Google+ and YouTube tech disaster report
holovaty.com
holovaty.com
Many companies pay for the corporate Google Apps service which provides email, calendar, chat, etc. The argument of "you're no longer the customer, you're the product" doesn't apply here, since ... well, you're paying for it. And yet, Google has insisted on integrating Google+ here as well. You can't even fire up your corporate chat which your company pays for without being harassed to create a Google+ account and create some "circles".
Not that long ago, I recommended to anyone who would listen that any small-to-medium sized business should use Google Apps for their email & calendar needs. It was a great service that met all the basic needs without getting the way. Today, I no longer make that recommendation. Instead I tell people to stay as far away from Google as possible, as they clearly cannot be trusted even when supposedly being paid for a premium service. This whole deal is going to be the downfall of Google.
I have books in print that have active communities around them. A generic company page could actually detract from social media discovery for my important pages. This is not a feature.
Maybe Google is "accidentally" breaking them on purpose?
Tangential: http://comments.thatsaspicymeatball.com/
I already downloaded all my youtube vids from my channel because I assume that one day I screw up and they'll be connected or Google will just force the connection; thus my real name will become discover-able from my youtube channel. If that happens, I'm reuploading to some other video site and closing the youtube channel.
And I can only hope that when I do this closing, I don't screw up and lose my gmail in the process... because that would truly anger me.
Keep in mind that all of these social network companies have a massive weakness: that people might figure out something else to do with their time, that they might choose to, "do without," as well.
I think there were ways google could have made youtube comments better without linking them to google plus.
Sure, I won't be able to comment anymore, but I'll survive that.