My high school was your high school. WTF you talking about? I mean, we only got 1, maybe 2 non-gen ed courses at any time.
Maybe it's different now, but after my freshman year there, I was in the advanced math, English, and social studies track, having the same classmates in all of them every year (there were two "classes" of students total that stayed together through the entire chain, having the same teachers at different hours). I took AP Western Civ and AP Bio in 10th grade, along with physics, which put me in a separate set of classes where the students in all of them were the same.
The only general ed (i.e., any class with no restrictions on enrollment) I took after my freshman year was one required gym class my senior year (which I mostly skipped). You could count all of my music classes (Wind Ensemble, Orchestra, Band, and Jazz Band) I suppose, but they all shared the same subset of students between them as well (and both Jazz Band and Wind Ensemble were restricted by auditions). Every math, science, language, and social studies class I took was restricted to honors students in some way and had special prerequisites.
I continue to feel that this circles model is not a viable way to deal with social networking.
Usecase 0: The forum decides it wants to migrate to Google+. This is the kind of use under which Google+ would shine. It has a set of people who all know and agree on who can and cannot be in the set.
Usecase 1: All of the people who I was at camp with in the summer of '10 move to Google+. This is also a good usecase because all members are aware who the members are.
Usecase 2: My circle of school related friends decides to move to Google+. Uh oh. My 12th grade graduating class was only 66 kids, but even with such a small number this will quickly become awkward. Do people who I organize into a circle on my account know that they are in such a group? Can they see who else is in the group? What do I do about the really annoying girl who a few of my friends like but who I can't stand? What do I do if someone starts bothering me, can I remove them without them knowing?
I'm expecting someone to make the point that technology doesn't create problems, only expose them. I agree with that quite strongly. However, I would rather not have the horribly complex and fragile nature of my web of friendships and acquaintances exposed.
Every math, science, language, and social studies class I took was restricted to honors students in some way and had special prerequisites.
Ah, only honors class I took was AC Trig and AP Calc, and I got switched into AC Trig my junior year after a teacher noticed how bored I was.
Yeah the honors kids did sort of run together from 9th to 12th grade. If you didn't get in early, you didn't get in. Which is why it is sort of crazy I got into honors math my junior year.
My 12th grade graduating class was only 66 kids, but even with such a small number this will quickly become awkward. Do people who I organize into a circle on my account know that they are in such a group?
Graduating class? Why even have them in your circles? Unless you're friends with them for some specific reason, they're acquaintances at best, and not really worth following or including in a circle.
What do I do if someone starts bothering me, can I remove them without them knowing?
Passive-aggressive BS. If you like/friend/follow someone, and their updates aren't worth reading, just un-like/friend/follow them. Who cares if they know? They should know. Doing it secretly, while leaving them thinking you're still following them, is silly and childish.
Graduating class? Why even have them in your circles?
I was using my 12th grade class as an example. I was trying to explain how I would have used the service if it existed when I was in high school.
Passive-aggressive BS. If you like/friend/follow someone, and their updates aren't worth reading, just un-like/friend/follow them. Who cares if they know? They should know. Doing it secretly, while leaving them thinking you're still following them, is silly and childish.
I typed a long response to this only to realize that I don't actually know how Circles are going to work and am basing everything I'm saying on the faults of existing social networks. It is possible that Google's solution will be elegant and will address all of my criticisms. In short though, I think that you might be too far away from the scene of high schooler's in social networks to understand why I disagree. To not friend someone on facebook is a statement of outright dislike at my school.
I typed a long response to this only to realize that I don't actually know how Circles are going to work and am basing everything I'm saying on the faults of existing social networks. It is possible that Google's solution will be elegant and will address all of my criticisms. In short though, I think that you might be too far away from the scene of high schooler's in social networks to understand why I disagree. To not friend someone on facebook is a statement of outright dislike at my school.
I'm somewhat in some social circles that apparently hold the same opinion, and you know what? Too fuckin' bad for them. It might not work so well - I've kinda a reputation for being somewhat Aloof and more of an independent sort, or like the connecting line between social circles - but you can always fall back on the old "Dude, it's just facebook, calm down, don't worry about it." If they want to make it an issue after that, they're not worth the time, most likely.
I'm somewhat in some social circles that apparently hold the same opinion
What you are saying actually strengthens my overarching point. I'm trying to say it is bad, or that it is useless - I'm saying that most people won't want to use Google+ because of the drama it will cause, and thus it won't be successful as a social network for the masses.
jmerm I think you're assuming that one person can not be in multiple circles at once. You should, if this is designed like a Venn Diagram, allow people to be in multiple circles and then just broadcast messages to certain circles.
So you have one circle of your School, and then a circles inside that for each grade, and then a circle that bridges those circles for your friends, which would be inside your whole school and include only some people from each grade.
This way you can send messages to just your friends, or just grade 12, which may include people from your friends, or the whole school, which might not include people in your friends circle assuming that you have friends from outside of school.
That's a bit complicated to visualize and map out, which is why I did this graphical interface that google+ seems to have. It seems to be an elegant way to visualize it.
I'm trying to say it is bad, or that it is useless
And Churba just explained to you that that's not a problem with the system, but with those people. Let those people wallow in their pitiful drama and don't go hating on something you haven't even had the chance of trying out.
Zehava, I am using the example of my former school to show why the drama and BS within circles would make them be unusable for many people.
that's not a problem with the system, but with those people
It seems like I'm not making myself totally clear. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with Google+. I agree that the problem lies with the people, not the system. My point is that the problem that we all seem to agree exists will prevent people from using Google+, and the lack of users will ultimately make it a failure as a social network.
Zehava, I am using the example of my former school to show why the drama and BS within circles would make them be unusable for many people.
You're making a lot of assumptions with how it will work however. I am as well but I am not being as negative about it. ^__^
Also Facebook allows you to group your friends into lists now as well. This really should not be so much different. In Facebook you can already exclude, or include, certain people from your status posts. This really seams like it's codifying it more.
If it's like the lists in Facebook, and really it should be, no one should know where/how you group them in your Social Venn Diagram. And even if they could, you could always give them strange names so they couldn't figure gather anything useful about it anyways. "Oh johnny put me into his 'Ring 4' circle!" Really, what does that tell them?
If you're bring pressured into friending(+ing someone?) on google+ and you don't want to just stick them into a circle that you never post to, someplace easily ignored. It would be no different from adding them to the exclude list in Facebook.
My point is that the problem that we all seem to agree exists will prevent people from using Google+
This is the same for any social network, Facebook is not exempt.
the lack of users will ultimately make it a failure as a social network.
This is the big thing. If Google can't reach that critical mass then it's doomed for failure.
This is their 3rd or 4th attempt at it however. And I have a feeling that they're basically going to keep trying until something sticks. Remember that at some point in time people thought no one could compete with Friendster, and no one could compete with MySpace, and no one can compete with Facebook.
Also Facebook allows you to group your friends into lists now as well. This really should not be so much different
I find this feature kind of annoying. I've been put into more around a dozen groups, most of which overlap a lot. There is the group for class of 2011, there is the group for the guys of class of 2011, there is the group for the 55/66 kids who went on the Israel trip and quite a few more. In an ideal world, I would have just ignored these, but as a result of the social structure of my high school, that wasn't an option available to me.
In attempting to address counterarguements, my opinion has changed a bit. If executed correctly, there are ways that these groups could be great. For example, sharing a private album or video with only a select group of people. Also, if used as a means of communication and arranged in a good way (such as they way a forum is arranged) as opposed to the way facebook groups are arranged, I could see them having value.
This is the same for any social network, Facebook is not exempt.
I should mention here that I don't like facebook. I use it by social necessity to interact with people and occasionally I use it for the lulz. Back to the original point - yes, google+ suffers from the same problems as facebook, that is why not very many people will switch.
I use it by social necessity to interact with people
Your grandparents signed onto facebook and never learned how to email? This is usually the reason I hear people must join facebook from social pressure.
My mom and bro are on facebook. They don't talk to each other on there just as much as they don't talk to each other in real life. I still keep in touch with my mom via phone and email. Yay for A Million Better Options!
I will say that my friends often share pictures of shit we do together on Facebook. I usually give them some kind of verbal middle finger and ask them to use Picasa or some other service that doesn't require an account to view images. Now they're switching to Dropbox and requiring accounts. *grumble*
Let me ask all of you who are disagreeing with me, based on what superiority to current social networks and what method of drawing people from those social networks will Google+ succeed?
I will say that my friends often share pictures of shit we do together on Facebook. I usually give them some kind of verbal middle finger and ask them to use Picasa or some other service that doesn't require an account to view images. Now they're switching to Dropbox and requiring accounts. *grumble*
You can put stuff in your public folder on Dropbox, and anyone you link it to can see it.
You can put stuff in your public folder on Dropbox, and anyone you link it to can see it.
Right, but my friends, for whatever reason, choose to require accounts for access. The "and" was a weak linkage, not to imply accounts were forced by dropbox. One step forward, one step back.
Right, but my friends, for whatever reason, choose to require accounts for access. The "and" was a weak linkage, not to imply accounts were forced by dropbox.
Oh! Tell 'em to stop it, or just get a dropbox account. It's pretty useful, and free.
Your grandparents signed onto facebook and never learned how to email? This is usually the reason I hear people must join facebook from social pressure.
It is more things like the senior prank being planned on facebook, parties being planned on facebook, notes being shared over facebook...
Your grandparents signed onto facebook and never learned how to email? This is usually the reason I hear people must join facebook from social pressure.
It is more things like the senior prank being planned on facebook, parties being planned on facebook, notes being shared over facebook...
my senior prank woulda been hacking all the facebook accounts of the seniors planning senior prank on facebook.
Then you, sir, are clearly a more skilled man than I.
I'm all talk and no game. Some of us techies were going to hack the high school's AV system and do something with that, but state of michigan had some hard core laws and fines for accessing any system without permission, and we had all turned 18.
The only senior prank I remember during my 4 year stay was a bunch of people releasing crickets in the common area. Like ... a plague of them. I think there might have been a greased pig at some point too. Hope all that facebooking came up with something actually worth remembering.
Most people had horrible ideas (one of which involved getting the entire school to go to an assembly at which one student would give a weather report) and no one could agree on anything complicated so we just ended up filling a few offices with balloons.
Let me ask all of you who are disagreeing with me, based on what superiority to current social networks and what method of drawing people from those social networks will Google+ succeed?
I'm not disagreeing that Google has a mountain to climb before they unseat Facebook, I am disagreeing with your reasons of why it will fail to draw users.
From what I can see is that there is little difference between the two. But given that Google is embedded into so much everyone does already, if you can merge the social stuff into it in a non-moronic way, see buzz for that one, then I'd say that Google has a good deal on the Facebook.
What will draw me away is a codified way of segregating my social graph, the LACK of farmville and other annoying apps, the fact that google is so far embedded into my life that if they disappeared tomorrow it'd take me months if not years to recover. If Facebook disappeared tomorrow I wouldn't miss it, nor would it affect me much. I'd have to send out email invites to my game nights. That's all that would happen.
The only senior prank I remember during my 4 year stay was a bunch of people releasing crickets in the common area. Like ... a plague of them. I think there might have been a greased pig at some point too. Hope all that facebooking came up with something actually worth remembering.
My favorite (which was supposedly done by a mythical class "years before") was to release three pigs, numbered 1, 2, and 4, and watch them spend months looking for pig 3.
Are you referring to Buzz as successful as a service, or successful in terms of its integration with other services? In both cases, I don't think that I agree with you.
What will draw me away is a codified way of segregating my social graph
We seem to have reached an impasse as to the goodness/badness of Circles so I won't get into that more.
the LACK of farmville and other annoying apps
You know you can block every reference to those, right? I haven't been annoyed by an app in months.
the fact that google is so far embedded into my life
I admit, having a social network better integrated with my other stuff would be nice. Maybe I could even get notifications in google reader or something. Come to think of it, RSS would integrate nicely with a social network. I would love the ability to make stuff as read and have it exit my news feed.
Are you referring to Buzz as successful as a service, or successful in terms of its integration with other services? In both cases, I don't think that I agree with you.
I were saying that buzz was integrated in a moronic way, it also it not successful. Apologies that I were not clear.
You know you can block every reference to those, right? I haven't been annoyed by an app in months.
I am quiet aware, thank you. More and more keep popping up every month. It's like playing whack-a-mole with an infinite amount of moles.
We seem to have reached an impasse as to the goodness/badness of Circles so I won't get into that more.
We really can't say much about it until we get our grubby little hands on them really. I do like the conjecture, however.
Alright then, when an invite gets sent my way, or it eventually becomes available to the public, we'll reconvene here and discuss in a more informed way.
Comments
The only general ed (i.e., any class with no restrictions on enrollment) I took after my freshman year was one required gym class my senior year (which I mostly skipped). You could count all of my music classes (Wind Ensemble, Orchestra, Band, and Jazz Band) I suppose, but they all shared the same subset of students between them as well (and both Jazz Band and Wind Ensemble were restricted by auditions). Every math, science, language, and social studies class I took was restricted to honors students in some way and had special prerequisites.
Usecase 0: The forum decides it wants to migrate to Google+. This is the kind of use under which Google+ would shine. It has a set of people who all know and agree on who can and cannot be in the set.
Usecase 1: All of the people who I was at camp with in the summer of '10 move to Google+. This is also a good usecase because all members are aware who the members are.
Usecase 2: My circle of school related friends decides to move to Google+. Uh oh. My 12th grade graduating class was only 66 kids, but even with such a small number this will quickly become awkward. Do people who I organize into a circle on my account know that they are in such a group? Can they see who else is in the group? What do I do about the really annoying girl who a few of my friends like but who I can't stand? What do I do if someone starts bothering me, can I remove them without them knowing?
I'm expecting someone to make the point that technology doesn't create problems, only expose them. I agree with that quite strongly. However, I would rather not have the horribly complex and fragile nature of my web of friendships and acquaintances exposed.
Yeah the honors kids did sort of run together from 9th to 12th grade. If you didn't get in early, you didn't get in. Which is why it is sort of crazy I got into honors math my junior year.
So you have one circle of your School, and then a circles inside that for each grade, and then a circle that bridges those circles for your friends, which would be inside your whole school and include only some people from each grade.
This way you can send messages to just your friends, or just grade 12, which may include people from your friends, or the whole school, which might not include people in your friends circle assuming that you have friends from outside of school.
That's a bit complicated to visualize and map out, which is why I did this graphical interface that google+ seems to have. It seems to be an elegant way to visualize it.
Also Facebook allows you to group your friends into lists now as well. This really should not be so much different. In Facebook you can already exclude, or include, certain people from your status posts. This really seams like it's codifying it more.
If it's like the lists in Facebook, and really it should be, no one should know where/how you group them in your Social Venn Diagram. And even if they could, you could always give them strange names so they couldn't figure gather anything useful about it anyways. "Oh johnny put me into his 'Ring 4' circle!" Really, what does that tell them?
If you're bring pressured into friending(+ing someone?) on google+ and you don't want to just stick them into a circle that you never post to, someplace easily ignored. It would be no different from adding them to the exclude list in Facebook. This is the same for any social network, Facebook is not exempt. This is the big thing. If Google can't reach that critical mass then it's doomed for failure.
This is their 3rd or 4th attempt at it however. And I have a feeling that they're basically going to keep trying until something sticks. Remember that at some point in time people thought no one could compete with Friendster, and no one could compete with MySpace, and no one can compete with Facebook.
In attempting to address counterarguements, my opinion has changed a bit. If executed correctly, there are ways that these groups could be great. For example, sharing a private album or video with only a select group of people. Also, if used as a means of communication and arranged in a good way (such as they way a forum is arranged) as opposed to the way facebook groups are arranged, I could see them having value. I should mention here that I don't like facebook. I use it by social necessity to interact with people and occasionally I use it for the lulz. Back to the original point - yes, google+ suffers from the same problems as facebook, that is why not very many people will switch.
My mom and bro are on facebook. They don't talk to each other on there just as much as they don't talk to each other in real life. I still keep in touch with my mom via phone and email. Yay for A Million Better Options!
The only senior prank I remember during my 4 year stay was a bunch of people releasing crickets in the common area. Like ... a plague of them. I think there might have been a greased pig at some point too. Hope all that facebooking came up with something actually worth remembering.
From what I can see is that there is little difference between the two. But given that Google is embedded into so much everyone does already, if you can merge the social stuff into it in a non-moronic way, see buzz for that one, then I'd say that Google has a good deal on the Facebook.
What will draw me away is a codified way of segregating my social graph, the LACK of farmville and other annoying apps, the fact that google is so far embedded into my life that if they disappeared tomorrow it'd take me months if not years to recover. If Facebook disappeared tomorrow I wouldn't miss it, nor would it affect me much. I'd have to send out email invites to my game nights. That's all that would happen.