Google + and Why You Want To Use It To Take Over the (Your) World : Tracy Renee Jones

Google + and Why You Want To Use It To Take Over the (Your) World

Posted by Tracy Renee Jones Jul - 18 - 2011 0 Comment

Lucky for me I’m surrounded by people that care enough about me that they immediately passed off a coveted Google Plus invitation.

I hadn’t yet received an invitation and I had a busy month of events and parties to attend so it wasn’t too hard to pretend like I didn’t care about the many, many, many articles flashing past my eyes on Twitter discussing Google’s new toy.

I was slightly jealous, I”ll admit.

All the cool kids had one…..the first announcement (an auto email alerting me as to who is using Google Plus and/or bragging in my email box taunting me to want to join) which as usual was @maximosis, who was followed by @thekingslayer and then @primaldata whose email was right behind @kalediscope; I’m forever grateful to you all for your kindness and charity.

I still didn’t jump right into Google Plus after since having been slightly disappointed with Google Wave which I liked but then Google killed it right when everyone started to get the hang of it. That sucked. I was on there with @IbaOshun who was kind enough to invite me on and then call me when I cried to Twitter because I didn’t get it.

#CANYOUSEEME!?

Then came Google Buzz which confused the hell outta me. Once I realized that I didn’t understand the relationship between my emails, these Buzz people and Twitter, I shut the whole thing down and jumped ship.

Fuck that!

I’m a control freak, at least I want to pretend that Google let’s me be in control and if I’m screaming at the top of my lungs on Twitter than I don’t need my email box knowing about it.

I felt betrayed by a lover..DAM YOU, GOOGLE BUZZ!!

Alas, but here we are again. And just like that dam boyfriend that would be perfect if it wasn’t for his no good ways, I’m smitten by Google like the very first time. Again. More.

Image Via Link

Here’s why I love it and you might too:

I can follow people (like on Twitter) and people can follow me (like on Twitter). I can read everything that any person I follow writes. This isn’t news but what’s great is that the people that I follow will see what I write as well, whether they follow me or not. Everyone is connected in this way. So this alleviates the “Pick me! Pick me!” aspect of Twitter and the “Mind Yo Dam Business” privacy controls of Facebook.
Group video chats that can be created and joined by anyone (up to 10 people per room) and one doesn’t need to ‘Follow’ or have a connection to a person to participate or host a room in Google + “Hangouts”. I see the potential to host forums open to the public; especially now that Ning discontinued their free social network hosting option. I haven’t used it yet but I have several ideas of how this can be quite useful. The limit on 10 people makes me think some folks will have very exclusive ‘conversations’ using Google Hangout.
You have the ability to create a real customized news feed called “Sparks”. By a REAL news feed I mean one in which you do a search and Google brings back results that actually consists of news and not what some Facebook people consider to be “news” i.e., the great deal you found on shoes at Burlington Coat Factory. If you’re in the business of digesting news and staying on top of things than this option is a priceless for saving brain cells and time.
I can sort you weirdos into groups like “Friends” and “People I Hate” (you can name a group anything you want is my point). Because like with anything else in life, “everything ain’t for everybody”. The same way I’m not really concerned with your kids (sometimes I am, just not every day like you are) not everybody is eager to see my erotica posts or Christian bashing political articles. Some news may just interesting to my family members who like to watch funny YouTube videos while they are at work; now with the choice of who I send things to I can sort the recipients of my little updates into neat groups so it’s easy to decide who gets to see what.
Google + follows you around the web. I can tell you it’s much easier to just press the little Google Plus button rather than having to “Like” something on Facebook once and then forever being attached to the entity regardless of whether or not I find the rest of their information useful. With Google Plus I can just push along the relevant information without having to marry the source (I have commitment issues).

Well, now you know where I”ll be; I’ve discovered a helluva of dope people and it sure does feel less crowded than Twitter. Than again, I might not be saying the same thing about Google Plus if I go ahead and begin to interact with a ba-zillion people. I’ve been scaling back on my internet activity, rather than give up topics and thoughts to those following me so that they can use my ideas for writing prompts (I see you!) I spend more time writing for myself and others while also kick starting a side gig or two I have under wraps.

Either way, you know where to find me…..and if you start to annoy me on Google Plus I’ll just ignore you with the nifty “Mute” button just like I ignore you on my other social network profiles.

Adio…