Google+ was not perfect, at least it wasn't in 2017 when this was first posted.

Google+ was not perfect, at least it wasn't in 2017 when this was first posted.

As we move on, remembering G+ as the best of social media, we should also be aware that we who loved G+ were not reluctant to critique the platform!

Originally shared by Jean-Loup Rebours-Smith

Some thoughts on the current state of Google+ (and why it's not too late to fix things)

I've been doing this a couple of times in the past and seeing how there are a few users recently who seems to have blown off the lid of the steamer with their frustrations about G+, I thought I would offer some thoughts of my own with trying to put an emphasis on what I think could work to improve things.

Also before anyone points this out to me, much of what I'm going to outline is currently worked on in one form or another.

Problems

Different people will have different views on this so bear with me if your important issue isn't listed. I'm going to outline what I think are serious issues which are putting people off or not attracting people.

1. Spam
I just have to get this one out of the way first but Spam is a plague on G+. The most frustrating manifestation of it is in the comments section of posts and of course in communities, particularly communities which have no moderators. My communities are reasonably clean but that's not to say spammers aren't attempting on a daily basis to post in it.

2. Images
Since the divorce that created Google Photos, posting pictures on G+ is ... a chore is the best way for me to put it. the way it seems to work is every image posted on G+ gets added to a semi invisible "archive" album which exists separately from Google Photos altogether. There were lots of issues with Google Plus Photos but those should have been resolved as part of the improvement of the G+ experience. Unfortunately having Google Photos a standalone app doesn't actually seem to help sharing images on other social networks as I recently discovered but that's going beyond the scope of this discussion.

To dig the nail further i the wound, once upon a time this was the platform of choice for photographers when places like Flickr were flickering out of existence. Nowadays every photographer that wants to make a name for themselves (who isn't already on G+) or anyone who is looking for somewhere to share pictures will go to Instagram.

3. A disorganised home stream
Of all the requests for improvements I've seen one which comes very frequently is being able to view one's home stream in chronological order. To this day I'm still not sure what sort of random order is used to display posts from people I follow but they're definitely not chronological.

4. A bad reputation
Unfortunately this sort of issue is rather difficult to tackle. G+ currently does not have a high profile advocate like Vic Gundotra once was and the tech press have never learnt to love it the way they blindingly love, say, Apple products (much the opposite in fact). There is a giant uphill battle in PR to be done to correct this, though I fear the ham-fisted way google imposed certain policies in the past (eg. the name policy on YouTube) will likely haunt them for a while still. One way is to come up with a near-flawless platform that everyone loves but at this point it seems like a pipe dream.

5. A slow rebuild process
There's no denying that G+ as it is now is only a fraction of what it was some 2 or 3 years ago and even though many features have now returned, there's no real feeling that the platform is improving the way we expected it to after Classic was turned off.

Solutions?

So what can be done to tackle the above issues (and more). Well here's some ideas from what I think could potentially help give it a second life.

1. Spam is hard to tackle but there ought to be a way that stops accounts from being automatically created if nothing else. So many spam accounts seem to be bots that I find it hard to believe that there isn't a simple algorithm that can just nip the spammers in the bud before they've finished the account creation process. Creating an account shouldn't be difficult but it also shouldn't be easy for a robot to have one. So much is being touted about machine learning and yet the likes of porn and other forms of abuse don't seem to be caught as easily as one should imagine. Isn't technology shared across various Google products?

2. Images is tricky because now that the divorce is in effect you can't seem to ask anything off the Google Photos team. However the easiest would be a clean API integration so that the photo from Google Photos I post on G+ isn't becoming a duplicate but is a direct link to the original image where pluses and comments are shared between the two platforms.

Also please make it easier to search for an image when posting from G+, scrolling through endless pages to find an image from 10 years ago is very frustrating.

3. Getting better organisation is easy in theory. The simple answer is give more granular control to the user over how their stream is organised. Give users some ownership of their account, some way for them to make it look the way they want. If users feel in control of their account I feel they'd be more likely to enjoy their experience here.

4. Fixing the PR is far more difficult however. I just don't think Google Plus have the budget for this sort of thing anymore, given how little their development budget seems to be right now. What G+ needs are ambassadors in order to promote it broadly but without a place for people to love, getting ambassadors would be an exercise in fruitlessness.

5. It's not really reasonable to ask for devs to work faster so we can enjoy a better product. Best to spend time doing enough testing and retesting to release solid features than to machine gun new shiny toys which just keep breaking.

But let me finish with this thought: Although the current vision for Google Plus is to be a network of shared interests, without people you just talk into the void. There has been a de-emphasis over tools aimed at connecting with people, and that's partly due to the fact that the majority of people will connect with their "friends" on other social media for a concert, a barbecue or that picnic with other parents in their kid's class. G+ is more trying to find like-minded people and engage in meaningful conversations around topics we are passionate about. However, we may not end up at a barbecue with people but we'd still like to engage in conversation. I understand somewhere like Reddit is rife with long conversations between users, why can't it be the case here as well?

Get inspired from other networks, bring back #hashtags, make "trending" posts actually trending and break it down by location (sorry but I really don't want to know about the train wreck that it American politics right now), make topics a place other people can post into as they do on reddit. Collections are great but in order to reach even more people it would be useful to have Categories maybe? Something derived from Topics?

Be the best of all worlds the way G+ once was and start to innovate again. Go bold and make galleries of art done in VR, encourage Hangouts again (another divorce I haven't mentioned but Hangouts is its own can of worms) and find people who are passionate about this place, not just Carter Gibson (although he does a great job, and I'm not just saying that).

So here we are, Leo Deegan Leanne Osborne Madeleine DeRome I hope you guys find something to think about in here. And everyone else, let's discuss your thoughts (but please no "this place sucks balls now, boo" that's not constructive)

#makegplusgreatagain #bringbackhashtagautocomplete