I Want To Like Google+ But They Need To Open Up More
4 min read
Google+ is a great social networking site and it has serious potential and the situation is prime for Google to make a run at Facebook. I want Google+ to work, I really do. Their approach to social networking is simple and focused on the socialization and less on the junk games and other distractions. With Facebook continuing to change their “Terms and Conditions” at their whim and alter the webpage design whenever they feel like it, more and more users are using it less and less. Myself included.
The latest revelation from Facebook is they are looking to limit the reach of some social abilities, like pages, to not be able to reach everyone. Right there would be enough for any advertiser, promoter of a product or creator of content to start looking for something else. Google+ is it. However, Google has a little farther to go with Google+ to knock it out of the park.
For whatever reason Google has been very slow or reluctant to open up Google+ to external posting. What I mean is sharing into Google+ from other social networks and services. If you start your post in Google+ you can share it out quite easily but the reverse is difficult and limiting. I have done extensive research to figure out the reason and the primary response if Google does not have this wide open to cut down spam. Their approach is successful, spam posts in Google+ is almost non-existent, at least in the communities and people I follow thus far. Yet, it’s just not enough to get me to centralize my social network content sharing into Google+.
People today use social networks for 3 very simple reasons; 1) They want exposure as an expert on a topic, 2) They are treating it as a journal for personal hobby or experience, 3) They are promoting a business or trying to make money. Binary Blogger falls into category 1. In order for me to get known as an expert or as an entertaining source of information I need to get exposed to everywhere. Whether or not I have a one stop shop for posts I need to get the links of my posts to many social networking site. Why? Because user’s don’t use the same social network and are in the same social circles. Here’s how I use the social networks of today and why Google+ is having a hard time fitting into my equations.
All of my written content I put here on this blog, binaryblogger.com and I use various services to post links on several websites for an entry that bring users back here. IFTTT is by far my favorite and most robust content sharing service. Through IFTTT can create recipes with different rules around tags, sites, conditions and depending on those I can share to different sites for different types of content. For example, I share links to my LinkedIn profile but I don’t share everything on my feed there because that is my ‘professional network’. Even though anyone can come and read my blog, I don’t necessarily want a post about recipes or book review on my professional feeds that VPs and CIOs read. So I keep those posts limited to professional topics relevant to that social network. And so on and so forth.
Google+, up until now, I had to manually go into my post and force share it to my Google+ page on my personal account. Getting my posts shared on my Google+ page for Binary Blogger was all manual as well. This has been the slowdown for my full adoption into using it daily. I like to share from where ever I am whether it’s a website, Pocket, IFTTT, Twitter, and most importantly my blog. Open the API to allow developers to share to Google+ like every other social site. Put a strict control around it to limit spam, but focus on the users rather than crap apps that would abuse it.
Facebook sucks now. Period. It’s the place where you stay up to date with technologically slow older family members and people you knew 15 years ago and pretend that you are still friends and chat about how you and they should get together soon… but never do. Google+ is the opposite of that, over there it’s true content and no fluff. Google is so close they just need to step over the pile in the yard and do it.
End of Line.
Binary Blogger has spent 20 years in the Information Security space currently providing security solutions and evangelism to clients. From early web application programming, system administration, senior management to enterprise consulting I provide practical security analysis and solutions to help companies and individuals figure out HOW to be secure every day.
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