Google CEO Larry Page gave a statistic that surprised many people during last week’s quarterly earnings call. He stated that Google+ now has 90 million users, which is double what it had three months ago. But going even further, he claimed that 60 percent of those users are engaged daily, and 80 percent weekly.
 
After being analyzed, it was noted that these users aren’t necessarily engaging with Google+, but any Google service when signed in to their Google+ account. They could just have went to Google.com to use Google Search and have gotten included in the engaging users. Facebook currently has 800 million active users, and 50 percent of them log in each day. Google+ isn’t revealing that kind of information and has stated many times that that type of information doesn’t matter.
 
“If you try to create a Google account from Google’s homepage, you’ll notice that Google redesigned the page, but that’s not all. You’ll now have to create a Gmail account, a Google Profile and you’ll automatically join Google+,” the Google Operating System blog states. “Until now, creating a Google account was quite simple. You could either use an existing e-mail address or create a Gmail account. The redesigned form includes new fields: name, gender (required for Google+) and mobile phone number (not required).”
 
The only exception to this statement is that a Google+ account is not automatically created for users who are under 18 years of age. Otherwise, that is definitely the truth.
 
We understand that Google+ is a lot newer than Facebook so it isn’t quite ready to be a competitor for the popularity of social networking. However, Google’s method for expanding membership captures a large number of “users” who barely ever visit the site. Facebook accounts are only created when the person tries to do so. Google has also had a past reputation of presenting statistics about Google+ usage in a misleading way during its quarterly earnings calls.
 
All in all, Google+ is a great platform which seems to attract more tech-savvy professionals than not. It would be interesting to see the real statistics instead of Google’s misguided ones, but I’m afraid that will likely not happen for quite some time.
 

Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit this week, Gundotra said “We plan to support pseudonyms in the future. We’re working on it. It’s coming.”

Google has prevented anonymous members in the past because it wanted to create a network in which it is easy to find friends by their real names, similar to Facebook. If you post a photo on Google+ and “Captain Crunch or Dog Fart comments on it, it changes the atmosphere of the product,” Gundotra said.

“It was largely an issue of developmental priorities. It’s complicated to get this right,” he said. “We want it to be a product where you can discover people you know. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to support other forms of identity. But this is the way we wanted to roll out the service, this is the atmosphere we wanted to set.”

Web 2.0 Summit’s moderator John Battelle noted that “pseudonyms are extremely important to people… Many hackers like to call themselves by their handles and not by their real names.”

Gundotra stated that Google Apps account integration with Google+ is coming soon as well. “That fix is imminent, it’s in a matter of days,” he said. As far as privacy, Gundotra promised not to adopt the “frictionless sharing” model that Facebook is working towards, in which sharing happens by default; though this “problem” has been fixed with Facebook’s latest updates. “We do not believe in over-sharing,” Gundotra said. “We think curation matters. There is a reason every thought in your head does not come out of your mouth.”

Source: Ars Technica

Google has recently addressed its new policy regarding fake accounts. They insisted that every Google+ profile must bear the real name of the same person operating the account, something that Facebook brought to attention not too long ago. The verifications will only appear on the profiles of public figures, celebrities, and “people who have been added to a large number of circles,” said Wen-Ai Yu, a member of the Google+ team. Yu also added that Google is “working on expanding this to more people in the future.”

Twitter has already done this for their official pages, but besides tweets, there really isn’t a whole lot to Twitter. Google+ is more closely related to Facebook, so it is definitely important that people are who they say they are, especially in the case of a high-profile user. On a Google+ page that is verified, the checkmark appears next to the verified account will roll out “verified name” in text when moused over. Google did not, however, comment directly on how they verify profile, nor did they say how many circles one has to be in before they are considered high-profile.

Source: Ars Technica

Social networking is not always the get-rich-quick scheme. It’s not all fun and games, parties, and wiring in to code. Your ideas must be outstanding, unique, and superior to that of your competition. This is what Facebook has done to MySpace, improving on nearly ever aspect of social networking. That being said, MySpace has been sold.

MySpace was bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for $580 million back in 2005. It started looking like a really good investment, as it became the popular social network for the next couple years. Then, the Facebook era came and took over really quickly. News Corp has finally decided that it must sell MySpace and get over the loss, selling for just $35 million.

Ars Technica advised the owners of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to “get out now while the going is good.” However, that’s absolutely absurd. That’s like telling Apple to quit since they’re doing well. The reason MySpace failed is because it was unattractive, buggy, had terrible servers, was full of creepy pedophiles, and the entire layout was not convenient. Facebook utilized all of those things and made a brilliant social network. That being said, the only way Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter will go down the drain is if someone comes out with a new social network that is way better than theirs. It could be done, as I even have ideas, but it would take time. That being said, they would have warning once the project is released to back out if they feel they needed to.

I suppose the underlying difference is that the popular social networks out now were coded and put together by geeks, while MySpace was founded by an entertainment group, struggling to keep up with the new technologies. There is no room in the technological world for people pretending, as you will get bit in the ass when something new comes out and you haven’t the slightest idea how it works.

Source: BBC

The changes haven’t been rolled out to everyone yet. It will be done over the next few weeks. So, keep checking your account, you might have it soon. I haven’t got it yet, and I am so jealous of those who have.

Source: Mashable and http://www.itgeekblog.com/?p=605 Continue reading →]]> I don’t know what to think of this. But, to be fair, I’m coming from a completely different point of view.  If you are single and looking to find Ms. Right (or at least Ms. Right-Now), there are a multitude of sites dedicated to playing matchmaker. But for some people, the process of filtering through profiles looking for a promising prospect, making the initial contact and following up is too time consuming. Enter the third party flitering service. For a nominal fee, an online company will take care of the filtering process for you. That way, you don’t have to lose time doing the sifting yourself.

The reason I find this hard to grasp is I came from a completely different angle. I dated in college, and while I was not Mr. Popular on campus, I did manage to atract a few women. When I got out of college and started working, I was single and worried.  I thought that if I hadn’t met the right person in college, I would be a bachelor for life. So, I did dabble in the online matchmaking sites and found nothing compatible. I tried a couple of blind dates, but we all know how well those usually work out. Finally, I looked to the one source that no one ever thinks to tap; future in-laws. I was teaching music at a grade school and the 4th grade teacher knew I was having trouble meeting people, so she set me up with her daughter. 3 months of being friends, 6 months of dating, and 9 months of engagement, we have been happily married for over 6 years. So, I hope that these online sorting sites work.