I have a love-hate relationship with Google+. Because I love it and use it so much, I really hate its current limitations.

1. Monday, 01 August 2011 02:21
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10 things I hate Google+ by batteryfast.
com
10 things I hate Google+ by batteryfast. Despite having well over 20 million users, Google+
com is theoretically still a «closed» invitation-only beta
service. That means Google is still fixing many of
I have a love-hate relationship with Google+. Be- its flaws and limitations.
cause I love it and use it so much, I really hate its
current limitations. Here are the top 10 things I hate about Google+, and
what I do about them.
1. The ‘re-animated squid’ problem
Google+ supports animated GIFs and nice, big pic-
tures. As a result, a sizable minority of posts have
them. You see a funny picture in your stream,
chuckle and move on. Then you see the same pic-
ture again, and shrug. Then you see it again. And
again, as more and more people discover it and
reshare it. It becomes annoying.
The worst of these is an animated GIF showing a Ja-
panese squid dish. Apparently, when you put soy
sauce on a dead squid, it appears to come alive like
some kind of zombie seafood platter from hell. The
GIF demonstrates the phenomenon hideously. I’ve
seen it appear in my stream at least a hundred times.
Eventually, I believe Google will add search filters
in Google+ like the ones in Gmail. But for now, the
As I’ve mentioned in this space before, I’m on what best solution is to limit the number of people you
I call the «Google+ Diet.» I’ve stopped posting to my circle (follow).
personal blog, I’ve withdrawn from Facebook
and Twitter, and I’ve even tried to use Google+ ins- There’s so much great content on Google+ that users
tead of e-mail. I’m all Plus, all the time. are tempted to circle everyone they can until reachi-
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ng the limit of 5,000 people. But if you circle too
Until Google works out the kinks in its new social many people, you’re going to get a lot of dead squids.
networking service, there are tricks and worka-
rounds for most of the problems you might encoun- Of course, you can also just follow narrower circles
Printed with
ter in Google+. (such as only «Friends» or «Family» or «People Who
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2. Monday, 01 August 2011
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10 things I hate Google+ by batteryfast.com
Don’t Post Squid GIF»). But when you do that, you If all else fails, play hardball: Post things your family
miss out on direct posts (items directed only to you), and friends really want to see, and don’t make them
some Hangout (group video chat) invitations and public. They’ll have to sign up for Google+ to see
posts from other interesting circles. It’s great to be them (make sure you invite everybody). It sounds
able to monitor your whole stream (made up of all coercive, but you’re doing them a favor.
circles).
3. The ‘I
The sweet spot for the number of people to circle
spent four
right now is between 100 and 1,000. By uncircling
the serial image posters, and seeking out users with years
moreoriginal content, you can constantly improve building
the quality of your stream. up Twitter
followers’
2. The ‘everybody’s still on Facebook’ problem problem
Everybody’s on Facebook because everybody’s on You might want
Facebook. When you move to Google+, you imme- t o abandon
diately realize two things. First, Google+ is far better Twitter, but
than Facebook. Second, your friends and family not your Twitter friends.
aren’t on Google+ yet.
The good news is that you can build followers more
Google+ will be way better when everyone you know easily on Google+ (while the number of people you
is fully participating in it. But how do you persuade can circle is capped at 5,000, the number of people
people to leave the Facebook cave and enter the who can circle you is unlimited). Sometime today
sunshine of Google+? or tomorrow, the number of people following me
on Google+ (after four weeks) will exceed the num-
It’s not easy, but it can be done. ber of people following me on Twitter (after four
years).
First, auto-post everything on Facebook that you
post on Google+, with a link back to the Google+ More good news: Google+ actually improves your
post (there are many ways to do this; just ask your engagement with Twitter followers. In other words,
Google+ circle buddies). Google+ is a better way to use Twitter. Just use a ser-
vice called ManageFlitter. It posts your Google+ posts
Second, refuse to use Facebook for commenting on Twitter with a link back to the original Google+
and interacting -- make ‘em come to Google+ for posts. That means you can have your cake and eat
the conversations. it too. You don’t have to use Twitter, and you don’t
have to abandon your Twitter friends.
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Third, convince people on Facebook to try Hangouts
either by showing it to them on your laptop, or by 4. The ‘mobile apps for Google+ suck’ problem
describing it to them. Google’s Hangouts group vi-
deo chat feature is so compelling that nobody can
Printed with
resist it. The mobile apps for Google+ are almost unusable.
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3. Monday, 01 August 2011
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10 things I hate Google+ by batteryfast.com
Right now, you can download apps for the iPhone and The quick-and-dirty workaround is to draft your
for Android phones, but not for the iPad or any comment in Notepad or some other text editor and
other smartphone. The Android app is a little better, then paste it in.
with fancy features like auto-uploading for pictures.
And both let you «check in,» post pictures from the 6. The ‘no way to hide people’ problem
phone and see the Google+ posts of people who are
physically near you -- it’s great for events.
Facebook lets you «Hide» people from your News
In general, however, the mobile apps frustrate. You Feed. You’re still friends. But you’re spared from
can’t reshare. You can’t do Hangouts. And you can’t both the drivel they post and the awkwardness of
easily address individuals, only circles. unfriending.
If you try to use Google+ on a mobile device without Google+ doesn’t have this. The only ways to muzzle
an app, you’re given a mobile version of the website, people are to uncircle or block them. You can «mute»
which has comparable limitations. individual posts, but not all future posts by a specific
person. The solution is to uncircle. They won’t know
There is no elegant solution. But if you want to about it unless they go out of their way to check.
reshare a post from a phone, you can scroll to the And if they’ve got you circled, they’ll get your posts.
bottom of the mobile site in your phone’s browser
and choose the desktop version of the site, then click 7. The #nohashtags problem
«share» on the post you want to share, address it
to the circles of your choice, then click the Share
button. But note that this method is very slow. Twitter has hashtags, which means you can add a
keyword to the post that enables people to search for
There’s no way I know of to do Hangouts on a mobile the topic later. For example, if you post something
device or address a single person. Sorry. about ugly dogs, you can add the hashtag #uglydogs,
giving other ugly dog fans a keyword to search to
see all the ugly dog posts.
Google+ has nothing like this. Because the hashtag
system needs the buy-in of everybody, there’s really
no easy workaround for this. However, it’s almost
certain that Google+ search will get real search RSN
(that’s «real soon now»). And when that happens,
hashtags are inevitable. So if you’re into hashtags,
5. The ‘moving comment box’ problem go ahead and add them at the bottom of your posts.
When search kicks in later, your posts will already
When you comment on a Google+ post, the comment have hashtags.
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box sits at the bottom of other people’s comments,
which show up in real time. If you’re drafting a
comment on a popular post, the comment box you’re
using jumps down as you’re typing, which is very
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annoying.
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4. Monday, 01 August 2011
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10 things I hate Google+ by batteryfast.com
8. The ‘how could Google launch a social The workaround is to create more circles! For
network without search?’ problem example, if you’d like to address your «Family»
and «Friends» circles at once, or monitor both of
Surprisingly, Google+ has lousy search. Sure, you those circles at once, then create a third circle called
can search for users, but you can’t search content. «Family and Friends» and add everyone from those
other circles into it.
The workaround is regular Google Search. By using
the «site:» search operator, you can limit regular 10. The ‘Google+ can’t do X’ problem
Google Search queries to items posted on the Google+
service. So if you wanted to search for, say, posts
about ugly dogs on Google+, you would type the There are many things other services can do that
following in the Google Search box: Google+ can’t do. I asked my Google+ friends «What’s
the one thing you like least about Google+?» And I
«ugly dogs» site:plus.google.com got at least 100 different problems that people would
like to see solved.
This is a sloppy workaround because it will also
search old Google Buzz posts. It’s also hard to discern For many of these, the solution is a browser plug-in.
posts in the search results. But until Google adds The upside is that there’s probably a plug-in that
real search to Google+, this is an option. addresses any given problem. The downside is that
they’re browser-specific.
The solution to random Google+ problems is to ask
your Google+ followers if they know of a plug-in
that solves it -- and specify your browser.
None of these «solutions» is really a solution to the 10
things I hate about Google+. They’re kludgy, stopgap
workarounds that will have to suffice until Google
fixes what’s broken.
Despite the 10 things I hate, I can think of a hundred
things I love about Google+. I still think it’s the best
9. The ‘inflexible circles’ problem
social service ever created, and I recommend that
everybody jump in.
Circles let you create categories of people you follow, Other Business News:
and post to, or read the posts of, people in those
categories. Or you can choose to read the feed of
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circles, or circles within circles. You can’t «merge»
circles.
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5. Monday, 01 August 2011
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10 things I hate Google+ by batteryfast.com
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