Currents to replace interorg G+? Speculation: A second rapture?

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Am I only person who thinks "Google Currents" is needless? All the descriptions they have given so far fix into the job of Google Groups

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Elizee T.+1

I suppose they wanted combine groups with G+... :-|

Stephen Adu Agyei

+Elizee T. There is already "Groups for Business" that solely is for discussions and sharing of ideas within the organisation plus Google Groups then another one on its way coming 😊: Google Currents.

Elizee T.

Currents should be even more - sharing out of domains... What is in fact G+ space... ;-)

Brian Holt Hawthorne+2

Of course it is needless. They will launch it in beta, add some of the features from plus, but none of the features we care about, and the discontinue plus, claiming “Currents has all the important features of Google+”. Meanwhile, the folks who introduce Currents get recognition, promotions, and raises for having introduced a new product.

Stephen Adu Agyei+2

+Elizee T. I believe "Google Currents" will stop sharing posts outside the organisation. So we should expect another rapture 😞.

Steve Coles+1

+Stephen Adu Agyei that wouldn't surprise me :(

Stephen Adu Agyei

+Steve Coles If "engagements" between leaders and employees are shared outside the organisation, that would be breaching G Suite policies. So another rapture would becoming when we all say our final goodbye to each other unfortunately.

Nathan Weaver+2

I've been worried about this as well +Stephen Adu Agyei, but there was 1 line in that release that mentioned external comms. I think it's possible it won't be there in the initial release, but they'll add it later if they decide they want to. They'd be stupid not to, as it would be cutting off a lot of great company-to-client use cases. Even Yammer, their main competitor in this space, handles both internal and external networks.

Eli Fennell+1

Google Groups is an Anachronism. It's outdated. For what they're aiming for here, it's so far behind, it would need even more overhauling to get it into shape.

And this is not simply a Communication tool. An important part of an Organization these days is culture. In our wider culture, social media functions in an important role there. Sure, technically, you can jeri rig something social media-esque from all manner of communication tools, and yet social media stands apart from chat apps, chat rooms, chat groups, etc...

It's not about chat. It's about incubating culture.

Filip H.F. “FiXato” Slagter+1

Google loves introducing multiple apps that serve the same purpose...
Hangouts, Allo, Duo, Hangouts Chat, Hangouts Meet, Messages, Google Voice
And let's not forget the ones that have already fallen: Google Talk, Google Spaces, Google Wave, Google+ Messenger, and Google Buzz.

Eli Fennell+1

+Filip H.F. Slagter I suspect Groups for Business will be on its way out. Doesn't make sense to keep anymore.

Brian Holt Hawthorne

+Eli Fennell Groups for Business is currently the only reasonable way on G Suite to have a functional e-mail alias that is distributed to multiple people. It is in the process of same major upgrades. I sincerely doubt that it will go away. I think it will just get better integrated into the rest of the G Suite Groups functionality.

If been wrestling this particular gator for the last couple of months since they started silently dropping suspected spam that was sent to a G Suite Group. I had a board that was missing important messages from constituents, and finally tracked it down to the overly aggressive spam filter that had been added to G Suite Group e-mail handling. The only way to adjust how incoming email is handled is to switch to Groups for Business, where you can actually turn the spam filter on or off, quarantine suspected spam, etc. The biggest missing feature is that there is no way to have the quarantine report sent to an admin unless the admin is also a member of the group! I ended up just turning the spam filter off for now, so they can get their work done. I'm hoping that the upcoming improvements in GfB will fix this.

Stephen Adu Agyei

+Filip H.F. Slagter They have more resources than their uses.

Stephen Adu Agyei

We have Google Play Music and YouTube Music :)

Mindey

Maybe it is needed, but Google moves very slowly, across the ladder of unification of its services... There will be something that will replace all these slow attempts at abstraction, with a radical new look at how the web should function...

***

Eli Fennell

People Left Behind on G+

Like the guy in the meme, they had a good thing, and didn't appreciate it, and now their heads are turned by the new dress, as if Google+ itself couldn't have evolved in all these directions from intraorganizational use. Oh, well. No point looking back, live in the now, for tomorrow we die!

In seriousness, hopefully this won't give us all the swift boot out the door. We're stowaways here, let's be honest, but at the moment, they haven't brought down full doom on us AFAIK. That could, of course, change in a heartbeat, or they may not have communicated some aspect of it that doomed us already. But, right now, as it stands, we're still here, and still together.

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Eli Fennell+1

Just to add: Posts with Google solve a problem for Google. Social Networks don't give them enough access, or control, over displaying social communications from celebs, businesses, organizations, etc... in Search. They have a deal with Twitter, but that could collapse at any time as we know, and it doesn't let them build a directly competing social product. Hence, PwG isn't really social. There's no Profile to Follow. No Comments on Posts. No user-facing destination called Posts with Google.

It's just a way for Google to cut-out-the-middle-man by letting people post social-ish-looking Posts directly to Search.

Whereas Currents presumes to solve an Organizational Culture and Communication problem.

Eli Fennell+1

+Mark Barrus - GSuite I think it should. In theory it kind of does, assuming this update doesn't remove the Public Posting/Following options we've had so far.

Eli Fennell+1

As to eliminating extraorg Communities, I don't know. Maybe they'll reintroduce that at some point?