Google is not any longer just a search engine – most of you might know that already! We use Google products on a daily basis and many internet users are relying on their Google account like no other service. We use Calendar, Docs, Drive, Analytics, Google+ and so much more.

Beside this, there are tons of other services  and apps available across the internet that rely on information from those products in our as well. We have/had to give them the permission to access our data in order to serve our needs.

This is all good and it makes our life so much easier but do you know which service you have given access to your account two years ago? Do you still use? Are you sure the developer did not sell the project and the access to your data? Now, this is getting a bit uncomfortable, right? It should!

But fear no longer! We will sort the crap out of your list and get you back to safety again.

To get started, please visit this link (you need to login): https://accounts.google.com/b/0/IssuedAuthSubTokens?hl=en

After login, you’ll see a screen that looks nearly identical to my one here and it could be a very very long page!

Now on the left, you see the name of the service you have granted access, followed by the different access types of Google.

Depending on the service you use it could be as little as having access just to your Profile information but as huge as Full Account Access.

I have tested different apps and services in the past weeks so my list gets very long here and thats the reason why I visit that page very often. If you are not testing apps or services very often, you could be fine with visiting that page once a month or so.

If you want to remove an app from that list, simply click on the “Revoke Access” button and you are good to go.

Some apps/services might need your permission in order to work properly to deliver you content but they will most likely ask you again for the permission.

Really, think about cleaning up here from time to time, this is important.

I released a post on Google+ yesterday, with a small comparison picture, and it made it to my most active post on Google+ ever.

A dozen of +1 and reshares so there needs to be some sort of interest.

Within the original image, there were some issues which I’m now going to fix. For anyone who is interested in this chart, please keep an eye on this post here, since I’m going to update this regularly.

UPDATE 04.11.2013

Google+ showed me once again how powerful it is! Not did my post get shared 300 times but there were some great individuals helping to get this comparison translated!

As already mentioned before, I’m going to keep this comparison alive and will post updates in this post, let me start today with translations in 6 more languages!

A massive thank you to all contributors! Want to contribute your language? Just send me a message!

Available translations:

We all have tried to get all of our friends together to one place but the time management wasn’t really easy.

I’m using a service called: Doodle since a very long time and it does a fantastic job. It’s easy, quick and has guest access which make it even more easiert – Participants don’t have to sign up!

Since most of the service is self-explanatory, I’ve made a quick video to show you how easy it is to schedule your next event.

As you can see, it is pretty easy and simple.

If you use something different please let me know via your comment!

What does a TC do?

In short: TCs are helping other members with issues related to Google products. You got an issue with Gmail? Feel free to visit the official GPF (Google Product Forum) and ask your question over there. In 95% a TC is the first one to get back to you and your issue. Even Googlers are answering questions in the forums, don’t be shy, we all are here to help you.

If you need help with a Google Product, the first place I would recommend is the Google Product Forum (GPF): https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/en
If you are in need for Google+, have a look at the official community here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115758385206378551362

Why I’m a TC?

It might sound strange for some but I love to help others. Is it useful to spend time for support? For sure!
Let me give you a short example why it is useful:

Have you ever written or relied to a review for a product or location? See, if no one would have ever written a review, you might have had a bad experience. Reviews or support posts are helping us each day and we rely on them.

I became a TC for Google+ (EN) and Hangouts (EN, DE) since I wanted to have more friends using those products. How can I spread the word for a product I’m a fan of? Help others to understand the difference and they will spread the word for you.
The easiest thing to explain that, is a short story:

A friend of mine didn’t joined Google+ because he was still comparing it with the blue book. I haven’t been able to get him over so I have made a video about how Google+ Photo Albums are working. Not only he but some other friends started to like the idea of how it worked and gave it a try. They were blown away with the ease and functions Google+ is currently offering. Guess what I’ve said? I told you so!

Fanboy vs TC

We sometimes have been called fanboys who like to protect Google and its products with our life.
Well the truth is, we really like Google but we are still different.
Again, a TC is a person that helps you which means he has a good knowledge about that product or even about bugs or missing features.

So instead of saying it works like it should, the TC is trying to help you to solve your issue and if that is not working, he’s going to forward your issue to Google. Google relies on the feedback from TCs and the members. Only if you know whats wrong or missing, you are able to take action.
We know that nothing is perfect, whatever product, brand or service it is but we want to improve it.

Elite / Experts

Some are calling a TC an expert or the Elite of a specific product but personally, I wouldn’t call myself an expert. Why? Because there is always someone else with a much broader range or more detailed knowledge as you and compared to him, he might be the expert and not you. See what I mean?

We don’t act and we don’t feel any better than any other member. Thats a fact.

Fame / Reward

We are not here for the fame which some members have said in the past. We are here to help you.
This is not a competition! If you are looking to compete with others or just trying to get an invitation for the summit – please don’t apply.
It is not about any ranking in forums, how many posts you answer or how many attention you get.
Within the forums or the communities, it is not about me or you or even Google. It is all about the USER. Nothing more, nothing less. The user is the most important part in our life as a TC.

Advice

If you are interested in becoming a TC, here are some short suggestion I would like to give you:

• Be helpful
• Be a nice person
• Have fun with what you are doing
• Don’t be too shy
• Don’t take things too hard
• Don’t try to gather attention
• Don’t spam
• Don’t reply to posts which have already been answered (see #6)

Need to be said

Finally, here are some words I have to speak out as well:

Thank you to all TCs for the great help you offer the members and the help we give between TCs! This is such a great community!

Thank you to all the Googlers that are playing a role in our TC and product life. I can’t name any Googlers or name any positions for privacy reasons but let me say that: Without you, we won’t be able to be a part of that whole thing. A special thank you to my Googlers – you know who you are! 🙂

Thank you to … Google! Thanks for giving us the chance to help members, solve problems and pass on some important feedback. Thanks for the summit which is one of the best things you have done and could keep doing in the future. It gives us so much in terms of knowledge and getting together with other TCs or Googlers than any Hangouts session could do. You sharpen your front row!

Join us today

If you have fun in helping other members with your knowledge in any Google product, please feel free to visit the Top Contributor website today.

Applications make more sense if you have already been active in the past and shown your dedication and skills within the forum or community. In that way, it would be much easier to consider your application.

Google just made a bold move with that new feature – something a lot of members were looking for.

Let’s have a look first about the result on your page:

As you can see, comments are included in that post as well – get into the discussion right from your blog post! This is not all, +1 and circling right from that post works as well!

Since you are able to embed any post, it means that only public posts are working. You can’t share a privately shared post.

Ok, let’s get started – the setup is so simple, have a look at these two photos.

Find the post you want to embed on your site and click the small arrow down icon.

Now choose “Embed post”.

The Popup shows you the piece of code you need to insert to your article.

Please be aware of the Google policies at any time.

What about you? Did you wait for that feature for a long time as well? Do you miss something in that current way it is working? Please let me know via your comment!

I have been a fan of services like EarthCam where you are able to choose a webcam located somewhere in the world and watch the live video feed. It was a great experience to know what exactly is currently happening in that place of the world.

Then there was Google popping up with Hangouts On Air.

We all know how great it is to join in a Hangout with our friends but the really interesting thing that get’s you around the world from your comfy seat at home is, Hangouts On Air.

If you are on the page, you get a list of all running HOA’s (Hangouts On Air).

Just enter any of them and you’ll learn something new. Wether about a stranger you don’t know or the country the person lives.

Let me show you a couple of examples why I’m enjoying Hangouts On Air.

Russian Wedding
I haven’t been to a russian wedding before but it was interesting to see how they are celebrating this special event. I didn’t knew the persons or the family but it was reality TV on the internet. Now I have seen how they are doing weddings.

History class in Japan
Sounds strange but it was great. I don’t understand Japanese at all but it was fantastic to see a live teaching class from a different place in the world. I have learned that it is pretty hot in the class and it is common to sit there with your towel around your neck or use a special square towel to dry your face. Who knew that before? Interesting!

Ritual ceremony
I’m not sure which type of buddhist monks they were but I haven’t seen a ceremony of them before. It was great to listen to them and watch what they were doing. I watched something absolutely different from me, my place or from what I know.

Yoga and Meditation for the mass
I’m not really into that one but again, it was interesting. I have watched a Yoga and Meditation class from somewhere in Asia – one person doing and viewers have to follow. How much closer can you get to the real methods of meditation?

Language classes
Want to learn a new language? Welcome to Hangouts On Air, participate in one of the many classes you’ll find there.

So many more
There are far more and different types of Hangouts than I could post here, example: Concerts, Personal Crisis Hotline, Event broadcasts, etc

Want to watch a Hangouts On Air? Find them here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/hangouts

Question for you: What are your favourites on Hangouts On Air?

This given fact seems to overwhelm some users from time to time. Recently, I came across a few statements like:

It’s too complicate. I don’t know how to use it.

The reality is, it is so easy that you won’t think about it in the first line. Don’t fear, I’m here.

Have a look at my quick ‘n easy Google+ Photos HowTo, it shows you how to get your photos online, tagged and shared under 2:30 mins!

With everything new in our life, there are great chances of confusion and adapting. The same goes with Hangouts. I have seen many complaints about not seeing the user status – is the person online or is he offline?

Now this question get’s me thinking: What am I in real life? Online or Offline? What does it mean?

Here is a small personal take on why I love Hangouts. It is not a post about what is missing like Google Voice or AOL/AIM contacts and I’m sure not everyone likes the post at all but… here we go

Online, Offline & Invisible

It seems we can’t get rid of this status indications but why? In my eyes those status indications are completely useless with the release of Hangouts.

What does being online on a messenger mean?
It indicates the other person that I’m free to chat.

What does being offline on a messenger mean?
I’m not able to chat with you because I’m not here.

If you see a status “away” does it mean I’m not responding? What about being “busy” is that different?

To be honest, if I don’t have the time to chat with you, why should I leave my application open? Just to show you I’m in a super important meeting and you can’t reach me? That makes no sense to me.

Seeing a status as “online” does not give you any guarantee that I will actually respond to you.

Being online is forcing you to take action, it set’s you under pressure. If someone writes you because you have a green icon, it is commonly expected that you reply to it. Oh, you forgot to set a different status? Explain this to the other person.

What about invisible? How does that make sense?

I’m online but will only write to friends I select. They can’t see me and won’t write me because they think I won’t get the message.

Do we need an indication like this?

Again, I don’t think so. Do you have a friend in your contact list that is all the time “busy or away”? I guess at least one. Now, if you follow those indications, it means you could never reach that person. Does it make sense for the person to use a messenger at all?

Green (online) and Red (away/busy) are stop and go signals. Depending on your importance to your friends you could find yourself spammed with 20 new messages as soon as you go green since they have waited the whole day for you. Now you have to walk through each single message – they expect a quick reply.

Wouldn’t it be better if those 20 messages would have been delivered during the day and not all at once?

Online vs Connected

Let’s get rid of being online – In the time where smartphones are taking over the digital life we are nearly always online, there is no need to indicate that you can reach me via any application.

Now with Hangouts it doesn’t matter if you are online or offline. If I’m writing you a message, it will get delivered across all devices you have and I can be sure that you received the message. It is about you to get back to me whenever you feel comfortable (would mean online). If you don’t have the time, you’ll get back to me later (busy/away). It is as simple as that.

We really don’t need an indication that tells our friends we are listening to them. We do, even if we are “away/busy/invisible”, it’s about the conversation you have with me.

This is where Hangout is great, it doesn’t care about your status, it cares about getting your conversation delivered!

Feels like traditional SMS? Well, you can’t do video chats via a SMS or send group messages. However, from what we have heard these days is that Google is already working on new features and SMS integration.

I see that some need to get used of this but chatting/messaging and conversations are just reaching a new different level.

I’m based in Germany but usually my search queries aren’t in German language and therefore not relevant to search within the german market. That’s why I have set my browser to use google.com as my search domain. By the way, I have everything set to english, my OS, Browser and Google settings.

If I need to search within the german market, I’m used to click the link on the lower left of the Google search page.

But somehow, since a couple of days, Google is redirecting my browser always to Google.de instead of using Google.com. I even clicked the link “Google.com” but it keeps redirecting me, frustrating!

I have nearly tried everything, checking my settings, editing my cookies and even deleting those cookies – no chance. As soon as I click on “Google.de” it won’t go back to Google.com.

Now I came across a small workaround

I have been told -read the article Google.com automatically takes me to another Google site – to use “ncr” (No Country Restriction) within the URL, which looks like this:

http://www.google.com/ncr

This has set my preferences back to Google.com. Finally.

Clicking on the “home”button of my browser points again to Google.com but as soon as I visit Google.de again, it doesn’t work anymore.

So it seems I need to set my browser to use https://www.google.com/ncr as a default setting.
Currently I don’t know if this has effect on any other settings or disadvantages but for now, I’m happy to use the global search page again.

What about you?

Do you have the same problem or found another solution? Please let me know via your comment and have a great weekend!

This article is not about explaining the tools itself but a comparison of both.
DISQUS is currently preparing and releasing their 2012 version which looks amazing. Since I have been granted to take use of the new version, I thought it would be on time to compare both comment systems.

Feature comparison

I have listed the most advertised features of both systems

 

Details

Let’s have a look at the missing options of each of them

Listener count

Livefyre is showing something called “Live Listening Count” which is an indicator how many visitors are currently reading your page. This is in fact a feature I really like and I’m missing on DISQUS 2012.

Post rating

Rate a post if you like it is a feature by DISQUS. Readers are able to give the article a “Star” (formerly known as “Like”). Livefyre isn’t offering something similar, just for comments.

But the question is, is it useful? Do we need it? We have so many ways to show what we like that I think this is just a optional voting instead of a useful one.

Reactions

You have this feature in WordPress and it is optional in DISQUS so nothing dramatic to think or worry about. It just shows the mentions of your post below the comment section.

OneClick Follow

Livefyre made it easy, with a single click you are able to follow the comment conversation. That’s the most easiest way you could have. Subscribe or unsubscribe with a single click.
Missing on DISQUS 2012.

LinkBack

LinkBack is a feature offered by Livefyre which give the commenter to leave a link to his latest blog post within his comment. Nice feature to drive some more attention to the own blog.

On one hand it’s great as it could encourage your readers to leave a comment with the benefit of placing their link on your site.On the other hand it could end up in less quality comments as some readers just want to say something to get their link posted.

DISQUS isn’t currently offering this option but 2012 is still in development, maybe we will see this feature soon. I would welcome it as a no-follow option.

As a personal note: LinkBack doesn’t encourage me more to leave a comment. If I want to comment on an article, I do it, with or without LinkBack.

Social Tagging

Get your facebook friends or twitter followers into the conversation if you think they fit in. Wonderful but missing on DISQUS 2012. Within DISQUS you are able to tag only persons which have left a comment, there is no chance to get your community involved from the outside of DISQUS.
Why I like this feature: Instead of sharing the URL to a DM on twitter or a message on facebook, I could tag a friend of mine to get involved to this article right within my comment.
Sure, there could be a downside if many commenters are leaving “@NickRockIT what do you think?” bundled with their LinkBack URL. This isn’t any quality feedback for the blogger so it could be misused.

Support

Both sites have a great and very fast acting support, they are using social media in a right way. Just wait a bit and I guess one or the other or both will leave a message to this post.
I have tested this via twitter, response within minutes!

Same goes for community support, if you have found any bug their Dev’s will be happy to get back to you.
In terms of support, both are brilliant!

What I love on DISQUS 2012

• Discussion can be sorted with the option “Newest”, “Oldest” or “Best”
• The community tab shows you “Top Discussions” and “Top Commenters”
• A single click on an avatar will show you the user profile, neat
• Minimal design

Social Sharing on the other hand is quite difficult, you have to post first your comment to share it.

Nice integration from Livefyre, you are able to tick the checkbox of the service you want to share.

Stick to your system

To be honest, I didn’t tried to install one system in change for the other. Why? Both systems are providing the social tagging feature which I don’t think is compatible between each of them. Also I don’t know what happens if you are using Livefyre with the LinkBack feature and you are trying to migrate to DISQUS. Maybe you could end up with some unhappy commenters on your blog as you have removed all of their links.
Whatever you choose, try to stick with it to avoid some unnecessary troubles.

Which one to choose

As you see, both are feature rich and are doing a great job. There isn’t any favorite I could choose so I stick to the system I’m familiar with – DISQUS.

It’s just a personal choice, both systems are so identical for the end-user that you could roll the dice to find your solution to use. BUT if you need the LinkBack and SocialTagging feature, sure there is only one choice: Livefyre

As DISQUS 2012 is still in development, let’s see what else they are coming up with.

So, what are you using on your website? Do you have any favorite and why? Please let me know via your comment.