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First Day With Google+
August 2 2011 9:36 PM by Henry MerriamUntil about a month ago, a handful of large organizations collectively possessed a vast wealth of personal (and often private) information about hundreds of millions of people. Monsters like Google and Microsoft/Yahoo dominated the search and e-mail segments, while Facebook claimed to serve more than half a billion users—and their associated photos, messages and miscellaneous social updates.
Now, Google does all of that.
Do No Evil+
Like Gmail, the company's new social networking service is invite-only at first. Having been invited a week or two ago without asking (because really, how exclusive can it be?) I set up an account. Yesterday, I decided to start using it.
It's clear to me, after playing with it, that Google+ is functionally distinct from Facebook and Twitter, even if it earns that distinction by doing less. The first thing I noticed about the advertising giant's new service is that it doesn't have ads. I'm serious. I turned off ad blockers, bypassed web filters and enabled proxies to get the unfiltered, unmoderated Google+ experience, and it's entirely devoid of corporate sponsorship.
While that's nice, I must admit I can't think of a good way for this to end. Either advertising will make its way into the final product after enough users have jumped onto the beta, or Google finds the cost of building and maintaining a new service (that competes with Facebook!) to be justified by holding our personal information. I think "Do No Evil" may be losing traction in Mountain View.
Google+ also does less in less-scary ways. It's more tightly focused on social interaction between individuals than Facebook, which has become a staple of modern marketing with features like Pages, Groups and Apps. (Did you know Facebook created its own markup language for developing apps?) On Google+, you'll (hopefully) never see posts about a lonely cow wandering into someone's FarmVille plot or a request to join nineteen million other people who also suffer from Bieber Fever.
Group interaction exists with people you already know, but Google+ doesn't seem to be about broadcasting your likes, opinions, high scores and angst to an arbitrary friend "cloud". Everything you share is meant to be targeted, and it's meant to be about you, the person sharing it.
Before I sound too excited, let me say that I'm disappointed with a few things. Google+ is clean, but it's too clean, in the way that an empty house is right before move-in. Some obvious features are missing, like the ability to increase a post's visibility after it's been written, and some implementation is downright sloppy. Concurrency is a problem; changes made on one page are often not reflected on others until long after. After spending some time setting up my Circles and adding contacts to them, another page cheerfully told me that I had no circles and that I should really make some first. The Android app offers only a subset of functionality that's available on the website, so I can't imagine that Google's done any better with iOS.
There's definitely innovation here; if the marketing literature is accurate, Google managed to beat Skype at its own game with Hangouts. Circles are great, too, but if you get too fancy with them, you'll start wanting circle groups—nope, Google+ doesn't have them. You'll have to select those 14 circles you most often share things with each and every time.
For now, I'm playing along with Google's game, but until progress comes with polish, I doubt Google+ will supplant Facebook or Twitter.
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The $40 Not-So-Mystery Story
January 31 2011 1:01 AM by Henry MerriamI went looking for this post and found that I hadn't ever written it. D'oh.
During my last semester at Fountain Valley, I took a Creative Writing class. One assignment was to enter a local mystery writing contest, which asked for a short piece with a specific set of words and phrases. (They'll be responsible for a couple awkward sentences in there, though I incorporated most of them with ease.)
After checking with my school to verify that I was in fact a student there, (they apparently thought the writing might be plagiarized) the contest judges informed me that my story wasn't enough a mystery to qualify, but it was so darned good that they created a new award category and sent me a forty-dollar cash prize.
I'm dubious that my piece is really all that great, but at least a few people liked it, so here it is for your reading: link
You can send me a cash prize if you like it.
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College, Round Two
January 31 2011 12:42 AM by Henry MerriamMore than a year later, I've removed the stick that once dwelled in my behind and posted my original college application essay. Reading it again, I cringe at how thick the writing is, but I think that helped readers pause and absorb it. You can read it here: link
Though I think my essay served me well, the pool of colleges I applied to did not. For many reasons, most of which I'm still struggling to encapsulate in another essay, I am writing transfer applications to a few schools in the Los Angeles area. Every one on my list looks great, but I'll be visiting in March to see for myself.
With that, I must get back to my applications. Wish me luck!