Twitter is like an adolescent child. Talking none stop to anyone and everyone who will listen. Mostly, the content is garbled and non-descriptive. All the content is repeated over and over again until a point the original message is lost in translation. What’s popular or trending isn’t popular or trendy. It’s quick, simple and no attention span required.

Facebook – The Teenage Years

Pointless status updates of what you did last night. Sharing of information in a language that only teens can read.  Silly photos, videos and link sharing that everyone has already seen over and over again. The cryptic updates from the attention seekers.

Linked In – The 18-30ths

Network, connect, recommend, spam, brag, resume, jobs – it’s all for the taking here. Only connect to your past, present or future colleagues, but only if you know them personally. Build a network of people you don’t know to impress future clients and employees.

Google+ – Middle Ages

Maturity prevails over at Google. Be selective with whom your share with. Hangout with colleagues during the day, and friends or family after hours. Be free and add people you know, people you admire or simply people you like. Spark a discussion, or share that photo with only who you want to see. Have respect for your work colleagues who don’t want to see last weekends bbq snaps.

NB. This post is published to be amusing and doesn’t represent my view of the above mentioned social media websites.

We are all aware that Geolocation is becoming big business for many mainstream businesses. If you cannot be found on Facebook Places, Foursquare or Gowalla you are behind the times. I understand Twitter is playing with the idea of utilizing their geolocation tags for business purposes. These services offer local businesses huge potential revenue streams, and the ability to offer locational discounts, vouchers and promotions by physically checking in at specific locations.

But what if you have a local business, servicing a specific location but you don’t have a physical location that clients or customers can check in at? Before you can claim a location on any of the above services, you have to specify a location, and you have to be able verify that you own that location. If you don’t have a store or an outlet people can visit, how can you utilize these services?

Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer. However, I am wondering whether there is an opportunity here to develop a new platform, or enhance the existing services that allows non-physical local businesses,  to participate in the geolocation buzz.

A couple of days ago, Google announced they will no longer be supporting Google Wave. I wanted to write a short article expressing my disappointment at this discussion:

I was one of the first fortunate individuals to secure an invitation to use Google Wave, and the immediate problem I found was that no one else I knew had an invitation, so this obviously limited my use of the applications. As time went by I eventually found a couple of individuals that also had access, and we began testing the functionality of Wave.

We soon discovered Wave was a very useful tool for managing virtual projects in real-time. Once of the most disappointing features of Wave was that it wasn’t integrated into Gmail and ran independently. In effect Wave was a completely separate and independent piece of software that would have benefited from an integration, which would have opened it up to for more users.

I am sure Gmail would look and function very differently if Wave had been integrated, and because of this I believe this is why Google never mashed the two together. It’s a shame because there was no reason why there could not have been an option to integrate or run the two apart. Google did it with Buzz, so I don’t really understand the reasons why.

Either way, its a disappointment to me that Wave will no longer be supported by Google.

]]> http://www.ianrsmith.co.uk/google-wave-rip/feed/ 0 http://www.ianrsmith.co.uk/google-buzz/ http://www.ianrsmith.co.uk/google-buzz/#comments Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:18:49 +0000 Ian Smith http://www.ianrsmith.co.uk/?p=290

I’ve been using Google Buzz for a couple of days. It would appear the UK didn’t get access until a couple of days after the American’s did. This isn’t surprising as Google is an American company and their headquarters is located in the United States.

To date, a couple of my friends and family have followed my on Buzz and I’ve followed them back. Also, several other people have followed me who I do not know and I think this is as a result of others I’ve followed, or comments I’ve made on Buzzes (not sure if the is the PC term) that I found through searching.  The immediate issue that struck me if you want to use Buzz as a means to communicate with friends, family or colleagues, every one needs to have a Google account. Needless to say some do and others don’t. I have attempted to convert a number of people to Gmail; however, to some people email is email regardless of what the logo is in the corner.

There are number of improvements I would love to see already, and it does appear Google have been quick to address on major concern of privacy. The issue of followers seeing who your Gmail contacts are is a concern for everyone and Google have addressed this and made it easier for the end user to find and amend this setting.

Like most social networking platforms there is usually a lot of noise and within that noise somewhere is the interesting information that you want to read and reply too. I find it irritating the there is no easy and quick means to delete or in Google Buzz language ‘mute’ posts that you don’t want to see. What I would like to see is a filter, where you can filter in or filter out tags or keywords that are relevant to your interest. Plus a big delete button or X that is easy to hit if you don’t want to see that post again.

I was hoping there would be more drag and drop functionality. Having to type or pasting links to other web pages, images or video is a pain. I want to be able to drop it into my post.

As there are so many social networking platforms available today, Buzz would have the edge if it became the one-stop-shop for all your social networking activity embedded in your email. I personally only use Twitter and FaceBook and what a wonderful place Buzz would become if I can read and post directly to any social networking site from Buzz.

As usual from Google, this a real sterling effort, and I hope that it’s developed into something that no one can do without. At the moment I do have an open mind, and wait with anticipation of how this will develop.

Have you ever been tempted to click on your own AdSense advertisements? I am not suggesting for monetary gain, but because you have been on your own site, checking your latest blog for example when you see an advertisement that actually interests you. If I was visiting a web site that didn’t belong to me, I would have certainly clicked on the ad.  But, because this ad is on your own site you run the risk of receiving a nasty gram from Google threatening to cancel your AdSense account. So what do you do? Do you take the risk of clicking on it, or Googling similar posts to yours and hoping the same ad appears elsewhere? What if you cannot find this ad?

There is one simple process that I find out by playing around with the ad link:

1. Place your mouse over the ad you want to check and RIGHT CLICK on the ad. Do NOT actually click the ad as you will link to it! Now, you will see an option to Copy link location.

2. Once you have copied the link location to your clipboard, paste the data into your Browsers address bar. Do Not click on Go or press Return.

3.  Begin deleting the information in your address bar from left to right. Eventually towards the end of the long url you will see the web site address of where the ad would take you too. Once you have deleted all the Google information, press return or click go and you will be taken to that location.

I’ve had Google Wave for a couple of months now and not really had the opportunity to use it much purely because I don’t know anyone who actually interested in using it with me. I still have a number of invitations available and would be happy to share them with anyone who would like to collaborate in trying out Wave. If you are interested them please use the comment section below, or contact me via the ‘contact us‘ page, e-mail me here or send me a tweet and I’ll be happy to send you an invitation.

I’ve read numerous blogs concernings Google Chrome extension and there is lots of information around concerning what the best / useful top-ten extensions that are available. Therefore rather than duplicate existing content, I thought I would list the few extension I use and why.

I should add that in order to make use of Chrome extensions, you will need to be running the beta version of Chrome.

1. G-mail – This is probably the most used extension and certainly the first one I installed. I don’t think I need to explain why.

2. Google Reader – This is a very simple extension that shows you how many unread feeds you have currently in Google Reader. It also allows you to previous these posts. I find this very useful as I subscribe to lots of blogs, and keeping on top of them all is almost a full-time job.

3. Chromed Bird – This extension accesses your Twitter account and allows you to follow your timelines and interact with your Twitter account. When your browser is open it also shows the number of unread tweets from your followers since you browser was opened. I find this so useful and instant access to my twitter account.

4. Google Tasks – A simple Google Task extension for Chrome. Again, instant access from within Chrome to view, create and update tasks. This is so useful in managing one’s activities and keeping on top of everything.

5. e-Bay – Keep an eye on your eBay activity wherever you are on the web when you install the official eBay extension for Chrome. Again, a really simple to use extension to keep tabs on your bids, sales and purchases.

6. FaceBook – Access your Facebook account, chat and notifications anytime right on Chrome.

7. SEO – The Google Chrome SEO Extension. Make you daily Search Engine Optimization tasks easier in Chrome. This extension is still under development and some of the functions are not yet active. Even so, it’s still a very useful extension for a web developer.

I haven’t managed ten extensions as yet; however, I’m sure in time as more are written, I’ll be adding more.

How do you keep informed with all the constant change in web development and design? Everyday there are new releases of software upgrades, new plugins, themes, and much much more.  I find myself everyday spending at least an hour of my time reading information, and updating the websites I manage with these new releases of software and plugins. To faciliate these releases, I subscribe to various websites via the RSS feeds and all these updates are presented in my blog reader. My preference is Google Reader.  It’s very well presented and easy to use, and this helps to decide what prioritise reading first. I’m not sure how many different blogs or RSS feeds I’m subscribed too, but I certainly get through at least a 100 different blogs or updates a day.  Although it can be time comsuming, however, it’s important to keep your website in tip-top condition ensuring it’s using the latest software and plugins. Failure can result in security issues, and the site not functioning in the most efficient and effective manner.

I’ve featured this video for a couple of reasons:

1. I want one.
2. I would like to know when this phone will be available in the United Kingdom?