Google Plus is again in Beta with some dramatic changes. I haven’t openly commented three weeks ago, when they launched this version because it’s an experiment. Google Plus architects claim it’s based on people feedback. The thing is that people who gave feedback usually know how to complain for every constructive change trying to dump it asap, and when idiotic changes like this new UI interface appear, they “love it”. It is incredible!
Google Plus has never consulted the masses when it changed something, it pretends to be the ultimate technical tool for sharing content, and the greatest social network ever created on Earth. They have unsuccessfully tried to match Facebook from day one, and when they couldn’t really match it, they copied features and made the site at least to look like Facebook. They haven’t adverts on the sidebar, but they tried to make you to endorse adverts with your Google Profile. They unified all Google services under the same G+ umbrella, with a sort of common API, and now they crashed it again, literally. You have to click more to find less! It was not enough, it is never enough. If the new UI which is now in Beta stays, Circle management will be out, hover cards will be out, bio will be out. What will matter will be your collections, their content will be seen by your followers and collections’ followers, which is a dumb move. If your collections are featured, almost every newcomer will follow them because he can’t figure out what exactly is a collection, nor if it’s good or not. Anyway, the most important thing that’s out, is YOU. In, is only your content. You don’t matter anymore, and to make things more confusing, the relationship symbols under your avatar disappeared. You won’t know if a certain person is following you back or not, because what matters is just your content.
Creating great products that solve real needs and make life easier for people is something Google is always striving for. Your feedback got us this far—as we continue to refine Google+, we’d love to keep hearing from you. In the meantime, we look forward to seeing how today’s changes help kickstart even more conversations around everything from Zombie Cats to Vintage Calculators.
Posted by Eddie Kessler, Director of Streams
Above is the end of the official announcement about the change, published on the Official Google Blog they have on Blogger. I consider it another proof of disrespect for us, the users.
I couldn’t find my “Story” on the “About” section, which is now moved on a subdomain. I found there only my other links. So, nothing “about me”, the bio, the stuff which is like a card with what you are as a person on the internet or whatever. A lot of their hundreds of millions of users did not bother to complete something like this in the first place. A lot of Google Plus users want to keep their anonymity on the great site, because they still don’t know what to do with it. These last changes which put the accent on content (great part of it unscrupulously just copied from the original creators) and eventually on sterile “discussions” are going to confuse any newcomer and even the older members. A lot of them just click the “plus one” button for the preview they see on the post, rarely read the post, and most of the time they even don’t figure that the post is actually a link sending him/her to the website who published it.
If the Google Plus masters will decide to eventually leave it out, here’s what is stated on my Bio:
Story
Tagline
Let Me Make Your Website!
Introduction
More than a ship engineer with background in sea transportation, real estate, yacht brokerage, even industrial ocean fishing, and construction, mostly property development.
Movie lover and critic. Avid reader, traveled a lot. Scorpio, INTJ…
INTJ Poster
[source]
Never stopped learning.
I want to help you, with a very competitive and good looking blog! Please check Own Your Website! – A Way to a Better Blog! and contact me there.You won’t regret! The connected page, is +Maximum Performance, an appropriate name for what you will have when you decide to work with me.
I have two blogs of my own, Rodolfo Grimaldi Blog and The Yacht Owner with their correspondent Pages: Rodolfo Grimaldi Blog G+ Page and The Yacht Owner G+Page respectively. I sometimes blog in Romanian, my native language, at Ipoteze despre concluzii.
I have been invited to moderate the following Communities:
Romania, G+ Pages Directory, and another two based on circle sharing.
I used to share my own circles with #danielmihaipopescusharedcircles and #maximumperformance
I have also used to share my friends’ circles with great pleasure, but ceased to do that after a few months, for aesthetic reasons, and lack of time. They will understand 🙂
[Important Update – September 2015]
No more circle sharing on Google Plus, which is bad, especially for newcomers. Some people who never understood the beauty of quality circle sharing, invented the term “circle sharing jerks”, which I found very offensive. A lot of them owed their new acquired popularity and great number of followers to quality circle sharing. When some of them became “verified accounts” and were put on SUL (Suggested Users List), the order doesn’t really matter, they begun to advocate against circle sharing. They wanted to make a difference between them and the rest. Anyway, their feedback was listened to, and G+ architects eliminated the function.
I stand for the idea that for expressing yourself you need a site of your own. Google Plus is a great community, but if you want to remain somehow unforgettable, you need the support offered by your self owned site. On your website you can publish your own content, it will have your own design and nobody will cease to show it or to change the interface, or the way somebody will interact with it, except yourself. Your relevant content won’t be visible for just a part of your friends, but for everybody who will look at it, or seek it. After you secure your content on your own website, you can fearlessly start to share it on Social Media 😄
I’m not new in Social Media, I value every connection I make and most of the time I can see the difference between genuine and fake without a specialized tool. I’d like to connect with you on all my other Social Media sites I treasure, on Twitter or Pinterest, even Facebook when I’ll make my mind to put up an account there. I like you to visit my blogs and comment there, too.
[Important Update – November 2015]
G+ architects changed completely the User Interface, eliminating almost all the “social” elements of this (once) great Social Network. It’s in Beta now, so maybe that’s not all quite lost, but the changes are so radical that I’m afraid they will eventually become definitive. Guess who love the new UI and praise it in posts and comments? The same “advocates” against circle sharing, guys who really don’t get it, and I’m lost of words…
My life is rich because I’m sharing it with +Adriana Popovici, my love, my partner, my soul mate, the air I’m breathing, my wonderful best friend, my everything.
Bragging rights
Seeking the hidden nature of things!
If you want to still make sense of your G+ account, keep it “classic”, don’t take the bait to change it to the new “look”.
That was all for now. Instead of bitching about G+, I’ll better start creating some really useful content which I’m gonna spread on Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook.
If you liked what you read (and for that I humbly thank you for your patience), subscribe to this blog by Email! Follow this blog on Twitter, and on Facebook! For a joyous day, check out my pins on Pinterest or my grams on Instagram 😄. I hope you like this blog so much that you think it’s time to take a step further by becoming yourself a blogger; in order to do that have the kindness to read the Own Your Website offer I have prepared for you! You won’t regret. Thanks for passing by 😄 Speak your mind, don’t be shy!
Everything you say about Google Plus is spot on, Daniel Mihai Popescu! As Shakespeare says, “Tell truth and shame the devil!”
Thank you very much, Gary. I am upset because I really loved Google Plus.