Tag Archives: Google

One of us, one of us…

Posted on January 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

I’m thinking about joining Amazon Prime. I usually have to think about things for a long time before I do them, especially if any amount of money is involved. I got a Kindle for Christmas, and I think it would be nice to have access to their lending library. I also want to check out their movie streaming options. You get the first month free, so I don’t know why I’m thinking about this for so long. Maybe because I know that once you’re in, you can never go back.

People who join Amazon Prime say that they stop having to think about shopping. Whatever they want, they just go find it on Amazon and order it. That’s because shipping costs are no longer a factor, and you’ll get your stuff in two days. Without worrying about shipping, it doesn’t seem that big a deal to order something that only costs $5, especially if the alternative is an annoying trip to a big-box store or searching for just that one thing you need.

It seems that Amazon is on the track to dominate many major industries, including book publishing and selling, perhaps even all of retail. Like Google, they are positioning themselves to take over the world. When Amazon and Google become huge and there is literally nothing left, what will happen next? I see three possible futures:

a) Corporate war to end all wars (the apocalyptic scenario)

b) Hostile takeover (the depressing dystopia scenario)

c) Corporate merger (the blissful utopia scenario)

Anyway, I thought this piece on Amazon Prime was a fun read: The Cult of Amazon Prime.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Web Finds

Tagged , , ,

Tips for managing your Google+ stream…

Posted on December 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

Over the past few months, I have moved most of my social networking from Twitter to Google+. I like the longer, more graphical posts provided by the Google+ format, and while people are sharing a lot of links, they are also writing extended commentary on those links that the Twitter character limit doesn’t allow. Because the comments are right underneath the post, it is also possible to have extended conversations about a post. But Google+ doesn’t seem to have the detritus, the meaningless conversations or the commercial flotsam of Facebook (at least not yet). You can follow me on Google+ here.

However, as more people have joined the network, I have noticed how much harder it is to keep up with all the content flowing in. You can add people to circles divided by subjects of interest, but all that content is still pumped into your main stream. If you follow any particularly prolific posters, it can soon become overwhelming.

That’s why I was glad I discovered the Plus Minus extension for Google Chrome. This handy tool lets me control via simple checkboxes which circles contribute content to my main stream. Whenever I log onto Google+, only the posts that come from the people who are most important to me show up on the main page. Another useful tool provided by Plus Minus is the ability to “shrink” posts, so that I can hide what I’ve already read or what I’m not interested in just by clicking an arrow.

Now that I can control the firehose of posts going into my main stream, I found that it was also necessary to control my reading. Otherwise, I’d browse Google+ all day and never do anything else. I created circles around my primary interests, such as news, geeky stuff, cooking, politics and books. I assigned each circle a day of the week, and on that day, I only pick posts from its corresponding circle to read. This helps me focus on the reading rather than feeling like I have to wade through an ocean of content.

As for posting, I try to post one or two public items per day so that potential followers know what kind of content I’m sharing. For the rest, I try to confine posting to that circle of interest. Personal posts typically are limited to friends and family. This takes advantage of Google+’s most powerful feature: circles. If you are in my Geeks circle, you’ll only see my science and tech posts; you won’t be bothered by cooking or political content. Of course, many people occupy multiple circles. Fortunately, when I shrink a post in one circle using the Plus Minus extension, it stays closed across all circles, so I don’t see it multiple times.

With Plus Minus, Google+ has become more fun and more manageable. I definitely prefer the content I’m seeing there to what can be found on Twitter, which isn’t meaty enough, or Facebook, which usually isn’t relevant to me. Of course, if I still want to share on other networks, there is a service for that: Plusist. It automates posting of public Google+ items to either Facebook or Twitter, or both.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Geeking Out

Tagged , , , , ,

Ugh, Google Reader!

Posted on November 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

I have to admit that my consumption of RSS feeds has fallen off in recent months. I used to read a lot of blogs through RSS, using Google Reader, but that became unwieldy because I have this unhealthy completist compulsion. If there was a bold number next to “All Items,” I had to get it down to 0, even if I didn’t have time to read umpty-million blog posts all saying just about the same thing.

So I unsubscribed from a lot of blogs and moved most of my reading over to Twitter. Since Google+ debuted, I’ve been progressively abandoning Twitter for posts on Plus. But I still kept a few RSS feeds that were so valuable to me that I always wanted to read them. I  usually had less than 100 new posts to read a day, so I was generally happy.

But now Google Reader has been redesigned, and I’m very unhappy indeed. When I first heard about this news, I thought it meant better integration with Google+, which could only be a good thing. But this doesn’t seem to be so. The sharing feature that sends Reader items to Google+ is unwieldy to use and the end result is none too elegant. But even worse, Google Reader is now impossible to read. There is so much white space and no clear delineation between posts, making it a chore to read anything. Considering that’s Reader’s main purpose, I’d say the redesign is a massive fail.

So does this mean the much-predicted death of RSS is finally here? Well, it may be here for me. However, RSS is still a fundamentally useful way of keeping up with new content on favorite websites. I just want a friendly way of accessing that content. How do the Kindle and iPad handle feeds?

Here’s an article that captures exactly my feelings on the changes to Google Reader: The Google Reader Redesign is an Ugly, Lonely User Experience – Forbes.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Geeking Out

Tagged , ,

I have to rethink how I am using this blog. Lately, the number of posts, and my interest, have dropped off quite a bit. I still love WordPress, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also been giving me fits in … Continue reading →

→ 3 Comments

Posted on July 28, 2011

Tips for using Google+ smarter…

Posted on July 5, 2011 | 2 Comments

Every time I play with Google+, I seem to discover another neat new feature. Here are some quick tips for improving your Google+ experience.

Notice the Share button in the upper right corner of some of your (not all) Google apps, like Reader and Gmail. This enables you to post a quick share from other Google windows. Pretty nice! It would be even nicer if it were integrated with Reader and Documents, i.e., if I could share what I was reading or writing right now.

There is also a Notifications button up there that turns red when you receive a new notification (someone comments on your post, tags you or adds you to a circle). Since this is so easy to track, you can turn off sending notifications to your email if you find that annoying (I did). Click the little wheel icon in the upper right corner and choose Google+ Settings to change your notifications-to-email settings.

When you see someone’s name in your stream, you can hover your mouse over the name to quickly see which of your circles they are in or to add them to a circle, and to see who else you have in common in your circles.

If you want to share with just one person, add their name in the post with @ or + in front. Then remove all circles. To make it completely private, disable resharing by clicking the arrow in the upper right.

Check the Incoming area. This shows you what people are saying if they have added you to their circles, but you haven’t added them. These posts don’t go into your main stream. This is a useful way of keeping up with your followers even if you don’t want to put them in your circles.

(I do wish we could exclude certain circles from posting to our main stream. Some circles definitely produce more noise than others. Seems like an easy enough feature to add.)

And remember:

  •  +1 is the same thing as like.
  • Someone adding you to a circle does not mean you’ve added them.
  • When you post something, you control which circles see it.

I’m still having fun with Google+. I hope to see even more folks there.

Related articles

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Geeking Out

Tagged ,

Thoughts on Google+…

Posted on July 1, 2011 | 5 Comments

I was lucky enough to get into Google+ today. Here are my initial thoughts.

My first reaction: Whoa, I like this! Google+ looks a lot like Facebook’s more mature older brother, the one with a real job. It is a clean interface, not cluttered with all the garbage that comes with Facebook, and everything is very easy and intuitive to use. It’s a pleasure to browse.

What I specifically like:

  • Circles are great! Circles are Google’s metaphor for different groups of people you want to network with. It is so easy to drag and drop any contact into a circle. Then, you can choose which circle to share with when you post a link, photo, video or note. For instance, I can share photos of my kid being adorable just with my Friends and Family circles, arrange playgroups with my Neighbors circle, and trade interesting links with my Net Friends circle. Circles are not only intuitive, they mimic the way we interact socially in real life better than any other social network I’ve seen.
  • Hangouts are just cool! Hangouts provide a way to video chat with any circle of contacts. It is so easy to use. I was able to set this up and start chatting in less than a minute. You just open up a hangout and wait for others from your circle to join you. This is a great tool for virtual teams or for far-flung friends and family.

Now, here’s what I want:

  • Google Buzz no longer seems necessary. I want Google+ to replace Buzz and do what Buzz does. Specifically, I want to be able to easily share items from Google Reader to my circles.
  • Since I now use so many Google tools, I would love to make Google+ my hub on the Internet. But I know that not all of my contacts are going to migrate over. So I need an easy way to broadcast what I share on Google+ to Twitter, Facebook and my blogs. (There is an extension for Chrome that allows me to send posts to Twitter and Facebook, but I’d like to see it built in so it’s less awkward.)
  • I’m not yet sure what value Sparks adds. Sparks are items pulled from the web on subjects of interest, but right now, there doesn’t seem to be any good way to refine or customize this list. Maybe I need to play with it more.
  • I’d like more people from Facebook/Twitter to join! Once Google+ opens up to a wider group of users, I’d love it if they’d make it easy for me to invite my contacts from other social networking sites. Right now, you can only easily add your Google Contacts to circles.
  • By default, I think there are too many email notifications, but this is easily remedied. To turn off any of the notifications, click the little wheel in the top right corner and choose Google+ Settings.
  • Oh, one more thing: Real-time updating of my stream would be real, real nice. Come on, Google! (Done!)

All in all, I’m very excited about the possibilities of Google+. So, when can I drop my Facebook account for good?

Google doesn’t seem to be sending out invitations right now for Google+, due to insane demand. If you happen to get on and want to invite your friends, here is a sneaky way to do it (and this is how I got in).

→ 5 Comments

Posted in Geeking Out

Tagged , , , ,

A few thoughts (and some links) about content mills…

Posted on July 27, 2010 | 7 Comments

Over the last couple of days, I have been reading a lot about content mills. In case you aren’t familiar with the term, content mills or content farms are websites or networks of sites that churn out thousands of pieces of content per day, which are optimized to score high on specific search engine results. These content mills pay freelance writers very poorly to pump out the content, and their quality reflects that. This is the crap that is cluttering up your Google search results, which I have written about before here.

I don’t have much to say about content mills, except that once I identify one, I avoid it with extreme prejudice. I also noticed that when you google the term content mill, the first result, “What Is a Content Mill,” comes from a well-known content mill. Irony in action.

Anyway, it appears a backlash is a-brewin’. People want this crap out of their search results. Yeah, me too. Anyhoo, here are some good links on the subject for further reading:

The Search Engine Backlash Against ‘Content Mills’ (MIT Technology Review)
Google, Content Farms & Why This May Be Blekko’s Moment (Search Engine Land)
MediaShift’s Guide to Content Farms (PBS)
Content Farms: Why Media, Blogs & Google Should Be Worried and How Google Can Combat Content Farms (ReadWriteWeb)
Content farms v. curating farmers (BuzzMachine)
Content dust bowls (Magellan Media)
The Future of Media Isn’t Free Content, It’s Cheap Content (Metafilter)

→ 7 Comments

Posted in Notebook

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Like everyone else, I have an opinion about Google Buzz…

Posted on February 11, 2010 | 4 Comments

Google launched Google Buzz, its social media application for Gmail, over the last couple of days, and everyone on the web has an opinion, including me. Some opinions are unnecessarily hostile for a new software application. The social web is a very friendly place for the knee-jerk reaction.

After using Buzz for a little while, I have decided that I mostly like it. Here’s why.

Most people are comparing Buzz to Facebook and Twitter. Buzz does a lot of the good things Facebook does, only much, much better. The interface is cleaner and easier to use. So far, I have not had to worry about catching spam, malware or viruses from Buzz, and it avoids all the inanities of Facebook. The commenting and like features are super-easy to use; the privacy features take a little more figuring out (especially if you don’t use Gmail’s Groups feature), but not much, and they are also easier and more versatile than Facebook’s, as far as I can tell. The integration with Google Reader is especially powerful, and I would like to see that strengthened over time, particularly so that I don’t have to read everyone’s shared items twice.

I like that Buzz lets me communicate very easily with people I email a lot, particularly friends and family. It’s great for quick, asynchronous chat sessions that I would normally carry on over email. I like to see what my friends are reading on the web and quickly comment on them. I would close my Facebook account today and only use Buzz if there weren’t so many people on Facebook who I want to stay in touch with and who seem unlikely to move. Regardless, I think I will be visiting Facebook even less in the future.

Buzz is not a competitor with Twitter, though. It does not even try to do the things that Twitter does well. I use Twitter to find news, links and trends. It’s basically my window on the social web. I like it because I can drop in when I have time and ignore it when I don’t. I would never try to follow high-volume posters like Mashable or the New York Times on Buzz. That would quickly get overwhelming.

Also, my audience on Twitter is very different. It is larger and made up mostly of people who don’t know me, who I assume are more interested in specific topics I frequently write about and post links on. So I will continue to use Buzz and Twitter as complementary networks, rather than try to replace one with the other.

I suspect that Google knows this and that is why they let you feed your Twitter content into Buzz. I disconnected my Twitter feed from Buzz, though. There is too much possibility for redundancy, and besides, I tweet a lot. I don’t want to overwhelm the people following me on Buzz with too much noise. I also didn’t connect my FriendFeed to Buzz for the same reasons.

Some people are concerned about the privacy of Buzz. These people didn’t take a few minutes just to learn the software before getting all upset about it, I suspect. You can turn Buzz off — look for the link at the bottom of the page. You can block people from following you. You can make your posts private. Buzz launches with suggestions for people to follow culled from your email and chat contacts and people you’re sharing with on Reader, but you don’t have to follow any of them.

The biggest concern may be that Buzz posts the list of people you’re following and people following you on your Google Profile page. This is no different from what Twitter does, but it’s a bit more personal, since these people are also your email contacts. It is very easy to turn this public display off, which I did straightaway. Just go to your Google Profile page (click your name in Buzz), click Edit Settings and then uncheck the box beside “Display the list of people I’m following and people following me.”

So you can choose to follow me on Buzz (via my Google Profile) or on Twitter or both. I post more to Twitter and it’s more impersonal but possibly more interesting. But on Buzz we can have conversations about the links I share. Both have value. Where you likely won’t see much of me anymore is Facebook. I don’t think I’ll miss it.

More opinions and help with Buzz:

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

→ 4 Comments

Posted in Geeking Out

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

How to give Google Wave invitations

Posted on November 11, 2009 | 10 Comments

Notice: Please do not ask me for a Google Wave invitation. I am not giving away any more.

I see a lot of people have been visiting my blog because of my recent offer of Google Wave invitations, and judging by the search terms, some are confused as to how to give out invitations. I always try to be helpful, so here’s a quick tutorial.

To give out invitations, you must have gotten some from Google. I don’t think everybody got them. If you were invited by Google to be a beta tester, you did. If you were invited by someone else, you probably didn’t. Google will be sending out more invitations as soon as their servers can handle the additional capacity, by the way, so keep checking.

Open up Google Wave. In your Inbox you should see a Wave sent just to you with the subject “Invite others to Google Wave.” Click on it to open it. At the bottom of the Wave, you’ll see the number of invitations you have and a box to enter the email addresses of folks you’d like to invite. Once you enter an email address, scroll down in the Wave a bit (use that teeny scroll bar on the right side of the Wave), and click the “Add to invite list” button to nominate them.

This is important — I don’t think the nominations are automatic. Google wants to control the flow of people coming onto the service, which may explain the delay in someone receiving your invitation. Have patience. I’m fairly positive everyone I nominated eventually got their invitation.

And that’s it. I haven’t actually been using Google Wave, sad to say. Anybody else doing something cool with it?

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

→ 10 Comments

Posted in Geeking Out

Tagged , , ,

Google introduces social search

Posted on October 27, 2009 | Leave a comment

It seems like something cool comes out of Google (our new overlords, all hail teh Google) every day. This time, it’s a concept called “social search.”

Social search is a big step forward in personalizing search, and thus making it much more relevant to the searcher. With social search enabled, when you search Google, along with the top results, you will see any relevant information from your social network’s public web postings. For instance, I search for “New York City.” Following the New York Google Maps, official homepages, Wikipedia entry on NYC, etc., I might also see my husband’s review of a hotel he recently stayed at in the city or my friend’s New York photos on Picasa or my colleague’s post about a professional conference there. Which is all stuff I’m very likely to be interested in, because it’s coming from people I actually know.

How does Google know? It all goes back to your Google Profile — and you should go set one up immediately, if you haven’t already. Tell Google what your public blogs, Flickr page, YouTube channel, et al are, and Google will mine those sources for search results for your social network. Tell Google what your Twitter and FriendFeed names are, and it will add your followers to your social network for searching, along with your contacts in your Friends, Family and Coworkers groups and the blogs you subscribe to on Google Reader.

Read more about Social Search from Google’s official blog. Join the Google Social Search experiment. Once you join, you can see the Social results by:

  1. clicking “Show options…” next to Web at the top of the Google Search Results, and
  2. clicking “Social” in the left nav bar under “All Results”.

You can then burrow down to individual people. Google will show their matches, as well as how you’re connected to them.

Social search is currently in the experimental phase on Google Labs, but it is a really exciting development, with a lot of potential to make Googling even more relevant, personal and timely. And of course, it is yet one more step in Google’s inevitable takeover of the world and future status as the employer/benefactor of all humans. You’ve got to admit, though, it’s still very cool.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Geeking Out

Tagged , , , ,