Google+ Invite Thread

dav7db@gmail.com

I'd be down for an invite.

all I'm seeing in this thread that is an improvement is 8bit's post and I literally have no clue what he said.

---------- Post added at 11:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:19 PM ----------

with facebook I am connected to just about all my real life friends (except the fags who refuse to get a facebook), and I have some of my closer friends from ZU on there. I have many musicians and other pages (such as NORML and LGBTQ Nation) that I have liked, so I receive updates on all of them via my news stream. How does google plus improve this?

TUS: for the time being at least yes.



I'm actually really interested how Google will incorporate things like Public Figures, Artists and other well known users of social networking into Google+.

Myspace has had the best interface for musicians to have a personalised, easy to navigate platform to network with their fans. One can modify their page, make it unique to them, and display media on the page very easily. But it fails at actually fails at passing things onto the user, unless that user is contastly checking the page for updates.


Facebook is the inverse. Everything is the same, no way to stand out, and media is often hidden behind tabs, photos, videos and music are all separated and not easily accessible. I really think that Facebook is neglecting this part of their service, as musicians, film makers, businesses and public figures use Facebook to a great extent. but on the other hand, a status update is instantly passed on to all of your fans, and thus it's like of like an RSS feed. That is Facebook's biggest strength. But in many ways it still sucks compared to Myspace.

Compare the two:
THE ROSE LINE | Free Music, Tour Dates, Photos, Videos

The Rose Line | Facebook



Maybe Google+ has something up it's sleeve? I have yet to see.

I use Google+!

Honestly, I'm a Google fan... I have a Droid, Google is my go to search engine and I use google chrome, so I'm pretty sure I'm bound to like Google+ more than FB in the long run.

Right now it's kind of empty, but I primarily use it for vidchatting in groups.

I like the organization of contacts though - that's one thing it has over FB atm.

I can't wait to see what else google has in store... I'm sure they won't disappoint.

But back to the question at hand, more people are using FB atm, so if you really wanna be in contact with your friends, get a FB for now and switch over later. It couldn't hurt to start an account now though and just have it there for future use.

I can also send out invites if anyone wants one, just PM me your email address.

On sparks: I found them to be limited... Rather than having individual sparks clutter up the tray on the left, why not just combine all of my sparks in the same way that they combine all of the updates from circles, and then decide which sparks are more important to me based upon how often I +1, and give me the ability to remove content and then have the sparks system figure out what I want to see in the future. For example, in my "Transhumanism" spark, I don't want to see ridiculous videos of preachers giving sermons to old people about evolution and the 'new world order'.

On circles: It'd be nice if I could remove a circle from my main stream. You know how circles are all themed green now? If you remove a circle from your main steam it should turn blue.

Originally Posted by Gamzee

so it's facebook except no one is on it?

CIRCLES

And just generally a less cluttered and more functional interface. Other than that, yes.

---------- Post added at 01:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:36 AM ----------

Originally Posted by AzraelBlack

TUS: for the time being at least yes.



I'm actually really interested how Google will incorporate things like Public Figures, Artists and other well known users of social networking into Google+.

Myspace has had the best interface for musicians to have a personalised, easy to navigate platform to network with their fans. One can modify their page, make it unique to them, and display media on the page very easily. But it fails at actually fails at passing things onto the user, unless that user is contastly checking the page for updates.


Facebook is the inverse. Everything is the same, no way to stand out, and media is often hidden behind tabs, photos, videos and music are all separated and not easily accessible. I really think that Facebook is neglecting this part of their service, as musicians, film makers, businesses and public figures use Facebook to a great extent. but on the other hand, a status update is instantly passed on to all of your fans, and thus it's like of like an RSS feed. That is Facebook's biggest strength. But in many ways it still sucks compared to Myspace.

Compare the two:
THE ROSE LINE | Free Music, Tour Dates, Photos, Videos

The Rose Line | Facebook



Maybe Google+ has something up it's sleeve? I have yet to see.

Google+ seems even more restricted in that regard than Facebook.

However, Facebook (today) and Google+ both hold a fundamentally different philosophy than MySpace. MySpace focused on bringing individual users to individual user controlled pages. Facebook and Google+ focus on bringing content from other users to individual users. What that means is that a Facebook or G+ user will rarely ever actually visit your, so it doesn't really matter how it looks.

What FB and G+ need, then, is to give users control over their updates. I don't really know how much control either give you, but I know that both allow you to embed youtube videos, which is a start. Support for SoundCloud and other music/video sharing sites would be nice as well.

What would be even better would be the ability to embed AJAX/Flash directly into updates, but that opens up a whole other can of problems.

Originally Posted by 8bit

On sparks: I found them to be limited... Rather than having individual sparks clutter up the tray on the left, why not just combine all of my sparks in the same way that they combine all of the updates from circles, and then decide which sparks are more important to me based upon how often I +1, and give me the ability to remove content and then have the sparks system figure out what I want to see in the future. For example, in my "Transhumanism" spark, I don't want to see ridiculous videos of preachers giving sermons to old people about evolution and the 'new world order'.

On circles: It'd be nice if I could remove a circle from my main stream. You know how circles are all themed green now? If you remove a circle from your main steam it should turn blue.



CIRCLES

And just generally a less cluttered and more functional interface. Other than that, yes.

At minimum Sparks should have an expand/collapse option. I think that the search results in the individual sparks interests will improve as more people use the +1 button to bump relevant results.

Originally Posted by AzraelBlack

TUS: for the time being at least yes.



I'm actually really interested how Google will incorporate things like Public Figures, Artists and other well known users of social networking into Google+.

Myspace has had the best interface for musicians to have a personalised, easy to navigate platform to network with their fans. One can modify their page, make it unique to them, and display media on the page very easily. But it fails at actually fails at passing things onto the user, unless that user is contastly checking the page for updates.


Facebook is the inverse. Everything is the same, no way to stand out, and media is often hidden behind tabs, photos, videos and music are all separated and not easily accessible. I really think that Facebook is neglecting this part of their service, as musicians, film makers, businesses and public figures use Facebook to a great extent. but on the other hand, a status update is instantly passed on to all of your fans, and thus it's like of like an RSS feed. That is Facebook's biggest strength. But in many ways it still sucks compared to Myspace.

What would be the purpose of "standing out" on facebook? Facebook is more or less a utility to communicate and share with people you already know. Lately they have added pages that allow musicians/brands/movies/whatever to put out status updates, pictures, videos, tour date schedules, etc. Fans can communicate via discussion boards and the page wall. Myspace is gross. Allowing everyone to customize every individual piece of their page seems gimmicky to me. Myspace has nothing on facebook.

So when does Google+ go public then? Or is it already?

Originally Posted by Optimus Prime

So when does Google+ go public then? Or is it already?

July 31st from what I have read.

Hmm... I'm an avid Facebook disliker, so I'm looking forward to getting started with Google+, though I'm lacking an invite...

So I'll just... leave this here: segfault.ZU at gmail.com
(And just so people know, it's better not to paste your email address in public places with the proper formatting, ie. name@email.com. Spambots like to crawl through websites looking for email addresses...)

Originally Posted by 8bit

However, Facebook (today) and Google+ both hold a fundamentally different philosophy than MySpace. MySpace focused on bringing individual users to individual user controlled pages. Facebook and Google+ focus on bringing content from other users to individual users. What that means is that a Facebook or G+ user will rarely ever actually visit your, so it doesn't really matter how it looks.

Well a quick view at the statistics of my band's page shows that we have 12 000 views this month on our status updates and the page has been visited by 2000 users this month, out of a total of 6400 fans to the page.

It is still receiving alot of traffic to the page, this is mainly from our video clips and music. I don't think that really counts as users "rarely ever" visiting our page.

Originally Posted by Armillary

What would be the purpose of "standing out" on facebook? Facebook is more or less a utility to communicate and share with people you already know. Lately they have added pages that allow musicians/brands/movies/whatever to put out status updates, pictures, videos, tour date schedules, etc. Fans can communicate via discussion boards and the page wall. Myspace is gross. Allowing everyone to customize every individual piece of their page seems gimmicky to me. Myspace has nothing on facebook.

Well from an artists point of view it is pretty beneficial to have an identity. Bands often have a distinct stylistic look with their associated artwork and media. Hosting your own website is costly, alot of work, and will have less hits than having a page on a social networking platform. Therefore, prior to Fagbook, MySpace was a band's online identity. It was what you referred fans to, it is where you hosted you music for streaming, all because:

1. It is customisable, a band can have a unique layout as well as use the medium as a piece of media in and of its self for users to interact with.
2. Many, many people were using it.

These are both pretty useful features for bands.

Facebook is a far better medium for bands to share content with users. The news stream is an excellent idea, and I agree overall Facebook is a far better social networking platform for individual users. However as an artist the pages are really rather clunky. Having to sort through tabs to find media is not helpful. On a MySpace, the music player was visible all on the front page, as well as tour dates, and embedded videos. On Facebook one has to sort through the band's Wall, Info page, Video page and Band Page (for music).

Like I said previously, band's have an identity, and when it comes to the Internet, it is too expensive for most to have their own website. With MySpace dead, Facebook is now their webpage. It is their online identity now, the place that they refer their fans to, and as such it is very helpful for them to be able to customise the features of the page, in a more varied way that is currently available. Enough to stand out enough from each other.

I'm not saying that MySpace is better, but Facebook certainly is missing alot of features and indeed just general thought when it comes to public figures, musicians, film studios and artists to share via their platform.




As 8bit noted, it G+ is even more restrictive at this current state and this aspect isn't too large on Facebook's radar it seems, but MySpaces used to be crucial to a band, and still is, if Facebook could come up with a better way for bands to use the medium, well, it would only be for the better of their service.

I registered for it. Can't wait to try it out. ^_^

Originally Posted by AzraelBlack

Facebook is a far better medium for bands to share content with users. The news stream is an excellent idea, and I agree overall Facebook is a far better social networking platform for individual users. However as an artist the pages are really rather clunky. Having to sort through tabs to find media is not helpful. On a MySpace, the music player was visible all on the front page, as well as tour dates, and embedded videos. On Facebook one has to sort through the band's Wall, Info page, Video page and Band Page (for music).

Like I said previously, band's have an identity, and when it comes to the Internet, it is too expensive for most to have their own website. With MySpace dead, Facebook is now their webpage. It is their online identity now, the place that they refer their fans to, and as such it is very helpful for them to be able to customise the features of the page, in a more varied way that is currently available. Enough to stand out enough from each other.

I'm not saying that MySpace is better, but Facebook certainly is missing alot of features and indeed just general thought when it comes to public figures, musicians, film studios and artists to share via their platform.

I am aware of the "history" of Myspace. It just really never appealed to me. I enjoy the clean layout of the facebook pages. The tabs keep everything organized.

Facebook is not really organized to promote people to discover new music to listen to, products to buy, or movies to watch. It is more a utility to share the music you listen to, the products you buy, and the movies you watch with your immediate social network.

I honestly don't think facebook is interested in becoming a platform for indie bands/movies/people to promote themselves. There are plenty of alternate places for you to "refer your fans to."

I don't particularly care if it appealed to you, I am rebutting the argument that MySpace has nothing on Facebook and clarifying why there is a need to have an identity for artists on the platform.

Also I disagree with your second paragraph. It depends on how you use Facebook. I do not use it to share anything other than perhaps pictures. I do not share information, I rarely make updates and certainly do not share media on my personal account. I use it more like an RSS feed for my friends and media that I am interested in. I receive news on artists I like through the medium, directly from them. That's just how I use it, and I doubt I am unique in this respect.

I do however use my band's page to share information, tour dates, music and videos.

In that sense I don't think it makes much business sense for Facebook to neglect such an audience, when there are many, many using the site for just such a purpose.

And whilst I do enjoy the clean and uncluttered layout of Facebook, where in nearly every instance it is superior to MySpace's convoluted cluster♥♥♥♥, I personally (and many others) would like to see it in a different form to what it is now.

@AzrealBlack
Could you send me an invite please? My cousin might not be able to.
shahryar1999 @ hotmail.com
Just remove the spaces.

...you were polite.
So, there you go (:

hey ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, send me a mother♥♥♥♥ing invite.

and you can find out my email for your ♥♥♥♥ing self.

Nah, get ♥♥♥♥ed.

Originally Posted by AzraelBlack

...you were polite.
So, there you go (:

Thank you!
Now I just need to get used to it and I can start sending invites.

Do you want to help me make this a invite thread? If not then its okay.

In the end, I was never too fond of Facebook. It would be nice for a change to try out Google+, having said that, if anyone wants to invite me here's my email: brettbarker@hotmail.ca

Originally Posted by Optimus Prime

In the end, I was never too fond of Facebook. It would be nice for a change to try out Google+, having said that, if anyone wants to invite me here's my email: brettbarker@hotmail.ca

You have now been invited.