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Google+ gains attention of Redditors

After a few weeks of Reddit users poking and prodding Google+, the verdict is in: they might not love everything the search giant’s new stab at social networking offers but they certainly love talking about it. 

 

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Posted on Jul 12, 2011   Updated on Jun 3, 2021, 4:03 am CDT

After a few weeks of Reddit users poking and prodding Google+, the verdict is in: they might not love everything the search giant’s new stab at social networking offers but they certainly love talking about it.

A search for Google+ on Reddit returns nearly 80,000 results of pictures, memes and discussions comparing it against Facebook. Reddit even poked a bit of fun today by unveiling a tweaked logo, adding a + sign to the normal logo at the top of the page.

In a lengthy discussion which reached Reddit’s front page Monday, users debated what they loved and hated vs the venerable Facebook.

A user named Pheedback knocked Google+ for lack of unique features that would make it completely unique to Facebook, rather than simply an alternative. Pheedback writes the younger generation wants “something new and different made out of a mash up of previously successful ideas” mixed with innovative, new features, which Google+ doesn’t yet provide.

However, user yufice writes that Google+ isn’t trying to replicate Facebook but rather make social networking more personable, and more private. Yufice writes that Google+’s advantage is it streamlines the ability to share pictures and notes privately, which Facebook doesn’t do well without jumping through a few hoops.

“Google is trying to de-emphasize the idea of ‘hey, look at me talking to my friend on the internet,’ and go more along the lines of ‘hey, I’m talking to you, on the internet,’” yufice writes.

When Facebook splashed into the social networking scene, the site was unique as it showed how cool you are by the activities you were doing or who you were with, but other other social network sites, like Foursquare, has encroached into this area making it obsolete. Google+ is different that it is making social networking a more private, intimate place, writes yufice.

“Google+ is trying to make the social network a more personal and connected device, rather than just an ego pumping Facebook clone,” writes yufice.

On a lighter note, Reddit users are flooding the site with amusing .gifs and pictures like this one showing the influx of new hampters, er users, ready to pile in to the Google+ party. Another one teases Google’s knowledge of seemingly everything with this picture asking for personal information labeled “Google+ being cute.”  The user jests “I think it’s cute how Google plays dumb and ask me [to] fill in my personal information.”

Two more pictures of note show Google+’s logo in an Angry Birds level ready to knock off its competitors and traffic ditching Facebook for Google+.

Lastly, Reddit’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian is an active user on Google+ with more than 1800 people following the Hipmunk founder. Alexis suggest that Google+ implement Reddit’s comment system and post pictures of Reddit’s old offices.

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*First Published: Jul 12, 2011, 5:34 am CDT