Doom for Google+?

I hate to be this way, but Google+ isn't gonna work out.  I like it, I'll continue to use it as long as my friends do to, but it's not going to work like they said it would.

Facebook has it down, where you are friends with everyone you've ever met.  Myspace was sort of that way too, where you had over one-hundred friends, most likely.  When I signed up for Twitter iin 2009, when it was starting to blow up, I figured that was where everyone was going to gravitate towards next.  But it never happened.  There was a select few that did, a certain circle of friends not afraid to try out the new social networking service that limited your posts to only 140 characters.  What I noticed is that after about six months, the new sign-ups of my extended circle of friends came to a sudden halt, and even some of the people that were my earliest friends just suddenly stopped tweeting.  There has been about 3 people that I know personally that have signed up for Twitter since that initial six month signup frenzy.

Then came along Google+.  It's supposed to challenge Facebook for users, but I'm sensing a trend here.  A Trending Topic, if you will.  The same 15 or 20 people that signed up for Twitter in that initial flurry are the same 15 or 20 or so people that are on Google+ with me.  I think most people are comfortable with what they know, and what they know is Facebook.  I really thought that since Google has all kinds of cool things you can do that their developers have come up with that people would like to have all their stuff wrapped up into one neat package.  What they want is their Gmail and Facebook open at the same time in different tabs.  Google+ probably won't fail miserably into a ball of fire, but it's going to be more like Twitter, where you have a select few friends that signed up for it, and no one new signing up for it for a long, long time.

But the thing is, I don't think we want to be friends with everyone we ever met again.  I hate to say it, but Google+ is doomed to fail, at least in it's goal of taking down Facebook as the king of social media.  I hope I'm wrong, in a way, I have no problem with Facebook, I just want something fresh.  Google+ is pretty cool.  But it's not going to win.  

The Digital Life

It seems like human nature to want to choose sides.  Good versus Evil.  Axis or Allies.  Chocolate or vanilla.  Transformers or Go Bots.  Superman or Batman or Spiderman or Aquaman...you get the idea.  The world wide web is no different.  There are conflicting companies who are competing for our hard earned dollars everyday, and I'm talking about the big boys here.  Google, Facebook and Apple.  These are the biggest, most involved companies I can think of.  These companies effect my life hourly.  The fact that they are all rivals makes one want to choose a side, but sometimes you need to use, and enjoy using, all three.

Yes, this is ridiculous that we are all tied to these major, major ass-fucking companies who will try to bend you over for each and every dollar you earn, just like every other company that has existed ever.  Well, at least the successful ones will do this. That's why they're successful.  They make money.  They make you spend your money on their product.  They make you want it as well as sometimes need it.  A company's dream is for you to absolutely need the product they provide, because you can't live without it.  See: Drug companies.  Tech companies have spent years developing ways to intergrate themselves into ours lives so that we must have them to do the things they have made us want to do.  Pretty damn clever if you ask me.  Google I would say has done the best job of this, because if you do anything neat-o on the web, chances are it is through Google.

Facebook made it possible to connect with every person you ever had contact with.  Ever.  If I have a conversation with someone on the street and I catch their name, I could probably find them on Facebook and continute the conversation.  They can be my friend forever if I so choose to have them.  It's something that has become almost a necessity.  I can share all the precious moments of my little two-month old daughter with all my family all across the country with the power of Facebook.  I have to have a Facebook.  I could share these things another way, but Facebook just makes it easier.

Apple has made the telephone so much more than a telephone.  They have made the telephone into your handheld computer.  Your connection to everything on the web when you're away from your computer.  You don't have to be tied down to connect with everyone you've ever met, ever.  You can do it while taking a dump at Target.  You can do it on your road trip to Phoenix, while stopped somewhere in Utah.  You can play games whenever, wherever (so long as it's a safe place, like not driving your car, or whatever.)  You get the idea.  Apple revolutionized the way we connect with friends and family.  I can hold my iPhone in my hand and find something to do with it for hours and hours and hours on end.  I say Apple did this because they did it first and they did it best.  They are the industry leader in this aspect.  Google followed suit with Android, but it's a pretender.  Apple is responsible for this revolution, no matter how you slice it.

The point of all this, which I'm sure you're aware of all the facts I pointed out above, is that these are all rivals.  These companies are all vying for your dollar.  They need to come up with innovative ways to improve upon what their rivals come out with.  They need to one-up each other.  Sometimes it works (Mobile photo sharing via Facebook, Google's Blogger and other various add-ons and innovations, iTunes) and sometimes it doesn't (Google Buzz, Facebook chat, um...Apple has never failed, apparently. I can't think of one.)  Apple has the music market cornered with iTunes.  Facebook, I hear, is going to unveil their music division or service or whatever in the near future.  Google will release (or has released, not sure if it's out or not yet) an cloud based music service, like Amazon already has.  (DID I FORGET TO ADD AMAZON TO THE WEB GIANTS?  YEP.)

Anyway, you get the idea.  It all comes back to the consumers choice of which side they prefer.  Some want no part of it, and choose to live in the woods like Bob Balbierz.  Everyone else has their lives touched at least a little by these companies.  But I don't want to choose.  I have an iPhone, use iTunes regularly, yet strictly use Google for web surfing, blogging, emailing, translating, web reading, calendering, and using the internet in general by using Google Chrome.  I am 90% a google guy, except for their phone software.  That's where Apple is #1 for reasons I described above.  Now, Apple doesn't offer ANY of the things Google does, so that's probably why I don't use them for all of this.  If they rolled it any of it, would I use it? Probably not.  Google does a great job and it's what I'm used to.  And I'm not a Mac guy as far as the actual computer.  I have used PC's my entire life and I like them!  Yet I cannot, neigh WILL NOT use any other phone than the iPhone.  I refuse to downgrade.

And then there's Facebook.  I only use Facebook at this point because I feel I have to.  Everyone is on there and I love everyone.  My hope is that Facebook will go the way of the Myspace soon enough.  And that's the hopes of Google when they unveiled their newest thingermabob the other day, Google+.  Apparently Google+ is so badass, some industry experts expect it to do just that, put Facebook in a headlock.  I'm not so sure.  It took this long for mom, auntie Sue, Cousin Larry with one eye and your 11th grade english teacher to get on Facebook, what makes you think they're suddenly going to say, "hey, lets change everything I just got comfortable with."  Ask Twitter how well that's going.  (600 million v.s. 200 million, which is closer than I thought it would be, according to the latest data I found, which was in December of last year.)  No, it's not going to happen overnight, but I think this Google+ thing, if it's really done correctly like the experts are saying it is, will make an impact.  Only time will tell, and in the tech world, that time could be very very short.  So I'll see you on Google+ as soon as we're all able to get on it.  As for whose side I'm on?  Leaning Google, just so you know.  It's so slick!

Fun With Google Scribe

If you don't know what Google Scribe is, well, this is what it just resulted for me. Enjoy the nonsense....

So what are you doing today to kill the bacteria causing the infection in these animals? Because I am not sure if they still exist. Therefore, we can see how much money they have. Information for advertisers to gather information about their visitors. When they were not able to be added to the list. It will then disappear into the night. The first step towards sustainable design features that Nike will be releasing their new single on itunes.

That just happened. All with Google scribe.

Trapped in a Web

To me, It's amazing the things one would do on the internet. There is a total diference of using the computer when you are trying to kill time and when you are trying to get something done. Let's say you want to make a payment to your car insurance, so you go to the website, and while you're at it, you might as well check you're Facebook and emails, too, right? As you check the other sites that you didn't set out to check, you find that you care less about what is there, like, an interesting email about how Tim Lincecum is dominating the National League West, but you didn't come here to see that, really. You signed up for those emails, and you like to see that every once in a while, but not today. You're on a mission, but you felt you had to check you're email while you were here, right? But you're not really paying much attention to what you are checking. You don't want to let you're emails get out of hand because then you'll probably just delete all the unread emails because you REALLY don't have time for that shit.

But then there are the times, like I used to have back at the casino, where I would waste a solid three hour block of time watching videos on YouTube. No problem there, because I had no mission when I went to the computer. I was simply killing time. I like the internet better when I have hours to waste. It's funnier that way, I think. There is a lot of great comedy on the internet these days.

So anyway, not much to report today. I discovered Google Reader yesterday, that's sort of what inspired this post. They have this thing on there called Google Reader Play, which you can rifle through things that are somehow popular, and enjoy them. That's a time-waster, no-mission type thing. Do that when you have no bills to pay. I found it fun. Let me try to include a link here...Let me see...Here try this out. I hope that works.

Enjoy the internet. It's currently killing the Sunday newspaper for me. I'd like to read that, but damn this internet thing is so fantastic.

April Fools!!!

So today is April fools day. I love April fools day! People playing well-thought out jokes and pranks on each other. Google does an annual April fools day joke and today, if you go there, they renamed themselves Topeka, because Topeka renamed themselves Google once...Kinda weak this year, Google...

We went for a walk in the park today. It was so nice to see people and ducks and geese. My dog got so wore out he tried to lay down on the ground instead of going into the backseat. He was a hotdog.

So I had to do a system update for my PS3 and didn't have anything else to do and also didn't have a very much time to write today, but I wanted to put something out there.

Have a great April fools day and be aware of people tricking you.