Staying on top of it

Social media is an ever changing landscape and in order to stay on top of it you have to employ a variety of methods.

I recently read an article on Mashable (here) that detailed how the pros stay on top of it and felt inspired to throw in my two cents.

1.       Twitter. I find twitter is the best way to stay on top of new news in the digital world.  You can follow large news organizations and professional bloggers for the inside scoop.  Not only that, if you follow the right people you can get some gems that you may have otherwise missed.  Both the primary advantage and disadvantage is that twitter is continually updating; if you’re actively reading it’s a great place to find information, but if you check every few hours or so, great content can become buried.

2.       Google Reader, by far the best RSS reader out there (as the Mashable article states).  I use Google Reader for my favorite blogs, the ones which I do not want to miss a single post.  It’s great because, like twitter, it’s multi-platform.  The only downside (and this goes for Twitter too) is reading on the iPhone or other small screens can kill your eyes.

3.       Podcasts.  I love podcasts because of the ability to listen on the go.  If I’m on a train or bus where I can’t look at my phone because I’m too busy trying to keep my balance, I can still stay current.  The problem that I have with podcasts is trying to download while out-and-about, due to slow data speeds (though that could just be my poor cellular service).

4.       The internet.  I feel like this explains itself.  You go on and read what you want.

5.       Friends.  Ask them.  They may have some information you find relevant, if not just ignore it.

Gamification

Last night after browsing Twitter for a number of hours I decided to move on to something more educational, reading the news.  News.google.com is my most frequented news source; it has a nice array of articles from various papers and websites, and delivers a pleasant variety of opinions.  I expected it to go as most normal nights looking at the news goes: browse articles for about ten minutes then move on to more interesting and less depressing blogs.  This time however, something caught my eye. 

In the middle of the page, hovering over my favorite section, I saw a block of text with what appeared to be a badge.  “No” I thought, “this is the news” I thought, “Google would never do this”.  Oh, was I wrong.  What I saw blocking the technology section was an ad for Google badges or whatever they are calling it.  Before I closed my browser with pure disgust I read the brief description.  It read something like, “You can earn private badges for reading news stories”.  I’m sure there was more to it but I don’t really care.

Social gaming can be fun; I’m fine with Foursquare making checking into places a game, going to physical places and leaving your mark lends itself to social gaming.  There are other apps out there that let you essentially “check in” to television shows that you are watching, I don’t use them but I can understand how it could be fun.  How can checking into a news article have any utility?  I can’t begin to imagine a conversation with my friends where I would say something like “haha, I stole your mayorship of reading the New York Times”.  Does that even make sense?

Google, why would you take something as pure as the news and try to make it into a game?  If I am reading the news I am already doing so for my pleasure; adding bells, badges and whistles won’t change anything.   I’m fine with the constant gamification of everything, but it has to stop somewhere and that somewhere should have been before it got to the news.

Google +1 gets a -1

Why is Google messing with my search results?

I was doing a search the other day for something mundane, I think it was for movie times or fondue; whatever it was, it wasn't of importance.  The important thing is that when my search results came up there was a picture of my friend's face and a blurb that read something like "Bob likes this" or "Bob +1'ed this".  After processing this infomation for a moment I closed my laptop so fast I was scared that I may have broken it.  Is this what we have come to, incorporating social media into search?

I love my friend Bob and all (an no his name is not actually Bob), but I really do not want his opinion when it comes to anything.  He has horrible taste in movies, music, books and fondue.  We have different opinions on almost everything; just because we're friends does not mean that we must have similar interests in everything we do.  If I wanted an opinion I would have called, Facebooked or Tweeted Bob and asked him his advice, not have run a Google search.

Search should be just that, a search: aggregate the data of all Internet users and deliver me the most relevant and useful links!  Social media and search occupy two separate spheres of the Internet: one for communicating with friends, strangers and former high school friends who you have no interest in anymore, and the other for, well... search.

I fear Google becoming an "interests" page where the top search results are only those that one's friends have +1'ed.  I may be jumping the gun here, but Google is a trendsetter and if this is embraced, I fear for where search is headed.

Klout: for better or worse

Imagine yourself in junior high.  Got the braces?  Don't forget the ugly clothing that you thought was cool. Now pretend that your least favorite teacher asked forced you to run for class president and everyday posted the results so the entire school could see it.  That's what Klout is.

A proper description of Klout would be to call it an online social influence tracker.  The service connects to various networks (with your permission) and through its algorithm calculates how influential you are.  Currently the networks are Linked In, Twitter and Facebook, though Klout claims that they are adding more in the future.

The idea of measuring social influence was bound to happen at some point but is it a path we want to go down?  Currently users choose to sign up for Klout and connect their accounts, however once in they can then see the Klout score of all the people they follow and all of their Facebook friends.  It is not hard to imagine a world where Klout score turns into a high school popularity contest where people compete for a higher number.

This is a problem.

Klout score can only be raised by interacting with one's networks.  It would be easy to game the algorithm by spamming your friends and your family with pointless content and becoming what amounts to a comment or reply troll (depending on the social media platform).  My anger lies in the fact that I feel like Klout could really decay the quality of current social networks.  Who wants to wake up with 50 posts from friends on their Facebook wall asking them to comment on whatever nonsense they type?  Not I.

If used for good Klout can be a positive thing, a way for people to measure and reflect upon their own self-worth in the online world.  For now it's too early to tell what will come of Klout, but if it continues to gain popularity we all will be forced to be subjected to its judgmental algorithms.

(Disclaimer): I am a Klout user with a score of 40.

For more information visit Klout.

The "War"

While I do not want to talk about Google+, as long as the chamber is echoing I might as well make sure my voice is one of them.

Let's talk about this "war" that is raging with Google+.  If you are not blind you may have noticed that I placed the word war in apostrophes; I did this because I do not believe there is really a war.

For the last few weeks, since Google+ came out, the blogosphere has been really up-playing the supposed fight between Google and its arch rival (insert name here).  Sometimes the rival is Facebook, which makes sense given the profile creation and maintenance aspect of Google's service, along with similar sharing features.  However, sometimes the Google rival is Twitter, which makes less sense.  I haven't really seen Google+ used for broadcasting or micro-blogging in my experience with it, but hell, why not?

The point is that nobody really knows who Google+'s rival is, it is still way too early to tell its purpose.

Now let's focus on the numbers.  Google+ is at what? About 20 million users.  Let's compare this to Facebook's 750 million users.  This is not a David and Goliath tale, this is Godzilla vs a labradoodle.  Google may be fast growing, but Facebook has a massive advantage that is not going away any time soon.  Not to mention that while people may be adopting Google+, I doubt they will be leaving their already established networks on Facebook.

Until you can use all the features of Google+ through text, it most likely won't really be taking a swing at Twitter either.  With the recent deletion of Google+ business pages, Google seems to be sending the message that it does not want companies broadcasting on their platform, a key feature of Twitter.

I know the people want to see blood, but it's far too early to start throwing around words such as "war" and "fight".  Can we all agree to let Google+ develop into something before we start over-analyzing  and cross-comparing it?  Everyone seems to want to see it succeed, so let's not doom it before it starts.

Enough Google+ already! (Not really)

So, if you're like me you have been reading tech blogs for awhile you have come to the conclusion that nothing else in the tech world exists aside from Google+.

Almost everyday, on almost all of my favorite blogs there is a new post about Google+.  Whether it be Google+ for business, Google deleting Plus accounts or how to market yourself using Google+, it's all the same.

While I acknowledge that since the service is new and still adding thousands people everyday, it makes for an interesting topic, but I do wish the tech-head love affair would end soon.

I can't tell if bloggers have just run out of ideas or if we're all just so excited to finally have a Facebook alternative that it's all we can talk about.

Either way, it's time to move on...

Oh and look out for my next post about Sparks on Google+.  (Irony intended)

Google+ and Business

Tonight while having my post-work beer I decided to pick up my aging mac and read some of my favorite blogs.  While reading, one post caught my eye: Search Engine Land's post about Google and Business accounts (article here).

If you read Mashable or follow any sort of tech news you would have come across an issue Google+ has been having with business accounts.  For some reason Google has decided that it doesn't want businesses creating Plus accounts.  Over time they have been deleting business's pages and according to Search Engine Land's post they have recently started deleting high profile business pages.  Mashable, one of the most popular pages on Google+ was deleted, but then reinstated under the guise of being on a "trial" basis.

Lame.

I love Mashable just as much of the next guy but c'mon Google you can't haphazardly enforce your policy!  It seems to be that Google doesn't want to alienate most of its early adopters, the tech heads that read Mashable. 

In the future Google is going to need businesses and organizations to make their social experiment successful.  Google is taking a huge hit developing and maintaining Google+, and they are going to need to monetize at some point in time; pissing the businesses off now may backfire in the future.  The point could be made that businesses will go to where ever the people are... but is that really true?  

Look at the top social networks, a key feature is that they allow people direct interaction with organizations and companies.  Imagine MTV hosting the VMAs without twitter; imagine watching any commercial on television without hearing "find us on Facebook".  Linked In is completely based around connecting people through companies.

Google should realize that an integral part of social networks is a kind of "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" relationship with businesses.

I know want to be friends with Mashable, my favorite beer brand and my favorite sneaker.  If myself and others like me are not allowed to communicate with them, not only will Google lose on the business end, but also on the people end.