Google+ To Fix Facebook's Failures?
Facebook changed the way people can communicate, but the user interface is terrible and deserves to go down.
Some of the things I hate about Facebook:
•Organizing friends into groups who would receive a specific post tailored to them is difficult if not impossible. I sure-as-heck can't figure out how to do so.
•Getting Tagged in someone else's photo immediately posts that image to your home page without your permission and puts immediate pressure on you to drop everything and to remove the tag, especially if the photo is horrendous.
•Self promotion and corporate marketing have taken over and sucked the fun out of everything.
•A 'personal' post on someone's wall goes completely public. I've read countless posts that were clearly meant as private, and Facebook sees fit to launch all wall posts into the news feed.
•If privacy is desired, the message feature can be used, but it is redundant. It sends the recipient an email saying that I've sent them a message. How stupid is that? It's all about Facebook elbowing into the email business.
•What constitutes "Top News" on Facebook, anyway?
From what I've seen from Google+ so far, the user interface is top priority. Most appealing to me is the circles feature for organizing friends, and easily pinpointing exactly who gets what post. It would be great to be able to launch a spontaneous post without worrying who's gonna get offended.
It's inexcusable that Facebook has never improved its UX. Maybe it'll go the way of the printed Yellow Pages and become a huge phone book in the cloud, with millions and millions of 'users', but irrelevant — because once you're in you can't get out. But the 'numbers' will continue to be there as far as media and advertising and corporate culture is concerned.
*****
UPDATE: On Thursday Facebook instituted changes such as being able to specify who you can 'Hide' uploads from. Great news, but why has something so fundamental taken so long to institute? That said, the controls are buried under the padlock menu and clunky to navigate. You have to sift through your friends list and manually select who gets edited away—a very time-consuming process when trying to upload a status update on the fly. But questions remain: since every activity is reported on your wall, wouldn't someone you shielded from a certain upload be able to see it on your wall later, anyway?
The New York Times reported on Wednesday Facebook also changed the protocol when you are Tagged in a photo. You will now be able to approve a photo before appears on your personal wall. Imagine that. The Times reports, "Facebook dismissed the notion that the changes were fueled by competition."
Yeah, right.
I've been using google+ for a couple months now and so far I prefer it to facebook. I particularly like the way contacts are managed via the circles. The tricky part is getting more people active on it. I've got a few people in my circles that are particularly active, but not nearly as many as I have on facebook.
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We've still yet to crossover onto the Google+, but agree that Facebook is getting irritating.
Pinterest also looks like it could be an interesting site, for all those mobile devices.
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I personally like the user friendly interface of Google + but the problem is that all my friends are get addicted to Facebook and they are not ready to migrate at G+, may be in near future I collect all my friends at Google Plus too.
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