Google+ hit the ground running (Entry 3)

A screenshot of my Google+ profile. Which I admittedly haven't been using much. It's such a hassle to maintain more than one social networking account. I don't even bother much nowadays. It would make sense to maintain a Facebook and a LinkedIn account, and have your LinkedIn handle all your work contacts and Facebook your social contacts, or in that sense have different social networking accounts handle different aspects of your life. If you can maintain that for a considerable amount of time, then you either have a lot of discipline or a lot of time on your hands.

Anyways, one of the things that surprised me about Google+ was how fast it got up and running as compared to other social networking sites. Facebook, for example, took years and slow expansion from Harvard, to other Ivy League schools, Oxford, and finally to the public. Google+, within days of opening, exploded with memberships. Even though initial membership and beta testing was on an invite-only basis (which I got, and it feels so exclusive :D), there was a point during beta testing when unlimited inviting was open during this period and Google was so swamped with requests that they had to shut that service down within a day.

Another thing that surprised me was how, as Google+ started to grow in popularity, that Facebook was starting to copy it. I noticed it when the updated Facebook included setting who sees your individual posts, which was something that Google+ did first. Another thing was how Facebook was changing the way we organized our friends such that it resembled Google+'s Circles.And here I was thinking that Google+ was just a white, ad-free, Farmville-free version of Facebook.

It only goes to show how threatened Facebook is by Google+. The thing is, how long can either survive? They both seem rather popular, but in the end, they might wind up being stuck in a stalemate of popularity with loyalists on both sides. Like Coke and Pepsi, or Windows and Mac, or the iPhone and the Blackberry.

Oh wait, I think the iPhone is winning that one. Epicly winning. I don't hear of iPhone users converting to the BB.

Anyway, in the end, I think my Google+ account is just going to end up collecting dust while I continue to update my Facebook account. Unless Anonymous really does shut down Facebook.

So which is going to win? Or rather, which are you rooting for?


Let me know in the comments section down below!

You DON'T have Facebook?! (Entry 2)

One common occurrence in my experience as president of SIM Muay Thai is how I will tell members to check the SIM Muay Thai Facebook group for updates and news, and there will be one or two awkward hands (if at all) raised and people declaring "I don't have Facebook." It will be at that point where I'll be thinking of how to proceed from here, because I would not have anticipated that. I keep thinking to myself that this will be an isolated case, but sure enough, with another batch of new trainees, the same issue will come up again and catch me off guard.

Then again, I wonder why this issue seems so foreign to me. With 750 registered Facebook accounts and nearly 7 billion people, we're bound to run in to a few people without an account. The thing is, because of the relatively tech-savvy community we live in, where even my 11-year-old cousin has Facebook (although she shouldn't, plus it's affecting her grades), we assume that the people who don't have Facebook or Twitter are the older generation, Laggards, people who live in rural areas and third-world populations.

Turns out, however, that there are some among us who are still up to date with technology in the general sense (modern cellphones, televisions, laptops, etc) and yet do not use social networking. These are the people who still remember what life was like before Friendster and Myspace and know that humanity can survive without social networking. It is not as essential as email, and most of these people see social networking as a waste of time.

They have a valid concern. Unregulated social networking usage in the workplace has burned up many a man-hour, and social interactions online through Facebook are seen by most as a superficial version of actual interaction. Quoting a comedian I once heard (I think it was Lee Evans): "There was a time where looking at other people's vacation photos was considered a punishment!"

However, I find that using social networking to codify and organize our social interactions really helps. This is especially true in creating events and group pages, because it really facilitates the organizing and the communication process.

It's just those damn Farmville updates that flood my news feed that annoy me.


Let me know in the comments section down below!

Interwhuuuut? (Entry 1)

The other day, I was in the school gym and Under One Roof was on the TV. It was the episode that Ronnie acquired a computer and was charging people to use it, eventually running a mini-cybercafe in his kitchen. For the life of me, I can't remember when this aired, but I reckon it was before 2000. That aside, what struck me was the look of wonder and astonishment that everyone had on their faces when they first laid their eyes on a personal computer with Internet access, the wide-eyes "Is that a computer?" look. You'd never get that look nowadays, and it's taken for granted that every computer that we encounter has Internet access.

Everett Rogers' theory of diffusion of innovations talks about the five groups of people that adopt new innovations and technologies in different stages: Innovators, Ealy Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards. Laggards are usually the most pessimistic, conservative bunch of people who are usually resistant to change, especially new technologies. Yet, we can clearly see that the Internet is being used by even then. It has become as staple to us as mobile phones or newspapers, and just like those things, there are the very small minority of people who still don't want to bother with it.

I guess some of these people have no use for it, like senior citizens (although some do use the Internet). Some don't use it because of their lifestyle, like the Amish. And some people refuse to use it because they don't want to become enslaved and restricted by technology. That's where we come in and say that not using technology, inclusive of and especially the Internet, is the thing that actually enslaves us because it restricts our possibilities and opportunities in a tech-savvy world.

However, do these people have a point? Are we too dependent on technology and computers, not just individuals, but societies and governments? The 2007 movie Live Free or Die Hard suggests the scenario of a "fire sale", in which computer hackers attack a country's economy, transportation, communications and government, thereby effectively crippling the nation. All this is stated as plausible because all of these systems depend on connections and records that fully utilize technology and the Internet. It's a rather scary concept, everything around you just suddenly ceasing to work.

Let's consider that on a smaller scale: what if Facebook, our beloved social networking site, suddenly and permanently shut down? That is a concept that seems to be very real, considering this message from the hacker group Anonymous:




Quite freaky, to say the least. How does that make you feel?


Let me know in the comments section down below!