Towards A Tighter Gmail/Google+ Integration? | Hacker News Reader

Towards A Tighter Gmail/Google+ Integration?

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15 pointsdanmaz7419 comments

Lately it seems any move made by a social network raises the hairs on people's backs. I haven't tested, but I'm willing to bet that you only see the person's activity on the top-right if both of you are in G+ and that person is in one of your circles.

I'm sure they'll only show you posts that you can see - either because they're public or because you are in one of the circles to which the post was shared. But not showing a public post, even if you're not following that person? That wouldn't be a breach of privacy for sure, and it could even be useful (if maybe distracting from the subject of the email, sometimes).

I'm on the move from Greader to something else because of their Greader/G+ tighter integration. And I'm far from being the only one in this case. Didn't they learn anything from the Greader mistake?

Well Google normally goes by the numbers, so I question whether your assertion matches what they're seeing.

I guess not yet. Alternative to Greader do not meet my needs (either you can't produce a feed of shared items that others can subscribe to with any feed reader, or the UX is to poor), so I'm developping my own (which will be released as soon as possible, there's still a bit of work before it can actually be used and I'm in my exams + school project period) and it takes some time. Time during which I'm still using Greader, of course…

The Brief addon to Firefox is working well for me. It's local, not cloud, and not social, but I don't care about either of those. I like the interface much better than GReader's.

In fact, I'm following many more blogs than I did with GReader, and I can skim through much faster than I could with GReader.

EDIT: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/brief/

I get my feeds delivered to me using this: http://www.allthingsrss.com/rss2email/

They're all filtered into a single folder. I can read them from any of my email clients. K-9 on my phone, Thunderbird on my laptop, Roundcube webmail on my work machine.

I don't have to install a dedicated feed reader. I don't have to use a web based feed reader.

I read an item on one device, it is marked as read on all of them. I delete an item on one device, it is deleted on all of them.

Before anyone suggests Thunderbirds built in RSS feed capability, it's rubbish. And it wouldn't let me share feeds cross-device, so it doesn't meet my requirements.

and i'm loving the tighter G+ integration. And far from being the only one in this case. What was your point?

> This would look like a very strong virality vector for Google

...or the trigger for a gmail exodus

Question is - where would you go instead?

(I know this has been (covered before)[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1121269], but it was a little while ago.)

Although you can argue that Gmail is taking away some of your valuable attention, they do provide a heck of a lot for free - web based, keyboard shortcuts, great spam protection, integration with many many services, and so on. Hard to find all that elsewhere.

Why? That space would normally be used by ads, so I don't see it as an inconvenience...

This has been available for months now. Is this the first time people see it? I like it. It reminds me to check out Google+.

I actually only noticed it now... maybe because not so many people with whom I exchange emails write on G+?

This is an old news. G+ integrated your feed into Gmail a while back. Another one of the privacy concerns.

How so? You public posts are indexed by Google Search as well, they really don't get more public than that.

How's that a privacy concern? Imagine a gmail user in your address book who has not signed up for Plus or you don't care about that person. He/she would be seeing your Plus feed unintentionally. Of course your feed is public in the first place, but the key term here is "intentional". Why would you want to showcase your public items in Plus to some unconcerned people in your Gmail address book?

There's no need need for the vast majority of users to make any of their posts public. My posts are only accessible to people who I have in my circles.

Indeed. Considering that HN is one of the most tech-aware communities on the Internet, it continually surprises me how much people here want "security by obscurity" in managing their personal online communications.

If there are people who you don't want seeing your public posts, regardless of whether they currently have Google+ accounts or check them on a regular basis, don't make them public. Simple.

The 800 pound gorilla that Google is, forcing everyone to go Social, isn't targeting tech-aware communities on the Internet. They know they wouldn't go anywhere if they were to just target the tech-aware public. So, the comment above is in general.

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