Doing More With Less Since 1972
Here’s what I think would be a nice and simple feature add for Google Plus…
Once I’ve posted something and shared it, make it easy for me to go back and include more Circles instead of “re-sharing”. Seems pretty easy to me. I’ve run into a couple of instances where I forgot to include a Circle, and it seemed like an intuitive feature to just add more Circles on the fly later.
I’m sure there’s a highly technical, complicated reason we can’t do this yet…right?
Don’t “sweet potatoes” sound so much tastier than “yams”?
I posted this to our network this morning, but it’s also worth stating publicly.
My new favorite thing about Yammer:
It’s so much more convenient to come back from vacation and read what people wrote in groups/threads on Yammer over the past couple of days than it is to try to sort through all the messages and replies on email. I can quickly sort out what’s important using the groups and tags, get to the meat, find out what issues are already resolved, and see what I’ve missed. It’s already organized for me!
I’ve loved Yammer for quite a while for reducing emails and helping me sort through information real time, but I hadn’t really considered the benefit of easily catching up from a vacation until our usage at work increased to a level that I could really tell the difference.
Of course, I was never too far behind anyway because I could follow along through my mobile device the whole time I was gone and have a good idea of what was going on. This was pretty easy to do too because I could cut out all the peripheral noise on Yammer and just watch the groups that are of highest priority.
There’s such a high signal to noise ratio compared to email!
Sweet.
Stress fractures suck. And they don’t always heal as quickly as you’d think they would either.
Yeah, that’s more of a Twitter-length thing to say, but it just seems more permanent to post it here.
Stupid stress fracture.
Ok nerds. I’ve seen a lot of discussion over the past few days about what Google Plus is trying to replace, what it is going to “kill”, why it will never work, etc. The truth is, Plus is it’s own thing, and that’s cool. Nothing has to be killed for Plus to succeed. Let me state this simply in a language everyone can easily understand:
Switch (SocialNetwork){case Twitter://You put info out, and I choose to consume itif (iFollowYou)MyStream.show(theStuffYouWrote);elsereturnToWork();break;case Facebook://We agree to consume one another's informationif (weAreFriends){MyStream.show(theStuffYouWrote);YourStream.show(theStuffIWrote);}else{MyStream.show(constantSuggestionsWeBeFriends);stalkSomeoneElse();}break;case GooglePlus://You decide info I see, I decide info you see.if ((iAmInYourCircle) && (youAreInMyCircle)){MyStream.show(stuffYouSharedWithCirclesImIn);YourStream.show(stuffISharedWithCirclesYoureIn);}else if ((iAmInYourCircle) && (!youAreInMyCircle)){MyIncoming.show(stuffYouShareWithCirclesIAmIn);YourStream.show(thingsISharePublicly);}else if ((!iAmInYourCircle) && (youAreInMyCircle)){MyStream.show(theThingsYouSharePublicly);YourIncoming.show(thingsIShareWithCirclesYoureIn)}elsereturnToWork();break;}
It should now be clear, though I’m not 100% sure that will compile. Feel free to correct my code in the comments. It won’t be the first time someone has shown me a better way to do something.
Now for the verbose comments…
Unlike Twitter, Google Plus makes you decide who can follow you unless you post everything publicly. I guess if you post everything publicly, Plus could be a little like Twitter. But it seems like pushing things out publicly all day long could be dangerous because not everyone wants to use Plus like Twitter, even if you do. There is a “block” feature to take care of that, I for one plan on using it liberally.
Unlike Facebook, Google Plus doesn’t force you into a mutual relationship with people and put the onus on you to later define the parameters of that relationship. You start by defining your personal parameters and can choose to open up more later. Or not. You can even choose for relationships to be completely one-sided. So it eliminates the “guilty-friend-add” situation that happens all the time on Facebook.
Consider this situation: someone adds you to their Circles and you get the notification that they’re sharing with you. You don’t really want to share with them very much and don’t care much about what they are sharing, but you worry about hurting feelings or looking like a jerk. The easy solution is to just add them to a Circle you won’t ever share anything to so that they’ll get notified you’re sharing with them. Later you can remove them from that Circle so that you don’t have to read what they ordered at Starbucks or that their cat ate their kid.
Now. returnToWork();
I think the biggest loser as a result of Netflix charging separately for streaming and DVD by mail isn’t going to be consumers or Netflix. If people really stop having DVDs delivered to their homes, the real victim is going to be the U.S. Postal Service.
Outside of Netflix, the only reason I need the USPS is to deliver thank you cards for kids’ birthday parties. I think I could deal with hand delivering those a couple times a year or sending them over long distances through FedEX.
I’m sure factories that make Band-Aids have some quality control measures. That means at least some of the products they make never make it to the market.
I wonder what they do with all those cull Band-Aids. I’ll tell you what if do if i was the king of the Band-Aid factory…
It’d sell those irregular Band-Aids.
I’d charge about 60% of what high grade bandages go for, and I’d market them as “sympathy-aids.” It wouldn’t matter if they weren’t sterile, or if they were shaped funny, or if they had pictures of Dora without hair.
They’d be perfect for kids who get psychological comfort out of a band aid even if they don’t need one. Also, ever notice how all your kids want a Band-Aid every time one of the other kids gets one? Just give them one of the defective ones out of the cheap box. They won’t know the difference, and BAM! you save 30%!
Less wasted product for their manufacturer, and more money for the kids’ college funds…it’s win/win!
** UPDATE **
Thanks @MichaelSilence for the link love. And he made me think…what if you put a few seconds in the box with the premiums? That way parents could make a game-day call as to whether or not the wound needed a real bandage or just a psychological one.
If you ever worked in fast food, did your manager(s) track the number of items you had to take back when orders were wrong? Did they factor in the number of people who were unhappy with their order but were probably already home and didn’t want to bother taking it back?
I’ve been noticing lots of the people I follow on Twitter have been connecting up with me on Google+ over the last few days. Some of these folks are using Google+ in the same way they use Twitter and putting out a steady stream of status updates. Of course, it’s kind of Twitter in reverse. Instead of “following” the way you do on Twitter, Google+ lets you choose who you want to “Share” with.
It seems like over-share in the beginning, but when you think about it, it’s kind of nice. Because Google+ lets you decide who you want to share with, it also lets you decide whose updates are going to make it to your main stream and which people who are sharing with you are going to get chucked into the “Incoming” bin.
Not that I don’t care about these people and what they are up to. I do. That’s why I follow them on Twitter. But I may not care so much that I need to be notified if they’ve said something new. Twitter is nice in that way. If I choose to go back and read their full stream I can. But for me, Twitter is more about what’s going on in real time, and I seldom have the urge to go back and read any stream history.
And for the Twitter folks I follow who I’m not sharing with on Google+, there’s no reason to feel rejected. The stuff those folks would care about is still flying out publicly on Twitter (and maybe even on Buzz). I promise, I’m not sharing anything on G+ that’s earth shattering or ground breaking. It’s mostly stuff I don’t like putting on Facebook. You know–stuff that people who have known me personally for years may care about.
My favorite thing about Google + so far is that I have yet to receive a notification that someone got a high score on Farmville, a flood of happy birthday wishes from people who would have no idea when my birthday was if they weren’t forced to know, or an invitation to find out what my cat’s stripper name is.
I’ve been playing with Google Plus for a few days now, and I really like it a lot. One of my favorite features is the Buzz tab on the user profiles. This makes Buzz an almost usable product. I think Google could not only make Buzz more viable but also improve Plus a lot by making a simple change.
Plus needs a Buzz gutter.
I’m seeing lots of people making public updates to Google Plus as if they are using Twitter, and the problem with that is that it’s filling up my Stream with information that…I already get from those people on Twitter. This is a problem with Facebook as well–too much minutia showing up in the main stream. It would be nice if Google would bring Buzz up to the forefront, allowing users to enter those type posts with Buzz. They could also put a Buzz section in the sidebar for “short updates” and have that sorted by Circles just like what you see in the regular Stream.
It’s a pretty simple change, but it could breathe life into an almost dead product while also cleaning up the main Stream, solving one of the other big problems Facebook has.
I was thinking about Google Plus a little last night as I continually refreshed my screen hoping it would magically appear. I think there are a few things that can really make or break Google’s latest attempt at social.
1. Nobody has groups right yet
Twitter’s lists are great, but are basically read only. You can’t broadcast to them. This is in keeping with the way Twitter fundamentally works, so that’s cool. But as far as the people on your lists go, it is more of a mark of reputation to be on someone’s list than it is an indication of engagement from that person to you. Facebook has done a better job with Groups, but they aren’t even close to the three dimensional overlapping of sets of groups we are able to so easily process in our brains. Maybe Google is actually smart enough to tackle this abstraction.
2. Group Texting
Yeah, everybody has a group texting gadget, but Google has more reach. They bought Disco, and have seemingly re-branded it as Huddle. I hate texting, but this may make it a little better.
3. Ubiquitity (I just made up that word I think)
With Chrome, Google has the ability to offer a nice extension to make Google Plus always on. No need to visit a site or run a separate app to see what is going on…it can always be there, yet still unobtrusive. I don’t see why Facebook couldn’t do something like that with Chrome, but they don’t own the browser. Google could actually ship their extension as a part of the browser (and I bet they will), while Facebook will have to settle for being an extension. I don’t know the numbers on how many people running Chrome don’t ever install extensions, but I’m betting that number will rise as Chrome gets closer to the meaty part of the user adoption curve.
4. Android
Google already has a big market share for mobile, and they’ll be able to tightly integrate all the features of Plus into Android. iOS users are stuck with an HTML 5 webapp for now. Again, I don’t know what this has done for Gmail, and it was already a hit before, but this may be a huge factor. Bonus points if they offer up an online locker with plenty of space the way they did with Gmail at the beginning. That would be a big feature for storing photos and video.
Just some thoughts. I’m sure I’m way off base here. Tell me why.
***UPDATE***
Instant Upload from Android devices is a money maker! Coolest thing yet for any social platform I’ve used!
The newly designed visual that tells us what we should be eating is going to be revealed today. That’s probably a good thing, since no one was paying to much attention to the Food Pyramid as the chart below shows.
Since Al Gore has taught us that correlation and causation are interchangeable, it makes sense to blame the jump in obesity starting in the early 80s on Atari. I’m not sure what George W. Bush was doing during that time, but there’s probably plenty of blame for him too.
Of course, the real reason for the jump in obesity is that people consume more calories than they burn. They don’t exercise and don’t pay attention to the food pyramid, or any other reasonable recommendations. You know, they’d rather just eat stuff like this.
It probably would have made more sense to ditch the Food Pyramid for a Food White Castle, Food Pizza Hut, or some other more modern structure that people do want to acknowledge.
Just brainstorming.
I’ve been looking at (wanting) a Kindle for a while. But, I’m cheap. And I know the prices are going to keep dropping. Besides, it’s not like I haven’t been reading just because I don’t have a Kindle yet. I just keep having to go to the library, reserve books online, pay late fees, etc. Several things have happened recently that have me (almost) ready to buy, but the sum of these things makes me think I should wait it out just a little bit longer.
There’s speculation that Amazon is going to have two Android powered tablets out by Christmas for under $500. That means they’ll be motivated to empty out some of their lower end Kindles between now and then. They’ve already started to do so with the $114 6″ Kindle with ads for a screen saver.
This seems like the best choice for me…if I was going to buy yesterday. I’m really wanting the e-ink display instead of the LCD the tablets will have, and it doesn’t matter to me if it’s a touch screen or not. I just want something easy to look at with long batter life. Also, I don’t care if it’s 3G or not. I’m home most of the time, and I’m sure I can load it up with plenty of stuff to keep me entertained in the event I’m away for a few days, so Wi-Fi connection is fine with me. The screen size is actually perfect. I currently use the Kindle app on my phone, and my two biggest complaints with it are that the screen size is small and the display. A bigger screen would be nicer to look at, but the 6″ screen is about right for lugging around the house and holding without being cumbersome.
Barnes & Noble announced its own 6″ Nook today, priced exactly the same as the 6″ ad-free Kindle. It’s not a Nook color; it’s black and white e-ink. But unlike the Kindle, it’s running Android 2.1 and has a full touch screen. It also features a two month batter life. Sounds like a nice little device. It’ s not the one I want to buy though…I want to see what kind of pressure this puts on Amazon to lower their price even further, especially considering what they have coming later this year.
For the kicker, there was a rumor a while back that Amazon was considering giving a free Kindle to all of its Prime customers. That’s what I hope actually happens. I’m all about free. Now would seem like the perfect time. I could imagine one scenario where they do this sooner rather than later as a “reward” for existing Prime customers. Another possibility would be to not only give current Prime customers a free Kindle, but also send one out to new customers around October/November. This would be a great way to get rid of existing inventory while putting the device in the hands of people who don’t yet have one to entice them to request/purchase the newer devices as gifts. Wouldn’t hurt to entice people to try out Prime right around Christmas and have their gifts shipped (and purchased) through Amazon.
I think the end game here is control of the market itself. Readers are eventually going to be available for next to nothing either way.
Awesome post over on The Logic of Long Distance on stoic running.
Finally, and this point is probably hardest to grasp, you are responsible for you. Not your shoes, not your watch, not anything else. Those are tools, to be used with the requisite understanding, but they do not take away your responsibility to yourself.
I’d maybe even take this a step further. I think some of the best long distance running a fella can do takes place when there is no watch, HRM, or iPod involved at all. Just run and figure it out. Pay attention to what’s going on, and let what you’ve learned about yourself dictate what you are doing at that moment. Get rid of the gadgets that are telling you what you should be doing. Get rid of the external influences that may push you to do more than you should or hold you back from doing what you could. Instead, just do what you feel like you should do.
We’re talking about distance here, right? If you’re running any kind of distance it’s because you’ve worked up to it, so you should have learned something along the way. And you can keep learning as you go.
I miss running long.
Suddenly it all makes sense. And it’s brilliant!
He’s a plant.
His sole purpose in getting involved is to make Sarah Palin look like an reasonable and viable candidate.
I’m sure she’s a perfectly nice lady, but this guy is just a circus act.
It’s a simple four step process:
Step 1: Do some stuff that makes your opponents really mad.
Step 2: Put your junk in that box.
Step 3: Do things that make many of the people who defended you in Step 1 really mad.
Step 4: Figure out a way to piss off the people who will blindly support you no matter what.
That last step is pretty tough to accomplish, but he has a year and a half to find a way to do it. Remember, we elected this guy because of his unbelievable intellectual prowess, so he’ll surely be able to stratergize a plan of action.
Don’t give up Hope.
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