Month: June 2011

What Will Make or Break Google Plus

June 29, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

I was thinking about Google Plus a little last night as I continually refreshed my screen hoping it would magically appear. I think there are a few things that can really make or break Google’s latest attempt at social.

1. Nobody has groups right yet

Twitter’s lists are great, but are basically read only. You can’t broadcast to them. This is in keeping with the way Twitter fundamentally works, so that’s cool. But as far as the people on your lists go, it is more of a mark of reputation to be on someone’s list than it is an indication of engagement from that person to you. Facebook has done a better job with Groups, but they aren’t even close to the three dimensional overlapping of sets of groups we are able to so easily process in our brains. Maybe Google is actually smart enough to tackle this abstraction.

2. Group Texting

Yeah, everybody has a group texting gadget, but Google has more reach. They bought Disco, and have seemingly re-branded it as Huddle. I hate texting, but this may make it a little better.

3. Ubiquitity (I just made up that word I think)

With Chrome, Google has the ability to offer a nice extension to make Google Plus always on. No need to visit a site or run a separate app to see what is going on…it can always be there, yet still unobtrusive. I don’t see why Facebook couldn’t do something like that with Chrome, but they don’t own the browser. Google could actually ship their extension as a part of the browser (and I bet they will), while Facebook will have to settle for being an extension. I don’t know the numbers on how many people running Chrome don’t ever install extensions, but I’m betting that number will rise as Chrome gets closer to the meaty part of the user adoption curve.

4. Android

Google already has a big market share for mobile, and they’ll be able to tightly integrate all the features of Plus into Android. iOS users are stuck with an HTML 5 webapp for now. Again, I don’t know what this has done for Gmail, and it was already a hit before, but this may be a huge factor. Bonus points if they offer up an online locker with plenty of space the way they did with Gmail at the beginning. That would be a big feature for storing photos and video.

Just some thoughts. I’m sure I’m way off base here. Tell me why.

***UPDATE***

Instant Upload from Android devices is a money maker! Coolest thing yet for any social platform I’ve used!

Training Swim With Manatees

June 27, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

I jumped in the river with my buddy Ryan on Saturday for a training swim. It was his first open-water swim, and my first swim in a long time. We’re lucky to have a perfect spot to swim at his parents’ condo with no boat traffic and a loop course that’s about 400 yards or so. The water was nice and calm, except for the occasional manatee poking its nose up to get a whiff of whoever was manning the paddle board. I think they were pretty curious about what we were doing. Ryan bumped into them a couple of times during his session, and I got bumped by a few when I was in the water before we started.

Here’s the thing…manatees feel like sharks.

Not that I’ve ever felt a shark in the water, and I know manatees are really gentle. But when you can’t see exactly what it is rubbing up against you under the water it’s kind of freaky; lots of incentive to swim fast and try to avoid them. It’s actually good race training in a way. It simulates getting bumped into by other swimmers without getting punched or having your goggles kicked off.

Just as we were getting out of the water a couple of dolphins showed up. As fun as it sounds to swim with dolphins, those things are freakishly strong, and they aren’t nearly as gentle as manatees. And while I can out-swim a manatee that’s leisurely goofing off in the water, I’m not quite as fast as a sleeping dolphin…yet. Getting unexpectedly bumped by a dolphin would not only be a little alarming, it would actually hurt.

We’re going to try to do this swim at least once a week, and hopefully we’ll get some choppier water next time to change the conditions up a little bit. And hopefully the critters will keep their distance.

Running, Drinking and Nerding Out Link Dump

June 26, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Long Distance Half-Steppers –

“Self-knowledge is a bitch.”

I have been all of these people at one point or another, and I’ve definitely run with all of them. There are more I could add to the list too!

Desmos Graphing Calculator – I am in nerd heaven. I can’t wait to play with this gadget. I can’t wait until my kids are learning higher math and we can do this together!!!

Get Drunk Not Fat – My knees wish my brain had been supplied this information at an earlier date.

‘Til debt do us part :

Leverage is leverage, and leverage always brings with it increased risk.

True, but what scares me most is the amount of this “leverage” that represents items of depreciating value or Super Value Meals. And that’s just on the consumer debt.

HTC EVO 3D Review – Hope to get mine before it’s obsolete.

iDoneThis – Very cool, very simple service. Every day it sends you an email, and you respond with that you did. Makes TPS reports a snap.

The 5 Switches of Manliness: Provide – Haven’t even read this one yet, but if it’s half as good as the others, it’s a must read.

India’s $35 Android Tablet Finally Ready Ship – Would be hard not to buy at least one of these. HT @_Neville

High-Pressure Tactics Culture At Groupon – More dumping on Groupon. The more details I read about this company, the more I am wary of it.

Forget Student Loans, And Maybe Even College – Can’t say it enough times–student loans are horrible. The whole industry is basically pay day lending that you can’t bankrupt.

Short Groupon – “Groupon is essentially holding a portfolio of loans backed by the receivables of small businesses. If a business goes under, consumers will come back to Groupon for their money back. Unless Groupon is actually doing credit assessments on businesses that it chooses to feature, this is a big risk for Groupon.”

Perfect Iced Coffee – A couple of weeks ago, I decided to give up coffee for 30 days. This post is the first time I’ve regretted that decision.

Big Bird and Amazon

June 22, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Amazon has released even more movies and TV shows for Prime subscribers today, including the last 7 seasons of Sesame Street. Cool!

We ditched cable about a year and a half ago and are exclusively streaming stuff from Netflix, Amazon, and Pandora through our Roku box. No regrets, and we haven’t looked back. There’s a ton of good children’s programming available that way, and the adults in the house only watch TV on purpose these days–no more turning it on and flipping through channels to find something to watch.

$11 a month for Netflix plus $79 a year for Amazon Prime gives us way more TV than we could ever watch.

June 15, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Classic.

I’m reading– May 24th through June 9th

June 13, 2011 / Scott / 2 Comments

Make your secondary Google Voice number permanent – Perfect solution for a a reasonable price. I don’t want to give up my old number for old contacts, but only give out my Google Voice number for new contacts.

The 5 Switches of Manliness: Challenge – Part II of this series. Dead on so far.

Texas movie theater makes an example (and a PSA) of a texter – Awsum. This should be rinsed and repeated for pretty much every venue except for phone booths.

Millionaires versus The Aspirationals – I’ll see your $10 wine and raise you a light beer in a can.

TN columnist: No athletics for home-schooled kids – Public school services (classes, athletics, etc.) should be a la carte.

Desmos Interactive Education – Saw this from TechCruch Disrupt. Coupled with Kahn Academy…strong!

The 5 Switches of Manliness: Physicality – Hells yeah.

End Of The Food Pyramid

June 2, 2011 / Scott / 2 Comments

The newly designed visual that tells us what we should be eating is going to be revealed today. That’s probably a good thing, since no one was paying to much attention to the Food Pyramid as the chart below shows.

Since Al Gore has taught us that correlation and causation are interchangeable, it makes sense to blame the jump in obesity starting in the early 80s on Atari. I’m not sure what George W. Bush was doing during that time, but there’s probably plenty of blame for him too.

Of course, the real reason for the jump in obesity is that people consume more calories than they burn. They don’t exercise and don’t pay attention to the food pyramid, or any other reasonable recommendations. You know, they’d rather just eat stuff like this.

It probably would have made more sense to ditch the Food Pyramid for a Food White Castle, Food Pizza Hut, or some other more modern structure that people do want to acknowledge.

Just brainstorming.

June 1, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments