Google+

Yesterday my Google+ invite came through after someone kindly invited me earlier in the week - these things take time.  This post is on my initial thoughts on using Google+

Before getting onto Google+ the only knowledge I had was from watching the demonstration video's and certain users views from podcasts like TwiG.  This was probable a mistake as these guys are the Google fan boys and give an impression that it's great but I'll come back to the difference between them and us 'normal' users.  The impress I got was I could find and join a circle/hangout - how wrong could I be - VERY!!!

So I logon Google+ for the first time and I'm presented with a blank canvas consisting of just me and a message from the kind soul who invited me.  So lets find a circle to join, first problem met, there are no 'public' circles, you have to create your own circle and find people to add to it - they'll know they're in your circle but not what circle it is.  If you're from the Twitter wealm think of a circle as a Twitter list which can't be shared, so rather than one person doing all the hard work curating a circle that can be shared, with G+ everyone has to create their own in the vain hope that everyone is roughly having the same Circles.

To start with I've created a Circle called Locals - South Lakes, Cumbria, England and using names from Twitter added 11 people with Google+ accounts (you search in real names not nicknames), so I've been using it for nearly 24hrs now and between the 12 of us in my circle we've conversed between each other zero times.  This may lie a problem for ordinary users like me, I think you're going to have to have alot of people in your circle to get to the point of finding out whether it's going to be useful for anything.  You could say twitter on occasions is the same, alot goes on during the day but once midnight comes everyone turns into a punkin and all goes quiet till the morning.

So why have the likes of Leo Laporte's TwiG clan taken to it so easily compared to Joe Public (you and I), well they've got the advantage to being able to quickly create a network of circles just by adding well known people from tech and as this network listen to shows like TwiG then Leo's Clan are invited into the right circles so they're able to get the most out of what Google+ is offering.  For Joe Public we have to do alot of work upfront to just tip the surface to what Google+ has to offer and there maybe easier non Google ways of achieving the same goals for certain people.

So far I have 40 people in my circles and my feeling of Google+ is like it's just Buzz 2.0, I can see alot of newbies losing interest and sticking with Twitter and/or Facebook, too much effort if needed to hunt out other people you think maybe of interest and create circles for them.  Then when you have a starting point the next difficulty is turning your one way messages into a two way conversion both in written form and in a hangout.  

For me the only part I could see being useful is the hangout feature for discussing certain topics between upto 10 people via webcam, for example at work I use a suite of applications known as SAP Business Objects, there is a very good forum called BOB Forums for post requests for help regarding the application or helping others in written form.  I think it would be good to have a Business Objects hangout for occasions when it makes sense to discussion face to face rather than through a long winded post thread.  At the moment I trying to see if I can find a way to make this work - this maybe a long road as I'm having to try and set it up by posting in BOB Forums ask people to come and find me on Google+ - if Google was to allow people to setup public Circles then this would be a lot easier, all that would be need is for me to point people to the public circle.

I've seen this sort of hangout type activity happen very successful and easily using a combination of Twitter and TinyChat.  It's a simply a case of tweeting everyone in a Twitter list asking them to join a TinyChat session.

My Initial Opinion - Google+  =  Buzz 2.0

Improvements Needed - Public Circles

Virgin Trains WiFi

On Wednesday I took the train from Kendal to Lytham so I could have a drink at the Xmas lunch, normally I do it by car taking around an hour, by train it's an example of why public transport isn't an alternative for alot of people, I caught the 7:05 from Kendal, 20 minute wait at Oxenholme for a connection then another 45 minute in Preston for the Lytham train, getting me into work for 9:30, two and a half hours later.

That aside the reason for this post, Virgin Trains are offering free WiFi access on it's trains until 28 February 2011 after doing a deal with Google, so for the first time I tried it out with my iPod touch.  Have to say I'm not all that impressed, on the way down, it worked, was easy to connect to (although a little slow), but in my 30 minute journey I only used it for 5 minutes to check my mail, facebook, twitter.

On the journey back my iPod could see Virgin's WiFi hotspot but try as I might it wouldn't connect to their network - disappointed.

I've concluded that I would pay for this service, not reliable and I would use it as much as I thought I would.

Tweet

2009 - Year of Twitter & Facebook

It's the start of 2010 and social networking reached another level during 2009, changing the lifes of many and also confusing many others, following are my views on the two most popular at the moment and other services I've used that may make a bigger mark during 2010.


Facebook
 
Different generations go for different social tools, the school gen used Bebo, music fans used MySpace, my gen (working folk) used FriendsReunited.  These mediums are aimed at those interested in seeing what people they know or interest in are upto and may wish to keep in contact with.  With FriendsReunited it was free to view profiles but you had to pay a subscription if you wished to contact anyone you knew.

Then Facebook came along which was original aimed at the Bebo generation (those still at school) but they cottoned on that it was better to open it up to everyone and soon everyone on FriendsReunited was moving over to the free Facebook. Over it's short life it's changed alot, originally you navigated to each friends profile page which was peppered with various useful/annoying gadgets. Over time it's evolved to it's current focus of a live feed of friends updates and photos.  Expect Facebook to continue to change, probable more in the direction of Twitter, read on for an idea of what maybe changed... 

Twitter

The first time I tried Twitter was in 2008, at the time I couldn't see the value in it, wondering what the point was, who's interested in knowing what someone is doing. A few months later I gave it another go and it clicked on how valuable a social tool it was. I see Twitter as mainly a communication tool to people you mainly don't know but may share some common interests. I've found it invaluable for finding out what's going
on locally both news wise and event wise, when Kendal had the floods last month Twitter became the networking tool for finding out what local roads were closed/passable, the river level height and seeing all the photos everyone was taking (mine included).

The same networking happened over the past couple of weeks with the unusually long period of snowfall in the south lakes.  Twitter has been a good avenue for networking of local businesses, it's impressive how local businesses are using the tool in an interesting way to make their business presence know (no annoy spamming tweets going on). I can see twitter and facebook playing a big part in the run up to the 2010 elections, will be interesting to see how all local candidates use these tools, some are on a good start, others not out of the starting blocks, hopefully these tools won't be abused to spam the electorate.

Twitter has improved with a Lists feature where instead of following an individual you can add them to a personal list or if they belong to a list subscribe to that list. I use this for grouping people I'm interested in into categories to make it easier to follow what's going on. I can see making/following Lists becoming more important than following individuals, I have Lists for Kendal, Cumbria, local-news, local-gov, cumbria-enterprise.

An application well worth using if you use Twitter or Facebook is Tweetdeck this tool makes it easier to see all your Twitter followers, Twitter Lists, Facebook live feed altogether as well as see live update results of Twitter searches which is useful for finding new interesting people to follow.  You can write a status update and have it sent to your Twitter and Facebook accounts at the same time saving effort.

Other services for Twitter have sprung up, I used one called TwitterMail to good effect during 2009, first time was in the spring when we rigged our birdboxes in the garden with camera's connected to an old PC (our local SpringWatch).  I wrote a script that would periodically take a photo and using TwitterMail post it to my Twitter account for everyone to see.  Later on in the year I did a 12mile geocaching walk around Wetsleddale where on my iPod touch I did a series of diary entries of the route with photo, back home merged the photos with the diary entries then sent them to Twitter using TwitterMail.  Hopeing to use the service again this coming Spring (subject to the Bluetits returning)

Friendfeed

Friendfeed was touted as the replacement to Twitter, but really it's just a service for aggregating all the various services that are used in a central place, all updates from blogger, twitter, facebook, youtube, picasa automatically appear on my friendfeed page. If people I know are wanting to know where to find me I usually send them the friendfeed so they can see everyone.  It's very google as looking at links in your feeds and for photos or videos placing a thumbnail in your friendfeed.
 
During 2009 Friendfeed was bought by Facebook so you may see alot of Friendfeed's features appearing in Facebooks Live Feed in the near future, I'm looking forward to uploading photos to Google PicasaWeb and have Facebook automatically add a status update to the live feed announcing the new album to my friend, will save me manually uploading them to Facebook. 

Audioboo

You may of heard of Audioboo if you use Twitter and have an iPhone or iPod Touch. Audioboo allows you to record a short audio clip using your PC or iPhone/Touch which once you're happy is uploaded to the audioBoo website and a link sent to Twitter and/or Facebook (as I write this expect alot of Happy New Year audioBoos on their site).  I experimented with it during the summer on a local geocaching hunt and it turned out easy to use.  I could see it being an important communication tool where a short audio clip to put a message across is better than a typed message to Twitter / Facebook.  Example maybe if this week the council were using Twitter / Facebook to give an update on the gritting situation, an audio statement of the position maybe better, quicker and less likely to misunderstood.  Wouldn't it be great if after a local council meeting each councilor did an audioboo on why they voted a certain way, same could be suggested for our local MP after a vote or debate.

This ramble has gone on too long - Happy New Year

Dusting the cobwebs

Well I've had this blog going for sometime and only really used it as a glorified photo album, but technology moves on and most my photos now go on picasa so I've decided to give this blog a makeover and start a vane attempt to do a proper blog of my ramblings.

Hopefully this is the first of many. I'm a regular twitter and frequent various local / technology forums and I'm aiming to use this space to comment on various things I contribute to both on/offline.