If you found Google+’s “Incoming” stream little confusing, you
weren’t alone, and Google has now listened to feedback from users,
deciding to remove the Incoming stream form its Google+ social network.
The
Incoming stream was designed to provide Google+ users with an
easy view
content shared by the people that had included them in their Circles.
But seem to confuse most, rather than make the process enjoyable.
Dave Besbris, Engineering Director for Google+ explains:
“The
“Incoming” stream was a part of Google+ from the very start and it
served an important purpose at the time to help people discover others
on Google+. Since then however we’ve added a suggested user list, What’s
Hot, the ability to share circles and in-product search with saved
searches. We’ve also greatly improved our friend suggestion algorithms.
These changes all served the same purpose that incoming originally did:
connecting people.
Based on your feedback and our user
research, we learned that the “Incoming” stream was a very confusing
part of Google+. Not surprisingly, this feedback was reflected in very
low usage of the “Incoming” stream compared to the rest of Google+, so
we decided to remove it and simplify things.”
