alt Hacker NewsI feel like that was what made Google Plus better and yet because it was Google shoving everything into Google Plus itself to force numbers… it failed. Circles in Google Plus is the most underrated thing I have ever seen. You can basically group friends under specific labels, so if you want to only share some posts / photos with family, only family will see it, wanna share posts with former and current coworkers? Have at it. Or share with multiple circles or everyone / global.
Its a damn shame Google nerfed it after forcing it on people who werent asking to be forced into it. Google Plus was a very tech heavy Social Media platform, if Google had half a brain they could have built their own serious LinkedIn alternative.
Replies
i think it was just poorly implemented. i didn't use the circles feature because all my friends would be in one circle and my family were all offline, but i still had to deal with it for no personal benefit
opt in probably would have been better, like just default everyone to one circle and make it obvious how to split them up after you're a bit more comfortable with the platform
they made a bunch of other obvious blunders like attempting to force real names and spread them to youtube, mandatory account linkage etc etc but i think there were probably just too many conflicting high level voices at google trying to set direction
Facebook has that feature and has for many years. That is a good idea, but there are many bad ideas that negate the good ideas even when the good ones are implemented.
Apparently Facebook does/did support posting to certain groups? Maybe the UI isn't great as I never knew it was possible but a workmate told it was.
It's a great idea in principle, but it requires some manual work, which most users aren't gonna bother with.
WeChat in China was early to implement friend group-based posting
> Circles in Google Plus is the most underrated thing I have ever seen.
Facebook now has 'Audience', which is quite analogous to 'Circles'
Circles was a lot of busy work though
What killed Google+ is the same thing that prevented Bluesky from ever being good. They had a brief window where everyone wanted to use it, and they kept it locked behind a hard to get invite system for months and months.
I can only imagine someone looking over my shoulder on vacation to see what I'm posting: "oh, you have a 'close friends' group; why am I not in it?"
Arbitrary labels are great ... until they're not.
I completely agree. Circles were great. Unfortunately, they're one of the things that killed Google+. I remember reading an article from one of the creators of Google+ years and years ago. They talked about how asymmetric friending (Alice adding Bob to one of her circles didn't add Alice to any of Bob's circles) prevented the viral network effect that Facebook was able to achieve.
It's a damn shame. I feel like Google giving up on Google+ and Microsoft giving up on Windows phones were both mistakes.