Forum Thread: Circles taking over my stream!

Hi Felicia, 

I wanted the same thing, too, and when I asked my Google friends for some advice, this is what they said:  "You can do something like create a circle that has all the people you want in your stream then click on that stream on the left hand side. This would be even better if you could have circles of circles, so you don't have to remember to add people to your reading circle when you add them to the social part." - which is basically what you suggested.

I think we'll have to wait for them to come up with a solution for handling the "noisiness" aspect of Google+. In the meantime, you should send them Feedback with your requested features.

Thanks! Hopefully they will come up with a feature like that soon. In the meantime, I'll just keep viewing individual circles.

I've jumped on a couple Hangouts with some Googlers and they have confirmed (well, they wouldn't say they confirmed as they're not allowed to, but they hinted quite clearly) that they've got some very cool features coming soon to make Circles much more manageable when it comes to controlling all the noise.

In the mean time, toastykitten is right. You have to create a "Not So Noisy" circle and add everyone to it except the people you follow.

The easiest way to copy everyone from one circle to another is to right click on the circle, click "show circle in tab", click the "select all" link in the top right, and then drag them down to the new "Not So Noisy" circle.

Still kind-of a pain, but it doesn't take that long. The real solution is around the corner.

I'm a little late to the party here but I would love some feedback on a circle enhancement product we're looking to develop once the Google+ API becomes available.

Many people are looking for circles in circles functionality for G+ and this is a feature I would really like too. In addition they want the ability to exclude circles to better target their audience and reduce stream noise.

We are looking into adapting our existing calculating contact list software to G+ circles. It already handles everything you could want in circle management. Here is a quick 1 minute video of our idea (http://www.goo.gl/08yAX).

Let me know what you think!

Hi Bob,

I just watched your video. I think it's a great idea. I've actually stopped adding to/organizing my circles right now because I find it a pain in the butt at the moment.

I definitely like the circles-in-circles/lists within lists idea, because many of my circles do overlap. It's kind of a mess right now!

My wishlist for circles right now:

1. Ability to select a few key circles to always show up first to post. For example, friends/family. Currently when I start a new post, it always defaults to the last circles I chose, which I find annoying. Or maybe show a list of most posted-to circles, first. 
2. Ability to exclude circles when posting. For example, post to "all except co-workers". 
3. Ability to create generic posting circles, so that I'm not always selecting "friends, family, following". 

Hi toastykitten,

I think your wish list is right on and I'd love to see them too. Out of curiosity, how many circles do you have at the moment? I have 17 but I actually post mostly to about 5. I use some circles to categorize people to help me remember why I added them or the type of business they are in.

What about everyone else here? How may circles do you currently have?

Right now I only have two circles - Friends and Following, but that's because I'm still deciding what I'm going to use Google+ for. I'm finding it difficult to justify spending the time on another social network when I already have Facebook. I am currently not posting publicly, and this is on purpose.

I've noticed, however that some people I followed have blocked me, because I've made no noise. I find it counter-intuitive for a network to encourage that kind of blocking, as it makes no sense to me. (Maybe they think I'm a spammer?) Currently in Google+, I like to read, but not participate in a lot of discussion unless it's within my own circles.