Say what???
Having added a Google Plus This app, I’m stymied at where they draw their Circle Information. Looking at my G+ Circles, at this moment there are 90 people who have added me. Granted, there would be a lot more in my add group but if I get weird messages, I block the person, and I’ve done quite a few of those. Looking at my Blog App, there are zero.
Since Blogger is owned by Google, somehow I expect a little better integration and updating.
I’ve been using Google Plus as soon as I got an invite, and I really do like it. I’m also guilty of a little cross pollination, as I post something from my Google+ Stream to my FaceBook posts.
There are some things on Google+ and the stream and comments that abound that I really like. Anyone on Google+ who has become a fan will know what I am talking about.
At 10:31 am today, Guy Kawasaki posted this:
Last week we created a site that aggregates the posts of the “Pluserati.” Check it out here: http://pluserati.alltop.com/
So if you’re not on Google Plus but you want to catch the top posts… now you have an option.
Yes, I’m on Face Book. I’ve been on Face Book since 2006, when it was opened to anyone with a .edu email account. Why did I get on Face Book? Because some Indian guy on tech support asked me if I was on FaceBook, so we could chat. The big problem is he had one of those names that was like the “John Smith” of India and I was unwilling to loosen up my privacy rules so we continued our conversation the good old fashioned way, on the telephone.
Although I pushed a few of my friends and acquaintances to get on Face Book, by 2010, I’d lost interest. Sure, I still have a FB page, and sure, I still log on but I’m no longer the Face Book junkie I used to be. For one thing, I had to prioritize, and the payback for me to be on FaceBook wasn’t giving me the kind of return on my investment (of time). The other issues are the concepts of privacy and ownership, and feeling spammed. I don’t own any part of Face Book, and it’s free, so I have no contractual assurances about my content, any photos, etc. and I understand that. I have no big expectations since we aren’t partners and have never committed, in that “I pay you and you promise X for contractual services” kind of way.
My network notifications are so plentiful that it’s very easy to miss a posting, sometimes an interesting one. I find that in order to ‘catch up’ with certain people, I need to go to their individual pages and then read there, before leaving. Of course, there is the obvious fact that if something is THAT important and they need me to know about it, then they can send me a Text or Email. All these notifications from “liking” a business or group are getting annoying. Yes, I can turn them off, but then there are the notifications from friends. Face Book friends are not all my real friends, but the politics of Face Book tend to lead us to include more, rather than less, acquaintances. Some are real friends, some are virtual, some are people you’re glad you met, and some are FB Friends, in their own category.
So you can imagine my shock when I was offered a Google + Invite and I jumped on it. Why? Part of it is that it is in a Beta mode of sorts, and is by Invitation Only. So now I’ve become a part of that group who can give a Google + invite. For those of you who like to be First Movers, this can get you all geeky tingly. I also love evaluating software, and although I prefer to do it for money, the whole First Mover thing is kind of a kick. I do recognize that Google+ in the Social Media area is not a First Mover, but it is new on Google. I fell in love with Google in 2001, when I made them my home page. And yes, back then I got a lot of looks. Since Google was founded in 1998, I obviously took awhile to make them my “it” search service.
One thing for sure, I’m being a lot pickier about who I let into my Google Plus “Friends” Circle. One of my friends referred to G+ as “Facebook without your family.” Some day I may even engage the Chat mode, something I quickly turned off in FaceBook as long lost Primos kept wanting to text when I just wanted to check a message. FaceBook was turning me into the AntiSocial networker, in a manner of speaking.
One thing I like, and it’s because I am a news junkie, is that some media outlets that I like to read are on G+, so looking at the Stream is like having an extended Twitter feed. With Google Plus, there is more space than in a Tweet, which gives you a better idea as to whether you’d like to click through to read an article or not. I find that it is easier to add these organizations to your “news” circle, since it’s a simple drag and drop.
For me, the jury is out on Google Plus, but I do like it and for now, I probably spend more time on it than I do on Face Book. It will be interesting to see how I feel after the module for Businesses is launched, and how that enhances or detracts from the social network experience that I will experience.
Many of you know that the area of my educational pursuits was in E-Commerce; I received E-Commerce certification with my MSIMC degree. (Integrated Marketing Communications). I enjoy developing offline and Internet Marketing Strategy programs, and employing them. I also enjoy the social marketing aspect of it, in terms of online integration.
However, I think I am social marketing’ed out when it comes to my own life. I just don’t have time to do Face Book that much, where my own account is concerned. My Tweets for myself haven’t been as chirpy as I like. And now, I will be forced to Yelp. I am not a fan of Yelp. Yes, I have used it, under a different name of course, and for clients, but personally, I’m just not a fan. I have to say the same about Face Book.
I wondered why the attitude. I think it is an ownership and privacy issue. When I am working on a website, the content of that site is owned by the client. When we do a client blog which is hosted somewhere, (not the free platforms), the content is owned by the client and controlled by the client. With Face Book, while it may be my little profile, technically Face Book has full rights to my content, if push were to come to shove. Because it is free, it’s not like I’m even a tenant with contractual rights.
And why the Yelpitis? Control, baby, control! I know a gal who had some great reviews for her practice, but then was plagued by a couple of very negative reviews. She complained but hey, it’s not her data, it is Yelp’s data. However, she was offered the chance to buy a membership and receive whatever benefits there would be imparted. Of three very negative reviews, two were definitely what forum users refer to as written by trolls. Fortunately, because of the way Yelp works, eventually those reviews fell further and further south in the land of the scrolling screen.
An old friend of mine just bought a membership for Yelp. It’ll cost her $350 a month. Since she hasn’t had a website since I’ve ever known her (for 20 something years), she needs an online presence. She’s not a Face Book type of gal, so Yelp suits her well. And since I know her practice, she’s asked me to Yelp. So I will be “forced” to Yelp once again. Oddly I’m excited for her, because she has avoided almost all online exposure, and with her long history of helping clients, I’m sure she’ll do fine. With that $350 a month, I’m sure she’ll also be more troll free, as well, since she’s entering into a contractual agreement.
Certain trends in the area of SEO indicate that social marketing platforms are becoming increasingly more important for search engine rankings. While this seems to have merit, there are other issues going on as well. There are those who employ ‘black hat’ practices, and find ways to bend the system or trick it out, so to speak, so that they get high rankings for clients while doing things just on the wrong side of being ethical.
And so it goes for platforms like Yelp and Face Book. While they have merit, and can be very useful, they can also be circumvented by people to blacklist competitors, and to artificially boost rankings on the search engines. However, one thing is a known, and that is that Google, the big daddy of all Search Engines in 2011, will probably eventually root out such offenders.
The big “content farm” update that Google ran recently is testament to how quickly what is really “in” right now can really put you on the “outs” overnight. If Face Book and Yelp succumb to being a tool for “black hatters,” then who knows how the impact on SEO will shake out.
Well, that’s it for tonight, folks. I have to go Yelp for my friend.
It’s not time travel, or jet travel that’s been keeping me buried. I’ve been traveling between my desk and “The Cloud.” In normal parlance, I’ve been stuck with a computer, or computers, in my face so much that the idea of watching a film or a tv show online has me wanting to run away, big time. Between software evaluation, analysis, blog set ups (not mine), website work, SEO development, EBay store management, what seems like hundreds of Emails that all need “high priority” and taking photos for projects, I’m really in need of some serious fun. The problem is that I don’t have time.
The next three weekends I’m tied up with a combination of committed projects, family stuff, project stuff, work, work, work, and related running around to the point that I need to clone myself to take a break. It’s like that version of “Hurry up and wait,” except that it’s more like “hurry up and hurry up.” You know you’re too busy when you don’t have time to work on a PeaPod grocery order. Right now I’m craving tacos, partly because that involves a walk away from the PC to do something fun, and partly because it’s been too long. Yes, tacos and I are experiencing separation anxiety. However, I will have a food item post shortly, about one of my home made concoctions. Actually I have two of them but I’ll save the other for later….
By the way, for those of you who wonder what is “Cloud Computing,” it’s no biggie. Thanks to Microsoft, they promoted the use of the term “The Cloud.” It is basically a distributed computing method whereby you can save documents of various types to an offsite location. With Microsoft you basically save your files to a place on their server, and you can then access those files from anywhere you have a computer. Google also has this, although I’ve had problems with Google Docs so I switched to Microsoft’s Cloud computing, using one of my other logins.
Most all of these, including Google, have calendaring, document saving, and other social modes such as messaging. Related to these, sites such as Photobucket, Imageshack, You-Tube and even FaceBook basically all are offsite locations where data files can be stored, so in essence almost all of us do some form of Cloud Computing without knowing this is what we’re doing. Or some of us know this is what we are doing, and we’re just perplexed at what we are doing.
To the Cloud!
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