Simplify your Google+ experience in three easy steps

by Volker Weber

  1. Create one circle Follow with people you follow. Use that instead of Stream.
  2. Create one circle each for groups of people you want to share with. Do it ad hoc.
  3. Goto Incoming, if you want to read what other people outside your Follow circle share with you.

Comments

If anyone has a spare invite I'd be interested to try it out. hans dot bornich at gmail dot com
Thanks :-)

Hans Bornich, 2011-07-05

@Hans - G+ invites have been turned off for days. I know of at least two in transit to me and neither has landed yet :-(

Chris Linfoot, 2011-07-05

OK, guess I didn't pay enough attention to begin with :-) Had Google Wave in mind and thought the buzz would settle soon, we'll see...

Hans Bornich, 2011-07-05

Plus is no Wave. This is Facebook and Twitter done right.

Volker Weber, 2011-07-05

"This is Facebook and Twitter done right" ok, that's sadistic! please have some consideration for us poor out of g+

Giuseppe Grasso, 2011-07-05

@Giuseppe: +1

Chris Linfoot, 2011-07-05

I feel your pain. And all of you should be invited already. I sent out a few hundred invites.

Volker Weber, 2011-07-05

@Giuseppe: +1 too

:-)

John Keys, 2011-07-05

4. Create one circle "Who the fuck are you?" and fill it with poeple Google thinks you might know. After a while move interesting people to your "follow" circle ...

Sebastian Herp, 2011-07-05

You're right, Volker, but not if you want or have to use the mobile version. There is currently no possibility for #2.

Sven Richert, 2011-07-05

What? "Create new circle" ...

Volker Weber, 2011-07-05

That was not really clear. I meant that »Use that instead of Stream.« is not possible with the mobile version.

Sven Richert, 2011-07-05

Regarding step 2:

I've tried to separate it into "Family", "Friends", "Acquaintances", "Colleagues", "Company X", "Technology Y", "Topic Z", "Following", "Incoming", "Public", ...

But I just couldn't handle it.

In fact I sometimes even couldn't decide if I better put a person into the "Friends" or into the "Acquaintances" circle.

So I'll stick to "Family", "Friends", "Following", "Incoming", "Public".

Everything else should be handled via filters for the incoming posts in the stream and via notification filters for outgoing posts. +1 #FeatureRequest

Example for filter for incoming stream: "Show me all posts from users working with SharePoint at companies X, Y and Z." - Where "SharePoint" would be a piece of information from their Google Profile pages, the information I've saved about them in my Google Contacts list, or results from Google's search index.

Example for a notification filter for outgoing posts: "Who do you want to notify about your post? (Currently visible for "Public")"

I mean even the circles for "Family" and "Friends" could be generated / proposed automatically. This should be simple algorithms compared to the other stuff Google can calculate. +1 #FeatureRequest

Christian Heindel, 2011-07-06

That's what I had in my mind:

Google Tests Google+ for Domains

"Metadata based circles" +1

Christian Heindel, 2011-07-06

Any invitation left for Google+ ?
I would like to be in the "magic" circle... ;-)
Thanks,
Cristian

Cristian D'Aloisio, 2011-07-06

I have found it. In the Mobile version goto Circles, select the respective Circle and click on the Posts button – tada! But, you cannot creat a new post there...

Sven Richert, 2011-07-07

"This is Facebook and Twitter done right."
Sort of. Facebook is Facebook done right, and Twitter is Twitter (probably done wrong, but that's just my opinion).
Google+ is sort of bits of both, but sort of not as good as either, but yet sort of better than both in some small ways. Not convinced it's going to set the world alight: are 750m active Facebook users going to jump ship to something that does, mostly, less, and doesn't look as nice? If so, why?

Julian Woodward, 2011-07-09

What Julia said without saying it. Yeah, it's different. Jury's still out, not sure what it all means yet.

Katherine Owen, 2011-07-09

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