WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The Decline of Google+ 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:15.000 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.680 job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:21.360 Radio and how the tech Area. It is time very 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:23.919 tech Stuff classic episode. You're actually gonna get a two 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:27.840 fur in this one because the classic is called The 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:32.480 Decline of Google Plus, which originally published on August twelve, 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:37.800 two thousand and fifteen. However, within this episode there's an 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.640 even older episode about Google Plus that dated all the 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:46.200 way back in two thousand eleven. Also, interestingly, I talked 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:50.120 about how everyone was chatting about Google Plus being on 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:54.920 the decline and possibly being on the verge of obsolescence. 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:59.080 But as I'll talk about after the episode, that's not 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.840 quite what happened, at least not at that time. But 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:07.080 let's listen in so in case you somehow have missed 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:10.360 out on what Google Plus is. It's Google's answer to 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.360 social platforms like Facebook. It's a place where you can 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.760 share with specific circles of people. You can create circles 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:19.560 based on your relationships, so that you share things with 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:24.160 specific circles like communities or co workers, family members, or 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.559 even the general public. And it's not limited to just those. 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.160 There was a grand experiment when it first began. But 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.559 here's the thing about experiments, they don't always work out. 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:38.840 So back in two thousand eleven, the service was still 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:43.120 in beta and people were clamoring to get in. Uh 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:45.559 and it had not come out of beta when Chris 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:48.520 and I did the episode. But since then the service 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.960 opened up. There was this whole brewhaha where it got 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:55.120 linked to YouTube, caused a real stir with a policy 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.400 about using your official real name rather than a handle, 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:02.160 which later the company back off of. And also recent 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:04.880 changes in the product have prompted some journalists to say 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:09.120 it's in the midst of death throws, so you can 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:11.639 have your little moment of silence if you like. But 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.119 I'm not ready to call it completely dead just yet. 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:18.480 I just think of it as mostly dead. All right, 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:20.440 let's talk about what happened. And I have to mention 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:23.520 that Google Plus, as of this recording, is not dead. 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:26.360 And it may be that all those predictions of it 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.240 going away are premature, or it could just be that 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:31.840 you know what's on borrow time. If you're interested in 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:33.880 the original episode in which Chris and I talked about 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.440 Google Plus. I'm adding that to the end of this part, 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.760 so I'll talk about what's happened since then, and then 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.160 if you want to go in the time machine, you 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:45.560 can listen to the second half of the episode and 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.080 Chris and I will talk more about what Google Plus 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:50.639 was like back before it even came out of beta. 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:53.960 We were so young back then. You'll get to hear 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.760 how excited we were about the platform and how they 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.480 were planning on it to be a challenge on Facebook, 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:02.280 and even then I was making the point that it 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:03.880 had a long way to go if it were to 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:08.120 ever really be a threat. Meanwhile, Mashable has a really 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:10.760 great piece on the rise and fall, although maybe I 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:14.000 would just call it the debut and Fall of Google Plus. 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:17.360 According to the article, google Plus was largely born out 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:21.560 of fear. It was fear that motivated Google. It was 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.600 the fear that Facebook would make Google irrelevant or at 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:28.359 least heard its growth potential. So around it was clear 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.880 that social platforms were really taking off, and people were 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.920 sharing and following links on Facebook left and right. Now 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.160 that meant that more people were skipping what Google considered 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:41.280 to be an important step, which was where you would 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:45.200 use Google to perform searches. Since Google depends upon ad revenue, 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:48.600 you have to remember Google's really an ad company first, 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.240 and then a search engine is just a product that's 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.240 offered to us, and we ultimately are the real products 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:57.200 of Google. So this was considered to be a bad 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.240 thing if Facebook was going to eat into these numbers, 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:05.440 and an executive named Vic Gondotra, who was at the 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:09.600 time a senior vice president at Google, argued that the 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.960 company needed its own social platform. So Google had tried 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:17.120 some social experiments before. Google Wave was one of those. 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.160 Google Buzz was another. If you're a longtime fan of 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:23.559 tech Stuff, you might know that Chris and I both 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.600 really liked Google Wave a lot. We used it to 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.919 build out our live shows when we were experimenting with 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:35.280 live streaming with tech Stuff Live. That was several years ago. 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:38.919 But here's the thing. He and I loved it because 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.039 it allowed us to do real time layouts of what 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:43.920 the show was going to be like and even make 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.600 changes while we were doing a show. But we couldn't 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.440 figure out what anyone else would use it for. It 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:53.000 was great for what we did, but that's a really 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:56.800 narrow use case, and none of these social efforts from 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.200 Google had much staying power. They all eventually when way, 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:02.960 including Google Wave. So the best you could hope for 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:05.039 was that some of the features that were in these 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.359 products would find their way into other Google products like 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.479 Gmail or something like that. Now, since the Google Plus 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:15.360 podcast covers the birth of the social network, I thought 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:17.560 a quick rundown on things that have happened since the 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:21.800 debut would be useful before I play the old episode first. 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.640 Google Plus launched in the summer of eleven and spent 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:28.440 about three months in an invite only beta phase. For 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:32.039 some reason, I got included in that beta test, which 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.200 I loved at the time, and I thought Google Plus 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.160 was interesting. Uh. I love the fact that when it 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:42.600 was beta, most the other people who were involved were 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:47.400 either tech entrepreneurs so they were important people who were 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:51.000 in you know, startup companies or even more established companies, 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:54.240 or they were tech journalists. So it felt like a 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.760 bunch of my professional peers and friends all had this 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:00.880 playground to ourselves, and frank we all thought it was 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:04.920 kind of fun. That was obviously short lived because then 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.640 it opened up to the public and then it sort 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.680 of fell apart um. It opened to the public in 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:14.159 September two thousand eleven, and despite some early interest, the 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:18.800 platform really failed to get any real traction. Now, despite 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.320 that early interest, the platform failed to get a lot 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.360 of traction, so people often commented that Google Plus was 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.520 really just a ghost town. In fact, that phrase was 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:31.320 used a lot to describe Google Plus. Certain communities on 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:34.120 Google Plus were really active, but they were the exception 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:37.359 as opposed to the rule. And the truth is a 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.800 lot of people just didn't see the need to migrate 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.960 to Google Plus from other platforms like Twitter or Facebook. 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:45.839 And unless your friends all go to the new place 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:49.200 to hang out, it's not so much fun hanging out there. 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:52.279 So since its launch, we've learned a little bit more 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:54.760 about what was going on behind the scenes. Before a 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.560 Google unveiled the beta test phase, Google had a building 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.040 set aside for the Google Plus team and the project 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.200 was kept a secret. The CEO was moved into that building, 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:08.000 so it raised some probably some a little bit of 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:12.160 drama within Google. According to Mashable, Google Plus at one 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:15.360 point had about one thousand employees working on the project, 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:20.320 which is enormous compared to other projects within Google. In 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:24.600 two thousand twelve, Vic Gondotra addressed an audience itself by 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:28.640 Southwest and said that Google Plus was essentially Google two 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.800 point oh and that it represented a social layer across 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.080 all of Google's services. So, in other words, all those 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:38.640 other Google products people use, like Gmail or YouTube would 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:42.000 be held together by the connective tissue that is Google Plus. 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:47.600 In Google first did some spring cleaning, uh. It combined 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:51.760 Google Talk, which some times was also known as Google 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.160 Chat or g Chat, and Google Messenger, which is an 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:59.679 i AM client that was within Google Plus, and Google Hangouts, 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.800 all under the Hangouts umbrellas, so all of these became 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:07.160 collectively known as Google Hangouts. Hangouts had previously been known 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.239 as the video chat service that was launched with Google Plus, 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:14.880 and now that also included text messaging, so really it 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:18.240 was anyway besides email where you would get in touch 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:22.680 with other people who had these accounts. Now, Gondatra announced 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:25.280 at the Google Io event there would be a total 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:28.760 of forty one updates to the Google Plus service, and 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:32.240 it included tweaks to photos and videos and how large 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:36.360 they would be within a Google Plus screen. Also new 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:41.480 animations that users could use automatic photo enhancements. This was 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:43.840 kind of fun. I remember taking a picture of a 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:49.320 snowy landscape, and Google automatically animated snowflakes falling across the picture, 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:52.280 but there was a lot more of that than just 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:56.720 those examples. Google also that year made a very controversial 0:08:56.760 --> 0:09:00.120 decision to tie together YouTube and Google Plus accounts that 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:05.680 people absolutely hated. The integration effort required YouTube users to 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.080 use a Google Plus account to leave comments, and because 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.200 of Google's policies with names on accounts, this meant people 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.720 more often than not, had to post under their actual names, 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.160 and it also prompted owners of YouTube channels to change 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:24.040 their handle to their true name. Now, the name debacle 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.280 was really a big deal because some people wanted anonymity, 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:29.760 or as much as it that as they can manage, 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:34.439 particularly when just using YouTube. Others had an online persona 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:37.120 that was separate from their real life identity, and making 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:39.840 the switch would be confusing and perhaps even damaging to 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:43.760 their online brand. There were plenty of legitimate reasons why 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.160 people didn't like the idea of having to use their 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.000 their birth name or real name, as well as plenty 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:52.200 of reasons that aren't terribly legitimate, like the desire to 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:56.360 troll other people while not being held responsible for that action, 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.280 but The move may have been motivated by the ire 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:04.400 to make YouTube comments a less volatile experience. So in 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:07.440 other words, if you are attached to your real name, 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:10.360 maybe you'd be less likely to be a jerk face 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.880 on YouTube. Anyone who has seen a name various comment 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:18.040 threads on Facebook knows this is not necessarily the case, 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.200 but I guess it was a hope. But it also 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:23.360 seemed like it was a membership drive to get more 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.040 people to sign up for Google Plus accounts. If you 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:28.640 wanted to play in the YouTube space, you had to 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.440 have a Google Plus account, so that didn't go over 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:35.719 so well in two thousand and fourteen. In April, Vic Gundotra, 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.960 the man behind Google Plus, would announce his departure from 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:41.640 the company, and that prompted a lot of news sites 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:45.719 to essentially say that Google Plus was dead, although it 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:49.920 seems to have been continuously shambling on ever since its death, 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:53.760 so perhaps it's reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated. 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.079 David Besbrus took over as the head of Google Plus 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.120 and promised that the company was committed to support the 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:02.880 product for a really long time, but six months later 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:07.480 Google replaced him with Bradley Horowitz, who's another executive at Google. 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:12.839 Two thousand fifteen current year, Google spins off Photos into 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.480 its own app, so it's no longer wrapped up with 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:19.160 Google Plus. The photos on Google Plus we're one of 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.480 the big selling points, especially among photographers. It was considered 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:26.240 to be a superior tool by many two things like 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:31.520 the Facebook Google or Facebook Photo app. So the Google 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:35.600 Plus Photos app was considered to be pretty good, and 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:38.040 the fact that Google is spinning it off from Google 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:40.720 Plus maybe an indication that Google Plus is kind of 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.280 living on borrowed time. On August first, two thousand fifteen, 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.760 Google shut down the Google Plus version of Photos, switching 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.400 to the independent app instead. The new app is pretty cool, 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:55.520 contains features like image recognition, which makes image searching really interesting. Uh. 0:11:55.559 --> 0:12:00.040 In other words, Google is using algorithms to automatically to 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:02.839 text stuff that's within photos. That way, when you search 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:06.720 for photos, even if they haven't been meta tagged, often 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:09.760 the image search can give you some pretty good results, 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:14.240 occasionally can give you some hilariously wrong results. It is 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:18.160 still a fallible system. Google is also in the process 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:21.199 of removing the requirement to link Google Plus and YouTube 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:24.599 accounts together, which is pretty much an admission that the 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:26.959 initiative was not a good idea. In fact, they pretty 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:29.760 much said said so in their blog posts. They didn't 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.319 come out and say specifically that YouTube and Google Plus 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:37.280 integration was a complete mistake, or that making you use 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.720 a quote unquote real name was a real mistake, but 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.640 the implication was there. So soon you'll only need a 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.920 Google account, not a Google Plus account, just a Google 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.160 account to set up a YouTube channel, and that means 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.080 that people won't be able to follow you or search 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.439 you with that just that Google account Google Plus they could, 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:01.520 but not with just a regular Google account. By the way, 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.120 you should not delete your Google Plus account right away. 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:07.480 You should hold onto it because Google says if you 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:11.200 delete your Google Plus account before this whole process is complete, 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.280 it will also delete your YouTube account. So if you 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.280 have YouTube videos online, you don't want to remove your 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:23.640 Google Plus account yet, wait until this process is finished. Now, 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.560 in general, Google has stopped the more or less forced 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:31.199 push to make users create Google Plus accounts. It clearly 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.360 wasn't getting the results that it wanted other than irritating 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:36.720 people who didn't have any interest in Google Plus to 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:40.520 begin with, which I'm guessing was not an intended consequence. 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:43.040 In fact, Harowitz said that it was time to talk 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:45.920 about how Google Plus was pivoting away from its original 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:49.160 pitch into something new, and this has already been reflected 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:53.240 in that the social operations within Google had changed its 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:58.559 name to Google Streams, Photos and Sharing. Now. Generally speaking, 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:02.040 critics say that Google ailed to address the real problem, 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.160 which was attracting users to the platform in an organic way, 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:09.679 and instead used force by integrating Google Plus with other services, 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.400 whether you liked it or not, so you had to 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:14.840 create a Google Plus account if you wanted access to 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:17.840 these other Google services, and it wasn't so much an 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.520 indication that you thought Google Plus was actually a good 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:25.560 service itself. They also kept on including lots of features 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:27.640 that seemed like whenever they thought that there was a 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.120 different way to try and attract people, they would just 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:35.040 throw random features into Google Plus. This comes from criticism 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.480 within the company itself, and a lot of people said 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.360 those features were often unwanted or no one understood what 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:44.000 they were for, so no one was using them. Now, 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.720 Google maintains that Google Plus is going to stick around. 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:48.560 It's just going to be more of a simple social 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:52.320 platform and less of the centralized point of sharing across 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:55.680 all of Google services. In other words, it's just gonna 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:57.880 be a stripped down version of what it was in 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:02.640 the first place. So Google Plus isn't officially dead. But 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.680 keep in mind Google has been known to pull the 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:10.320 plug on services after you know, they've died down a bit, 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.840 and only a relatively small user base would be affected. 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:18.720 So it's possible that in some blog post down in 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:21.280 the future, there's going to be one of those lists 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:24.280 of Google services that will no longer be supported, and 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:29.160 Google Plus may one day show up on that list. Meanwhile, 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:34.120 things like Google Photos and Hangouts exist outside of Google Plus, 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.000 and while they might have been spawned within Google Plus 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:40.440 to begin with, we now can access those through other tools. 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:44.120 Like hangouts you can access through Gmail, for example, and 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:47.720 you can even have live hangouts that are broadcast on YouTube, 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:50.800 so you can still use those products and they are 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:53.880 kind of standalone compared to what they were originally as 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:59.360 a sort of a feature within Google Plus itself. Now, 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.160 with all that being said, we can go back and 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:06.280 listen to this twenty eleven episode of tech Stuff in 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:10.120 which Chris and I talked about the very earliest days 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:12.000 of Google Plus. So if you want to hear what 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:15.040 our thoughts were on the service back before it was 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:18.800 open to the public. Stick around, check this out and 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:24.400 be entertained by the amazing and adaptability for the two 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:28.840 Yahoo's sitting at this table to chat about a service 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:34.040 that had not yet debuted. Enjoy. So today we wanted 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:38.960 to talk about a social network experiment that launched recently. 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.720 As of the recording of this podcast, we're recording this 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.640 in July two thousand eleven, and not that long ago, 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:48.880 Google made a an announcement that ended up taking at 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:53.400 least the the geek world by storm. Yes, definitely, and 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:56.640 we've had a few requests, and I think Jonathan and 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:58.360 I have decided that we'll go ahead and record a 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.320 podcast about it now and off defense before too many 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:03.960 other people ask us how it works. And also we 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:06.560 should add that well, first of all, we're talking about 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:08.639 Google Plus, in case you didn't read the title that 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.200 we're talking about Google Plus, but I want to add 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.199 a disclaimer at the beginning of this podcast, which is 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:20.240 Google Plus is in a a beta a rapidly expanding 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:25.600 beta program, uh and could undergo massive changes and short 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:29.000 amounts of time. So anything we talk about today may 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.800 very well have be different by the time this podcast 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:35.840 goes live, although I don't I don't imagine things changing 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.560 so significantly that they don't apply at all. But it 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.200 may be that there are some subtleties that we are 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.080 not going to cover because they will have emerged between 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.400 the time we record this in the time it publishes. Yeah, 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.400 because frankly, that's that's true of a good two thirds 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.400 of our podcast anytime we don't talk about something in history. Yeah. 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:56.200 But but with with with something like this in particular, 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:58.720 when it's in a beta format and a lot of 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.439 people are testing it out. Um, and not only that, 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.680 but the team behind it is listening to feedback and 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:09.719 incorporating feedback into their changes. You have a rapidly evolving 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.640 service that's going on here. So even though we might 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:16.440 record something about say Facebook, and sure maybe some things 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:20.520 will get tweaked in the Facebook uh service between the 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:22.640 time we record in the time we published, it might 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:24.840 be minor. But with something like this, where it's truly 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:29.120 experimental and people are implementing changes at a rapid pace, 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:33.600 the change it's more noticeable. Yes. That being said, now 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:35.280 we've got the disclaimer on the way, let's talk about 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:40.240 Google Plus. Okay, so one of my favorite descriptions of 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:44.480 Google Plus came courtesy of Molly Wood from c Net, 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:48.120 who said, google Plus is like you are at this uh, 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.320 this really fancy party, and you're in a V I 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:53.359 P section of the party, and there are only a 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:55.960 few people there, and everyone's excited to be there, and 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:58.920 everyone's talking about being at the party, and that's all 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:04.600 that's happening. That's that's definitely an exaggeration, and it's also paraphrasing, 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.000 so that's not a direct quote. Molly would put it 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.480 much more succinctly. But and it's it's also changed in 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.720 the last couple of days. Right. But but early on, 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:15.919 if you were one of the few people who got 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:18.919 into Google Plus, I was very fortunate in that I 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:22.200 managed to get invite uh and and joined pretty pretty 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:25.439 early on. Yeah, it turns out I know a lot 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.080 of people in the tech business. Um. But if you 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:30.479 if you were in there early on, it felt like 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:34.080 the people who were there were all these mostly tech 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:37.359 and geek culture folks. So you had a lot of 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:40.439 people who are from tech companies, including folks who are 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:44.679 actually from Google, which makes sense their product, right, you 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:48.440 had people from other big companies, stuff like Twitter or Facebook, 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:50.679 even we'll get into that. And then you had a 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:54.320 lot of tech journalists, so people like Leo Laporte, tom 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:58.000 merritt Um later on, Molly Wood and Brian Tong have 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.480 seen it. Um I as actor who's a good friend 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.880 of mine. He's he was also on there pretty early on. 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:07.040 You have these folks who are kind of populating it, 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:09.680 so it felt like a weird social network. It felt 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:12.280 like a social network that had been designed specifically for 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.800 this tech geek world. Oh, you also had some geek celebrities, 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.600 and I say geek celebrities, and that geeks like me 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:23.040 tend to think of them as amazing celebrities. So Felicia 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.679 Day will whe eaten those kind of folks. Um. So 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:29.320 it kind of felt like a social network built for geeks. 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.399 Now that's gradually changing as more and more people join in, 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:36.800 and we're starting to slowly skewed toward a more quote 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:40.840 unquote normal population. I use normal just in the sense 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:46.200 of average as opposed to geeks are not normal. Yeah, 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:49.520 and and I feel compelled to point out that again, 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:52.240 like a number of topics on this show, this is 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.520 one of those things that has been anticipated for quite 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.399 some time. Um. It's hard to tell a lot of 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:01.240 these things too. Um, things like the Apple iPad and 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:04.600 Google Plus and things like this that people say, oh, well, 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.240 you know, Google's working on a social network that's aimed 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:09.880 to take down Facebook, and they talk about it for 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:14.080 months and months and sometimes years, and you start going, happened. 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:17.159 It's sort of like Spotify coming to the United States, 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:21.800 which also just recently happened, but for for a long time. Uh. Again, 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:23.199 this is one of those things that I've heard a 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.520 lot of technicalists called tech unicorns. Yeah. These are like 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:28.840 the white iPhone for a long time was the tech unicorn. 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:31.280 The iPad was a tech unicorn for a long time. 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:36.200 These are apples streaming iTunes service, which is still Yeah, 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:39.520 these are things that everyone quote unquote knows is coming, 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:42.960 but it hasn't arrived yet, and it maybe years before 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:45.159 we ever get to it. And so yeah, some of 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:47.760 these are some of these turned into vaporware, right, tech 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:51.440 unicorn vaporware. The relationships pretty tight, Yeah, Duke Nukelen forever 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:57.119 long time tech unicorn. We will withhold commentary on what 0:21:57.359 --> 0:22:01.080 actually eventually published. We'll be back with more of this 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:13.320 classic episode of tech stuff after this quick break, so 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:16.320 let's let's kind of talk about sort of the the 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:19.280 we've talked about why, how people wanted to get in. 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:21.359 Uh we a lot of people wanted to get in 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:25.240 and couldn't get in because they didn't have enough invites. Um. 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:28.280 The the expansion of Google Plus has been pretty impressive 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:30.639 to watch over time. You wanted to say something, well, no, 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:32.919 I was just gonna say that they're in between the 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:35.720 tech unicorn. Um. It's one of those things. And at 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:38.480 least in my opinion, where Google Plus it was so 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:41.040 we've heard it for so long, it's like it's hiding 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:42.879 in plain sight that they just went, oh, here it is, 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:47.119 and we all kind of went yeah. Google Plus kind 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:50.480 of launched without a whole lot of fanfare from Google. 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:53.200 But it turns out Google didn't need to provide fanfare. 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:55.920 That was provided by that community of users I was 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:58.919 talking about earlier, because that that that same group of 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:03.120 early adopters who are passionate about trying stuff out, are 0:23:03.119 --> 0:23:07.520 really passionate about sharing information. So these adopters served as 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:11.439 the the champions of Google Plus. Google didn't have to 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:14.880 say it anything. Really, They showed off a demo um, 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:17.560 they explained the concept and that and they let everyone 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:21.439 else take over. And really Google didn't just release and watch, 0:23:21.680 --> 0:23:25.720 They released, watched and listened and implemented changes. Which that's 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:28.880 kind of where I think a lot of the tech 0:23:29.000 --> 0:23:32.120 enthusiasts have really kind of latched onto Google Plus because 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:34.280 they're like, they're not just giving us this, They're listening 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:36.000 to what we have to say, and they're taking that 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:39.000 into consideration. So instead of it being some sort of 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:43.600 ivory tower where products come out, but it's a one 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:46.639 way street, right, you know, they're they're providing a service, 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:48.320 but they're not listening to what we have to say. 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:51.440 We just take whatever they're giving us. Google is more 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:54.320 of a two way street, Like you really feel that 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:56.680 the people at Google are listening. Now. They may not 0:23:56.800 --> 0:24:00.000 incorporate all the changes you think need to be there 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:02.719 because it doesn't match their vision of what the service 0:24:02.840 --> 0:24:07.320 ultimately will do, but at least they're listening. Yeah. Ultimately, 0:24:07.720 --> 0:24:10.840 you know, all of us have our own preferences and 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:13.440 choices we want to see in the product, and so 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:16.320 Google is not going to make all of us happy, 0:24:16.840 --> 0:24:19.359 and you know those of us it does make happy, 0:24:19.359 --> 0:24:21.600 it won't make us completely happy, because well, we'll be 0:24:21.920 --> 0:24:24.919 looking for one particular thing or two particular things and 0:24:26.040 --> 0:24:29.159 maybe you know, that's just a few people, and Google 0:24:29.200 --> 0:24:31.200 is not gonna change it just for a few people. 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:35.119 But yeah, as soon as it was announced, um, you know, 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:38.800 the tech enthusiasts latched onto it and and it started spreading. 0:24:38.800 --> 0:24:42.600 But the thing is, um, Google was smart about launching 0:24:42.600 --> 0:24:46.000 it the way they did because they were trying to 0:24:46.040 --> 0:24:49.800 avoid overloading their servers um and so what they were 0:24:49.800 --> 0:24:51.920 doing was they were releasing it to a few people 0:24:51.960 --> 0:24:53.760 at a time. And when I say a few, a 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:55.680 few to most of us would be you know, ten people, 0:24:56.240 --> 0:24:57.919 but you know, a few to Google was you know 0:24:57.960 --> 0:25:00.760 a few hundreds, a few thousand at a time. And 0:25:00.880 --> 0:25:04.000 uh so people were going crazy the first few days 0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:06.639 after the launch looking for an invite to the service. 0:25:06.640 --> 0:25:09.959 Now it also makes it seem really exclusive. Yeah, and 0:25:09.960 --> 0:25:12.800 of course the more, yeah, the more exclusive something is, 0:25:12.840 --> 0:25:15.120 the more people want to be in that because people 0:25:15.160 --> 0:25:17.840 want to be part of an exclusive group. And uh, 0:25:17.880 --> 0:25:19.840 I mean it's just natural, right you see, you see 0:25:19.880 --> 0:25:21.480 the cool click of kids, and you want to be 0:25:21.520 --> 0:25:24.080 in that click. And once you're in that click, you're 0:25:24.119 --> 0:25:27.520 like this is awesome, And yeah, I don't object to 0:25:27.560 --> 0:25:29.399 us letting in maybe one or two other people who 0:25:29.440 --> 0:25:31.639 are kind of cool, but let's not go crazy and 0:25:31.720 --> 0:25:33.760 let everyone in, because then we don't have a click anymore. 0:25:34.200 --> 0:25:36.639 So uh and we can get into sort of the 0:25:36.680 --> 0:25:40.119 click ish behavior that I've noticed on Google Plus. Not again, 0:25:40.160 --> 0:25:42.119 this is really really early on in Google Plus. I 0:25:42.119 --> 0:25:43.960 don't expect that this will last long. There's going to 0:25:44.040 --> 0:25:47.440 be a big change as more people join um. And also, 0:25:47.520 --> 0:25:49.399 there were reports that within a couple of weeks of 0:25:49.440 --> 0:25:53.040 Google Plus launching, they were already possibly as many as 0:25:53.080 --> 0:25:55.120 ten million people on it. And at the time we're 0:25:55.160 --> 0:25:58.359 recording this podcast, which is again just a couple of 0:25:58.359 --> 0:26:01.359 weeks after Google Plus launched, they expect it to be 0:26:01.440 --> 0:26:04.000 up to twenty million by uh in a in a 0:26:04.040 --> 0:26:06.760 couple of days from the recording of this podcast. So 0:26:06.800 --> 0:26:09.320 if you're looking for let's go ahead and get this 0:26:09.400 --> 0:26:11.919 answer out of the way. If you're looking for Google 0:26:11.920 --> 0:26:14.919 Plus to knock off Facebook right away, it's not going 0:26:15.000 --> 0:26:17.960 to happen because they're talking twenty million people out of 0:26:18.560 --> 0:26:23.640 sift million for Facebook exactly. So the law, the the 0:26:23.720 --> 0:26:26.960 long term answer to that is maybe. But right now, 0:26:27.560 --> 0:26:30.080 you know, there's no threat whatsoever. And I don't think 0:26:30.119 --> 0:26:33.880 Google would claim that Google Plus is meant to replace Facebook. 0:26:33.880 --> 0:26:36.000 In fact, that kind of leads us into what is 0:26:36.119 --> 0:26:39.760 Google Plus because we talked a lot about the the popularity, 0:26:39.800 --> 0:26:43.440 but we haven't really even discussed anything about the actual service. 0:26:43.920 --> 0:26:47.520 There are some similarities to other social networks. In fact, 0:26:47.520 --> 0:26:50.480 there's there are similarities to other Google products. Yeah, and 0:26:50.680 --> 0:26:52.639 and you will notice if you have used things like 0:26:52.640 --> 0:26:55.880 Google Buzz or Google Wave, you'll see little similarities here 0:26:55.880 --> 0:26:58.439 and there in Google Plus. And you'll notice like, okay, 0:26:58.480 --> 0:27:01.720 they they've sort of incorporated this I uh and the 0:27:01.840 --> 0:27:05.520 lessons they learned from that into Google Plus. So Google 0:27:05.560 --> 0:27:10.520 Plus is essentially a social network, though it's not just 0:27:10.800 --> 0:27:14.399 a social network. And the way it works from a 0:27:14.480 --> 0:27:18.160 user perspective is that you will look for people who 0:27:18.160 --> 0:27:21.119 are on Google Plus or have yet to join Google Plus, 0:27:21.560 --> 0:27:24.840 people you know or people you know of, and you 0:27:24.880 --> 0:27:29.360 put those people into circles. Now, these circles are categories 0:27:29.480 --> 0:27:35.080 so that you can uh put people into whichever ones 0:27:35.280 --> 0:27:37.960 fit best in your life, so that you can direct 0:27:38.000 --> 0:27:41.200 messages to those people and read messages from those people 0:27:41.680 --> 0:27:45.000 in a way that's more granular than your average Facebook 0:27:45.080 --> 0:27:48.840 user is used to. Yeah. Now, I mean, uh, Facebook 0:27:49.200 --> 0:27:51.159 fans would probably see, but yeah, I can do that 0:27:51.200 --> 0:27:57.280 with Facebook. Well. Um, basically the big difference here, I 0:27:57.400 --> 0:27:59.679 think is that this is like the first thing you 0:27:59.720 --> 0:28:03.280 do when you add a new person to your Google 0:28:03.280 --> 0:28:06.880 Plus account. If you want to, uh start following Jonathan 0:28:06.920 --> 0:28:10.359 for example, Um, you know, the very first thing you say, Okay, 0:28:10.359 --> 0:28:13.080 oh I found him. Now what circles do you want 0:28:13.119 --> 0:28:14.480 to add him to? And you can add people to 0:28:14.520 --> 0:28:17.040 more than one circle, yes, and you can create circles 0:28:17.119 --> 0:28:20.399 you you you start off with some basic circles. I 0:28:20.400 --> 0:28:25.200 believe it's friends, family, acquaintances, and followers are following. So 0:28:26.040 --> 0:28:28.719 I've got let's say, I've got There's there's Chris. And 0:28:28.760 --> 0:28:30.360 then I have to make a decision. Do I put 0:28:30.400 --> 0:28:33.119 Chris in my friend's circle, do I put them in 0:28:33.160 --> 0:28:35.159 my acquaintance's circle, or do I put them in my 0:28:35.200 --> 0:28:37.359 following circle. Chris is not part of my family, so 0:28:37.359 --> 0:28:39.240 I'm not going to put them in there. And I'm 0:28:39.240 --> 0:28:42.320 all right with that. Yeah. And and it's nice to 0:28:42.400 --> 0:28:45.840 note to, especially if you're concerned with issues of privacy. 0:28:46.040 --> 0:28:47.920 The person on the other end, the person that you're 0:28:47.920 --> 0:28:50.560 adding to your circles has no idea what circles to 0:28:50.680 --> 0:28:53.080 which you have added them, Right, So if you put 0:28:53.120 --> 0:28:55.920 them in, like, you could create a circle called jerk faces. 0:28:56.120 --> 0:28:58.400 I know, I know, I know for a fact that 0:28:58.400 --> 0:29:01.160 I'm in that circle. And you could put people in 0:29:01.240 --> 0:29:03.520 the jerk faces I know circle and they're not going 0:29:03.560 --> 0:29:06.000 to know that that's the They know that you've added them, 0:29:06.440 --> 0:29:08.920 but they don't know what circle they are in. So 0:29:09.000 --> 0:29:11.000 I'm probably in a lot of jerk faces I know 0:29:11.120 --> 0:29:14.760 circles and yeah, and now that our listeners have heard 0:29:14.760 --> 0:29:16.520 me say this, I imagine a lot of them are 0:29:16.560 --> 0:29:18.680 making jerk faces I know circles just to put me 0:29:18.720 --> 0:29:23.360 in them. Um, so you've got these circles. Now you've 0:29:23.400 --> 0:29:26.800 decided where this your first let's say it's your first 0:29:26.800 --> 0:29:28.560 person you're following. So I'm going to use Chris as 0:29:28.560 --> 0:29:31.320 my example. I've decided that I want to follow Chris. 0:29:31.360 --> 0:29:33.040 I want to I want to hear what Chris has 0:29:33.080 --> 0:29:34.960 to say. I want to be able to see his updates. 0:29:34.960 --> 0:29:37.520 I want to be able to see his photos. Um, 0:29:37.560 --> 0:29:42.920 I put him in my acquaintances circle. All right, So now, 0:29:43.040 --> 0:29:47.720 anytime Chris posts and publishes his post to either the public, 0:29:48.000 --> 0:29:50.360 which means everyone can see it. Everyone on Google Plus 0:29:50.360 --> 0:29:52.360 can see it, everyone in the in the world can 0:29:52.360 --> 0:29:55.320 see it. Um. I mean it's not restricted to anybody 0:29:55.360 --> 0:29:58.120 in particular, right right. But now, now, if Chris has 0:29:58.160 --> 0:30:00.080 not put me in a circle, and he publishes and 0:30:00.320 --> 0:30:03.720 anything other than public, I'm not going to see that information. 0:30:04.480 --> 0:30:07.520 So Chris decides that he wants to publish a status update, 0:30:07.560 --> 0:30:09.240 but he's just gonna push it to his friends. I 0:30:09.280 --> 0:30:12.320 am not in his friend's circle. He types in his 0:30:12.400 --> 0:30:15.440 status update, he sets it so that it only publishes 0:30:15.480 --> 0:30:18.200 to friends. He publishes it. I don't know that Chris 0:30:18.280 --> 0:30:21.959 has done anything to me. His his posts still are blank. 0:30:22.720 --> 0:30:24.640 Now let's say that Chris does another one where he 0:30:24.680 --> 0:30:28.240 decides he wants to talk about an article he edited, 0:30:28.280 --> 0:30:30.480 and he wants this he wants the general public to 0:30:30.520 --> 0:30:33.400 know about this article. He sets that status update to public. 0:30:34.000 --> 0:30:37.880 Suddenly I can see that particular status update because they 0:30:37.960 --> 0:30:40.800 set it to public, so anyone following Chris can see it. 0:30:41.960 --> 0:30:44.720 Then let's say that Chris notices that I'm on Google 0:30:44.720 --> 0:30:46.960 Plus and he thinks, oh, well, Jonathan's there, I should 0:30:46.960 --> 0:30:50.360 add him I'll add him to my acquaintances circle. Then 0:30:50.480 --> 0:30:54.200 Chris publishes a status update and decides he only wants 0:30:54.240 --> 0:30:56.560 his acquaintances and friends to see it, so he sets 0:30:56.600 --> 0:30:59.040 it so that this status update goes out to friends 0:30:59.040 --> 0:31:02.240 and acquaintances, but not the general public. I would be 0:31:02.280 --> 0:31:04.800 able to see that stats update. Now, if he had 0:31:04.840 --> 0:31:08.040 not added me to his acquaintance circle or his friends circle, 0:31:08.080 --> 0:31:09.680 I would not see it. I would be unaware that 0:31:09.720 --> 0:31:12.880 he had updated his status. You can get so granular 0:31:12.960 --> 0:31:15.040 that you can create a stats update and directed to 0:31:15.080 --> 0:31:18.640 specific people. So I could create a stats update and 0:31:18.680 --> 0:31:22.160 just send it to Chris alone, and that's the only 0:31:22.200 --> 0:31:23.840 person who sees it. Or I could send it to 0:31:23.920 --> 0:31:26.120 Chris and maybe three or four other people. Let's say 0:31:26.120 --> 0:31:28.160 that it's three or four people who are in different circles. 0:31:28.200 --> 0:31:31.280 They don't really belong all on the same circle, but 0:31:31.320 --> 0:31:33.720 I think they all need to see this message. I 0:31:33.840 --> 0:31:37.040 might just go in and manually put in each name, 0:31:37.480 --> 0:31:40.960 and those are the only people who will see that message. Now, 0:31:41.000 --> 0:31:43.600 there are some other things you have to remember, like, uh, 0:31:43.640 --> 0:31:47.640 there is the ability to share posts that other people 0:31:47.680 --> 0:31:50.880 have published. Now, if you you can either turn the 0:31:50.920 --> 0:31:53.520 sharing on or off, so you don't have to. If 0:31:53.560 --> 0:31:55.720 you turn it off, that means other people cannot share 0:31:55.760 --> 0:31:58.600 the same message you just posted. If the share is 0:31:58.680 --> 0:32:01.680 on your message that went out to just your friends 0:32:01.760 --> 0:32:05.320 or just your acquaintances might suddenly become public. Right, So 0:32:05.720 --> 0:32:08.200 Chris sends out a message to just his acquaintances. He 0:32:08.240 --> 0:32:10.640 has sharing turned on, he has not turned that off. 0:32:11.040 --> 0:32:14.200 I read Chris's post, and I think, hey, that's awesome. 0:32:14.400 --> 0:32:17.000 Everyone who follows me wants to know that too. I 0:32:17.120 --> 0:32:19.960 hit share. Suddenly his message that just went to his 0:32:19.960 --> 0:32:23.200 acquaintances are now it's now out in the wild, So 0:32:23.440 --> 0:32:26.440 they're attributed to me exactly. Yes, yes, so people can 0:32:26.440 --> 0:32:28.680 actually follow it back to Chris. Now, granted they're only 0:32:28.680 --> 0:32:30.040 going to be able to see the things that Chris 0:32:30.040 --> 0:32:32.640 has published at that point to the public if they 0:32:32.640 --> 0:32:35.320 go directly to that's the weird thing. They might see 0:32:35.320 --> 0:32:38.320 a shared post like I share your post, they see 0:32:38.360 --> 0:32:40.480 it on my feed, then they follow it back to 0:32:40.520 --> 0:32:43.120 your feed and something that post isn't there because it 0:32:43.160 --> 0:32:46.600 wasn't set to public when it was originally published. It 0:32:46.640 --> 0:32:49.080 gets a little complicated. These are things that the Google 0:32:49.080 --> 0:32:52.960 Plus team. They're looking into this stuff to see what 0:32:53.120 --> 0:32:56.360 makes sense and what doesn't make sense, you know, sharing 0:32:56.560 --> 0:32:59.480 versus private. And because you have the ability to turn 0:32:59.520 --> 0:33:03.120 sharing off, if you are someone who doesn't want information 0:33:03.160 --> 0:33:05.120 to go beyond that group of friends, you can always 0:33:05.120 --> 0:33:07.560 turn it off. Now, granted, that doesn't stop your friends 0:33:07.600 --> 0:33:11.560 from say saying that Jonathan said blah blah blah. Right, 0:33:11.640 --> 0:33:14.680 and there's always you know, copy and paste, right, So yeah, 0:33:14.680 --> 0:33:16.480 there are ways around it. But that's the same for 0:33:16.560 --> 0:33:19.480 any social network. I sort of count on my friends 0:33:19.480 --> 0:33:23.160 to be lazy enough where they won't I can't share this, yeah, exactly. 0:33:23.200 --> 0:33:25.440 And and really, I mean it's just like real life. 0:33:26.160 --> 0:33:28.000 Just like real life, I come up and I tell 0:33:28.080 --> 0:33:30.960 Chris is secret. There's nothing stopping Chris from going around 0:33:30.960 --> 0:33:34.240 and telling other people that's secret. I'm sorry, I told you, 0:33:34.280 --> 0:33:36.920 I'm sorry. Gee. Yeah, well let's see if you ever 0:33:36.960 --> 0:33:40.800 get any key line pie from me again. So so 0:33:40.880 --> 0:33:43.760 that's the basics behind circles and sharing. And also, if 0:33:43.880 --> 0:33:47.440 let's say that when you're actually consuming information, you're not 0:33:47.520 --> 0:33:52.600 just that that's sending information out right, publishing information. You 0:33:52.600 --> 0:33:56.200 can also look view your stream. That's what Google Plus 0:33:56.240 --> 0:33:59.400 calls your what what Facebook would call the wall, right 0:34:00.280 --> 0:34:02.680 or Twitter, we call it the feed, so it's the 0:34:02.680 --> 0:34:05.200 same sort of concept. It's it's the stream of information 0:34:05.240 --> 0:34:07.960 coming from all the people that you put into your circles. 0:34:08.440 --> 0:34:11.880 You can view that by circle, So if you just 0:34:11.920 --> 0:34:15.000 have it set to the stream, you're looking at everything 0:34:15.480 --> 0:34:19.919 that people you follow are publishing. So all your friends, acquaintances, 0:34:20.320 --> 0:34:23.000 celebrities who might be following people you know of but 0:34:23.080 --> 0:34:25.440 you don't actually know in real life. All the information 0:34:25.520 --> 0:34:28.400 gets dumped into the stream. If you want to try 0:34:28.520 --> 0:34:31.800 and filter that out, you can view your stream by circle. 0:34:31.880 --> 0:34:34.759 So I might click friends and now I'm only going 0:34:34.800 --> 0:34:37.200 to see the updates that my friends have published to 0:34:37.320 --> 0:34:41.759 their stream, and I've cut everything else out. I can 0:34:41.800 --> 0:34:47.520 even view it by incoming incoming. It gets really crazy 0:34:47.600 --> 0:34:51.160 for people like me, and more so for people who 0:34:51.239 --> 0:34:56.600 are even more even more who are actually famous. Because 0:34:56.640 --> 0:34:58.759 I have as the recording of this podcast, I have 0:34:59.800 --> 0:35:04.719 people following me. If I choose incoming, I see their updates, 0:35:05.560 --> 0:35:08.399 so I'm not following them. But by hitting incoming, I'm 0:35:08.440 --> 0:35:10.920 seeing everyone who's following me. I'm seeing their updates. So 0:35:10.960 --> 0:35:16.360 suddenly just becomes a wall of information. Um but assuming 0:35:16.400 --> 0:35:18.880 that everything they've published as public if they published stuff 0:35:18.880 --> 0:35:21.320 to their friends or their acquaintances or whatever. I'm not 0:35:21.400 --> 0:35:23.880 going to see that. I'm only going to see stuff 0:35:23.920 --> 0:35:25.799 that in the circles that I've been included in and 0:35:25.840 --> 0:35:28.560 in the public posts. But it means that I get 0:35:28.600 --> 0:35:30.600 a lot more information from a lot more people, not 0:35:30.680 --> 0:35:33.480 just the people I follow. Right, that can be a 0:35:33.520 --> 0:35:36.840 lot We've got more to say in this classic episode 0:35:36.840 --> 0:35:48.719 of tech stuff after these quick messages. So in a way, 0:35:48.719 --> 0:35:51.520 Google Plus is like Facebook and that you can follow 0:35:51.560 --> 0:35:54.680 specific people, they can follow you back and you. In 0:35:54.680 --> 0:35:56.920 a way, it's like Twitter because in Twitter you can 0:35:56.920 --> 0:35:59.160 follow people and just read what they have to say 0:35:59.160 --> 0:36:01.160 as long as they don't have a profile set to private. 0:36:01.480 --> 0:36:04.720 You can read Twitter posts from people as they update. 0:36:05.280 --> 0:36:07.360 So in Google Plus the same sort of thing. You 0:36:07.360 --> 0:36:10.000 don't have to give permission to someone in order for 0:36:10.040 --> 0:36:14.120 them to follow you. But people say, well what about privacy. 0:36:14.160 --> 0:36:17.120 That's where the circles come in. That's where you can 0:36:17.239 --> 0:36:20.279 choose which circles see what you have to say. If 0:36:20.280 --> 0:36:22.480 you don't want random people seeing what you have to say, 0:36:22.520 --> 0:36:26.480 you publish it to a specific circle, right right, Um, 0:36:26.560 --> 0:36:32.760 And I mean people compare this product to Twitter and 0:36:33.080 --> 0:36:38.000 Facebook all the time. I've seen a constant stream of that. However, 0:36:38.120 --> 0:36:41.400 I think it's most like at least the ones I've tried. 0:36:41.920 --> 0:36:45.239 Most like another service that caught on for a little 0:36:45.239 --> 0:36:49.000 while and Facebook acquired it and is sort of languished 0:36:49.080 --> 0:36:52.040 under Facebook's control, and that's called friend Feed. If you've 0:36:52.040 --> 0:36:56.200 ever been to friend feed dot com. Um, it's very 0:36:56.280 --> 0:37:01.279 very similar, and um it's it's the more too. I mean, 0:37:01.320 --> 0:37:03.840 the the feed is somewhat similar to the wall on 0:37:03.840 --> 0:37:07.920 on Facebook, but you can um like and unlike and 0:37:07.960 --> 0:37:12.040 make long comments to it, very much in the style 0:37:12.239 --> 0:37:15.080 of friend feed, more so than than Facebook or Twitter. 0:37:15.239 --> 0:37:18.120 But it's it's closer probably to Facebook or friend Feed 0:37:18.120 --> 0:37:20.360 than it is to Twitter. Now, I mean there is 0:37:20.440 --> 0:37:23.920 some uh you know that it looks a little bit 0:37:23.960 --> 0:37:27.759 more like Twitter. I mean, just the visual element of it, 0:37:27.800 --> 0:37:31.600 I would say, um, but there are some other advantages 0:37:31.680 --> 0:37:36.440 to using Google Plus that there aren't um, and that's 0:37:36.480 --> 0:37:42.200 probably I think of that more as the integration with Android. Um. 0:37:42.280 --> 0:37:45.440 For example, you know, Jonathan and I both have Android smartphones, 0:37:45.480 --> 0:37:49.240 and we can set Google Plus to automatically post every 0:37:49.280 --> 0:37:52.480 photo we take with our phones to Google Plus. Now, 0:37:53.239 --> 0:37:55.479 I don't think that's such a good idea. You can 0:37:55.520 --> 0:37:57.880 set your privacy, you can such your privacy so that 0:37:57.920 --> 0:38:01.680 people don't automatically see those photos. So so if you 0:38:01.880 --> 0:38:04.239 if you had it where every photo you take is 0:38:04.280 --> 0:38:08.560 automatically published, uh publicly to your Google Plus account, that 0:38:08.600 --> 0:38:10.640 seems like a bad idea. Yeah, I mean even if 0:38:10.680 --> 0:38:12.799 even if we let's take let's take out the bad 0:38:12.800 --> 0:38:16.520 behavior aspect, right, so bad behavior, that would be a 0:38:16.520 --> 0:38:19.240 bad idea because suddenly you're publicly showing everyone bad behavior. 0:38:19.280 --> 0:38:23.400 So let's say, you know, being intoxicated or being acting 0:38:23.400 --> 0:38:25.640 irresponsibly in some way, and you're like, oh, let's take 0:38:25.640 --> 0:38:30.360 a picture of this. Well, yeah, that's a bad idea. 0:38:30.640 --> 0:38:33.960 But let's say it's just a bad photo, like your 0:38:34.040 --> 0:38:36.359 fingers in the frame. You know, you don't want that 0:38:36.440 --> 0:38:38.839 publishing because you're like, come on, that's just a I'd 0:38:38.920 --> 0:38:42.400 rather take that photo again. So you can set your 0:38:42.400 --> 0:38:45.719 privacy setting so that those photos don't automatically go to everybody, 0:38:45.880 --> 0:38:48.360 you know. I actually do have instant published turned on 0:38:48.560 --> 0:38:50.319 right now because I wanted to try it out, and 0:38:50.360 --> 0:38:53.319 it's pretty neat. I didn't realize that every picture I 0:38:53.360 --> 0:38:56.520 take on my phone is instantly published not just the 0:38:56.520 --> 0:38:59.799 ones I do through the app, but through anything so 0:39:00.040 --> 0:39:02.800 gets put like I've taken photos to upload to Twitter 0:39:02.840 --> 0:39:04.960 and twit pick. It also has gone to my Google 0:39:04.960 --> 0:39:07.600 Plus account. Now I don't have it publishing publicly, so 0:39:07.680 --> 0:39:10.799 at least people aren't being flooded by pictures of me 0:39:11.000 --> 0:39:13.000 trying to take a photo of one thing and like, no, 0:39:13.239 --> 0:39:15.120 that's not right either. Let me change the lighting a 0:39:15.160 --> 0:39:17.839 little bit and take three more of these. But you 0:39:17.880 --> 0:39:21.839 could do that, yep. And um, that isn't to say 0:39:21.880 --> 0:39:25.040 that that won't that functionality won't come to other phones. 0:39:25.200 --> 0:39:27.800 Now there is a Google Plus app. Actually there was 0:39:27.840 --> 0:39:30.759 a Google Plus app for Android, I would say just 0:39:30.840 --> 0:39:33.200 about immediately since I heard about it, I looked for it. 0:39:33.239 --> 0:39:35.239 Now it was the launch, the launch on the web, 0:39:35.280 --> 0:39:37.360 and the launch on the phone. In fact, the launch 0:39:37.400 --> 0:39:39.279 on the phone gave some people a work around to 0:39:39.320 --> 0:39:42.680 getting into Google Plus. Early on, they installed the Google 0:39:42.719 --> 0:39:45.200 Plus app on their phone and found that they could 0:39:45.200 --> 0:39:49.080 bypass the invite system, and once they try to activate 0:39:49.120 --> 0:39:51.600 the app on their phone, it gave them an invite, 0:39:52.280 --> 0:39:56.560 and there was another workaround that got you into Google Plus. Um, 0:39:56.640 --> 0:40:00.560 but those have been patched since then. But they've also 0:40:00.600 --> 0:40:03.879 started opening it up to more people too. So, I mean, 0:40:03.920 --> 0:40:07.279 I have hundreds of invites right now, and I just 0:40:07.360 --> 0:40:09.520 keep getting more, and I'm running out of people who 0:40:10.120 --> 0:40:12.279 I know would be interested in it, and well and 0:40:12.320 --> 0:40:15.480 the personally and the invite system is not entirely intuitive. No, 0:40:15.640 --> 0:40:18.160 it's not. It's not. It's not the easiest thing in 0:40:18.200 --> 0:40:20.279 the world. Like when you see the invite system, it's 0:40:20.800 --> 0:40:23.959 it's easy to get a little confused by it. Uh. 0:40:24.120 --> 0:40:25.719 I guess we can talk a little bit about some 0:40:25.800 --> 0:40:28.520 of the other features of Google Plus well before we 0:40:28.520 --> 0:40:31.680 get too far away from the Android app. We have 0:40:31.760 --> 0:40:33.839 heard that there is going to be an iOS app 0:40:33.920 --> 0:40:39.319 that's the operating system for the Apple I stuff. As 0:40:39.480 --> 0:40:41.719 the recording of this podcast, it's been submitted but not 0:40:41.800 --> 0:40:44.400 yet approved. Yeah, so there. I don't know if the 0:40:44.760 --> 0:40:49.359 automatic photo feature will work with those phones, I you know, 0:40:49.800 --> 0:40:51.640 and I don't know if there will be something coming 0:40:51.680 --> 0:40:57.160 for Windows Phone or or web os. Um we'll see. Yeah, 0:40:57.200 --> 0:40:59.200 but like a lot of BlackBerry, like a lot of 0:40:59.239 --> 0:41:02.360 services and probably that we're seeing launch these days. Uh, 0:41:02.760 --> 0:41:06.560 it's really effective if you subscribe to a particular ecosystem. 0:41:06.800 --> 0:41:10.680 In this case, Google's so using Google Plus on Google 0:41:10.760 --> 0:41:14.040 Chrome and having an Android phone. It works. I mean 0:41:14.239 --> 0:41:17.200 it works really seamlessly because all those products are coming 0:41:17.280 --> 0:41:20.640 from the same company. But when you start mixing and matching, 0:41:20.719 --> 0:41:26.399 your experience may vary. Yeah, there's another feature, um and 0:41:26.560 --> 0:41:29.800 uh that that Jonathan and I tried out pretty much immediately, 0:41:29.800 --> 0:41:33.320 and that's called the huddle. Yes, this is this relates 0:41:33.360 --> 0:41:37.000 to UH two phones. Yes, so a huddle is like 0:41:37.120 --> 0:41:42.399 having a group messaging system on phones. So everyone who 0:41:42.520 --> 0:41:44.879 is in a huddle needs to have uh a phone 0:41:44.960 --> 0:41:47.680 number attached to their Google Plus account, or they have 0:41:47.719 --> 0:41:50.560 to have the the Google Plus app installed on their 0:41:50.600 --> 0:41:53.680 their phones. Um. And what you do is you set 0:41:53.680 --> 0:41:55.879 it up and you can send out a message. Let's 0:41:55.880 --> 0:41:59.799 say that I want to have get together after work 0:41:59.840 --> 0:42:01.880 one day and just hang out of the restaurant, have 0:42:01.920 --> 0:42:04.719 some appetizers and talk about what's been going on in 0:42:04.760 --> 0:42:07.040 the company. There might be three or four people I 0:42:07.080 --> 0:42:08.840 want to invite, so I add all of them to 0:42:09.120 --> 0:42:12.640 my Google Plus huddle and I send out a message. 0:42:12.640 --> 0:42:14.960 That message will go to all of those people, and 0:42:15.000 --> 0:42:17.200 then all of those people can respond to that message 0:42:17.200 --> 0:42:19.880 and everyone can see each other's responses. It becomes kind 0:42:19.920 --> 0:42:23.280 of like a chat room via text message, but only 0:42:23.360 --> 0:42:26.720 among that group of people. And again this is functionality 0:42:26.760 --> 0:42:31.880 that reminds me of Google Wave and also other services 0:42:31.920 --> 0:42:36.840 like Beluga. There are group messaging services Beluga, there are 0:42:36.880 --> 0:42:39.200 other group messaging services. Chris, give me a look, and 0:42:39.200 --> 0:42:42.160 I can tell you wanted to do the bulbous bouffont Beluga, 0:42:42.560 --> 0:42:45.480 which my wife hates UM, but the yeah, there there 0:42:45.480 --> 0:42:48.160 are other messaging services group messaging services that are doing 0:42:48.160 --> 0:42:50.200 this right now. In fact, a lot of them were 0:42:50.320 --> 0:42:53.280 launching around south By Southwest and we're making a big, 0:42:53.960 --> 0:42:57.879 big splash there. Google Huddle is kind of Google's version 0:42:57.920 --> 0:42:59.880 of this. Now, that was one of the work of 0:43:00.000 --> 0:43:02.840 ounds too. If you added someone to a Google Huddle, 0:43:03.239 --> 0:43:05.160 then in order for them to be able to use 0:43:05.200 --> 0:43:07.839 the huddle, they were given a link to log into 0:43:07.840 --> 0:43:10.440 Google Plus and that's how they ended up getting accounts 0:43:10.480 --> 0:43:12.960 even though they didn't have an official invite UM and 0:43:13.000 --> 0:43:15.520 the invitations at that point had been closed. And yet 0:43:15.560 --> 0:43:17.799 a lot of people found that workaround. Again, that's been 0:43:17.840 --> 0:43:22.279 patched since the uh since since it first happened. Took 0:43:22.280 --> 0:43:24.600 a couple of days before Google caught on, or maybe 0:43:24.640 --> 0:43:26.439 they caught on, but they let it happen anyway because 0:43:26.440 --> 0:43:30.120 they're like, well, this is letting the population base expand, 0:43:30.160 --> 0:43:33.600 but it's not expanding at a rate that's outside of 0:43:33.640 --> 0:43:37.920 our comfort zone. Yeah yeah um. And then there's hangouts. Yea, 0:43:38.160 --> 0:43:40.759 hangouts are awesome. I haven't tried to hang out yet. 0:43:40.800 --> 0:43:43.880 I've tried it and it is It is addicting. So 0:43:43.960 --> 0:43:47.520 a hangout is a video chat session. You can start 0:43:47.520 --> 0:43:49.600 a hang out with specific people if you want to, 0:43:50.040 --> 0:43:51.799 or you can start a hangout and just make it 0:43:51.840 --> 0:43:54.720 public where anyone who follows you will see the hangout 0:43:54.760 --> 0:43:57.080 and can join. And I hang out is you need 0:43:57.120 --> 0:43:59.840 a webcam and a microphone and speakers. Nor for this 0:44:00.080 --> 0:44:02.960 work says you can hear people, they can hear you, 0:44:03.040 --> 0:44:05.920 and they can see you, and up to ten people 0:44:06.120 --> 0:44:08.640 total can be in a hangout at one time, so 0:44:08.680 --> 0:44:12.799 it's you and nine other people max. And the video 0:44:12.880 --> 0:44:16.360 switching is very clever. It switches to whomever is speaking 0:44:16.480 --> 0:44:19.160 at the time. So if everyone's quiet and I'm talking, 0:44:19.239 --> 0:44:22.160 then the main video will be me as I'm chatting. 0:44:22.560 --> 0:44:24.800 As someone else starts to talk, the video will switch 0:44:24.880 --> 0:44:29.200 to that person and uh the focus changes to them. 0:44:29.280 --> 0:44:31.600 And if two people are talking, whomever is the loudest 0:44:32.239 --> 0:44:36.080 will have their video featured as the central video, and 0:44:36.120 --> 0:44:39.520 so you'll actually see uh if in a full hangout, 0:44:39.560 --> 0:44:42.240 you'll see one main screen of the person who's talking, 0:44:42.320 --> 0:44:45.880 and then you'll see the other nine miniaturized like thumbnail 0:44:45.960 --> 0:44:49.719 sized screens below, and it's all moving, you know, like 0:44:50.200 --> 0:44:52.480 you're seeing video from all those feeds at one time. 0:44:53.080 --> 0:44:55.920 It can get a little buggy depending upon people's um 0:44:57.040 --> 0:44:59.360 data transfer rates. You know, if you're if you're on 0:44:59.360 --> 0:45:02.359 a slow UH, if you're not really on a high 0:45:02.360 --> 0:45:05.560 speed broadband connection, you're gonna have some problems with this. 0:45:05.920 --> 0:45:08.359 There'll be some lag. UM I was. I was having 0:45:08.360 --> 0:45:10.080 some really bad lag when I was doing it because 0:45:10.120 --> 0:45:12.640 I think there were a couple of different uh choking 0:45:12.680 --> 0:45:15.719 points in the in the data transfer. So I would 0:45:15.760 --> 0:45:19.799 say something and then about three or four seconds later, 0:45:19.840 --> 0:45:22.840 I would hear myself say it. So I'm responding to 0:45:22.880 --> 0:45:26.000 something that someone is saying right now, but then three 0:45:26.080 --> 0:45:28.680 or four seconds later there I'm starting to hear it. 0:45:28.800 --> 0:45:31.759 So there'd be a gap between when I'm talking when 0:45:31.760 --> 0:45:34.120 they're talking, so you know, they might stop ask me 0:45:34.160 --> 0:45:36.520 a question and stop, I don't answer, then they started 0:45:36.520 --> 0:45:38.320 asking if I'm there, and that's when my answer is 0:45:38.360 --> 0:45:40.920 starting to hit and I got a little muddled. But 0:45:41.120 --> 0:45:44.640 on a fast connection, it's pretty cool. Yeah. And then 0:45:44.719 --> 0:45:48.759 of course, right after all this happened, Facebook had an amazing, 0:45:48.880 --> 0:45:53.040 awesome announcement. Yeah, they're video chat, which is uh partnership 0:45:53.080 --> 0:45:55.720 with Skype and allows you one on one video chat 0:45:55.800 --> 0:45:59.560 with another person on Facebook. It's a difference system, right 0:45:59.600 --> 0:46:01.880 Like you can use a hangout and just talk to 0:46:01.920 --> 0:46:03.480 one person if you want to, but you can also 0:46:03.600 --> 0:46:06.040 talk to a group of people, whereas with Facebook video 0:46:06.120 --> 0:46:08.440 chat right now, as a little recording of this podcast, 0:46:08.480 --> 0:46:12.680 it's a one on one scenario. So um, Facebook may 0:46:12.719 --> 0:46:17.160 not necessarily see Google Plus as an immediate competitor, but 0:46:17.560 --> 0:46:20.760 you can bet that the company will be watching Google 0:46:20.800 --> 0:46:24.000 Plus to see what features are added next. I mean, uh, 0:46:24.040 --> 0:46:27.120 and I don't think Google Plus is what Google would 0:46:27.160 --> 0:46:29.560 consider a finished product even you know, assuming that the 0:46:29.600 --> 0:46:32.600 features are all robust, they open the floodgates and anyone 0:46:32.680 --> 0:46:36.680 can join. You have two million people on there. I 0:46:36.719 --> 0:46:40.359 think they will continue to add new features and new functionality. 0:46:40.400 --> 0:46:44.759 For example, something that I don't know expect might be 0:46:44.800 --> 0:46:48.800 a strong word, but seriously, wouldn't be surprised if it happened. 0:46:48.880 --> 0:46:52.840 Would be games, which has been a huge driver of 0:46:52.920 --> 0:46:57.640 traffic to Facebook. Adding adding other kinds of in uh 0:46:57.680 --> 0:47:01.000 insight apps like that I think would would not be 0:47:01.040 --> 0:47:02.880 a shock at all. Just opening up an a p 0:47:03.040 --> 0:47:05.680 I would be pretty And you already of starting to 0:47:05.719 --> 0:47:09.000 see some extensions for for Google Chrome that are specifically 0:47:09.040 --> 0:47:12.000 designed for Google Plus, things like allowing you to reply 0:47:12.120 --> 0:47:15.200 specifically to the person who posts. We didn't talk about that. 0:47:15.239 --> 0:47:17.720 When you do post, people can leave comments on that post, 0:47:17.800 --> 0:47:20.440 just like in Facebook on a wall wall post or Twitter, 0:47:20.680 --> 0:47:23.800 people can reply, can plus one the comment Yeah, plus 0:47:23.840 --> 0:47:26.040 one is kind of like voting up or a comment 0:47:26.160 --> 0:47:28.120 or saying that you know, I really like this, so 0:47:28.239 --> 0:47:30.600 I'm adding a plus one to it. It changes the 0:47:30.680 --> 0:47:35.200 way it displays on other people's streams. Um, but yeah, 0:47:35.200 --> 0:47:37.240 we should. We should mention that quickly. Like in Twitter, 0:47:37.400 --> 0:47:41.160 you can reply to someone and in general, only you 0:47:41.280 --> 0:47:44.160 and the other person are really seeing that conversation unless 0:47:44.200 --> 0:47:47.239 other people are following both of you. Right, so if 0:47:47.280 --> 0:47:50.520 I reply to Chris, people only Chris and I would 0:47:50.560 --> 0:47:54.319 see that reply unless other people are following both of us. Uh. 0:47:54.360 --> 0:47:56.719 Now with Google Plus it's more like Facebook and that 0:47:56.840 --> 0:47:58.920 I can make a comment and then someone else can 0:47:58.960 --> 0:48:01.279 comment on that. Anyone following me can comment on that 0:48:01.320 --> 0:48:03.960 if I've made it public and then or and you 0:48:04.000 --> 0:48:06.560 can disable comments as well if you don't want people 0:48:06.600 --> 0:48:10.240 commenting on something, um and then other folks can comment 0:48:10.320 --> 0:48:12.360 and it becomes a discussion. In fact, I've had a 0:48:12.400 --> 0:48:14.880 few discussions like that pop up on Google Plus recently. 0:48:14.880 --> 0:48:17.520 I said, wouldn't it be cool to use the hangout 0:48:17.520 --> 0:48:20.560 feature to have a D and D game where everyone 0:48:20.600 --> 0:48:22.279 in the hangout is playing D and D. You have 0:48:22.320 --> 0:48:24.279 one person being the dungeon master and everyone else is 0:48:24.520 --> 0:48:26.719 playing a character. And you could do that. You could 0:48:26.719 --> 0:48:30.279 have people from other states log in and play the 0:48:30.320 --> 0:48:33.759 game at the same time. So or any other game 0:48:33.800 --> 0:48:35.759 for that matter. Yeah, you could really do that with 0:48:35.800 --> 0:48:38.520 any game, although once you started getting into things like 0:48:38.560 --> 0:48:40.760 board games or whatever, it gets a little more complex. 0:48:41.480 --> 0:48:44.240 Some games you wouldn't be able to do, like like poker, 0:48:44.719 --> 0:48:46.399 because how are you going to deal with all those 0:48:46.400 --> 0:48:49.440 cards in You know, you have to have a video 0:48:49.480 --> 0:48:52.000 poker game going at the same time, which makes them 0:48:52.000 --> 0:48:55.840 a little more complicated anyway. Yeah, any any role playing 0:48:55.880 --> 0:48:58.359 type game like that. Yeah, board games you could do too, 0:48:58.400 --> 0:49:00.840 if everyone had a copy of the board game. Yeah, 0:49:01.080 --> 0:49:02.600 and you had to All right, you have to move 0:49:02.680 --> 0:49:06.480 me forward three squares? Is everyone on Baltic Avenue? Good? 0:49:07.160 --> 0:49:11.000 Next turn. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of this 0:49:11.080 --> 0:49:14.240 tex Stuff Classic episode right after we take this break. 0:49:23.640 --> 0:49:26.280 Another feature we should talk about very quickly is Sparks. 0:49:26.560 --> 0:49:29.960 Oh yeah, Sparks. Sparks is kind of like Google Reader 0:49:30.000 --> 0:49:33.440 in a way. You tell Google Plus what what topics 0:49:33.480 --> 0:49:35.880 you are interested in, and then Google Plus kind of 0:49:36.200 --> 0:49:41.360 cultivates a news feed based on whatever interests you've told 0:49:41.360 --> 0:49:44.799 it apply to you. So, for example, I've said technology, 0:49:45.080 --> 0:49:48.719 if I go to my Sparks Technology UH feed, then 0:49:48.760 --> 0:49:51.839 I will see news articles that are related to technology 0:49:51.880 --> 0:49:55.759 within Sparks. Um. That's kind of an feature that people 0:49:55.800 --> 0:49:57.719 have noticed and said, well, you know, it's it's just 0:49:57.760 --> 0:50:00.520 not fully baked yet. So that's something I expect that 0:50:00.600 --> 0:50:04.520 we'll see more uh evolution in in the near future 0:50:04.600 --> 0:50:07.080 for Google Plus. Yeah. I think the idea behind the 0:50:07.200 --> 0:50:10.160 name Sparks is it's supposed to spark a conversation. So 0:50:10.480 --> 0:50:14.279 you see a cool story, you post it to your stream, 0:50:14.360 --> 0:50:16.320 and then you and your friends have a conversation with it, 0:50:16.400 --> 0:50:20.400 and I it does that, but you know it's I 0:50:20.440 --> 0:50:23.479 in looking through the sparks that I've added to my picks. 0:50:23.560 --> 0:50:25.400 Oh yeah, if you if you add one, say you 0:50:25.440 --> 0:50:28.040 add technology to your Google Plus account, you'll see it 0:50:28.080 --> 0:50:32.440 on the left hand navigation. Um, along with you know 0:50:32.640 --> 0:50:35.160 things like your you know lists for your circles and 0:50:35.480 --> 0:50:37.680 you know the other the other features people who are 0:50:37.719 --> 0:50:40.040 available for Google Chat that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, 0:50:40.120 --> 0:50:44.319 so um so it's available to you whenever. Um. But yeah, 0:50:44.320 --> 0:50:46.600 I just want to go in there. I just find 0:50:46.640 --> 0:50:51.399 a few stories and it's not really a very long list. 0:50:51.440 --> 0:50:54.400 It's not very compelling yet. Uh, the idea is there, 0:50:54.440 --> 0:50:56.400 I mean the I I see nothing wrong with the idea, 0:50:56.400 --> 0:50:58.920 and I think they need to add something. And I 0:50:58.920 --> 0:51:01.600 think this is Google's bonds to the trend of people 0:51:01.640 --> 0:51:05.080 getting information and news through stuff like Facebook. Like their 0:51:05.120 --> 0:51:08.040 friends shares an article that's that that their friend thought 0:51:08.120 --> 0:51:09.880 was really cool, and then you see it on Facebook 0:51:09.880 --> 0:51:11.600 and you're like huh, and you click on the link 0:51:11.640 --> 0:51:12.920 and you read the article and you're like, yeah, that 0:51:13.000 --> 0:51:15.560 was interesting. Google's kind of taking that and trying to 0:51:15.600 --> 0:51:19.520 incorporate it. Directly into the social experience, so that you 0:51:19.560 --> 0:51:22.200 aren't you know you aren't. You don't have to move 0:51:22.360 --> 0:51:25.399 very far away from Google in order to do it. Also, 0:51:25.400 --> 0:51:28.719 we should mention that Google Plus has a notifications bar 0:51:28.800 --> 0:51:31.399 that tells you when people have interacted with your your 0:51:31.480 --> 0:51:34.640 Google Plus account in some way, maybe that they started 0:51:34.640 --> 0:51:36.840 to follow you, and maybe that they left a message 0:51:36.920 --> 0:51:39.799 for you. They they've mentioned you in a comment, they've 0:51:39.800 --> 0:51:43.080 applied to one of your status is. Uh. The cool 0:51:43.160 --> 0:51:46.960 thing is, if you're on any Google site, so including 0:51:47.040 --> 0:51:50.160 Google dot com just the web browser, if you're signed 0:51:50.160 --> 0:51:52.719 into Google, that notification bar is at the top of 0:51:52.760 --> 0:51:55.520 your screen and you can actually look at those notifications 0:51:55.600 --> 0:51:59.200 in real time on that that page and respond to 0:51:59.239 --> 0:52:02.320 them without are actually traveling to your Google Plus account. 0:52:02.840 --> 0:52:05.040 So I might be on Google dot com doing research 0:52:05.120 --> 0:52:07.520 for an article and I see a notification thing pop up, 0:52:07.520 --> 0:52:09.360 and I'm like, come, I wonder what's going on? Click 0:52:09.400 --> 0:52:11.520 on it. See that someone's commented on one of my pages. 0:52:11.600 --> 0:52:13.839 I want to comment back. I can type in a 0:52:13.840 --> 0:52:17.600 comment on that notifications page and send it back without 0:52:17.640 --> 0:52:21.359 ever actually going to my Google Plus uh profile. Right, 0:52:22.320 --> 0:52:24.960 and um, we also need to talk really briefly at 0:52:25.000 --> 0:52:28.720 least about photo albums. Okay, I was going to add 0:52:28.760 --> 0:52:31.560 to about about that that you can also turn on 0:52:31.719 --> 0:52:34.080 email if you really want you and that I get 0:52:34.160 --> 0:52:36.080 a bad idea if you have a lot of followers, 0:52:36.360 --> 0:52:38.040 because you will start getting but you could you can 0:52:38.120 --> 0:52:41.239 do the same thing as you would with Twitter or 0:52:41.520 --> 0:52:44.319 or Facebook and say yes, I want to know, send 0:52:44.320 --> 0:52:47.640 me an email every time, or or text message every 0:52:47.640 --> 0:52:50.320 time someone you know fill in the blank. It's pretty 0:52:50.400 --> 0:52:53.760 much everything sends me a message, gives me a plus one. 0:52:53.880 --> 0:52:55.839 You know, there's a laundry and choose. You can choose 0:52:55.840 --> 0:52:58.560 which ones give you alerts and which ones don't. And 0:52:58.800 --> 0:53:02.000 uh for for an average user, it may make sense 0:53:02.000 --> 0:53:04.759 to have email notifications turned on for me because I 0:53:04.800 --> 0:53:08.600 have people following me. It would be it would overwhelm 0:53:08.680 --> 0:53:11.480 my email. Yeah I would. And I learned very quickly, 0:53:11.560 --> 0:53:14.040 like day two of Google Plus, to turn all that 0:53:14.120 --> 0:53:17.359 off for me. Um. And And you know, I know 0:53:17.400 --> 0:53:19.839 that there are people who are far more popular than I, 0:53:20.239 --> 0:53:22.200 and I can only imagine what their email would have 0:53:22.239 --> 0:53:25.880 looked like, like like Veronica Belmont or Felicia Day or Will Wheaton. 0:53:26.080 --> 0:53:27.799 You know, some of these people who have way more 0:53:27.920 --> 0:53:31.040 visibility than I do. I'm sure their accounts would have 0:53:31.040 --> 0:53:34.719 been overwhelmed in a second. But yeah, please go into 0:53:34.719 --> 0:53:36.319 photo albums. I do have one other thing I want 0:53:36.320 --> 0:53:39.000 to mention before we finish. Okay, so yeah, photo albums 0:53:39.400 --> 0:53:45.520 are using Picasa, Google's photo web photo album service as 0:53:45.600 --> 0:53:51.160 the foundation. Although Picasa will undergo a name change pretty soon. 0:53:51.200 --> 0:53:53.520 I think that's gonna be Google Plus Photos or something 0:53:53.560 --> 0:53:58.400 like that. So, but it's it's the same service, so Picasa. Normally, 0:53:58.640 --> 0:54:00.959 if you sign up for a Picasa account, which really 0:54:01.000 --> 0:54:02.799 you can do if you have a Google account your 0:54:03.000 --> 0:54:06.640 you can create a Picassa account. You are normally given 0:54:06.680 --> 0:54:10.080 one gigabyte of storage space for photos, which is not 0:54:10.160 --> 0:54:14.000 really that much um. But with Google Plus, if you 0:54:14.080 --> 0:54:17.160 upload photos through Google Plus, it will automatically resize your 0:54:17.200 --> 0:54:20.160 photos so that the longest edge of your photo is 0:54:20.200 --> 0:54:23.160 two thousand, forty eight pixels long, all right, will automatically 0:54:23.200 --> 0:54:25.560 resize it. So whatever the long st edges gets reduced 0:54:25.600 --> 0:54:28.480 to that size and at that resolution, it does not 0:54:28.680 --> 0:54:32.359 count against your one gigabyte of storage space. So if 0:54:32.400 --> 0:54:36.200 you upload through Google Plus, you effectively have unlimited digital 0:54:36.239 --> 0:54:41.440 photos storage. I tested this and I have a photo 0:54:41.480 --> 0:54:45.239 album on my profile that has one thousand photos in it. 0:54:45.280 --> 0:54:47.440 That's the maximum number of photos you can have in 0:54:47.480 --> 0:54:51.040 a photo album. Now, you can have unlimited photo albums 0:54:51.080 --> 0:54:54.160 in Google Plus, so you're not limited that way. It's 0:54:54.200 --> 0:54:56.440 just that each individual photo album can only have a 0:54:56.440 --> 0:54:59.120 thousand files in it. And uh I recently took a 0:54:59.160 --> 0:55:01.440 vacation in Europe, and so I have a thousand photos 0:55:01.440 --> 0:55:04.520 from my vacation in Europe in that photo album. And 0:55:04.560 --> 0:55:06.560 I probably have about two thousand more photos I need 0:55:06.600 --> 0:55:10.440 to upload from that vacation, so they'll be the most impressive. 0:55:10.640 --> 0:55:13.320 There'll be at least three photo albums of my vacation 0:55:13.440 --> 0:55:17.560 photos on Google Plus. Now you've got to keep in 0:55:17.560 --> 0:55:20.640 mind it's gonna be a lower resolution than your original file, assuming, 0:55:20.640 --> 0:55:23.680 of course, you took it with a decent digital camera. 0:55:24.280 --> 0:55:27.080 Uh So, the photo that you get on Google Plus 0:55:27.200 --> 0:55:29.880 is not going to be suitable for printing out, for example, 0:55:30.000 --> 0:55:32.520 or enlarging. Um So you will need to find some 0:55:32.560 --> 0:55:35.640 other method of storage if you want to keep the 0:55:35.680 --> 0:55:40.040 photo at the original resolution. Um The thing I wanted 0:55:40.080 --> 0:55:44.480 to talk about was your Google profile. Yes, if you want. 0:55:44.600 --> 0:55:46.719 If this sounds interesting to you, you don't already have 0:55:46.840 --> 0:55:50.080 a profile on Google Plus. You'll need a Google account 0:55:50.120 --> 0:55:52.640 and this is you know, the account works for everything 0:55:52.719 --> 0:55:56.840 from Google Plus to Google Docs and all the other things. Um, 0:55:56.880 --> 0:56:00.279 if you already have a profile and you've been and 0:56:00.480 --> 0:56:04.600 keeping it private, UM, that's going to change one way 0:56:04.680 --> 0:56:08.440 or the other by July thirty one. I'm not sure 0:56:08.480 --> 0:56:10.799 exactly when this is going to publish. This may put 0:56:10.880 --> 0:56:13.880 some of you at a really tight deadline. UM. I 0:56:13.920 --> 0:56:15.800 don't think a lot of people know this, but Google 0:56:15.840 --> 0:56:18.880 has plans right now, as if they're recording this podcast, 0:56:18.920 --> 0:56:22.160 to delete any profile that is not public by July 0:56:22.320 --> 0:56:25.400 thirty one. And you have to have a name attached 0:56:25.400 --> 0:56:29.200 to your profile. So yeah, so you can just create 0:56:29.280 --> 0:56:34.520 profiles like multiple profiles and not have an identity associated 0:56:34.560 --> 0:56:37.200 with that profile right now. It doesn't necessarily have to 0:56:37.239 --> 0:56:41.920 be your exact name. However, people I have heard reports 0:56:41.920 --> 0:56:47.360 that people with made up names have been questioned by Google, 0:56:48.120 --> 0:56:52.359 um as they might on on Facebook. Um, you know, 0:56:52.400 --> 0:56:54.080 they they want to make sure I guess that a 0:56:54.120 --> 0:56:56.360 real human is behind it and they're not fooling around. 0:56:56.400 --> 0:56:59.080 But uh yeah, I mean this this might cause some 0:56:59.160 --> 0:57:01.160 issues because I know one of the people things that 0:57:01.200 --> 0:57:03.919 people complain about about Facebook is that, you know, hey, 0:57:04.000 --> 0:57:05.920 I want to I want to keep this between my 0:57:06.000 --> 0:57:07.920 close friends, the people I know in real life, and 0:57:07.960 --> 0:57:10.000 my family. You know, I don't want it to be 0:57:10.080 --> 0:57:12.600 out there for everybody to see. And this is no 0:57:12.680 --> 0:57:15.240 longer going to be an option. The thing is, maybe 0:57:15.239 --> 0:57:18.120 you say, well, I've had a Google account for ten 0:57:18.200 --> 0:57:22.720 years now, I have Google account's been around that long anyway, Um, 0:57:22.960 --> 0:57:25.360 I've had a Google account for some time now, and 0:57:25.720 --> 0:57:28.360 you know, I, you know, I guess I'll change my 0:57:28.480 --> 0:57:31.160 name on Google Plus. What if you do that, it 0:57:31.240 --> 0:57:34.760 changes it across your entire profile. Um, So if you 0:57:34.800 --> 0:57:38.200 want to rename your Google profile Horatio, your Google Plus 0:57:38.200 --> 0:57:42.800 profile Horatio T. Wiggle Bottom, then people who you send 0:57:42.880 --> 0:57:46.160 email to on Gmail will also see that and they 0:57:46.200 --> 0:57:49.360 may not realize that that's you, and then and they 0:57:49.400 --> 0:57:54.360 make fun of you. Yes, it's not necessarily so that's 0:57:54.400 --> 0:57:56.920 the That's the thing. I don't know. Uh, it's it's 0:57:56.920 --> 0:57:59.040 sort of unclear to me whether they mean, you know, 0:58:00.120 --> 0:58:02.200 we will delete your profile, meaning we will delete your 0:58:02.320 --> 0:58:05.080 entire Google account, or whether they mean there will be 0:58:05.160 --> 0:58:08.640 nothing public about this account at all. The the the 0:58:08.800 --> 0:58:10.960 what they call the profile itself is what they're just 0:58:10.960 --> 0:58:13.120 talking about. And that's still unclear to me as of 0:58:13.520 --> 0:58:16.000 right this minute. But yeah, I have the feeling they're 0:58:16.000 --> 0:58:19.040 talking about the entire account and and I mean the 0:58:19.040 --> 0:58:21.760 whole point of this is it's a you know, to 0:58:21.880 --> 0:58:24.960 let you connect with other people. So sure, keeping it 0:58:25.040 --> 0:58:27.440 private means that no one can connect with you. Yes, 0:58:27.480 --> 0:58:29.640 but this this is happening regardless of whether you have 0:58:29.640 --> 0:58:33.120 a Google Plus account or not. Right, So yeah, but 0:58:33.200 --> 0:58:36.120 that's because the Google Plus is on the foundation of 0:58:36.160 --> 0:58:39.680 that profile exactly. So it's it's force that to happen. 0:58:39.800 --> 0:58:42.240 The profile is the bottom of the pyramid is the problem. 0:58:42.320 --> 0:58:45.760 So um yeah, so it's it's that's a concern some 0:58:45.800 --> 0:58:49.160 people have, um, a concern I have. And again this 0:58:49.240 --> 0:58:51.680 is not necessarily the concern of the average user, but 0:58:51.720 --> 0:58:54.560 it is for people like Chris and myself and for 0:58:55.120 --> 0:58:58.280 people more notable than us. Is that people can create 0:58:58.520 --> 0:59:02.920 um the you know, fake accounts or or accounts, uh, 0:59:03.320 --> 0:59:06.920 accounts claiming to be people and it's not really that person. Well, 0:59:07.000 --> 0:59:09.440 you know. One of the big things is, uh, this 0:59:09.560 --> 0:59:12.080 first couple of weeks of Google Plus was that Mark Zuckerberg, 0:59:12.160 --> 0:59:14.640 the founder of Facebook, at a Google Plus profile, and 0:59:14.640 --> 0:59:16.200 they were pretty sure it was him because it was 0:59:16.240 --> 0:59:19.040 a photo no one had actually seen of him before, 0:59:19.200 --> 0:59:23.240 and the people he had in his circles were Facebook executives. 0:59:23.360 --> 0:59:26.440 And then thousands of people followed him. Yes, as a 0:59:26.480 --> 0:59:28.360 matter of fact, he was at one point, I don't 0:59:28.360 --> 0:59:31.120 know if he still is, uh, the most followed person 0:59:31.160 --> 0:59:33.880 on Facebook. I heard a report that he actually left 0:59:34.240 --> 0:59:38.120 he tightened up his privacy settings. Really, Mark Zuckerberg, you 0:59:38.200 --> 0:59:40.800 tightened up your privacy settings. I thought you said no 0:59:40.840 --> 0:59:42.680 one wanted to do that. Good thing. It was really 0:59:42.720 --> 0:59:46.760 easy to find, yes, Um, but and I've also heard 0:59:46.800 --> 0:59:49.640 reports as of today that he may have actually deleted 0:59:49.680 --> 0:59:52.680 that account. But there are also dozens of other Mark 0:59:52.720 --> 0:59:54.840 Zuckerberg's on there now. Yes, and I know that, like 0:59:54.920 --> 0:59:57.840 Neil Gaiman, he had a Google Plus account for a while, 0:59:57.880 --> 1:00:00.680 and then he made the conscious decision to to cut 1:00:00.680 --> 1:00:03.040 it out. He said it was too much noise and 1:00:03.360 --> 1:00:06.720 it didn't work for him, so he left. And then, um, 1:00:06.760 --> 1:00:09.120 he got irritated because he started getting lots of emails 1:00:09.120 --> 1:00:11.400 from people trying to add him into circles. But because 1:00:11.400 --> 1:00:14.120 he had left Google Plus, he was getting those invites 1:00:14.120 --> 1:00:18.120 through email. As opposed through Google Plus. So he deleted 1:00:18.120 --> 1:00:22.560 his account and then got deluged by email. Um. Yeah, 1:00:22.600 --> 1:00:25.560 there's the thing I was saying is that there should 1:00:25.600 --> 1:00:27.680 be our Hopefully there will be some point a way 1:00:27.760 --> 1:00:30.880 to verify that you are who you say you are, 1:00:31.000 --> 1:00:34.000 kind of like Twitter has verified accounts. It would be 1:00:34.080 --> 1:00:36.680 nice to have a verified account through Google Plus. Because 1:00:37.000 --> 1:00:41.240 I noticed last night that I had a quote unquote 1:00:41.240 --> 1:00:46.560 celebrity following me named Selina Gomez. Uh yeah, so uh 1:00:46.600 --> 1:00:49.720 the Beeb's main squeeze and um, and so I'm thinking, 1:00:49.760 --> 1:00:52.040 why is the Beeb's main squeeze following me? And so 1:00:52.080 --> 1:00:54.880 I decided to do a little investigative work and noticed 1:00:54.920 --> 1:00:59.520 that it was not truly her. People who had gone 1:00:59.520 --> 1:01:02.240 into a hang out with this person said, no, this 1:01:02.280 --> 1:01:04.040 isn't really silly to go as it's a it's a 1:01:04.080 --> 1:01:07.480 fake account from a fan, which you know, whether you 1:01:07.520 --> 1:01:10.520 believe that's ethical or unethical is beside the point. The 1:01:10.520 --> 1:01:12.760 point being that you know, you kind of want to 1:01:12.800 --> 1:01:15.120 know the people you're talking to are the people that 1:01:15.280 --> 1:01:18.120 you think they are, right. You don't want to be misled. 1:01:18.360 --> 1:01:21.280 You may have a genuine interest in following someone who 1:01:21.440 --> 1:01:24.720 is either a celebrity or other notable figure. But uh, 1:01:24.960 --> 1:01:26.440 you know, you don't mind the fact that they're not 1:01:26.480 --> 1:01:28.480 following you. You just want to get that information. Let's 1:01:28.480 --> 1:01:32.320 say it's a politician or it's someone, uh like a 1:01:32.360 --> 1:01:35.040 notable authority in a particular field that you're interested in. 1:01:36.320 --> 1:01:38.080 You don't want to be following a fan of that 1:01:38.120 --> 1:01:41.120 person because you're not actually getting the information you wanted. 1:01:41.600 --> 1:01:44.200 So that's that's an issue with Google Plus. As of 1:01:44.240 --> 1:01:47.440 the recording of this podcast. Yeah, there there are apparently 1:01:47.480 --> 1:01:50.120 corporate accounts on the way. So yeah, right now, when 1:01:50.280 --> 1:01:52.160 that happens, there will be a house stuff works dot 1:01:52.160 --> 1:01:54.920 com account, yeah, tech stuff account, and I applied for 1:01:54.960 --> 1:01:59.120 a tech stuff account, yeah, yesterday, So we'll see see 1:01:59.120 --> 1:02:01.720 if that happens. I haven't received any information back about 1:02:01.720 --> 1:02:04.160 that yet, but that's that's coming, you know. Yeah, because 1:02:04.240 --> 1:02:06.480 right now, it's supposed to just be people. That's why 1:02:06.560 --> 1:02:08.600 Google Plus was designed to do. And they said, you know, 1:02:08.720 --> 1:02:11.120 we understand there are corporations that want to use this 1:02:11.240 --> 1:02:16.440 as a way of connecting with their customers, um, their partners, etcetera. 1:02:16.760 --> 1:02:19.880 But it's just not designed for that. They're working on 1:02:19.920 --> 1:02:23.000 that right now. They being the Google Plus team. Yeah. 1:02:23.120 --> 1:02:25.440 I think I think that they have the Google has 1:02:25.440 --> 1:02:27.760 done a much better job with this than it did 1:02:27.800 --> 1:02:32.120 with Wave and and definitely Buzz and definitely or Cut. 1:02:32.640 --> 1:02:35.840 Um is it a Facebook killer? Well, I can't stand 1:02:35.960 --> 1:02:40.080 the Blank killer thing. I think it can definitely grow 1:02:40.160 --> 1:02:44.000 into a Facebook rival and that will be good. I 1:02:44.320 --> 1:02:46.479 think the competition will be good for Facebook. They don't 1:02:46.520 --> 1:02:49.680 really have at this point a serious competitor. My Space 1:02:49.800 --> 1:02:53.440 was probably the last one, and it's at least a 1:02:53.520 --> 1:02:56.360 serious competitor and most the world. I there are a 1:02:56.360 --> 1:03:00.040 few places where things like or Cut are actually I 1:03:00.080 --> 1:03:05.920 do yeah, but um but yeah, I mean worldwide. Uh, 1:03:06.080 --> 1:03:11.960 Facebook is still a pretty big um nat juggernaut. Y 1:03:14.120 --> 1:03:17.160 million users is huge. Yeah. Yeah, So I think I 1:03:17.200 --> 1:03:21.320 think that given time and some added features and some refinement, 1:03:21.360 --> 1:03:24.280 I think Google Plus is off to a very good start. Yeah. 1:03:24.280 --> 1:03:26.960 And it may very well just be a complementary service. 1:03:27.040 --> 1:03:29.840 It may never be one that replaces Facebook, because that 1:03:29.920 --> 1:03:32.640 wasn't necessarily what it was intended to do. It may 1:03:32.680 --> 1:03:34.720 be that you go to Facebook for certain kinds of 1:03:34.760 --> 1:03:36.840 interaction and you go to Google Plus for other kinds 1:03:36.840 --> 1:03:39.800 of interaction, and there's nothing wrong with that. No, I 1:03:39.840 --> 1:03:42.440 don't think so. Um, we'll see. I know there are 1:03:42.440 --> 1:03:44.160 a lot of people who are talking about the fact 1:03:44.160 --> 1:03:45.920 that they're going to just drop Facebook. In fact, I've 1:03:45.960 --> 1:03:47.720 seen a lot of people who have changed their profile 1:03:47.760 --> 1:03:49.960 pictures to say I have moved and have the g 1:03:50.080 --> 1:03:53.600 Plus logo in there, which is cute. Oh and I 1:03:53.600 --> 1:03:55.960 was gonna say about the clicks behavior. Let's finish off 1:03:55.960 --> 1:03:58.440 with this because we are running along. But the clicks 1:03:58.560 --> 1:04:00.800 behavior on Google Plus ice all a lot of people, 1:04:00.880 --> 1:04:03.560 and I assume most of it was joking about how 1:04:03.760 --> 1:04:05.800 you know, because they joined early, they thought it would 1:04:05.800 --> 1:04:08.280 be cool to have a Google Plus badge to show 1:04:08.320 --> 1:04:10.360 that you were one of the original Google Plus beta 1:04:10.440 --> 1:04:13.360 testers before it went public, and that this would set 1:04:13.400 --> 1:04:16.200 you apart. And uh, I happened to be of the 1:04:16.320 --> 1:04:18.600 I mean, I jokingly said that would be awesome, but 1:04:18.720 --> 1:04:20.560 I honestly think that would be a bad idea because 1:04:20.560 --> 1:04:22.720 it would discourage people. It would it would encourage a 1:04:22.760 --> 1:04:25.720 sense of clickishness and saying like I'm superior to you 1:04:25.800 --> 1:04:29.120 because I managed to get an invite to this social network, which, 1:04:29.160 --> 1:04:31.160 by the way, getting an invite to a social network 1:04:31.760 --> 1:04:35.120 doesn't mean anything. It just means you've gotta invite or 1:04:35.160 --> 1:04:38.720 a work around, which means you know, equally nothing. Um. 1:04:40.080 --> 1:04:43.440 So I would say that that's kind of would discourage 1:04:43.440 --> 1:04:45.520 new people from coming in because they're like, oh, well, 1:04:45.520 --> 1:04:49.439 this is like a closed off club. And also right 1:04:49.440 --> 1:04:52.959 now it's more or less a boys club according to UH. 1:04:53.000 --> 1:04:57.320 To mash double um, there was a a survey done 1:04:57.320 --> 1:04:59.280 to see or a kind of an estimation done to 1:04:59.320 --> 1:05:02.760 see how many men versus women are on Google Plus. Um. 1:05:02.840 --> 1:05:05.320 For a while, it looked like women made up about 1:05:05.320 --> 1:05:08.240 ten of the entire Google Plus population, and when you 1:05:08.280 --> 1:05:14.680 think we're potentially over ten million users, that's significant. According 1:05:14.720 --> 1:05:20.840 to Social Statistics, that percentage is now closer to UH 1:05:21.040 --> 1:05:24.560 seventy three point seven percent, So there are more females 1:05:24.560 --> 1:05:27.000 on Google Plus than there were before, but still it's 1:05:27.040 --> 1:05:31.080 overwhelmingly a male population. So we'll all have to see. 1:05:31.400 --> 1:05:33.120 For Google Plus to really survive, we're gonna have to 1:05:33.160 --> 1:05:38.000 see that expand beyond just the dudes. Yeah, all right, 1:05:38.200 --> 1:05:41.040 we are wrapping this up. Like we said, there's probably 1:05:41.040 --> 1:05:43.080 a billion other things we could say about Google Plus 1:05:43.160 --> 1:05:44.840 right now, not to mention the fact that by the 1:05:44.880 --> 1:05:47.400 time this publishes things may have changed. Uh, if you 1:05:47.440 --> 1:05:50.080 guys have the ability to access it, search us out, 1:05:50.320 --> 1:05:53.600 or at least search me out. Chris. Chris is really 1:05:53.640 --> 1:05:57.160 good at at at maintaining a nice low profile. I 1:05:57.400 --> 1:05:59.360 am one of those people that prefers to keep my 1:05:59.720 --> 1:06:02.560 so full networking down to people actually know in real life. 1:06:02.760 --> 1:06:05.000 And I certainly mean no offense to any of our listeners. No, 1:06:05.120 --> 1:06:07.680 it's there's nothing wrong with that. I I am a 1:06:07.760 --> 1:06:11.360 very extroverted kind of guy who I'm like, look at me. 1:06:11.960 --> 1:06:16.400 So it's just really different personalities. None of us noticed. Yeah, 1:06:16.560 --> 1:06:19.920 you can't tell by the way I dominate every single conversation. Um, 1:06:19.960 --> 1:06:22.000 anyway you can. You can search up, search us out, 1:06:22.120 --> 1:06:26.200 feel free, and you know, depending on how long it 1:06:26.280 --> 1:06:27.840 is from the time we published this, we may be 1:06:27.920 --> 1:06:29.360 active on it, or we may have given up on 1:06:29.400 --> 1:06:34.200 Google Plus. And that was the two for one classic 1:06:34.240 --> 1:06:36.840 episode of the decline of Google Plus and also the 1:06:36.960 --> 1:06:39.520 very beginning of Google Plus. As it would turn out, 1:06:40.560 --> 1:06:43.440 Google Plus would not die in two thousand and fifteen. 1:06:43.880 --> 1:06:46.040 It's stuck around a few more years. In fact, it 1:06:46.160 --> 1:06:50.080 was still a thing as late as April two thousand nineteen. 1:06:50.160 --> 1:06:54.120 That's when Google officially shut it down and it joined 1:06:54.200 --> 1:06:58.280 the likes of many other Google products that the company 1:06:58.320 --> 1:07:03.920 would launch and then subsequently abandoned later on. So we 1:07:04.000 --> 1:07:07.400 take off our hats to Google Plus we hardly knew. 1:07:07.480 --> 1:07:11.040 Ye Um, I don't know that I would recommend going 1:07:11.040 --> 1:07:16.240 to Google Plus over other social networks, largely because Google 1:07:16.280 --> 1:07:20.040 has some of the same issues with the harvesting of 1:07:20.120 --> 1:07:23.840 personal data that I take issue with on other social 1:07:23.920 --> 1:07:27.480 network platforms. So um, I'm not certain that I would 1:07:27.520 --> 1:07:30.920 even say it would have been a good alternative to Facebook. Uh. 1:07:30.960 --> 1:07:34.920 These days, I'm pretty much off all the social media networks, 1:07:34.920 --> 1:07:38.000 with the exception of Twitter for tech Stuff. Don't really 1:07:38.080 --> 1:07:41.120 use it personally anymore, but still use it for tex stuff. 1:07:41.320 --> 1:07:44.200 So with that in mind, if you have any suggestions 1:07:44.200 --> 1:07:46.800 for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, 1:07:47.160 --> 1:07:49.920 you can reach out to me on Twitter. The handle 1:07:49.920 --> 1:07:52.680 for the show is tech Stuff H s W and 1:07:52.720 --> 1:08:01.880 I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is 1:08:01.880 --> 1:08:05.040 an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I 1:08:05.160 --> 1:08:08.760 Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 1:08:08.880 --> 1:08:10.880 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.