What is Google + good for?

So I have been playing with Google+ for a few months and I have been added to over 3000 people's circles. I probably know about 20 of them.

At first I treated G+ like facebook. I added my friends (hardly any of them wanted to start using it though) then tried just updating with status updates and such. Not much interaction and most of my friends were still on facebook and preferred to stay there.

Next I treated it like Twitter. I started adding everyone and letting everyone add me. I didn't care if I knew them or not and the more the merrier. I started updating with links, images, stories, reblogs, animated gifs and anything I found interesting and though others would. This gained me tons of "followers" or "circles" and lots of re-shares.. especially for the animated gifs, but yet.. it was some how empty..  the conversations were short and went no where.

Then I tried treating it like a reader, stumble upon or dig it. I circled people based on topics and started reading feeds when I had time. Photogs, Screenwriters, Bloggers, Marketers, Social Media Gurus, Celebs.. that worked okay.. but it wasn't really anything more satisfying that google reader really.. 

NOW, I use it to share photos and video with specific groups.. and I LOVE it for this...of all the purposes I have used it for, this is the most functional and unique. You can create an album and upload a mix of photos, gifs and video together without worrying about format and then share that with a circle of people. I use my FAMILY circle for this A LOT. My Mom and a couple of others who aren't even on G+ get the updates via email and can view the albums and videos with no issues and without having to sign up. I love that the videos are uploaded with youtube controls, but they aren't linked into my youtube account. So I dont have to worry about family videos being shared publicly.\

I think G+ is great for all of the above uses, depending on your need, it can fit them all, but I am finding that I love it most as a bulk sharing tool.

What do you use it for?

 

Social Media Snobs

 

 

 

As I explore the possibilities of the new media I am amazed by its potential.  I’ve tweeted over 10,000 tweetsin the past year and have over 5,000 twitter followers .. which has been a blast. Twitter is like Breaking News on crack. If you are on twitter, or checking twitter the moment something important happens in the world, you are instantly aware – no need to wait till the evening news, or till you get a coffee break and check cnn.com. That is, if you are following the right people, in many parts of the world, who are well connected and like to RT (Re-Tweet) useful news and information… but in the midst of using the tool to my purpose (connection, news, film groups, events) I happen to have lost many of my real life friends and co-workers (not LOST as in we never speak.. LOST as in they choose NOT to follow me on twitter because I “tweet too much”.) Go Figure! LOL

Most of them seem to hold the belief that the media was mainly meant to convey the kind of daily prattle you might text to a small group of buddies now and then. “Going to be at Townie Bar tonight, who wants to come by and meet me?” , “Hoodies are on sale at the Old Navy on Main Street..” – that sort of thing. To be honest, I am rather exclusive when it comes to letting people know where I am and inviting people to join me out or keep tabs on me and though I play with the GPS apps on my iphone alot, I am pretty sure that I don’t want to be the story that will be on the news soon about the chick who tweeted all her where abouts and was stalked and killed by a follower… That having been said, I do play Foursquare, a game where you check in everywhere you go and earn badges or become the Mayor of said places.. but I always check in after I have already left the location, as a stalker prevention method. So back to these Twitter Snobs.. I wonder… Are there sets of people using twitter completely differently.. and is there a right way and a wrong way, as they propose? I, of course, like everyone else am annoyed by the spammers who DM you about getting more followers or buying some herbal drink from Trump Enterprises.. LOL.. but I doubt those tweeple are real people anyway…

A friend recently commented that my making a facebook fan page for myself made him feel like facebook was turning into MySpace.. of course this friend is a kid just out of college and we all know that they remember the days when facebook was simply a “we went or are going to the same school” dating service… (come on, you know its true).  The founder has been very smart in realizing the tool allows for business connections to be made in a non-invasive manner and the powerful matrix allows content to rise quickly from obscurity to super fame in under a day through “sharing”.Think about Susan Boyles.. right now some sort of Metal Rooster is trending on popular videos.. it really is a marketing tool, whether you like it or not.. anytime over a billion consumers GIVE someone their data willingly, the founder would be a fool not to use that information to his best advantage. So sorry facebook snobs, but the media is too big NOT to be a marketing machine at this point.. it just wouldn’t make sense..

On the side of keeping in exclusive, I created my fan page because my friends page is shared mainly with people I have met in person and at 197 of those, I am still rather careful. I know there are others who have thousands of “friends” on their facebooks and you know that they simply add anyone and everyone… but you won’t find me snobbing on them.. they are using it to their purpose and not mine.

As for MySpace.. I think it’s main failing was in the lack of ease of use. Alot of people criticized it for a lot of other reasons, but it simply was not easy to use, add to and it was hardly mashable, even now, if you have a wordpress or other blog system, you are hard pressed to get your myspace to integrate.. where as twitter and facebook to a degree are mashable in a hundred ways with ease..

I am rambling here… but let me know what you think. How do you use “Social Media” and what are your pet peeves about how others use it?