Four Years of Google+

As Google+ chief architect Yonatan Zunger points out, today is the fourth anniversary of Google+. As I mentioned in my comment, I'll have been on G+ for four years, having followed Louis Gray with the FriendFeeders on day 2. I admit that, except for posting my blog entries and leaving the occasional comment, I haven't been active there much lately; I started with Twitter, and I still mostly hang out there. But unlike Facebook, which I never liked in the first place, I've never been fully absent from G+ for long, even if I didn't actually post.

What I always liked about G+ is the conversations, which don't descend into flame wars anywhere near as much as on Facebook. And the photographers, who were the most interesting part in the early days and who were the original reason Communities got started. And the ease of posting my blog entries, something that got very frustrating on Facebook just because Zuck hates Google.

So I've decided that now would be a good time to make myself more present there again. That means more uploading (and taking) photos, more poems (and song lyrics too, as 50 Songs in 90 Days is starting on July 4), more article links, and whatever songs and videos I feel the whim to post. Not that I'm abandoning Twitter; I'm still there, and I might even interpost.

Oh, and that "ghost town" they keep talking about in the tech media? Well, I must be seeing one hell of a lot of ghosts in my feed.

Here I come...

Project 365 Page 3: Google+ Profile Photos

For day 3, I decided to take a couple pictures of myself and post them to my Google+ profile. They're not in my "Project 365 2011-2" Picasa album, but in my Profile Photos. I'm considering using one for Facebook.

One thing that bugs me is that my face doesn't look quite so pretty on camera (or at least on my camera) as it does in the mirror or to other people (especially women). But they're usable, and they're on my profile...

First Thoughts on Google+

So Google finally decided to release its "Facebook killer" that they were once going to call "Google Me" but which now is Google+. On the second day of its beta release, I managed to get an invite from a fellow FriendFeeder, so now I'm in on it and get to check it out. These are my initial impressions.

It was a no-brainer for me to accept the invitation, since I already have so much stuff on Google, at Picasa, YouTube, Google Docs, and so on. Looking at the main stream, I can see it has a lot in common with FriendFeed and the Facebook news feed. But the toolbar at the top (below the black main bar) gives you easy access to photos; others' in your stream as well as your own at Picasa (which you can even upload); your Google profile (mine has not just my Plus posts and the "about me" section, but my Picasa photos, the videos I haven't yet uploaded, and my Google Buzz stream); and the new Circles feature, which happens to be the best implementation of a "lists" feature I've ever seen, which even takes care of the privacy problems that have long plagued Facebook. There's a video chat feature called Hangout, and an option to download all your Google data (currently limited to Picasa and Google+ itself) if you want to back it up.

So far, so good. Of course, I'm only beginning to find my way through Google+. There's still the issue of the learning curve; it's still new. There's still a lot of glitches that have to be worked out. And it's still invitation-only. But then, it's still in beta. Hopefully Google will work out the glitches before it goes into full release, and put it into full release a lot sooner than they did Wave. But if one thing's for sure, I'm already using it a lot more than I do Facebook.