Smoky Cogs

Google+ has been around for nearly a year now, and there have many conflicting news reports, some saying Google+ is a ghost town, while others saying that Google+ is growing at a phenomenal rate.

Well, having been an active user of Google+ since almost the beginning, I can personally say that Google+ is anything but dead. It is alive and well, with a very active community.

Each of the major social media tools has their own niche that they fill rather nicely, and are very successful in. Facebook is the way to keep up to date with your friends, Twitter works well for up-to-the-minute news and quick messages, LinkedIn is wonderful as a networking tool, while Google+’s niche is the trading of information.

It can be easy to think that Google+ is dead if you don’t see it for what it is – Google+ is NOT Facebook. People on Google+ are just not using it to find out their friends latest statuses, but rather to find out interesting information from the community they are involved in.

Personally, I follow a lot of people in the science, astronomy and tech communities on Google+ and my stream is always filled with interesting things to read. If I had only added my friends my circles, then I would have a rather boring time checking out Google+.

So, as a message to all you Google+ doubters out there: use it the way it is intended to be used, and you will find Google+ full of life. Use it like Facebook, and you will be disappointed.

The world has changed, and the average man in the street can now leverage more power than ever before, thanks to social media.

I could site hundreds of examples, but one of the most fun is one happening right as I type this.

It all started with a woman called Monica, who published an article online about apple pie, which got stolen by a magazine, Cooks Source, who edited the article slightly and published it, all without the knowledge or consent of Monica.

As soon as Monica found out from a friend, she contacted them, and got an arrogant reply back from one of their editors.

She posted her full story online, and it appeared on Reddit, where I first saw it, and suddenly the world went mad…

Cooks Source’s facebook page went crazy with people expressing their disbelief in the magazine’s blatant intellectual theft. This can only have negative impact for the company, as any Google search reveals dozens of blog posts, tweets and other articles taking the company to task for what they did to poor Monica. Somehow I think it will be difficult for them to recover from this one little incident.

The lesson to be learned here – Even if you try and take advantage of a seemingly insignificant person, the power of the social internet can come down on you in a big way.

Social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and son often take a lot of flak for being seen as frivolous time-wasters, which, no doubt, tends to happen frequently, but they do have a positive side.

Most of the threads on Reddit, for example, are a waste of time, with people saying dumb things and getting caustic (and often witty) replies, but every now and again I find an exception. I just read a thread on Reddit now, where a woman with terminal brain cancer is asking what is the best thing she can do for her loyal dog once she dies in a few months. She is struggling to find out how to get a good home for him once she dies, and doesn’t want to have to put him to sleep simply because she wont be alive.

The amount of support from the community coming out in reply to that thread truly bolsters my faith in future of mankind, where us, as human beings, in this digital age, still do stick together as a community.

The only difference is the support might not come from your neighbour down the street as in the pre-information age, but rather could be anywhere else in the world.

I have also seen on twitter and facebook, how much support humanitarian efforts can get from the online community.

And think about it – even in old school local neighbourhoods, most of the communication was frivolous in any event. Just think of how much time you would spend with your neighbours gossiping about the strange cat lady living down the street, or the guys wasting hours debating the merits of a Ferrari versus a Lamborghini – cars none of them will ever likely be able to drive.

For me, I am glad to say, the internet is more than just mindless frivolity, but is turning into a true global community which supports each other, while still being able to get our fill of gossip.