Google plus has been open a while now, the initial wave of people were mostly the Geeks who were only to happy to jump on a newfangled social media ‘thing’ and to further there so called circle of friends. What is missing is ‘normal’ people, here is a comment someone posted:

Now, if I filter out Internet Friends, Following and Acquaintances from my main Google+ stream… I SEE NO UPDATES.

Why have the masses not jumped ship from Facebook or Twitter yet? What use does G+ actually have and how about the future?

What Does G+ Give you?

The first ability is to add people to Circles, this means you can group people as you see fit and the latter part allows you to only send a message out to a certain group for example. Facebook had this for a while in a sense, I used to use this all the time on facebook so that only people at work for example seen certain posts.

The next is the posts themselves, these can include pictures, videos, links and your location. What happened here was people used this function to post cat pictures by the bucketload, this function reminds me of Tumblr in fact.

The Hangout is the ONLY feature that allowed G+ to live beyond the experimental stage and if marketed right, is a killer application on it’s own. I saw a drop in the number of people prepared to start or be in a hangout as time has gone on though, maybe the novelty has worn off?

Why are people still on Facebook?

Facebook & Twitter have clients right on my phone, on my iPad and computer, I do not need to keep visiting a web page to see what has been written. If you are already on a site or service, unless the new place offers something new and exciting – they why would people move? I have people on my G+ from work but they never post anything, it was just something they joined as it was new but once they saw nobody they knew was either on it or posting anything, they quickly forgot about it.

What needs to be done?

Like I mentioned above, there needs to be application on everything so that at any given notice I can see if there is a Hangout happening, a new post and so forth. What about better ways to filter the information? For example do I really need to stop following somebody just because they post a constant stream of junk? Why not allow me to hide this info but keep them on my books so I can hangout with them if needed?

At the end of the day though, it is up to you  to make your friends and family come across and use it, we cannot sit and wait for Google to sugar coat it. At the moment I see it as two things:

1. A Glorified Twitter
2. Skype on Steroids

I have never really been a great fan of Social Media, I just fail to see the bigger picture on what it is meant to do for you and in my eyes just lets everybody know your business. When Google plus came about, it was exciting at first but as time moved on, it just became the very same as the rest, people spamming stuff on there and touting there business. What caused me to pull back once again from my chosen social sites? What made me drop contact with people I respected and treated as friends? What made me jump right back to Skype?

 Twitter

I recall having about 3 Accounts in my time with Twitter and I dumped them all a long time back, I did come back to Twitter with the name of LiquidTV and used it to tweet out every-time I posted a new blog post. There was two things I noticed though, some people used it only to tweet about there business and of course they did this frequently and the other was an almost constant stream of links to blog posts. I am not interested in either of them subjects and you may say “Well you tweeted about your blog posts” – you need to understand I write one every now and then and I have even took this plug-in off now.

It all ended with me removing a handful of people, blocking all the bots that were following me and locking my account down.  I have noticed Bots tend not to try and follow accounts locked down and only those who I allow can see what I am writing.

Facebook

Still to this day my account remains disabled, my wife still uses it and I can understand now why I got rid of this thing, it is almost like waiting for some gossip to come along rather then some great family photo’s. I do not miss people walking up to me at work and asking about what I wrote about on facebook, if people need to get in contact with me, they email me (which they do).

Google plus

This was the most exciting of the media sharing things out there and at the start the Hangout Feature with max of ten people was brilliant. A Friday night was the venue for Beer and a good laugh with a circle of people but as time moved on, people started to drop off, either by choice or if we happen to upset them.

The problem started with the same people spamming the same crap on G+ as well as twitter, no point in seeing it twice right. Some people just posted that much that by the time I come to have a look what was going on – the important stuff probably dropped off the front page. I first got rid of all the people that I never knew, I then turned to the people who were not following me back and finally removing the people who spend there life it seems posting on G+

IRC (Internet Relay Chat)

I have a problem with text based chat such as MSN, IRC and others – not only do I have to read what is been typed but I have to type my response back. In other words it takes me away from what I am doing at that time. I can understand if the room I am in has loads of people in there and it relates to a live show but when you have like 3 active people, I fail to see the point. I kept one server on my list for the odd time I may jump on there but the rest have all but gone.

Conclusion

Technology comes and goes as do people, remember that the people you meet and speak to on-line – you do not really know them. The difference between on-line and reality is that it is very easy to just stop using the services or remove the people from the list and you no longer have anything to do with them.

I have removed tweet deck from my mac, the windows 7 gadget is also gone, removed it from my phone and at the moment just check it using the website. I still look now and that at Google+ but rarely see any hangouts these days, if at all. I am back to running Skype when I am around and fancy a chat with people as I can carry on working while chatting and if needed, put myself on Do not disturb.

The bottom line is I want a service that lets me communicate with people, If I wanted to know the news there is a lot of sites that provide this, gadgets and widgets galore. It like reading about somebody giving away money in Peru for the next 30 minutes, pointless for me to read about that right.

This morning I got the dreaded email from Google telling me that my adsense account has been disabled due to invalid click activity. I shall be honest and say that I half expected this coming, I was shocked it took so long, they authorised the payment and it was planned to go into the bank and the end of this month – alas not. I have removed all adverts from this site and not putting any back on, if anybody is loosing out here, I feel it was google.

After reviewing our records, we’ve determined that your AdSense account poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due to invalid activity, we’ve found it necessary to disable your AdSense account. Your outstanding balance and Google’s share of the revenue will both be fully refunded to the affected advertisers.

Google gave a fantastic tool not so long back to the chosen few called Google+ and unlike Buzz before it, this one actually could look like it will work. While the rest of the product is some fluff that on it’s own would be no different to twitter and such, it’s the hangout’s that are the cream of the crop. At the moment in Beta, there is limited control in who does what and it is pup to the people in the hangout to keep control somehow. I have started to see cracks though forming as people revert to more traditional methods (such as Skype).

The Early Days

I remember when almost everybody was having hangouts as part of there live show, a means to overcome running Skype on each machine to get a panel of 4 and generally everybody talking. There was the odd time when a person came in and caused problems and the only solution to this would be to block that person or just remove them from your circles or even create select groups for hangouts.

Lack of control

If we look at say Skype, if there was 5 people in there and one person was a problem, it is easy just to drop that person out and refuse them back in, problem solved. The problem in Hangouts was, just like real life when a group of people talk, if one person is talking over the others all the time, this presents a problem. Google have given us the Mute button but the person can just un-mute and carry on talking.

Streams and Multi posting

Sometimes you follow the same people on Twitter, the websites they run and Google+ and when I have found is they post the same stuff right across all of these formats, which I find annoying to say the least. I find that Google+ is used to post pictures, videos and stories from other sites, not very often do I see a person actual typing a story out, maybe people have grown used to twitter short format?

The case of blocking people

If you block somebody or they block you, when you try and get into a hangout, it lets you know you cannot enter. This is fine when everybody agree’s they want to ignore the same person but is a problem as groups grow bigger and such.

Falling back to the old ways

Once people see less and less hangouts – I feel they will revert to the old ways of Skype, the good thing about this is that you do not need a camera and can have a quick chat then drop off. What are people feeling towards Google+ Hangouts? I still think they are great of course as I chat to people all the time, maybe it depends on how wide your social circle is?

Google run a thing called Adsense, the publishers pay Google money to have there adverts displayed and people can apply for an account which allows adverts to be placed on pages, such as this blog for example. This works on Trust in that Google do not want you or anyone else to just click the adverts to make money and the publishers hope google keep an eye on people trying to do this. It is Very easy indeed for google to suddenly one day ban your account and once it is banned, there is no way to find out why and no way to get Adsense back.

How Adsense can work

You have a site such as a Blog for example (can be any type of site though) and you place on your page the google code for adverts – google specify max 3 per page. When people are looking through your websites and providing google is placing the right advert, people *may* click the advert to see what the product is and even buy it. Best example of this would be me writing about Synology NAS Drives and the advert been about NAS right?

As your site picks up, so does the numbers that can click the adverts and slowly you get a trickle of money coming through, google check your account at the end of each month and once it is over £60 or $100, they prepare a cheque for the end of that month.

When adsense can go bad

There is nothing stopping me going to a website and clicking the adverts hundreds of times a day, what this will do is alert google illegal activity is going on and they will close down the adsense account. The advice I got when I did look into this was to install Statcounter and watch out for people doing such a thing, at which point you should ban the IP and hope you don’t get banned.

The suggestion is that if an account is found to be doing this, why do google not deduct the money that the person was supposed to have made them and send you (the owner) a warning? I cannot understand why Google are so quick to ban account, the honest clicks surely help them make money right?

For the record, I am not banned from Adsense, I have switched for now to another provider (BidVertiser) until I am happy to place Google Adverts back n the page.

I thought I would write a quick overview of what to expect in the current form of google plus, as many people will already have this, I will be preaching to the converted but I do offer some thoughts on what I think is wrong with the service and also how they could make it better. I got into Google plus by way of an invite, I think they have now opened this up to everybody when I last checked as long as you have a google mail account. They say it is meant to be a FaceBook Killer but of course it has a long way to go before it can over take such a thing.

Circles

The first part we need to talk about is Circles, this lets you place people that you know about into a circle and you can call them whatever you want. The purpose of grouping them will come into play later on when we talk about other features and you can have people in as many circles as you want. This process is all drag and drop, the initial circles already made are Friends, Family and Acquaintances.

Finding people to follow

once you had added some people, goggle starts to suggest people who you may want to follow in the find and invite section. These people are from your existing circles and they follow them, goggle thinks maybe you know them also (much like facebook friends finder) .

Stream

The main meat and veg of Google plus is the stream, this is a lot like facebook in that people can make a post and people can comment on that. This is different to Twitter though in that you can see the replies even if you are not following the people and if a post gets popular, this can eat up most of the page (more of that later). You can Mute a Post so it no longer appears and report it for spam and so forth.

Hangout

If there is one feature that is keeping google plus ahead of the game right now, then it has to be Hangouts. You install a small plug-in for your browser and you can either start a Hangout or you can join one. When you first click the icon, it shows you the camera shit and the meter for your microphone to let you get ready to start a chat and then you can jump in there. You get to choose were you want to advertise the fact you have a hangout (these been circles) and away you go. People will see in there Timeline you have a Hangout and they can join at will. The limit I have heard is 10 people, that 9 people joining and the host. As people speak, the video changes on the main display (were it says Invite more people on the pic above) but you can select a person and they will be the only one’s to display, this function works by voice, even a cough can switch the camera to you.

Some bugs at this stage

Of course this is beta and there is a lot to iron out but I spotted a few things that are not quite right. The first one is that to change camera or audio device, the settings do not work, they simple revert to the old settings upon closing. The way around this is to go into the Gmail Settings, Chat and change what you need in there, this keeps the settings. The next thing is streams, if people post and then a lot of replies, I would have expected a ‘Roll up’ feature (or hide) like facebook, it does shrink eventaully to a few posts but not straight away.

The next thing is the Hangouts, although you can Mute a person, they can just un-mute themselves and be back talking and there is no way that I have found to kick somebody at this stage. When you start a Hangout, in theory only the people you selected can see this but if you post the URL, anybody can join.

Comparing it to other services

Facebook is probably the closest thing to this and the way I use facebook is by adding people to groups and for the most part I send out a post so everyone can see it. There are times though that I make sure that some of my posts are only send to say Family as the information is not relevant to the entire facebook system. They (as in Facebook) could make this process a lot simpler, much in the same way as circles, maybe that might come later. Facebook is currently going to start video chat and this is by using Skype as the medium but will people figure that out apart from the Tech people? The other appeal about facebook is that it is on every mobile device out there, something google has not got yet.

Fake name verus real name

Twitter works on Fake names (some people use real name of course) and I follow people that I have never seen, spoke to or met in my entire life and they will have no idea who LiquidTv is other than a name on twitter. Facebook works on real names (or at least it is meant to) as you are adding people you know in one shape or another. Google Plus works from your Gmail details and you will see a lot more ‘proper’ names then before. There is still people that hide behind a twitter like name with a graphics as a picture which is a shame. 

Google frequently have a new service they offer out and is the normal with Google, they start the thing in Beta, send out invites and finally after a long time, they let the world and his dog sign up. The best example was Google Mail, this used to be Invite only at one point and now anyone can join. A few recent services though have been released in the USA but have not made it at all to the UK. Is there a reason why Google feel only the USA can benefit from these services or is there other reasons?

Google Voice

Google Voice gives you one number for all your phones, voicemail as easy as email, free US long distance, low rates on international calls and so forth… If you are in the UK though and head to the website – this is what you get:

The reason that it is not in the UK is how the phone system works in the UK – if I call someone from my land line, I pay the connection fee and the cost of the call. If I call using my mobile, the same happens, all the costs sit with me. To my understanding, in the USA – this is not the case and probably why they cannot offer me the same Free Service.

Google Music

“Upload your personal music collection and access it instantly on the web or any compatible device without the hassle of wires or syncing.”  – This is then Google offering a cloud service were you get to upload your entire music collection and then using another computer, a phone and so forth – you can listen to your music anywhere. To my understanding, the UK will not allow people to have there collection on-line as this breaks some sort of copyright and thus why as of yet the UK cannot sign up to try it out.

Google Plus

This is Google’s answer to Facebook and no matter how much I try and apply – they have closed invite’s yet many of the USA people I know or have read on-line seem to already have this service. As proven with say Skype, unless everybody uses the same thing, then the service is liable to fail. Facebook has a strong hold so google need to let more people in quickly.

Frustrating

For a company to tease people with some limited invite service means that the thing can fail – look at Google Wave and Google Buzz. By the time I got an invite and had a chance to try it out – nobody was online as they had moved on or they did not have an invite themselves.

The great thing about web browsers is they are all free and in reality you can load as many as you want on whatever operating system you choose. Recently though we had Internet Explorer V9 released to the world, we had Firefox V4 RC and finally Chrome is at Version 10 I think. You can scour the web and find benchmarks and these shows (Depending on which site they used to test them) that <insert browser name here> is the best. I want to explore this from my own personal view point, both in a work situation and at home and show that indeed, there is not one clear winner.

At work

Having tried all of them at work, the one that works best there is in fact internet explorer. The reason why this pans out is pretty simple – the web developers and companies that write front end have to target something and as Internet explorer is installed on every single work machine, why not aim at that slice of the market and of course use Silverlight for the fancy bells and whistles. Firefox works just as good I may add to a degree but Chrome starts to fall down badly here and let us not forget that we will make sure people cannot go around installing whatever they want on a company machine.

At Home

The majority of the sites that I visit at home feature two things here, one been Adobe Flash (Streaming sites, YouTube and such) and Adverts. Now I do not mind the odd advert on a page but when it starts coming up in front of what your doing, then it is time to kill it off. Chrome tries ever so hard to get rid of adverts but it fails, the only good thing about chrome is it is fast to load. IE9 looks and moves fast now but it still retains no adblocker and when I click a link I do not want to open a new browser.

The Bottom line here then after trying various browsers at home is I stick with Firefox 4 RC, which is still fast, just a bit slow to load but has the ability for me to skin it to my taste, add in various plug-ins to make it do what I want to do and of course not crash.

Talking of crashing

The only time I have seen a browser crash of sorts was Google chrome which told me flash had crashed and I had to restart the whole thing anyhow. People seem to worry that one tab crashed will kill the whole browser but I have nothing on my tab’s that cannot be reloaded without issues anyhow – so who care?

Bottom Line

As I said at the start, try them all on the sites you go on and not this 5 minutes, load up a few sites, say that its crap and revert – no. Use the browser for one Week, do what your normally do and choose the one which YOU like, do not worry if your friend says its crap, what do they know right?

I need to state here that websites need adverts, they use this as a mean to get money which in turn helps pay for the time and effort they put into producing the goods. Static adverts I can live with and even sometimes they show me something I might want to buy and all is good but when a site (mostly the video streaming sites) start to push adverts down your throat and they are loud and annoying and repeat over and over on each new page you go to – this is when you as a person need to take a stand.

While I Love the way Google Chrome works, there is just too many things that make me want to jump ship back to Firefox such as Adverts, flash slowing down the browser, my NAS box not working properly via Chrome and so forth. I have given the latest Firefox 4 Beta 12 a run and added a couple of extension and I will document how  it is working out for me so far.

Firefox 4 Beta 12

Firefox got slow and clunky and I honeslty started to hate this as much as using internet explorer to be honest but it did have some good points such as extensions. Version4 Beta 12 adds a few much needed features such as search from the address bar, menu now a drop down and much faster.

Adblock and Ghostery

The one extension that is almost a must is Adblock this manages to strip out most if not all the adverts present on the web including the ones that are present in videos and streaming type pages (as above). The other addon which is worth mentioning is Ghostery and this also blocks out items that are hidden.

As you can see from Justin.TV – it sensed and blocked Comescore Beacon, Google Adsense & Analytics, media6 and Quantcast. These not only track you but also can slow you down – combined with adblock and I would be surprised if any adverts come up every again.

If we are to compare Google Chrome using also Adblock (by the same person) – while there is not as many adverts littered about the place, I still get an annoying 30 second advert for Bulletstorm – this is both loud and annoying and if I refresh the stream, I get it again and again.

There is a good choice of browsers that you can choose from and many people swear blind that Google chrome is the only one to use – period. For example at work while I tried all of the browsers, in the end I actually stuck with Internet explorer 8 as all the in-house applications work properly with this. Now for a little while, I was back to Chrome and it almost had me using this as my main browser of choice but there is a few things that just plain do not work on this platform.

NAS Box

My Synology NAS Box uses a web front end to manage all aspects and one of the is the download manager which I use a lot as this offloads the grunt work of me grabbing big or slow files onto a standalone small box. The problem comes when adding some files, Google Chrome sticks on the adding page even though in the background the files are already been downloaded.

Gallery

The Gallery I host on this site allows me to add picture just plain sits there and eventually Chrome tells me it has stopped responding. This means if Chrome was the only browser of choice, I could not add any new pictures using the browser upload method.

Adverts

Chomre never did manage to fully block adverts and while I am more than happy to see the odd advert on a web page – when I head off to ustream or Justin.TV or even YouTube and get annoyed while the advert pops up inside the video I am watching – this is what annoys me. I am using the same AdBlock engine as the Firefox one and even the same lists yet still it does not block all.

What is good about it then?

Chrome starts fast, very fast and pages appear as soon as I click on that link. It can manage things crashing inside of the browser very well and it updates itself in the background. I want to like, I try to Like it but I am starting to sway back to Firefox I think. I do like the way of typing something right into the address bar and it searches. Time will tell I guess when Firefox 4 comes out.