SOCIAL NETWORKING
It’s hard not to notice the slow and gradual way Google has either consumed or become a part of various reaches of the internet. Like a Symbiote, Google has slowly merged or replaced some of our favorite things, most of the time for the better. Now the internet giant plans to take on Facebook with a social network all its own.
Google+, only searchable under Google Plus for now, is Google’s answer to a big problem. Facebook is more than a little famous for its seedy security breaches and leaked information about its users. Google+, above all things, promises a more secure social networking experience. Privacy options won’t be a confusing mess of having to find another new sharing option to “un-click” every time Facebook updates and decides to publicly share a new aspect of users’ profiles. Moreover, users can actively pick and choose which social circles and groups of people they share certain information with. This is called Circles, and any person the user wants can be added to a set group of friend, whether they too have Google+ or not. The user’s friends and family need not make an account to be added and interacted with.
Sparks already seems like a much better version of the Facebook feed. It will allow users to share things they are interested in and generate discussion in a sleek and organized way. It almost seems like a combination of Tumblr with a smarter version of the Youtube comment option attached. Posts can be tagged for anyone else that may want to search the same interest and an algorithm in part generated by people’s use will keep users in the know of new things concerning the topic.
Hangouts, like Skype or Tinychat, allows users to meet online via webcam and chat. Up to ten users can join, coming and going as they please. Mobile, another on-the-go way to keep communication going, lets users tell friends their location (or not). Users can also send messages to a chosen group of people at once from their phone. Uploading pictures online from the user’s phone, still a hassle on most sites, can be done instantly. The photos automatically turn up in a private album on the user’s Google+ account, where they can pick and choose who to share them with.
However, all of these features are just a fraction of the options Google is looking to make available to Plus. This is actually one of their biggest endeavors yet and hundreds of engineers have been working on “Emerald Sea”, the code name for Google+ chosen to keep the project under wraps for the last year. There are over 100 launches in store for Google+, an amount that’s almost overwhelming. It already seems like it will be much more than Facebook, but with over 100 more announcements on their way, it’s hard to imagine just how many bells and whistles can be added.
Social media giant, Facebook, announced today that the site will be redesigned in coming weeks to include a new dashboard which will allow users more direct control over applications and programs on the site. CEO Mark Zuckerberg also announced that the friends lists will be modified to include a more "interest friendly" sorting system so users can see groups of their online pals based around certain likes, hobbies, jobs and other key identifiers.
Facebook announced today that the social networking super-engine was having server problems and was down or running slow for most users. Tweets about the massive outage were peaking this afternoon as bloggers and social net gurus filled the site with annoyed trending posts. Some news agencies nationwide were headlining the Facebook fallout ahead of the economy and the war.
We have learned that Facebook will announce the launch of its own location-based check-in feature today at 7:30 p.m., putting a hurt on up-and-coming social net giant Foursquare. Through mobile device GPS, the feature will allow users to 'check-in' at their present location which will show up their feed. What are your thoughts on this better-late-than-never feature?
Social networking superstar Facebook has taken the number one spot as America's most visited site this week, outnumbering the leading lady of the internet, Google, for the top spot. What was once a dorm room brainchild, Facebook has become the outlet for not only social web interaction, but also a site for news, entertainment, events and contact interfacing. With the continued threat from Google to pull out of communist China, the mega search engine could potentially face a loss of over thirteen million users in the Far East due to disagreements on censorship. With new users becoming addicted to the realm of Facebook on an hourly basis, the website and its mobile attache gives users the ability to navigate through its pages for up-to-the-minute news about the happenings of friends and family while monitoring a range of topics from the stock market to subway and airline schedules. Stay tuned for more updates as this phenomenon continues to unfold.
What to do with the thousands upon thousands of songs that move through your web browser & mp3 player? A new website called Twones seeks to consolidate not just the music library on your computer, but your music activity online as well. The site ties together your every musical fancy from, as of current, twenty one different sites, including The Hype Machine, Last.fm, YouTube, and MySpace.
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