ishouldreallybeinbed

Mentions in Google Plus

2011-10-16T14:09:00.001+02:00

A friend asked me how does one "plus mention" someone in Google+
Although it may seem obvious I've been asked before so here are a couple of screen shots which I hope help.

On the desktop version you can mention someone in a post or comment by simply typing the + sign (or the @ sign) and typing there name.

You'll get some suggestions based upon your circles as you type, but you can mention anyone on G+ and they will receive a notification that you have "mentioned them in a post".

Note: Google made some changes recently about who can send you notifications so a person may not receive a notification depending on how they have notification set up.

The set up is much the same on mobile, here's a screen shot from the iPhone App.

Mentioning someone in a comment seems to prioritize people in the thread which makes sense to me.

Here I'm mentioning Simon on the Android App.

As I mentioned above depending on how a person has their notifications set up they may have chosen not receive notifications from someone outside of their Extended Circles (default), their circles etc.

Personally I think the default setting should be "Everyone" much like the way an @ mention works on Twitter. If I am spammed by notifications it's quite easy to block someone (and report while doing so), but then again I haven't suffered the amount of spam that users with a larger following may have.

To check you have notifications set up the way that you want go here.

Instagram versus Picplz

2011-08-07T20:04:00.001+02:00

Photo sharing Apps are all the rage and there are lots of them.

I'm currently liking / using Instagram and Picplz: which one is best?

Picplz

Picplz.com from Mixed Media Labs (unlike Instagram) is available for iPhone and Android.

What I like

The "out of App" experience: an easy to find profile on the web.
Collections: being able to group other images into collections much like on Flickr but without the limit set by Flickr.
Locations: being able to view images by venue (Foursquare) or venue on the web. For example: London or Cologne
View Recent or Interesting images.

What I don't like

Lack of filters compared to instagram.
Image format: I'd like to be able to keep the original format or crop it down to a square format if I wanted to.
No hashtags :(
No block feature. Though have been pretty quick to deactivate objectionable accounts. Hope that a block feature is added soon.

my picplz images:

Instagram

Instagram is iPhone only.

What I like

Lot's of filters (though people tend to stick with one or two favorites).
Tilt / Shift.
Large user-base, though I haven't put the time in to build up any real following (I suspect that's inhibited by my photographic ability and subject matter too).
Save image to camera: this is an option on picplz but I've never got it to work and it saves the unfiltered image.
Hashtags.

What I don't like

The limited "out of App" experience (though there are some apps coming out which are starting to take advantage of the instagram API).
Limited "profile" you can now add a url and some short text. Tip: make sure the URL you add is mobile friendly as people will visit it for the most part via the iPhone.

my instagram images:

Conclusion:

Looking onward there are a number of other Apps set to enter the photo sharing space. I'm hoping for an invite to Photovine when the first wave of invites go out so i can check it out.

Also since Google Plus arrived on the scene that I've been using the instagram App more for image creation / editing and posting images there, rather than posting through the App itself.

So which of these two do I prefer?

Ask my head: Picplz. I prefer their wide reaching approach.
Ask my heart: instagram. Though you'll need an iPhone to use it.

Network Visibility - Did you see that?

2011-07-22T13:54:00.002+02:00

Circles, Lists, Groups, blah it's all got a bit wordy: confusing.

We mean Network Visibility don't we? - "Who sees what?".

When I share on-line I use circles* to control who can see it.

Lets talk about "network visibility" instead of circles. Can we?

*Circles, Lists, Groups, whatever etc

Comments

Nearby on Google Plus

2011-07-05T13:46:00.000+02:00

Those of you without the Android App or like me waiting for the iPhone App will be using Google Plus on mobile via the web app.

Taking a look at the Nearby stream (swipe left) I was interested to see one of my public images there.

How did it get there?

Well I like to geo-tag (some) of my images. It seems that geo-tagging a public image will show it to people nearby.

I think this is completely cool and in-line which the whole privacy features. If it's public you'd like the world to see it right!

To see if an image has been geo-tagged in photos on Google. Click: Actions > Photo Details: on the photo page.

Suggested Circles in Google Plus

2011-07-01T14:17:00.000+02:00

This is something that shows how well thought out Google+ is: Suggested Circles

In Circles click to make a new circle and start typing to see suggested names for your circle.

This feature is really cool, both for the user and for Google.

User:

Help with naming
Encourages "logical" structure
Encourages contact sorting / circle building which leads to a better understanding of the "Circles" concept
More logical ways of segmenting (looking at) your stream

For Google:

Provides data on how people think about their social circles
Provides a way (in the future?) to be able to rank circles
Will provide signals which can be used to tune social search

A few days in and although I have a few niggles, which I'll write about when I get the time, plus is still looking pretty solid.

Hello Google Plus

2011-06-29T11:17:00.000+02:00

Although I'm watching Google+ from the "outside" currently I've still seen a couple of things worth sharing.

I've always wanted "faces in Buzz", well now comments have faces!
This probably just implies the merging or absorption of Buzz in the future and is just a perk in the mean time.

Also spotted "comments" (Picasa comments) when viewing images from profile pages like here.
Older comments don't show, but the ability to comment directly in light-box view looks pretty good.

Private Buzz posts

2011-04-25T13:08:00.001+02:00

When I posted my reactions to the new Google Profiles a while back my biggest complaint was that it wasn't clear when a Buzz post was private.

Here's a screen shot of a private Buzz post from how things were.

Here was no indication at all that the post was private.

Now things have changed and the word "Private" indicates when a post is not public.

Clicking on the word "Private" reveals to the viewer who has access to see the post.

The inclusion of the word "Private" does help a user understand what is visible to the world on their Buzz stream, but I still personally feel, when scrolling through posts on my Buzz tab that it's still not obvious enough.

What would be better is if there was a stronger visual indication that a post is not shared with the world.

In the screenshot I've simply highlighted the word private in red.

Edit: as Noble Ackerson pointed out red is currently used to highlight when a Buzz post is muted, so maybe a different colour to highlight private posts (like Green) would be better.

That seems logical and visually strong enough.

Do you post privately on Buzz? Scrolling through your posts on Buzz would it help you pick out what was private from what was public if posts were highlighted in such a way?

Mobile Buzz - Better info view

2011-03-20T11:12:00.001+01:00

What's new in Buzz mobile?
Buzz on mobile used to have one major fail for me: the lack of information when visiting the "contact" tab.
When new people start following me I like to glean some idea as to who they are before deciding if I'll follow back etc.

Clicking through takes you to their Buzz stream on mobile, where you can see what they've been buzzing about.

This helps but often I'd want more meat and veg' so would click the contact tab.

Old Mobile Buzz view

Doing so was previously were Buzz had failed big time on mobile. It promised much but delivered very little.

The contact tab was always pretty good if you had people in contacts, where you could see chat availability and other info etc, but hopeless for new followers as you didn't have them in contacts.

So I was delighted when Mike Hatch saw a change which he mentioned in this post.

New in Mobile Buzz

In the screen shot to the right I've stitched together the same profile view of the contact tab for the same person featured above and you can see what a big difference the changes make. Click the image for a larger view.

Obviously there's only whatever information the person has made publicly available so it doesn't give anything away that the person hasn't chosen to share. If there's some info there it's much easier to make an assessment as to whether you'd like to follow that person back (or block them).

If you have any info on the person in contacts you get a combined view of the information.

The same is true if that person has chosen to share any private information with you via a contact group on their public profile, e.g. address or telephone number etc.

The new "profile view" in Buzz mobile is really helpful, I'm not sure why it wasn't publicized but left to a buzz user to spot. After the generally positive update to profiles from a couple of weeks ago it is nice to see the rate of improvement to Buzz, both tied to profiles and Buzz on mobile continue or even pick up.

I'm guessing that there wasn't any big publicity made about this as Google are saving some BIG news for Google IO - follow Google IO on Buzz.

Comment on Buzz

Google Profiles - my thoughts

2011-03-16T00:40:00.001+01:00

I wanted to give some feedback on the new Google profiles, here are my thoughts. The new look overall gets my thumbs up.

Old Profile

New Profile

Good stuff
More intuitive editing

Click edit, click the area you want to edit: simple.

Adding "Scrapbook images"

Images added are stored / managed in Picasa in the "scrapbook" album, if you're a Picasa user you'll have lots of choice of what you show here. It seems to work as a public album which is linked to Buzz, I noticed too that when I changed the images in the album it posted to Buzz automatically.

Gender / Looking for
Pretty self explanatory.

There's a relationship section which Gina Trapani wrote some interesting comments about which Chris Messina in turn responded to.

Profile URL / Information shown
Changing your profile URL is recommended if you use Buzz or are interested in the idea of people being able to @mention (ping) you regarding a conversation (a common practice in Buzz).

The "Information" edit area lets you choose what is shown in the profile sidebar.

Picasa tab
Google announced the Picasa tab the other day. It's nice to see another update released so quickly. Hope for more.

Like the way images preview and albums are displayed. I'll be using picasa more from now on.

Bad stuff
Latitude and Sidewiki

Latitude integration isn't as good as it was. I guess the number of people who had the feature active didn't warrant it being a priority. OR as Google seems to be paying attention to mobile / location maybe it'll get its own tab in the near future.
Sidewiki: no Sidewiki tab in currently? Boo bring it back. It should be an option that you can add.

Hovercards

Hovercards: hovercards used to work on Buzz URLs but don't feature now. I'd like them back please, though it doesn't look good, I tried tracking down the post on the Social Web Blog and it seems to have gone. Would still like to see faces on comments.

Private Buzz
Buzzing privately is one of the key features I like. On twitter I can tweet publicly or DM one person. On Buzz I can speak privately to groups.

Above is a screenshot of a private Buzz post with the new profile look. How would you know it is not public?
Below is the old Buzz URL version.

With old posts there was the word "Private" and a padlock icon. There used to be your profile image when commenting too, nice for people with more than one account.

Now there is no initial indication that the post is not public. if you click to comment (as who?) there is a link to view who can see the post, but that requires another user action: bad design.

Show the viewer it's private!

- Private Buzz post image mockup -

Give it a different look, say it's private, include an icon: do something but private posts need to be obvious or people won't trust or use them.

Conclusion

So what (do I want) next?

1. Who are your friends, who are you following? I'd like to be able to show (or choose not to):

Friends
People I engage with most often

Friends would be people I choose, or a special group in contacts?
People I engage with could be auto generated with "fine tune" control.

2. More tab options.
Apps!

I'd like options to add tabs for all the Google properties: hotpot, books, music, calendar, etc.
Be able to set the "default" landing tab (currently About, used to be Buzz).
Be able to add application tabs.

Comment on Buzz

Google Places: Page Updates and Review Replies

2011-02-12T09:16:00.000+01:00

The quick mention about creating offers, posting live updates and responding to customer reviews in this video struck me as something that could become a big deal if done right. Although I probably spend more time looking at place pages than most I had never yet seen an update or a review response.

So while I was on a course at GFU Cyrus AG, who have claimed their page, I asked if I could take a peek at the process.

The whole admin area is more geared to providing the user with tracking data and the "share an update" box is easy to miss. There's a 160 character limit and it wasn't exactly clear where the update would appear on the place page. Only one update will show, if you write another it'll replace the previous one, if you don't the update will disappear in 30 days.

The update took an age to come through, compared to what the average user would expect and felt clunky.

In this screen-shot you can see both a page status update (top arrow) and a reply to a review by the "page owner".

Both are in my view not highlighted well enough, which is why I have tried to highlight them better in the screen-shot.
As mentioned the status update took some time to show up, the review response did somewhat better and was visible right away.

It would be useful if there was some notification delivered to the person who left the review, or an option to have one, after all as these are reviews from Google users that should be easily doable: but that isn't the case currently.

Help
Post an update to you place page.
How to respond to reviews.

Conclusion
I think replies to reviews and page updates are a interesting addition to place pages, but need some work before most place page owners would bother to use them. Google should do better.

Changes to Facebook pages - for Administrators

2011-02-11T14:31:00.002+01:00

Lot's of you will have received the email letting you know that there are some changes to Facebook pages coming.

I thought I'd check them out and give some quick feedback.

Some of the changes are great, some will be useful depending on the number of pages you administer, and there is one major red flag that went up when I read and walked through the changes which I hope I'm wrong about.

Notifications
You can finally have notifications for your page, which will be great for those with a small number of fans but will generate allot of noise for the average inbox, or if you have allot of fans on your page (Gmail filters and Labels to the rescue).

Gripes:

You can't yet change what email address notifications are sent to.
I'd love these email notifications to work like notifications for groups. i.e. reply to the comment from mail (post as page).

Different Facebook views - Admin & Self
You now have different "views" of Facebook (one for each Page you admin + YOUR view). Click Account then "View as Page" to choose which page view to use.

Here I am in the Admin view "English Cologne" posting on the English Cologne page.
Note when posting as the page in page view you can only tag pages you have added as favorite pages (now Liked Pages).
So you can no longer tag your friends when posting as a page.

Here I'm on My "self" Facebook view (view as "Robert Wallis") and when I post to the page that I administer it is posted by "Me", something that wasn't possible to do before: but when you post as you and not the page the page update will not show in the streams of the page Fans as it does when posting as the page.

The update (made in "self" view) posts to the page as any update a Fan would make to the pages would do.
Shows in the "Just Others" or "Page plus Others" view of the page stream.

So page admins need to be careful that they are in the "page view" and more importantly the CORRECT page view when posting an update to their page(s).

This is what the admin view of a page looks like when viewing your page.

There is a section showing page admins, which is very welcome. Ideally I would like to see who had posted what to the page. something that is not currently available.

Issues?
Well all seems good generally with the new updates to pages for admins. There's allot to keep in mind, especially if you admin quite allot of pages and the "noise" from updates (all to your default email address will certainly be a problem for some.
The main concern I have is with the ability to Post As Page to Other pages.

Expect the spam count to rocket as page owners arrive at your (popular) page and post links to their page (as their page). You should be able to mark as spam of block the person behind the page, but I'd expect to see allot of people being tempted to promote their own current, or new page in this way.
Brand endangerment: with big brands there are often a large number of admins, or stale admins with access to a page. Imagine the scenario of a "rouge admin" wandering over to a competitors page and bad mouthing them (as your brand). This is a nightmare scenario for a brand.

Conclusion

Some good some bad changes to Facebook pages.
Lots for page admins to deal with (especially those who admin many, or pages with large fan numbers).

Update
There also appears to be some login issues with this update. If you are logged into Facebook and on "page view" the links in notification emails log you out of Facebook you will need to login again. This doesn't happen if you are viewing Facebook in "self" view.

There's a couple of useful articles which page admins should also read that Dennis brought to my attention on Buzz here and here.

Hotpot - Social Review

2011-01-21T11:55:00.002+01:00

After a few days playing with the Google Places iPhone App I thought I'd write a few notes.

The App it's self is pretty clean and easy to use. It comes with some logical icons to get you started including of course one for Google's obsesion with Pizza.

All the icons run the same way, e.g. a search term, and adding your own search term as an icon is simple and straightforward. I couldn't see anyway to use a custom icon at this point. Hope the ability to do that will in a later update.

The intergration of places is set to be play major roll in Google's social strategy. Once businesses start to realise the benifits of claiming their place page (see video below).

Of the few reviews I've made so far the process seems to work pretty well.
I was going to gripe about how the review I made for the DIoA landed up on page three of the Google user reviews, which was rather odd, as I'd expect them to be listed chronologically. But it's since jumped to the top of the list, so maybe there's a short delay before reviews are re-listed.

Improvments?
There are a coupld of things I feel are missing at this point.

1. I'd like to see a feed for reviews I've made show on my maps profile page.
This would allow me to publish reviews in my Buzz stream, which would expose them to people I'm connected with, but not connected on HotPot.

2. I'd like to be able to sort reviews for a place on place pages, much like you can on Map Profile pages ("Sort by date - Sort by rating").

3. I'd like to see the option of of adding a link to my Google profile on my Maps profile page.
People who are connected with me can view a link to my main Google profile when they visit my Maps profile page, but what's the point in that? If we're connected then they already know that information!

That you can't might hint that you will soon be able to limit the visibility of your entire profile (or parts of it) to your friends (or groups), much like you can with your contact data, which would make it possible to run your Google social exposure much like Facebook.

You can see the latest reviews from your HotPot Friends on Google Maps (when logged in of course).
This is a neat feature, which I'd also like to see this in the native App itself. Currently you will see rattings and comments from friends below an entry in the results: if one of the results has been rated. I'd like a tab that just shows activity from my friends.

So that's it: a few quick thoughts.
What do you think?

Last thought: Google offers would be an obvious tie-in to Places.

Update: Google offers does tie into place pages.

View this post on Google Buzz

Focus Global Test Drive

2010-12-05T12:04:00.001+01:00

I'm currently involved in the Focus Global Test Drive, a project to bring 100 people from all over the globe to a test track in Spain to test the all-new Ford Focus before it's released, and in the process earn the participants nominated charity the market equivilant of $10,000 USD.

These videos show some info on the project and some peronal invites which have gone out to people invited to come.

There has been a very enthusiastic positive responce from invitees: but less so from the general audience.

Is the hurdle for entry is too high, is the concept too ethical?
It would be great to here your thoughts.

Comment on Buzz

Engagement - Google Buzz

2010-11-21T13:34:00.001+01:00

Often heralded as dead, Buzz continues to be my preferred network for "conversation".

The conversation can be more interesting than the post.

Conversation builds trust.
Trust builds relationships.
Relationships lead places.

The conversation which happened around one Buzz post lead to:

An introduction.
A request for contact.
Opportunities (for supplier and consumer).

I've quoted a relevant block of the conversation below, with links to the profiles at the end of the post.
The entire original thread is here (note: it could differ from what is quoted if participants have since edited their comments).

"John Gotts - It's dead. I use it to follow five or six people that write great content, including you, Scoble, Arrington, anything from TechCrunch... The point is that I now only use it as a side tool to keep up on the thoughts of a few tech luminaries, where I can then also engage in some light conversation or comment on what's being said.
There are so few people here now that the comment threads typically are readable, which they weren't when it first appeared.
I think they f'd up so bad when they first started that they spoiled their chances. It may come back over time but to me it's now more like a personal chat between a few friends. That said, it's still more of a community feel than Twitter. That said, Twitter is now more of a news blast and spam space and Facebook is where real conversations between friends occurs.
Buzz is dead or dying or alive and dying. That's what the the survey says and that's how it feels when you're here at the site.

Thomas Tenkely - @John Gotts To you maybe, if your purpose is to follow big industry names. I have more activity here with my friends and family than I do on Facebook and Twitter combined.

John Gotts - If you remember when Buzz first came out it was being heralded as a potential Twitter killer.
They had tens of millions of people to aim at their startup but by attaching it to people's private email contacts it was sued and frightened many away.
Then the spam in the blog posts started and now I'm not really sure what's left.
If it's for you to contact your family and friends I just think Facebook has a better platform and keeps out the spammers by forcing a friend request.
They have different models but I'm not sure that what you're using it for is what Buzz hoped for.
Perhaps if it'd been a stand-alone product hyped on the front of Google they would have done better. It just seems like it went from 120 MPH to about 20 MPH and isn't speeding up.
IMHO and just my observation.

Robert Wallis - @John Gotts the launch was a balls up, sure.
I don't find spam a problem. I unfollow and block where needed.
Buzz isn't feature complete by a long way. Really needs some filtering: http://bit.ly/bTKlI8

Tracy Crawford - @John Gotts You need to follow more people. There are so many tech people here that actually post from different feeds that I limit them and look for other sources of information.

John Gotts - On Twitter I follow over a thousand people I respect and look forward to trolling through the short posts.
On Facebook I have about a thousand "friends" in Idaho, where I'm going to be running for state senate in 2011/12. I also connect with family on Facebook from immediate to cousins and distant relatives, old school chums, etc.
On Google Buzz I come to read posts from a VERY small group of brilliant people, I just added Jolie O'Dell, and TechCrunch, which I believe keeps me well-informed. The best part is that I can participate in conversations with these people and now that Buzz has become such a ghost town it's vastly decreased the amount of noise.
Too, by following so few people on Buzz it's easy to see and report a post spammer and alert the good people who own the account and can delete the bad guy/gal.
So it isn't that I don't follow enough people, it's just that I use Buzz to actually remark on posts from a very few people and I use Twitter to get the sandblast from a thousand brilliant minds.
I.e. Life is short, the days don't hold enough hours or weeks to days, months don't hold enough weeks and the year doesn't hold enough months to follow and read everyone.
Cheers! (-8

Denis Labelle - @John Gotts: It is not that Google Buzz as a platform is dead, it is the people that you've mentioned and follow here that are "dead" (Twitter to Buzz posting). Zero conversation. As much as I enjoy their insights, I don't follow them here but on their blog/site/etc.
John, you can't just post/tweet, sit and wait. You need to learn about how to engage in social media . I would suggest you to read "Engage" by Brian Solis.
P.S.: Talking about Brian, I don't follow him here but on his blog where we can have conversation/debate.

Robert Wallis - Whatever works for you John Gotts
Time is an issue for us all an the conversational aspect of Buzz can be a time sink.
For me following more works because I make use often of mute for conversations which pop back up in the stream that I'm not interested in, and mute in inbox for conversations which have derailed that I have been involved in.

Denis Labelle - @Robert Wallis: +1

@John Gotts: I took some time to have a look at your fan page on Facebook.
IMHO, again, it is not about the platforms but the way you are using them and this is not only you. Look at all the "big names" here on buzz, they just "dump" content or do "cross-platform posting" (a big "no no" for me or for reputation). When I am posting on Buzz, I am here. Not via Twitter, Blog, Facebook, "from the web", etc. When I post/comment/follow on FB, I am on FB. So no "Tweetdeck, Hootsuite or Seesmic". But, that's me and my approach/strategy.
Also, the old approach of "posting & getting comments" is gone/over (especially when you are the only one posting or even worst, on multiple platforms in "one shot"). It won't last. Engaging and getting the most out of you social media "strategy" can be resumed in 3 words: ask, listen, monitor. It is not about "me", it is about them . Feel free to have a look (and get an idea) at our Fan page for the Japanese clothing store UNIQLO that we built in a matter of months. 190 000 fans coming from all around the world, sharing in multiple languages & media. And this is a foreign brand, with no budget, from Montreal. Observe how the fans are the content providers, not us. We ask/engage, listen and monitor and this, very much part time: http://www.facebook.com/UniqloCo
P.S.: good luck with your campaign.

John Gotts - Thanks Denis. I actually just took a look at your posts and your site and find the things you did on FB very interesting. I've not yet started on my fan page, I've just started making connections to locals so that I can understand what their needs are and engage in solution creation as a social event.
I tried to reach you at your office but only got through to the sales recording.
Cheers.

Denis Labelle - @John Gotts: send me a private message here on Buzz via my Gprofile. I will reply as soon as possible. Have a nice weekend.

John Gotts - @Denis Labelle - done. Thanks and have a great weekend."

Participants: John Gotts, Thomas Tenkely, Robert Wallis, Tracy Crawford, Denis Labelle
Mentioned: Brian Solis
Network: Google Buzz

Post background:

Jacob Friedman (@jacobdfriedman) and I had a couple of exchanges after I made a Buzz post in response to a TNW article where he said Buzz was so unused it was "perpetually unchecked ...".

There was an exchange on Twitter which I Buzzed about. He posted an article with a Buzz poll "dead, dormant, still alive" which I replied to on Buzz.

Sounds like a tit-for-tat-spat, but we've since tweeted back and forth and everything seems cool.

Conclusion:
Buzz is a very small conversational network.
As an asymmetrical network it allows users to engage in an intuitive manner that isn't possible on Facebook.

Conversation builds trust.
Trust builds relationships.
Relationships lead places.

Facebook Places vs. Google Places

2010-10-17T23:41:00.002+02:00

After noticing that Facebook places had gone live in Germany I though I'd do a comparison of Facebook Places and Google Places.
For this post I "checked in" while out for dinner on both services and include screen shots and notes.

Facebook Place
Facebook place pages concentric on "social" (no surprise there). There's limited information relating to the place.

Phone number
Adress with a link to Bing maps

I was interested to see an - "Is this your business?" link: claimed "places" are turned into Facebook pages, which are their business offering.

I makes sense (for Facebook) to try to encourage every business to move over to Facebook, but how many pages are people going to Fan realistically?

Google Place
Google primarily are about information, so it's no surprise that there is much more information about the restaurant on it's Google place page.

Phone number
Address
Link to the business web site
Directions / map
Transit connections
Reviews
Details
etc etc

Google also allows a business to "claim" the place page. Once claimed the owner can upload images, videos and coupons etc

Check-ins

Facebook mobile

Most people will have some idea of how Facebook operates as a "check in" service.

I think that you can only interact with check ins by your friends, though you can "see" a tally of the overall checkin numbers at any place.

The screen shot here is from Facebook's mobile application on the iPhone. There may be slight differences when using other mobile platforms like Android etc.

Google Place - Mobile Check In

Check ins for Google places on mobile happen on Google Buzz mobile.

Here you can see the check in Buzz post which includes a map and a link to the place page.

The big difference though is that when viewing Buzz mobile the place link goes to the mobile place page.

On the mobile Buzz page Buzz posts made at that location are also displayed on the mobile version of the place page.

Left is a screen shot of the Facebook "activity" tab for a place.

Right is the mobile version of the Google place page.
Note: the Google image here is long, as it's a stitched together version of a few different screen shots, as you have to scoll to see all the information on the page.

Activity at a place on Google mobile

As only a few (3) posts from any place will show on the mobile place page there is also a link to Buzz at that place: handy if there happens to be allot of conversation over different periods at a place.

Conclusion

Currently Facebook place pages are the weaker offering in terms of pure information.
Facebook seem to have the edge on "crowd sourced" information, and their approach may suit "places that you know" where you are more interested in who, instead of what.

With the launch of the Places API other location services (Foursquare etc?) may be looking to leverage Google data (which is itself mainly sourced from the web).

For small businesses I'd advise that you make sure you "claim" your place page.

Post to ... From Google Plus (Buzz)

2010-10-11T21:07:00.003+02:00

This is a suggestion I made privately to Google on Buzz a while ago. I'd like to run it by people publicly now to hear what you think.

The suggestion is simple and would be easy for the Google Buzz team to set up.

Share button mock-up

Suggestion

That on post "permalink" URLs, (like the one for this post) of any Buzz post, there should be a share option outside of Google Buzz.

Just adding Twitter and Facebook share buttons would give people on currently using Buzz to at least share and spread some of the great conversations which take place there.

Birthday wishes from Google and Friends

2010-09-20T20:11:00.002+02:00

People who know me understand I'm not big on Birthday celebrations (not mine at least).
I managed to avoid the plague of birthday greetings from close and not so close contacts on Facebook by changing my privacy settings.

Upone visiting my Google profile today I was surprised and delighted by the animated birthday greeting.

Hadn't heard about this feature before.

When you add your birthday in your profile the text says:
"So your friends and Google can wish you a happy birthday"

Looks like the animation (or a similar one) may be visible to your contacts: ~~I'll confirm that if any of them let me know~~ Confirmed: if you're a contact you get to see the animation (without the greeting or the cake).

Thanks Google!

Thanks too to the close friends and family who called to wish me birthday greetings.

... and to Oscar, Küki. and Flo' for the cake.

Comment on Buzz

How to stop following a site or Blog with Friend Connect?

2010-09-19T10:26:00.001+02:00

The question pops up allot in the Friend Connect Help Forums, but is confusing to some people so here's a post to illustrate the process.

First off sign in options

Sign in gadget
Members gadget
Social bar (not pictured

Note: With the same service you used to sign in originally!

Then you need the "settings" window.
Use the "settings" link, in the sign in gadget, or the "site settings" link in the members gadget.

Leave the current site (or blog) from the link shown.

Note: for Blogger blogs it will say "stop following" or similar.

Site owners can change the wording of the link. Here I used "Leave site" when I set the site up.

From the "Sites you've joined" tab in the settings window you can leave other sites you have joined with Friend Connect.

Comment on Buzz

Google Buzz use cases

2010-09-05T22:41:00.002+02:00

I thought I'd cobble a post together covering a couple of brand and celebrity Buzz use cases.

There are questions as to the authenticity of the celebrity profile. If it turns out not to be real I think it's still interesting as it illustrates the kind of engagement which most profiles just don't get.

It may not feel like it sometimes but most people who engage on social platforms don't fit into either the brand or celebrity categories: but I only wanted to look at those here. If you want to present yourself up as a "real person" use case jump in with a comment.

SamsungUSA

Brand
SamsungUSA dived into Buzz pretty quick and there were some pretty damning comments when I originally asked what other brands where using Buzz.

They seemed to have come out the other side of that though and have a reasonable Buzz following; though it's nothing like their Twitter following (@samsungtweets).
Maybe that would improve if they used Buzz as their method to share media and pushed Buzz out to Twitter? Or the difference may just be a reflection of the relatively small numbers* using Buzz.

See also: Samsung USE Facebook page and YouTube channel.

I do like that they've put a link to their Buzz on the YouTube channel.

Celebrity

Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus who's Google profile here.

The Google profile is pretty poorly filled out with information. That would indicate to some that it's a fake account: but it could just as easily be that she's just not that adept, or interested in sorting it out. The singer had a public hoo-ha when her Gmail was hacked so that she used, (and probably still uses) Gmail would support the usage of Buzz maybe.
That plus the relative non adoption of Twitter by the artist (@mileycyrus or @xMileyCyrus ?) would make me think it's probably real. Plus I didn't have a great deal to choose from!
~~If the account does turn out to be fake~~ someone has invested allot of time on creating the background as there's a whole family of accounts which are tied to each other.

Update:
The "Miley" profile was fake. Thanks to Linda for her diligence in tracking and bringing the culprit down.
Muh, now looking for a real "celebrity" use case.

For reference: Facebook and YouTube.

Conclusion
To be honest I have no hard and fast conclusions here, and I think it's too early to have them. I'm still experimenting with Buzz personally and professionally. There are allot of things I like about Buzz and a fair few that I don't.
What I wanted to do here was pin a couple of use cases together and watch the conversation play out over Buzz.

*There are small numbers using Buzz. How small seems to be something that is hard to pin down.
Image credit: icontexto

Faces by the comments in Google Buzz

2010-04-23T22:33:00.001+02:00

When Punit Soni posted about a UI change in Buzz I shamelessly jumped in with a suggestion, with particular regard to comments.

A visual mock up might help.

Note: I've only covered the post pages, but I imagine much the same for Buzz in Gmail and the mobile UI.

My issue:
Scanning comments doesn't give me the instant feedback that helps me switch between scanning or really reading.

It's one of the points which @kevinmarks made back in Febuary right after Buzz launched.

The take away there for me was that humans have a large part of their brains devoted to visual processing, which helps us interact socially.

Faces are top of the list for how we make trust assessments i.e. scan or read.

Hover cards:
(is that what they're called?). Useful for more info, but as they require action (e.g. mouse over), there isn't any visual information for comments on the page.

Mock up:
If it looks familliar or safe I'd guess that would be a good thing wouldn't it?

For me, apart from being able to see who has made the comment. When there's a longer conversation it would be much eiser to see comments by the same user.

The Google Buzz team must be pretty snowed under with suggestions.

Would this be helpful or not?

Buzz comments

Google Buzz: No Conversations?

2010-04-21T23:25:00.001+02:00

I caught a tweet by @socialmedia2day referencing this article (originally newcommbiz) where they said that: 90% of the content in Buzz is imported.

If you check BuzzCharts you'll get a very different graph.
True allot of posts are pulled into Buzz (this blog post is headed that way), but can't you say the same thing of Twitter, Facebook etc?

People, who've been round the block, when they first set up Buzz start by puling their content in. It's a very natural way to check something out.

Those with short attention spans, or people heavily rooted somewhere else (i.e. Twitter), may have seen that as "job done".

Actually, for those people pulling tweets into buzz, if you have set up go-location for Twitter: your "pulled in tweets" now show on Buzz map too. The age of a Buzz blip also "fades out" now.

Lots of people who've spent some time in Buzz have now stopped pulling so much in, this post by @blacktar echoes many of the conversations which went on around the topic.

I'm funneling posts out to Twitter (though I'm still on Twitter!), as I feel that currently has more value: Buzz is pretty good with media.

But it was the title of the article "Google Buzz: All Content No Conversations?". Which implied that there isn't much conversation going on within Buzz? That's not been my experience: not sure the majority of people who've tried Buzz (for a while) would agree either.

Edit: Comment on this post below or on Buzz

Twitter location data now in Google Buzz

2010-04-17T10:35:00.001+02:00

Nice to see improvements being rolled out to Google Buzz.

Noticed that location data is now showing up on Buzz posts pulled in from Twitter.

The change shows up most on the "nearby" tab on a mobile device, as this shows the source: but will also help to populate the Buzz map too, which after an initial burst of activity was, in some locations, rather quiet.
You can view a Buzz map in your desktop browser here (works best in Chrome).
Update: Now you can see GeoBuzz posts on the desktop version of Google maps too.

If Buzz gave the option to view "Buzz from my Contacts" or filter by a group that would be really cool especially for location. Then, I don't suppoese I'd check out foursquare. I find all those "I'm at ..." tweets rather irritating: from the "outside" they're just a foursquare ad. For me location information should be supplemental not the information itself.

For people pushing stuff in the other direction i.e. Buzz >> Twitter it would be nice if location data will also show up on the tweet itself eventually: here's hoping.

Twitter's larger and more established user-base still seems way ahead, which is why pulling the location data from twitter makes sense.

Twitter buying Tweetie recently was a good move. It gives Twitter a position natively in the mobile device and control of development. They do need to be careful not to alienate developers (at least the ones who's apps they don't buy). Control of an "official" Twitter mobile App does seem to be a shot across the bows of the services which have thus far focused on location e.g. foursquare, gowalla, brightkite etc.

I soon expect to be able to see which of those local tweets comes from someone I'm following.

Can I suggest on three colours please?
Local / Following / Mutually following

Facebook profile and page clones

2010-03-13T18:07:00.003+01:00

Getting round the limitations of Facebook as a symmetrical network.

This is NOT a how-to.

The term symmetrical network refers to the fact that currently Facebook, unlike Twitter and more recently Google Buzz, requires authorisation from both parties before one exposes the bulk of ones activity to a second party.

Person A requests friendship from person B
If person B accepts the friend request then both A and B's activity is exposed to both parties (you can tweak privacy settings but the assumtion is that A and B know each other and want to share information or keep in touch).

The exception to this has been Facebook pages (Facebook's profiles for businesses) which allows people to "Fan" a page and doesn't require the company (page) to have a relationship with the fan.
It's this "knowing" or trust relationship which makes people feel comfortable with exposing information. People share information with "friends" and as such the information shared can be of a more personal nature than information shared on a public asymmetrical network like Twitter (I'm discounting Twitter DMs here, which are one to one private messages where a reciprocal relationship is required, or Twitter accounts which are not public).

The current Facebook setup keeps everyone happy: you share with your friends and can be kept up-to-date by following (being a fan of) company pages you like: but the company is prevented from posting to your stream directly. They broadcast or can "update" to fans, but they can't directly post to your wall. Which is how it should be.

So what's the problem?
What I'm talking about is where companies (or individuals) break this container wall.
Using "people profiles" set up for a group, organisation or company. Often combined with a cloned page, which allows the one to many "following" too.

Here's an example: What's on Cologne

The "What's on Cologne" person profile here.
The "What's on Cologne" page here.

Disclosure: I run the English Speaking Cologne page. Which is why this profile / page activity caught my attention.

None of this make you feel at all uneasy?

The "person" currently has 477 "friends" (it was 169 when I first became aware of the profile).
Those 477 "friends" do not know who the "friend" is (they probably view the relationship in a similar way to pages they fan).
Those 477 people are sharing their personal information with a person they do not know.

It's difficult to find out who is behind the profile: it appears to be a Japanese music concern.

One person and one page obviously isn't a trend. ....

People:

Pages:

A random handful: there are hundreds of others.

The London "person" has access to ~~3,297~~ 4865 Friends - There is now a second London "person" profile - set up I assume because the first is about to hit the Facebook friend limit of 5000
The London "page" has ~~1,691~~ 2038 Fans

Getting "friends" is allot easier than getting "fans" which will be another reason this trend is accelerating.

Facebook doesn't seem to be doing much to combat this issue, although it's a breach of Facebook's terms.
The adoption of practices like this fuel Facebook figures and will lend sway to any future changes to the "friend" relationship mechanism which Facebook are sure to be contemplating.

I've stuck to "What's on xxx" in this post to better demonstrate my point: but I've seen this often. There are people I know doing this too, although not with malicious intent.

There is a common lack of understanding in how Facebook functions. Which hasn't been helped by the series of changes made by Facebook itself. Do you remember when groups looked different to pages?
It's no wonder people are confused.

Who are you?

2010-02-17T23:05:00.001+01:00

One of the happy side affects of Google Buzz popping up into the social landscape is that there will be allot more activity centered around Google profiles.

That in turn means that some of the many faceless members on both HCJ and ESC should be replaced with an icon instead.

Those new faces will also benefit from their names linking straight to there Google profile.

Then, if Friend Connect gets that "show my comments in Buzz" check box that I've asked for we'll be really Buzzing!

Google Social Search

2010-01-30T16:24:00.000+01:00

Currently Beta. I've been keeping tabs on how Google maps your social graph.
It's quite logical. Most of the links you add to your Google profile relate to you directly and Google does a pretty good job of guessing which links to connect you with. You can of course over ride this by clicking to edit the link and unchecking the "this is a profile page about me" check box.