[mdwrigh2]

> When Google+ came out I was blown away by just how well designed it was, but then slowly Google ruined it. Andy Hertzfeld created an amazing product, but then Google worked their "magic" just like they did with Blogger and watered down every strong feature like circles.

How have they ruined circles? They work the same as they did on day one as far as I can tell.

> In fact Google goes out of its way to not have to interface with people: Have a problem with a Google product? Well good luck if you want to talk to a human.

Let's not confuse two separate issues. Social IQ has no relevance to their customer support. Their customer support is non-existant for free products because doing support at their scale is nearly impossible. And while I'm not familiar with their support for paid products overall, I've had a decent experience dealing with Play support when I purchased my Nexus 7. Anyways, point being that the engineers were never going to be customer support in the first place.

> And if you want to see their latest failure just try using their mobile app: When put next to Facebook it's terrible, and when put next to Instagram (now owned by facebook) it looks like student project.

First off: which platform? Because on Android, G+ far outstrips Facebook's generally terrible mobile app. I've also seen some pretty positive reviews of the iOS app, but I have no direct experience with it.

[michaelpinto]

1. Circles: They did a redesign at one point where you can browse specific circles by clicking on well hidden buttons buttons at the top. Of course the buttons don't stay there, so you have to keep clicking. Facebook displays everything on the left nav so it's easy to see their version of circles — and having wasted too much time on both sites i can tell you that in terms of functionality (not ascetics) Facebook wins.

2. "Their customer support is non-existant" This works great for search, but not for every other product they offer. Also it's not great if you're a professional who is using a product. But what kills me is if you are a top brand they do the hand holding, but if you're not in that league well good luck with that! So this sort of blindness reflects a low social IQ. I'll grant you that they aren't the only ones guilty of this, and in fact maybe amazon first invented this approach (but they've learned and have purchased companies like zappos that get it).

3. I'm on iOS looking at my iPhone and the Facebook app is better than G+: Of course Instagram blows them both away. If you forced me to hand out grades it would be: G+ with a C-, Facebook with a B- to B and Instagram with a A. Of course Instagram was designed to be mobile so maybe they cheated? Now I'll grant you that the G+ app looks the most pretty, but it's a pain to use.

But keep in mind I'm ranting because how much I loved the original G+ — if they had a wayback machine setting all would be forgiven.

[mdwrigh2]

1. Really the question I should've asked here was for example where their strong features got watered down. I'm less interested in the specifics, but as far as I can tell, the webapp has gotten better over time, not worse. As for the circles thing, are you talking about seeing the contents of the circle themselves, or the posts shared with you by the people in that circle? If the first, on the left hand side there's a button for circles. If the second, on the home page at the top is your list of circles, just click on the one you want to see. So I guess I'm not really seeing what you're complaining about.

2. Are you using one of their free products or paid? If you're using Google Apps for Businesses, for example, there are support phone numbers to call.

3. That's too bad then. The Android app certainly has problems, but overall is pretty good.

[michaelpinto]

1. I come from a design background so I'd need to look at a working version of the original G+ to give you a proper answer. Sadly at the time I didn't take screenshots for my own reference (and I wish I did!!!!!).

2. This is based on my experience over the years with a number of products. My most recent issue was being a publisher and having an issue with AdSense -- so I was making them money, had an issue and couldn't reach a human. Yes if I was a bigger fish that wouldn't have been an issue, but then again big fish don't use AdSense.

3. I guess to be fair they should make the Android app better than the iOS one -- and maybe to be even more fair I'm lucky as an iOS user that they have a G+ app at all. And maybe looking at Instagram one might argue that a good mobile social network needs to be mobile first, and that it's super hard to go from the web to mobile.

[gurkendoktor]

> Now I'll grant you that the G+ app looks the most pretty, but it's a pain to use.

This! I can't believe that Google, out of all companies, would go "form over function" on a mobile app. Scrolling through a feed is so distracting that I wouldn't even want all my friends to be in there. (So far I've only scrolled around the food pictures in the public stream.)

[sshumaker]

Just curious - what do you find so distracting?

[gurkendoktor]

The 3D fall-down animation for every news feed item (or is that limited to some feeds?)