Player (120)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
Discuss! Personally I don't really like the whole "social netwhatever" in practice (though I was excited about Friendster -- I am old I guess) BUT I am a man who likes to see annoying companies fail so I am encouraging people to dump Facebook in favor of this probably just as evil alternative. At least google helps me keep my job :\
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
I didn't get an invite yet, but I think it's because Google Apps accounts (business Gmail/Calendar/etc under your own domain name) don't have the capability. Which is weird. Could be wrong though, in that case I'm just a really unpopular guy. To me, Facebook is just a giant party calendar. And a place for me to post pictures of what I've cooked. I doubt I would use Google+ any differently.
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I got on Livejournal back in college because it was what my friends are using. I skipped Facebook, at first because I didn't see the point and later because I became convinced that I deserved better. I'm on Google+ for now...and I don't think I've seen a post from anyone passing a paragraph or so so far. My Livejournal friends even today typically write moderately lengthy posts, but this is just "link to article, link to photos, random witty saying, link to other article, hey look I hung out with this guy." Is that normal these days? I mean, such a service has its place, but it's not really all that interesting to me.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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He/Him
Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
I'm looking forward to seeing Google+ being released to the public. But so far, it lacks three things Facebook has that I like. First of all, I like to have the full version of my avatar as the profile picture. So far, Google+ won't let me do that, restricting my picture to square. Second and third, it would be fun if Google+ had something like fan pages and groups. But I guess they will come up later. Other than that, it's pretty much Facebook, but with an easier way to manage friends.
Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248
Using Youtube means being signed on on Google and I guess the development could go into a direction where they outo-sign-on me onto Google+ as well. That would make me very pissed. Linking my profile, my browsing behaviour, everything together. Next step is for computers to automatically read my RFID implant to prevent the chance of identity theft (Cyber terrorists can steal all my money and ruin my life??? That would suck! I am really scared!) and I say welcome to our glorious future. :D
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Kuwaga wrote:
Using Youtube means being signed on on Google and I guess the development could go into a direction where they outo-sign-on me onto Google+ as well.
As far as I know you need to have a public Google profile in order to be part of Google+.
Banned User, Former player
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Kuwaga wrote:
Using Youtube means being signed on on Google and I guess the development could go into a direction where they outo-sign-on me onto Google+ as well. That would make me very pissed. Linking my profile, my browsing behaviour, everything together.
Yeah, you are such an important person that they are really interested in your browsing habits. From the hundreds of millions of people using google every day, you are the one they'll single out as the interesting one. Must keep your browsing habits secret at all costs. "Google cares (about you)." Would be a great slogan.
Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248
I'm willing to spend money on certain things, so I guess that makes me indeed important enough for somebody to keep track of my browsing habits. ^^ Your argument doesn't make a lot of sense to me, as keeping track of everybody's browsing habits will cost less and less, so eventually there'd be very little effort to it. If I was an employer I'd be very interested in the browsing habits of my applicants, if it isn't too expensive for me to get that information. Would make for a nice automatic preselection process. :) I'm just saying Google+ is another very tiny step into the direction I've hinted at. @Zeupar below: There might not always be. I don't think it's very likely that we will keep even the tiniest grain of online anonymity over the course of this century.
Joined: 5/14/2007
Posts: 525
Location: Pisces-Cetus filament
Kuwaga wrote:
If I was an employer I'd be very interested in the browsing habits of my applicants, if it isn't too expensive for me to get that information. Would make for a nice automatic preselection process. :)
There are ways to prevent that from happening, and I am pretty sure that you are aware of them.
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Banned User, Former player
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
I suppose that automatically collected browsing data could theoretically be abused if eg. applicants could be connected to their gmail accounts by the employer, and then Google would sell out the browsing information to them. Seems rather unlikely, though (unless you are seeking a job at Google).
Player (208)
Joined: 7/7/2006
Posts: 798
Location: US
Along that line, I think it would surface pretty quickly from an insider that this hypothetical scenario was occurring. I am pretty confident the Internet would be somehow informed of any individually compromising data farming by google or any other large company for that matter. I wouldn't put it past the U.S. government to subpoena google for information on you, however. You obviously risk some privacy in using the internet. Personally I would be more wary of any given ISP than google though.
Banned User, Former player
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Even if the US government could legally demand the browsing history of an individual from an ISP or Google (I don't know if it does), AFAIK it would still require a permit from a judge (at least if CSI is to be believed), and I don't think they would go that route unless the crime is pretty severe (such as terrorism, drug trafficking, distribution of child pornography or the like). I think it's pretty unlikely that the government will be even interested in your data in normal circumstances (even assuming they have the right to get it in the first place). Of course we could always imagine the government being/becoming corrupt and start persecuting its citizens for nefarious reasons, building up an orwellian Big Brother totalitarian system, but that goes to the conspiracy theory territory. But yes, I don't put my personal info and browsing habits on the open for anybody to see either. Some rational amount of caution is not a bad thing.
Active player (308)
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
just go there and post private information so we can find stuff somewhere else and link it to your profile, just as we do with the other social networks
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself. It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success." - Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Drama, too long, didn't read, lol.