Google+: We Have a Bigger Problem

There are a set of tools we can use. But we don’t have to jump onto every new network that comes out, exclaiming “No No NO! THIS ONE changes everything!”

Daniel Agee – “Google+: Should I Give a Shit?” — We Have A Bigger Problem.

Comments

Matt Pearson says:

I’ve moved past that question. I no longer give a shit about G+, and have graduated to feeling openly antagonistic about it. Same

Ambiguity around policy is troublesome. The NymWars highlight both implementation-of-policy and seriously-screwed-up-philosophy concerns. Embedding the gChat widget into G+ AND melding G+’s implicit “presence” to gChat/XMPP’s explicit “presence” is technically very much not okay, and has irrevocably polluted my contacts list. I ran screaming from Facebook’s IM implementation for this very reason.

This post nails the Bigger Problem. We follow the money, and we run face-first into dumbass short-term questions like the bit about ROI. We follow the money, and we see architectures that foster artificial balkanization and “owning of the network” (for the explicit purpose of selling it or derivatives of or access to it). What we don’t see are tools and services that exhibit the characteristics that makes the Internet work, that makes email continue to be relevant, that Diaspora is ostensibly attempting to deliver, and that gives me hope that IM-over-XMPP will endure.

There is no money in connecting all people, but there is plenty of money in connecting (and hoarding) merely some people and shunning those who won’t fall over and play ball (I mean, allow themselves to be sold).

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