[davidnu]

This is quite insulting to G+ users to be so easily dismissed and declaring the place a "ghost town".

Deeming the community worthless because it's not as large as Facebook's is ridiculous.

There is also no mention of G+ fulfilling the purpose of an identity layer to tie in Google's offerings under one pictured profile like every other online service launching today.

This attack which lacks any actual news and new developments is seemingly so unprovoked and so mean spirited as to indicate that there is a "google bashing" quota the author is trying to meet.

[jinushaun]

Google had an identity layer before G+. Everyone knew that if they signed up for gmail, they had access to calendar and docs. Even if you didn't sign up for gmail first, there was already a concept of a Google account where you activated features like gmail, docs and calendar. G+ plus provides nothing useful, especially since Hangout is a standalone product in people's minds.

[opinali]

Not really. Some products like YouTube used a separate account. Most products had incompatible ToS so any integration was difficult or impossible. Each product that had comments, like YouTube or Blogger, or a concept of marking something as good/bad/favorite/starred/etc., or sharing, did that in a different and incompatible way, etc. The gmail account was only good enough as a basic authentication token for several products, nothing more. Yes, we could have fixed all these problems by unifying all these features around the gmail account without introducing a traditional social network as a 'bonus' (one that not all users want), but guess what? If you upgrade your account to G+ but you never post in the stream, or circle anything, there's absolutely no difference to that hypothetical scenario of "full integration without introducing plus-the-social-network". Just go to plus.google.com/settings and disable everything and be happy.

[chilldream]

> Just go to plus.google.com/settings and disable everything and be happy

Until they add more things that are checked by default like that "let any random yahoo email me" feature.

[kaonashi]

G+ is what people who used to use Google services because they wanted to now have to endure for those same privileges.

[chilldream]

Yes, exactly this. I was fine with my Google Account; now I have a Google Social Networking Boondoggle. And the rare times G+ makes a difference in my use of other services, the net effect has been worse (I'm still not over the YouTube thing)

[spacemanmatt]

I was fine with my Google account, I am finer with my G+ account. In my view, this makes the Google ecosystem better unified and from a lead generation perspective, more like Facebook.

What? You thought Google or Facebook were software companies? No, those are marketing and advertising companies. Lead generation is their business. The free software is just the foot in the door. And a nice foot it is.

[davidnu]

You should be over the 'Youtube thing'. Many Google services employ commenting/voting/rating etc, handling these in different, separate siloed systems makes no sense. G+ makes a great deal of sense that its detractors are unwilling to admit.

As for the Youtube commenting system which all those who want to be derisive about G+ are quick to point to, they fail to mention how Youtube comments weren't that great to begin with and that the G+ comments they refer to are the ones rolled out immediately after the change, they omit mentioning and don't account for the numerous iterations the system received since then, and they haven't bothered to check on the comments situation since then because it would destroy their strawman arguments.

[chilldream]

I can assure you that I still follow the same YouTube channels I was following before and my complaints about the comment system are very well-informed. I will concede that comment threading is somewhat better, and it's nice that people can actually post links now, but there's still plenty to hate. Hell, here's just what's annoyed me in the last day:

I can't keep myself signed in. Well, kind of; g+ UI was designed by trolls, so what actually happens is that I appear to be signed in until I actually try to do anything, at which point I'm asked to sign in. Sometimes I even sign in, try to check my notifications, and am asked to sign in again.

Anytime I post a comment "Also post to Google+" is pre-checked. I can't make it unchecked by default.

I have had a YouTube account for years. Since the changeover, I receive more spam from random strangers every week than I did over the rest of the account's lifetime combined. I now also get newsletter spam from YouTube itself (I'm now looking at an email entitled "Well... these love songs are awkward on YouTube", like that is something I would ever want). On the bright side, I clicked the unsubscribe link and unlike the last three times, it didn't throw a server error, so I'll see if it takes.

Despite never flagging any of the above as spam, my Gmail spam filter has started catching my subscription emails as spam. That is, the legitimate communications from YouTube that I specifically asked for are the ones getting killed, as opposed to the scummy newsletters I was autosubscribed to and the new spam vector that is g+.

If this stuff seems minor, keep in mind that it's all the fault of something that I didn't ask for, never wanted, and actively tried to avoid.

[mirzmaster]

> Many Google services employ commenting/voting/rating etc, handling these in different, separate siloed systems makes no sense.

Why doesn't that make sense? Is a YouTube user naturally a Google Drive user? A Gmail user naturally a Blogger user? This seems to only make sense to Google, and not their users.

I don't know how much overlap there was between YouTube users and Google account users, but Google merged the two simply to boost the profile of Google+. People who wanted to comment on YouTube videos with their Google+ pals and their real identities were already doing that -- on Google+. The forcing of Google+ on YouTube offered no discernible benefit to YouTube users that could not have been offered while maintaining YouTube as a distinct social network.

As a Google+ user, the utter disregard towards YouTube and its distinct identity severely annoyed me.

[kaonashi]

It's not just the 'Youtube thing' (as derisive as that sounds), it's that G+ has supplanted many services I used to use and enjoy. So now I have fewer services with constant nag screens prompting me to use something in which I have no interest.

So net result of the G+ 'experience' is that I lose services and have the quality of those that remain impaired.

[blueskin_]

There are very few things that can be said that won't insult some group of 100 people somewhere; just that in this case they happen to be Google+'s entire userbase.

[spacemanmatt]

Me and my 99 G+ contacts resent that remark!

[adrianlmm]

"This is quite insulting to G+"

Please clarify, how an insult to G+ becomes an insult to you?

[spacemanmatt]

"This is quite insulting to G+ users" was the slightly fuller quote.

Read the whole sentence -- it's not a long one.

[adrianlmm]

Still, how is insulting G+ also an insult to his users? or you as a user?

[fredgrott]

The problem is its not accurate..the worst social network in terms of user number is linkedin.

G+ surpassed linkedin numbers in first 3 months of operation