Google+?

[Gryffindorian]

Now that Google+ is open for all users, I've decided to give it a try. I already have a g-mail account, so all I had to do was sign in, create a personal profile, and add people to my "Circles." I've noticed that it combines certain features of Facebook (tagging photos, reading Streams and updates, etc.) and Twitter (following certain users).

What I don't fully grasp is how to manage contacts on Google+. On Facebook, you have to send a request to someone to add you as a friend, and the process goes both ways. The point is, you would typically only want to share personal information (updates, pictures, links) about yourself with friends or a select group of people. Now Google+, on the other hand, looks like it's just a matter of adding people to your Circles (Family, Work, Friend, Acquaintance, etc.). There is no "request confirm/deny" feature, and I find this to be a privacy issue; thus anyone can follow or add you. I don't want anonymous people to know about my personal info or updates or who my friends are.

Would anyone care to explain to me how the Circles and contacts work on Google+?

 

[SPCTRE]

Well, anyone can follow you - thing is, they won't get to see shit. You have to actively add them to your circles to allow them to see anything besides your name and gender.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

When you share anything on G+, you designate who you're sharing it with. It can be "Public," meaning anyone can see it, or you can share with specific circles. If you only ever share with your circles, then someone who follows you that isn't in your circles won't get to see anything, like SPCTRE said. Just make sure you don't share with "Public" and you'll be fine.

 

[Spot's Meow]

Now that Google+ is open for all users, I've decided to give it a try. I already have a g-mail account, so all I had to do was sign in, create a personal profile, and add people to my "Circles." I've noticed that it combines certain features of Facebook (tagging photos, reading Streams and updates, etc.) and Twitter (following certain users).

What I don't fully grasp is how to manage contacts on Google+. On Facebook, you have to send a request to someone to add you as a friend, and the process goes both ways. The point is, you would typically only want to share personal information (updates, pictures, links) about yourself with friends or a select group of people. Now Google+, on the other hand, looks like it's just a matter of adding people to your Circles (Family, Work, Friend, Acquaintance, etc.). There is no "request confirm/deny" feature, and I find this to be a privacy issue; thus anyone can follow or add you. I don't want anonymous people to know about my personal info or updates or who my friends are.

Would anyone care to explain to me how the Circles and contacts work on Google+?

Well, it's like the opposite of Facebook in that way - on Facebook, you add a friend and then you can add them to a list or change your privacy settings to have your posts only show up to certain people. It's almost an afterthought, and the default is to share whatever you post/like/comment on with everybody. It's the opposite with Google+ in that the default is that any time you post anything, you get to choose who sees it as you're posting. Facebook has recently made some changes to make this easier over there, but I still think the functionality of the circles/lists is much better on Google+.

It actually makes a lot of sense because when you think about it, how often do you want to share what you're about to post with everyone? Sometimes that's useful, but more often what I am posting is targetted at a specific group of my friends, like family members or co-workers.

In short, while with Facebook the default is to publish something to all of your friends, and you have to go out of your way to specify only a specific group seeing it, with Google+ there is no default, you choose who is seeing what you publish every time. So if you haven't personally added someone to your circles, they will never see what you post, unless you specifically state that you want a certain posting to be public.

Also, you can change the settings on every single thing in your profile, so that only certain circles can see it. For example, on my Google+ profile, under Aliases I have "Spot's Meow" so that my BBS friends will know who I am...but only my TrekBBS circle can see it, so that my family or any random person who decides to add me can't see it. I think the only thing on your profile that you can't make private is your name.

 

[Gryffindorian]

OK, thanks, guys. I don't have any family or friend contacts at the moment. I've only added their e-mail addresses to my Circles, but they have yet to sign up for an account and set up a profile. I've been able to configure my privacy settings as to who sees what on my page (birthday, location, education, work), but I've only tried that from the perspective of a third-party person I'm following. Right now "Lady Gaga," whom I'm following, can view my profile although I don't know her. I thought perhaps there should be a way I could confirm her first (or vice versa) before she could see my info.