Friday, July 1, 2011

1st Day on Google+ and I encounter Circles that go round and round. . .

...Previous Google+ Post

Google+ had brought me to CIRCLES to show me from
my gmail address who they thought I might know
already on Google+ as well as those not fortunate enough
to get an invitation quite yet... and that was made clear by some with...



 Well I happen to have a lot of contacts and so there was a large task in front
of me so Circles look like Olympic Circles for a reason as when
you're done (and it's always ongoing and adding people to circles happens
faster than other places) it feels like you've been through a mental
"where does this person belong or how does this person belong and
what if they go in multiple places?!" Olympic Event where no medals
are handed out but a sense of "Wow, I just did something and have
blue circles creatively titled REAL FRIENDS because the
default FRIENDS label doesn't help as much and of course
many have In-Laws but I added FOLLOW TECH (Mashable,
Leo Laporte and Robert Scoble got dibs planted here and 
I think they are all in LOVE - nice to witness..true geek love) 
and Hollywood (You know Felicia Day and Ashton Kutcher
are all over it)" 
 You can drag one at a time which I did and thought highlighting
was silly until I realized DUH -- Highlight multiple people for a circle
and as you drag them into a circle of trust.. they combine together
into one perfect union (NICE JOB AGAIN NY!) like a folder
in front of your eyes with a graphic number pin attachment as you
move them into your circle which rotates and adds + signs
as you do this -- Sounds are made in places too so GooglePlus
becomes more interactive and almost video game like
(Games, Music and 100+ features are said to be on their
way! What's facebook? Oh they TOO have a New HANGOUT
like feature of their own on their way to go to WAR with
Google as they teamed up with Skype aka now Microsoft to
do some heavy battle!.
 So on your very facebook looking home page you will
see a Stream which is a wall or twitter feed with every circle
showing or you can click on specific circles. Each time
you share you can pick all circles, 1 circle, a bunch of
circles (and Googleplussocial remembers these combinations
for later) combined, or even Public which would appear
to be not just all circles but the internet!
 You see people who added you to their circles pop up on
your stream and in notifications AND can add people to any
already created Circle or create a new one on the spot right
from their tiny thumbnail picture on your stream(s) - Pretty
quick and easy.
 Getting back to Creating Circles - You can put the same
person in as many circles as you wish and we learned that
5000 is the limit of how many people can be added
to circles but there is no limit on how many people can add
you to circles.

Circles explained:
---You add someone to a circle is a Facebook Friend
---Someone adding you to a circle is a Twitter Follower

Currently you can SHARE any post no matter what
in any circle which caused a little issue of privacy
b/c if a friend shares something I didn't want
my family, boss or even sig other to see for whatever
reason & they share it on their stream or public --
Then my Circles have been violated but GooglePlus
is or has put the ability to turn sharing on or off on either
posts or in general -- Not sure if this is in play yet or on its way!

Sample of what Circles look like:




 From Your CIRCLES page you can view everyone in your combined
circles and when clicked on, the circle(s) they are in will highlight.
You can also view any of their profiles by clicking on view profile
which is nice. You can only currently import people from Yahoo
and Hotmail but on Yahoo you can import your Facebook Friends,
Gmails and more AND then they can be moved over to your
Google+ Circles.
 Currently people dragged into your divided circles not
on Google+ yet will not be allowed in or emailed to the
site. I am not sure when they will allow people to invite others
or how it works just yet but I think people will
be emailed when the site is public and notified
of some or all of the Google+ activity involving
them.
 So my circles were set and as I was checking things
out -- I got into Sparks for a little bit because I was ready for a Hangout
yesterday ..when I may or may not have had a HANGOVER
@whenimdrunk

Finally my Google+ or GooglePlus invite arrived in my Gmail

 I love social networking and like you have read about the Facebook
Decline as well as Myspace being sold for 37 million (I hear
Justin Timberlake is possibly taking it over and maybe
he can create original content and take artists plus celebs &
make it relevant again - time will tell) & so since I have been
a big supporter of Google Products from GMAIL, youtube,
& blogger like many of you (as well as BUZZ .. like not as many
of you) - I was super excited to try out Google+ (which might
be called googleplus in the near future as people don't like trying
to find the + sign on their phone..or even keyboards -- counter arguement is the current name is 3 less characters!)

Well I did what I could to get an invite by searching the internet
and posting comments which MANY people are still doing as I type
this. This morning (via an awesome Buzz Contact) there it was sitting
nice and shiny in my gmail inbox -- the golden ticket to Google+ and in
only a matter of minutes when I saw the Google Project which had
previously told me it was open to a limited field was showing me a
way in. . . (and yet there was no lotto money attached -- odd excitement
one may wonder?! Ed McMahon smiling down on me -
YESSSS SIR! That is CORRECT SIR!) I typed in my email
and away I went. . .

Photo

So while I was busy with a super important FLICKCHART decision
as to which movie is better -- Shawshank Redemption or Superbad ?!
[Yes you must choose at Virtual Gunpoint! Sorry @jonahhill because
in comparing the two.. your movie lives up to its name and speaking
of PLUS can you PLUS some food because it was you that taught us
that there is nothing funny about a physically fit man but I digress
and glad you will not be diabetic! ROCK ON!] -- I snapped this picture
during this difficult time and then to always remember my Google+
beginnings.. have made it my current profile picture for the world.. err Circles
that INCLUDE me to see (isn't that ALL Google+ Circles?!).

 So going a little bit back -- I was a Buzz user and noticed
IMPORTANT pop up in my gmail and then noticed the +1 pop up ---
so naturally I activated +1 and said "Ahh google has their 
own LIKE button which may (or may not...nahh) influence SEO and google searches but cool.. I'll go +1 stuff I like, some of my own stuff and videos to see what happens.."
But then I noticed them on my blogger posts and pretty soon on
youtube videos and knew this had to be for a reason ....
 Google changed its look and top tool bar AND my google
profile via Buzz added Buzzes and +1s as options so what is
all this?! Well it was the right way to launch a social network
which is exactly what Google is doing with what I believe will
be a successful launch and site in Googleplus err google+
 ...the new social site from Google.



 I had a pretty intense day 1. . . 1st step after basic profile info
(most picked up right from and off of google buzz) and adding
 my profile picture... it was off into Google+ version of friends, family,
others divided into CIRCLES