Sharing Is A Little Overrated

   I was reading a post in the Google+ community that got me thinking about social media again (is this going to become a blog where I talk about nothing but Google+? Mmm, not quite).
   I've already commented on Twitter. Gossip, rumors and verbal wars seems to be the only real news that comes out of that site. Way down the list of interests for me. It does seem to be a source for researching bigger stories (Manti T'eo and Deadspin anyone?).
   Facebook is still something very new to me. And with the new Graph Search everything that one has made public will be searchable within the site. I came in just after Timeline debuted and this hasn't rolled out yet. I'm not sure how this will affect me because I only have one friend on FB (hi, JayPBee! Got your poke, don't know what to do), so I guess I could search friends of my friend. It seems like a really good way for FB to get their advertising info even more targeted. What else can I do there? All of the old friends I have an interest in are either very private folk, the sort that just didn't have a computer to begin with or dead (really). So my YouTube likes, Hulu watches, Spotify listens and Washington Social Reader reads are the only posts I have so far. I'll figure out something to do there. Soon.
   I actually have two Yahoo accounts. What is that site, beyond email? Lots of news headlines (I mainly use Google News), a number of apps/sites connections and...? It's good for signing onto other sites! (So is FB!)
   The blog post I read was called "Why the Google+ long game is brilliant" (sic). He waxes forth about how he uses Hangouts and Chat and Voice and on and on. As a businessman. For which I am not using G+. I can see the potential for a number of the features, but not for me. For now.
   This whole "integration" thing that Google is striving for is kind of a head scratcher for me. I have a YouTube account because I want to Watch videos, not post them. I have a Gmail account because I wanted to get a job, not write letters to friends (see friends issue above). I have a Blogger account (not this one) because I want to write fiction, and if anyone reads it, hooray. Google News is nice because I like to keep up with current events. And Google search is great at finding things.
   And that's it. The rest is kind of bells and whistles to me. For example, I decided to "personalize" my Gmail page and add a background. I tried a number of different images from my files until I found one that I liked. That and the others are now a Picassa album! What's that about? It didn't offer to save a image for me, it simply saved, period. Even the rejects. Which I have to delete. Because I didn't want to save them in the first place (at least not on Picassa).  
   I am starting to enjoy discussing things and reading posts on G+ but I don't see Google as the be all and end all of internet life. As an individual. If I were a business (like Brad Feld, the poster), I, too, would see a "future is now" world coming our way. But, I'm not. I am not out to promote myself all over the web (if you read this far, Yeah!). Here, I just have stuff I want to say as I explore what I encounter with social media.
   I'll figure out what to do with FB. I'll figure out what Yahoo is good for besides allowing me to log in to sites. Twitter, not going there. Flickr, Tumblr, Pinterest, Yelp: dipping my toe, so to speak. Did you know that Sears new membership is also a social media/shopping network? That Disqus is a social media/commentary network? Yeah, gonna take a look at those, too. Maybe do some research about them on Google.
   In the meantime, I'll just keep my separate stuff separate while I can and fight for my small right to not have to share everything with everyone across every feature. Just some things. Like this.

Community Failure

   Got kicked out of a community today without explanation or notice. Not sure what I did wrong but it would've been polite if I had found out personally instead of by trying to respond to a comment I found in my email and discovering that I wasn't able to interact because I had been locked out. How very disappointing. I guess Google+ is not immune to less than grown-up behavior by some members. I have since muted the individuals who moderate the community because it is too late for reasons now. That would have been before not after behavior. I will just move on and find a better group to post about this topic.

Picassa's Secret Auto-Opt-In

   Um, just what is this site suppose to be? I most recently saw that it is trying to position itself as a photo site to replace Instagram after the recent announcement backfired and they had to backpedal and return to their original policy. So far, all I have experienced with Picassa is that it made an album out of my profile photos (including a separate one for profile photos-draft?), a scrapbook photos and one for this blog(!). These were formed automatically and I only discovered this site by looking at my Dashboard for Google. I guess it is for downloading your photos as sharable albums exclusive of being in posts on a web site now that they have added a mobile app. I was surprised that it made those albums without my opting in as I did not know about Picassa before the Dashboard gave me my surprise.
   This auto-opt-in ticked off a friend of mine who was posting photos and text separately on Google+ and found that his photo posts had been removed to albums only. He was very upset and deleted all material from his page: posts, photos, profile info, etc. I had to tell him about Picassa because his photos and album were still there. So he also deleted the info from his Picassa file and made both files private and blocked from anyone but himself. But since he has no plans to use them any more, they are basically dead pages. That was when he discovered that his Blogger page had an album created for it as well (I told him about how my empty album auto-formed; I guess it is to store photos that get posted on my blog; like that will happen). That also set him off, as his blog is something he deliberately chose to not connect to his G+ account (because it is NSFW). He said that the only reason he didn't close his whole Google account was because he uses it to sign in to a number of his other non-Google sites. He really hates this auto-opt-in stuff that Google is doing. 
   As for myself, I don't have a good camera phone, so I am not downloading photos. That kind of makes this a site for which I really have no use right now. Not in some bad way, but without good tools, it's just going to store duplicates of my very occasional photo posts on G+.
   (Sorry to get a little off topic, but I promised to air his complaint).

Google Communities: Now, That's More Like It

   If you are among the few who have read my first posting about Google+, you are aware with how unimpressed I was with it. I am not really concerned with the opinions of celebrities, even if they are the most generic and upbeat messages. I don't care to follow or +1 any businesses as I consider it a lazy way of telling them that I enjoy their products (to the various companies with pages, I support your products with my money, asking for them by name if necessary). The suggested "interesting" people were just not posting anything remotely interesting to me. Then I got informed (I think it was probably an email or post from Google) that Google+ had new "communities" to explore.
   At first, the suggestions were the same safe, bland topics that I was dreading seeing whenever I went "exploring". However, when I realized that I could search for communities that matched my interests, well, that made all the difference. This is also why I am only checking in at Facebook, not really actively doing much while I am there.
   FB keeps suggesting "friends" (I have 1 so far, my choice), some are friends of a friend and others...I don't where they get them. Perhaps it's because of my "friending" (I certainly don't do enough to create the impression that these "friends" imply however exciting they seem to be) or maybe it is my activity on here and other websites that does it. It matters not at this time, because I haven't quite decided just what in the world I could post that would be interesting and I just don't know these people well enough to embarrass myself and subject them to the fact that I read yet another newspaper article.
   But, back at Google+, I found it easy to find a few communities that might match my tastes. That's when the algorithms kicked in and started telling me about even more that might be worth joining. Although they are all new, some have really picked up steam and are filled with postings. Stuff I want to read and comment on or even add a post to myself. I am certainly glad that I did not know about my Google+ account until recently, because if I had started back in '11, I would have never come back after the first few looks.
   As to the writer who commented about posts suddenly vanishing, track down those "missing in action" from your circles and find out where they went and tell them that you miss them. Or change your settings and get your stream in a different way. Sure, it's changed from the way you were used to it appearing, but change is always happening and I think that this is for the better.
   If you haven't looked into the communities yet, just type in a few of your own ideas for groups to search for and I am sure that you will find something interesting. Some are invitation only, but most will allow you to look at the stream and get an idea of what that is going on in the same way that you can look at someone's public postings.
   I am not "rah-rahhing" Google+ (their own postings seem to be a little too much like commercials for my tastes), but it does seem to finally have a reason for me to actually use the site. If you have felt like that too, explore and you might have your mind changed like I did.

Facebook, I Don't Play Video Games

   Facebook wants me to play a game. They really do. Any game. They keep suggesting games for me to play even though I click them off the screen, they keep coming back like whack-a-moles.
   I don't like to play video games, they are really repetitive. Even though plenty of them have all kinds of side adventures to engage in to keep you playing longer, they are just basically the same few storylines endlessly recycled that all boil down to quest stories. And I don't like quest stories (never read LOTR, never will; took everything in me to see the movies; did it because of all the great reviews; they were right; not reading it, ever).
   What is it about the games? Do they get money for suggesting them? Are they really ads? Do people just spend a lot of time playing games on Facebook and this is always a newbie suggestion?
   Outside of searching for friends endlessly, there isn't that much actually on Facebook, it's all apps. And if you don't add some apps, and you don't have friends right away, there is nothing to do on Facebook.
   Except maybe to play a game. Hmm.

Google: You May Want Me to Have It All, But I Don't Want All of It

   I am fairly pleased with the Google products I have been using so far. But I have one big complaint: I can't opt out of the products that I don't want. All of these products became activated when I clicked on the name on the tool bar (or More setting). My dashboard is filled with stuff I don't need: calendar, play, talk, voice, etc. I had clicked on these hoping to get some introductory information before signing up for the product. Instead, I have a bunch of useless (to me) products that I can't disconnect. It is really annoying because I had to go in and change each of the individual settings on some of these to privatize them because, as usual, Google's default settings are always public. That's fine if you are in sharing mood (like Google+), but not so fine if you you don't care to share. I stopped clicking a little too late, but my lesson is learned: Google the info before you click.

   BTW: if anyone knows how to get rid of unwanted add-ons, I would appreciate the help, especially with the calendar.

YouTube Is My Friend

   I love YouTube. I really do. Oh, it has its faults, but far more than any other social media, this is my favorite. But why? you say. I'll tell you.
   YouTube is the only social media that doesn't require you to be social.
   On YouTube, you can browse and search and watch to your hearts content, and though you will leave a trace if you watch, you can block your feed (the record of what you do) from everyone else. There are also only two options for your uploads and playlists: public or private. You can share your channel address with whom you like and they can watch the private uploads/playlists, but the public is closed to it.
   There is a lot of material available, from homemade to professional, webcams to complete theatrical releases. Of course, there are lots of copyright violations, too.
   Lots of people are uploading movies, TV shows, music videos and audio recordings that are illegal, but it is this material that I like to watch more than any other because it is a chance to watch stuff that has no official version in print or ever released at all in any format (videotape, Laserdisc, DVD). I've had a chance to finally see some things that I've been waiting a long time to see. The downside is that if you don't watch it quickly, it may be removed, either by the channel owner or YouTube itself including removing the entire channel, too.
   Of course, not all is under threat of copyright violation.
   Type in a subject and a list comes up of videos, sometimes hundreds, all homemade. The usual suspects are there: America's Funniest Home Videos-style humor, webcam video blogs, vacations and family documentation. But also movie, TV and game reviews, school projects and displays of talent, great and poor.
   Lots of professional videos are uploaded like the Funny or Die and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, an award-winning series of videos. News items are also uploaded and even live-streamed, such as the just-past presidential debates. Just about every broadcast and cable channel has a YouTube channel with often exclusive material available only online. Of course, that is only a supplement to their actual owned websites. Lots a companies do the same: Marvel has a weekly showcase for upcoming projects called the Watcher that has its own host. They also post trailers for projects and even older TV shows that you can compile for yourself.
   Even the movie companies are posting fee-based entries as movie rental downloads (haven't done one of those yet, still lots to see for free).
   There are browsing choices based on channels, topics and trends, such as popularity.
   There are all kinds of developer tools to help spread/advertise your videos.
   If you are video-oriented, this is the place to be.
   Are there negatives involving YouTube? Yes there are.
   The biggest, I feel, is in the playback itself. The controls are really old school. No speed control. No reverse control. No frame by frame. No ability to enter a specific time to jump ahead. Sure, you can arrow around on the timeline, but the control depends on your controller. I use a laptop with a built-in touch pad and I am still not its master 100%, so sometimes a short video will end before I can find my spot on the line.
   I don't like all of the ads that appear on screen. There is a telltale yellow to indicate when the popups will start, but others just start when the video connection is made. Luckily, mute is always an option when you can't skip it.
   The algorithms that make the side recommendations could really use some tweaking. If I just watched a video, there it is wasting valuable space that could be offering something else. And if I have a video already in a playlist, why does it not get knocked out of the recommends, too? Perhaps it is a function of protecting our privacy, but it sure is annoying to page down a list and find nothing but videos you previously compiled.
   Finally, this is one of the few social media sites that lets you hide your identity from the public. It's just that so many of the names are silly or nonsensical. I know, a quibble, really, but still too many that don't explain your channel or video choices. And sometimes the likes and favorites are at odds with what is uploaded. Keep with a theme, folks.
   In conclusion, YouTube is the best out there even if it could be better in some ways.