You completely missed the biggest benefit stated by the author: the protection from duplication by content farms. When someone Googles the blog post, the original blog is always on top, rather than some content stealing farm. How did you miss that?
The point the author made was that it won't "force you down a path", rather it will lure you with capabilities. My team started using it for Hangouts, because the screen sharing/etc was better than the other products we were trying to use, and by better, I mean faster/smoother/more reliable. Anyone who refuses to enhance their capability out of sheer stubborness is someone I will NEVER do business with.
It's largely inconsequential. Google's search has progressed to the point that content farms are easily identified and penalized. I don't need to opt-in to a special club to bear the benefits of this. And my blog isn't a source of income, so I could frankly care less about who steals what.
> The point the author made was that it won't "force you down a path", rather it will lure you with capabilities.
But G+ is very clearly trying to force itself on everyone, despite the proclamations of this fellow. And _my_ point was that I'm NOT lured by these capabilities, despite the fact that the author seems to conclude that he's discovered some kind of universal truths with regards to web services.
> Anyone who refuses to enhance their capability out of sheer stubborness is someone I will NEVER do business with.
You will do what your clients require or go broke maintaining that POV; clients are stubborn by nature, and if you take the "my way or the highway" route then they will indeed take the highway. For the vast majority of us here, we are lucky to have clients -- not the other way around.
edit: I wish you people would comment if you're going to downvote. What was so patently offensive about this?
Perhaps GP is in the enviable position of having vendors he can coerce into using his choice of teleconference tools. And maybe he's in a large enough organization that he can hide in Accounts Payable and not worry about Sales.
Well, no, you're probably right. Anyone who speaks that categorically is insidiously anti-client enough to undermine the business no matter where he's hiding.
So basically, Google are using their control of the search market to pressure people into moving their actual content under Google's control by offering to rank them better in search results if that content lives on Google's servers and helps feed Google's data-gathering engines. Remind me again, when did they change their motton to "Be Evil"?
Authorsure is a good plugin if you use any Wordpress sites.
You don't have to. Link to your Plus account and do a simple authorization step on Plus and your face shows up in search results and everywhere else. I'm experiencing this benefit with custom software I wrote simply because I have a link to my Plus profile on my site.
False. I couldn't care less about a silly profile pic. I also don't even use Blogger. Perhaps the author is unaware, but there are quite a few bloggers out there who _aren't_ using Blogger, and who happen to control the ability to alter their blog at-will. This would include putting up silly profile pics or whatever.
> Step two: Attract every single small business and at least one of their employees. Want your business to appear on Google Maps, Google Local, et al., so that you can tell your prospective customers where you are, what you sell, and when you are open? Yup, you guessed it--you need a Google Plus Local Business page now.
False. You don't _need_ a "Google Plus Local Business page" for any of that, Google -- and, apparently, the author (who is playing the role of an agent of Google at this point) -- just wants you to believe that you do.
> Step three: Convince you, because all of those other things that you already love get better. Maybe you’re addicted to that new augmented reality game Ingress. Maybe your Google Plus profile makes it way easier to win. Or maybe you want better music, movie, or book recommendations--look no further than Google Plus. Want to find a community of skiers or chefs or race car drivers with a flick of the wrist? Or perhaps that hilarious video about that thing that you once emailed to a friend but can’t quite remember enough about it to find again? When you have Google Plus, those communities and that video just appear when you search for your best guess.
Could he be any more blatant with the Google advertising? I looked for a 'full disclosure' statement but couldn't find one, so I can only assume that the author is drunk on the kool-aid at this point. Regardless, somehow I'm still leading a meaningful, productive life without Google+. I don't know how, maybe I'm a freak of nature.....but I can still easily find music, movie and book recommendations without G+. Astonishingly, I can also still find meetups without G+. And G+ would be the last place I'd ever look to find an old video...
With that said, I'm not saying G+ has failed. But it's not for everyone, and the more Google attempts to force me down that path, the more I am going to resist.