The news has been full of the name Steve Yegge in recent days. Steve is an engineer who works for Google, and he does not seem to like Google Plus very much. He wrote a 4,000-word post about his misgivings and added it to his own Google Plus account.
This may not seem too worrisome to begin with. However, if you know anything at all about Google Plus you will know that one of the features is that you can have different Circles with different people in them. One of Steve’s Circles had his Google colleagues in it. It was this Circle he intended to publish his thoughts to. Instead, he published it publicly, meaning anyone who viewed his Google Plus account could read it. Many of them did.
Even though he then took it down, many people had already read it and the message was out. His oft repeated opinion that Google’s new social networking platform was a “pathetic afterthought” reverberated around the internet, hitting the headlines and giving Google some publicity it probably would rather not have had.
While Steve may not be at the highest management level of the company, he is an engineer and has enough experience and insight to know what is working and what is not. Many have agreed with his comments, so while they were never meant to be read publicly he has had much support as a result. It makes you wonder whether Google will take notice.
