[Latest update: July 9th]
After a few days of using Google+, it’s becoming clear that one of its flaws is the clutter that threaded status updates cause. It was the case for Plurk and Buzz, and it’s a really difficult problem to address. Certainly the planned option to display the posts by “relevance” rather than “latest comment update” will be a good thing, but it wouldn’t help me find the updates and comments I want to read more than others…
Here are a few suggestions that I think would help:
[COMMENTS FEATURES]
Skimming
And iPhoto albums style “skimming” function. Just display one comment, then let me slide the mouse on the post (or even a “timeline box”) to show the others. Also reorganize the “shared” and “+1’ed” info on the side.
That way, every post could be the same size, with a more compact and cleaner UI.
Comments Highlighting
Highlighting comments from people I’m following. Color tones, size, priority displaying, filtering options… If I follow them, I probably care more about their reactions, so I’d like to know if they commented on something. Erwin and Francois also suggested different colors for the original poster’s replies and those from people in different Circles (blue for friends, green for family, etc), which makes complete sense. The latter can also apply to posts in general, not just comments.
Collapsing (from Ryan / JalenJad) I would LOVE to be able to just collapse all comments on all threads with one click, and just browse updates as a sort of Twitter feed. Collapsing one thread is also a must; not being able to do that almost feels like a bug.
The “iPhoto album-like skimming” would probably address this, but still.
Muting without “deleting” (from Mike)
Currently, when you mute a post, it completely disappears from your feed. It would be nice to be able to just “mute comments” meaning it would never come back to the top of your feed and you wouldn’t get notifications for it either, but it would still be available for you to see if you went to seek it out.
[CIRCLES FEATURES]
Excluding Circles from the main stream The main stream is always the “go to/easy” place, but some “famous/heavy posters” I like are also more active than all my friends combined. I don’t care “as much” about them, so let’s put them in “Semi Circles” (hehe) that are excluded from the main stream. That way, I can check out what they’re doing, but only when I choose to.
Shared Circles (from Cédric Ingrand) [Text pasted from his post] I’d like to be able to actually share a whole circle with someone, (or with a circle of people, or make it public), so people could sync on a workgroup, for example (but there’s like a thousand possible uses for it). Even better, I could make that shared circle read/write or read-only, so that it stays in sync across all users.
[OTHER FEATURES]
“Share on Google+” button
On blogs, we only have a “+1” button, but the “+1” and “Share on Google+” actions are actually two different things… I like that I can “approve” of something without actually sharing it on my feed (“+1” button), but I’d also want to get a “G+Share” button with a counter. Maybe we could get a double button, with “+1” and “+1 and share” functionality?
What do you think? Would these be good additions to Google+? Should we start a campaign to see them added to the “General Feature Request List Of The People”?
I think so; let me know if I’m completely wrong… 🙂
[Updates]
July 5th: Three requests added June 5th from reader comments, here and on the Google+ thread. Thanks a bunch! July 8th: Cédric Ingrand posted a cool feature request I’m adding to this list. Doesn’t quite address clutter, but it does tweek Circles, which we’ve discussed quite a bit. I also cleaned up and restructured the list.
July 9th; Added a couple more features.
TL;DR version:
The killer feature in Google+ is Circles, and it’s pretty damn awesome. It’s a true innovation for social media, just as Twitter’s “following” system was when all we knew was “mutual friending”.
Ok, long version: (If you don’t know anything about Google+, scroll down for a more in depth description.)
Circles might seem like a simple concept, but they’re actually an incredibly powerful idea. Essentially, they are a mix between Facebook’s and Twitter’s ideas of what a social graph is. They are a very clever blend of the “friending” and “following” systems. With Circles, when you “add” someone to your social graph, you have to decide which Circle(s) you add them to. You can’t just “follow” someone, you follow them by adding them to one of your Circles. From then on, you will only see their updates when you’re looking at that specific circle’s feed (or at your “full” feed, which includes all the people in your various Circles).
Simple, right? “Yeah, that’s just Facebook’s friend grouping” you’ll say. Not really. This is actually much more ingenious. Here’s why:
Let’s say I add Tom Merritt only to my “Beards” circle, but Tom hasn’t added me to any of his Circles (he doesn’t “follow” me).
Tom sends a public update. I will see it in my “Beards” feed (and my full “everyone I follow” feed).
Since Tom hasn’t added me to any of his Circles (he doesn’t follow me), he will never see any of my updates.
Now let’s say Tom adds me to his “Frenchies” Circle, but not to his “USAns” Circle.
He will see my updates in his Frenchies feed, as well as his full feed. But not if he looks at his USAns feed.
Now the key thing is, you can also restrict an update to be sent only to one or more of your Circles.
Remember, Tom has added me to his Frenchies Circle but not his USAns Circle.
If Tom sends an update to his Frenchies Circle, I will see it.
If he sends an update to his USAns Circle, I won’t see it.
Also important to know: people don’t see which Circle you’ve put them in. That is for your eyes only.
So you could think of it as Twitter lists on steroids, where lists go both ways. Again, this is really powerful stuff, with deep implications. It means that when you use Google+, you don’t have to choose between a public and a private tool / site / network / social space. With one system, you can direct your updates to the people you want, without forcing anything unto anyone. It basically blends the best parts of Facebook and Twitter together (including status updates, lists, fan pages, etc).
TL;DR version: We thought touch interfaces would finally bring computers to everyone, but in reality even that requires too much training. People don’t bother to learn. The only interface that will make computers truly universal is an AI you can talk to. Or: Your mom won’t learn how to use an iPad, just like she didn’t learn how to use a VCR.
We’ve always known that normal people can’t use computers, not really. But this week end it occurred to me that they don’t really know how to use tablets either. Sure, they do email (if you set it up for them) and browse a bit, but ask them to connect to WiFi or subscribe to a newspaper through an App, and they’re lost. And same as computers, they will never learn.
It comes from this ridiculous article: a “comprehensive” study on 16 people (sic) showed they can’t use iPad apps. The study is silly, but the conclusions are true: no matter how simple you make it, a graphical interface will never be easy enough that you can use it with no training at all. It’s still a theoretical, abstract representation of what you want the machine to do. Even with iOS, which is so simple it’s ridiculous, you have to explain to your mom how to go to the app store, or how to connect to the WiFi network, or how to get the family pictures on there. Millions of people use and love their iPads, but “millions” is not “everyone”.
This week I was invited to guest on France 24’s tech show “Tech 24” (en).
We talked about the eG8, as well as podcasting in their “gadget” section. Here it is for your enjoyment; please let me know how I did in the comments: I’m always looking for feedback, even if that feedback is “you look like a tool”. 🙂
So big thanks to Eric and Rebecca for inviting me to the show. And I’m also adding a few words after the break, because I think a lot could be added/corrected to what I said on the show. Please do take a minute to check it out.
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege to be invited to (co)host an interview with Gérald Guerlais, one of the initiators of the SketchTravel project. Some of you might have heard of it: it’s an actual sketchbook that traveled the world for four years. The project brought together artists from all over the map, including some of best known names in the industry (people from studios like Blue Sky or Pixar, all the way to Hayao Miyazaki himself). If you’re a fan of animation, comics or illustration, I’m sure you’ll want to learn more about this book.
My part of the interview, dealing with the project itself, was held in English. Fanny talked about the personal aspects of the adventure, and that part is in French. Hopefully all the quirky French accents and expressions flying around will add to the flavor of the videos. 🙂
I tried to find a page with the best ads from the game, but all I could find were giant impractical lists… So I decided to watch them all and make my own selection. 🙂
Here it is, in no particular order. Enjoy!
A little over a year ago, I took a job which I though was going to be a great opportunity. To do something I love in an environment I appreciate and respect… Who wouldn’t? I don’t think I’m stretching it too much when I say that what I found was actually a bit more, and I currently have the best job in the world, working with the coolest people in the world, on the most amazing products in the world. Yeah, it’s that awesome.
But I did have to abandon something along the way. As many of you know, another part of my life is dedicated to podcasting. This is not just a fun hobby I do when I have time. It’s a passion I’ve dedicated myself to with perseverance I didn’t know I had. And at the heart of that passion is a group of people with whom I grew into who I am today as a podcaster. People like Scott Johnson, Randy Jordan, Shawn Coons, Mark Turpin, Mike Schramm, Mike Gaines, Brent Lassi, Alachia, Molly, Nicole and Marc Spagnuolo, and many others.
Four years ago, I started participating in different podcasts, and I started forming bonds with all these people. I wouldn’t see them often of course: we all live thousands of miles apart. But every few days we’d “meet” to host a show, or I’d listen to one of their shows, or they’d listen to one of mine. Every few days, for years.
Yesterday I took an important step in my life: I decided to become a better person. And it worked! Today I woke up, took a look at my new machine, and felt like I was better than most people already. 🙂
These are very well known and chances are you’ve already seen them, but they’ll still put a smile on your face.
And on the off chance you don’t know them all, well then, it’s time to discover some of the most beautiful things to come to the internet in the past few years. I watch them about twice a year and they always make me feel better. I figured I’d share in my way.
The Longest Way
Christoph never actually completed his goal of walking from Beijing to Germany. But he still walked for a year or so, and his video is six kinds of wonderful.
If you’re wondering what this whole “Old Spice Guy” thing is about, you’ve come to the right place: this is a brief explanation of the “Old Spice Guy” ad / social media campaign, (and a few thoughts on it too for good measure).
Let’s put it simply: this marketing campaign will be remembered as the most fantastic use of social media in years, and the beginning of a new way of interacting with your audience and customer base… In the next few months, you will start seeing a lot of brands trying to adapt and reproduce their methods. As they should.
Here’s what happenned:
1) A few months ago (February 2010), Old Spice body wash launched an incredibly successful commercial video that went viral on the net in days:
2) This week, they capitalized on their success by releasing a new video:
[Latest update: July 9th]
TL;DR version: We thought touch interfaces would finally bring computers to everyone, but in reality even that requires too much training. People don’t bother to learn. The only interface that will make computers truly universal is an AI you can talk to.
A little over a year ago, I took a job which I though was going to be a great opportunity. To do something I love in an environment I appreciate and respect… Who wouldn’t? I don’t think I’m stretching it too much when I say that what I found was actually a bit more, and I currently have the best job in the world, working with the coolest people in the world, on the most amazing products in the world. Yeah, it’s that awesome.
