"Also ran social network?" It's been running for how long? Second only to facebook and isn't a neverending class reunion? SIGN ME UP.
Only days before this functionality was announced, I and my writer friends were bemoaning the fact that you can't email people you 'know' quite well through G+. Now you can. I'm happy.
By all means, of course, control the access others have to you, but Doctorow's lack of perspective is disappointing.
http://boingboing.net/2014/01/10/howto-prevent-people-from-send.html
Less poisoned-well post from cnet: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57617033-93/how-to-prevent-google-users-from-e-mailing-you/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title
I just saw that too. Lame.
A good, balanced (i.e., sane) article on it here from an initial skeptic: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2086360/google-broadens-integration-between-gmail-and-plus-with-email-autosuggest.html
Not the new feature I've been wanting, but I don't hate it.
I just quit Facebook. Keeping G+.
Honestly, I've never undershoot how Doctorow has any influence in technology writing as Doctorow isn't really sure how anything works. As for how long Google + has been running – 2.5 years (launched June 28, 2011) and it has roughly 8% of the market share that Facebook does.
It's the glasses.
Sure, but it's how far past stuff like Twitter/everything else?
I'm happy with an 8% share, because it's the 8% is full of people geeking out about the same stuff as me.
Good point about Doctorow.
From looking at some numbers from summer of '13. Google Plus is way, way behind Twitter, Pintrest, Linkedin…even Yahoo Answers. At least according to traffic. By traffic…it looks like it's about 1/100th of Facebook…i.e. way worse than the 8% user base compared to Facebook – http://www.dreamgrow.com/top-10-social-networking-sites-by-market-share-of-visits-june-2013/
Doctorow has influence because (a) BoingBoing, (b) hip SF author, and (c) BoingBoing.
Measuring user share and usage for these tool is kind of nuts, and all over the board, since what defines a user and usage is similarly all over the map. Google is able to count a lot of folks who aren't actual G+ users because of how they've integrated it in with their other services (YouTube, etc.). All of them take credit for people who created an account and never bothered to use it or stick with it, or who use it just to talk to Mom or play "Words with Friends."
Most of the number comparisons I've seen are more like here: http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/08/google-plus-one-number-two/
BoingBoing is an internet island I seldom travel to for some reason. – my browser history says it's not in my top 100 sites. Maybe BoingBoing TSA won't let me in or something
Use anecdote…in the last 90 days I've been to Reddit 9631 times, Google 2531 times, Wikipedia 2411 times. Gmail 1666 times and YouTube 196 times…so would Google count all of those as 4393 Google + visits because of the integration?
I honestly don't know, but I kind of doubt it. Maybe for publicity, but in terms of internal metrics, they're obviously going to track each application to see what's working and what isn't.
How are you seeing how much you've been to different sites? I'm curious now…
I installed Visual My History in Chrome (thats my main browser, but I use Firefox for some stuff too) – https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/visualize-my-history/gdedhdlfdeaakpdfkikflkfnbiegaonb