Comment by zmmmmm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zmmmmm | Hacker News Reader

This really makes it sound like Vic was essentially fired. I wonder how much Facebook's recent success in monetizing mobile is at the root of this? For a long time the conventional wisdom was that there was no money in mobile at all and it was a huge problem. Now Facebook is killing it, and Google's answer seems to have missed the mark. Although this article is all loose rumors and speculation, if you piece it together the picture feels believable: Google is seriously worried their bet on G+ is wrong. Until Facebook starting doing big numbers Vic had the benefit of the doubt, but now that it's clear in stark numerical fashion that Facebook is actually increasing it's lead over Google it's causing a serious rethink.

Personally I hope it does push Google to rethink G+. It doesn't take too much: step back a little, stop pushing it aggressively where it doesn't fit. Actively support pseudonimity - let people have their privacy AND their G+ cake and participate in multiple circles under different identities. Add APIs to let a 3rd party ecosystem develop. Encourage it. Yes Twitter wound it back but only after they were the undisputed leader. Fingers crossed.

In a nutshell.

They should develop Google+ for the way that people would like to use it instead of developing it for the way that they would like people to use it.

That goes for everything, Google or not.

Page wants to be Jobs and wants to be Facebook. They are playing catch-up in both cases. They want to say basically "we will tell you what you should like and what is nice and better for you, trust us". Well sometimes that works but often it doesn't. In this case it didn't work.

I just got annoyed by G+. The realname thing, then being badgered about it. Every one of those annoying "invitations" turn me further away from it. Maybe I am just different or too contrarian, but that kind of sealed G+ in my head as "stay the fuck away from this annoying thing".

Are you aware that you can use Google+ with non-real names? I see loads of them. Many people use a handle. Nobody who uses Google+ every day complains about Nymwars anymore, that's so 2011.

Maybe you should check their policy [1]. Clause #13 states that you should use "the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you". Their support page [2] very clearly states that your account may be suspended for violating the policy.

Google may have softened their line on enforcement, but unless you're willing to risk having your whole account randomly suspended (along with who-knows-how-many other Google services will go with it), that doesn't really do you much good unless you are treating it as a throwaway account in the first place.

[1] https://www.google.com/intl/en/+/policy/content.html [2] https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1228271

A policy that isn't enforced isn't a policy, even if it's written. I seem to recall a relevant quote from King Gustav V of Sweden:

Never make a law you cannot enforce.

Bad policy-making by Google? Certainly. But nobody is getting suspended for using a nom de plume on Google+ now.

> Add APIs to let a 3rd party ecosystem develop.

Because they haven't done this? https://developers.google.com/+/

I'm pretty sure you can't even post to G+ using the API. In my opinion that's not even close to useful.

> I'm pretty sure you can't even post to G+ using the API.

And you're pretty wrong. You do that by posting App Activities via the Moments API (which the user controls the visibility of using Circles, just like any other posts.)

https://developers.google.com/+/api/moment-types/ These come in a number of different types with different semantic properties, with a generic fallback type, and a publicly posted process to request new types.

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