I will most certainly give Google + a try, when I get an invite (hint, hint).
I had a Facebook account way back when, but after about a year or so, it got really annoying and I likened it to the world’s worst Thanksgiving dinner; whole bunches of people who had nothing in common with each other, all coming over to “my house” to snoop around, post stupid things and try to sell me Tupperware. Then I started to get hostile emails from people I had not “friended”, despite the fact I had not seen nor spoken to them in 20 or 30 years.
Yes, I know they later made it easier to divide friends into different groups, but by then I just stopped going to my own page and eventually had it closed.
Google + seems sort of like a clean slate - and I could start off small with my “real” friends at the party, and then create a kiddie table for all those others where I don’t have to bother visiting often. Plus, as a long time Google/Gmail fan, I probably have tons of stuff to slap together quickly, without having to search for photos, clips, articles, etc.
I switched from Yahoo to Google when it became a better solution for my needs. Google has changed a lot recently, as mentioned up-thread. This is one more knock against them, in my mind. I’m probably going to end up changing search engines again.
I would be incredibly surprised if Google+ made your searches public to your friends, or that there wasn’t any way to disable it. That just doesn’t seem like a feature anyone would want to broadcast or would even want to see. It’s only useful as statistical information.
Just wanted everyone to know that the above work-around (post 38) is a good way to get an invite. Unfortunately the invites are useless until Google+ decides to open up for new members (you are simply redirected towards a simple form asking for first name and email).
What’s this basis for your friends being able to see what you’ve searched for? I’ve never seen that docced by Google representatives, nor mentioned by anyone?
I will do the invite by share post if you PM me your e-mail. People have been having trouble receiving that type of e-mail and if they get it it’s been trick to activate the invite so don’t get your hopes up too high.
There were some rumours that the invite page checks how “social” your google account is. Couldn’t hurt to set up your profile, install the google talk plugin etc to (maybe) improve your chances.
I would love to give it a shot if anyone has more invites - I will gladly invite more people if I am one of the chosen. PM me or let me know and I’ll get you my gmail address…
It’s definitely not part of the advertised plan but the data is there, why couldn’t they do it?
Amazon.com tracks what you search for (on Amazon) and sends out emails to you with related info. I clicked on a link the other day from here about water-powered hose reels, on Amazon. I just got an email today from Amazon about water-powered hose reels.
So Amazon thinks that knowing and regurgitating your search info is helpful to you.
What’s to stop Google from taking your search data and comparing it to your friends’ search data and saying “Hey, you and 3 other friends are interested in ‘Katy Perry topless’ this week!”? Facebook is constantly trying to make links between you and other people with the data they have. Google has 10x the data ALREADY, without anyone having to do anything specific on Google +. So why shouldn’t they be using it to make us all go “wow!”
Well, “wow” at first but quickly “Holy shit, cut it out, Google!”
Seriously, the minute they start broadcasting searches to other people in any fashion other than aggregated statistics, they’ll lose a huge chunk of users. We may be moving toward a more transparent society, but I feel pretty confident in saying that there are still some things people consider private, and searches are one of those things. Not just because of the potential for embarrassing porn searches to show up, but also because 90% of searches are incredibly mundane, pointless, and generally irrelevant. There’s no point in sharing information about them.
The Data Liberation tool they’re including ensures you can walk away the minute you’re through with the site (provided it does as they advertise, anyway, and I’ve yet to see evidence of Google doing something other than what it advertises).
If you want to see and modify all the info Google has about you, you can use the Google Dashboard. Here’s a short video describing how it works. (It works for all Google products/accounts, not just Google+ and Social Circles)
Apropos of nothing, is anyone else being offered the opportunity to +1 their google search results or am I just unobservant and that’s been there for yonks? Are they taunting me with +1itude?
That’s showing up for everyone, whether you have Google Plus or not.
This is perhaps silly of me, but I am starting to find the whole thing irritating. I have a couple of friends who love Google Plus and have announced that they are immediately abandoning Facebook for it, and will not shut up about talking about how l33t it is, and I’m like, yeah, that sounds cool, too bad the rest of us plebes are locked out indefinitely.
