Thoughts on Google+

I'm sorely disappointed in Google+.

I understand that it's not Facebook, nor MySpace. What annoys me is that it's not Google either.

I love the Google products I use. Gmail has fantastic searching and filtering. Google calendar lets me search my calendar (When was that concert again? Did I make that yearly doctor's appointment yet? -- as long as I put the information in, I can find it again). Google Reader is the only RSS reader I found that keeps track of which posts I've read and which I haven't.. and once again, I can search my feeds for that one thing I saw but didn't bookmark or whatever. I access a lot of these things via iGoogle, which lets me move things to where I want them to create a page that works best for me. Google Docs is searchable.

So the fact that I can't search my Google+ Stream is mind-boggling. This is *Google*, the name that has become synonymous with searching.

Gmail's filters are insanely powerful, but there's no filtering whatsoever for Google+. That's too bad, because while I love J to death, he shares a lot of astronomical stuff that I just skip right over, and I would very much like to filter out posts from him with certain astronomical keywords.

I want to be able to "archive" conversations on Stream and only have them show back up if there's another comment-- which is not the same as "mute". And I want the ability to go back and look at those posts too (which you can't do with mute... you can undo it right after, but once you reload the page, those conversations are gone for good). In other words, just like you can do with Gmail. [Update: Muted posts still show up on the person's profile, so if you can remember who it was you muted, you can find it again. I'd still like a "Muted Posts" option over on the left under "Incoming" and "Notifications"]

I recognize that the iGoogle code to re-arrange things on the page would complicate things tremendously, so while I really WANT the ability to get rid a lot of the whitespace around the sides of the Stream page, I understand that it might not be as drag-and-drop easy as it is on iGoogle. But I find it irritating that on the Stream page, where the Stream is clearly the main focus of the page, the Stream itself is a fixed width no matter what size my browser window is. With my normal window size, this means that there is whitespace along the sides that is wider than the Stream itself, and I can't change it (except by resizing the window, which isn't actually "changing" it because it still doesn't affect the Stream). I get that some people might want that, but can't I have a checkbox somewhere in settings to say "use variable width columns"?

And that's just the stuff I want that Google already does with their other products. That's before we get into things like different settings for different circles-- as a default, Google+ handily sets up a "Following" circle for (and I quote) "People you don't know personally but whose posts you find interesting." You know what would be nice? For it to not suggest people those folks put in circles as potential friends for me-- because if I don't know them personally, I probably don't know their friends either. I'd like to have the Acquaintances circle not suggest people for me too, but that's another one of those things that it would be nice to have a setting for, because some people might want that. I want more email notices from Friends and Family than from Following and Acquaintances. I want a way to contact people who add me to a circle (like Facebook's "send this person a message"), because there are two people following me who I don't know, and one of them goes by "Jen L" with no photo. I have some suspicions on who it could be, but she's set her profile to not display who is in her circles and who has her in circles, so I can't tell if we have the people in common that I think we have in common. She's got every right to her privacy, but without a way to contact her via Google+, I can't tell if it's who I think it is... and I have no intention of randomly adding people I don't know.

Also? While I was poking around making sure there wasn't actually a way to find someone's email via their profile (not if they haven't specifically put it there), I clicked on S, and found a lot of posts she made that never appeared on my Stream. This strongly suggests that Google+ is playing the same game Facebook plays with "Top News" and I hate that shit with a passion. So now I not just want a way to see everything, I fucking demand it.

Thoughts on Google+

I'm sorely disappointed in Google+.

I understand that it's not Facebook, nor MySpace. What annoys me is that it's not Google either.

I love the Google products I use. Gmail has fantastic searching and filtering. Google calendar lets me search my calendar (When was that concert again? Did I make that yearly doctor's appointment yet? -- as long as I put the information in, I can find it again). Google Reader is the only RSS reader I found that keeps track of which posts I've read and which I haven't.. and once again, I can search my feeds for that one thing I saw but didn't bookmark or whatever. I access a lot of these things via iGoogle, which lets me move things to where I want them to create a page that works best for me. Google Docs is searchable.

So the fact that I can't search my Google+ Stream is mind-boggling. This is *Google*, the name that has become synonymous with searching.

Gmail's filters are insanely powerful, but there's no filtering whatsoever for Google+. That's too bad, because while I love J to death, he shares a lot of astronomical stuff that I just skip right over, and I would very much like to filter out posts from him with certain astronomical keywords.

I want to be able to "archive" conversations on Stream and only have them show back up if there's another comment-- which is not the same as "mute". And I want the ability to go back and look at those posts too (which you can't do with mute... you can undo it right after, but once you reload the page, those conversations are gone for good). In other words, just like you can do with Gmail. [Update: Muted posts still show up on the person's profile, so if you can remember who it was you muted, you can find it again. I'd still like a "Muted Posts" option over on the left under "Incoming" and "Notifications"]

I recognize that the iGoogle code to re-arrange things on the page would complicate things tremendously, so while I really WANT the ability to get rid a lot of the whitespace around the sides of the Stream page, I understand that it might not be as drag-and-drop easy as it is on iGoogle. But I find it irritating that on the Stream page, where the Stream is clearly the main focus of the page, the Stream itself is a fixed width no matter what size my browser window is. With my normal window size, this means that there is whitespace along the sides that is wider than the Stream itself, and I can't change it (except by resizing the window, which isn't actually "changing" it because it still doesn't affect the Stream). I get that some people might want that, but can't I have a checkbox somewhere in settings to say "use variable width columns"?

And that's just the stuff I want that Google already does with their other products. That's before we get into things like different settings for different circles-- as a default, Google+ handily sets up a "Following" circle for (and I quote) "People you don't know personally but whose posts you find interesting." You know what would be nice? For it to not suggest people those folks put in circles as potential friends for me-- because if I don't know them personally, I probably don't know their friends either. I'd like to have the Acquaintances circle not suggest people for me too, but that's another one of those things that it would be nice to have a setting for, because some people might want that. I want more email notices from Friends and Family than from Following and Acquaintances. I want a way to contact people who add me to a circle (like Facebook's "send this person a message"), because there are two people following me who I don't know, and one of them goes by "Jen L" with no photo. I have some suspicions on who it could be, but she's set her profile to not display who is in her circles and who has her in circles, so I can't tell if we have the people in common that I think we have in common. She's got every right to her privacy, but without a way to contact her via Google+, I can't tell if it's who I think it is... and I have no intention of randomly adding people I don't know.

Also? While I was poking around making sure there wasn't actually a way to find someone's email via their profile (not if they haven't specifically put it there), I clicked on S, and found a lot of posts she made that never appeared on my Stream. This strongly suggests that Google+ is playing the same game Facebook plays with "Top News" and I hate that shit with a passion. So now I not just want a way to see everything, I fucking demand it.