I do ಠ_ಠ

infinite_snoop 15y ago

Great! It's just a shame that all of my friends have died of old age waiting for the invite period to finish. Seriously, what was the reasoning for this? It's not like Google don't have the infrastructure/capability to scale quickly.

radq 15y ago

Looks like you still need to be "over a certain age"... :(

tomkarlo 15y ago
That's true of Facebook, too. Complain to your legislators, it's because COPA is so impractical that nobody bothers to attempt to comply with the measures necessary to allow kids on a social media site.
- bunnyhero 15y ago
  Facebook is 13+, but Google+ is currently limited to 18+.
  - tomkarlo 15y ago
    I believe they've (the G+ team) already publicly stated that's coming down to 13.

xnxn 15y ago

I'm alarmed that the comments here are so bitter. Am I the only one who's had a positive experience with G+ so far? (Is my perception rose-tinted because I really, really want Facebook to die?) The new Hangout stuff is great, and the addition of screen sharing has now obviated my need to use Skype. Maybe when On Air opens up I'll be able to broadcast my programming sessions.

ineedtosleep 15y ago
Overall, (and, forgive me, since I'm going relatively OT here) I've noticed a lot of hostility towards Google in every Google post. I've not been with HN for too long, so I don't know if this is what partially defines HN, but I'm starting to get irked by it.
- Kadrith 15y ago
  I really saw the hostility start to show when Google required "real names" with G+. Before that I don't recall as much hostility; at least not more than any other large company would receive.
- noarchy 15y ago
  I think that there is a perception that Google is turning to the "dark side", whether true or not. Recent examples include: Android isn't open enough, Google wallet is going to be used to track you, G+ puts you at risk of losing your Gmail account, and so on. I happen to agree some of the points that get raised regarding Google. Whether or not they're "bad guys", is something I'll leave for others to decide.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- nickknw 15y ago
  To me it seems like HN comments have been getting more hostile in general. More often than not the topmost comments on a link now are pretty negative (in my subjective opinion).

eps 15y ago

The line-up at the door must've been starting to thin out :)

zeratul 15y ago

I wish there was a way to merge this post with a related one: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018236 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018236 Google+ offers quick and continuous iteration of new features.

0x12 15y ago

This is like the person that plays 'hard to get' for 15 years, then finds out everybody's taken. Windows of opportunity come and they go just as fast. Google+ had a chance, I think they've missed their connection.

hasanove 15y ago

I find it interesting that out of ~50 comments in supposedly early adopter crowd, there is not a single positive comment about Google+. As much as I want them to succeed, this looks like a pretty bad sign. And yes, I am one of those who cannot participate with my Google Apps account.

belthesar 15y ago
I really wanted to like G+ too, but I think most news.yc users have migrated their email in one forum or another to Google Apps... muchly because it was the perfect thing for us bleeding edge users who fell in love with Gmail to be able to use a properly branded address for our mail.

zerostar07 15y ago

They 've released a hangouts api, yet there's still no way to retrieve someone's friends? (or is there such an API? couldn't find it). Come on google, we haven't got all day!

willy1234x1 15y ago

Maybe I'm just missing something but does anyone else here not give a flying fuck about the "real name fiasco"? What's so damn bad about using your real name? Can't be an internet tough guy when you have to use your real name? The most I think all Google should do is allow you to use a screen name for following purposes but still show your real name as well (kind of how Twitter has the screen name and name fields.)

muyuu 15y ago
- Privacy considerations - Identity theft - Stalking
- toyg 15y ago
  Yeah, because Facebook is SO private, and completely devoid of impostors and stalkers. Honestly, if this is the worst that anti-googlers can come up with, well... it isn't much.
  - muyuu 15y ago
    In facebook one can at least use nicknames, and it doesn't force you to link everything to your account (picasa, youtube, email, etc). One can have no real data searchable in facebook. I'm no anti-nothing, by the way. Grew up past that long ago.
  - Jem 15y ago
    I'm not anti-Google; they virtually own my entire life (slightly scary). I still think they fucked up over the real name issue.

Kylekramer 15y ago

The fact that dozens of comments think 90 days is too long for a service to be invite only shows we are really in a instant gratification news bubble here. 90 days! People act like we are talking about Chinese Democracy or Duke Nukem Forever here (not to mention that for about 80 of those days getting in was merely a five minute search process for anyone who really cared). The majority of comments here are about too long of an invite window, nymwars, and Google Apps. While I appreciate those are important issues for people, acting like they are going to kill Google+ is extremely shortsighted and uninteresting. They are about as much of a factor in Google+'s success as the quality of the concession stands at Fenway to the Red Sox's success.

deleted 15y ago
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- deleted 15y ago
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jonnathanson 15y ago
Those ninety days felt like forever, and it's because they kept opening and closing the invite windows seemingly at random. There were a lot of false starts and stops -- confusing the users on the inside, and frustrating the users on the outside. On any given week, for instance, the floodgates would appear to be randomly open or randomly closed, and I'd send out a small trickle of invites while I could. I would have little indication of when the gates opened and closed, so eventually, I just stopped bothering trying to invite people. Needless to say, this did not make for a robust graph. Sure, I had my "inner" circles up and running just fine. But whenever I wanted to broadcast something -- in the true sense of that word -- I'd have to go back to Facebook for the bigger friend set. At the end of the day, you can't toy with people on the inside or outside of a product like this. Users on the inside want their friends inside. And users on the outside want in, to be with their friends. The seemingly capricious, chaotic, and extended open/closed period really caused an inordinate amount of frustration for both groups. Social networking is about one's social network, and when people already had extant social networks, they were extremely anxious to port those networks over. [Bear in mind that I remain a loyal G+ user and really do believe it's a great product. I just think the extended beta was a bit too extended, and bit too schizophrenic in its betaness.]

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

tnorthcutt 15y ago

Could a mod edit the title? As it is right now, it's rather misleading to those of us hoping that they've finally made + open to apps accounts.

ElbertF 15y ago
It's open for everyone, meaning you can sign up without an invitation.

muyuu 15y ago

Google+ first didn't let me to use a different name for my account, and then showed me a nice dialog, in words to this effect: "do you want to link Picasa to your account? (yes) (cancel Google+ account creation)" So long, Google+

calloc 15y ago
Picasa is what is used for Google+'s photo backend. You are not required to share anything from Picasa on Google+ and vice-versa.
- muyuu 15y ago
  Google has it though. Well, this made me go to Picasa and delete everything except for random funny internet pics. Same as youtube made me go and delete all my personal flicks when they forced me to link it to my gmail account. After creating another gmail account to link it to.

gamma_raj 15y ago

Its high time they opened it. Google+ seemed like desert.

Jun8 15y ago

I didn't have a bad experience with G+. I didn't have a uniquely good experience either, though. My only friends over there are techie types. For my circles, after the initial chatter, the postings have decreased significantly, and coming to HN is better than the technology news posted there. Many people talk about how quickly G+ achieved N million users, but the import part is the engagement from users. I don't think G+ has achieved anything like that yet. Many people start using it due to the integration with Gmail but then just stop and go back to FB and Twitter.

joelhaus 15y ago

If Google+ doesn't become a much more integral part of future Android releases, it will be a huge surprise. For me, the Google+ Android app has a killer feature: instant upload of pics/video taken with your phone to a Google+/Picasa folder that you can set to private or share with select circles. To the extent that Google does integrate these two products, G+ will greatly benefit from having the huge Android user base as a source of growth and content, attracting many more engaged users to the platform.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

jsz0 15y ago

Is anyone actually using Plus? My stream is so dead I don't even bother checking it anymore. It's a ghost town over there.

jasonwilk 15y ago
my stream is dead too. I've since left.
ElbertF 15y ago
I do. It's not that busy but even with just a couple of active friends it's fun to use. Just like Twitter three years ago.

gurkendoktor 15y ago

One thing that could maybe have won me over to G+ is a great iPad client. Tablets are almost made to relax and scroll over your friends' updates. The nymwars ruined it too, though.

sheabarton 15y ago

Except google apps users..

cwp 15y ago

Well, everyone except Google Apps users.

jigs_up 15y ago

+1 for pissed off Google Apps users.

calloc 15y ago

I've been using Google+ since it was first made available, I've got may main personal account on there, and several accounts for fake persona's and a business account for my business (still hasn't been tagged or removed by Google for not being a real name). The only people who I've seen are affected by the "nymwars" seem to be celebrity accounts or people that like to go by pen names on social networks. With my various fake accounts I have had no issues yet, most likely because they don't get a ton of traffic and fly under the radar. It is not like Facebook hasn't had these issues either, whereby they will lock people out of their account until they send in a photo ID (locking out out of your Facebook mail/text messaging stuff as well). I keep hearing stories about how people consider it a desert or that certain articles and stories are claiming that there is 40% less activity. I've noticed that I have started to become more careful as to who gets to see my posts and if they are allowed to share them. More information is shared in specific circles rather than publicly. I've also found that there is much more engagement on Google+ than any other social service. When I post something on Google+ I get more feedback, more people commenting on my posts and more people having intelligent discourse than on Facebook or Twitter, or even my blog. Since I can target specific circles I am able to categorise my friends based on what I think they would be interested in, so instead of having non-tech friends get techy stuff from me and thus becoming disinterested they only get my personal stuff that they might find interesting, like how it is going in my life. Yes, Facebook has had that for a while as well, however it was always more tedious to set it up, get people into the various circles, and now that it has been made easier they have cocked it up royally: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018403 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018403 For me so far Google+ has become more interesting, more targeted and has much less noise compared to the signal. Will that change as more people join? Maybe, I'm not so sure, as I think people will realise that with circles they don't have to include me in a conversation (nor will it show up in my stream) with a mutual friend... (public walls ...)

sssparkkk 15y ago
About posting techy stuff: what do you when you don't want to bother your non-tech friends with posts like that, but you _do_ want all the people (that you don't know) following you to be able to read these posts? Have you manually put everyone of those in a circle as well?

sssparkkk 15y ago

I got all excited when I saw 'Huddle' had been replaced by 'messenger'; thinking this would mean google talk and huddles had been integrated. I mean, wouldn't it be great to have an alternative to the closed stuff like whatsapp/kik/etc? Google would have to start by releasing a native google talk client for the iphone (why isn't there one yet?!). I'm amazed that after all these years there's still no real open standard for instant messaging that is also actually the defacto standard.

lukesandberg 15y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Messaging_and_Presence_Protocol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Messaging_and_Presen... XMPP is pretty much the standard instant messaging protocol these days and it is supported by google talk... im not sure about Huddle though... i assume it is also through google talk just with a special ui for selecting circles.

badclient 15y ago

Google+ is dead.

tintin 15y ago
And why would a company bother to continue a services that is dead?
- badclient 15y ago
  Desperation.

twidlit 15y ago

Here is why Facebook will not lose any momentum over Google+. They are too agile, well-run and nimble at the moment. That and google+ architecture is too similar to Facebook. Facebook is doing a good job matching Circles, improving photos on the feed, improving chat, etc. Almost every unique features of G+ are now competing with a 'good enough' counterpart on Facebook. Expect Facebook to match any new ones popping up from Google's camp all the while rolling out more new stuff around music, videos and photos.

bad_user 15y ago

It isn't open to Google Apps users.

samrat 15y ago

And when will it be open for those under eighteen years of age?

yason 15y ago

Is there a Facebook application already that posts from Google+ to Facebook and imports replies and likes back to Google+? The mass of people on Facebook is a barrier to entry and they have to consider it somehow.

diamondhead 15y ago

Everyone except the users of Google Apps. Nobody talks about this bullshit. http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/answer.py?answer=1407609&hl=en http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/answer.py?answer=1407609... http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Apps/thread?tid=08f56168a00dc731&hl=en http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Apps/thread?t... They blocked lots of active users of many Google services, this way.