Posts Tagged "Google"

What is Google+?

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Jul 12, 2011 in blog | 21 comments

Google recently started opening up the invite process for their new project: Google+.  Google+ is a social networking tool that allows you to easily share content with select groups of people.  It takes features from both Facebook and Twitter to create a tool that is easy to use and integrates seamlessly with tools you may already be using (the Google suite for example).

Targeted Sharing

The main feature of Google+ is circles.  Circles are groups of people who share a similar attribute.  For example, you could put all of your family into a circle.  Or your friends.  Or your friend’s pets (if they are on social media).  The benefit to doing this is that (a) you only need to listen to select groups of people at a time and (b) you can share your updates with select groups of people.

The upside to this type of sharing is that you no longer have to send your entire feed updates about your latest belt level in karate.  Instead, you can send those updates to your circle of martial arts loving friends.  Business updates?  Send those just to your business colleagues.  Unlike Twitter, this form of sharing becomes more highly targeted and therefore has much better reception.

Google’s circles setup:

Will You Be My +1?

Another feature of Google+ is the ability to share content via the +1 function.  If you browse Google lately, you may see “recommended by” or “shared by” underneath some of the search results.  These recommendations are coming from Google users who have +1′ed the content.  Once you +1 something, it then shows up under your +1s in your Google+ profile.  The beauty of this feature is that it now combines social bookmarking with a social networking tool.

Tools like Delicious were always interesting in theory but to use them meant opening yet another tab in a browser or having yet another profile to push people to.  Social bookmarking was one of those things that you either used a lot or didn’t use at all.  There didn’t seem to be a grey, passive area of use.  Now, with the +1 on Google, it seems like it may integrate beautifully into regular usage of the Google+ tool.

Google’s +1s showing up on a profile:

Google’s +1 beside search engine results:

(For more about the +1 button specifically, click here.)

Get Fed Relevant Content

Sparks is an interesting feature of Google+ as it allows you to setup targeted content streams that will display inside of your user interface.  The reason that these are exciting is because you can setup specific feeds that you (or your audience) may be interested in and then you can easily share those resources and links with your circles.

Previously, you might have setup a news / RSS reader with feeds from your favorite blogs or you might have setup Google Alerts to alert you when something exciting came up on a specific topic of interest.  Now, you can merge those two functions into the Google+ interface using Sparks.

Google+ Sparks in action:

Hanging Out on the Web

A feature of Google+ that may be less often used by the business crowd is “Hangouts.”  Hangouts is an area of Google+ that allows you to setup a video chat and then invite your friends in any particular circle.  Once invited, your friends can share their webcam as well and you can all sit around and chat via video (aka hanging out).

While the idea of a group video chat may not appeal to some, there will definitely be a group of people who adopt this as the norm in their business.  Team meetings, client coaching, etc. could all be done via hangouts if you shared the hangout with a circle called, “Team” or “Clients.”

How Might You Use Google+?

First things first, get on Google+ (if you need an invite, leave your e-mail address as a comment to this post and I’ll gladly hook you up) and play with it.  Look around and get used to the interface.

Then, organize your contacts into circles.  Decide who you want to listen to, engage with and share content with.  Don’t lump everyone together in one massive circle!  Instead, choose to share specific information with specific types of people.  Remember that not everyone is going to want to listen to specific information.

Setup some targeted news / information feeds in the Sparks area and use that to share relevant and on-target information with your audience.  Engage in conversation and create a meaningful place for people to interact with you on a regular basis.

To make the sharing of your Google+ profile easier, check out http://gplus.to/.  This site will help you create a URL that points directly to your Google+ account.  For example, mine is http://gplus.to/erinblaskie.

Share in the Comments!

What are your favorite features of Google+?  Leave them in the comments below!  Also, do you think that Google+ has staying power?  I’ll follow-up this post in a few weeks with an opinion post once I have had enough time to really use G+ on a day-to-day basis.

Google Buzz 101 #googlebuzz

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Feb 10, 2010 in Social Media, Web & Technology | 1 comment

Google Buzz has hit the market and people everywhere are buzzing about the possibilities… well, they are mostly just complaining.

Here are a few of the Tweets on #googlebuzz:

Google Buzz 101

If you want to see what Google Buzz is and how it’s integrated into Gmail, watch this video I just created:

My Thoughts on Google Buzz

In using Google Buzz, one of the first things I noticed was that not only were my “buzzes” going to the new Buzz section, they were also flooding into my inbox in Gmail creating double the noise.  The beauty with Twitter is that I can shut the website off or close Tweetdeck.  It’s not something that is forcing its way into my life like an ex-boyfriend or a stray cat.  Apparently, this is a feature that was definitely chosen and there is no visible way to turn it off.  One Twitterer recommended setting up a filter… Yeahhh, I’ll filter the buzzes all right – straight into my TRASH!

Second, Google Buzz has zero, easy-to-find settings and the finding friends option is not clearly marked from the Gmail add-on.  The interface is pretty simple to use and it mimics the Google Mail interface nicely.  For people who are used to using Gmail, this will be an easy thing to use.  However, I think they need to make finding friends and the general settings much more prominent on the interface.

Third, Google Buzz has a lot of people talking about geolocation based messaging.  What this means is that when you are updating your status on Buzz, it will also point out to your followers where you are.  This has many issues for me — I like using apps like Foursquare and Gowalla because they are optional.  When I am cool with people knowing where I am (ie: eating sushi with a group of people) I tell the world.  If I am NOT cool with people knowing where I am (ie: traveling to a city alone where I don’t really know anyone), I like to go incognito.  We’ll see how easy it is to turn this geolocation based messaging on/off.  If it’s not, it’s a huge invasion of privacy and freaks me out a little.

Fourth, I think this is Google’s way of trying to rescuciate a dead Google Wave…  In all honesty, they should be focusing their attention on integrating Google Wave into Gmail… Oh wait, Google Buzz integrates into Gmail… Google Buzz also does threaded messaging like Wave did… I’m confused.  Are they the same?  Are they different?  What’s happening with Wave?  Oh Google…  One of my favorite Tweets of the morning is this one:

Fifth, Google Buzz is making use of the mobile market but using browser-based updating instead of an app format.  I much prefer to be able to access everything via apps instead of using Safari on my iPhone so I hope that they make an app for this if it really does take off (not a prediction… I predict it dies.)

The world doesn’t need another social media network. The world needs a much more streamlined approach to this entire thing.  People want to have improved connections and to be able to update ONE social networking service and not feel the need to update many.

However… those are just my rants.  What are your thoughts?

What Does Social Media Mean to You?

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Dec 18, 2009 in blog, Social Media | 11 comments

I thought typing “social media is…” in Google provided some interesting responses.

What is social media to you?  One word answers are fine!

How Do I Know If I Have Google Wave Invites?

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Nov 27, 2009 in blog, Web & Technology | 0 comments

Great question asked on Twitter so I wanted to show you what it looks like.  When Google Wave provides you with invites to send out, you’ll see them in a new wave inside of your account.  The wave contains a box where you can add people’s e-mail addresses and invite them to join in.

If you don’t have them yet, be patient as it can take awhile for them to give you your invites.

Oh Google, You Lie.

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Jul 22, 2009 in Uncategorized | 8 comments

I’m not picking on technology this week but between the Firefox issues I had this week and now Chrome… I think I’m going to quit using computers.  Period.

(haha… Okay, now that I’ve stopped laughing over the idea of me quitting the Internet, let me illustrate today’s post in picture form.)

So, I started using Chrome when Firefox began failing me.  Big time.  Chrome is pretty decent and I’ve loved their light, airy functionality.  Logging into Gmail today, I saw this message.  Of course, me anticipating that it’ll become the perfect opportunity for a #fail post, I took a screenshot.

(You might be wondering if my attitude is like that in general and no, I’m really a happy, positive person… I was just having a bad two days of browser fails…)

So, I thought, “Awesome!  Google Chrome will run Gmail better and faster.”

Here’s where I should have known better.

Apparently, if you leave Gmail “sit” inactive in your browser for ten minutes, it renders the entire screen unusable, useless and well… not better or faster at all.  In fact, I can’t click on anything.

This picture depicts the highlight behind the buttons.  This illustrates that I am clicking but nothing is happening.

Here I am clicking on the Refresh button but instead of refreshing, it highlights it blue and puts a pretty orange box around it.  Awesome!

Here, I have clicked on “Settings” as you can see in the address bar URL.  However, I am still obviously sitting in my inbox as depicted on the left side of the image.  Ahhh, I heart browsers that listen.

So…  Google lied.  It doesn’t run Gmail faster.  It just doesn’t run it at all.  How ironic when a software program can’t run it’s own programs well.

Also noted, Google Chrome, even though it “shut down” Gmail, still runs other websites properly.

*sigh*