Comment by smhg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by smhg | Hacker News Reader

This might sound very weird in this day and age, but in my professional life (web developer), Twitter and G+ compete content-wise. And G+ wins easily.

Disclaimer: I'm a very light Twitter user. I'm almost surely missing out on features I never bothered to discover.

The main advantage G+ has in my eyes is its signal to noise ratio. It seems far better than Twitter's. Again, specifically in my professional world, quite a lot of relevant people post on G+. I guess they either don't post personal stuff or efficiently use Circles. Many, but definitely not all, are of course close to Google.

Some other advantages for me: the fact that you can read the whole story (not just sentence-per-sentence) and the -theoretical- ability to drag in non-professional relationships (yes, I like Circles).

I realize no one takes G+ serious anymore and that it's a graveyard for most. But it seems to work well for some (professionally). In a way it can make Twitter lose (one of) its edge(s): follow tech-people.

This isn't meant as a G+ promotion. I just wanted to make clear why Twitter might not be a good fit for some.

There's a single thing G+ can offer that Twitter doesn't: Long posts.

The rest? Bullshit. G+ is a closed and broken platform, built by an advertisement company. It made lots of questionable decisions in the past (this very same person has a blocked G+ account - for real name policy violations - that, combined with the amazing Google customer support means that I will never ever be able to rate an app for my Android phone). There is _nothing_ good about G+.

Twitter sucks in various ways. But G+ is not better. Not at all. Unless we're really just talking 'character counts'. In all other ways? Worse, so. much. worse.

> G+ is a closed and broken platform, built by an advertisement company.

So just like Twitter then?

That's a good point. I admit defeat.

The single retort I can come up with is that I'd still prefer to feed anything _but_ Google with data, but really.. You're right. No difference.

Long posts, the ability to embed media, and the simple, granular way to group contacts (friends, family, random people I'm "following" a-la Twitter, integrated live text/voice/video chat, etc.) are all things I prefer about it.

There are definitely negatives but so far the largest one I've found is that it was positioned as an alternative to both Facebook and Twitter but since none of those platforms are built on any open protocol (nor is G+ for that matter), it requires creating and maintaining yet another profile and platform for users. For the vast majority, that's just too much friction and it would require more than a nicer interface and a few features to see any large-scale adoption.

Whereas some people I know have twitter and very few use it regularly, I have never even met someone who has a G+ and very few people I know would even recognize it as a social network over a simple rebranding of their gmail account.

G+ is what you have to use for YouTube insults and to rate the applications on your Android phone, ignoring that they might be free, cost a couple bucks or be > 10 $currency.

If you want to give feedback, join the 'social network'.

(That's especially fun if applications, even 'paid' applications, try to 'encourage' you to rate in the Play Store. "Look, Yatse. I love what you are doing. But I CANNOT rate you. Firefox? You guys are my heroes. But I CANNOT rate you.".)

G+ is not a failed social network, it's no network and certainly not social. It's a constant slap in the face.

So...it's your Google profile that they use across their services. That's like saying you can't rate an iOS app because it requires an iTunes account. The social stuff can be used or ignored as you see fit.

I cannot talk about anything iOS, I wouldn't know how that works and don't know what an iTunes account is.

But here's the thing: I have a Google account. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to put down cash in the damn Play Store¹. Just recently I bought a couple of $10 apps. They take my money. They know who I am. I cannot rate any application.

Because my 'Google Account' isn't good enough for that, I need that 'social stuff'. Which I cannot, because my G+ account (I gave it a try, didn't like it all that much and got nymbanned²) is ~dead~.

That's actually like Amazon requiring an account to order things (fine, 'normal'), but you have to connect Facebook to post a review. In one word: Insane. Or broken.

①: Now that is a moronic name and never gets better.

②: I used to change my name from my ~real name~ to 'Ben .'. Account locked out and lots of things are broken. Of course, a while later they changed their minds and now ~real names~ are optional and if you don't want to give a last name they suggest that you use .. '.'. I wish I was making this up.

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