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Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host

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Speaker 1: job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio and how the tech Area. It is time very

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff classic episode. You're actually gonna get a two

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Speaker 1: fur in this one because the classic is called The

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Speaker 1: Decline of Google Plus, which originally published on August twelve,

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Speaker 1: two thousand and fifteen. However, within this episode there's an

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Speaker 1: even older episode about Google Plus that dated all the

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Speaker 1: way back in two thousand eleven. Also, interestingly, I talked

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Speaker 1: about how everyone was chatting about Google Plus being on

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Speaker 1: the decline and possibly being on the verge of obsolescence.

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Speaker 1: But as I'll talk about after the episode, that's not

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Speaker 1: quite what happened, at least not at that time. But

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Speaker 1: let's listen in so in case you somehow have missed

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Speaker 1: out on what Google Plus is. It's Google's answer to

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Speaker 1: social platforms like Facebook. It's a place where you can

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Speaker 1: share with specific circles of people. You can create circles

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Speaker 1: based on your relationships, so that you share things with

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Speaker 1: specific circles like communities or co workers, family members, or

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Speaker 1: even the general public. And it's not limited to just those.

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Speaker 1: There was a grand experiment when it first began. But

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Speaker 1: here's the thing about experiments, they don't always work out.

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Speaker 1: So back in two thousand eleven, the service was still

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Speaker 1: in beta and people were clamoring to get in. Uh

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Speaker 1: and it had not come out of beta when Chris

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Speaker 1: and I did the episode. But since then the service

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Speaker 1: opened up. There was this whole brewhaha where it got

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Speaker 1: linked to YouTube, caused a real stir with a policy

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Speaker 1: about using your official real name rather than a handle,

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Speaker 1: which later the company back off of. And also recent

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Speaker 1: changes in the product have prompted some journalists to say

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Speaker 1: it's in the midst of death throws, so you can

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Speaker 1: have your little moment of silence if you like. But

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Speaker 1: I'm not ready to call it completely dead just yet.

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Speaker 1: I just think of it as mostly dead. All right,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about what happened. And I have to mention

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Speaker 1: that Google Plus, as of this recording, is not dead.

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Speaker 1: And it may be that all those predictions of it

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Speaker 1: going away are premature, or it could just be that

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Speaker 1: you know what's on borrow time. If you're interested in

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Speaker 1: the original episode in which Chris and I talked about

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Speaker 1: Google Plus. I'm adding that to the end of this part,

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Speaker 1: so I'll talk about what's happened since then, and then

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Speaker 1: if you want to go in the time machine, you

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Speaker 1: can listen to the second half of the episode and

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Speaker 1: Chris and I will talk more about what Google Plus

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Speaker 1: was like back before it even came out of beta.

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Speaker 1: We were so young back then. You'll get to hear

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Speaker 1: how excited we were about the platform and how they

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Speaker 1: were planning on it to be a challenge on Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and even then I was making the point that it

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Speaker 1: had a long way to go if it were to

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Speaker 1: ever really be a threat. Meanwhile, Mashable has a really

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Speaker 1: great piece on the rise and fall, although maybe I

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Speaker 1: would just call it the debut and Fall of Google Plus.

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Speaker 1: According to the article, google Plus was largely born out

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Speaker 1: of fear. It was fear that motivated Google. It was

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Speaker 1: the fear that Facebook would make Google irrelevant or at

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Speaker 1: least heard its growth potential. So around it was clear

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Speaker 1: that social platforms were really taking off, and people were

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Speaker 1: sharing and following links on Facebook left and right. Now

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Speaker 1: that meant that more people were skipping what Google considered

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Speaker 1: to be an important step, which was where you would

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Speaker 1: use Google to perform searches. Since Google depends upon ad revenue,

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Speaker 1: you have to remember Google's really an ad company first,

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Speaker 1: and then a search engine is just a product that's

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Speaker 1: offered to us, and we ultimately are the real products

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Speaker 1: of Google. So this was considered to be a bad

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Speaker 1: thing if Facebook was going to eat into these numbers,

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Speaker 1: and an executive named Vic Gondotra, who was at the

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Speaker 1: time a senior vice president at Google, argued that the

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Speaker 1: company needed its own social platform. So Google had tried

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Speaker 1: some social experiments before. Google Wave was one of those.

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Speaker 1: Google Buzz was another. If you're a longtime fan of

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff, you might know that Chris and I both

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Speaker 1: really liked Google Wave a lot. We used it to

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Speaker 1: build out our live shows when we were experimenting with

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Speaker 1: live streaming with tech Stuff Live. That was several years ago.

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Speaker 1: But here's the thing. He and I loved it because

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Speaker 1: it allowed us to do real time layouts of what

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Speaker 1: the show was going to be like and even make

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Speaker 1: changes while we were doing a show. But we couldn't

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Speaker 1: figure out what anyone else would use it for. It

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Speaker 1: was great for what we did, but that's a really

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Speaker 1: narrow use case, and none of these social efforts from

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Speaker 1: Google had much staying power. They all eventually when way,

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Speaker 1: including Google Wave. So the best you could hope for

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Speaker 1: was that some of the features that were in these

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Speaker 1: products would find their way into other Google products like

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Speaker 1: Gmail or something like that. Now, since the Google Plus

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Speaker 1: podcast covers the birth of the social network, I thought

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Speaker 1: a quick rundown on things that have happened since the

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Speaker 1: debut would be useful before I play the old episode first.

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Speaker 1: Google Plus launched in the summer of eleven and spent

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Speaker 1: about three months in an invite only beta phase. For

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Speaker 1: some reason, I got included in that beta test, which

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Speaker 1: I loved at the time, and I thought Google Plus

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Speaker 1: was interesting. Uh. I love the fact that when it

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Speaker 1: was beta, most the other people who were involved were

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Speaker 1: either tech entrepreneurs so they were important people who were

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Speaker 1: in you know, startup companies or even more established companies,

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Speaker 1: or they were tech journalists. So it felt like a

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Speaker 1: bunch of my professional peers and friends all had this

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Speaker 1: playground to ourselves, and frank we all thought it was

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Speaker 1: kind of fun. That was obviously short lived because then

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Speaker 1: it opened up to the public and then it sort

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Speaker 1: of fell apart um. It opened to the public in

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Speaker 1: September two thousand eleven, and despite some early interest, the

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Speaker 1: platform really failed to get any real traction. Now, despite

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Speaker 1: that early interest, the platform failed to get a lot

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Speaker 1: of traction, so people often commented that Google Plus was

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Speaker 1: really just a ghost town. In fact, that phrase was

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Speaker 1: used a lot to describe Google Plus. Certain communities on

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Speaker 1: Google Plus were really active, but they were the exception

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Speaker 1: as opposed to the rule. And the truth is a

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Speaker 1: lot of people just didn't see the need to migrate

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Speaker 1: to Google Plus from other platforms like Twitter or Facebook.

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Speaker 1: And unless your friends all go to the new place

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Speaker 1: to hang out, it's not so much fun hanging out there.

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Speaker 1: So since its launch, we've learned a little bit more

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Speaker 1: about what was going on behind the scenes. Before a

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Speaker 1: Google unveiled the beta test phase, Google had a building

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Speaker 1: set aside for the Google Plus team and the project

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Speaker 1: was kept a secret. The CEO was moved into that building,

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Speaker 1: so it raised some probably some a little bit of

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Speaker 1: drama within Google. According to Mashable, Google Plus at one

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Speaker 1: point had about one thousand employees working on the project,

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Speaker 1: which is enormous compared to other projects within Google. In

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Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, Vic Gondotra addressed an audience itself by

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Speaker 1: Southwest and said that Google Plus was essentially Google two

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Speaker 1: point oh and that it represented a social layer across

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Speaker 1: all of Google's services. So, in other words, all those

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Speaker 1: other Google products people use, like Gmail or YouTube would

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Speaker 1: be held together by the connective tissue that is Google Plus.

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Speaker 1: In Google first did some spring cleaning, uh. It combined

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Speaker 1: Google Talk, which some times was also known as Google

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Speaker 1: Chat or g Chat, and Google Messenger, which is an

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Speaker 1: i AM client that was within Google Plus, and Google Hangouts,

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Speaker 1: all under the Hangouts umbrellas, so all of these became

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Speaker 1: collectively known as Google Hangouts. Hangouts had previously been known

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Speaker 1: as the video chat service that was launched with Google Plus,

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Speaker 1: and now that also included text messaging, so really it

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Speaker 1: was anyway besides email where you would get in touch

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Speaker 1: with other people who had these accounts. Now, Gondatra announced

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Speaker 1: at the Google Io event there would be a total

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Speaker 1: of forty one updates to the Google Plus service, and

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Speaker 1: it included tweaks to photos and videos and how large

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Speaker 1: they would be within a Google Plus screen. Also new

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Speaker 1: animations that users could use automatic photo enhancements. This was

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Speaker 1: kind of fun. I remember taking a picture of a

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Speaker 1: snowy landscape, and Google automatically animated snowflakes falling across the picture,

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Speaker 1: but there was a lot more of that than just

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Speaker 1: those examples. Google also that year made a very controversial

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Speaker 1: decision to tie together YouTube and Google Plus accounts that

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Speaker 1: people absolutely hated. The integration effort required YouTube users to

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Speaker 1: use a Google Plus account to leave comments, and because

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Speaker 1: of Google's policies with names on accounts, this meant people

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Speaker 1: more often than not, had to post under their actual names,

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Speaker 1: and it also prompted owners of YouTube channels to change

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Speaker 1: their handle to their true name. Now, the name debacle

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Speaker 1: was really a big deal because some people wanted anonymity,

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Speaker 1: or as much as it that as they can manage,

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Speaker 1: particularly when just using YouTube. Others had an online persona

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Speaker 1: that was separate from their real life identity, and making

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Speaker 1: the switch would be confusing and perhaps even damaging to

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Speaker 1: their online brand. There were plenty of legitimate reasons why

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Speaker 1: people didn't like the idea of having to use their

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Speaker 1: their birth name or real name, as well as plenty

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Speaker 1: of reasons that aren't terribly legitimate, like the desire to

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Speaker 1: troll other people while not being held responsible for that action,

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Speaker 1: but The move may have been motivated by the ire

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Speaker 1: to make YouTube comments a less volatile experience. So in

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Speaker 1: other words, if you are attached to your real name,

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Speaker 1: maybe you'd be less likely to be a jerk face

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Speaker 1: on YouTube. Anyone who has seen a name various comment

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Speaker 1: threads on Facebook knows this is not necessarily the case,

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Speaker 1: but I guess it was a hope. But it also

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Speaker 1: seemed like it was a membership drive to get more

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Speaker 1: people to sign up for Google Plus accounts. If you

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Speaker 1: wanted to play in the YouTube space, you had to

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Speaker 1: have a Google Plus account, so that didn't go over

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Speaker 1: so well in two thousand and fourteen. In April, Vic Gundotra,

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Speaker 1: the man behind Google Plus, would announce his departure from

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Speaker 1: the company, and that prompted a lot of news sites

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Speaker 1: to essentially say that Google Plus was dead, although it

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Speaker 1: seems to have been continuously shambling on ever since its death,

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Speaker 1: so perhaps it's reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

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Speaker 1: David Besbrus took over as the head of Google Plus

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Speaker 1: and promised that the company was committed to support the

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Speaker 1: product for a really long time, but six months later

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Speaker 1: Google replaced him with Bradley Horowitz, who's another executive at Google.

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Speaker 1: Two thousand fifteen current year, Google spins off Photos into

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Speaker 1: its own app, so it's no longer wrapped up with

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Speaker 1: Google Plus. The photos on Google Plus we're one of

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Speaker 1: the big selling points, especially among photographers. It was considered

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Speaker 1: to be a superior tool by many two things like

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Speaker 1: the Facebook Google or Facebook Photo app. So the Google

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Speaker 1: Plus Photos app was considered to be pretty good, and

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Speaker 1: the fact that Google is spinning it off from Google

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Speaker 1: Plus maybe an indication that Google Plus is kind of

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Speaker 1: living on borrowed time. On August first, two thousand fifteen,

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Speaker 1: Google shut down the Google Plus version of Photos, switching

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Speaker 1: to the independent app instead. The new app is pretty cool,

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Speaker 1: contains features like image recognition, which makes image searching really interesting. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In other words, Google is using algorithms to automatically to

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Speaker 1: text stuff that's within photos. That way, when you search

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Speaker 1: for photos, even if they haven't been meta tagged, often

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Speaker 1: the image search can give you some pretty good results,

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Speaker 1: occasionally can give you some hilariously wrong results. It is

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Speaker 1: still a fallible system. Google is also in the process

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Speaker 1: of removing the requirement to link Google Plus and YouTube

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Speaker 1: accounts together, which is pretty much an admission that the

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Speaker 1: initiative was not a good idea. In fact, they pretty

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Speaker 1: much said said so in their blog posts. They didn't

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Speaker 1: come out and say specifically that YouTube and Google Plus

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Speaker 1: integration was a complete mistake, or that making you use

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Speaker 1: a quote unquote real name was a real mistake, but

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Speaker 1: the implication was there. So soon you'll only need a

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Speaker 1: Google account, not a Google Plus account, just a Google

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Speaker 1: account to set up a YouTube channel, and that means

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Speaker 1: that people won't be able to follow you or search

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Speaker 1: you with that just that Google account Google Plus they could,

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Speaker 1: but not with just a regular Google account. By the way,

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Speaker 1: you should not delete your Google Plus account right away.

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Speaker 1: You should hold onto it because Google says if you

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Speaker 1: delete your Google Plus account before this whole process is complete,

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Speaker 1: it will also delete your YouTube account. So if you

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Speaker 1: have YouTube videos online, you don't want to remove your

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Speaker 1: Google Plus account yet, wait until this process is finished. Now,

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Speaker 1: in general, Google has stopped the more or less forced

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Speaker 1: push to make users create Google Plus accounts. It clearly

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Speaker 1: wasn't getting the results that it wanted other than irritating

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Speaker 1: people who didn't have any interest in Google Plus to

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Speaker 1: begin with, which I'm guessing was not an intended consequence.

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Speaker 1: In fact, Harowitz said that it was time to talk

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Speaker 1: about how Google Plus was pivoting away from its original

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Speaker 1: pitch into something new, and this has already been reflected

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Speaker 1: in that the social operations within Google had changed its

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Speaker 1: name to Google Streams, Photos and Sharing. Now. Generally speaking,

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Speaker 1: critics say that Google ailed to address the real problem,

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Speaker 1: which was attracting users to the platform in an organic way,

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Speaker 1: and instead used force by integrating Google Plus with other services,

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Speaker 1: whether you liked it or not, so you had to

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Speaker 1: create a Google Plus account if you wanted access to

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Speaker 1: these other Google services, and it wasn't so much an

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Speaker 1: indication that you thought Google Plus was actually a good

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Speaker 1: service itself. They also kept on including lots of features

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Speaker 1: that seemed like whenever they thought that there was a

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Speaker 1: different way to try and attract people, they would just

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Speaker 1: throw random features into Google Plus. This comes from criticism

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Speaker 1: within the company itself, and a lot of people said

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Speaker 1: those features were often unwanted or no one understood what

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Speaker 1: they were for, so no one was using them. Now,

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Speaker 1: Google maintains that Google Plus is going to stick around.

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Speaker 1: It's just going to be more of a simple social

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Speaker 1: platform and less of the centralized point of sharing across

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Speaker 1: all of Google services. In other words, it's just gonna

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Speaker 1: be a stripped down version of what it was in

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Speaker 1: the first place. So Google Plus isn't officially dead. But

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Speaker 1: keep in mind Google has been known to pull the

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Speaker 1: plug on services after you know, they've died down a bit,

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Speaker 1: and only a relatively small user base would be affected.

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Speaker 1: So it's possible that in some blog post down in

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Speaker 1: the future, there's going to be one of those lists

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Speaker 1: of Google services that will no longer be supported, and

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Speaker 1: Google Plus may one day show up on that list. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: things like Google Photos and Hangouts exist outside of Google Plus,

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Speaker 1: and while they might have been spawned within Google Plus

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Speaker 1: to begin with, we now can access those through other tools.

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Speaker 1: Like hangouts you can access through Gmail, for example, and

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Speaker 1: you can even have live hangouts that are broadcast on YouTube,

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Speaker 1: so you can still use those products and they are

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Speaker 1: kind of standalone compared to what they were originally as

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Speaker 1: a sort of a feature within Google Plus itself. Now,

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Speaker 1: with all that being said, we can go back and

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Speaker 1: listen to this twenty eleven episode of tech Stuff in

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Speaker 1: which Chris and I talked about the very earliest days

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Speaker 1: of Google Plus. So if you want to hear what

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Speaker 1: our thoughts were on the service back before it was

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Speaker 1: open to the public. Stick around, check this out and

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Speaker 1: be entertained by the amazing and adaptability for the two

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Speaker 1: Yahoo's sitting at this table to chat about a service

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Speaker 1: that had not yet debuted. Enjoy. So today we wanted

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Speaker 1: to talk about a social network experiment that launched recently.

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Speaker 1: As of the recording of this podcast, we're recording this

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Speaker 1: in July two thousand eleven, and not that long ago,

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Speaker 1: Google made a an announcement that ended up taking at

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Speaker 1: least the the geek world by storm. Yes, definitely, and

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Speaker 1: we've had a few requests, and I think Jonathan and

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Speaker 1: I have decided that we'll go ahead and record a

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Speaker 1: podcast about it now and off defense before too many

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Speaker 1: other people ask us how it works. And also we

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Speaker 1: should add that well, first of all, we're talking about

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Speaker 1: Google Plus, in case you didn't read the title that

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Speaker 1: we're talking about Google Plus, but I want to add

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Speaker 1: a disclaimer at the beginning of this podcast, which is

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Speaker 1: Google Plus is in a a beta a rapidly expanding

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Speaker 1: beta program, uh and could undergo massive changes and short

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Speaker 1: amounts of time. So anything we talk about today may

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Speaker 1: very well have be different by the time this podcast

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Speaker 1: goes live, although I don't I don't imagine things changing

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Speaker 1: so significantly that they don't apply at all. But it

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Speaker 1: may be that there are some subtleties that we are

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Speaker 1: not going to cover because they will have emerged between

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Speaker 1: the time we record this in the time it publishes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because frankly, that's that's true of a good two thirds

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Speaker 1: of our podcast anytime we don't talk about something in history. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But but with with with something like this in particular,

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Speaker 1: when it's in a beta format and a lot of

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Speaker 1: people are testing it out. Um, and not only that,

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Speaker 1: but the team behind it is listening to feedback and

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Speaker 1: incorporating feedback into their changes. You have a rapidly evolving

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Speaker 1: service that's going on here. So even though we might

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Speaker 1: record something about say Facebook, and sure maybe some things

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Speaker 1: will get tweaked in the Facebook uh service between the

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Speaker 1: time we record in the time we published, it might

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Speaker 1: be minor. But with something like this, where it's truly

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Speaker 1: experimental and people are implementing changes at a rapid pace,

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Speaker 1: the change it's more noticeable. Yes. That being said, now

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Speaker 1: we've got the disclaimer on the way, let's talk about

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Speaker 1: Google Plus. Okay, so one of my favorite descriptions of

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Speaker 1: Google Plus came courtesy of Molly Wood from c Net,

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Speaker 1: who said, google Plus is like you are at this uh,

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Speaker 1: this really fancy party, and you're in a V I

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Speaker 1: P section of the party, and there are only a

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Speaker 1: few people there, and everyone's excited to be there, and

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Speaker 1: everyone's talking about being at the party, and that's all

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Speaker 1: that's happening. That's that's definitely an exaggeration, and it's also paraphrasing,

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Speaker 1: so that's not a direct quote. Molly would put it

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Speaker 1: much more succinctly. But and it's it's also changed in

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Speaker 1: the last couple of days. Right. But but early on,

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Speaker 1: if you were one of the few people who got

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Speaker 1: into Google Plus, I was very fortunate in that I

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Speaker 1: managed to get invite uh and and joined pretty pretty

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Speaker 1: early on. Yeah, it turns out I know a lot

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Speaker 1: of people in the tech business. Um. But if you

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Speaker 1: if you were in there early on, it felt like

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Speaker 1: the people who were there were all these mostly tech

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Speaker 1: and geek culture folks. So you had a lot of

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Speaker 1: people who are from tech companies, including folks who are

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Speaker 1: actually from Google, which makes sense their product, right, you

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Speaker 1: had people from other big companies, stuff like Twitter or Facebook,

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Speaker 1: even we'll get into that. And then you had a

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Speaker 1: lot of tech journalists, so people like Leo Laporte, tom

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Speaker 1: merritt Um later on, Molly Wood and Brian Tong have

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Speaker 1: seen it. Um I as actor who's a good friend

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Speaker 1: of mine. He's he was also on there pretty early on.

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Speaker 1: You have these folks who are kind of populating it,

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Speaker 1: so it felt like a weird social network. It felt

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Speaker 1: like a social network that had been designed specifically for

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Speaker 1: this tech geek world. Oh, you also had some geek celebrities,

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Speaker 1: and I say geek celebrities, and that geeks like me

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Speaker 1: tend to think of them as amazing celebrities. So Felicia

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Speaker 1: Day will whe eaten those kind of folks. Um. So

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Speaker 1: it kind of felt like a social network built for geeks.

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Speaker 1: Now that's gradually changing as more and more people join in,

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Speaker 1: and we're starting to slowly skewed toward a more quote

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Speaker 1: unquote normal population. I use normal just in the sense

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Speaker 1: of average as opposed to geeks are not normal. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and I feel compelled to point out that again,

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Speaker 1: like a number of topics on this show, this is

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Speaker 1: one of those things that has been anticipated for quite

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Speaker 1: some time. Um. It's hard to tell a lot of

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Speaker 1: these things too. Um, things like the Apple iPad and

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Speaker 1: Google Plus and things like this that people say, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, Google's working on a social network that's aimed

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Speaker 1: to take down Facebook, and they talk about it for

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Speaker 1: months and months and sometimes years, and you start going, happened.

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Speaker 1: It's sort of like Spotify coming to the United States,

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Speaker 1: which also just recently happened, but for for a long time. Uh. Again,

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Speaker 1: this is one of those things that I've heard a

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Speaker 1: lot of technicalists called tech unicorns. Yeah. These are like

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Speaker 1: the white iPhone for a long time was the tech unicorn.

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Speaker 1: The iPad was a tech unicorn for a long time.

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Speaker 1: These are apples streaming iTunes service, which is still Yeah,

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Speaker 1: these are things that everyone quote unquote knows is coming,

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Speaker 1: but it hasn't arrived yet, and it maybe years before

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Speaker 1: we ever get to it. And so yeah, some of

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Speaker 1: these are some of these turned into vaporware, right, tech

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Speaker 1: unicorn vaporware. The relationships pretty tight, Yeah, Duke Nukelen forever

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Speaker 1: long time tech unicorn. We will withhold commentary on what

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Speaker 1: actually eventually published. We'll be back with more of this

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Speaker 1: classic episode of tech stuff after this quick break, so

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Speaker 1: let's let's kind of talk about sort of the the

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Speaker 1: we've talked about why, how people wanted to get in.

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Speaker 1: Uh we a lot of people wanted to get in

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Speaker 1: and couldn't get in because they didn't have enough invites. Um.

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Speaker 1: The the expansion of Google Plus has been pretty impressive

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Speaker 1: to watch over time. You wanted to say something, well, no,

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Speaker 1: I was just gonna say that they're in between the

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Speaker 1: tech unicorn. Um. It's one of those things. And at

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Speaker 1: least in my opinion, where Google Plus it was so

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Speaker 1: we've heard it for so long, it's like it's hiding

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Speaker 1: in plain sight that they just went, oh, here it is,

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Speaker 1: and we all kind of went yeah. Google Plus kind

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Speaker 1: of launched without a whole lot of fanfare from Google.

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Speaker 1: But it turns out Google didn't need to provide fanfare.

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Speaker 1: That was provided by that community of users I was

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Speaker 1: talking about earlier, because that that that same group of

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Speaker 1: early adopters who are passionate about trying stuff out, are

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Speaker 1: really passionate about sharing information. So these adopters served as

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Speaker 1: the the champions of Google Plus. Google didn't have to

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Speaker 1: say it anything. Really, They showed off a demo um,

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Speaker 1: they explained the concept and that and they let everyone

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Speaker 1: else take over. And really Google didn't just release and watch,

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Speaker 1: They released, watched and listened and implemented changes. Which that's

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Speaker 1: kind of where I think a lot of the tech

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Speaker 1: enthusiasts have really kind of latched onto Google Plus because

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Speaker 1: they're like, they're not just giving us this, They're listening

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Speaker 1: to what we have to say, and they're taking that

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Speaker 1: into consideration. So instead of it being some sort of

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Speaker 1: ivory tower where products come out, but it's a one

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Speaker 1: way street, right, you know, they're they're providing a service,

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Speaker 1: but they're not listening to what we have to say.

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Speaker 1: We just take whatever they're giving us. Google is more

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Speaker 1: of a two way street, Like you really feel that

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Speaker 1: the people at Google are listening. Now. They may not

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Speaker 1: incorporate all the changes you think need to be there

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Speaker 1: because it doesn't match their vision of what the service

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Speaker 1: ultimately will do, but at least they're listening. Yeah. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: you know, all of us have our own preferences and

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Speaker 1: choices we want to see in the product, and so

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Speaker 1: Google is not going to make all of us happy,

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Speaker 1: and you know those of us it does make happy,

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Speaker 1: it won't make us completely happy, because well, we'll be

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Speaker 1: looking for one particular thing or two particular things and

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Speaker 1: maybe you know, that's just a few people, and Google

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Speaker 1: is not gonna change it just for a few people.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, as soon as it was announced, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: the tech enthusiasts latched onto it and and it started spreading.

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Speaker 1: But the thing is, um, Google was smart about launching

433
00:24:42,600 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 1: it the way they did because they were trying to

434
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: avoid overloading their servers um and so what they were

435
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:51,920
Speaker 1: doing was they were releasing it to a few people

436
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: at a time. And when I say a few, a

437
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:55,680
Speaker 1: few to most of us would be you know, ten people,

438
00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:57,919
Speaker 1: but you know, a few to Google was you know

439
00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:00,760
Speaker 1: a few hundreds, a few thousand at a time. And

440
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 1: uh so people were going crazy the first few days

441
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:06,639
Speaker 1: after the launch looking for an invite to the service.

442
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:09,959
Speaker 1: Now it also makes it seem really exclusive. Yeah, and

443
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 1: of course the more, yeah, the more exclusive something is,

444
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:15,120
Speaker 1: the more people want to be in that because people

445
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:17,840
Speaker 1: want to be part of an exclusive group. And uh,

446
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:19,840
Speaker 1: I mean it's just natural, right you see, you see

447
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 1: the cool click of kids, and you want to be

448
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 1: in that click. And once you're in that click, you're

449
00:25:24,119 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 1: like this is awesome, And yeah, I don't object to

450
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:29,399
Speaker 1: us letting in maybe one or two other people who

451
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 1: are kind of cool, but let's not go crazy and

452
00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 1: let everyone in, because then we don't have a click anymore.

453
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:36,639
Speaker 1: So uh and we can get into sort of the

454
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:40,119
Speaker 1: click ish behavior that I've noticed on Google Plus. Not again,

455
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:42,119
Speaker 1: this is really really early on in Google Plus. I

456
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 1: don't expect that this will last long. There's going to

457
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:47,440
Speaker 1: be a big change as more people join um. And also,

458
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:49,399
Speaker 1: there were reports that within a couple of weeks of

459
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 1: Google Plus launching, they were already possibly as many as

460
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:55,120
Speaker 1: ten million people on it. And at the time we're

461
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:58,359
Speaker 1: recording this podcast, which is again just a couple of

462
00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:01,359
Speaker 1: weeks after Google Plus launched, they expect it to be

463
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 1: up to twenty million by uh in a in a

464
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 1: couple of days from the recording of this podcast. So

465
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 1: if you're looking for let's go ahead and get this

466
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:11,919
Speaker 1: answer out of the way. If you're looking for Google

467
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:14,919
Speaker 1: Plus to knock off Facebook right away, it's not going

468
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 1: to happen because they're talking twenty million people out of

469
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:23,640
Speaker 1: sift million for Facebook exactly. So the law, the the

470
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 1: long term answer to that is maybe. But right now,

471
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 1: you know, there's no threat whatsoever. And I don't think

472
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:33,880
Speaker 1: Google would claim that Google Plus is meant to replace Facebook.

473
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: In fact, that kind of leads us into what is

474
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: Google Plus because we talked a lot about the the popularity,

475
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:43,440
Speaker 1: but we haven't really even discussed anything about the actual service.

476
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 1: There are some similarities to other social networks. In fact,

477
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 1: there's there are similarities to other Google products. Yeah, and

478
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 1: and you will notice if you have used things like

479
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:55,880
Speaker 1: Google Buzz or Google Wave, you'll see little similarities here

480
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:58,439
Speaker 1: and there in Google Plus. And you'll notice like, okay,

481
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 1: they they've sort of incorporated this I uh and the

482
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 1: lessons they learned from that into Google Plus. So Google

483
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 1: Plus is essentially a social network, though it's not just

484
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:14,399
Speaker 1: a social network. And the way it works from a

485
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:18,160
Speaker 1: user perspective is that you will look for people who

486
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,119
Speaker 1: are on Google Plus or have yet to join Google Plus,

487
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 1: people you know or people you know of, and you

488
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:29,360
Speaker 1: put those people into circles. Now, these circles are categories

489
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:35,080
Speaker 1: so that you can uh put people into whichever ones

490
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:37,960
Speaker 1: fit best in your life, so that you can direct

491
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:41,200
Speaker 1: messages to those people and read messages from those people

492
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 1: in a way that's more granular than your average Facebook

493
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 1: user is used to. Yeah. Now, I mean, uh, Facebook

494
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:51,159
Speaker 1: fans would probably see, but yeah, I can do that

495
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 1: with Facebook. Well. Um, basically the big difference here, I

496
00:27:57,400 --> 00:27:59,679
Speaker 1: think is that this is like the first thing you

497
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: do when you add a new person to your Google

498
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:06,880
Speaker 1: Plus account. If you want to, uh start following Jonathan

499
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:10,359
Speaker 1: for example, Um, you know, the very first thing you say, Okay,

500
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 1: oh I found him. Now what circles do you want

501
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 1: to add him to? And you can add people to

502
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 1: more than one circle, yes, and you can create circles

503
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:20,399
Speaker 1: you you you start off with some basic circles. I

504
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 1: believe it's friends, family, acquaintances, and followers are following. So

505
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:28,719
Speaker 1: I've got let's say, I've got There's there's Chris. And

506
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:30,360
Speaker 1: then I have to make a decision. Do I put

507
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 1: Chris in my friend's circle, do I put them in

508
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:35,159
Speaker 1: my acquaintance's circle, or do I put them in my

509
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:37,359
Speaker 1: following circle. Chris is not part of my family, so

510
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:39,240
Speaker 1: I'm not going to put them in there. And I'm

511
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: all right with that. Yeah. And and it's nice to

512
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 1: note to, especially if you're concerned with issues of privacy.

513
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: The person on the other end, the person that you're

514
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: adding to your circles has no idea what circles to

515
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: which you have added them, Right, So if you put

516
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: them in, like, you could create a circle called jerk faces.

517
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I know for a fact that

518
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: I'm in that circle. And you could put people in

519
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 1: the jerk faces I know circle and they're not going

520
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: to know that that's the They know that you've added them,

521
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: but they don't know what circle they are in. So

522
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 1: I'm probably in a lot of jerk faces I know

523
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 1: circles and yeah, and now that our listeners have heard

524
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 1: me say this, I imagine a lot of them are

525
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: making jerk faces I know circles just to put me

526
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: in them. Um, so you've got these circles. Now you've

527
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 1: decided where this your first let's say it's your first

528
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: person you're following. So I'm going to use Chris as

529
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:31,320
Speaker 1: my example. I've decided that I want to follow Chris.

530
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 1: I want to I want to hear what Chris has

531
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 1: to say. I want to be able to see his updates.

532
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 1: I want to be able to see his photos. Um,

533
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: I put him in my acquaintances circle. All right, So now,

534
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 1: anytime Chris posts and publishes his post to either the public,

535
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 1: which means everyone can see it. Everyone on Google Plus

536
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 1: can see it, everyone in the in the world can

537
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: see it. Um. I mean it's not restricted to anybody

538
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 1: in particular, right right. But now, now, if Chris has

539
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:00,080
Speaker 1: not put me in a circle, and he publishes and

540
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:03,720
Speaker 1: anything other than public, I'm not going to see that information.

541
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: So Chris decides that he wants to publish a status update,

542
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 1: but he's just gonna push it to his friends. I

543
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 1: am not in his friend's circle. He types in his

544
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: status update, he sets it so that it only publishes

545
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 1: to friends. He publishes it. I don't know that Chris

546
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:21,959
Speaker 1: has done anything to me. His his posts still are blank.

547
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: Now let's say that Chris does another one where he

548
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: decides he wants to talk about an article he edited,

549
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,480
Speaker 1: and he wants this he wants the general public to

550
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 1: know about this article. He sets that status update to public.

551
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 1: Suddenly I can see that particular status update because they

552
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 1: set it to public, so anyone following Chris can see it.

553
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 1: Then let's say that Chris notices that I'm on Google

554
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:46,960
Speaker 1: Plus and he thinks, oh, well, Jonathan's there, I should

555
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: add him I'll add him to my acquaintances circle. Then

556
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:54,200
Speaker 1: Chris publishes a status update and decides he only wants

557
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 1: his acquaintances and friends to see it, so he sets

558
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: it so that this status update goes out to friends

559
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 1: and acquaintances, but not the general public. I would be

560
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 1: able to see that stats update. Now, if he had

561
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 1: not added me to his acquaintance circle or his friends circle,

562
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: I would not see it. I would be unaware that

563
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: he had updated his status. You can get so granular

564
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 1: that you can create a stats update and directed to

565
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: specific people. So I could create a stats update and

566
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: just send it to Chris alone, and that's the only

567
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:23,840
Speaker 1: person who sees it. Or I could send it to

568
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: Chris and maybe three or four other people. Let's say

569
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 1: that it's three or four people who are in different circles.

570
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: They don't really belong all on the same circle, but

571
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 1: I think they all need to see this message. I

572
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 1: might just go in and manually put in each name,

573
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 1: and those are the only people who will see that message. Now,

574
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 1: there are some other things you have to remember, like, uh,

575
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: there is the ability to share posts that other people

576
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 1: have published. Now, if you you can either turn the

577
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: sharing on or off, so you don't have to. If

578
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 1: you turn it off, that means other people cannot share

579
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 1: the same message you just posted. If the share is

580
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: on your message that went out to just your friends

581
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:05,320
Speaker 1: or just your acquaintances might suddenly become public. Right, So

582
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: Chris sends out a message to just his acquaintances. He

583
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 1: has sharing turned on, he has not turned that off.

584
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 1: I read Chris's post, and I think, hey, that's awesome.

585
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 1: Everyone who follows me wants to know that too. I

586
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 1: hit share. Suddenly his message that just went to his

587
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 1: acquaintances are now it's now out in the wild, So

588
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:26,440
Speaker 1: they're attributed to me exactly. Yes, yes, so people can

589
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: actually follow it back to Chris. Now, granted they're only

590
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 1: going to be able to see the things that Chris

591
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: has published at that point to the public if they

592
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 1: go directly to that's the weird thing. They might see

593
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 1: a shared post like I share your post, they see

594
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 1: it on my feed, then they follow it back to

595
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:43,120
Speaker 1: your feed and something that post isn't there because it

596
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 1: wasn't set to public when it was originally published. It

597
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 1: gets a little complicated. These are things that the Google

598
00:32:49,080 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 1: Plus team. They're looking into this stuff to see what

599
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: makes sense and what doesn't make sense, you know, sharing

600
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 1: versus private. And because you have the ability to turn

601
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 1: sharing off, if you are someone who doesn't want information

602
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 1: to go beyond that group of friends, you can always

603
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 1: turn it off. Now, granted, that doesn't stop your friends

604
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 1: from say saying that Jonathan said blah blah blah. Right,

605
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:14,680
Speaker 1: and there's always you know, copy and paste, right, So yeah,

606
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 1: there are ways around it. But that's the same for

607
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 1: any social network. I sort of count on my friends

608
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: to be lazy enough where they won't I can't share this, yeah, exactly.

609
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 1: And and really, I mean it's just like real life.

610
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 1: Just like real life, I come up and I tell

611
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 1: Chris is secret. There's nothing stopping Chris from going around

612
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 1: and telling other people that's secret. I'm sorry, I told you,

613
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Gee. Yeah, well let's see if you ever

614
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: get any key line pie from me again. So so

615
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 1: that's the basics behind circles and sharing. And also, if

616
00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:47,440
Speaker 1: let's say that when you're actually consuming information, you're not

617
00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: just that that's sending information out right, publishing information. You

618
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: can also look view your stream. That's what Google Plus

619
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 1: calls your what what Facebook would call the wall, right

620
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 1: or Twitter, we call it the feed, so it's the

621
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 1: same sort of concept. It's it's the stream of information

622
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 1: coming from all the people that you put into your circles.

623
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:11,880
Speaker 1: You can view that by circle, So if you just

624
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 1: have it set to the stream, you're looking at everything

625
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:19,919
Speaker 1: that people you follow are publishing. So all your friends, acquaintances,

626
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 1: celebrities who might be following people you know of but

627
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:25,440
Speaker 1: you don't actually know in real life. All the information

628
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:28,400
Speaker 1: gets dumped into the stream. If you want to try

629
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:31,800
Speaker 1: and filter that out, you can view your stream by circle.

630
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:34,759
Speaker 1: So I might click friends and now I'm only going

631
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:37,200
Speaker 1: to see the updates that my friends have published to

632
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 1: their stream, and I've cut everything else out. I can

633
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 1: even view it by incoming incoming. It gets really crazy

634
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:51,160
Speaker 1: for people like me, and more so for people who

635
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 1: are even more even more who are actually famous. Because

636
00:34:56,640 --> 00:34:58,759
Speaker 1: I have as the recording of this podcast, I have

637
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:04,719
Speaker 1: people following me. If I choose incoming, I see their updates,

638
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:08,399
Speaker 1: so I'm not following them. But by hitting incoming, I'm

639
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:10,920
Speaker 1: seeing everyone who's following me. I'm seeing their updates. So

640
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:16,360
Speaker 1: suddenly just becomes a wall of information. Um but assuming

641
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:18,880
Speaker 1: that everything they've published as public if they published stuff

642
00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:21,320
Speaker 1: to their friends or their acquaintances or whatever. I'm not

643
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:23,880
Speaker 1: going to see that. I'm only going to see stuff

644
00:35:23,920 --> 00:35:25,799
Speaker 1: that in the circles that I've been included in and

645
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:28,560
Speaker 1: in the public posts. But it means that I get

646
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 1: a lot more information from a lot more people, not

647
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 1: just the people I follow. Right, that can be a

648
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:36,840
Speaker 1: lot We've got more to say in this classic episode

649
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:48,719
Speaker 1: of tech stuff after these quick messages. So in a way,

650
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: Google Plus is like Facebook and that you can follow

651
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 1: specific people, they can follow you back and you. In

652
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 1: a way, it's like Twitter because in Twitter you can

653
00:35:56,920 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 1: follow people and just read what they have to say

654
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: as long as they don't have a profile set to private.

655
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:04,720
Speaker 1: You can read Twitter posts from people as they update.

656
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 1: So in Google Plus the same sort of thing. You

657
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 1: don't have to give permission to someone in order for

658
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 1: them to follow you. But people say, well what about privacy.

659
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 1: That's where the circles come in. That's where you can

660
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 1: choose which circles see what you have to say. If

661
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:22,480
Speaker 1: you don't want random people seeing what you have to say,

662
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:26,480
Speaker 1: you publish it to a specific circle, right right, Um,

663
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:32,760
Speaker 1: And I mean people compare this product to Twitter and

664
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: Facebook all the time. I've seen a constant stream of that. However,

665
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 1: I think it's most like at least the ones I've tried.

666
00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:45,239
Speaker 1: Most like another service that caught on for a little

667
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 1: while and Facebook acquired it and is sort of languished

668
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:52,040
Speaker 1: under Facebook's control, and that's called friend Feed. If you've

669
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 1: ever been to friend feed dot com. Um, it's very

670
00:36:56,280 --> 00:37:01,279
Speaker 1: very similar, and um it's it's the more too. I mean,

671
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:03,840
Speaker 1: the the feed is somewhat similar to the wall on

672
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 1: on Facebook, but you can um like and unlike and

673
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 1: make long comments to it, very much in the style

674
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 1: of friend feed, more so than than Facebook or Twitter.

675
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:18,120
Speaker 1: But it's it's closer probably to Facebook or friend Feed

676
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:20,360
Speaker 1: than it is to Twitter. Now, I mean there is

677
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 1: some uh you know that it looks a little bit

678
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:27,759
Speaker 1: more like Twitter. I mean, just the visual element of it,

679
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 1: I would say, um, but there are some other advantages

680
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:36,440
Speaker 1: to using Google Plus that there aren't um, and that's

681
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 1: probably I think of that more as the integration with Android. Um.

682
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 1: For example, you know, Jonathan and I both have Android smartphones,

683
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:49,240
Speaker 1: and we can set Google Plus to automatically post every

684
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 1: photo we take with our phones to Google Plus. Now,

685
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:55,479
Speaker 1: I don't think that's such a good idea. You can

686
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:57,880
Speaker 1: set your privacy, you can such your privacy so that

687
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: people don't automatically see those photos. So so if you

688
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:04,239
Speaker 1: if you had it where every photo you take is

689
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:08,560
Speaker 1: automatically published, uh publicly to your Google Plus account, that

690
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 1: seems like a bad idea. Yeah, I mean even if

691
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:12,799
Speaker 1: even if we let's take let's take out the bad

692
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 1: behavior aspect, right, so bad behavior, that would be a

693
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:19,240
Speaker 1: bad idea because suddenly you're publicly showing everyone bad behavior.

694
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 1: So let's say, you know, being intoxicated or being acting

695
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 1: irresponsibly in some way, and you're like, oh, let's take

696
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:30,360
Speaker 1: a picture of this. Well, yeah, that's a bad idea.

697
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 1: But let's say it's just a bad photo, like your

698
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:36,359
Speaker 1: fingers in the frame. You know, you don't want that

699
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:38,839
Speaker 1: publishing because you're like, come on, that's just a I'd

700
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:42,400
Speaker 1: rather take that photo again. So you can set your

701
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:45,719
Speaker 1: privacy setting so that those photos don't automatically go to everybody,

702
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,360
Speaker 1: you know. I actually do have instant published turned on

703
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:50,319
Speaker 1: right now because I wanted to try it out, and

704
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:53,319
Speaker 1: it's pretty neat. I didn't realize that every picture I

705
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: take on my phone is instantly published not just the

706
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:59,799
Speaker 1: ones I do through the app, but through anything so

707
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:02,800
Speaker 1: gets put like I've taken photos to upload to Twitter

708
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 1: and twit pick. It also has gone to my Google

709
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:07,600
Speaker 1: Plus account. Now I don't have it publishing publicly, so

710
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:10,799
Speaker 1: at least people aren't being flooded by pictures of me

711
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: trying to take a photo of one thing and like, no,

712
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 1: that's not right either. Let me change the lighting a

713
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:17,839
Speaker 1: little bit and take three more of these. But you

714
00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:21,839
Speaker 1: could do that, yep. And um, that isn't to say

715
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:25,040
Speaker 1: that that won't that functionality won't come to other phones.

716
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:27,800
Speaker 1: Now there is a Google Plus app. Actually there was

717
00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:30,759
Speaker 1: a Google Plus app for Android, I would say just

718
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 1: about immediately since I heard about it, I looked for it.

719
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 1: Now it was the launch, the launch on the web,

720
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 1: and the launch on the phone. In fact, the launch

721
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:39,279
Speaker 1: on the phone gave some people a work around to

722
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,680
Speaker 1: getting into Google Plus. Early on, they installed the Google

723
00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 1: Plus app on their phone and found that they could

724
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 1: bypass the invite system, and once they try to activate

725
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 1: the app on their phone, it gave them an invite,

726
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 1: and there was another workaround that got you into Google Plus. Um,

727
00:39:56,640 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 1: but those have been patched since then. But they've also

728
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:03,879
Speaker 1: started opening it up to more people too. So, I mean,

729
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:07,279
Speaker 1: I have hundreds of invites right now, and I just

730
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 1: keep getting more, and I'm running out of people who

731
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:12,279
Speaker 1: I know would be interested in it, and well and

732
00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 1: the personally and the invite system is not entirely intuitive. No,

733
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not. It's not the easiest thing in

734
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:20,279
Speaker 1: the world. Like when you see the invite system, it's

735
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:23,959
Speaker 1: it's easy to get a little confused by it. Uh.

736
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:25,719
Speaker 1: I guess we can talk a little bit about some

737
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 1: of the other features of Google Plus well before we

738
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 1: get too far away from the Android app. We have

739
00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:33,839
Speaker 1: heard that there is going to be an iOS app

740
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:39,319
Speaker 1: that's the operating system for the Apple I stuff. As

741
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 1: the recording of this podcast, it's been submitted but not

742
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,400
Speaker 1: yet approved. Yeah, so there. I don't know if the

743
00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:49,359
Speaker 1: automatic photo feature will work with those phones, I you know,

744
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:51,640
Speaker 1: and I don't know if there will be something coming

745
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 1: for Windows Phone or or web os. Um we'll see. Yeah,

746
00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 1: but like a lot of BlackBerry, like a lot of

747
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:02,360
Speaker 1: services and probably that we're seeing launch these days. Uh,

748
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 1: it's really effective if you subscribe to a particular ecosystem.

749
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:10,680
Speaker 1: In this case, Google's so using Google Plus on Google

750
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 1: Chrome and having an Android phone. It works. I mean

751
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 1: it works really seamlessly because all those products are coming

752
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 1: from the same company. But when you start mixing and matching,

753
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:26,399
Speaker 1: your experience may vary. Yeah, there's another feature, um and

754
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,800
Speaker 1: uh that that Jonathan and I tried out pretty much immediately,

755
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:33,320
Speaker 1: and that's called the huddle. Yes, this is this relates

756
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:37,000
Speaker 1: to UH two phones. Yes, so a huddle is like

757
00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:42,399
Speaker 1: having a group messaging system on phones. So everyone who

758
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:44,879
Speaker 1: is in a huddle needs to have uh a phone

759
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:47,680
Speaker 1: number attached to their Google Plus account, or they have

760
00:41:47,719 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: to have the the Google Plus app installed on their

761
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 1: their phones. Um. And what you do is you set

762
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:55,879
Speaker 1: it up and you can send out a message. Let's

763
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:59,799
Speaker 1: say that I want to have get together after work

764
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:01,880
Speaker 1: one day and just hang out of the restaurant, have

765
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:04,719
Speaker 1: some appetizers and talk about what's been going on in

766
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 1: the company. There might be three or four people I

767
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:08,840
Speaker 1: want to invite, so I add all of them to

768
00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: my Google Plus huddle and I send out a message.

769
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 1: That message will go to all of those people, and

770
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 1: then all of those people can respond to that message

771
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:19,880
Speaker 1: and everyone can see each other's responses. It becomes kind

772
00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:23,280
Speaker 1: of like a chat room via text message, but only

773
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:26,720
Speaker 1: among that group of people. And again this is functionality

774
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:31,880
Speaker 1: that reminds me of Google Wave and also other services

775
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:36,840
Speaker 1: like Beluga. There are group messaging services Beluga, there are

776
00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 1: other group messaging services. Chris, give me a look, and

777
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: I can tell you wanted to do the bulbous bouffont Beluga,

778
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: which my wife hates UM, but the yeah, there there

779
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:48,160
Speaker 1: are other messaging services group messaging services that are doing

780
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: this right now. In fact, a lot of them were

781
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,280
Speaker 1: launching around south By Southwest and we're making a big,

782
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:57,879
Speaker 1: big splash there. Google Huddle is kind of Google's version

783
00:42:57,920 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 1: of this. Now, that was one of the work of

784
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:02,840
Speaker 1: ounds too. If you added someone to a Google Huddle,

785
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 1: then in order for them to be able to use

786
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:07,839
Speaker 1: the huddle, they were given a link to log into

787
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:10,440
Speaker 1: Google Plus and that's how they ended up getting accounts

788
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:12,960
Speaker 1: even though they didn't have an official invite UM and

789
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 1: the invitations at that point had been closed. And yet

790
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:17,799
Speaker 1: a lot of people found that workaround. Again, that's been

791
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:22,279
Speaker 1: patched since the uh since since it first happened. Took

792
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 1: a couple of days before Google caught on, or maybe

793
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:26,439
Speaker 1: they caught on, but they let it happen anyway because

794
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 1: they're like, well, this is letting the population base expand,

795
00:43:30,160 --> 00:43:33,600
Speaker 1: but it's not expanding at a rate that's outside of

796
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:37,920
Speaker 1: our comfort zone. Yeah yeah um. And then there's hangouts. Yea,

797
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:40,759
Speaker 1: hangouts are awesome. I haven't tried to hang out yet.

798
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:43,880
Speaker 1: I've tried it and it is It is addicting. So

799
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:47,520
Speaker 1: a hangout is a video chat session. You can start

800
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: a hang out with specific people if you want to,

801
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:51,799
Speaker 1: or you can start a hangout and just make it

802
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:54,720
Speaker 1: public where anyone who follows you will see the hangout

803
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:57,080
Speaker 1: and can join. And I hang out is you need

804
00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:59,840
Speaker 1: a webcam and a microphone and speakers. Nor for this

805
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 1: work says you can hear people, they can hear you,

806
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 1: and they can see you, and up to ten people

807
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:08,640
Speaker 1: total can be in a hangout at one time, so

808
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:12,799
Speaker 1: it's you and nine other people max. And the video

809
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:16,360
Speaker 1: switching is very clever. It switches to whomever is speaking

810
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:19,160
Speaker 1: at the time. So if everyone's quiet and I'm talking,

811
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 1: then the main video will be me as I'm chatting.

812
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:24,800
Speaker 1: As someone else starts to talk, the video will switch

813
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 1: to that person and uh the focus changes to them.

814
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 1: And if two people are talking, whomever is the loudest

815
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 1: will have their video featured as the central video, and

816
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:39,520
Speaker 1: so you'll actually see uh if in a full hangout,

817
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:42,240
Speaker 1: you'll see one main screen of the person who's talking,

818
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 1: and then you'll see the other nine miniaturized like thumbnail

819
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 1: sized screens below, and it's all moving, you know, like

820
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 1: you're seeing video from all those feeds at one time.

821
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 1: It can get a little buggy depending upon people's um

822
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,360
Speaker 1: data transfer rates. You know, if you're if you're on

823
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:02,359
Speaker 1: a slow UH, if you're not really on a high

824
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 1: speed broadband connection, you're gonna have some problems with this.

825
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:08,359
Speaker 1: There'll be some lag. UM I was. I was having

826
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 1: some really bad lag when I was doing it because

827
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 1: I think there were a couple of different uh choking

828
00:45:12,680 --> 00:45:15,719
Speaker 1: points in the in the data transfer. So I would

829
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:19,799
Speaker 1: say something and then about three or four seconds later,

830
00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:22,840
Speaker 1: I would hear myself say it. So I'm responding to

831
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 1: something that someone is saying right now, but then three

832
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 1: or four seconds later there I'm starting to hear it.

833
00:45:28,800 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: So there'd be a gap between when I'm talking when

834
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:34,120
Speaker 1: they're talking, so you know, they might stop ask me

835
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 1: a question and stop, I don't answer, then they started

836
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:38,320
Speaker 1: asking if I'm there, and that's when my answer is

837
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:40,920
Speaker 1: starting to hit and I got a little muddled. But

838
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 1: on a fast connection, it's pretty cool. Yeah. And then

839
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 1: of course, right after all this happened, Facebook had an amazing,

840
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 1: awesome announcement. Yeah, they're video chat, which is uh partnership

841
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:55,720
Speaker 1: with Skype and allows you one on one video chat

842
00:45:55,800 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 1: with another person on Facebook. It's a difference system, right

843
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:01,880
Speaker 1: Like you can use a hangout and just talk to

844
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 1: one person if you want to, but you can also

845
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 1: talk to a group of people, whereas with Facebook video

846
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 1: chat right now, as a little recording of this podcast,

847
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:12,680
Speaker 1: it's a one on one scenario. So um, Facebook may

848
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 1: not necessarily see Google Plus as an immediate competitor, but

849
00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:20,760
Speaker 1: you can bet that the company will be watching Google

850
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 1: Plus to see what features are added next. I mean, uh,

851
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 1: and I don't think Google Plus is what Google would

852
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:29,560
Speaker 1: consider a finished product even you know, assuming that the

853
00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 1: features are all robust, they open the floodgates and anyone

854
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 1: can join. You have two million people on there. I

855
00:46:36,719 --> 00:46:40,359
Speaker 1: think they will continue to add new features and new functionality.

856
00:46:40,400 --> 00:46:44,759
Speaker 1: For example, something that I don't know expect might be

857
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:48,800
Speaker 1: a strong word, but seriously, wouldn't be surprised if it happened.

858
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:52,840
Speaker 1: Would be games, which has been a huge driver of

859
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 1: traffic to Facebook. Adding adding other kinds of in uh

860
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:01,000
Speaker 1: insight apps like that I think would would not be

861
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:02,880
Speaker 1: a shock at all. Just opening up an a p

862
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 1: I would be pretty And you already of starting to

863
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 1: see some extensions for for Google Chrome that are specifically

864
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 1: designed for Google Plus, things like allowing you to reply

865
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:15,200
Speaker 1: specifically to the person who posts. We didn't talk about that.

866
00:47:15,239 --> 00:47:17,720
Speaker 1: When you do post, people can leave comments on that post,

867
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 1: just like in Facebook on a wall wall post or Twitter,

868
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:23,800
Speaker 1: people can reply, can plus one the comment Yeah, plus

869
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 1: one is kind of like voting up or a comment

870
00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: or saying that you know, I really like this, so

871
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 1: I'm adding a plus one to it. It changes the

872
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:35,200
Speaker 1: way it displays on other people's streams. Um, but yeah,

873
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:37,240
Speaker 1: we should. We should mention that quickly. Like in Twitter,

874
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 1: you can reply to someone and in general, only you

875
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 1: and the other person are really seeing that conversation unless

876
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:47,239
Speaker 1: other people are following both of you. Right, so if

877
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 1: I reply to Chris, people only Chris and I would

878
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:54,319
Speaker 1: see that reply unless other people are following both of us. Uh.

879
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:56,719
Speaker 1: Now with Google Plus it's more like Facebook and that

880
00:47:56,840 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 1: I can make a comment and then someone else can

881
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,279
Speaker 1: comment on that. Anyone following me can comment on that

882
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 1: if I've made it public and then or and you

883
00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 1: can disable comments as well if you don't want people

884
00:48:06,600 --> 00:48:10,240
Speaker 1: commenting on something, um and then other folks can comment

885
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:12,360
Speaker 1: and it becomes a discussion. In fact, I've had a

886
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:14,880
Speaker 1: few discussions like that pop up on Google Plus recently.

887
00:48:14,880 --> 00:48:17,520
Speaker 1: I said, wouldn't it be cool to use the hangout

888
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:20,560
Speaker 1: feature to have a D and D game where everyone

889
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:22,279
Speaker 1: in the hangout is playing D and D. You have

890
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:24,279
Speaker 1: one person being the dungeon master and everyone else is

891
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:26,719
Speaker 1: playing a character. And you could do that. You could

892
00:48:26,719 --> 00:48:30,279
Speaker 1: have people from other states log in and play the

893
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:33,759
Speaker 1: game at the same time. So or any other game

894
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:35,759
Speaker 1: for that matter. Yeah, you could really do that with

895
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 1: any game, although once you started getting into things like

896
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:40,760
Speaker 1: board games or whatever, it gets a little more complex.

897
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:44,240
Speaker 1: Some games you wouldn't be able to do, like like poker,

898
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:46,399
Speaker 1: because how are you going to deal with all those

899
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:49,440
Speaker 1: cards in You know, you have to have a video

900
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:52,000
Speaker 1: poker game going at the same time, which makes them

901
00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:55,840
Speaker 1: a little more complicated anyway. Yeah, any any role playing

902
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:58,359
Speaker 1: type game like that. Yeah, board games you could do too,

903
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:00,840
Speaker 1: if everyone had a copy of the board game. Yeah,

904
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 1: and you had to All right, you have to move

905
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 1: me forward three squares? Is everyone on Baltic Avenue? Good?

906
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:11,000
Speaker 1: Next turn. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of this

907
00:49:11,080 --> 00:49:14,240
Speaker 1: tex Stuff Classic episode right after we take this break.

908
00:49:23,640 --> 00:49:26,280
Speaker 1: Another feature we should talk about very quickly is Sparks.

909
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Sparks. Sparks is kind of like Google Reader

910
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:33,440
Speaker 1: in a way. You tell Google Plus what what topics

911
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:35,880
Speaker 1: you are interested in, and then Google Plus kind of

912
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:41,360
Speaker 1: cultivates a news feed based on whatever interests you've told

913
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:44,799
Speaker 1: it apply to you. So, for example, I've said technology,

914
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:48,719
Speaker 1: if I go to my Sparks Technology UH feed, then

915
00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:51,839
Speaker 1: I will see news articles that are related to technology

916
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:55,759
Speaker 1: within Sparks. Um. That's kind of an feature that people

917
00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:57,719
Speaker 1: have noticed and said, well, you know, it's it's just

918
00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:00,520
Speaker 1: not fully baked yet. So that's something I expect that

919
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 1: we'll see more uh evolution in in the near future

920
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 1: for Google Plus. Yeah. I think the idea behind the

921
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:10,160
Speaker 1: name Sparks is it's supposed to spark a conversation. So

922
00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:14,279
Speaker 1: you see a cool story, you post it to your stream,

923
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:16,320
Speaker 1: and then you and your friends have a conversation with it,

924
00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:20,400
Speaker 1: and I it does that, but you know it's I

925
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:23,479
Speaker 1: in looking through the sparks that I've added to my picks.

926
00:50:23,560 --> 00:50:25,400
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, if you if you add one, say you

927
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 1: add technology to your Google Plus account, you'll see it

928
00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:32,440
Speaker 1: on the left hand navigation. Um, along with you know

929
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 1: things like your you know lists for your circles and

930
00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:37,680
Speaker 1: you know the other the other features people who are

931
00:50:37,719 --> 00:50:40,040
Speaker 1: available for Google Chat that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah,

932
00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:44,319
Speaker 1: so um so it's available to you whenever. Um. But yeah,

933
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:46,600
Speaker 1: I just want to go in there. I just find

934
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:51,399
Speaker 1: a few stories and it's not really a very long list.

935
00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:54,400
Speaker 1: It's not very compelling yet. Uh, the idea is there,

936
00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:56,400
Speaker 1: I mean the I I see nothing wrong with the idea,

937
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 1: and I think they need to add something. And I

938
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 1: think this is Google's bonds to the trend of people

939
00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 1: getting information and news through stuff like Facebook. Like their

940
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:08,040
Speaker 1: friends shares an article that's that that their friend thought

941
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:09,880
Speaker 1: was really cool, and then you see it on Facebook

942
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:11,600
Speaker 1: and you're like huh, and you click on the link

943
00:51:11,640 --> 00:51:12,920
Speaker 1: and you read the article and you're like, yeah, that

944
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 1: was interesting. Google's kind of taking that and trying to

945
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 1: incorporate it. Directly into the social experience, so that you

946
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:22,200
Speaker 1: aren't you know you aren't. You don't have to move

947
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:25,399
Speaker 1: very far away from Google in order to do it. Also,

948
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:28,719
Speaker 1: we should mention that Google Plus has a notifications bar

949
00:51:28,800 --> 00:51:31,399
Speaker 1: that tells you when people have interacted with your your

950
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:34,640
Speaker 1: Google Plus account in some way, maybe that they started

951
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:36,840
Speaker 1: to follow you, and maybe that they left a message

952
00:51:36,920 --> 00:51:39,799
Speaker 1: for you. They they've mentioned you in a comment, they've

953
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:43,080
Speaker 1: applied to one of your status is. Uh. The cool

954
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:46,960
Speaker 1: thing is, if you're on any Google site, so including

955
00:51:47,040 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 1: Google dot com just the web browser, if you're signed

956
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:52,719
Speaker 1: into Google, that notification bar is at the top of

957
00:51:52,760 --> 00:51:55,520
Speaker 1: your screen and you can actually look at those notifications

958
00:51:55,600 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 1: in real time on that that page and respond to

959
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:02,320
Speaker 1: them without are actually traveling to your Google Plus account.

960
00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:05,040
Speaker 1: So I might be on Google dot com doing research

961
00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:07,520
Speaker 1: for an article and I see a notification thing pop up,

962
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:09,360
Speaker 1: and I'm like, come, I wonder what's going on? Click

963
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:11,520
Speaker 1: on it. See that someone's commented on one of my pages.

964
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:13,839
Speaker 1: I want to comment back. I can type in a

965
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 1: comment on that notifications page and send it back without

966
00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:21,359
Speaker 1: ever actually going to my Google Plus uh profile. Right,

967
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:24,960
Speaker 1: and um, we also need to talk really briefly at

968
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:28,720
Speaker 1: least about photo albums. Okay, I was going to add

969
00:52:28,760 --> 00:52:31,560
Speaker 1: to about about that that you can also turn on

970
00:52:31,719 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 1: email if you really want you and that I get

971
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:36,080
Speaker 1: a bad idea if you have a lot of followers,

972
00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:38,040
Speaker 1: because you will start getting but you could you can

973
00:52:38,120 --> 00:52:41,239
Speaker 1: do the same thing as you would with Twitter or

974
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:44,319
Speaker 1: or Facebook and say yes, I want to know, send

975
00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:47,640
Speaker 1: me an email every time, or or text message every

976
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:50,320
Speaker 1: time someone you know fill in the blank. It's pretty

977
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:53,760
Speaker 1: much everything sends me a message, gives me a plus one.

978
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:55,839
Speaker 1: You know, there's a laundry and choose. You can choose

979
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:58,560
Speaker 1: which ones give you alerts and which ones don't. And

980
00:52:58,800 --> 00:53:02,000
Speaker 1: uh for for an average user, it may make sense

981
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:04,759
Speaker 1: to have email notifications turned on for me because I

982
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 1: have people following me. It would be it would overwhelm

983
00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:11,480
Speaker 1: my email. Yeah I would. And I learned very quickly,

984
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:14,040
Speaker 1: like day two of Google Plus, to turn all that

985
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:17,359
Speaker 1: off for me. Um. And And you know, I know

986
00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:19,839
Speaker 1: that there are people who are far more popular than I,

987
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:22,200
Speaker 1: and I can only imagine what their email would have

988
00:53:22,239 --> 00:53:25,880
Speaker 1: looked like, like like Veronica Belmont or Felicia Day or Will Wheaton.

989
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:27,799
Speaker 1: You know, some of these people who have way more

990
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:31,040
Speaker 1: visibility than I do. I'm sure their accounts would have

991
00:53:31,040 --> 00:53:34,719
Speaker 1: been overwhelmed in a second. But yeah, please go into

992
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:36,319
Speaker 1: photo albums. I do have one other thing I want

993
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:39,000
Speaker 1: to mention before we finish. Okay, so yeah, photo albums

994
00:53:39,400 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 1: are using Picasa, Google's photo web photo album service as

995
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 1: the foundation. Although Picasa will undergo a name change pretty soon.

996
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:53,520
Speaker 1: I think that's gonna be Google Plus Photos or something

997
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:58,400
Speaker 1: like that. So, but it's it's the same service, so Picasa. Normally,

998
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:00,959
Speaker 1: if you sign up for a Picasa account, which really

999
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:02,799
Speaker 1: you can do if you have a Google account your

1000
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:06,640
Speaker 1: you can create a Picassa account. You are normally given

1001
00:54:06,680 --> 00:54:10,080
Speaker 1: one gigabyte of storage space for photos, which is not

1002
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:14,000
Speaker 1: really that much um. But with Google Plus, if you

1003
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:17,160
Speaker 1: upload photos through Google Plus, it will automatically resize your

1004
00:54:17,200 --> 00:54:20,160
Speaker 1: photos so that the longest edge of your photo is

1005
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:23,160
Speaker 1: two thousand, forty eight pixels long, all right, will automatically

1006
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:25,560
Speaker 1: resize it. So whatever the long st edges gets reduced

1007
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:28,480
Speaker 1: to that size and at that resolution, it does not

1008
00:54:28,680 --> 00:54:32,359
Speaker 1: count against your one gigabyte of storage space. So if

1009
00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:36,200
Speaker 1: you upload through Google Plus, you effectively have unlimited digital

1010
00:54:36,239 --> 00:54:41,440
Speaker 1: photos storage. I tested this and I have a photo

1011
00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:45,239
Speaker 1: album on my profile that has one thousand photos in it.

1012
00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:47,440
Speaker 1: That's the maximum number of photos you can have in

1013
00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:51,040
Speaker 1: a photo album. Now, you can have unlimited photo albums

1014
00:54:51,080 --> 00:54:54,160
Speaker 1: in Google Plus, so you're not limited that way. It's

1015
00:54:54,200 --> 00:54:56,440
Speaker 1: just that each individual photo album can only have a

1016
00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:59,120
Speaker 1: thousand files in it. And uh I recently took a

1017
00:54:59,160 --> 00:55:01,440
Speaker 1: vacation in Europe, and so I have a thousand photos

1018
00:55:01,440 --> 00:55:04,520
Speaker 1: from my vacation in Europe in that photo album. And

1019
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:06,560
Speaker 1: I probably have about two thousand more photos I need

1020
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:10,440
Speaker 1: to upload from that vacation, so they'll be the most impressive.

1021
00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:13,320
Speaker 1: There'll be at least three photo albums of my vacation

1022
00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:17,560
Speaker 1: photos on Google Plus. Now you've got to keep in

1023
00:55:17,560 --> 00:55:20,640
Speaker 1: mind it's gonna be a lower resolution than your original file, assuming,

1024
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:23,680
Speaker 1: of course, you took it with a decent digital camera.

1025
00:55:24,280 --> 00:55:27,080
Speaker 1: Uh So, the photo that you get on Google Plus

1026
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:29,880
Speaker 1: is not going to be suitable for printing out, for example,

1027
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:32,520
Speaker 1: or enlarging. Um So you will need to find some

1028
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:35,640
Speaker 1: other method of storage if you want to keep the

1029
00:55:35,680 --> 00:55:40,040
Speaker 1: photo at the original resolution. Um The thing I wanted

1030
00:55:40,080 --> 00:55:44,480
Speaker 1: to talk about was your Google profile. Yes, if you want.

1031
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:46,719
Speaker 1: If this sounds interesting to you, you don't already have

1032
00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:50,080
Speaker 1: a profile on Google Plus. You'll need a Google account

1033
00:55:50,120 --> 00:55:52,640
Speaker 1: and this is you know, the account works for everything

1034
00:55:52,719 --> 00:55:56,840
Speaker 1: from Google Plus to Google Docs and all the other things. Um,

1035
00:55:56,880 --> 00:56:00,279
Speaker 1: if you already have a profile and you've been and

1036
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:04,600
Speaker 1: keeping it private, UM, that's going to change one way

1037
00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:08,440
Speaker 1: or the other by July thirty one. I'm not sure

1038
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:10,799
Speaker 1: exactly when this is going to publish. This may put

1039
00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:13,880
Speaker 1: some of you at a really tight deadline. UM. I

1040
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:15,800
Speaker 1: don't think a lot of people know this, but Google

1041
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:18,880
Speaker 1: has plans right now, as if they're recording this podcast,

1042
00:56:18,920 --> 00:56:22,160
Speaker 1: to delete any profile that is not public by July

1043
00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:25,400
Speaker 1: thirty one. And you have to have a name attached

1044
00:56:25,400 --> 00:56:29,200
Speaker 1: to your profile. So yeah, so you can just create

1045
00:56:29,280 --> 00:56:34,520
Speaker 1: profiles like multiple profiles and not have an identity associated

1046
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:37,200
Speaker 1: with that profile right now. It doesn't necessarily have to

1047
00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:41,920
Speaker 1: be your exact name. However, people I have heard reports

1048
00:56:41,920 --> 00:56:47,360
Speaker 1: that people with made up names have been questioned by Google,

1049
00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:52,359
Speaker 1: um as they might on on Facebook. Um, you know,

1050
00:56:52,400 --> 00:56:54,080
Speaker 1: they they want to make sure I guess that a

1051
00:56:54,120 --> 00:56:56,360
Speaker 1: real human is behind it and they're not fooling around.

1052
00:56:56,400 --> 00:56:59,080
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, I mean this this might cause some

1053
00:56:59,160 --> 00:57:01,160
Speaker 1: issues because I know one of the people things that

1054
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:03,919
Speaker 1: people complain about about Facebook is that, you know, hey,

1055
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:05,920
Speaker 1: I want to I want to keep this between my

1056
00:57:06,000 --> 00:57:07,920
Speaker 1: close friends, the people I know in real life, and

1057
00:57:07,960 --> 00:57:10,000
Speaker 1: my family. You know, I don't want it to be

1058
00:57:10,080 --> 00:57:12,600
Speaker 1: out there for everybody to see. And this is no

1059
00:57:12,680 --> 00:57:15,240
Speaker 1: longer going to be an option. The thing is, maybe

1060
00:57:15,239 --> 00:57:18,120
Speaker 1: you say, well, I've had a Google account for ten

1061
00:57:18,200 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 1: years now, I have Google account's been around that long anyway, Um,

1062
00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:25,360
Speaker 1: I've had a Google account for some time now, and

1063
00:57:25,720 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 1: you know, I, you know, I guess I'll change my

1064
00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:31,160
Speaker 1: name on Google Plus. What if you do that, it

1065
00:57:31,240 --> 00:57:34,760
Speaker 1: changes it across your entire profile. Um, So if you

1066
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:38,200
Speaker 1: want to rename your Google profile Horatio, your Google Plus

1067
00:57:38,200 --> 00:57:42,800
Speaker 1: profile Horatio T. Wiggle Bottom, then people who you send

1068
00:57:42,880 --> 00:57:46,160
Speaker 1: email to on Gmail will also see that and they

1069
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:49,360
Speaker 1: may not realize that that's you, and then and they

1070
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:54,360
Speaker 1: make fun of you. Yes, it's not necessarily so that's

1071
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:56,920
Speaker 1: the That's the thing. I don't know. Uh, it's it's

1072
00:57:56,920 --> 00:57:59,040
Speaker 1: sort of unclear to me whether they mean, you know,

1073
00:58:00,120 --> 00:58:02,200
Speaker 1: we will delete your profile, meaning we will delete your

1074
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:05,080
Speaker 1: entire Google account, or whether they mean there will be

1075
00:58:05,160 --> 00:58:08,640
Speaker 1: nothing public about this account at all. The the the

1076
00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:10,960
Speaker 1: what they call the profile itself is what they're just

1077
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:13,120
Speaker 1: talking about. And that's still unclear to me as of

1078
00:58:13,520 --> 00:58:16,000
Speaker 1: right this minute. But yeah, I have the feeling they're

1079
00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:19,040
Speaker 1: talking about the entire account and and I mean the

1080
00:58:19,040 --> 00:58:21,760
Speaker 1: whole point of this is it's a you know, to

1081
00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:24,960
Speaker 1: let you connect with other people. So sure, keeping it

1082
00:58:25,040 --> 00:58:27,440
Speaker 1: private means that no one can connect with you. Yes,

1083
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:29,640
Speaker 1: but this this is happening regardless of whether you have

1084
00:58:29,640 --> 00:58:33,120
Speaker 1: a Google Plus account or not. Right, So yeah, but

1085
00:58:33,200 --> 00:58:36,120
Speaker 1: that's because the Google Plus is on the foundation of

1086
00:58:36,160 --> 00:58:39,680
Speaker 1: that profile exactly. So it's it's force that to happen.

1087
00:58:39,800 --> 00:58:42,240
Speaker 1: The profile is the bottom of the pyramid is the problem.

1088
00:58:42,320 --> 00:58:45,760
Speaker 1: So um yeah, so it's it's that's a concern some

1089
00:58:45,800 --> 00:58:49,160
Speaker 1: people have, um, a concern I have. And again this

1090
00:58:49,240 --> 00:58:51,680
Speaker 1: is not necessarily the concern of the average user, but

1091
00:58:51,720 --> 00:58:54,560
Speaker 1: it is for people like Chris and myself and for

1092
00:58:55,120 --> 00:58:58,280
Speaker 1: people more notable than us. Is that people can create

1093
00:58:58,520 --> 00:59:02,920
Speaker 1: um the you know, fake accounts or or accounts, uh,

1094
00:59:03,320 --> 00:59:06,920
Speaker 1: accounts claiming to be people and it's not really that person. Well,

1095
00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:09,440
Speaker 1: you know. One of the big things is, uh, this

1096
00:59:09,560 --> 00:59:12,080
Speaker 1: first couple of weeks of Google Plus was that Mark Zuckerberg,

1097
00:59:12,160 --> 00:59:14,640
Speaker 1: the founder of Facebook, at a Google Plus profile, and

1098
00:59:14,640 --> 00:59:16,200
Speaker 1: they were pretty sure it was him because it was

1099
00:59:16,240 --> 00:59:19,040
Speaker 1: a photo no one had actually seen of him before,

1100
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:23,240
Speaker 1: and the people he had in his circles were Facebook executives.

1101
00:59:23,360 --> 00:59:26,440
Speaker 1: And then thousands of people followed him. Yes, as a

1102
00:59:26,480 --> 00:59:28,360
Speaker 1: matter of fact, he was at one point, I don't

1103
00:59:28,360 --> 00:59:31,120
Speaker 1: know if he still is, uh, the most followed person

1104
00:59:31,160 --> 00:59:33,880
Speaker 1: on Facebook. I heard a report that he actually left

1105
00:59:34,240 --> 00:59:38,120
Speaker 1: he tightened up his privacy settings. Really, Mark Zuckerberg, you

1106
00:59:38,200 --> 00:59:40,800
Speaker 1: tightened up your privacy settings. I thought you said no

1107
00:59:40,840 --> 00:59:42,680
Speaker 1: one wanted to do that. Good thing. It was really

1108
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:46,760
Speaker 1: easy to find, yes, Um, but and I've also heard

1109
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:49,640
Speaker 1: reports as of today that he may have actually deleted

1110
00:59:49,680 --> 00:59:52,680
Speaker 1: that account. But there are also dozens of other Mark

1111
00:59:52,720 --> 00:59:54,840
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg's on there now. Yes, and I know that, like

1112
00:59:54,920 --> 00:59:57,840
Speaker 1: Neil Gaiman, he had a Google Plus account for a while,

1113
00:59:57,880 --> 01:00:00,680
Speaker 1: and then he made the conscious decision to to cut

1114
01:00:00,680 --> 01:00:03,040
Speaker 1: it out. He said it was too much noise and

1115
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:06,720
Speaker 1: it didn't work for him, so he left. And then, um,

1116
01:00:06,760 --> 01:00:09,120
Speaker 1: he got irritated because he started getting lots of emails

1117
01:00:09,120 --> 01:00:11,400
Speaker 1: from people trying to add him into circles. But because

1118
01:00:11,400 --> 01:00:14,120
Speaker 1: he had left Google Plus, he was getting those invites

1119
01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:18,120
Speaker 1: through email. As opposed through Google Plus. So he deleted

1120
01:00:18,120 --> 01:00:22,560
Speaker 1: his account and then got deluged by email. Um. Yeah,

1121
01:00:22,600 --> 01:00:25,560
Speaker 1: there's the thing I was saying is that there should

1122
01:00:25,600 --> 01:00:27,680
Speaker 1: be our Hopefully there will be some point a way

1123
01:00:27,760 --> 01:00:30,880
Speaker 1: to verify that you are who you say you are,

1124
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:34,000
Speaker 1: kind of like Twitter has verified accounts. It would be

1125
01:00:34,080 --> 01:00:36,680
Speaker 1: nice to have a verified account through Google Plus. Because

1126
01:00:37,000 --> 01:00:41,240
Speaker 1: I noticed last night that I had a quote unquote

1127
01:00:41,240 --> 01:00:46,560
Speaker 1: celebrity following me named Selina Gomez. Uh yeah, so uh

1128
01:00:46,600 --> 01:00:49,720
Speaker 1: the Beeb's main squeeze and um, and so I'm thinking,

1129
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:52,040
Speaker 1: why is the Beeb's main squeeze following me? And so

1130
01:00:52,080 --> 01:00:54,880
Speaker 1: I decided to do a little investigative work and noticed

1131
01:00:54,920 --> 01:00:59,520
Speaker 1: that it was not truly her. People who had gone

1132
01:00:59,520 --> 01:01:02,240
Speaker 1: into a hang out with this person said, no, this

1133
01:01:02,280 --> 01:01:04,040
Speaker 1: isn't really silly to go as it's a it's a

1134
01:01:04,080 --> 01:01:07,480
Speaker 1: fake account from a fan, which you know, whether you

1135
01:01:07,520 --> 01:01:10,520
Speaker 1: believe that's ethical or unethical is beside the point. The

1136
01:01:10,520 --> 01:01:12,760
Speaker 1: point being that you know, you kind of want to

1137
01:01:12,800 --> 01:01:15,120
Speaker 1: know the people you're talking to are the people that

1138
01:01:15,280 --> 01:01:18,120
Speaker 1: you think they are, right. You don't want to be misled.

1139
01:01:18,360 --> 01:01:21,280
Speaker 1: You may have a genuine interest in following someone who

1140
01:01:21,440 --> 01:01:24,720
Speaker 1: is either a celebrity or other notable figure. But uh,

1141
01:01:24,960 --> 01:01:26,440
Speaker 1: you know, you don't mind the fact that they're not

1142
01:01:26,480 --> 01:01:28,480
Speaker 1: following you. You just want to get that information. Let's

1143
01:01:28,480 --> 01:01:32,320
Speaker 1: say it's a politician or it's someone, uh like a

1144
01:01:32,360 --> 01:01:35,040
Speaker 1: notable authority in a particular field that you're interested in.

1145
01:01:36,320 --> 01:01:38,080
Speaker 1: You don't want to be following a fan of that

1146
01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:41,120
Speaker 1: person because you're not actually getting the information you wanted.

1147
01:01:41,600 --> 01:01:44,200
Speaker 1: So that's that's an issue with Google Plus. As of

1148
01:01:44,240 --> 01:01:47,440
Speaker 1: the recording of this podcast. Yeah, there there are apparently

1149
01:01:47,480 --> 01:01:50,120
Speaker 1: corporate accounts on the way. So yeah, right now, when

1150
01:01:50,280 --> 01:01:52,160
Speaker 1: that happens, there will be a house stuff works dot

1151
01:01:52,160 --> 01:01:54,920
Speaker 1: com account, yeah, tech stuff account, and I applied for

1152
01:01:54,960 --> 01:01:59,120
Speaker 1: a tech stuff account, yeah, yesterday, So we'll see see

1153
01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:01,720
Speaker 1: if that happens. I haven't received any information back about

1154
01:02:01,720 --> 01:02:04,160
Speaker 1: that yet, but that's that's coming, you know. Yeah, because

1155
01:02:04,240 --> 01:02:06,480
Speaker 1: right now, it's supposed to just be people. That's why

1156
01:02:06,560 --> 01:02:08,600
Speaker 1: Google Plus was designed to do. And they said, you know,

1157
01:02:08,720 --> 01:02:11,120
Speaker 1: we understand there are corporations that want to use this

1158
01:02:11,240 --> 01:02:16,440
Speaker 1: as a way of connecting with their customers, um, their partners, etcetera.

1159
01:02:16,760 --> 01:02:19,880
Speaker 1: But it's just not designed for that. They're working on

1160
01:02:19,920 --> 01:02:23,000
Speaker 1: that right now. They being the Google Plus team. Yeah.

1161
01:02:23,120 --> 01:02:25,440
Speaker 1: I think I think that they have the Google has

1162
01:02:25,440 --> 01:02:27,760
Speaker 1: done a much better job with this than it did

1163
01:02:27,800 --> 01:02:32,120
Speaker 1: with Wave and and definitely Buzz and definitely or Cut.

1164
01:02:32,640 --> 01:02:35,840
Speaker 1: Um is it a Facebook killer? Well, I can't stand

1165
01:02:35,960 --> 01:02:40,080
Speaker 1: the Blank killer thing. I think it can definitely grow

1166
01:02:40,160 --> 01:02:44,000
Speaker 1: into a Facebook rival and that will be good. I

1167
01:02:44,320 --> 01:02:46,479
Speaker 1: think the competition will be good for Facebook. They don't

1168
01:02:46,520 --> 01:02:49,680
Speaker 1: really have at this point a serious competitor. My Space

1169
01:02:49,800 --> 01:02:53,440
Speaker 1: was probably the last one, and it's at least a

1170
01:02:53,520 --> 01:02:56,360
Speaker 1: serious competitor and most the world. I there are a

1171
01:02:56,360 --> 01:03:00,040
Speaker 1: few places where things like or Cut are actually I

1172
01:03:00,080 --> 01:03:05,920
Speaker 1: do yeah, but um but yeah, I mean worldwide. Uh,

1173
01:03:06,080 --> 01:03:11,960
Speaker 1: Facebook is still a pretty big um nat juggernaut. Y

1174
01:03:14,120 --> 01:03:17,160
Speaker 1: million users is huge. Yeah. Yeah, So I think I

1175
01:03:17,200 --> 01:03:21,320
Speaker 1: think that given time and some added features and some refinement,

1176
01:03:21,360 --> 01:03:24,280
Speaker 1: I think Google Plus is off to a very good start. Yeah.

1177
01:03:24,280 --> 01:03:26,960
Speaker 1: And it may very well just be a complementary service.

1178
01:03:27,040 --> 01:03:29,840
Speaker 1: It may never be one that replaces Facebook, because that

1179
01:03:29,920 --> 01:03:32,640
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily what it was intended to do. It may

1180
01:03:32,680 --> 01:03:34,720
Speaker 1: be that you go to Facebook for certain kinds of

1181
01:03:34,760 --> 01:03:36,840
Speaker 1: interaction and you go to Google Plus for other kinds

1182
01:03:36,840 --> 01:03:39,800
Speaker 1: of interaction, and there's nothing wrong with that. No, I

1183
01:03:39,840 --> 01:03:42,440
Speaker 1: don't think so. Um, we'll see. I know there are

1184
01:03:42,440 --> 01:03:44,160
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are talking about the fact

1185
01:03:44,160 --> 01:03:45,920
Speaker 1: that they're going to just drop Facebook. In fact, I've

1186
01:03:45,960 --> 01:03:47,720
Speaker 1: seen a lot of people who have changed their profile

1187
01:03:47,760 --> 01:03:49,960
Speaker 1: pictures to say I have moved and have the g

1188
01:03:50,080 --> 01:03:53,600
Speaker 1: Plus logo in there, which is cute. Oh and I

1189
01:03:53,600 --> 01:03:55,960
Speaker 1: was gonna say about the clicks behavior. Let's finish off

1190
01:03:55,960 --> 01:03:58,440
Speaker 1: with this because we are running along. But the clicks

1191
01:03:58,560 --> 01:04:00,800
Speaker 1: behavior on Google Plus ice all a lot of people,

1192
01:04:00,880 --> 01:04:03,560
Speaker 1: and I assume most of it was joking about how

1193
01:04:03,760 --> 01:04:05,800
Speaker 1: you know, because they joined early, they thought it would

1194
01:04:05,800 --> 01:04:08,280
Speaker 1: be cool to have a Google Plus badge to show

1195
01:04:08,320 --> 01:04:10,360
Speaker 1: that you were one of the original Google Plus beta

1196
01:04:10,440 --> 01:04:13,360
Speaker 1: testers before it went public, and that this would set

1197
01:04:13,400 --> 01:04:16,200
Speaker 1: you apart. And uh, I happened to be of the

1198
01:04:16,320 --> 01:04:18,600
Speaker 1: I mean, I jokingly said that would be awesome, but

1199
01:04:18,720 --> 01:04:20,560
Speaker 1: I honestly think that would be a bad idea because

1200
01:04:20,560 --> 01:04:22,720
Speaker 1: it would discourage people. It would it would encourage a

1201
01:04:22,760 --> 01:04:25,720
Speaker 1: sense of clickishness and saying like I'm superior to you

1202
01:04:25,800 --> 01:04:29,120
Speaker 1: because I managed to get an invite to this social network, which,

1203
01:04:29,160 --> 01:04:31,160
Speaker 1: by the way, getting an invite to a social network

1204
01:04:31,760 --> 01:04:35,120
Speaker 1: doesn't mean anything. It just means you've gotta invite or

1205
01:04:35,160 --> 01:04:38,720
Speaker 1: a work around, which means you know, equally nothing. Um.

1206
01:04:40,080 --> 01:04:43,440
Speaker 1: So I would say that that's kind of would discourage

1207
01:04:43,440 --> 01:04:45,520
Speaker 1: new people from coming in because they're like, oh, well,

1208
01:04:45,520 --> 01:04:49,439
Speaker 1: this is like a closed off club. And also right

1209
01:04:49,440 --> 01:04:52,959
Speaker 1: now it's more or less a boys club according to UH.

1210
01:04:53,000 --> 01:04:57,320
Speaker 1: To mash double um, there was a a survey done

1211
01:04:57,320 --> 01:04:59,280
Speaker 1: to see or a kind of an estimation done to

1212
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:02,760
Speaker 1: see how many men versus women are on Google Plus. Um.

1213
01:05:02,840 --> 01:05:05,320
Speaker 1: For a while, it looked like women made up about

1214
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:08,240
Speaker 1: ten of the entire Google Plus population, and when you

1215
01:05:08,280 --> 01:05:14,680
Speaker 1: think we're potentially over ten million users, that's significant. According

1216
01:05:14,720 --> 01:05:20,840
Speaker 1: to Social Statistics, that percentage is now closer to UH

1217
01:05:21,040 --> 01:05:24,560
Speaker 1: seventy three point seven percent, So there are more females

1218
01:05:24,560 --> 01:05:27,000
Speaker 1: on Google Plus than there were before, but still it's

1219
01:05:27,040 --> 01:05:31,080
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly a male population. So we'll all have to see.

1220
01:05:31,400 --> 01:05:33,120
Speaker 1: For Google Plus to really survive, we're gonna have to

1221
01:05:33,160 --> 01:05:38,000
Speaker 1: see that expand beyond just the dudes. Yeah, all right,

1222
01:05:38,200 --> 01:05:41,040
Speaker 1: we are wrapping this up. Like we said, there's probably

1223
01:05:41,040 --> 01:05:43,080
Speaker 1: a billion other things we could say about Google Plus

1224
01:05:43,160 --> 01:05:44,840
Speaker 1: right now, not to mention the fact that by the

1225
01:05:44,880 --> 01:05:47,400
Speaker 1: time this publishes things may have changed. Uh, if you

1226
01:05:47,440 --> 01:05:50,080
Speaker 1: guys have the ability to access it, search us out,

1227
01:05:50,320 --> 01:05:53,600
Speaker 1: or at least search me out. Chris. Chris is really

1228
01:05:53,640 --> 01:05:57,160
Speaker 1: good at at at maintaining a nice low profile. I

1229
01:05:57,400 --> 01:05:59,360
Speaker 1: am one of those people that prefers to keep my

1230
01:05:59,720 --> 01:06:02,560
Speaker 1: so full networking down to people actually know in real life.

1231
01:06:02,760 --> 01:06:05,000
Speaker 1: And I certainly mean no offense to any of our listeners. No,

1232
01:06:05,120 --> 01:06:07,680
Speaker 1: it's there's nothing wrong with that. I I am a

1233
01:06:07,760 --> 01:06:11,360
Speaker 1: very extroverted kind of guy who I'm like, look at me.

1234
01:06:11,960 --> 01:06:16,400
Speaker 1: So it's just really different personalities. None of us noticed. Yeah,

1235
01:06:16,560 --> 01:06:19,920
Speaker 1: you can't tell by the way I dominate every single conversation. Um,

1236
01:06:19,960 --> 01:06:22,000
Speaker 1: anyway you can. You can search up, search us out,

1237
01:06:22,120 --> 01:06:26,200
Speaker 1: feel free, and you know, depending on how long it

1238
01:06:26,280 --> 01:06:27,840
Speaker 1: is from the time we published this, we may be

1239
01:06:27,920 --> 01:06:29,360
Speaker 1: active on it, or we may have given up on

1240
01:06:29,400 --> 01:06:34,200
Speaker 1: Google Plus. And that was the two for one classic

1241
01:06:34,240 --> 01:06:36,840
Speaker 1: episode of the decline of Google Plus and also the

1242
01:06:36,960 --> 01:06:39,520
Speaker 1: very beginning of Google Plus. As it would turn out,

1243
01:06:40,560 --> 01:06:43,440
Speaker 1: Google Plus would not die in two thousand and fifteen.

1244
01:06:43,880 --> 01:06:46,040
Speaker 1: It's stuck around a few more years. In fact, it

1245
01:06:46,160 --> 01:06:50,080
Speaker 1: was still a thing as late as April two thousand nineteen.

1246
01:06:50,160 --> 01:06:54,120
Speaker 1: That's when Google officially shut it down and it joined

1247
01:06:54,200 --> 01:06:58,280
Speaker 1: the likes of many other Google products that the company

1248
01:06:58,320 --> 01:07:03,920
Speaker 1: would launch and then subsequently abandoned later on. So we

1249
01:07:04,000 --> 01:07:07,400
Speaker 1: take off our hats to Google Plus we hardly knew.

1250
01:07:07,480 --> 01:07:11,040
Speaker 1: Ye Um, I don't know that I would recommend going

1251
01:07:11,040 --> 01:07:16,240
Speaker 1: to Google Plus over other social networks, largely because Google

1252
01:07:16,280 --> 01:07:20,040
Speaker 1: has some of the same issues with the harvesting of

1253
01:07:20,120 --> 01:07:23,840
Speaker 1: personal data that I take issue with on other social

1254
01:07:23,920 --> 01:07:27,480
Speaker 1: network platforms. So um, I'm not certain that I would

1255
01:07:27,520 --> 01:07:30,920
Speaker 1: even say it would have been a good alternative to Facebook. Uh.

1256
01:07:30,960 --> 01:07:34,920
Speaker 1: These days, I'm pretty much off all the social media networks,

1257
01:07:34,920 --> 01:07:38,000
Speaker 1: with the exception of Twitter for tech Stuff. Don't really

1258
01:07:38,080 --> 01:07:41,120
Speaker 1: use it personally anymore, but still use it for tex stuff.

1259
01:07:41,320 --> 01:07:44,200
Speaker 1: So with that in mind, if you have any suggestions

1260
01:07:44,200 --> 01:07:46,800
Speaker 1: for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff,

1261
01:07:47,160 --> 01:07:49,920
Speaker 1: you can reach out to me on Twitter. The handle

1262
01:07:49,920 --> 01:07:52,680
Speaker 1: for the show is tech Stuff H s W and

1263
01:07:52,720 --> 01:08:01,880
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is

1264
01:08:01,880 --> 01:08:05,040
Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I

1265
01:08:05,160 --> 01:08:08,760
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

1266
01:08:08,880 --> 01:08:10,880
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.