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Speaker 1: Get in tech with Technology with tex Stuff from hosfors

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland and this is a little bit of a

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Speaker 1: solo episode. It's an update as well as at the

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Speaker 1: end of this episode, I will play a classic episode

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Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, but I've got a lot to talk

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Speaker 1: about before we get to the classic episode. And it's

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Speaker 1: all about a sad story, something that I got to

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Speaker 1: watch from beginning to end in my career as a podcaster.

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Speaker 1: So back in July two thousand eleven, Chris Palette, my

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Speaker 1: former co host, and I did an episode about Google Plus.

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Speaker 1: So in case you somehow have missed out on what

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Speaker 1: Google Plus is, it's Google's answer to social platforms like Facebook.

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Speaker 1: It's a place where you can share with specific circles

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Speaker 1: of people. You can create circles based on your relationships,

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Speaker 1: so that you share things with specific circles like communities

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Speaker 1: or co workers, family members, or even the general public.

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Speaker 1: And it's not limited to just those. It was a

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Speaker 1: grand experiment when it first began, but here's the thing

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Speaker 1: about experiments, they don't always work out. So back in

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Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, the service was still in beta, and

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

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Speaker 1: not come out of beta when Chris and I did

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Speaker 1: the episode, but since then the service opened up, there

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Speaker 1: was this whole brewhaha where it got linked to YouTube

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Speaker 1: caused a real stir with a policy about using your

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Speaker 1: official real name rather than a handle, which later the

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Speaker 1: company backed off of. And also recent changes in the

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Speaker 1: product have prompted some journalists to say it's in the

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Speaker 1: midst of death throws, so you can have your little

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Speaker 1: moment of silence if you like. But I'm not ready

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Speaker 1: to call it completely dead just yet. I just think

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Speaker 1: of it as mostly dead. All right, Let's talk about

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Speaker 1: what happened, And I have to mention that Google Plus,

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Speaker 1: as of this recording is not dead, and it may

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Speaker 1: be that all those predictions of it going away are premature,

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Speaker 1: or it could just be that you know what's on

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Speaker 1: borrow time. If you're interested in the original episode in

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Speaker 1: which Chris and I talked about Google Plus, I'm adding

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Speaker 1: that to the end of this part, so I'll talk

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Speaker 1: about what's happened since then, and then if you want

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Speaker 1: to go in the time machine, you can listen to

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Speaker 1: the second half of the episode. And Chris and I

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Speaker 1: will talk more about what Google Plus was like back

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Speaker 1: before it even came out of beta. We were so

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Speaker 1: young back then. You'll get to hear how excited we

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Speaker 1: were about the platform and how they were planning on

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Speaker 1: it to be a challenge on Facebook, and even then

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Speaker 1: I was making the point that it had a long

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Speaker 1: way to go if it were to ever really be

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Speaker 1: a threat. Meanwhile, Mashable has a really great piece on

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Speaker 1: the rise and fall, although maybe I would just call

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Speaker 1: it the debut and fall of Google Plus. According to

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Speaker 1: the article, google Plus was largely worn out of fear.

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

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Speaker 1: that Facebook would make Google irrelevant or at least heard

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Speaker 1: its growth potential. So around, it was clear that social

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Speaker 1: platforms were really taking off, and people were sharing and

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

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Speaker 1: that more people were skipping what Google considered to be

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Speaker 1: an important step, which was where you would use Google

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: to us, and we ultimately are the real products of Google.

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Speaker 1: So this was considered to be a bad thing if

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Speaker 1: Facebook was going to eat into these numbers, and a

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: social experiments before. Google Wave was one those, and Google

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Speaker 1: Buzz was another. If you're a longtime fan of tech Stuff,

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Speaker 1: you might know that Chris and I both really liked

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Speaker 1: Google Wave a lot. We used it to build out

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Speaker 1: our live shows when we were experimenting with live streaming

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: while we were doing a show, But we couldn't figure

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: had much staying power. They all eventually went away, including

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Speaker 1: Google Wave, So the best you could hope for was

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

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Speaker 1: would find their way into other Google products. Like Gmail

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: drama within Google. According to mash Double, google Plus at

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: would be held together by the connective tissue that is

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

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Speaker 1: It combined Google Talk, which sometimes was also known as

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

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

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Speaker 1: Google Hangouts, all under the Hangouts umbrellas, so all of

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Speaker 1: these became collectively known as Google Hangouts. Hangouts had previously

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Speaker 1: been known as the video chat service that was launched

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Speaker 1: with Google Plus, and now that also included text messaging,

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Speaker 1: so really it was anyway besides email al where you

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Speaker 1: would get in touch with other people who had these

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Speaker 1: accounts now. Gondatra announced at the Google Io event there

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Speaker 1: would be a total of forty one updates to the

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Speaker 1: Google Plus service, and it included tweaks to photos and

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Speaker 1: videos and how large they would be within a Google

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Speaker 1: Plus screen. Also new animations that users could use automatic

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Speaker 1: photo enhancements. This was kind of fun. I remember taking

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Speaker 1: a picture of a snowy landscape and Google automatically animated

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Speaker 1: snowflakes falling across the picture. But there was a lot

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Speaker 1: more of that than just those examples. Google also that

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Speaker 1: year made a very controversial decision to tie together YouTube

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Speaker 1: and Google Plus accounts that people absolutely hated. The integration

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Speaker 1: effort required YouTube users to use a Google Plus account

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Speaker 1: to leave comments, and because of Google's policies with names

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Speaker 1: on accounts, this meant people more often than not had

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Speaker 1: to post under their actual names, and it also prompted

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Speaker 1: owners of YouTube channels to change their handle to their

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Speaker 1: true name. Now, the name debacle was really a big

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Speaker 1: deal because some people wanted anonymity, or as much as

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Speaker 1: it that as they can manage, particularly when just using YouTube.

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Speaker 1: Others had an online persona that was separate from their

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Speaker 1: real life identity, and making the switch would be confusing

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Speaker 1: and perhaps even damaging to their online brand. There were

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Speaker 1: plenty of legitimate reasons why people didn't like the idea

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Speaker 1: of having to use their their birth name or real name,

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Speaker 1: as well as plenty of reasons that aren't terribly legitimate,

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Speaker 1: like the desire to troll other people while not being

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Speaker 1: held responsible for that action. But the move may have

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Speaker 1: been motivated by the desire to make YouTube comments a

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Speaker 1: less volatile experience. So in other words, if you are

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Speaker 1: attached to your real name, maybe you'd be less likely

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Speaker 1: to be a jerk face on YouTube. Anyone who has

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Speaker 1: seen a name various comment threads on Facebook knows this

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Speaker 1: is not necessarily the case, but I guess it was

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Speaker 1: a hope. But it also seemed like it was a

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Speaker 1: membership drive to get more people to sign up for

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Speaker 1: Google Plus accounts. If you wanted to play in the

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Speaker 1: YouTube space, you had to have a Google Plus account,

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Speaker 1: so that didn't go over so well. In two thousand

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Speaker 1: and fourteen, in April, Vic Gundotra, the man behind Google Plus,

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Speaker 1: would announce his departure from the company, and that prompted

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Speaker 1: a lot of news sites to essentially say that Google

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Speaker 1: Plus was dead, although it seems to have been continuously

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Speaker 1: shambling on ever since its death, so perhaps it's reports

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Speaker 1: of its death have been greatly exaggerated. David Besbrus took

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Speaker 1: over as the head of Google Plus and promised that

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Speaker 1: the company was committed to support the product for a

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Speaker 1: really long time, but six months later Google replaced him

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Speaker 1: with Bradley Horowitz, who's another executive at Google. Two thousand

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Speaker 1: fifteen current year, Google spins off photos into its own app,

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Speaker 1: so it's no longer wrapped up with Google Plus. The

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Speaker 1: photos on Google Plus We're one of the big selling points,

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Speaker 1: especially among photographers. It was considered to be a superior

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Speaker 1: tool by many two things like the Facebook Google or

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Speaker 1: Facebook Photo app. So the Google Plus Photos app was

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Speaker 1: considered to be pretty good, and the fact that Google

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Speaker 1: is spinning it off from Google Plus maybe an indication

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Speaker 1: that Google Plus is kind of living on borrowed time.

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Speaker 1: On August first, two thousand fifteen, Google shut down the

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Speaker 1: Google Plus version of photos, switching to the independent app instead.

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Speaker 1: The new app is pretty cool and contains features like

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Speaker 1: image recognition, which makes image searching really interesting. Uh. In

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

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Speaker 1: that's within photos, so that way, when you search for photos,

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Speaker 1: even if they haven't been meta tagged, often the image

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Speaker 1: search can give you some pretty good results. Occasionally can

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Speaker 1: give you some hilariously wrong results. It is still a

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Speaker 1: fallible system. Google is also in the process of removing

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Speaker 1: the requirement to link Google Plus and YouTube accounts together,

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Speaker 1: which is pretty much an admission that the initiative was

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Speaker 1: not a good idea. In fact, they pretty much said

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

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Speaker 1: and say specifically that YouTube and Google Plus integration was

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

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Speaker 1: unquote real name was a real mistake, but the implication

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Speaker 1: was there. So soon you'll only need a Google account,

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: that just that Google account Google Plus, they could, but

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: open to the public, stick a round. Check this out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: podcast about it now in self defense before too many

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

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

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Speaker 1: Google Plus. In case you didn't read the title, we're

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Speaker 1: talking about Google Plus. But I want to add a

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

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Speaker 1: Plus is in a a beta a rapidly expanding beta program,

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Speaker 1: uh and could undergo massive changes and short amounts of time.

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Speaker 1: So anything we talked about today may very well have

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Speaker 1: be different by the time this podcast goes live, although

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Speaker 1: I don't I don't imagine things changing so significantly that

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Speaker 1: they don't apply at all, but it may be that

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Speaker 1: there are some subtleties that we are not going to

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Speaker 1: cover because they will have emerged between the time we

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Speaker 1: record this in the time it publishes. Because frankly, that's

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Speaker 1: that's true of a good two thirds of our podcast

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Speaker 1: anytime we don't talk about something in history. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: but with with something like this in particular, when it's

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Speaker 1: in a beta format and a lot of people are

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Speaker 1: testing it out. Um, and not only that, but the

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Speaker 1: team behind it is listening to feedback and incorporating feedback

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Speaker 1: into their changes. You have a rapidly evolving service that's

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Speaker 1: going on here. So even though we might record something

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Speaker 1: about say Facebook, and sure maybe some things will get

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Speaker 1: weeked in the Facebook uh service between the time we

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Speaker 1: recorded the time we published, it might be minor. But

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Speaker 1: with something like this, where it's truly experimental and people

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Speaker 1: are implementing changes at a rapid pace, the change it's

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Speaker 1: more noticeable. Yes. That being said, now that we've got

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Speaker 1: the disclaimer on the way, let's talk about Google Plus. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So one of my favorite descriptions of Google Plus came

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Speaker 1: courtesy of Molly Wood from c Net, who said, google

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Speaker 1: Plus is like you are at this, uh, this really

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Speaker 1: fancy party and you're in a V I P section

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Speaker 1: of the party and there are only a few people there,

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Speaker 1: and everyone's excited to be there, and everyone's talking about

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Speaker 1: being at the party, and that's all that's happening. That's

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Speaker 1: that's definitely an exaggeration, and it's also paraphrasing, so that's

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Speaker 1: not a direct quote. Molly would put it much more succinctly.

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Speaker 1: But and it's it's also changed in the last couple

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Speaker 1: of days, right. But but early on, if you were

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Speaker 1: one of the few people who got into Google Plus,

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Speaker 1: I was very fortunate in that I managed to get

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Speaker 1: invite uh and and joined pretty pretty early on. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it turns out I know a lot of people in

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Speaker 1: the tech business. Um. But if you if you were

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Speaker 1: in there early on, it felt like the people who

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Speaker 1: were there were all these mostly tech and geek culture folks.

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Speaker 1: So you had a lot of people who are from

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Speaker 1: tech companies, including folks who are actually from Google, which

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Speaker 1: makes sense their product, right. You had people from other

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Speaker 1: big companies stuff like Twitter or Facebook even we'll get

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Speaker 1: into that. And then you had a lot of tech journalists,

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Speaker 1: so people like Leo Laporte, tom merritt Um later on.

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Speaker 1: Molly Wood and Brian Tong have seen it. Um, I

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Speaker 1: as actor who's a good friend of mine. He's he

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Speaker 1: was also on there pretty early on. You had these

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Speaker 1: folks who were kind of populating it, so it felt

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

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Speaker 1: network that had been designed specifically for this tech geek world. Oh,

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Speaker 1: you also had some geek celebrities, and I say geeks

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Speaker 1: reason that geeks like me tend to think of them

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Speaker 1: as amazing celebrities. So Felicia Day will weaken those kind

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Speaker 1: of folks. Um, So it kind of felt like a

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Speaker 1: social network built for geeks. Now that's gradually changing us.

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Speaker 1: More and more people join in, and we're starting to

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Speaker 1: slowly skewed toward a more quote unquote normal population. I

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Speaker 1: use normal just in the sense of average as opposed

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Speaker 1: to geeks are not normal. Yeah, and and I feel

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Speaker 1: compelled to point out that again, like a number of

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Speaker 1: topics on the show, this is one of those things

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Speaker 1: that has been anticipated for quite some time. Um. It's

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Speaker 1: hard to tell a lot of these things too, things

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Speaker 1: like the Apple iPad and Google Plus and things like

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Speaker 1: this that people say, oh, well, you know, Google's working

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Speaker 1: on a social network that's aimed to take down Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and they talk about it for months and months and

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Speaker 1: sometimes years, and you start going, yeah, sort of like

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Speaker 1: Spotify coming to the Night States, which also just recently happened,

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Speaker 1: but for for a long time. Again, this is one

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Speaker 1: of those things that I've heard a lot of technicalists

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Speaker 1: called tech unicorns. Yeah, these are like the white iPhone

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

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Speaker 1: was a tech unicorn for a long time. These are

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Speaker 1: streaming iTunes service, which is still Yeah, these are things

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Speaker 1: that everyone quote unquote knows is coming, but it hasn't

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Speaker 1: arrived yet and it maybe years before we ever get

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Speaker 1: to it. And soever. Yeah, some of these are some

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Speaker 1: of these turned into vaporware, right, tech unicorn vaporware. The

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Speaker 1: relationships pretty tight, Yeah, Duke Nukelen forever long time tech unicorn.

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Speaker 1: We will withhold commentary on what actually eventually published. So

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: to watch over time. You know, why say something, Well, no,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: ivory tower where products come out. But it's a one

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: it won't make us completely happy because we will be

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

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

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Speaker 1: is not gonna change just for a few people. But yeah,

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: it the way they did because they were trying to

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Speaker 1: avoid overloading their servers um and so what they were

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Speaker 1: doing was they were releasing it to a few people

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Speaker 1: at a time. And when I say a few, a

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Speaker 1: few to most of us would be you know, ten people,

434
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:27,879
Speaker 1: but you know, a few to Google was you know,

435
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:30,720
Speaker 1: a few hundreds, a few thousand at a time. And

436
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:33,960
Speaker 1: uh so people were going crazy the first few days

437
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 1: after the launch looking for an invite to the same service. Now,

438
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 1: it also makes it seem really exclusive. Yeah, and of

439
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:42,879
Speaker 1: course the more yeah, the more exclusive something is, the

440
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:45,239
Speaker 1: more people want to be in that because people want

441
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:47,919
Speaker 1: to be part of an exclusive group. And uh, I

442
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:49,919
Speaker 1: mean it's just natural, right you see, you see the

443
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 1: cool click of kids, and you want to be in

444
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:54,159
Speaker 1: that click. And once you're in that click, you're like,

445
00:24:54,160 --> 00:24:57,639
Speaker 1: this is awesome. And yeah, I don't object to us

446
00:24:57,680 --> 00:24:59,479
Speaker 1: letting in maybe one or two other people who are

447
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 1: kind of cool. Well, but let's not go crazy and

448
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:04,440
Speaker 1: let everyone in, because then we don't have a click anymore. So,

449
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 1: uh and we can get into sort of the click

450
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 1: ish behavior that I've noticed on Google Plus. Not again,

451
00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:12,080
Speaker 1: this is really really early on in Google Plus. I

452
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:14,080
Speaker 1: don't expect that this will last long. There's gonna be

453
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:17,440
Speaker 1: a big change as more people join um. And also

454
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:19,359
Speaker 1: there were reports that within a couple of weeks of

455
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 1: Google Plus launching, they were already possibly as many as

456
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:25,080
Speaker 1: ten million people on it. And at the time we're

457
00:25:25,119 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 1: recording this podcast, which is again just a couple of

458
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 1: weeks after Google Plus launched, they expect it to be

459
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 1: up to twenty million by uh in a in a

460
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:36,719
Speaker 1: couple of days from the recording of this podcast. So

461
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 1: if you're looking for let's go ahead and get this

462
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:41,879
Speaker 1: answer out of the way. If you're looking for Google

463
00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:44,879
Speaker 1: Plus to knock off Facebook right away, it's not going

464
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:49,400
Speaker 1: to happen because they're talking twenty million people out off

465
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:54,119
Speaker 1: million for Facebook. So the law, the the long term

466
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:57,720
Speaker 1: answer to that is maybe. But right now, you know,

467
00:25:57,800 --> 00:26:00,680
Speaker 1: there's no threat whatsoever. And I don't think Google would

468
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:04,200
Speaker 1: claim that Google Plus is meant to replace Facebook. In fact,

469
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 1: that kind of leads us into what is Google Plus

470
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:09,840
Speaker 1: because we talked a lot about the the popularity, but

471
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:13,400
Speaker 1: we haven't really even discussed anything about the actual service.

472
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:17,480
Speaker 1: There are some similarities to other social networks in fact,

473
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,440
Speaker 1: there's there are similarities to other Google products. Yeah, and

474
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:22,600
Speaker 1: and you will notice if you have used things like

475
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 1: Google Buzz or Google Wave, you'll see little similarities here

476
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:28,399
Speaker 1: and there in Google Plus, and you'll notice like, Okay,

477
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:32,159
Speaker 1: they they've sort of incorporated this idea and the lessons

478
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 1: they learned from that into Google Plus. So Google Plus

479
00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 1: is essentially a social network, though it's not just a

480
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:44,720
Speaker 1: social network, And the way it works from a user

481
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 1: perspective is that you will look for people who are

482
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 1: on Google Plus or have yet to join Google Plus,

483
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 1: people you know or people you know of, and you

484
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 1: put those people into circles. Now, these circles are categories

485
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 1: so that you can uh put people into whichever ones

486
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:07,920
Speaker 1: fit best in your life, so that you can direct

487
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:11,160
Speaker 1: messages to those people and read messages from those people

488
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 1: in a way that's more granular than your average Facebook

489
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 1: user is used to. Yeah. Now, I mean, uh, Facebook

490
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:21,119
Speaker 1: fans would probably say, but yeah, I can do that

491
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 1: with Facebook. Well, Um, basically, the big difference here, I

492
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:29,639
Speaker 1: think is that this is like the first thing you

493
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: do when you add a new person to your Google

494
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: Plus account if you want to, uh start following Jonathan

495
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 1: for example, um, you know the very first thing you say, Okay,

496
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: oh I found him. Now what circles do you want

497
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:44,439
Speaker 1: to add him to? And you can add people to

498
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 1: more than one circle, yes, and you can create circles.

499
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:50,359
Speaker 1: You you you start off with some basic circles. I

500
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:55,160
Speaker 1: believe it's friends, family, acquaintances, and followers or following. So

501
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:58,679
Speaker 1: I've got let's say, I've got there's there's Chris, and

502
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: then I have to make a decision to I put

503
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: Chris in my friend's circle. Do I put them in

504
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:04,959
Speaker 1: my acquaintance in the circle, or do I put them

505
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,159
Speaker 1: in my following circle. Chris is not part of my family,

506
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to put them in there. And

507
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 1: I'm all right with that. Yeah. And and it's nice

508
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 1: to note too, especially if you're concerned with issues of privacy.

509
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:17,879
Speaker 1: The person on the other end, the person that you're

510
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:20,520
Speaker 1: adding to your circles, has no idea what circles to

511
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 1: which you have added them, right, So if you put

512
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:25,880
Speaker 1: them in, like, you could create a circle called jerk faces.

513
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I know for a fact that

514
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 1: I'm in that certain and you could put people in

515
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,480
Speaker 1: the jerk faces I know circle and they're not going

516
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 1: to know that that's the They know that you've added them,

517
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 1: but they don't know what circle they are in. So

518
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: I'm probably in a lot of jerk faces. I know circles,

519
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: you're mine and yeah, And now that our listeners have

520
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 1: heard me say this, I imagine a lot of them

521
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: are making jerk faces. I know circles just to put

522
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: me in them. Um. So you've got these circles. Now

523
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 1: you've decided where this your first let's say it's your

524
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 1: first person you're following. So I'm going to use Chris

525
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: as my example. I have decided that I want to

526
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 1: follow Chris. I want to I want to hear what

527
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 1: Chris has to say. I want to be able to

528
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 1: see his updates. I want to be able to see

529
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: his photos. Um. I put him in my acquaintances circle.

530
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 1: All right, So, now, anytime Chris posts and publishes his

531
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: post to either the public, which means everyone can see it,

532
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 1: Everyone on Google Plus can see it, everyone in the

533
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 1: in the world can see it. Um. I mean it's

534
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:27,320
Speaker 1: not restricted to anybody in particular, right right, But now, now,

535
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 1: if Chris has not put me in a circle, and

536
00:29:29,280 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: he publishes it in anything other than public, I'm not

537
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 1: going to see that information. So Chris decides that he

538
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: wants to publish a status update, but he's just gonna

539
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:39,959
Speaker 1: push it to his friends. I am not in his

540
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 1: friend's circle. He types in a status update, he sets

541
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 1: it so that it only publishes to friends he publishes it.

542
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 1: I don't know that Chris has done anything to me.

543
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 1: His his posts still are blank. Now let's say that

544
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 1: Chris does another one where he decides he wants to

545
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 1: talk about an article he edited, and he wants this

546
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 1: he wants the general public to know about this article.

547
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: He sets that status update to public. Suddenly I can

548
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 1: see that particular stats update because they set it to public,

549
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:12,520
Speaker 1: so anyone following Chris can see it. Then let's say

550
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 1: that Chris notices that I'm on Google Plus and he thinks, oh, well,

551
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 1: Jonathan's there. I should add him. I'll add him to

552
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:22,959
Speaker 1: my acquaintances circle. Then Chris publishes a status update and

553
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 1: decides he only wants his acquaintances and friends to see it,

554
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 1: so he sets it so that this stats update goes

555
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 1: out to friends and acquaintances, but not the general public.

556
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:34,360
Speaker 1: I would be able to see that stats update now

557
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 1: if he had not added me to his acquaintance circle

558
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 1: or his friends circle. I would not see it. I

559
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 1: would be unaware that he had updated his status. You

560
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 1: can get so granular that you can create a stats

561
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,560
Speaker 1: update and directed to specific people. So I could create

562
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: a stats update and just send it to Chris alone

563
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 1: and that's the only person who sees it. Or I

564
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: could send it to Chris and maybe three or four

565
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: other people. Let's say that it's three or four people

566
00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 1: who are in different circles. They don't really belong all

567
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: on the same circle, but I think they all need

568
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 1: to see this message. I might just go in and

569
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 1: manually put in each name, and those are the only

570
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:11,280
Speaker 1: people who will see that message. Now, there are some

571
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 1: other things you have to remember, like, uh, there is

572
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 1: the ability to share posts that other people have published.

573
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 1: Now if you you can either turn the sharing on

574
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: or off, so you don't have to. If you turn

575
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 1: it off, that means other people cannot share the same

576
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,560
Speaker 1: message you just posted. If the share is on, your

577
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 1: message that went out to just your friends or just

578
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 1: your acquaintances might suddenly become public. So Chris sends out

579
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 1: a message to just his acquaintances. He has sharing turned on.

580
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 1: He has not turned that off. I read Chris's post

581
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:45,479
Speaker 1: and I think, hey, that's awesome. Everyone who follows me

582
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 1: wants to know that too. I hit share. Suddenly his

583
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 1: message that just went to his acquaintances are now it's

584
00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:55,840
Speaker 1: now out in the wild. So they attributed to me exactly. Yes, yes,

585
00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 1: so people can actually follow it back to Chris now.

586
00:31:57,880 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 1: Granted they're only going to be able to see the

587
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 1: things that Chris is published at that point to the

588
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:04,480
Speaker 1: public if they go directly to that's the weird thing.

589
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 1: They might see a shared post like I share your post,

590
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 1: they see it on my feed, then they follow it

591
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 1: back to your feed and something that post isn't there

592
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 1: because it wasn't set to public when it was originally published.

593
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:18,720
Speaker 1: It gets a little complicated. These are things that the

594
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 1: Google Plus team. They're looking into this stuff to see

595
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: what makes sense and what doesn't make sense, you know,

596
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: sharing versus private. And because you have the ability to

597
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 1: turn sharing off, if you are someone who doesn't want

598
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 1: information to go beyond that group of friends, you can

599
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 1: always turn it off. Now, granted that doesn't stop your

600
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 1: friends from say saying that Jonathan said blah blah blah,

601
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: and there's always you know, copy and paste, right, So yeah,

602
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:46,440
Speaker 1: there are ways around it. But that's the same for

603
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 1: any social network. I sort of count on my friends

604
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: to be lazy enough where they won't I can't share this, yeah, exactly,

605
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: And and really, I mean it's just like real life.

606
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 1: Just like real life, if I come up and I

607
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: tell Chris a secret, there's nothing stop and Chris from

608
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 1: going around and telling other people that secret. I'm sorry,

609
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:06,440
Speaker 1: I told you. I'm sorry. Gee. Yeah, well let's see

610
00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 1: if you ever get any key line pie from me again.

611
00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 1: So so that's the basics behind circles and sharing. And also,

612
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 1: if let's say that when you're actually consuming information, you're

613
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 1: not just that that's sending information out right, publishing information,

614
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 1: you can also look view your stream. That's what Google

615
00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: plus calls your what what Facebook would call the wall,

616
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 1: right or Twitter would call it the feed. So it's

617
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:34,600
Speaker 1: the same sort of concept. It's it's the stream of

618
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 1: information coming from all the people that you put into

619
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 1: your circles. You can view that bicircle. So if you

620
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 1: just have it set to the stream, you're looking at

621
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 1: everything that people you follow are publishing. So all your friends, acquaintances, celebrities.

622
00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 1: You might be following people you know of but you

623
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:55,720
Speaker 1: don't actually know in real life. All the information gets

624
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 1: dumped into the stream. If you want to try and

625
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,959
Speaker 1: filter that out, you can view your stream bicircle. So

626
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:04,800
Speaker 1: I might click friends, and now I'm only going to

627
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 1: see the updates that my friends have published to their stream,

628
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:12,439
Speaker 1: and I've cut everything else out. I can even view

629
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 1: it by incoming incoming. It gets really crazy for people

630
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 1: like me, and more so for people who are even

631
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:26,799
Speaker 1: more even more who are actually famous. Because I have,

632
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 1: as of the recording of this podcast, I have people

633
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:34,680
Speaker 1: following me. If I choose incoming, I see their updates,

634
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:38,359
Speaker 1: so I'm not following them. But by hitting incoming, I'm

635
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 1: seeing everyone who's following me. I'm seeing their updates. So

636
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:45,359
Speaker 1: suddenly it just becomes a wall of information. Um. But

637
00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:48,560
Speaker 1: assuming that everything they've published as public, if they published

638
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 1: stuff to their friends or their acquaintances or whatever, I'm

639
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: not going to see that. I'm only going to see

640
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:55,520
Speaker 1: stuff that in the circles that I've been included in

641
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:58,319
Speaker 1: and in the public posts. But it means that I

642
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:00,439
Speaker 1: get a lot more information from a lot more people,

643
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 1: not just the people I follow right. Um, so in

644
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,239
Speaker 1: a way that can be a lot. Right. So, in

645
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 1: a way, Google Plus is like Facebook and that you

646
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 1: can follow specific people, they can follow you back and you.

647
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:14,520
Speaker 1: In a way, it's like Twitter because in Twitter you

648
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:16,759
Speaker 1: can follow people and just read what they have to

649
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:18,439
Speaker 1: say as long as they don't have their profile set

650
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 1: to private. You can read Twitter posts from people as

651
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,839
Speaker 1: they update. So in Google Plus the same sort of thing.

652
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 1: You don't have to give permission to someone in order

653
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:30,719
Speaker 1: for them to follow you. But people say, well, what

654
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: about privacy. That's where the circles come in. That's where

655
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 1: you can choose which circles see what you have to say.

656
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:39,960
Speaker 1: If you don't want random people seeing what you have

657
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:44,280
Speaker 1: to say, you publish it to a specific circle. Um.

658
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 1: And I mean people compare this product to Twitter and

659
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 1: Facebook all the time. Um, I've seen a constant stream

660
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:58,279
Speaker 1: of that. However, I think it's most like at least

661
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 1: the ones I've tried. Most like another service that caught

662
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 1: on for a little while and Facebook acquired it and

663
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 1: it's sort of languished under Facebook's control, and that's called

664
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 1: friend Feed. If you've ever been to friend feed dot com. Um,

665
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:18,520
Speaker 1: it's very very similar and um, it's it's similar to

666
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 1: I mean, the the feed is somewhat similar to the

667
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 1: wall on on Facebook, but you can um like and

668
00:36:25,239 --> 00:36:29,239
Speaker 1: unlike and make long comments to it. Very much in

669
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 1: the style of friend feed, more so than than Facebook

670
00:36:32,480 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: or Twitter. But it's it's closer probably to Facebook or

671
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 1: friend feed than it is to Twitter. Now, I mean

672
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:41,239
Speaker 1: there is some uh you know that it looks a

673
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:44,880
Speaker 1: little bit more like Twitter. I mean, just the visual

674
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:47,920
Speaker 1: element of it, I would say, um, but there are

675
00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 1: some other advantages to using Google Plus that there aren't um,

676
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 1: And that's probably I think of that more as the

677
00:36:56,840 --> 00:37:01,279
Speaker 1: integration with Android. UM. For example, you know, Jonathan and

678
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:04,320
Speaker 1: I both have Android smartphones, and we can set Google

679
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 1: Plus to automatically post every photo we take with our

680
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 1: phones to Google Plus. I don't think that's such a

681
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 1: good idea. Well, you can set your privacy, you can

682
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 1: set your privacy so that people don't automatically see those photos.

683
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: So so if you if you had it where every

684
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:25,359
Speaker 1: photo you take is automatically published, uh publicly to your

685
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 1: Google Plus account, that seems like a bad idea. Yeah,

686
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:29,839
Speaker 1: I mean, even if even if we let's take let's

687
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:33,240
Speaker 1: take out the bad behavior aspect, right, So bad behavior

688
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:35,840
Speaker 1: that would be a bad idea because suddenly you're publicly

689
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 1: showing everyone bad behavior. So let's say, you know, being

690
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:42,920
Speaker 1: intoxicated or being acting irresponsibly in some way, and you're like, oh,

691
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 1: let's take a picture of this that well that yeah,

692
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:50,239
Speaker 1: that's a bad idea. But let's say it's just a

693
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 1: bad photo, like your fingers in the frame. You know,

694
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 1: you don't want that publishing because they're like, come on,

695
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 1: that's just a I'd rather take that photo again, so

696
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:01,640
Speaker 1: you can set your privacy setting so that those photos

697
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 1: don't automatically go to everybody, you know. I actually do

698
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:07,319
Speaker 1: have instant Published turned on right now because I wanted

699
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:09,600
Speaker 1: to try it out, and it's pretty neat. I didn't

700
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:12,920
Speaker 1: realize that every picture I take on my phone is

701
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:15,440
Speaker 1: instantly published, not just the ones I do through the app,

702
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 1: but through anything. Yeah, so it gets like I've taken

703
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:21,879
Speaker 1: photos to upload to Twitter and Twitter pick. It also

704
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:23,719
Speaker 1: has gone to my Google Plus account. Now I don't

705
00:38:23,719 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 1: have it publishing publicly, so at least people aren't being

706
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:29,800
Speaker 1: flooded by pictures of me trying to take a photo

707
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:31,719
Speaker 1: of one thing and like, no, that's not right either.

708
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:33,640
Speaker 1: Let me change the lighting a little bit and take

709
00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 1: three more of these. But you could do that. Yep.

710
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:40,560
Speaker 1: And um, that isn't to say that that won't that

711
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 1: functionality won't come to other phones. Now there is a

712
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:46,600
Speaker 1: Google Plus app. Actually, there was a Google Plus app

713
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 1: for Android, I would say just about immediately since I

714
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:51,440
Speaker 1: heard about it, I looked for it. There it was

715
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:53,479
Speaker 1: the launch, the launch on the web, and the launch

716
00:38:53,560 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 1: on the phone. In fact, the launch on the phone

717
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:58,280
Speaker 1: gave some people work around to getting into Google Plus.

718
00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:01,399
Speaker 1: Early on, they installed the Google Plus app on their

719
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 1: phone and found that they could bypass the invite system,

720
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:07,960
Speaker 1: and once they try to activate the app on their phone,

721
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:11,440
Speaker 1: it gave them an invite. And there was another workaround

722
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:15,560
Speaker 1: that got you into Google Plus. Um, but those have

723
00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 1: been patched since then. But they've also started opening it

724
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: up to more people too. So I mean, I have

725
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:25,879
Speaker 1: hundreds of invites right now, and I just keep getting more,

726
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:28,560
Speaker 1: and I'm running out of people who I know would

727
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:30,759
Speaker 1: be interested in it, and well, and the personally and

728
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:33,759
Speaker 1: the invite system is not entirely intuitive, No, it's not.

729
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 1: It's not. It's not the easiest thing in the world.

730
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 1: Like when you see the invite system, it's it's easy

731
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: to get a little confused by it. Uh. I guess

732
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 1: we can talk a little bit about some of the

733
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: other features of Google Plus. Well, before we get too

734
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,759
Speaker 1: far away from the the Android app. We have heard

735
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:51,839
Speaker 1: that there is going to be an iOS app that's

736
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:57,239
Speaker 1: the operating system for the Apple I stuff. As of

737
00:39:57,280 --> 00:39:59,440
Speaker 1: the recording of this podcast, it's been submitted, but not

738
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 1: yet a roofed. Yeah, so there. I don't know if

739
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:06,719
Speaker 1: the automatic photo feature will work with those phones, I

740
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 1: you know, and I don't know if there will be

741
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:13,840
Speaker 1: something coming for Windows Phone or or web os. Um,

742
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: we'll see. Yeah, but like a lot of BlackBerry, like

743
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:18,720
Speaker 1: a lot of services and products that we're seeing launch

744
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 1: these days. Uh, it's really effective if you subscribe to

745
00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:26,880
Speaker 1: a particular ecosystem in this case Google's, so using Google

746
00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:31,440
Speaker 1: Plus on Google Chrome and having an Android phone, it works.

747
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:34,280
Speaker 1: I mean, it works really seamlessly because all those products

748
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 1: are coming from the same company. But when you start

749
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:41,440
Speaker 1: mixing and matching, your experience may vary. Yeah. Now there's

750
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:46,120
Speaker 1: another feature, um and uh that that Jonathan and I

751
00:40:46,120 --> 00:40:49,960
Speaker 1: tried out pretty much immediately, and that's called the huddle. Yes, Um,

752
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:53,839
Speaker 1: this is this relates to UH two phones. Yes, So

753
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:58,360
Speaker 1: a huddle is like having a group messaging system on phones.

754
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:01,440
Speaker 1: So everyone who is in a huddle needs to have

755
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 1: uh a phone number attached to their Google Plus account

756
00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 1: or they have to have the the Google Plus app

757
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:10,640
Speaker 1: installed on their their phones. Um. And what you do

758
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 1: is you set it up and you can send out

759
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 1: a message. Let's say that I want to have get

760
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 1: together after work one day and just hang out of

761
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:21,080
Speaker 1: the restaurant and have some appetizers and talk about what's

762
00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 1: been going on in the company. There might be three

763
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: or four people I want to invite, so I add

764
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: all of them to my Google Plus huddle and I

765
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 1: send out a message. That message will go to all

766
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:33,759
Speaker 1: of those people, and then all of those people can

767
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 1: respond to that message and everyone can see each other's responses.

768
00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:40,520
Speaker 1: It becomes kind of like a chat room via text message,

769
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:43,440
Speaker 1: but only among that group of people. And again this

770
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 1: is functionality that reminds me of Google Wave and also

771
00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:54,280
Speaker 1: other services like Beluga. There are group messaging services Beluga,

772
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 1: there are other group messaging services. Chris, give me a

773
00:41:56,760 --> 00:41:58,040
Speaker 1: look and I can tell you wanted to do the

774
00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:02,879
Speaker 1: Bulbous bouffont Beluga, which my wife hates. Um. But the yeah,

775
00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 1: there there are other messaging services group messaging services that

776
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:07,120
Speaker 1: are doing this right now. In fact, a lot of

777
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: them were launching around south By Southwest and we're making

778
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 1: a big, big splash there. Google Huddle is kind of

779
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 1: Google's version of this. Now, that was one of the

780
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 1: workarounds too. If you added someone to a Google Huddle,

781
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 1: then in order for them to be able to use

782
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:25,600
Speaker 1: the Huddle, they were given a link to log into

783
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:28,240
Speaker 1: Google Plus and that's how they ended up getting accounts

784
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:30,759
Speaker 1: even though they didn't have an official invite. Um, and

785
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 1: the invitations at that point had been closed. And yet

786
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: a lot of people found that workaround. Again, that's been

787
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 1: patched since the uh since since it first happened. Took

788
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:42,399
Speaker 1: a couple of days before Google caught on, or maybe

789
00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:44,239
Speaker 1: they caught on, but they let it happen anyway because

790
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:47,880
Speaker 1: they're like, well, this is letting the population base expand,

791
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:51,400
Speaker 1: but it's not expanding at a rate that's outside of

792
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:55,719
Speaker 1: our comfort zone. Yeah yeah, um. And then there's hangouts. Yep,

793
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 1: hangouts are awesome. I haven't tried to hang out yet.

794
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:01,640
Speaker 1: I've tried it and it is It is addicting. So

795
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:05,360
Speaker 1: hangout is a video chat session. You can start a

796
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:08,000
Speaker 1: hangout with specific people if you want to, or you

797
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:10,239
Speaker 1: can start a hangout and just make it public where

798
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 1: anyone who follows you will see the hangout and can join.

799
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 1: And a hangout is you need a webcam and a

800
00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 1: microphone and speakers in order for this to work. Says

801
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:21,040
Speaker 1: you can hear people, they can hear you, and they

802
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:24,640
Speaker 1: can see you, and up to ten people total can

803
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:26,759
Speaker 1: be in a hangout at one time, so it's you

804
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 1: and nine other people max. And the video switching is

805
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:34,800
Speaker 1: very clever. It switches to whomever is speaking at the time.

806
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 1: So if everyone's quiet and I'm talking, then the main

807
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:40,960
Speaker 1: video will be me as I'm chatting. As someone else

808
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:43,400
Speaker 1: starts to talk, the video will switch to that person

809
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:47,520
Speaker 1: and UH the focus changes to them. And if two

810
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,839
Speaker 1: people are talking, whomever is the loudest will have their

811
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 1: video featured as the central video, and so you'll actually

812
00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 1: see uh. If in a full hangout, you'll see one

813
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 1: main screen of the person who's talking, and then you'll

814
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 1: see the other nine miniaturized like thumbnail sized screens below.

815
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 1: And it's all moving, you know, like you're seeing video

816
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:11,239
Speaker 1: from all those feeds at one time. You can get

817
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:16,080
Speaker 1: a little buggy depending upon people's UM data transfer rates.

818
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:18,640
Speaker 1: You know, if you if you're on a slow UH,

819
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:21,280
Speaker 1: if you're not really on a high speed broadband connection,

820
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 1: you're gonna have some problems with this. There'll be some lag. UM.

821
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 1: I was. I was having some really bad lag when

822
00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 1: I was doing it because I think there were a

823
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 1: couple of different UH choking points in the in the

824
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:35,160
Speaker 1: data transfer. So I would say something and then about

825
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 1: three or four seconds later, I would hear myself say it.

826
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 1: So I'm responding to something that someone is saying right now,

827
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: but then three or four seconds later there I'm starting

828
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:48,879
Speaker 1: to hear it. So there'd be a gap between when

829
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:50,920
Speaker 1: I'm talking when they're talking, so you know, they might

830
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 1: stop ask me a question, stop, I don't answer. Then

831
00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: they started asking if I'm there, and that's when my

832
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 1: answer is starting to hit and I got a little muddled.

833
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 1: But on a fast connection, it's pretty cool. Yeah. And

834
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:05,799
Speaker 1: then of course, right after all this happened, Facebook had

835
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 1: an amazing awesome announcement. Yeah, their video chat, which is

836
00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 1: UH partnership with Skype and allows you one on one

837
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 1: video chat with another person. On Facebook. It's a difference system,

838
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 1: right Like you can use a hangout and just talk

839
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:21,040
Speaker 1: to one person if you want to, but you can

840
00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:23,560
Speaker 1: also talk to a group of people, whereas with Facebook

841
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:26,280
Speaker 1: video chat right now as the recording of this podcast,

842
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:30,480
Speaker 1: it's a one on one scenario. So um, Facebook may

843
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:35,040
Speaker 1: not necessarily see Google Plus as an immediate competitor, but

844
00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:38,560
Speaker 1: you can bet that the company will be watching Google

845
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:41,799
Speaker 1: Plus to see what features are added next. I mean, uh,

846
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:44,919
Speaker 1: and I don't think Google Plus is what Google would

847
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 1: consider a finished product even you know, assuming that the

848
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:50,360
Speaker 1: features are all robust, they open the floodgates and anyone

849
00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: can join. You have two hundred million people on there.

850
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:57,279
Speaker 1: I think they will continue to add new features and

851
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 1: new functionality. For example, something that I I don't know

852
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:05,319
Speaker 1: expect might be a strong word, but seriously wouldn't be

853
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:09,399
Speaker 1: surprised if it happened would be games, which has been

854
00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:13,239
Speaker 1: a huge driver of traffic to Facebook. Adding adding other

855
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:17,719
Speaker 1: kinds of in uh insight apps like that I think

856
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:20,160
Speaker 1: would would not be a shock at all. Just opening

857
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:22,640
Speaker 1: up an a p I would be pretty and you

858
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:25,280
Speaker 1: already have starting to see some extensions for for Google

859
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:28,440
Speaker 1: Chrome that are specifically designed for Google Plus, things like

860
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:31,960
Speaker 1: allowing you to reply specifically to the person who posts.

861
00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 1: We didn't talk about that. When you do post, people

862
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 1: can leave comments on that post, just like in Facebook,

863
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:39,240
Speaker 1: on a wall wall post or Twitter, people can reply.

864
00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 1: You can plus one the comment Yeah, plus one is

865
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:44,520
Speaker 1: kind of like voting up or a comment or saying

866
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:46,640
Speaker 1: that you know, I really like this, so I'm adding

867
00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:48,799
Speaker 1: a plus one to it. It changes the way it

868
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:53,320
Speaker 1: displays on other people's streams. Um, but yeah, we should

869
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:55,440
Speaker 1: We should mention that quickly. Like in Twitter, you can

870
00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:59,319
Speaker 1: reply to someone and in general only you and the

871
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:02,359
Speaker 1: other person are really seeing that conversation, unless other people

872
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 1: are following both of you. Right, so if I reply

873
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:08,759
Speaker 1: to Chris, people only Chris and I would see that

874
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:12,120
Speaker 1: reply unless other people are following both of us. Uh.

875
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:14,480
Speaker 1: Now with Google Plus, it's more like Facebook and that

876
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:16,719
Speaker 1: I can make a comment and then someone else can

877
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 1: comment on that. Anyone following me can comment on that

878
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:21,719
Speaker 1: if I've made it public and then or and you

879
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:24,320
Speaker 1: can disable comments as well if you don't want people

880
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:28,040
Speaker 1: commenting on something. Um, and then other folks can comment

881
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 1: and it becomes a discussion. In fact, I've had a

882
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:32,640
Speaker 1: few discussions like that pop up on Google Plus recently.

883
00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:35,280
Speaker 1: I said, wouldn't it be cool to use the hangout

884
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:38,360
Speaker 1: feature to have a D and D game where everyone

885
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:40,239
Speaker 1: in the hangout is playing D and D of one

886
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:42,600
Speaker 1: person being the dungeon master and everyone else is playing

887
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:44,640
Speaker 1: a character. And you could do that. You could have

888
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:48,319
Speaker 1: people from other states log in and play the game

889
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 1: all at the same time. So or any other game

890
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:53,560
Speaker 1: for that matter. Yeah, you could really do that with

891
00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:56,319
Speaker 1: any game, although once you start getting into things like

892
00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:58,520
Speaker 1: board games or whatever, it gets a little more complex.

893
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 1: Some games you would be able to do, like like poker,

894
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 1: because how are you going to deal with all those

895
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:07,200
Speaker 1: cards in You know, you'd have to have a video

896
00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:09,719
Speaker 1: poker game going at the same time, which makes it a

897
00:48:09,680 --> 00:48:13,600
Speaker 1: a little more complicated anyway. Yeah, any any role playing

898
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:16,160
Speaker 1: type game like that. Yeah. Board games you could do too,

899
00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:18,680
Speaker 1: if everyone had a copy of the board game. Yeah,

900
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:20,359
Speaker 1: and you have to all right, you have to move

901
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:24,240
Speaker 1: me forward three squares? Is everyone on Baltic Avenue? Good?

902
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:27,680
Speaker 1: Next turn. Another feature we should talk about very quickly

903
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:31,200
Speaker 1: is sparks. Oh yeah, sparks. Sparks is kind of like

904
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:35,000
Speaker 1: Google Reader in a way. You tell Google Plus what

905
00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:37,759
Speaker 1: what topics you are interested in, and then Google Plus

906
00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:42,960
Speaker 1: kind of cultivates a news feed based on whatever interests

907
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:46,160
Speaker 1: you've told it apply to you. So, for example, I've

908
00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:50,760
Speaker 1: said technology, if I go to my Sparks technology uh feed,

909
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:53,440
Speaker 1: then I will see news articles that are related to

910
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:57,719
Speaker 1: technology within sparks. Um. That's kind of an feature that

911
00:48:57,719 --> 00:48:59,759
Speaker 1: people have noticed and said, well, you know it's it's

912
00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: just not fully baked yet. So that's something I expect

913
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:06,399
Speaker 1: that we'll see more uh evolution in in the near

914
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:09,040
Speaker 1: future for Google Plus. Yeah. I think the idea behind

915
00:49:09,239 --> 00:49:12,080
Speaker 1: the name Sparks is it's supposed to spark a conversation.

916
00:49:12,239 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 1: So you see a cool story, you post it to

917
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,840
Speaker 1: your stream, and then you and your friends have a

918
00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:21,360
Speaker 1: conversation with it. And I it does that, but you

919
00:49:21,400 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 1: know it's I in looking through the sparks that I've

920
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:26,719
Speaker 1: added to my picks. Oh yeah, if you if you

921
00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:29,800
Speaker 1: add one, say you add technology to your Google Plus account,

922
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:34,000
Speaker 1: you'll see it on the left hand navigation um, along

923
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:36,480
Speaker 1: with you know things like your you know lists for

924
00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:39,160
Speaker 1: your circles and you know the other the other features

925
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:42,480
Speaker 1: people who are available for Google Chat that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, so,

926
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:46,520
Speaker 1: um so it's available to you whenever. Um. But yeah,

927
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:48,840
Speaker 1: I just when I go in there, I just find

928
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 1: a few stories and it's not really a very long list.

929
00:49:53,680 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 1: It's not very compelling. Yet, Uh, the idea is there,

930
00:49:56,680 --> 00:49:58,640
Speaker 1: I mean the I I see nothing wrong with the idea,

931
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:01,160
Speaker 1: and I think they need to add something. And I

932
00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:03,840
Speaker 1: think this is Google's response to the trend of people

933
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:07,319
Speaker 1: getting information and news through stuff like Facebook. Like their

934
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:10,319
Speaker 1: friends shares an article that's that that their friend thought

935
00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 1: was really cool, and then you see it on Facebook

936
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:13,839
Speaker 1: and you're like huh, and you click on the link

937
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:15,160
Speaker 1: and you read the article and you're like, yeah, that

938
00:50:15,239 --> 00:50:17,799
Speaker 1: was interesting. Google's kind of taking that and trying to

939
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:21,759
Speaker 1: incorporate it directly into the social experience so that you

940
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:24,439
Speaker 1: aren't you know, you aren't. You don't have to move

941
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:27,640
Speaker 1: very far away from Google in order to do it. Also,

942
00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:30,960
Speaker 1: we should mention that Google Plus has a notifications bar

943
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 1: that tells you when people have interacted with your your

944
00:50:33,680 --> 00:50:36,880
Speaker 1: Google Plus account in some way, maybe that they started

945
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 1: to follow you, and maybe that they left a message

946
00:50:39,160 --> 00:50:42,000
Speaker 1: for you. They they've mentioned you in a comment, they've

947
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:45,319
Speaker 1: applied to one of your status is. Uh. The cool

948
00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:49,200
Speaker 1: thing is if you're on any Google site, so including

949
00:50:49,239 --> 00:50:52,360
Speaker 1: Google dot Com just the web browser. If you're signed

950
00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 1: into Google, that notification bar is at the top of

951
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,720
Speaker 1: your screen and you can actually look at those notifications

952
00:50:57,840 --> 00:51:01,440
Speaker 1: in real time on that that page and respond to

953
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:04,560
Speaker 1: them without ever actually traveling to your Google Plus account.

954
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:07,280
Speaker 1: So I might be on Google dot Com doing research

955
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:09,759
Speaker 1: for an article and I see a notification thing pop up,

956
00:51:09,760 --> 00:51:11,800
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I wonder what's going on? Click on it.

957
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:13,920
Speaker 1: See that someone's commented on one of my pages. I

958
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 1: want to comment back. I can type in a comment

959
00:51:16,760 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 1: on that notifications page and send it back without ever

960
00:51:20,120 --> 00:51:25,240
Speaker 1: actually going to my Google Plus uh profile. Right, and um,

961
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:28,240
Speaker 1: we also need to talk really briefly at least about

962
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:32,200
Speaker 1: photo albums. Okay. I was going to add to about

963
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:35,040
Speaker 1: about that that you can also turn on email if

964
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:37,120
Speaker 1: you really want you and that again a bad idea

965
00:51:37,160 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: if you have a lot of followers, because you will

966
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:40,960
Speaker 1: start getting but you could you can do the same

967
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:44,759
Speaker 1: thing as you would with Twitter or or Facebook and

968
00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 1: say yes, I want to know, send me an email

969
00:51:47,200 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 1: every time or or text message every time someone you

970
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 1: know fill in the blank. It's pretty much everything sends

971
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:56,239
Speaker 1: me a message gives me a plus one. You know,

972
00:51:56,400 --> 00:51:59,080
Speaker 1: there's a laundry choose. You can choose which ones give

973
00:51:59,120 --> 00:52:02,239
Speaker 1: you alerts in which ones don't. And uh. For for

974
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:04,920
Speaker 1: an average user, it may make sense to have email

975
00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 1: notifications turned on for me because I have people following me.

976
00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 1: It would be it would overwhelm my email. Yeah, I would.

977
00:52:12,200 --> 00:52:15,600
Speaker 1: And I learned very quickly, like day two of Google Plus,

978
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:18,719
Speaker 1: to turn all that off for me. Um And and

979
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:20,560
Speaker 1: you know, I know that there are people who are

980
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:23,640
Speaker 1: far more popular than I, and I can only imagine

981
00:52:23,640 --> 00:52:25,880
Speaker 1: what their email would have looked like, like like Veronica Belmont

982
00:52:26,239 --> 00:52:28,840
Speaker 1: or Felicia Day or Will Wheaton, you know, some of

983
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:31,200
Speaker 1: these people who have way more visibility than I do.

984
00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:34,560
Speaker 1: I'm sure their accounts would have been overwhelmed in a second.

985
00:52:35,040 --> 00:52:37,880
Speaker 1: But yeah, please go into photo albums. I do have

986
00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:40,040
Speaker 1: one other thing I want to mention before we finish. Okay,

987
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:45,399
Speaker 1: So yeah, photo albums are using picasa, Google's photo web

988
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:51,360
Speaker 1: photo album service as the foundation, although Picasa will undergo

989
00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:54,239
Speaker 1: a name change pretty soon. I think that's gonna be

990
00:52:54,280 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 1: Google Plus Photos or something like that. So but it's

991
00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 1: it's the same service. So pocas said, normally, if you

992
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 1: sign up for a picassa account, which really you can do.

993
00:53:03,719 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 1: If you have a Google account your you can create

994
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:09,719
Speaker 1: a picassa account. You are normally given one gigabyte of

995
00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:14,800
Speaker 1: storage space for photos, which is not really that much um.

996
00:53:14,840 --> 00:53:17,840
Speaker 1: But with Google Plus, if you upload photos through Google Plus,

997
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:21,120
Speaker 1: it will automatically resize your photos so that the longest

998
00:53:21,280 --> 00:53:24,000
Speaker 1: edge of your photo is two thousand, forty eight pixels long,

999
00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:26,760
Speaker 1: all right, will automatically resize it. So whatever the longest

1000
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:29,839
Speaker 1: edges gets reduced to that size, and at that resolution,

1001
00:53:30,239 --> 00:53:33,440
Speaker 1: it does not count against your one gigabyte of storage space.

1002
00:53:33,960 --> 00:53:36,840
Speaker 1: So if you upload through Google Plus, you effectively have

1003
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:43,000
Speaker 1: unlimited digital photos storage. I tested this and I have

1004
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:46,840
Speaker 1: a photo album on my profile that has one thousand

1005
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:49,160
Speaker 1: photos in it. That's the maximum number of photos you

1006
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:51,799
Speaker 1: can have in a photo album. Now you can have

1007
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:55,680
Speaker 1: unlimited photo albums in Google Plus, so you're not limited

1008
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 1: that way. It's just that each individual photo album can

1009
00:53:58,239 --> 00:54:00,680
Speaker 1: only have a thousand files in it. And uh, I

1010
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:02,719
Speaker 1: recently took a vacation in Europe, and so I have

1011
00:54:02,719 --> 00:54:05,279
Speaker 1: a thousand photos from my vacation in Europe in that

1012
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:08,200
Speaker 1: photo album. And I probably have about two thousand more

1013
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:11,359
Speaker 1: photos I need to upload from that vacation so they'll

1014
00:54:11,400 --> 00:54:14,680
Speaker 1: be most impressive. There'll be at least three photo albums

1015
00:54:14,719 --> 00:54:19,520
Speaker 1: of my vacation photos on Google Plus. Now you've gotta

1016
00:54:19,560 --> 00:54:21,560
Speaker 1: keep in mind it's gonna be a lower resolution than

1017
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:24,279
Speaker 1: your original file, assuming, of course, you took it with

1018
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:27,920
Speaker 1: a decent digital camera. Uh So the photo that you

1019
00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:30,520
Speaker 1: get on Google Plus is not going to be suitable

1020
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:33,920
Speaker 1: for printing out, for example, or enlarging. Um, So you

1021
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:36,439
Speaker 1: will need to find some other method of storage if

1022
00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 1: you want to to keep the photo at the original resolution. UM.

1023
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:45,319
Speaker 1: The thing I wanted to talk about was your Google profile. Yes,

1024
00:54:45,760 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 1: if you want. If this sounds interesting to you, you

1025
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:51,440
Speaker 1: don't already have a profile on Google Plus. You'll need

1026
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:53,680
Speaker 1: a Google account, and this is you know, the account

1027
00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:57,000
Speaker 1: works for everything from Google Plus to Google Docs and

1028
00:54:57,040 --> 00:55:00,120
Speaker 1: all the other things. Um. If you already have of

1029
00:55:00,960 --> 00:55:05,560
Speaker 1: a profile and you've been keeping it private, UM, that's

1030
00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:07,800
Speaker 1: going to change one way or the other by July

1031
00:55:07,920 --> 00:55:11,560
Speaker 1: thirty one. I'm not sure exactly when this is going

1032
00:55:11,600 --> 00:55:13,960
Speaker 1: to publish. This may put some of you in a

1033
00:55:14,000 --> 00:55:16,840
Speaker 1: really tight deadline. UM. I don't think a lot of

1034
00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:19,799
Speaker 1: people know this, but Google has plans right now, as

1035
00:55:19,800 --> 00:55:23,000
Speaker 1: of their recording this podcast, to delete any profile that

1036
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:26,319
Speaker 1: is not public by July thirty one. And you have

1037
00:55:26,400 --> 00:55:30,480
Speaker 1: to have a name attached to your profile, so so

1038
00:55:30,560 --> 00:55:34,000
Speaker 1: you can't just create profiles like multiple profiles and not

1039
00:55:34,120 --> 00:55:38,200
Speaker 1: have an identity associated with that profile. Right now, it

1040
00:55:38,239 --> 00:55:42,960
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily have to be your exact name. However, people

1041
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:46,040
Speaker 1: I have heard reports that people with made up names

1042
00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:51,759
Speaker 1: have been questioned by Google, um as they might on

1043
00:55:51,760 --> 00:55:55,680
Speaker 1: on Facebook. Um, you know, they they want to make

1044
00:55:55,719 --> 00:55:57,440
Speaker 1: sure I guess that a real human is behind it

1045
00:55:57,480 --> 00:56:00,160
Speaker 1: and they're not fooling around. But uh yeah, I mean

1046
00:56:00,200 --> 00:56:02,600
Speaker 1: this this might cause some issues because I know one

1047
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:05,040
Speaker 1: of the people things that people complain about about Facebook

1048
00:56:05,120 --> 00:56:06,960
Speaker 1: is that you know, hey, I want to I want

1049
00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:09,400
Speaker 1: to keep this between my close friends, the people I

1050
00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:11,440
Speaker 1: know in real life, and my family. You know, I

1051
00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:13,840
Speaker 1: don't want it to be out there for everybody to see.

1052
00:56:14,160 --> 00:56:16,000
Speaker 1: And this is no longer going to be an option.

1053
00:56:16,200 --> 00:56:18,520
Speaker 1: The thing is, maybe you say, well, I've had a

1054
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:22,840
Speaker 1: Google account for ten years now. I have Google account's

1055
00:56:22,880 --> 00:56:25,560
Speaker 1: been around him that long anyway, Um, I've had a

1056
00:56:25,560 --> 00:56:28,320
Speaker 1: Google account for some time now, and you know, I,

1057
00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:31,799
Speaker 1: you know, I guess I'll change my name on Google Plus.

1058
00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:34,359
Speaker 1: What if you do that, it changes it across your

1059
00:56:34,480 --> 00:56:38,040
Speaker 1: entire profile. Um so if you want to rename your

1060
00:56:38,040 --> 00:56:43,719
Speaker 1: Google profile Horatio, your Google Plus profile Horatio T. Wiggle Bottom,

1061
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:47,040
Speaker 1: then people who you send email to on Gmail will

1062
00:56:47,080 --> 00:56:49,879
Speaker 1: also see that, and they may not realize that that's you,

1063
00:56:50,120 --> 00:56:54,560
Speaker 1: and then and they make fun of you. Yes, not necessarily,

1064
00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:58,799
Speaker 1: So that's the That's the thing. I don't know. Uh,

1065
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:00,560
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of unclear to me whether they mean,

1066
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:04,040
Speaker 1: you know, we will delete your profile, meaning we will

1067
00:57:04,040 --> 00:57:07,000
Speaker 1: delete your entire Google account, or whether they mean there

1068
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:10,800
Speaker 1: will be nothing public about this account at all. The

1069
00:57:10,520 --> 00:57:12,880
Speaker 1: the the what they call the profile itself, it's what

1070
00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:15,000
Speaker 1: they're just talking about. And that's still unclear to me

1071
00:57:15,040 --> 00:57:18,000
Speaker 1: as of right this minute. But I have the feeling

1072
00:57:18,040 --> 00:57:21,200
Speaker 1: they're talking about the entire account. And then, and I mean,

1073
00:57:21,200 --> 00:57:23,720
Speaker 1: the whole point of this is it's a you know,

1074
00:57:23,920 --> 00:57:27,080
Speaker 1: to let you connect with other people. So sure, keeping

1075
00:57:27,080 --> 00:57:29,680
Speaker 1: it private means that no one can connect with you, Yes,

1076
00:57:29,720 --> 00:57:31,880
Speaker 1: but this this is happening regardless of whether you have

1077
00:57:31,880 --> 00:57:35,600
Speaker 1: a Google Plus account or not. So yeah, but that's

1078
00:57:35,600 --> 00:57:38,480
Speaker 1: because the Google Plus is on the foundation of that

1079
00:57:38,560 --> 00:57:42,120
Speaker 1: profile exactly. So it's it's forced that to happen. The

1080
00:57:42,160 --> 00:57:44,480
Speaker 1: profile is the bottom of the pyramid is the problem.

1081
00:57:44,560 --> 00:57:48,000
Speaker 1: So um yeah, so it's it's that's a concern some

1082
00:57:48,040 --> 00:57:51,240
Speaker 1: people have. Um, it's a concern I have. And again

1083
00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:53,760
Speaker 1: this is not necessarily the concern of the average user,

1084
00:57:53,840 --> 00:57:56,320
Speaker 1: but it is for people like Chris and myself and

1085
00:57:56,640 --> 00:58:00,080
Speaker 1: for people more notable than us. Is that people and

1086
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:05,200
Speaker 1: create um the you know, fake accounts or or accounts, uh,

1087
00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:09,160
Speaker 1: accounts claiming to be people and it's not really that person. Well,

1088
00:58:09,240 --> 00:58:11,680
Speaker 1: you know. One of the big things is, uh, this

1089
00:58:11,760 --> 00:58:14,360
Speaker 1: first couple of weeks of Google Plus was that Mark Zuckerberg,

1090
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:16,880
Speaker 1: the founder of Facebook, at a Google Plus profile and

1091
00:58:16,880 --> 00:58:18,440
Speaker 1: they were pretty sure it was him because it was

1092
00:58:18,480 --> 00:58:21,280
Speaker 1: a photo no one had actually seen of him before,

1093
00:58:21,440 --> 00:58:25,480
Speaker 1: and the people he had in his circles were Facebook executives.

1094
00:58:25,600 --> 00:58:28,680
Speaker 1: And then thousands of people followed him. Yes, as a

1095
00:58:28,680 --> 00:58:30,600
Speaker 1: matter of fact, he was at one point, I don't

1096
00:58:30,600 --> 00:58:33,360
Speaker 1: know if he still is, uh, the most followed person

1097
00:58:33,400 --> 00:58:36,120
Speaker 1: on Facebook. I heard a report that he actually left

1098
00:58:36,480 --> 00:58:40,400
Speaker 1: he tightened up his privacy settings. Really, Mark Zuckerberg, you

1099
00:58:40,440 --> 00:58:43,040
Speaker 1: tightened up your privacy settings. I think you said no

1100
00:58:43,080 --> 00:58:44,919
Speaker 1: one wanted to do that, good thing. It was really

1101
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:48,800
Speaker 1: easy to find yes, Um, but uh and I've also

1102
00:58:48,840 --> 00:58:51,360
Speaker 1: heard reports as of today that he may have actually

1103
00:58:51,400 --> 00:58:54,520
Speaker 1: deleted that account, but um, there are also dozens of

1104
00:58:54,520 --> 00:58:56,880
Speaker 1: other Mark Zuckerberg's on there now. Yes, and I know that,

1105
00:58:57,000 --> 00:58:59,760
Speaker 1: like Neil Gaiman, he had a Google Plus account for

1106
00:58:59,760 --> 00:59:01,760
Speaker 1: a while and then he made the conscious decision to

1107
00:59:01,960 --> 00:59:03,880
Speaker 1: to to cut it out. He said it was too

1108
00:59:03,960 --> 00:59:07,480
Speaker 1: much noise and it didn't work for him, so he left.

1109
00:59:07,520 --> 00:59:10,600
Speaker 1: And then, um, he got irritated because he started getting

1110
00:59:10,640 --> 00:59:13,240
Speaker 1: lots of emails from people trying to add him into circles.

1111
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:15,440
Speaker 1: But because he had left Google Plus, he was getting

1112
00:59:15,440 --> 00:59:19,480
Speaker 1: those invites through email as opposed through Google Plus. So

1113
00:59:19,800 --> 00:59:24,800
Speaker 1: he deleted his account and then got deluged by email. Um. Yeah,

1114
00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:28,000
Speaker 1: There's the thing I was saying is that there should be,

1115
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:30,040
Speaker 1: or hopefully there will be, some point a way to

1116
00:59:30,240 --> 00:59:33,360
Speaker 1: verify that you are who you say you are, kind

1117
00:59:33,400 --> 00:59:36,520
Speaker 1: of like Twitter has verified accounts. It would be nice

1118
00:59:36,560 --> 00:59:39,320
Speaker 1: to have a verified account through Google Plus. Because I

1119
00:59:39,400 --> 00:59:44,000
Speaker 1: noticed last night that I had a quote unquote celebrity

1120
00:59:44,040 --> 00:59:48,960
Speaker 1: following me named Selina Gomez. Uh yeah, so uh the

1121
00:59:48,960 --> 00:59:52,200
Speaker 1: Beeb's main squeeze and um, and so I'm thinking, why

1122
00:59:52,280 --> 00:59:54,400
Speaker 1: is the Beeb's main squeeze following me? And so I

1123
00:59:54,480 --> 00:59:57,320
Speaker 1: decided to do a little investigative work and noticed that

1124
00:59:57,440 --> 01:00:02,040
Speaker 1: it was not truly her. People who had gone into

1125
01:00:02,080 --> 01:00:05,040
Speaker 1: a hangout with this person said, no, this isn't really

1126
01:00:05,040 --> 01:00:06,920
Speaker 1: silly to come as it's a it's a fake account

1127
01:00:06,920 --> 01:00:10,520
Speaker 1: from a fan, which, you know, whether you believe that's

1128
01:00:10,560 --> 01:00:13,280
Speaker 1: ethical or unethical is beside the point. The point being

1129
01:00:13,320 --> 01:00:15,280
Speaker 1: that you know, you kind of want to know the

1130
01:00:15,320 --> 01:00:17,840
Speaker 1: people you're talking to are the people that you think

1131
01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:20,680
Speaker 1: they are, right, You don't want to be misled. You

1132
01:00:20,720 --> 01:00:23,760
Speaker 1: may have a genuine interest in following someone who is

1133
01:00:23,880 --> 01:00:27,400
Speaker 1: either a celebrity or other notable figure, but uh, you know,

1134
01:00:27,440 --> 01:00:29,280
Speaker 1: you don't mind the fact that they're not following you.

1135
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:31,000
Speaker 1: You just want to get that information. Let's say it's

1136
01:00:31,040 --> 01:00:35,480
Speaker 1: a politician or it's someone, uh like a notable authority

1137
01:00:35,520 --> 01:00:38,840
Speaker 1: in a particular field that you're interested in. You don't

1138
01:00:38,880 --> 01:00:41,520
Speaker 1: want to be following a fan of that person because

1139
01:00:41,520 --> 01:00:44,439
Speaker 1: you're not actually getting the information you wanted. So that's

1140
01:00:44,520 --> 01:00:46,960
Speaker 1: that's an issue with Google Plus. As of the recording

1141
01:00:46,960 --> 01:00:50,440
Speaker 1: of this podcast. Yeah, there there are apparently corporate accounts

1142
01:00:50,480 --> 01:00:53,080
Speaker 1: on the way. So yeah, right now, when that happens,

1143
01:00:53,120 --> 01:00:55,160
Speaker 1: there will be a house stuff works dot com account, Yeah,

1144
01:00:55,240 --> 01:00:59,960
Speaker 1: tech stuff account, And I applied for a tech stuff account, yeah, yesterday,

1145
01:01:00,200 --> 01:01:02,880
Speaker 1: So we'll see if that happens. I haven't received any

1146
01:01:02,880 --> 01:01:06,120
Speaker 1: information back about that yet, but that's that's coming, you know. Yeah,

1147
01:01:06,160 --> 01:01:08,600
Speaker 1: because right now, it's supposed to just be people. That's

1148
01:01:08,640 --> 01:01:10,640
Speaker 1: what Google Plus was designed to do. And they said,

1149
01:01:10,680 --> 01:01:12,880
Speaker 1: you know, we understand there are corporations that want to

1150
01:01:12,960 --> 01:01:17,280
Speaker 1: use this as a way of connecting with their customers, um,

1151
01:01:17,280 --> 01:01:21,240
Speaker 1: their partners, etcetera. But it's just not designed for that.

1152
01:01:21,280 --> 01:01:23,880
Speaker 1: They're working on that right now, they being the Google

1153
01:01:23,880 --> 01:01:26,920
Speaker 1: Plus team. Yeah. I think I think that they have

1154
01:01:27,080 --> 01:01:28,920
Speaker 1: the Google has done a much better job with this

1155
01:01:29,120 --> 01:01:33,320
Speaker 1: than it did with Wave and and definitely buzz and

1156
01:01:33,400 --> 01:01:37,400
Speaker 1: definitely work. Um is it a Facebook killer? Well, I

1157
01:01:37,440 --> 01:01:41,400
Speaker 1: can't stand the Blank killer thing. I think it can

1158
01:01:41,520 --> 01:01:45,840
Speaker 1: definitely grow into a Facebook rival and that will be good.

1159
01:01:46,200 --> 01:01:48,480
Speaker 1: I think the competition will be good for Facebook. They

1160
01:01:48,480 --> 01:01:51,560
Speaker 1: don't really have at this point a serious competitor. My

1161
01:01:51,600 --> 01:01:55,640
Speaker 1: Space was probably the last one, and it's at least

1162
01:01:55,640 --> 01:01:58,120
Speaker 1: a serious competitor and most of the world. Yeah, I

1163
01:01:58,200 --> 01:02:00,240
Speaker 1: there are a few places where things like were cut

1164
01:02:00,240 --> 01:02:08,160
Speaker 1: are actually yeah, but um but yeah, I mean worldwide. Uh,

1165
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:16,320
Speaker 1: Facebook is still a pretty big um nat juggernaut yesty

1166
01:02:16,360 --> 01:02:19,400
Speaker 1: million users is huge. Yeah. Yeah, So I think I

1167
01:02:19,440 --> 01:02:23,520
Speaker 1: think that given time and some added features and some refinement,

1168
01:02:23,600 --> 01:02:26,520
Speaker 1: I think Google Plus is off to a very good start. Yeah.

1169
01:02:26,520 --> 01:02:29,200
Speaker 1: And it may very well just be a complementary service.

1170
01:02:29,280 --> 01:02:32,080
Speaker 1: It may never be one that replaces Facebook, because that

1171
01:02:32,160 --> 01:02:34,880
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily what it was intended to do. It may

1172
01:02:34,920 --> 01:02:36,960
Speaker 1: be that you go to Facebook for certain kinds of

1173
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:39,040
Speaker 1: interaction and you go to Google Plus for other kinds

1174
01:02:39,080 --> 01:02:42,040
Speaker 1: of interaction, and there's nothing wrong with that. No, I

1175
01:02:42,080 --> 01:02:44,680
Speaker 1: don't think so. Um, we'll see. I know there are

1176
01:02:44,680 --> 01:02:46,360
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are talking about the fact

1177
01:02:46,400 --> 01:02:48,160
Speaker 1: that they're going to just drop Facebook. In fact, I've

1178
01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:49,960
Speaker 1: seen a lot of people who have changed their profile

1179
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:52,200
Speaker 1: pictures to say I have moved and have the g

1180
01:02:52,280 --> 01:02:55,840
Speaker 1: Plus logo in there, which is cute. Oh and I

1181
01:02:55,840 --> 01:02:58,200
Speaker 1: was gonna say about the clicks behavior. Let's finish off

1182
01:02:58,200 --> 01:03:00,760
Speaker 1: with this because we are running along. But the clickish

1183
01:03:00,800 --> 01:03:03,040
Speaker 1: behavior on Google Plus. I saw a lot of people

1184
01:03:03,080 --> 01:03:05,800
Speaker 1: and I assume most of it was joking about how

1185
01:03:06,000 --> 01:03:08,040
Speaker 1: you know, because they joined early. They thought it would

1186
01:03:08,040 --> 01:03:10,520
Speaker 1: be cool to have a Google Plus badge to show

1187
01:03:10,560 --> 01:03:12,600
Speaker 1: that you were one of the original Google Plus beta

1188
01:03:12,680 --> 01:03:15,600
Speaker 1: testers before it went public and that this would set

1189
01:03:15,640 --> 01:03:18,440
Speaker 1: you apart. And Uh, I happened to be of the

1190
01:03:18,560 --> 01:03:20,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I jokingly said that would be awesome, but

1191
01:03:20,960 --> 01:03:22,800
Speaker 1: I honestly think that would be a bad idea because

1192
01:03:22,800 --> 01:03:24,960
Speaker 1: it would discourage people. It would it would encourage a

1193
01:03:25,000 --> 01:03:27,960
Speaker 1: sense of clickishness and saying like I'm superior to you

1194
01:03:28,000 --> 01:03:31,400
Speaker 1: because I managed to get an invite to this social network, which,

1195
01:03:31,400 --> 01:03:33,360
Speaker 1: by the way, getting an invite to a social network

1196
01:03:34,000 --> 01:03:37,360
Speaker 1: doesn't mean anything. It just means you've gotta invite or

1197
01:03:37,400 --> 01:03:40,960
Speaker 1: a work around, which means you know, equally nothing. Um.

1198
01:03:41,800 --> 01:03:45,160
Speaker 1: The so I would say that that's kind of would

1199
01:03:45,160 --> 01:03:47,760
Speaker 1: discourage new people from coming in because they're like, oh, well,

1200
01:03:47,760 --> 01:03:51,680
Speaker 1: this is like a closed off club and also right

1201
01:03:51,680 --> 01:03:55,200
Speaker 1: now it's more or less a boys club. According to Uh.

1202
01:03:55,240 --> 01:03:59,520
Speaker 1: To mash double Um, there was a a survey done

1203
01:03:59,560 --> 01:04:01,800
Speaker 1: to see or kind of an estimation done to see

1204
01:04:01,840 --> 01:04:05,000
Speaker 1: how many men versus women are on Google Plus. Um,

1205
01:04:05,040 --> 01:04:07,760
Speaker 1: for a while, it like women made up about ten

1206
01:04:08,520 --> 01:04:10,720
Speaker 1: of the entire Google Plus population, and when you think

1207
01:04:10,920 --> 01:04:17,040
Speaker 1: we're potentially over ten million users, that's significant. According to

1208
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:23,720
Speaker 1: Social Statistics, that percentage is now closer to uh seventy

1209
01:04:23,760 --> 01:04:26,920
Speaker 1: three point seven percent, So there are more females on

1210
01:04:26,960 --> 01:04:30,000
Speaker 1: Google Plus than there were before, but still it's overwhelmingly

1211
01:04:30,120 --> 01:04:33,720
Speaker 1: a male population. So we'll all have to see. For

1212
01:04:33,800 --> 01:04:35,600
Speaker 1: Google Plus to really survive, we're gonna have to see

1213
01:04:35,600 --> 01:04:40,760
Speaker 1: that expand beyond just the dudes. Yeah, alright, we are

1214
01:04:40,800 --> 01:04:43,760
Speaker 1: wrapping this up. Like we said, there's probably a billion

1215
01:04:43,800 --> 01:04:45,720
Speaker 1: other things we could say about Google Plus right now,

1216
01:04:46,000 --> 01:04:47,320
Speaker 1: not to mention the fact that by the time this

1217
01:04:47,400 --> 01:04:50,080
Speaker 1: publishes things may have changed. Uh. If you guys have

1218
01:04:50,320 --> 01:04:52,840
Speaker 1: the ability to access it, search us out, or at

1219
01:04:52,920 --> 01:04:56,320
Speaker 1: least search me out. Chris. Chris is really good at

1220
01:04:56,400 --> 01:04:59,880
Speaker 1: at at maintaining a nice low profile. I am one

1221
01:05:00,040 --> 01:05:03,080
Speaker 1: those people that prefers to keep my social networking down

1222
01:05:03,080 --> 01:05:05,520
Speaker 1: to people actually know in real life. And I certainly

1223
01:05:05,600 --> 01:05:07,520
Speaker 1: mean no offense to any of our listeners. No, it's

1224
01:05:07,640 --> 01:05:09,920
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, I I am a

1225
01:05:10,000 --> 01:05:13,560
Speaker 1: very extroverted kind of guy who I'm like, look at me.

1226
01:05:14,200 --> 01:05:18,480
Speaker 1: So it's just really different personality. None of us have noticed. Yeah,

1227
01:05:17,720 --> 01:05:20,280
Speaker 1: I know you can't tell by the way I dominate

1228
01:05:20,320 --> 01:05:23,640
Speaker 1: every single conversation. Um, anyway you can. You can search up,

1229
01:05:23,640 --> 01:05:26,960
Speaker 1: search us out, feel free and uh you know. Depending

1230
01:05:26,960 --> 01:05:29,680
Speaker 1: on how long it is from the time we publish this,

1231
01:05:29,720 --> 01:05:31,120
Speaker 1: we may be active on it, or we may have

1232
01:05:31,160 --> 01:05:33,800
Speaker 1: given up on Google Plus because it's still early days.

1233
01:05:33,800 --> 01:05:36,000
Speaker 1: I mean, we've seen a lot of Google products get

1234
01:05:36,080 --> 01:05:39,520
Speaker 1: initial positive response only to kind of fade away over time.

1235
01:05:39,600 --> 01:05:48,240
Speaker 1: So we'll see if this is one of those. I

1236
01:05:48,280 --> 01:05:53,000
Speaker 1: hope you guys like that episode, that classic throwback. Remember,

1237
01:05:53,040 --> 01:05:55,840
Speaker 1: if you guys have any suggestions for future topics for

1238
01:05:55,880 --> 01:05:58,480
Speaker 1: me to cover or even guests I should have on

1239
01:05:58,520 --> 01:06:00,760
Speaker 1: the show, either as a host or an interview subject,

1240
01:06:01,040 --> 01:06:03,280
Speaker 1: you should let me know. Send me an email the

1241
01:06:03,320 --> 01:06:06,880
Speaker 1: addresses tech stuff at how stuff works dot com, or

1242
01:06:06,960 --> 01:06:10,400
Speaker 1: drop me a line on Tumblr, Twitter or on Facebook

1243
01:06:10,800 --> 01:06:13,840
Speaker 1: to handle it. All three is tech stuff hs W,

1244
01:06:14,120 --> 01:06:23,080
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon for more

1245
01:06:23,080 --> 01:06:25,560
Speaker 1: on this embass into other topics because it has to

1246
01:06:25,600 --> 01:06:35,360
Speaker 1: have works dot Com