Introducing the Google+ project: Real-life sharing, rethought for the web

Among the most basic of human needs is the need to connect with others. With a smile, a laugh, a whisper or a cheer, we connect with others every single day.

Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online. Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools.

In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.

We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests. And so begins the Google+ project:

+Circles: share what matters, with the people who matter most
Not all relationships are created equal. So in life we share one thing with college buddies, another with parents, and almost nothing with our boss. The problem is that today’s online services turn friendship into fast food—wrapping everyone in “friend” paper—and sharing really suffers:

• It’s sloppy. We only want to connect with certain people at certain times, but online we hear from everyone all the time.
• It’s scary. Every online conversation (with over 100 “friends”) is a public performance, so we often share less because of stage fright.
• It’s insensitive. We all define “friend” and “family” differently—in our own way, on our own terms—but we lose this nuance online.

In light of these shortcomings we asked ourselves, “What do people actually do?” And we didn’t have to search far for the answer. People in fact share selectively all the time—with their circles.

From close family to foodies, we found that people already use real-life circles to express themselves, and to share with precisely the right folks. So we did the only thing that made sense: we brought Circles to software. Just make a circle, add your people, and share what’s new—just like any other day:

+Sparks: strike up a conversation, about pretty much anything
Healthy obsessions inspire sharing, and we’ve all got one (or two, or three...). Maybe it’s muscle cars, or comic books, or fashion, but the attraction is always the same: it comes up in conversation, we immediately jump in, and we share back and forth with other fans. Often for hours. The trick is getting things started, and getting over that initial hump. Fortunately, the web is the ultimate icebreaker.

The web, of course, is filled with great content—from timely articles to vibrant photos to funny videos. And great content can lead to great conversations. We noticed, however, that it’s still too hard to find and share the things we care about—not without lots of work, and lots of noise. So, we built an online sharing engine called Sparks.

Thanks to Google’s web expertise, Sparks delivers a feed of highly contagious content from across the Internet. On any topic you want, in over 40 languages. Simply add your interests, and you’ll always have something to watch, read and share—with just the right circle of friends:

+Hangouts: stop by and say hello, face-to-face-to-face
Whether it's inside a pub or on a front porch, human beings have always enjoyed hanging out. And why not? It's how we unwind, recharge, and spend unscheduled time with old and new friends alike. Hanging out is deceptively simple though, and the nuance gets lost online.

Just think: when you walk into the pub or step onto your front porch, you're in fact signaling to everyone around, “Hey, I've got some time, so feel free to stop by." Further, it’s this unspoken understanding that puts people at ease, and encourages conversation. But today’s online communication tools (like instant messaging and video-calling) don’t understand this subtlety:

• They’re annoying, for starters. You can ping everyone that’s “available,” but you’re bound to interrupt someone’s plans.
• They’re also really awkward. When someone doesn't respond, you don't know if they’re just not there, or just not interested.

With Google+ we wanted to make on-screen gatherings fun, fluid and serendipitous, so we created Hangouts. By combining the casual meetup with live multi-person video, Hangouts lets you stop by when you're free, and spend time with your Circles. Face-to-face-to-face:

+Mobile: share what’s around, right now, without any hassle
These days a phone is the perfect sharing accessory: it's always with you, it's always online, and it's how we stay close with our closest friends. We didn’t want “just” a mobile experience, however, so with Google+ we focused on things (like GPS, cameras, and messaging) to make your pocket computer even more personal.

+Location, location, location
In life, the places we visit shape conversations in lots of meaningful ways. If we call John from the airport, he’ll likely ask about our trip. Or if Jane texts from a nearby restaurant, we might join her for dessert. With Google+ you can add your location to every post. (Or not. It’s always up to you.)

+Instant Upload
Getting photos off your phone is a huge pain, so most of us don't even bother. Of course pictures are meant to be shared, not stranded, so we created Instant Upload to help you never leave a photo behind. While you're snapping pictures, and with your permission, Google+ adds your photos to a private album in the cloud. This way they're always available across your devices—ready to share as you see fit.

+Huddle
Coordinating with friends and family in real-time is really hard in real life. After all, everyone's on different schedules, in different places, and plans can change at any moment. Phone calls and text messages can work in a pinch, but they're not quite right for getting the gang together. So Google+ includes Huddle, a group messaging experience that lets everyone inside the circle know what's going on, right this second.

Starting today Google+ is available on Android Market and the mobile web, and it’s coming soon to the App Store.

+You: putting you first, all across Google
That’s the Google+ project so far: Circles, Sparks, Hangouts and mobile. We’re beginning in Field Trial, so you may find some rough edges, and the project is by invitation only. But online sharing needs a serious re-think, so it’s time we got started. There’s just one more thing—really the only thing: You.

You and over a billion others trust Google, and we don’t take this lightly. In fact we’ve focused on the user for over a decade: liberating data, working for an open Internet, and respecting people’s freedom to be who they want to be. We realize, however, that Google+ is a different kind of project, requiring a different kind of focus—on you. That’s why we’re giving you more ways to stay private or go public; more meaningful choices around your friends and your data; and more ways to let us know how we’re doing. All across Google.

When your invite arrives we hope you’ll join the project. But it’s entirely up to +You.

Disaster Recovery Tip #33

Spread the word.

Last week we discussed how social media can help companies communicate with the public and customers during disasters. This week we're focusing on the internal communication benefits that social media offers through the often overlooked resource of SMS messaging.

We know that cellular networks are often crippled during a disaster by increased traffic and sometimes even physical damage to the network infrastructure. Many times the only information able to sneak through overloaded systems are small packets of data like those in text messages.

Setting up a protected Twitter account for employees and instructing them on how receive mobile updates is one way to build a free text messaging resource. Whether it's about a delayed opening due to icy roads, or that your building has burned down (GULP), a Tweet can spread the word simply and efficiently.

Another alternative is Agility's own Alert Notification System (available to Member's free with every ReadySuite package). Agility's Alert Notification system can send both SMS and email alerts at the touch of the button.

Disaster Recovery Tip #32

Speak out.

Besides revolutionizing interpersonal communication, the social media movement has found its way into businesses in a short amount of time. But how can organizations use social media when developing their disaster recovery plan?

Over the next two weeks we'll discuss some ways that you can use free online resources to improve your response during an interruption. This week we're focusing on the public relations benefits that social media can bring.

One thing your business can do immediately is to setup Facebook and/or Twitter accounts, and recommend that all employees, suppliers and even customers follow them. Why? During an interruption, a representative can send out status updates using just a mobile device, and instantaneously bring people up to speed on the operating status of the company. Last year AT&T used Twitter as their primary means of communication with the outside world during a disaster and benefited by being seen as forthcoming and more transparent to their customers. On the flipside, ignoring social media and not using it effectively has the potential to be horribly damaging to a business.

Google Wave Update

9/29/2009 08:46:00 AM

Starting Wednesday, September 30 we'll be sending out more than 100,000 invitations to preview Google Wave to:

• Developers who have been active in the developer preview we started back in June
• The first users who signed up and offered to give feedback on wave.google.com
• Select business and university customers of Google Apps

We'll ask some of these early users to nominate people they know also to receive early invitations — Google Wave is a lot more useful if your friends, family and colleagues have it too. This, of course, will just be the beginning. If all goes well we will soon be inviting many more to try out Google Wave.

Some of you have asked what we mean by preview. This just means that Google Wave isn't quite ready for prime time. Not yet, anyway. Since first unveiling the project back in May, we've focused almost exclusively on scalability, stability, speed and usability. Yet, you will still experience the occasional downtime, a crash every now and then, part of the system being a bit sluggish and some of the user interface being, well, quirky.

There are also still key features of Google Wave that we have yet to fully implement. For example, you can't yet remove a participant from a wave or define groups of users, draft mode is still missing and you can't configure the permissions of users on a wave. We'll be rolling out these and other features as soon as they are ready — over the next few months.

Despite all this, we believe you will find that Google Wave has the potential for making you more productive when communicating and collaborating. Even when you're just having fun! We use it ourselves everyday for everything from planning pub crawls to sharing photos, managing release processes and debating features to writing design documents. In fact, we collaborated on this very blog post with several colleagues in Google Wave.

Speaking of ways you could potentially use Google Wave, we're intrigued by the many detailed ones people have taken the time to describe. To mention just a few: journalist Andy Ihnatko on producing his Chicago Sun-Times column, filmmaker Jonathan Poritsky on streamlining the movie-making process, scientist Cameron Neylon on academic papers and lab work, Alexander Dreiling and his SAP research team on collaborative business process modelling, and ZDNet's Dion Hincliffe on a host of enterprise use cases.

The Wave team's most fun day since May? We invited a group of students to come spend a day with us at Google's Sydney office. Among other things, we asked them to collaboratively write stories in Google Wave about an imaginary trip around the world. They had a ball! As did we...

Finally, a big shoutout to the thousands of developers who have patiently taken part in our ongoing developer preview. It has been great fun to see the cool extensions already built or being planned and incredibly instructive to get their help planning the future of our APIs. To get a taste for what some of these creative developers have been working on, and to learn more about the ways we hope to make it even easier for developers to build new extensions, check out this post on our developer blog.

Happy waving!

Microsoft Vine To Connect Family, Friends When Crisis Hits

"Microsoft is launching a new product into private beta on Tuesday morning with the aim of keeping friends and family in touch during emergencies. The idea for product, called Microsoft Vine, came to Microsoft GM Public Safety Initiatives Tammy Savage four and half years ago during Hurricane Katrina. Development started a year and a half ago.Vine is designed to keep family and friends in touch when other communication methods are either broken or not particularly efficient. Times of crisis usually involve a breakdown in mobile phone or other key communication infrastructures, and Vine is designed to be as hardy as possible to keep people connected. Vine can be accessed via a desktop client (Windows only for now), text message or email.So what is it? Vine is a tool keep people connected during a crisis, but it’s also used to for more mundane, everyday tasks."

read more | digg story

Over-sharing Personal Information at Work...

Do you know what TMI is? Chances are you're either guilty of it or have been its victim. It stands for "too much information" and it's making daily life awkward for people across the country.

Just think back to a recent uncomfortable conversation you had with someone -- a friend, family member or total stranger. Things were going well until the other person just laid it all out there: an unnecessary peek into his or her financial situation, sex life or health problems. No matter what you do, your view of an oversharer is forever changed.

If you haven't suffered through one of these conversations, your time will come ... or you are a walking diary.

Painful chitchat on a train is one thing, but workplace TMI is its own monster. At work, oversharing can damage your reputation, make your co-workers avoid you in the hallway and even damage your career.

Here are 13 things you shouldn't share while on the clock:

1. Medical history: Hospitals and human resources departments are prohibited by law from giving out your medical information for a reason. People have a tendency to adjust their behavior when they find out you have, or had, a medical condition. They might treat you like a sick child or make you an outcast.

2. Confidential work information: Hey, did you hear who's getting fired? You -- because you couldn't keep private information to yourself.

3. Plans to quit: When you're hunting for a new job, don't let co-workers know. Loose lips or devious motives can mean your secret search finds its way to the boss.

Possible outcomes: you're let go before you're ready or you're quietly pushed out, which is what happened to Ron Doyle. He mentioned to some co-workers that he and his wife were deciding if one of them needed to quit. Doyle was just thinking aloud and had no intention of turning in his resignation letter quite yet.

"Within 48 hours, I noticed the meetings through the office window -- every administrator present except one -- me," he says. "Communication on critical issues came to a halt and the separation was palpable."

When he eventually quit, everyone was surprised. He explained how ostracized he felt, but they insisted that they had no idea they were acting that way toward him. "Never tell them you might leave -- subconsciously or otherwise, they'll act as if you already have."

4. Online venting sites: If you use your social networking profile or a blog to release frustration about your personal and work life, don't send your co-workers a link. You'll have to clean up your digital dirt (even more than it already should be) and censor yourself from now on.

5. Matters of the heart: Soap operas are fun to watch on TV, but they're not fun to live. Your reputation will suffer if you come into the office in tears one day because you broke up with your significant other and then you dance down the hall the next week because you met the love of your life. Your love life isn't as interesting to anyone else as it is to you, and people may be unable to separate your romantic life from your professional one.

6. Politics: You've seen how out of hand political discussions can get with your family at the dinner table. Do you really want to start that kind of drama at work? Keep in mind that while your family is obligated to love you no matter what, co-workers are not.

7. Salary information: Money's a weird topic in our culture. As eager as we are to find out what other people make, we're not as ready to divulge our earnings. Salary is associated with worth, and when your salary's known, it invites speculation of whether you're being over- or undercompensated. Why are you getting paid that much when another person with the same qualification earns much less?

Vicky Oliver, author of "Bad Bosses, Crazy Co-Workers and Other Office Idiots," also cautions that your accomplishments can be downplayed if this information is public. "You don't want your co-workers to snivel about how you 'don't need the money' every time your boss wants to give you a bonus." Avoid the drama and gossip and keep your salary to yourself.

8. Religion: See politics.

9. Your privileged life: Along the same lines of keeping salary information to yourself, your enviable pull with society's high rollers should also stay private. Although you have the good fortune to know powerful business leaders and social butterflies, bragging about how many doors they've opened for you will tarnish your image.

"Don't rub your privilege in other people's faces," Oliver warns. "People should be rewarded on the basis of merit." Bragging about how you got into an Ivy League school or even in your current position will put doubt about your qualifications.

10. Therapy sessions: Keep your visits with a therapist a private matter. Petty co-workers can start rumors about you or make snide remarks behind your back. No need to put yourself in that situation.

11. The Rubik's Cube that is your personal life: When Marci Diehl worked as a recruiter, she encountered a job seeker who came in to register with the staffing agency -- and she still remembers her over a decade later. The woman came in and explained that her boyfriend was waiting outside with her child because she didn't have a car and that speed was of the essence. Also, her son was not the boyfriend's child.

"Somehow in this tale about the boyfriend, she told us that the boyfriend was not a happy camper, because her 6 year old slept with them every night -- and they'd only been going together for a few weeks," Diehl remembers. Naturally, the agency had a difficult time placing her because she was a risky employee who didn't know when to keep her thoughts to herself.

12. Gossip: One of the big reasons you want to keep important information to yourself is to avoid the gossip it can spur. Well, don't play the gossip game either. Spreading rumors or secrets that you'd want kept secret isn't going to help your career.

13. Your Chris Rock routine: In an episode of "The Office," Michael Scott gets in trouble for repeating, verbatim, a Chris Rock stand-up routine full of racially charged jokes and cuss words. Comedians get paid to be edgy, daring and even offensive. You get fired for it.

Source

Yahoo Knows Where You Are

Given all the drama surrounding Yahoo’s corporate activities, it’s easy to forget that there is a business still to be run and new products to launch. On Tuesday at Yahoo’s San Francisco-based skunk works - known as the Brickhouse - the embattled Internet company unveiled a new location services platform dubbed Fire Eagle. (Yes, it’s a silly name but say it 10 times fast and think of Firefox and it begins to sound OK.)

Location is one of those things that has huge potential for adding a layer of context to all kinds of services on the Web. Geo-tagging - the practice of adding geographic information to Web sites, photos and videos - is gathering steam across all sorts of Internet-based properties, from restaurant review sites to social networks and house hunting services. What has been missing, however, is an easy way to insert yourself into that growing stream of geographic information. In essence, that is what Fire Eagle does.

You either tell Fire Eagle where you are, or give permission for some device to do it on your behalf - say your mobile phone - and Fire Eagle broadcasts your location information to the services that you have approved.

read more | digg story