Google+ Could Still Blow Facebook Away (Here are the UX Cures) http://su.pr/26Efrw
“Facebook announced new photo features that take away yet another cool thing about Google+. This has got to be frustrating for the Google teams, even as they keep a stiff upper lip in public, right +Vic Gundotra?”
I will add my own user experience and blogger-engagement ideas to Scoble’s:
Why do we keep posting on Google+ and not on our blogs? Robert likes the competition between Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. I would like to send a titled, formatted, visually-dynamic and credited (optionally) post to Blogger, Tumblr, Posterous, and/or WordPress.
What did Facebook do this time - learning from G+, but still falling short?
“Facebook, yesterday, turned on a new “interests” feature on my account that totally rocks. Would we have gotten that if Google+ hadn’t shown up on the scene? Probably not. But, now that Facebook has shipped these features, what is special about Google+? The search engine and video hangouts and YouTube integration. The search engine isn’t that far ahead of Facebook, though, and is missing huge features. For instance, why can’t I see every item you’ve plussed? That’s really lame Google and Vic should be ashamed that the search team can’t even do that yet.” (Robert Scoble)
What I Would Suggest for Google Plus Improvement
Enrich features for About page.
Where are “My family relations?”
Relationship status, and with whom?
Political views
Favorite movies/Books/Music/Sports/Teams/current passions
Even comparatively tiny network, Circle.Me, allows us to do a bang-up customization of our about page. We do care about style. An offering of fonts, background photos, logos, and for the quickie types, “themes” would be a smart addition.
We have (some of) that on Facebook and Google could be giving us that – and in no time.
Not having a writable API is a major hole. Being anti OpenGraph-style is a glaring slight on the community of developers.
Give us an iPad app that blows away Twitter and Facebook and makes it a joy to use all of Google’s things on.
Turn down the suck / turn up the good
Fix the goofs that you left in, every since you let Google+ loose. Every URL in G+ has only a cantankerous, lengthly, numerical end – and no built in shortener. That makes it hard to tweet and your URLs look like crap. Listen to us; we’ve been telling you we don’t like this stuff – from the day you invited us to the beta launch.
Give us custom domain names
Let us see all the stories we have liked.
Allow us to follow more than 5,000 people. Twitter is whipping you because of this (and Facebook will not do this go this route any time soon; Zuck thinks no one is important enough to have affiliations with many people or any reason to follow-back many people).
Let us have a REAL blogging tool here. Google has Blogger. Why isn’t it integrated here yet?
Work with the other blogging platforms, and let us send formatted posts from G+ to WordPress.com, WordPress.org, Posterous, and/or Tumblr.
Allow us to add videos and photos in our comments. Facebook has them and it’s important.
Let us clean up our social graphs. Show us people who no longer post. Also, show us, as Connex.us is about to, who we have the most engagement with and preferably (again, kudos to connex.us) across more than one social network. Make it easier to see people’s content, trends, and stats, and delete, people from our social graphs.
You could still win out over Facebook, Vic, you certainly have the cash to put behind initiatives. You’d win the admiration of millions – besides Robert Scoble and I.
What irks you about G+ / is great about Facebook?
How could Google+ or Facebook (or both) behave the way you’d like it to?
What are three core features that would make you leave G+ open for hours on end?
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
