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caio  ·  4663 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Google+ got right what Facebook got wrong.
I'd like to link a Zadie Smith article in the NYRB called "Generation Why?". In it, she discusses the movie "The Social Network" and weaves a connection with Jaron Lanier's "You're Not a Gadget: a Manifesto". http://tinyurl.com/269lya4

Here's a quote from the article:

"Why? Why Facebook? Why this format? Why do it like that? Why not do it another way? The striking thing about the real Zuckerberg, in video and in print, is the relative banality of his ideas concerning the 'Why' of Facebook. He uses the word 'connect' as believers use the word 'Jesus', as if it were sacred in and of itself: 'So the idea is really that, um, the site helps everyone connect with people and share information with the people they want to stay connected with...' Connection is the goal. The quality of that connection, the quality of the information that passes through it, the quality of the relationship that connection permits—none of this is important."

I wonder if the quality of information in Google+ will be any different than in Facebook. It probably won't.