Wheaton is a big star in the US. He starts by saying he likes Google+. But by forcing people to "upgrade" in order to like a video on YouTube, he says it's putting people off.

By crippling functionality on sites Google owns (like YouTube) and forcing users to "upgrade" to a service that they may not want or need to get that functionality back, Google is making a huge and annoying mistake.</p><p> You get people to enthusiastically use services by making them compelling and awesome and easy to use. You don't get people to enthusiastically use your services by forcing them to. In fact, that's probably a great way to ensure that a huge number of people who may have been interested in trying out your service never even look at it.

When the producers don't like it, that's a problem.

Devin Coldewey:

Google never said “What you’re doing is broken. Use our thing instead.” They always said “Did you know you we can do that too, for free?” Did they say Excel was broken when they let you make spreadsheets in Docs? Did they break down email to its bare bones and remake it for Gmail? Of course not. Google was about ubiquity, diversity, and a few memorable little quirks or improvements that set them out from the crowd.

To attempt to build something new, a la Apple, with the assurance that company likes to make (“This is the best way, which is why we made it the only way”) is not a Google strength. They just aren’t good at making new things. Never have been. Making existing things easier, faster, more accessible — sure. But inventing them? Not so much. So the idea that they were going to invent a new way to share should have rung alarm bells to begin with.

Sharing was never broken; Google merely found that they were losing a battle they had not even prepared for. Their declaration of war was a declaration of defeat.

Subtle point.

[Steve] Warren cited a real-world example from 2007. When a new fleet of helicopters arrived with an aviation unit at a base in Iraq, some Soldiers took pictures on the flightline, he said. From the photos that were uploaded to the Internet, the enemy was able to determine the exact location of the helicopters inside the compound and conduct a mortar attack, destroying four of the AH-64 Apaches.

Ow.

Lots of stats, though very US-centric; countries such as South Korea have had fabulously timewasting social networks for absolutely years.

Tom Coates comments on the soothing words from Klout's chief: "While superficially that seems reasonable, pretty much any of us who have been on the web a long time know what these scores result in. One way or another they'll make us targets for marketing and advertising companies to try and sell their products through us.

"And while you talk about the ways in which you try to give people a better platform to be recognized for their passions, what you're actually doing (or at least this is how it seems) is to estimate which of us is financially worth the most, and then you're selling access to us to advertisers." That's the real vision behind it, he thinks.

So true: "Twitter is filled with users who have carefully made a few lists, and then promptly forgot about them after they realized their clients don’t make it as easy to read List tweets as it is to read tweets from people you follow.

"This is why I was never fascinated by Google+ and its concept of Circles. You have to go through entire sub-communities of your friends and drop them into arbitrary groupings. That sounds like shit work to me. What happens if I get really hammered with a Business Acquaintance and he becomes a Close Drinking Partner? Do I move his circles around? What happens if we hire him? Is he a Coworker and a Close Drinking Partner? The last thing I want to have to worry about is continually micromanaging another facet of life. "

The Center for Disease Control has web buttons and everything: "If you're ready for this, you're ready for anything." (Though we think back to Series 1 of The Walking Dead and think hmm, you didn't really follow your own advice, did you, CDC?)