First of all, kudos to Google for “going for it” in the Facebook era.  They’re one of few players who actually has the resources and skill to make a serious go at a viable alternative to Facebook, and you’ve got to admire the effort.  If the success of the movie The Social Network tells us anything, it’s that Facebook has become mainstream and popular, and as generations of younger people look for ways to establish their identity in the digital age, they’ll be looking for alternatives to the place where their parents and now grandparents also hang out online.  By the same token, people of all ages and professions are trying to figure out just how to effectively and safely use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media tools in a world where we’re being encouraged to blend our personal and professional lives together more publicly.

Is Google+ just the right thing at just the right time?

People are already writing about the high bar that Google+ will have to jump in order to see any significant migration of Facebook users, not the least of which is all the time people have invested in curating their lists of “friends” there.  Facebook is going to make it as difficult as possible for its users to do any kind of exporting of account information from their system, and I don’t think Google is devious enough to launch an unauthorized workaround.  So people will be left to recreate their online identity on Google+, where the number of people you are connected to still largely drives your user experience.

On the other hand, despite Facebook’s 750 million users, I suspect Google actually knows about at least as many people, if not more.  Between its large and growing population of GMail users, the information they have about web users through tracking searches and Google Analytics data, and their ability to gather and index huge amounts of data from other sources, Google is perhaps positioned better than any other digital media organization to say “hey, we already know so much about you, why don’t you make yourself at home here!?“

One of the main selling points of Google+ is the ability to organize your list of contacts into Circles, containers (or, for those who want a more widely used descriptor, “tags”) that help you figure out who to share what with and how you want to slice and dice the information being shared with you.  I’ve heard a number of people clamoring for this kind of thing on Twitter for a while now, and though Facebook lets you do a version of it, it’s clumsy to use.

But as Joel Spolsky suggests, this might be asking a lot of us to exert the mental energy to determine which circle(s) each person belongs in, and to keep up with that over time.  Life is messier than “Friends”, “Family” and “Co-workers” (especially if you live in a smaller city like I do), and many people have adapted to the “Friend label fits all” approach on Facebook, limiting as it might be.  We may not know for sure anyway until a lot more people are using the system.

From an interface design perspective, Google+ has all the hallmarks of a well thought out, well-engineered web application by a company that’s been doing this for a while now.   I think Google+ has a ways to go to reach the level of simplicity that Facebook has enjoyed when it comes to its primary transaction, the display of a status update from a connection and subsequent comments/likes/etc.   On a single post by a connection on Google+, I counted no less than 9 different actions I could take in response (compared to 7 for a comparable post on Facebook, presented with fewer links/clickable widgets).

From a nit picky technical perspective, let me just say that the use of a “+” character as a prominent part of an online service’s name is pretty cringe-worthy.  The character isn’t allowed in a domain name, so they had to use “plus.google.com” for the actual web address. “+” is often used as a joining character in URL query strings or a special modifier in web searches, making its use here conflict a bit now that they’re using it in a site name. Google’s own search engine is confused by it – try searching for “Google” and “+” as search terms and their new offering doesn’t even come up on page one of the results (at least for me).  I even feel slightly uncomfortable using the “+” in the title of this blog post.

Until Google makes available an API that will allow other applications to integrate with Google+, there will be a lot of finger drumming going on in the world of web app developers.  Basic things like “let me post to Google+ from an app on my desktop or from Twitter” aren’t possible yet, and won’t be until that kind of access is allowed.  Google says it’s coming soon.

That’s my initial take on Google+.  Surely they’ll making a number of refinements to the system in the coming weeks and months, and it will be a different ballgame when it’s open for anyone to sign up.  Until then, I don’t think I’ll be spending much time there as a user, but it will be very interesting to watch the evolution of what could be a significant milestone in the very short history of social media.

What do you think about Google+?

The movie was incredibly well made.  Aaron Sorkin’s writing was as good as the best days of The West Wing, each member of the cast seemed to just nail their role, the editing was some of the best I’ve seen, and so on.

Perhaps most enjoyably, this is a mainstream movie that is at least in part about the culture and goings-on in the modern world of Internet entrepreneurship, I believe the first of its kind. It fully embraces the geekiness that was and is a part of building a web application like Facebook: in the first 30 minutes, the Apache webserver software project is mentioned at least twice, there are dramatic lines about needing more Linux webservers running MySQL, there are punchlines that involve the emacs text editor, and scenes of glorious code writing marathons – wow.

The Social Network also takes on the complex and sometimes dirty aspects of Internet start-ups, business partnerships that go sour, the role of lust, greed, insecurity and power struggles in creating beautiful things, and the general messiness of human relationships in a post-industrial world.  Some of this is probably over-dramatized; if you believe the narrative it presents, success in the world of the Internet means being ready to screw over your friends and then lawyering up to defend against their lawsuits, treating women as decorative sex objects to invite to website launch parties, and deferring basic care of one’s body in order to write software all night long.  My experiences as a web developer in the Midwest have been much less sensational…but then again, I’m not a billionaire, so maybe I’m doin` it wrong.

The movie doesn’t purport to be factually accurate, but there’s enough real history in there that it will likely become the popular understanding of how Facebook actually came to be; it might be close enough.  If you use Facebook, or if you’re interested in some of the crazy stuff that happens to take a start-up business like Facebook to what it is now, I think The Social Network is a great film to check out.

If you’ve seen it, tell me what you thought!

Well, you’re in luck!  I really enjoy cataloging and categorizing these kinds of things, and so I’ve put together this list of 12 kinds of social networking status updates.

Most every status update will fall into one of these categories:

1. I want you to know how happy I am. I have really amazing family, friends, career, hobbies, food, or some other factors that I will go on about publicly to hundreds of strangers, and I just want you to know how perfect everything is in the world right now.
2. I am incredibly busy and productive. But, I’m taking some time out of my incredibly busy schedule to tell you how incredibly busy and productive I am.  But as soon as I’m done with that, it’s back to being incredibly busy and productive!
3. I am kind of a big deal. Here’s some information about me that’s only thinly veiled as informational, but is actually designed to show you how important, successful, athletic, skilled, wealthy, well-connected and/or influential I am.
4. I want you to know how unhappy I am. You won’t believe how pathetic and unworthy I am, but I’d like to try to tell you about it anyway.
5. I am really clever and insightful. Let me just say this really clever or witty thing and let you bask in how amazing I am.
6. I would like to tell you about my physical location. Here is where I am right now.
7. I’d like to share about the activities of my child or children. Let me show you how cute and/or irreverent they are.  If you don’t have children, consider taking this opportunity to feel inadequate.  If you do have children, consider taking this opportunity to feel like you don’t enjoy your children as much as I do.
8. There is an injustice that needs your attention! Some person, organization or company has done something unacceptable and I need you to take action RIGHT NOW to help make it better.
9. I have a link that I’d like for you to click on. It’s really interesting, and it’s possibly going to change your life.  Come on, just click on it.  What if it’s a really cool photo of a cat in some situation you’ve NEVER seen before?  There, wasn’t that amazing?
10. I have a medical condition that I’d like to share about. I’m sick, or I’m getting better, or I’m having surgery, or I broke something, or someone or something threw up on me or I threw up on them.  Let me tell you about it.
11. I would like to comment on some aspect of popular culture. Allow me tell you why a particular television show, movie, celebrity, singer, actor or athlete is in or out of my favor right now.
12. I am mysterious. I would just like to post this string of characters that may or may not resemble words in your language, hoping to increase your confusion while also instilling some sense that I know something you don’t.  598234.

Do you have other categories to add?  What kinds of status updates do you tend to post?

1. Please don’t assume that you know me because you read my posts or status updates. I’m not saying this because I think I’m mysterious or hard to know, I’m saying it because I believe reading someone’s status updates does not constitute an engaged and genuine human relationship.  I do use the Internet to express myself, but only one very particular slice of myself.  I hope we can talk “in real life” or even via more direct online communication if we really want to get to know each other better.
2. Please don’t assume that I know you because of your posts or status updates. I sometimes try to keep up with what people are saying about their lives on social networking sites, but sometimes I definitely don’t bother.  If there’s something exciting, hard, important, or otherwise noteworthy happening in your life, you should assume you need to tell me about it in an “old fashion way” (e-mail, phone, letter, in person) if you want me to know or care. (Hopefully I will also be asking you how you are doing once in a while too.)
3. I have a sense of humor that sometimes doesn’t translate very well to written electronic form. Sometimes I type things that sound absolutely hilarious in my head, and come out quite confusing (or even worse, alarming) in pixel form.  I guess you should assume that if something I type sounds weird or problematic, it’s just a poorly executed attempt at humor, but you’re still welcome to call me out on it.
4. I don’t act on ambient invitations. Just because you think I may have heard about your (non-public) event, gathering or party because other people are mentioning it online or because you mentioned it on Facebook, please don’t assume that I think of myself as invited.  This may be old fashioned or even self-absorbed of me, but I generally still want to know directly from someone if they want me in attendance somewhere (and will generally give you back the courtesy of a direct RSVP).
5. I don’t really use Facebook for anything other than status updates.  I generally do not respond to requests for joining causes or groups, and I never accept requests to take quizzes, play games, or send or receive strange little objects via applications.  I often don’t have time or interest in responding to comments people post on my status updates.  I know, I know, some people will be like “Dude, you’re DOING it wrong,” and maybe I am.  Just don’t take it personally.
6. I use Delicious.com for social bookmarking, and you should too. If I see a website link that I think you might enjoy, I’m 27% more likely to follow through on that thought and make you aware of it if you have a Delicious.com account so that I can bookmark it for you there.   If I have to send you an e-mail message, I’m less likely to bother.  I’m sorry, it’s lazy, I know, I know.

I realize that this may sound curmudgeonly, especially coming from someone who works with the Internet for a living and who encourages people to use it as a tool for better communication.  But if you do read my blog, you know I feel strongly that we need to be very careful about replacing genuine human interaction with stalking each other on Facebook.

I know it may be futile, but it’s important for me to draw some of these lines in the sand about what kind of life I will and will not live online.

If you maintain some sort of presence on the Internet (via Facebook, Twitter, a blog or otherwise), what are some ground rules you set for yourself, and what should people expect (or not expect) from that online existence?

There’s so much of a difference for me between “remember that one time when we went on that amazing hike, and all of the things we saw together” and “remember that one funny status update you posted on your FB account and what I wrote back – oh wow LOL good times!“  And I don’t think it’s just about individual preferences for how to spend time.  The meaningful shared real world experience doesn’t have to be hiking…it could be a deep and/or challenging conversation; traveling together; raising a child together; worshiping or sitting in silence together; coming through some significant sickness or peril through someone else’s care; experiencing the death of a loved one together…and so on.

These are experiences that have a substantial impact on who we are, memories that are worth preserving in some form for the day our lives flash before our eyes.  They shape us, evoke emotion, challenge our thoughts, highlight our vulnerabilities.  The things we experience together online – social networking status updates, blog conversations, etc. – seem like they’re just “meta” stops along the way.

Maybe this isn’t really something to worry about?  Maybe I’m just projecting a wistfulness about more time away from my computer screen?  Maybe all of the intensity and volume I see on Facebook and Twitter that is ABOUT experiences in those virtual places is misleading, and people are still out there having meaningful engagements with the real world all day long?

Or is anyone else concerned that Our Online World is becoming Our World?

Feel free to tell me in person, we can go for a walk together.

• How DO you end parenthetical statements with emoticons? I’d really like to know.
• Make your own handwriting font – I used to dream about this kind of tool when I was a kid.  Really.
• Wayne County Veg*n Resources – Aaron and Mel FINALLY write a blog together, and it’s actually a great compilation of food/restaurant reviews and tips, especially as they relate to vegan/vegetarian diets.
• I’m on Facebook now, though it’s largely just a rebroadcast of my Twitter feed.  Please don’t ask me to justify this.  I don’t generally respond to requests or event invites there, don’t take it personally, cyber-friends.
• The next time you see one of those flashing LED road signs, you’ll know how to reprogram it to say what you want, e.g. “Zombies Ahead.”

What sites are you obsessing over this week?

• On Friday, I received an e-mail from Aaron Scamihorn at MediaSauce, who apparently saw one of my Twitter posts quoting a line from The Princess Bride (in Spanish, the translation for which I ripped off myself), and decided to create a bit of art because if it – see the image to the right.  Quite nice, well done, wow, I’m honored.
• Two all-around interesting guys from Star Trek: The Next Generation (among other things) are on Twitter now – LeVar Burton and Wil Wheaton.  Rumor has it that Brent Spiner might be next – sweet.  There’s something surreal and pleasant and twisted about now knowing when someone, who once played a character in a story on a show that I was thoroughly engrossed in from quite a distance, crosses the street or drinks some tea.
• I’m starting to get over Twitter, but remain intrigued by its immediacy, intimacy and global reach.  It’s the closest thing to a global chat room that can probably exist with today’s slow hand/keyboard/monitor interfaces (and that may already be going farther than what’s good for us).  But it’s just a bunch of people, all doing their thing, all thrown in the mix, and most of the time, it’s just fascinating.

Okay, that’s all, I’ll stop now, carry on.

Completely unrelated, I’m now trying out Twitter myself. I could tell you that I’m not doing it for the fame or the money or the inevitable product endorsement requests I’ll get. I could tell you that it’s purely a professional endeavor as I continue to try to keep my finger on the pulse of Internet culture. I could tell you about how I’m trying out different Twitter interfaces, APIs, applications, and related tools as a part of research for various projects.

All of these things might be true to some degree, but really, at some base level, I don’t know why I’m doing it, and I reserve the right to pull the eject handle at any time. But for now – cringe – I’m there.