I really don't know what it does. I must have been signed up before and forgot. I really don't trust Google and probably deleted my account for that reason bor maybe I didn't understand it then either. I get messages that people "added me back" but I don't know what to do. Is it like MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger or like FB or what? Do you use it? Is it secure? What sort of info does it share, if any?
 
Thanks...
 
dummy

I avoid Google as much as I can. I'm moving over to Bing.
All I know about Google + is that their chief is resigning. 
 
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/google-chief-vivek-gundotra-to-resign/article5947175.ece
 
I put up with Facebook and that's enough for me. I have a Twitter account which I never use, created only to participate to giveaways.

Google+ will only ever have a small niche market IMO. The original idea was to be a rival to Facebook and they thought that by offering better social media features that they'd get a lot of "defections" from the Zuckerberg camp. I think what they didn't think through was the fact that people have invested years in their Facebook accounts. They have a circle of friends, they have thousands of photos and posts which amount to a scrapbook of their lives and their relationships. I couldn't see people ditching all of that to make a fresh start on Google+ and I was right. It's basically the Linux of social media. 

As much as it is a part of my life since we're away from friends and family, these days I hate Facebook for what it's become, in view of how it manages my access to what show up in my newsfeed.
 
If I like a company page, it's because I do want to hear from them and see their updates. But since they want pages to pay to promote and increase visibility, most of what I have an interest in fails to show up. And since the stuff that shows up is based upon the interaction that you have, you end up seeing only updates from the same dozen of people and companies. 
 
A while back, you had an option to see only some posts or all of them. But now, even if you follow a page, you'll miss most of what they post anyway.
 
I don't know how many times I realized I hadn't heard of a friend in a while only to notice that FB had blocked them from my newsfeed. And similarly, most of us noticed that more and more of our posts go unnoticed, because FB just doesn't show them in our network's newsfeed.
 
I also hate the way it arbitrarily hides things from my timeline.
 
If something existed which allowed us to import all our data from FB, I'd leave it in a blink. But that'll never happen, obviously. But at some point, considering the direction it has been taking, people will move to something else.
 
Did I mention that when they added the trending sidebar, it pretty much killed any hope I might have had left in humanity - when I see what preoccupies people, the topics of interest, I am fairly certain that we're doomed...

Rain
As much as it is a part of my life since we're away from friends and family, these days I hate Facebook for what it's become, in view of how it manages my access to what show up in my newsfeed.
 
If I like a company page, it's because I do want to hear from them and see their updates. But since they want pages to pay to promote and increase visibility, most of what I have an interest in fails to show up. And since the stuff that shows up is based upon the interaction that you have, you end up seeing only updates from the same dozen of people and companies. 
 
A while back, you had an option to see only some posts or all of them. But now, even if you follow a page, you'll miss most of what they post anyway.
 
I don't know how many times I realized I hadn't heard of a friend in a while only to notice that FB had blocked them from my newsfeed. And similarly, most of us noticed that more and more of our posts go unnoticed, because FB just doesn't show them in our network's newsfeed.
 
I also hate the way it arbitrarily hides things from my timeline.
 
If something existed which allowed us to import all our data from FB, I'd leave it in a blink. But that'll never happen, obviously. But at some point, considering the direction it has been taking, people will move to something else.
 
Did I mention that when they added the trending sidebar, it pretty much killed any hope I might have had left in humanity - when I see what preoccupies people, the topics of interest, I am fairly certain that we're doomed...

 
I know it's not an ideal solution, but if you go to a page whose updates you want to see all of and select "Get notifications" from the "liked" dropdown, you will receive notifications every single time that page posts something. 

I've moved on to Google-

sharke

Rain
As much as it is a part of my life since we're away from friends and family, these days I hate Facebook for what it's become, in view of how it manages my access to what show up in my newsfeed.
 
If I like a company page, it's because I do want to hear from them and see their updates. But since they want pages to pay to promote and increase visibility, most of what I have an interest in fails to show up. And since the stuff that shows up is based upon the interaction that you have, you end up seeing only updates from the same dozen of people and companies. 
 
A while back, you had an option to see only some posts or all of them. But now, even if you follow a page, you'll miss most of what they post anyway.
 
I don't know how many times I realized I hadn't heard of a friend in a while only to notice that FB had blocked them from my newsfeed. And similarly, most of us noticed that more and more of our posts go unnoticed, because FB just doesn't show them in our network's newsfeed.
 
I also hate the way it arbitrarily hides things from my timeline.
 
If something existed which allowed us to import all our data from FB, I'd leave it in a blink. But that'll never happen, obviously. But at some point, considering the direction it has been taking, people will move to something else.
 
Did I mention that when they added the trending sidebar, it pretty much killed any hope I might have had left in humanity - when I see what preoccupies people, the topics of interest, I am fairly certain that we're doomed...

 
I know it's not an ideal solution, but if you go to a page whose updates you want to see all of and select "Get notifications" from the "liked" dropdown, you will receive notifications every single time that page posts something. 

Yeah, I guess that's a workaround, but this sort of kills the purpose of notification - the things I really want to be notified of will most likely be lost among hundreds of notifications.
 
One thing I started doing is creating lists - for example, I have one called "all", which has all my contacts and that way I think I get pretty much every thing they post. Now I'd have to do the same for my interests list. It works, but it's pretty ridiculous to have to jump through so many hoops to do what FB was supposed to do in the first place.
 
Heck, I remember when I signed up in 2007 IIRC, I didn't feel comfortable using it since it seems that every one could see what you did, what you liked, what you posted on someone else's wall. For the last year or two, it's reach the exact opposite point - even the stuff you want to share doesn't get through.

If I spend very much time on FB I end up angry. I too have noticed that people who I used to see in my news feed are gone. I don't understand that. You'd think that all your friends posts would show up but they don't. I really do not understand and really don't go there often but when I do, I tend to spend too much time there and like I said... I end up mad and probably posting responses that are not all butterflies and sunshine. So many people are SO out of touch with reality, it is scary. I guess I need to figure out how to use Google+.
As far as Twitter, I REALLY don't get that. Who cares about some short little snippet of words from me? I certainly don't care what the rich and famous have to say. Twitter seems totally useless to me.
I guess I am not the most social person to begin with. I like it here.
 
J

THIS is my social disease site.  I have no need for F***book or the others.

If you post on youtube a lot or use one of the other services Google offers then I guess it's an advantage to be on Google+. I have an account there but never fully developed it yet
 
Google is a package deal and I guess if you like what's in the package then you'll like it. Google offers a pretty good email package as part of plus. In some ways, it seems that Google has tried to be too many all things to all people and in that process has let some of the services slip. Google as a search engine is probably the top one out there or if it isn't the others are not far ahead. Google has feedburner,good connect with youtube,something that resembles skype...There's a lot I still don't know about it...but there's a lot in the plus package if you can wrap your head around it. If you know people signed to Google + , then it has potential to be decent in the social network end too.
 
I once was on FB all the time and now I might be there once or twice a week for a few minutes. Too many people airing out too much dirty laundry, know what I mean? 
 
I never got Twitter either until recently. I think FB is overload IMO and I think the fact that making comments limited to 140 characters keeps some people away from it and that can be a good thing. No one has the time to read the book that can sometimes be found on FB.My news feed is usually so swamped that I give up...it actually locks up my old iphone 4 with OS7. I get requests to play games all the time...so I just keep it at arms length. My wife is on it frequently so I usually can catch up from her as we have many of the same friends.
 
I'm really popular on Twitter...24 followers I think lol! Thats ok though, you don't want too many or you can't follow them all.
 
All of these services are intertwined with one another in that you can make one site post to another site automatically, G+, FB,Tumblr,Pinterest...and on it goes...so it gets to the point that you can get the same info from all of them and boils down to which interface you prefer to use. One exception to that being FB which seems to let you post to it but it doesn't send out bots to others in as big a way. Almost everything I use will let me post to FB..
 
One really big mistake I have made in the past is to accept or like too many things and then they follow you around forever, essentially eliminating the advantage of selection in the first place. Time to thin the herd a little.