Header

Plus, Plus: I want to join Google Plus!

July 18th, 2011 | Posted by Bobby Rettew in World of IT - (2 Comments)

Have you heard…Google has launched a new social platform called Google Plus. Well, how do we find it? First and foremost, you can go to https://plus.google.com/, but hold on…you need an invitation in-order to join. Google Plus is still in Beta, so it is not completely public…yet. You need to find someone who has a Google Plus account and ask them to send you an invitation, but you need a Google Account like Gmail to accept the invitation. They can send the invitation to your Gmail account.

Google Plus bases this whole new social platform on your profile. Most of you that have a Gmail account might know about Google Profile. Google Profile creates a “profile” for you with a picture, your email address, where you have worked, your contact information, and even more. Google Plus bases this account on your profile so you can be found quickly and efficiently via a Google Search.

Google Plus also cannot be used on the business class Google account. For many of you that have created a business account leveraging email and other business applications, you cannot use this account for Google Plus. This will not be available until later this year. So if you want to create a Google Plus account for your business, you will have to use the basic Gmail account or personal profile to create a business Google Plus account.

Ok…enough about who can and cannot use Google Plus, let’s move on to the cool stuff. Google Plus is probably a mixture between Facebook, Twitter, and Google Wave. Here is a place to check out the interactive demo of Google Plus: http://www.google.com/+/demo/ <– CLICK THIS LINK!

Want to watch a video that introduces you to Google Plus, here ya go:

There are a few big things that I love about Plus…it is called Circles.

Google+ Circles helps you organize everyone according to your real-life social connections–say, ‘family,’ ‘work friends,’ ‘music buddies,’ and ‘alumni’. Then, you can share relevant content with the right people, and follow content posted by people you find interesting. For example, you might post an announcement about your engagement and show it only to people in your friends and family circles, or maybe you see a post from the circle you created for your book club that there’s a recent article on your favorite author.

Oh yes…I have been completely impressed by the Circles concept in Google Plus. But my only reference point here is my Facebook account settings and Twitter Lists…but this is completely different.

So may times I have wanted to only interact with a group of people in a discussion, but has the interactivity of Facebook. I have found a link, an idea, a video, a picture, or an opinion…and only share quickly with a specific group of friends. This can be done by just creating a Circle of connections (people) then updating your status for these to see.

This to me is where I am beginning to see some value, and where I see where Google Wave has some influence. I can quickly create a “Circle” where I add friends/people/connections, then I can interact with them and only them. No more worrying about trying to separate a status update from those who you feel do not need to see this information. So many times on Facebook, I wanted to share a video with just a group of friends…but was worried about either upsetting someone on my public timeline or marginalizing someone based on the content of this update.

If you look below…you can see how an update will go only to a group of people are just in my “Friends” Circle.

Then there is Extended Circles…

When you share something in the stream, you might notice an option to share with your extended circles. Your extended circles are like your circles’ circles. Content shared with your extended circles could appear in the Incoming stream of people who are one degree removed from you with certain conditions–namely that we’ll only include people whose association with people you know is already visible to you.

Here is a video about “Circles” from Google that walks you through the interactivity.

Then there is the “Hangout“…yes, a collaborative video chat inside Google Plus. You can take a text chat and have a video chat with up to 10 people within a post. Tired of typing your response, just start a Hangout and invite people to jump in the conversation.

Here is a video about Hangouts:

Hangouts are the best way for you to say, “I’m online and want to hangout!” Hangouts lets you:

  • Chill with friends that are scrolling through the web, just like you!
  • Use live video chat that puts you in the same room together!
  • Coordinate plans, whether it’s working on a project or meeting up for coffee.
  • Maybe you’re bored. Start a hangout, invite your circles, see who’s around!

All in all, pretty cool new social network. And if you are wondering if it is going to flop, well it has close to 10 millions users within the first two weeks of being live. I  think it is going to be around a while…it is about to hit a billion users! Have Fun!
——————————————————————————————————————————-

Bobby Rettew is a Emmy Award winning, documentary storyteller and digital media strategist. Bobby works with IT-oLogy with all of their video, digital media, and social media strategy.

, , , , , ,

Should we really care about 4G?

June 2nd, 2011 | Posted by Bobby Rettew in World of IT - (0 Comments)

***Bobby Rettew is a guest blogger for IT-oLogy, you can also read this post on his blog at http://blog.bobbyrettew.com.

Ok..Ok…the big ole hubbub across the mobile communication spectrum is all about 4G and 4G LTE. It is all about speed and the network. Yes, Verizon is leading the way with their LTE rollout across the country. AT&T and other groups are playing catch-up, well from a technology standpoint. AT&T is surely leading the pack in a clear concise message with their “Rethink Possible” campaign.

But what does this really mean for consumers, well I am still trying to figure this out. Seriously, why do I need 4G LTE speed on a mobile device. Why do I need to be able to upload and download at speeds twice or three times 3G speed on my iPhone or Android device. I can already watch video on the device, I can do video chat with my device, I can check email, download a document, etc at the 3G speeds.

What advantage do acquire when I buy the new iPad or iPhone with access to a 4G LTE data transfer rate? Now, look at the MiFi devices (the mobile hotspots) and this makes sense. I am a video guy and I need to be able to upload Gigabytes of video content and access to these speeds will trump most business and in-home data speeds.

At my house, I currently have my Charter data plan for Internet access that provides 25 Mb/s download and 3 Mb/s upload speeds. That is pretty fast…the 4G LTE mobile devices will be able to provide close, if not better upload speeds and similar to less download speeds. This is great for uploading large files from my edit bay and home workstation. So why does the average consumer need access from a smart phone to these speeds?

Verizon just released a press release today announcing that the Galaxy Tablet will be 4G LTE enabled. Jeff Dietel, vice president of marketing for Verizon Wireless stated in the press release, “The tablet market is exploding as customers are discovering new uses for the technology that features a large screen, powerful processing speeds and access to Android Market™’s 200,000 applications. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is perfect for customers who want to take advantage of Google™’s new movie rental option and view their favorite film on-the-go.”

Well, we are becoming a more connected community of technology enthusiasts. Everywhere you look, someone is looking at their smart device. They are texting, tweeting, looking at Facebook, checking email, watching video, chatting, uploading pictures. The days of the laptops and home workstations are slowly drifting away for the consumer. I bought my wife an 11 inch MacBook Air and it is close to the same size as my iPad. Those big ole bulky home computers are almost extinct. And with Cloud Computing…people are able to acces and store files virtually.

Look at the new release of iCloud by Apple. Yes, the ability to store and access all of your music in the “Cloud” and not have to worry if your home computer crashes, loosing all your music files. I can list numerous friends that have experienced this “life changing” trauma. My sister-in-law cried for days as she tried to recover a small percentage of her thousands of songs. I can still hear her saying…”There goes Bonnaroo…their goes Death Cab….GONE!”

So what does iCloud have to do with all this…we are becoming more dependent on the virtual community, connectivity, and off-site storage. Bigger server farms are providing access to storage and information. This also means that all of our devices, not just home computers, need to be able to access and alter these files from any device. I can now, shoot, edit, publish, and distribute video from my iPhone4 on YouTube and Vimeo using 3G, all in 1280×720 resolution. If I was still in the news world, I would be killing my competition…maybe?

Bottomline…our mobile devices are going to be moving more and more from content access devices to content creation devices. These devices will fit in our back pocket and we will be able to do more on the go, not restricted to our home/business/office computers. Access to servers and mainframes can be done anywhere…and their needs to be more bandwidth across the platform for more and more people to access and create content on the go. Also…files sizes are growing from HD video and larger picture quality.

One concept that I have not even touched is Healthcare IT. Yes…with the emergence of EMR’s and Cloud computing, more and more healthcare professionals will need to access large healthcare records in a mobile setting. Whether it is in the “field” like an ambulance or even rural healthcare networks. This type of speed and infrastructure will provide this access.

So, right now I am not sure if the consumer needs access to these speeds, but soon yes. Because all of their traditional computing will be done in devices that are the evolution of our iPhones, iPads, Laptops, Desktops…combined. Speed and access is key for tomorrow’s connectivity.

***Bobby Rettew is a guest blogger for IT-oLogy, you can read this post on his blog at http://blog.bobbyrettew.com.

***Image from the Daily Galaxy, thanks a bunch!

, ,