Away from politics and back to the cloud. I use TweetDeck most of the time to watch Twitter when I am at a computer. TweetDeck is one of the main things that finally helped me to understand Twitter. The ability to organize the big conversation is what makes Twitter work for me, and I have not found anything that does it as well as TweetDeck. But as always, give me an inch and I want a mile.
The problem with TweetDeck is I have to download it. Now this would not be a huge deal, if I could sync multiple clients. But it does not do this. This is important for three reasons to me. Groups, Search and Layout.
Groups
I really like the group feature. While watching Obama's speech Tuesday night I had a "Politics" group where I added a bunch of the people I knew would be watching the State of the Union as well as all the Congressmen and pundits. I had a little acerOne netbook running TweetDeck that was just watching that group's feed during the speech.
I like this group and want to keep it, but will add and subtract users from it as I lose interest in their thoughts or new people come along. But this group is only on my netbook, which I don't really use all the time (mostly when watching TV). So I would have to set this same group up on the other two laptops in the house I may be on (depending on who else is on a computer). Then as I add and subtract people from the group, I have to go around and do it on all the others.
Search
Then there is my computer at work. Now I don't need the "Politics" group at work, but I would like to have the searches I set up at work to be on my laptops at home as well. At work I setup different searches to watch the conversation going on around our customers. I'd like for those searches to come up at home as well. I modify and delete searches and I want them to be the same when I get to another computer.
I also do a lot of different searches on users or hashtags. If is see a question or comment from someone, and I want to see the answer or response they get, I'll set up a search for all posts with that users @name in it. Now I can see what everyone responds to this person, especially the people I don't actually follow. Eventually after the response is over, I'll delete that search.
Or the other day Sarah Steelman joined Twitter (@sarah_steelman ). Steelman is rumored to be thinking about running against @RoyBlunt in the Republican primaries for Kit Bond's seat in the US Senate in 2010. This interests me and I want to follow what others are saying to Steelman on Twitter. But not enough to go to Search.Twitter.com everyday and do a search on her name. But if I just set up a search in TweetDeck on her name I can scroll over to that column every couple days and see if there has been any activity. If a flood of conversation starts happening on her, I'll notice it quickly from the TweetDeck notifications.
Layout
I move columns around all the time, depending on what I am doing/listening to. Let's go back to the Steelman example. When she joined Twitter, I moved her search into the main view (4 columns with my current column width). I wanted to see what response she got out of the gate when she joined. After a while, I wanted to keep the search, but not in my main view. So I moved her to the end. I want this layout change to follow me where ever I go.
Google Reader changed the way I read the web. And TweetDeck has changed the way I listen to Twitter. But I want TweetDeck to function like Google Reader. No matter where I go it's always the same. If I create new tags or move feeds to folders at work, it looks the same when I get home. If I add a new feed on one laptop, that feed is on the other laptop as well. I know you can use dropbox to sync TweetDeck but I don't want a solution that complicated. I'm talking about something that anyone can use.
I hope TweetDeck figures out a way to put it's product in the cloud. Or - I hope Google somehow adds a Twitter interface to Google Reader that breaks Twitter down and makes it as manageable as TweetDeck does. I like all my news in one place. Adding RSS feeds and Twitter into one interface would be great. The real time web is the next big space in search I would imagine. You would think the king of search would want to get in here, and no better place to start with than Twitter right now.
@Google has just shown up on Twitter all of the sudden.
Pages
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Sen McCaskill says "no" to following on Twitter...for now.
Sen McCaskill (@clairecmc) has now weighed in on the question of should politicians be following people on Twitter . She tweets if she tried to follow thousands of people responsively she would have no time for her job. It's similar to a conversation going on with bloggers right now. And there is some truth to that. But I think she is missing something.
I want to clarify (add to) my original thoughts here. I don't think these politicians should be sitting in front of a computer, or on their mobile, constantly watching the stream from people they are following. There is a lot of garbage people are sharing on Twitter. I would hope @clairecmc or @royblunt are using their time to work on important things and not watching what people are eating for lunch on Twitter. So I understand why she thinks it's a bad idea to follow people. But I think this takes us back to her not "getting" Twitter.
First, if we you are not following me I can't DM you. @clairecmc says to just go to her website to contact her then. This is consistent with her use. She wants to use Twitter to broadcast her thoughts and you can contact her in other places. But why are you forcing the user/follower/constituent to go down a different path than they want to - to get a message to you? Why not just have your DMs go to info@claireonline.com? That's the same email address I would send to if I took the extras steps to go to one of your websites . That's a very easy setting to adjust on Twitter. Or make DMs go to a certain staffer whose job it is to reply or forward the important ones.
Second, "listening" on Twitter is not the same as "following" people or watching the stream on your home page. She is right, with as many followers as she has, there is no way she can keep up with what they are doing. And there is no reason to see what all these people are doing all the time. But is she watching for posts with her name in them? Is she following issues on Twitter that affect her state? Using Twitter Search or even better Tweet Deck make this very easy to do in a little amount of time. I don't think she should personally be doing this, but her new media director should be. Or someone else on the staff at least. It's this staffer's job to then get the important/interesting ones on to Sen McCaskill.
Now - my original post on this had to do with Roy Blunt . There is a big difference in how these two staffs need to use Twitter right now I would think. Blunt is in campaign mode with his announcement that he is running for Senate. While all politicians are always campaigning, McCaskill is not up in the next election. So there will be a different approach. Blunt needs Twitter a lot more than McCaskill right now.
In the end, obviously, Sen McCaskill should use Twitter however she wants. There is no "right" way to use it. If it becomes a too big a burden for her then she stops using it all together. But as someone on the outside, it does not look like she, or her staff, really know what can be done with it yet. And I think this is true from about 90% of the politicians out there. Like I said, there is no right way to do it, but there are more effective ways to do it.
I think @royblunt made the right decision to start following. As Twitter grows, and these staffs start to understand it better, I think @clairemcm will start following as well. After that, can these staffs figure out how to "listen" to Twitter?
I want to clarify (add to) my original thoughts here. I don't think these politicians should be sitting in front of a computer, or on their mobile, constantly watching the stream from people they are following. There is a lot of garbage people are sharing on Twitter. I would hope @clairecmc or @royblunt are using their time to work on important things and not watching what people are eating for lunch on Twitter. So I understand why she thinks it's a bad idea to follow people. But I think this takes us back to her not "getting" Twitter.
First, if we you are not following me I can't DM you. @clairecmc says to just go to her website to contact her then. This is consistent with her use. She wants to use Twitter to broadcast her thoughts and you can contact her in other places. But why are you forcing the user/follower/constituent to go down a different path than they want to - to get a message to you? Why not just have your DMs go to info@claireonline.com? That's the same email address I would send to if I took the extras steps to go to one of your websites . That's a very easy setting to adjust on Twitter. Or make DMs go to a certain staffer whose job it is to reply or forward the important ones.
Second, "listening" on Twitter is not the same as "following" people or watching the stream on your home page. She is right, with as many followers as she has, there is no way she can keep up with what they are doing. And there is no reason to see what all these people are doing all the time. But is she watching for posts with her name in them? Is she following issues on Twitter that affect her state? Using Twitter Search or even better Tweet Deck make this very easy to do in a little amount of time. I don't think she should personally be doing this, but her new media director should be. Or someone else on the staff at least. It's this staffer's job to then get the important/interesting ones on to Sen McCaskill.
Now - my original post on this had to do with Roy Blunt . There is a big difference in how these two staffs need to use Twitter right now I would think. Blunt is in campaign mode with his announcement that he is running for Senate. While all politicians are always campaigning, McCaskill is not up in the next election. So there will be a different approach. Blunt needs Twitter a lot more than McCaskill right now.
In the end, obviously, Sen McCaskill should use Twitter however she wants. There is no "right" way to use it. If it becomes a too big a burden for her then she stops using it all together. But as someone on the outside, it does not look like she, or her staff, really know what can be done with it yet. And I think this is true from about 90% of the politicians out there. Like I said, there is no right way to do it, but there are more effective ways to do it.
I think @royblunt made the right decision to start following. As Twitter grows, and these staffs start to understand it better, I think @clairemcm will start following as well. After that, can these staffs figure out how to "listen" to Twitter?
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Roy Blunt is getting there - Blunt Watch is on.
It looks like I'm off the hook right now for the $50 donation I promised Roy Blunt. He had to contact me by 5 Pm tonight and I did not get a direct message or email from from him (or his staff). So no donations just yet to the Blunt campaign.
But at 10:46 this morning, Roy started following all his followers. It happened shortly after @stlshamed tweeted my post . So I'm holding out hope that Roy (or his staff) actually is tuned into the web and figured out we were talking about it.
But rules are rules. Following me does not get the donation.
I'm going to leave it at that tonight (need to get to the State of the Union pre-game). But I'll have more later on this subject. I've got a post on Roy's "lost" tweets that Google's cache saved I'll get to later. Maybe I'll do a "Blunt Watch" to see how he uses social media to get this going. Observe Roy as a microcosm of politicians and social media this election cycle.
Anyway - good job to Roy Blunt and his staff for "following". It's something @clairecmc hasn't bothered with yet. And I have not run across Sarah Steelman or Carnahan yet on Twitter (or anywhere) either. Time to get in the game ladies.
Monday, February 23, 2009
I get Twitter now - but does Roy Blunt?
I posted a while back that I did not have the same enthusiasm as others when it came to Twitter . I changed my approach, as I said I would, and it makes more sense now. I find myself on it as much as friendfeed now. But I'm not going to write about my new found love of Twitter today. Instead, I'm going to write about someone I found on Twitter over the weekend...Congressman Roy Blunt (@royblunt ) (R - MO).
I interned on Blunt's staff in 1996 when he won his first House election. It was my senior year in college. I had a lot of fun on that campaign and met a lot of interesting people. Career decisions lead me out of politics, and it's something I regret I am not involved with anymore. While I enjoy my days spent in technology and marketing, politics still gets me going more than anything. So running across Roy Blunt on Twitter, tweeting his schedule as he announced his Senate candidacy, was a good find... but also kind of a shock.
I don't know why it shocked me, but it did. I starred at the screen for a minute then did a quick scan of the few tweets there. It looked real enough. First tweet was 2/19/09 - so looks like he fired this up for his Senate run. I immediately thought about how much Obama's use of social media changed the way campaigns are going to run. These guys are all going to have to start communicating with us in new ways. Most importantly they are going to start having to listen to us in different ways...like Twitter. I liked the idea that Roy Blunt got it.
Then that's when I looked up at his stats: Updates: 9 - Followers: 80 - Following: 0.
Zero. He's not following anyone. He's not listening to anyone. Never mind, maybe he doesn't get it yet.
I decided to see if I could get Roy to communicate with me, since he won't be following me it looks like. So I tweeted this:
"@RoyBlunt I interned on your 96 race (Wally). I'm in KC. Want to talk about what I can do on this race. DM or email (ww@wallacewilson.net)."
I sent that on Sat, and so far have not heard back. It's odd for a politician to ever turn down help. I bet if I filled out his online form offering help, I would get at least a standard "Thanks for your support, please donate.... But I just offered to help on Twitter and got nothing back. That tells me he's not paying attention to what Twitter is saying to him. Right now it's all one way communication.
I don't want to harp on Roy too much here, because he gets it more than most of his colleagues. Or at least he gets that he needs to get it. There is only one other Missourian on twitter and that is Sen Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc ). She is only following her own communications director (@adriannemarsh ) so I'm not sure she gets it yet either. But Sen McCaskill is in tight with the Obama crew (as tight as they allow you to get I would imagine). So she's probably not too far from getting it. Plus, she gets how to tweet. She gets the idea of communicating with us and how to do it. Go read some of her page. Too many politicians on twitter think it's there for them to just post links to their web site.
Roy seems to get this part as well. He's communicating what he is doing and not just shoving tired press releases at us on a different channel, or telling us to go look at his website. He also has not asked for money yet. He's building a nice level of trust here to start. But sooner or later, he's going to have to listen to people as well. He's going to need to start following before people realize how one way the conversation is and tune him out. He's going to have to "get" twitter.
You want to see someone who I think really gets it? Check out John Ensign (@johnensign ) (R- NV). Two things tell me he gets it more than others.
1. He is following more people (1,318) than are following him (1,256).
2. Look at all is @ messages to others.
These two things tell me (or at least make me believe) he is on Twitter to listen and communicate. This is where Roy (and most politicians) need to get. Now I'm not saying Ensign is a great guy or his tweets are super insightful. I don't know him at all. I'm just saying it looks like he gets Twitter and how to use it.
Does Roy Blunt get it? Not yet, but he looks like he is on the verge of getting it. I would love to help him get over that hump. I'm not going to fill out a form or email him yet. Let's see if he (or more likely his staff) can find this blog post. If they are serious about running, they better be monitoring the web for stories and tweets (a simple RSS feed of a Google Blog Search will do it). If they find me by the 5 PM on 2/24/09 I'll make a small donation of $50. That gives them more than 24 hours. That's an eternity on the real time web.
I'm a little worried that maybe Roy just doesn't have a staff in place that understands the web and how to use it. Twitter is a great start but the website (www.royblunt.com) is in sad shape (even with the social effort that is being displayed at the bottom of the site). They already dropped the ball coming out of the gate with what appears to be a rookie mistake like not securing domains . And I can't find a real blog yet (which I still think is very important when it comes to campaigning and governing). But I'm cheering for them and I hope they get it. And if they need any help, hopefully they have figured out where to find me.
I interned on Blunt's staff in 1996 when he won his first House election. It was my senior year in college. I had a lot of fun on that campaign and met a lot of interesting people. Career decisions lead me out of politics, and it's something I regret I am not involved with anymore. While I enjoy my days spent in technology and marketing, politics still gets me going more than anything. So running across Roy Blunt on Twitter, tweeting his schedule as he announced his Senate candidacy, was a good find... but also kind of a shock.
I don't know why it shocked me, but it did. I starred at the screen for a minute then did a quick scan of the few tweets there. It looked real enough. First tweet was 2/19/09 - so looks like he fired this up for his Senate run. I immediately thought about how much Obama's use of social media changed the way campaigns are going to run. These guys are all going to have to start communicating with us in new ways. Most importantly they are going to start having to listen to us in different ways...like Twitter. I liked the idea that Roy Blunt got it.
Then that's when I looked up at his stats: Updates: 9 - Followers: 80 - Following: 0.
Zero. He's not following anyone. He's not listening to anyone. Never mind, maybe he doesn't get it yet.
I decided to see if I could get Roy to communicate with me, since he won't be following me it looks like. So I tweeted this:
"@RoyBlunt I interned on your 96 race (Wally). I'm in KC. Want to talk about what I can do on this race. DM or email (ww@wallacewilson.net)."
I sent that on Sat, and so far have not heard back. It's odd for a politician to ever turn down help. I bet if I filled out his online form offering help, I would get at least a standard "Thanks for your support, please donate.... But I just offered to help on Twitter and got nothing back. That tells me he's not paying attention to what Twitter is saying to him. Right now it's all one way communication.
I don't want to harp on Roy too much here, because he gets it more than most of his colleagues. Or at least he gets that he needs to get it. There is only one other Missourian on twitter and that is Sen Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc ). She is only following her own communications director (@adriannemarsh ) so I'm not sure she gets it yet either. But Sen McCaskill is in tight with the Obama crew (as tight as they allow you to get I would imagine). So she's probably not too far from getting it. Plus, she gets how to tweet. She gets the idea of communicating with us and how to do it. Go read some of her page. Too many politicians on twitter think it's there for them to just post links to their web site.
Roy seems to get this part as well. He's communicating what he is doing and not just shoving tired press releases at us on a different channel, or telling us to go look at his website. He also has not asked for money yet. He's building a nice level of trust here to start. But sooner or later, he's going to have to listen to people as well. He's going to need to start following before people realize how one way the conversation is and tune him out. He's going to have to "get" twitter.
You want to see someone who I think really gets it? Check out John Ensign (@johnensign ) (R- NV). Two things tell me he gets it more than others.
1. He is following more people (1,318) than are following him (1,256).
2. Look at all is @ messages to others.
These two things tell me (or at least make me believe) he is on Twitter to listen and communicate. This is where Roy (and most politicians) need to get. Now I'm not saying Ensign is a great guy or his tweets are super insightful. I don't know him at all. I'm just saying it looks like he gets Twitter and how to use it.
Does Roy Blunt get it? Not yet, but he looks like he is on the verge of getting it. I would love to help him get over that hump. I'm not going to fill out a form or email him yet. Let's see if he (or more likely his staff) can find this blog post. If they are serious about running, they better be monitoring the web for stories and tweets (a simple RSS feed of a Google Blog Search will do it). If they find me by the 5 PM on 2/24/09 I'll make a small donation of $50. That gives them more than 24 hours. That's an eternity on the real time web.
I'm a little worried that maybe Roy just doesn't have a staff in place that understands the web and how to use it. Twitter is a great start but the website (www.royblunt.com) is in sad shape (even with the social effort that is being displayed at the bottom of the site). They already dropped the ball coming out of the gate with what appears to be a rookie mistake like not securing domains . And I can't find a real blog yet (which I still think is very important when it comes to campaigning and governing). But I'm cheering for them and I hope they get it. And if they need any help, hopefully they have figured out where to find me.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
I want tags (labels) in Google Docs
It drives me crazy to have to take step backwards when I'm in Google Docs. Folders? Really? I hate having to chose where I'm going to store a document, PDF or spreadsheet that applies to multiple subjects/projects. The last thing that goes though my mind as I click Move to Folder is "I'll never see that document again".
Search works well (except it can't search the text in a PDF). I could take the time to set up "saved searches" instead of folders and tag my items in the actual documents. Then a saved search (which is what labels are in Gmail) would work. But that's a manual tedious process, which also requires me to create a "tags:" line at the top or bottom of my document (which has to be deleted before emailing or printing). Then I have to manually create a saved search anytime I make up a new label. No thanks.
I don't understand why people like folders better than labels, but I get that some people do. Can't we just have both in this situation? It's really just a few steps from being available. You have "Folders" and you have "Saved Searches" already set up. Allow me to use folders if I want, but also allow me to tag or label an item somewhere and have that tag automatically create a saved search for itself. Then I 'll just use the saved search functions in gDocs.
Or does someone know a good way to fake labels in gDocs?
Search works well (except it can't search the text in a PDF). I could take the time to set up "saved searches" instead of folders and tag my items in the actual documents. Then a saved search (which is what labels are in Gmail) would work. But that's a manual tedious process, which also requires me to create a "tags:" line at the top or bottom of my document (which has to be deleted before emailing or printing). Then I have to manually create a saved search anytime I make up a new label. No thanks.
I don't understand why people like folders better than labels, but I get that some people do. Can't we just have both in this situation? It's really just a few steps from being available. You have "Folders" and you have "Saved Searches" already set up. Allow me to use folders if I want, but also allow me to tag or label an item somewhere and have that tag automatically create a saved search for itself. Then I 'll just use the saved search functions in gDocs.
Or does someone know a good way to fake labels in gDocs?
Monday, February 9, 2009
Is Google Getting ready to Unleash Push Gmail?
Google released Mobile Sync for iPhone (and others) today. It's allows you to sync up to 5 calendars and contacts with your Google account and pushes it with MS Exchange. You have to turn the "Mail" feature off when you set this up, but maybe setting this up with Exchange is a sign of things to come. Hopefully Google is as tired as the rest of us with waiting for Apple to open it's push notification service.
I would much rather have a dedicated Gmail App instead of using Apple's Mail App, but push Gmail through Exchange would definitely hold me over.
Google removed the public calendar directory
Was I the only one that used the Google public calendar directory? According to Google's decision to end the public calendar directory , I was one of few. I found this out while trying to find the KC Royals 2009 schedule.
I always enjoyed that someone else cared enough to put together Google calendars of my favorite sports teams that I could just add to my calendar with a few clicks. The directory made these easy to find. Now, I assume people are still out there putting these schedules together, I just have no easy way to find them anymore.
I initially thought that removing the directory would just mean I would have to go to a traditional Google search to find what I wanted. A search for kansas city royals public google calendar turns up nothing, but that's not too weird. It is the Royals and there are not a lot of us Royals fans out there right now. So I tried a New York Yankees search since there are way to many Yankee's fans out there. But nothing I see with a quick scan.
When you create a public calendar, gCal tells you that it will be available in Google search. Obviously it gets lumped in with too many other things to make it very easy to find quickly. No where near as easy as having a directory. Does anyone know any search keywords to use to narrow it down to calendars only?
There are other options. I could type in the schedule myself (not going to happen) or it looks like with mysprotscal.com you can download and import a calendar. But all these options require a lot more work that simply having the calendars in a searchable directory.
It's a shame that more people/organizations did not take advantage of Google's easy calendar integration and directory. I always wanted things like my favorite comedy club to keep a google calendar of performances. Or some live music bars I like to have a performance calendar in google. That way if we wanted to plan a night out, we just tick on those calendars to overlay them on our calendar and see when a good night is and what is going on where that night.
If my kid's school would do a Google calendar it would make my life so much easier. Instead they use something called WebCal creator which does me no good. You might as well fax me a paper copy of it. If my kid's teacher would set up another calendar with just class room specific stuff, that would be incredible. Relying on notes hidden in backpacks and what my kid says is going on is not proving to be all that informative.
For Royals fans out that looking for the schedule, here is the one I downloaded and imported from mysportscal.com. Go to the "Other Calendars" section in your gCal, to the left of your calendar, and paste in this email address where it says "add a friend's calendar": wallacewilson.net_fnecfkr9i32p6or0vi7bbp2a78@group.calendar.google.com . That will add it to your google calendar. It was simple enough to download, create a new calendar, and import. But it was too many steps for some, and not as easy to find.
I always enjoyed that someone else cared enough to put together Google calendars of my favorite sports teams that I could just add to my calendar with a few clicks. The directory made these easy to find. Now, I assume people are still out there putting these schedules together, I just have no easy way to find them anymore.
I initially thought that removing the directory would just mean I would have to go to a traditional Google search to find what I wanted. A search for kansas city royals public google calendar turns up nothing, but that's not too weird. It is the Royals and there are not a lot of us Royals fans out there right now. So I tried a New York Yankees search since there are way to many Yankee's fans out there. But nothing I see with a quick scan.
When you create a public calendar, gCal tells you that it will be available in Google search. Obviously it gets lumped in with too many other things to make it very easy to find quickly. No where near as easy as having a directory. Does anyone know any search keywords to use to narrow it down to calendars only?
There are other options. I could type in the schedule myself (not going to happen) or it looks like with mysprotscal.com you can download and import a calendar. But all these options require a lot more work that simply having the calendars in a searchable directory.
It's a shame that more people/organizations did not take advantage of Google's easy calendar integration and directory. I always wanted things like my favorite comedy club to keep a google calendar of performances. Or some live music bars I like to have a performance calendar in google. That way if we wanted to plan a night out, we just tick on those calendars to overlay them on our calendar and see when a good night is and what is going on where that night.
If my kid's school would do a Google calendar it would make my life so much easier. Instead they use something called WebCal creator which does me no good. You might as well fax me a paper copy of it. If my kid's teacher would set up another calendar with just class room specific stuff, that would be incredible. Relying on notes hidden in backpacks and what my kid says is going on is not proving to be all that informative.
For Royals fans out that looking for the schedule, here is the one I downloaded and imported from mysportscal.com. Go to the "Other Calendars" section in your gCal, to the left of your calendar, and paste in this email address where it says "add a friend's calendar": wallacewilson.net_fnecfkr9i32p6or0vi7bbp2a78@group.calendar.google.com . That will add it to your google calendar. It was simple enough to download, create a new calendar, and import. But it was too many steps for some, and not as easy to find.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Can Google Latitude Make Location Based Networking Go?
So Google released a new location based service called Google Latitude . I think it's a pretty cool idea and hope it catches on. It's not a new idea, but things get more attention when they come from Google. Unfortunately I'm on an iPhone and they have not released the new app for it, so I'm not going to give you a review of it yet. On iGoogle it's not very interesting to he honest.
Of course the web started buzzing with "this is great" and "this is a nightmare" post as soon as it was announced. I had two thoughts when I first saw this, "I wonder if I can talk my friends into trying this" and "I wonder if Google is the right one to move location based social networking forward". I think those two are related.
While Google has an enormous base, they still have not really figured out how to put it all together into a social network that people use (I know...Orkut is very popular in Brazil and the Niagara Falls area). Latitude is just another unconnected piece of Google floating around out there. For this type of location based service to get traction, it needs to be plugged into something that already has a base built on a social network. This way, when it gets fired up for the first time, there are a ton of users already sitting there. If we all turn it on and see each other, we can find ways to use it quickly. If I turn it on and all I see is Robert Scoble and Chris Brogan ...hey I love reading those two, but I'm probably not turning it on again just to see where they are. Not very useful.
But...add this to facebook and it becomes useful within 5 minutes and stays useful, at least in the way a social network can be "useful".
Not only does Google not really have a real social network, but less than 25% of my friends and family use Google for anything other than search. And they are not going to sign up for a new service or with a new company to do this. They just wont.
I tried Loopt when it came out, but hardly any of my friends did. I lost all interest in it almost immediately when no one I really cared about was using it. It was not because the app or features itself lost the luster, it was that no one else was using it. It was a social application that was not very social for me.
On the other hand, just about everyone I know is on facebook. My friends, family, colleagues, etc. If Google can plug into my facebook friends, that would be cool and useful. While you're at it, let's do LinkedIn as well. Twitter, Friendfeed...keep going. Of course that's just a dream. Facebook and Google don't plan to share with each other that much.
I wish Google would either figure out how to tie all their loose ends into a social network knot that attracts people - or pass this on to companies who care more about building a social network (or already have one). Google likes to think "the web is the social network" but that's not true, and it won't work. I'll write more on that later.
Of course maybe the problem is I just need more friends.
Of course the web started buzzing with "this is great" and "this is a nightmare" post as soon as it was announced. I had two thoughts when I first saw this, "I wonder if I can talk my friends into trying this" and "I wonder if Google is the right one to move location based social networking forward". I think those two are related.
While Google has an enormous base, they still have not really figured out how to put it all together into a social network that people use (I know...Orkut is very popular in Brazil and the Niagara Falls area). Latitude is just another unconnected piece of Google floating around out there. For this type of location based service to get traction, it needs to be plugged into something that already has a base built on a social network. This way, when it gets fired up for the first time, there are a ton of users already sitting there. If we all turn it on and see each other, we can find ways to use it quickly. If I turn it on and all I see is Robert Scoble and Chris Brogan ...hey I love reading those two, but I'm probably not turning it on again just to see where they are. Not very useful.
But...add this to facebook and it becomes useful within 5 minutes and stays useful, at least in the way a social network can be "useful".
Not only does Google not really have a real social network, but less than 25% of my friends and family use Google for anything other than search. And they are not going to sign up for a new service or with a new company to do this. They just wont.
I tried Loopt when it came out, but hardly any of my friends did. I lost all interest in it almost immediately when no one I really cared about was using it. It was not because the app or features itself lost the luster, it was that no one else was using it. It was a social application that was not very social for me.
On the other hand, just about everyone I know is on facebook. My friends, family, colleagues, etc. If Google can plug into my facebook friends, that would be cool and useful. While you're at it, let's do LinkedIn as well. Twitter, Friendfeed...keep going. Of course that's just a dream. Facebook and Google don't plan to share with each other that much.
I wish Google would either figure out how to tie all their loose ends into a social network knot that attracts people - or pass this on to companies who care more about building a social network (or already have one). Google likes to think "the web is the social network" but that's not true, and it won't work. I'll write more on that later.
Of course maybe the problem is I just need more friends.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
gTasks - Task Management or Check List?
So Google Tasks has come out with an iPhone optimized version as well as a gadget for iGoogle. I'm glad to see they have quickly added some new features to it. Makes me think it is something they care a little about, at least right now.
But this does not really do anything for me. It does not address any of the issues I wrote about earlier. Mostly - collaboration and being able to move and work with the tasks in different ways.
I have used Google Tasks a few times for little things, like a short list of things to accomplish before leaving the office for an extended weekend. But that is about it. I'm not sure the iPhone interface adds that much really. I use the notepad on the iPhone to jot quick ideas down, or just send an email to myself that gets flagged as a task in gMail. I don't normally need to create a multi-layer list on the go.
If I could share a list, now this might mean more. Maybe the ability for my wife and I to both add items to a list of things we need around the house (light bulbs, trash bags, etc). Then when we are out somewhere by ourselves, we can see if there is something we need to pick up, then check it off so the other does not.
But do I really need a shared shopping list that bad? No. It sounds more like that is what they are trying to replace here, a grocery list. I don't call that task management. And I think that is the issue here. I'm defining task management more as project management. They are defining task management more as a check list.
They claim the goal here is to help us move from paper for task management to gTasks for task management. I don't really use paper for task management either, so maybe that is why this is not for me. I use paper in meetings to write down tasks. But more of what I write in a meeting are the notes that go along with the task. I'm not going to sit there and touch all this out on the iPhone.
I understand Google is not looking to duplicate MS Project and build a full blown project management type app here. But until I can share/assign a task to another person, move a task from one list to another, have gCal integration and possibly add attachments (and multiple emails) to a task - I'll just stick with using gMail itself to handle my tasks.
At least with this update though it looks like they care enough about it to keep going, which is good. The bad is...it kind of looks like they are going in the direction of a shopping list/to-do list and not really task management. At least as I define it.
But this does not really do anything for me. It does not address any of the issues I wrote about earlier. Mostly - collaboration and being able to move and work with the tasks in different ways.
I have used Google Tasks a few times for little things, like a short list of things to accomplish before leaving the office for an extended weekend. But that is about it. I'm not sure the iPhone interface adds that much really. I use the notepad on the iPhone to jot quick ideas down, or just send an email to myself that gets flagged as a task in gMail. I don't normally need to create a multi-layer list on the go.
If I could share a list, now this might mean more. Maybe the ability for my wife and I to both add items to a list of things we need around the house (light bulbs, trash bags, etc). Then when we are out somewhere by ourselves, we can see if there is something we need to pick up, then check it off so the other does not.
But do I really need a shared shopping list that bad? No. It sounds more like that is what they are trying to replace here, a grocery list. I don't call that task management. And I think that is the issue here. I'm defining task management more as project management. They are defining task management more as a check list.
They claim the goal here is to help us move from paper for task management to gTasks for task management. I don't really use paper for task management either, so maybe that is why this is not for me. I use paper in meetings to write down tasks. But more of what I write in a meeting are the notes that go along with the task. I'm not going to sit there and touch all this out on the iPhone.
I understand Google is not looking to duplicate MS Project and build a full blown project management type app here. But until I can share/assign a task to another person, move a task from one list to another, have gCal integration and possibly add attachments (and multiple emails) to a task - I'll just stick with using gMail itself to handle my tasks.
At least with this update though it looks like they care enough about it to keep going, which is good. The bad is...it kind of looks like they are going in the direction of a shopping list/to-do list and not really task management. At least as I define it.
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