Google+ ?

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 15 Nov 2013 6:20 am

Does anybody use google plus ? It seems screwy and not worth the trouble for me. Reminds me of all the improvements myspace made.

The thing about google at first was it was as simple and easy as possible. Just a mostly blank page with a search window that worked.

Also I get tons of emails from LinkedIn. I think I signed up somehow trying to answer what I thought was a human contacting me. I want to stay in touch and be available to people but the linkedin thing looks like a massive waste of time.

Cal Sharp · Post by **Cal Sharp** » 15 Nov 2013 7:03 am

I'm on there at google.com/+CalSharp I follow people in the design and tech and photography industry and see a lot of interesting stuff from them, so it's good for that. Linkedin is kind of confusing, but the newsletters have some good stuff. People endorse me for stuff I don't even know how to do. I might have got 1 or 2 graphic design jobs from Linkedin.

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 15 Nov 2013 7:16 am

Youtube is basically forcing it's members to sign onto Google+ now. I have 22 videos on Youtube, and I was recently denied access to the Comments on my videos... I could not read or respond to any comments until I signed onto Google+, which I did not want. I did sign on, reluctantly, and all is well in Youtube-land now, but I don't use Google+ at all, have not set up a profile, haven't given them any additional information. As far as I can tell Google+ is just another tracking tool that will eventually lead to more spam, marketing, sales pitches... $:\$

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 15 Nov 2013 7:46 am

Right; you can't upload or comment on YouTube anymore, unless you set up a Google+ account.
So many of us are looking for an alternative to YouTube. Maybe Vimeo is the best?

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 15 Nov 2013 11:49 am

God bless Google. Where would we be without their useless ads on YouTube, and requiring us to join something that we don't want to join.

Linkedin is more for professionals that want to switch or find jobs. That's what I get out of it. If you take the time to read some of stuff, you will see it is mostly a person's resume. I get a fair amount of emails from friends and family to join Linkedin, but I have no real reason to.

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 15 Nov 2013 2:16 pm

Youtube is also nagging members with "alias IDs" to start using their real name. At first a user can click on "ask me later" to delay the changeover, but after a few times doing that the account is blocked and the user Must switch over to his/her real name to access the account. And when he does that he is automatically signed up with Google+

He has no choice. I can understand the "real name" thing because Youtube is trying to clean up the comments section. But I wish they would stop trying to ram Google+ down our throat. A lot of web sites do this sort of thing. They start out user-friendly, and then they restrict our activities, ask for more personal info, take control of user's pages... and harvest user data for marketing.