Merge Google+ and Newsstand

After using Google Play Newsstand for some time, the main problem I see with it is that it has very few editions and that setting up a source is long and confusing - so many bloggers and news sites won't even want to create an edition.

It's not the only problem, though. Pages like +Android Police or +Kotaku have both a Google+ page and a Newstand edition. Where should I follow them? In Google+, or in Newsstand? If I do both, I'll get their articles twice - one in Newsstand, then again when they link them on Google+.

It's also a problem for content creators - they have to link every new article manually on Google+, and they have to set details twice. Once for their Google+ page, then again for their Newsstand edition.

I think a good solution would be to let creators manage their content from the same place, and let readers use a single subscription system (that is, circles) to follow their favorite content creators, regardless of where the content is.

What should readers see?

Imagine having a Newsstand section inside Google+, just as you already have Photos and Communities:

This would work like, and show you the same contents as, the Newsstand Android app. You would have content published by Pages in your circles (or written by people in your circles), as well as content belonging to topics you subscribed to.

In addition, Pages would have an Articles tab showing the contents of its Newsstand edition.

Integration could go much farther than just showing Newsstand contents on the web. An additional problem with Newsstand is that you can't engage. You can read an article, but you can't +1 it, comment it or see what other users have commented. Thanks to integration, Newsstand could use Google+ Comments to let you see comments, reply to them or write your own. See it in action in this mockup of the Android app:

What should content creators see?

Do you have a blog? Have you set up a Newsstand edition? Let me show you how the editor looks right now:

Not only is it ugly and cumbersome. It forces you to verify your webpage again (which requires editing its HTML code, something not everyone can do) and fill lots of fields (edition name, cover image, Google Analytics, managers...) that should already be filled if you have already configured your Google+ Page.

The only thing you would have to edit would be sections, parts of your edition that grab content from an RSS field or other sources. It could be done straight from your Page's dashboard, just like this:

Integrating Pages with editions would streamline the process and make it much, much easier and faster. It would also make discovery easier, because readers wouldn't have to search for a Google+ Page and a Newsstand edition separately. It would make managing easier too, since pages wouldn't have to link new articles manually. And it would make things easier for readers, because they would only have to subscribe in one place to get all the content.

Would you like to see something like this? Feel free to comment!

Improve comments and reshares

Google+ is great, but I have always felt that there's something wrong with its sharing and commenting system. 

Imagine that you see a post and that you have something to say about it. Right now you have two options: either share the post and let your followers read what you said (but not the original audience) or comment the post and let the original audience (but not your followers) read it. But never both groups.

Comments are also second-class citizens. You can link to a post, but not to a comment. You can reply to a post, but not to a comment. You can embed posts out of Google+, but you can't embed comments. I know people who write comments on my posts and their comment is much more interesting than my post ever was in the first place. Yet I can't share that to my followers, or start a new conversation from there.

Let's see how to fix that.

Say you start writing a comment to the post. You get the option to also share it to your followers.

Or, let's say that you decide to share the post to your followers and add something of your own. You get the option to also share that as a reply in the original post.

In both cases the result would be the same: your followers should see your comment as a post, right after the original content. This way they would be able to follow the whole conversation. They would be able to reply to your post. They would be able to share your post.

And, of course, they would be able to click any comment that they find interesting, in any conversation in order to see it as a post. And they would be able to share it, or reply to it and start a new conversation from there.

The second problem is, the current system branches conversations when it should not. What if you just want to share an interesting post, but don't have anything to add? Right now you can +1 it (which may show the original conversation to your followers... or may not), or you can share it (which will create a new post). But you have no way to share the original post for sure, complete with its conversation.

An additional downside is that, since a new post is created for everyone that reshared a post, streams can become clogged really quickly. You probably must have noticed that when someone well known writes a popular post and everyone starts sharing it: you get it multiple times in your stream, even thought it's actually always the same post. Isn't that a bore?

Let's see how to fix that.

If I share a post but don't add a comment of my own, let my followers simply see the original post. Let them +1 the original post, let them read the original conversation and add their thoughts to it if they think they have something to say.

If ten people they're following reshare the same post, well, they only get it once. Wouldn't that be nice?

The third problem is that the current approach doesn't work well with Google+ Comments. Conversations in Google+ are only one level deep, but those in Google+ Comments are two levels deep. A post in Google+ becomes a comment in Comments, and a comment in Google+ becomes a reply in comments. Is that easy to grasp? Of course it's not.

So, let's posts simply be posts. Let us use a post to answer another post. Let's forget about comments and replies, and focus on conversations.

Tighter integration between Google+ and Google Drive

The Google Drive Android app was updated earlier this week in order to make it use the cards interface, the same Google+ and many other Google products are starting to use. So I thought that there is no reason to stop there, and that it would be better to integrate it more tightly into Google+.

First off, there's no need for Google's classic black bar. Drive can be put into the new ribbon, just like Google Photos was:

Moreover, why use the cards UI only in the Android app? The web interface would also benefit from it. Here's how it would look:

But leaving the interface aside, there are other ways to integrate Drive with Plus and other Google Services. Drive's document chat was updated last month but, contrary to expectations, it doesn't use Hangouts. It would be cool to create a Hangouts conversation with other viewers and make use of all the advantages Hangouts offers:

A document's comments should be no different from the Google+ commenting system: every time you comment a document you should be given the option to share your comment with the other viewers in the Google+ stream, where they can reply.

You should also be able to harness the power of Google+ to share documents with people in your circles, or even with whole circles or the general public. Using Google+ should enable you to specify who can do what with your document, in a far easier way than you can do it now:

Last but not least, this kind of integration should allow you to share not only photos or videos, but any kind of document from Hangouts or the Google+ stream. Just start writing a post and choose to add a file, then upload one from your computer or choose one from the ones already stored on your Drive.

Would you like to see these changes? Please leave a comment and, if you want, send them as feedback to Google to let them know.

More and better reviews

It's been roughly a year since Google integrated our business reviews in Google+, and a couple months since they were added as a tab in our profiles. And while these are great as they are, here's how they could be even better.

First, don't just show local reviews. We are reviewing much more than local business for Google, ranging from apps, books, albums and movies in Google Play to consumer products in Google Shopping. Why not show these too in our Reviews tab?

Second, let readers do with them everything they would be able to do with a post. Right now anyone reading a review can share it, but they can't +1 it to show their support, or even comment on it to show their agreement or disagreement. Why not allow them to?

Third and last, don't force us to use our real names to review every single item. As I proposed here, we should be able to use a page to share any kind of content to Google+. Now if for whatever reason we don't want our name associated with a particular review, why not let us do that in reviews too?

Would you like to see these changes? Please leave a comment and, if you want, send them as feedback to Google to let them know.

Nested replies with unlimited levels that (still) keep the conversation simple.

Every time I hear someone ask for nested replies on Google+, I'm torn. On one hand I don't really like how they branch the conversation, making it harder to follow. On the other, it is true that they are useful when the conversation really needs to be branched because a particular comment brings something new to the table.

It turns out there's a way to have the best of both worlds, and the key is in Google+ Comments. You have probably noticed that blog comments have two levels: the first level ones are actually Google+ posts with a link to the blog post, and the second level ones are actually Google+ comments.

Here's an article in Blogger's official blog. It has a level 1 comment with a couple nested comments inside it.

But when we visit Google+ we discover it's just a Google+ post with the link, and a couple comments inside. The point here is that a post and a comment can be basically the same thing. But if we look at them closely we se that comments are second-class citizens in Google+:

Now, what if you could click the second link to be taken to +Phil Oakley's comment? What if clicking it took you here?

The basic idea is that a comment is really a post pointing to another post and therefore it can be plus oned, shared and yes, replied to. You can see in the mockup how I'm writing a reply to Phil's comment, thus branching the conversation. My reply would also be a post and could in turn be replied to, and the conversation on +Anuj Ahooja's original post would remain simple because my reply, being off-topic and only related to Phil's comment, would not appear there.

The idea is, let's suppose I read Anuj's post and its comments, and I have something to say. If I feel that it's related to what Anuj said I can just use the "Add a comment" box and be done with it. But if it only relates to what Phil said I can open his post and write my comment there, or use a "Go off-topic" button:

Either I would keep Anuj's simple and free of unrelated comments while giving me the possibility to expand on Phil's idea and discuss our thoughts:

And, of course, this would allow anyone to go off-topic on my comment without bothering Phil's commenters.

Would you like to have something like this? Do you see any problems with it? Don't forget to leave a comment!

Letting the user choose where to share from.

Google+ doesn't only let us share stuff from our streams. We can use the +1 button or the Share button on our Google bars, or even YouTube or Google+ Local to share new content to our followers. But all these places only let us use our main profile, not any our pages.

A small change should be enough to fix that, though. Take a look at this +1 button popup:

See that small arrow next to the user's name? I wonder what should happen if you clicked it:

What's that? A second mockup letting you choose which profile or page you want to use to +1 or share that content? Now wouldn't that be nice?

Would you like to have that? Please leave your comments.

Improving Google+ Comments

You probably know that +Google announced Google+ Comments yesterday. Basically you can now read a blog post, write a comment using your Google+ profile and optionally share that comment to Google+, for your followers to read and reply.

The benefits for readers are important: they can now easily let not only their followers read their opinion, but also anyone interested in the topic who might be reading the blog post. It also makes it easier for them to keep track of potential replies, since these will trigger a Google+ notification. It's good for authors too, because they can see everything everyone is saying about their post (or at least everyone on G+, that is).

The problems

Google+ Comments do have a few hiccups. if you uncheck "Share on Google+" you won't push the conversation to your followers, but you won't get any notifications in case someone replies. You can see and reply to public comments (or private comments that you're allowed to see), but comments directed to a community work differently: you can see them but you can't reply to them, and there's no explanation why. And most importantly: they are broken because of the way sharing (and resharing) works on Google+.

See Alexander's comment? Neither do I. What happened here is that Alexander opened Google+ and pasted the link for his followers without saying a word about it. This is useful as a Google+ post (after all, his followers might be interested in seeing Google's announcement) but not as a comment in the blog post. It's empty, it doesn't add anything to the conversation and there's no reason why people not following Alexander would want to see it or reply to it. It just has no place as a comment.

See Nuno's Comment? No, of course you don't. That's because Nuno opened Google+, read +John Blossom's post about it and reshared it. Again, this is useful for Nuno's followers because John's comment is interesting and they probably want to read it. But it has no place as a comment in the blog post, and do you know why?

That's right: because John's comment is already there for every one to see and reply to. Nuno's reshare adds nothing, and simply makes John's comment show up twice instead of just once. And why would you want to see again a comment you just read?

Now imagine what happens with comments from popular plussers such as +Yonatan Zunger or +Vic Gundotra. Yonatan's comment, for example, has been reshared as much as 216 times. That means that his own Google post shows up repeated more than two hundred times as a comment on his own blog post. Why on Earth would you want to see the same comment repeated that many times?

Even worse: many of those reshares are empty and offer absolutely no value: they are noise and only make it difficult to find and reply to the original comment. Many people will just see one of those empty reshares and reply to them, branching the conversation and possibly missing everything everyone had said about it.

The obvious solution: don't show empty reshares as comments. Simply use them to post the original comment to the top.

Whole posts on our streams

Now isn't this funny? I follow +Yonatan Zunger, +Google and +Blogger on Google+. Yonatan wrote that blog post for both Google and Blogger, but in order for his followers to get it on their streams he had to manually write a Google+ post with the link.

In the blog, that Google+ post looks as if Yonatan had replied to his own blog post, which makes no sense and is much worse when that reply appears, as we have seen, repeated hundreds of times. I think there's a good solution for that problem, but I deal with those in another post.

Do you agree with this? Do you see things differently? Don't forget to comment and share your opinion.