Scots Taffer on 10/7/2011 at 11:42
It's interesting, I was speculating only recently that something would emerge soon that might challenge the social networking giant that we all know and either love, live with, or shun hermit-like in equal measure.
The key thing that I've inherently disagreed with about facebook and has forced one or two situations where I felt uncomfortable is the homogeneous mashing of what constitutes a "friend".
How do you handle colleagues adding you when you're in a senior position of a job and like to get messy on the weekend or post steam-blowing rants online? How do you handle your family adding you when you might want to share photos and general travels/happenings etc but don't want anyone confused by rapid-fire internet humour or seemingly-blunt/insensitive jokes at the expense of things that generational-gappers don't get? What about old randoms from school days who you don't really give a crap about adding you en masse? The list goes on.
So what do you do? Do you ignore requests from everyone except your complete inner sanctum of friends? Do you censor yourself? There's a social quagmire in that concept alone to be sure, and it's what Google+ is trying to overcome... I think. At this stage, it's too soon to tell and it's quite possible that through rapid (and potentially ignorant) technology proliferation it'll just look like a stripped-down and less accessible/populated version of facebook and hence be rejected. Failure through lack of take-up is the biggest worry I think and would be a real shame, because I'd love to be able to post "Give it to my mom d-d-d-d-d-d-doggy style" as my status without having to worry about extended family or co-workers worrying if I'm a fucking psycho because they are not in my generation or up with my internet sensibilities. ;)
I would love nothing more for it to succeed, but we know Google has failed pretty spectacularly in this space in the past (Wave/Buzz anyone).
What do you think?
dexterward on 10/7/2011 at 12:36
I`m with the hermits on "social networking", but I think it`s for the best Google hasn`t got monopoly on everything in the world of information (they do on "almost everything" though).
demagogue on 10/7/2011 at 14:05
I thought Wave was on to something too, at the very least for collaborative work.
Anyway, as for FB, I've resigned myself mostly to self-censorship. I'll post interesting stuff from legal projects I'm working or like some article I read -- stuff that's general interest and the comments are probably going to be good and "uplifting" for everyone whichever way it goes. Then I'll save the zings for comments on other people's pages who don't care, and if I have something really bad I actually got a troll account -- had to make it for the panda fetus "Aristocrats" story I posted here a few days ago, which was both so inspired it's hard to not post it but absolutely impossible to post under my own name (I PM'd the guy I was zinging with it first, and it was actually his idea because he was so into it being on his page with plausible deniability; then he only wanted to make sure people didn't think the troll account was *him* posting to himself).
But then once you have a troll account, I found it's easy for me to just drop in on people's pages with it and zing and post dumb shit for the updates just because I can... Sort of a pressure release so it doesn't touch my main account.
Edit: Haven't looked at this Google thing yet so I don't have an opinion yet. How exactly does it segregate social worlds?
Surreal Imposter on 10/7/2011 at 15:00
I think the answer in all cases, with the exception of private messaging, is you must censure yourself. People tend to forget these social sites, whether they be a "social network" such as facebook, or a forum such as this, are all public. Anything you say can and will be read by someone who was not the intended recipient of the message, including search engines which will catalog and store your every typed thought. If you aren't concerned with making a jackass of yourself in public while friends and family watch, then you don't need to worry about what you type online. Otherwise, self-censorship is the only option.
To solve the family vs friends issue, I know people who run multiple accounts to keep the posts and friends lists separate. The drawback being the alternate accounts are usually discovered by an unintended party (i.e. mom found your friends only account) and must be deleted and restarted under yet another name. Not really a good solution. CNET had an article on this the other day where the author proposed the formation of groups or classifications under which you could sort your friends to control who could see what post. Of course, this would only work up to a point and would require diligent management of your friends and your posts. Again, at some point someone outside the intended group will read or gain access to posts they shouldn't.
So, in the end, I think censorship is the only option. You save the free speech, say what I want stuff for when you are in the local bar drinking with your buddies. Anything you say there will be forgotten by morning anyway.
SubJeff on 10/7/2011 at 21:28
On facebook I definitely take care what I post to general. I like the idea of the Google+ circles because it'll hopefully let me filter who I post what to.
I'm not sure what the takeup is going to be like though. The interface is certainly very clean and the phone app is pretty nice. We'll see.
Fafhrd on 11/7/2011 at 00:47
The take-up is going to increase significantly now that they've (apparently) opened invites up again.
From what I've heard and read, Google's corrected the mistakes that they made with Buzz (which really only had the one mistake), and Hangouts are really cool (although laggy). Huddle in the mobile app seems neat, too, but needs to be integrated with the web.
SubJeff on 11/7/2011 at 01:23
What do you mean "needs to be integrated with the web"? I thought it was essentially Group Google Chat/Talk and that integrates with the web chat client. If they missed that out that's a major mess up.
Fafhrd on 11/7/2011 at 02:54
As far as I can tell, Huddle is basically mobile IRC, but there's no connection to it in the site. So if I were to start a Huddle with my TTLG circle, people in my circle who don't have the Android or iPhone app won't be able to participate by just logging in to their Google+ profile.
I think the idea is that Huddle is more for organizing in-person meetups (i.e. Person 1: 'Let's go to this bar' Person 2: 'It'll take me an hour to get there' Person 3: 'That place sucks anyway, let's go this other place.'), then it is for just group chat.
SubJeff on 11/7/2011 at 06:06
Google Talk is just mobile irc so it is the same thing, almost. How disappointing.
gunsmoke on 11/7/2011 at 13:50
Multiple accounts? Self-censoring? You're working too hard. You can block your wall, images, quotes, anything at all from anyone you want (or entire groups like Family as I do).
