Walking Around In Circles: Will People Start Using It Correctly?

Circles is probably its main weapon against Facebook (other than being a great product by itself and being made by Google, for people who don't want to use Facebook).

But so far it doesn't look like Circles is going to be used that much by DEFAULT. This means even if Google+ is successful, it will become almost as messy as Facebook. But I worry this might actually affect its potential success, because as I said, it's one of the main reasons you would switch from Facebook.

Google needs to make it so you WANT to use Circles 80-90% of the time. It shouldn't even take you any thinking. It should be a snap decision, almost automatic. You should want to intentionally make your share public, but the default action of a user should ALMOST ALWAYS be to use the Circles.

Right now that doesn't seem to be the case. The default action of users seems to be to make things public. I don't think this is a user issue, because users don't really decide anything about it. They just do it. So it's a Circles design issue. They should just do it by using Circles, not by broadcasting to everyone.

Google, I strongly believe this is VITAL for Google+'s success not only in the mid-term (i.e. beating Facebook), but long term as well (not becoming messy like Facebook, even after it kills it). The Circles idea was the RIGHT IDEA. Now just make sure people actually use it as intended and as promised. Otherwise it's just a useless bullet point in Google+'s feature list.

Get it right, Google, before the service becomes public!

i guess TC read HN ;)

i wrote yesterday that it might be hard / dull to admin circles

and that it should not mimic the real world

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2706410