Manav Kataria's Blog

Google+ Implements Our Hack! :)

It is a humble compliment to see how Yahoo!, Facebook and now Google have found the USP of our concept valuable.

FriendCircle was the winner of Yahoo! University Hackathon – HackU 2010 at IIT Bombay in October.

Yahoo! intended to use it in their products but we don’t really know how they’ve done it.

Facebook, in a few months had a small feature with a rather inconspicuous and not so convenient UI on their news feed settings which allowed the user to show more of <friend>.

Google, has recently released Google+ a new social networking platform with one of its USP based on Friend Circle. Though we have been a few steps ahead, they do seem to be heading in a similar direction:

Click to Enlarge

Google+ Circle

Click to Enlarge

FriendCircle

Want to try out FriendCircle? Leave us a note.

-Manav

(on behalf of my HackU team:
Sumit Somani, Mayank Singhal and Gaurav Toshniwal)

This entry was posted on June 30, 2011 by . It was filed under Technology and was tagged with , , , , , , , , , , .

3 responses

  1. Nikita

    I want to try FriendCircle

    June 30, 2011 at 4:39 pm

    Reply
  2. Vibhu

    Manav, the concept isn’t even close to that of your team.
    Yours is a affinity-based mapping. This is a context-based mapping. Google+ is the concept of ‘direction’ of information rather than ‘reach’ of information.

    Compare this more with fb lists… just that they gave a circle one can tinker with for a UI.

    June 30, 2011 at 5:58 pm

    Reply
    • Manav Kataria

      Thanks for bringing this up Vibhu.

      I understand your point of view and agree with the understanding of the model. We do have an affinity-based model, the intelligence within the system that segregates users.

      However if you sort all your users into most common contexts of ‘haven’t met’, ‘acquaintances’, ‘friends’ and ‘family’ — it is similar to FriendCircle!

      This is where these models merge.

      But the context may not always be intersecting. Absolutely true, and in that case they are different.

      Affinity based model is a social context. And for every independent context we could have an affinity based sorting model like FriendCircle.

      From the Product Manager’s Perspective:
      Every product here has a common objective — To provide the user with means to relevant feeds. We reduce clutter by sorting users into groups. Now how many users would manually sort all users into different groups? I have 800+ friends on Facebook. How many users on Facebook do it? What do they gain from it?

      If circles are to be used for feeds, shouldn’t they be automatic?

      Google+ Circle is a very good start. It helps you establish a context. And, it also helps Gmail throw better email suggestions at you, when you write your next mail! 😉

      July 1, 2011 at 12:14 am

      Reply

Leave a comment