Sign up for Google+ now! Availability for Google Plus comes and goes, but it’s going right now so give it a try.
I’m not sure what to do with it yet. But at least I’ve got an account :)
Actually, the only reason that I wanted to hop on was to get “garylapointe” but it doesn’t look like your user id ever shows up in the web address, so not a big deal…
Tagged Google, Google Plus, social networks, web sites
I have friends in real life and they all get treated differently. Some are people I see weekly, some I see once a year, some I talk to once in a great while. Some I exchange pleasantries with and some I’ll complain/talk about work or my love life. Some friends I’ll travel with and and some I really only keep in touch with on the phone. Every relationship is completely different, not better or worse, just different. And I might turn down invitations with certain people for certain things, you don’t say yes to every single event/trip/movie you get invited to, do you? I don’t really like sports, a friend isn’t going to think I don’t like them just because I won’t join their group of friends in getting season passes to some team, right?
My on-line life has similar parallels. I might chat with someone often or occasionally. Some of my on-line friends are people who might have traveled to the same place I did so I friended them, but it’s so long ago I don’t even remember how we ended friends in the same place. Some are my friends in real life but I do no actual communications with them on-line. Just like real life the on-line people are treated differently treated different. So just like in real life, requests to be friends can be denied; I’m not looking for season passes that portion of your life, I’m happy with the way things are.
Plus you get on-line friends who ask you to join farmville, mob wars or what ever other junk they might play I automatically decline, I don’t play those things (I do play Scrabble though). And keep in mind when people invite you to those things, they are actually sharing some of your (possibly) private information with those games/programs, that’s how you get the invites.
In addition, I treat my real life differently than my on-line life. I occasionally talk about things to strangers on-line that I would never mention to friends or family; they might stumble across it, but it’s not like I had directly shared it with them.
I’ve actually got more friends and family on some social networks than I’d actually like. Who knows who might read something and share it with someone, like my Mom, because they assume I already have. And on the opposite side, in my real life my Mom probably shares more with friends and family than I’d prefer.
Here’s an on-line example, I’m friends with some of my cousins kids and one day talking to my mom and aunt I ask how my cousin’s son (the aunt’s grandson) enjoyed the high school dance the other night. When asked how I remembered, I mentioned that I saw some photos on-line (I did know my aunt knew there was a dance). So of course they asked to see them and I said, you know he’s shared those photos with people he knows who is going to see them and I didn’t feel right showing them; I was actually surprised how well they understood. I told them if I shared stuff he didn’t want shared, he might block me or limit my access or (even worse) he might limit himself…
It’s not like there was anything inappropriate in the photos, but it just wasn’t my info to share. And now that I think about it, I don’t even think they were his photos, I think they were just tagged with him in them.
Are you friends with your coworkers on Facebook? Have you found this to be beneficial (fun) or detrimental (annoying)? From Friday Question #83 at ilaxSTUDIO.
I think that generally when someone at work has friended me on social networks that I have accepted. I don’t really blog/complain about work, so this isn’t too much of a problem for me; I try not to put things that future employers would find unappealing; it’s not perfect, but I think the acceptable stuff vs. (what might be) unacceptable is so overwhelming, it’d be irrelevant. Those co-workers have chosen to be a part of my social network and need to behave properly; if they reveal something of me, they’ve probably put more inappropriate stuff on-line. And keep in mind, on-line I stay pretty mellow.
In the end it hasn’t been beneficial or a problem. I guess if I do something cool or fun they might share it with someone else, but since I don’t post too much stuff I would care about, it’s not really detrimental.
When I travel I’ll post blog posts but things on-line for coworkers to see. But I’ll post it separate from my blog. For example, while for my trip I sent this link to co-workers for my Costa Rica 2007 trip, it’s virtually the same as my blog category of the same name. The co-worker link doesn’t include links back to my blog or (sadly) allow comments (couldn’t get it to work without the rest of the blog). The stories are all the same, but if I would have has something no so work safe, partying at a bar or pictures of a something like a bikini contest (but you get the idea), I’d not have added them to the “work category” and you’d only have seen them if you went to the main blog and not on the page for co-workers. Actually, I don’t really post it separate (it just shows up separate), the blog software does it for me; I haven’t figured this special category out for WordPress yet, not sure how to generate a category page without all the other junk, in MovableType I knew how (any tips?).
I know co-workers have found my blog, but it’s not what I gave them as an address, so it’s not what I shared with them, it’s what they found on their own. Since they found it and I didn’t invite them, it’s more like them running into them at the bar or on vacation or something.
I’m rethinking what get’s reposted to my Facebook page automatically though. I think I have a few co-workers and a few college students that I’ve taught. But the Facebook page and my blog intermingles so much, it’s hard to separate it…
Tagged Facebook, Friday Question, social networks, web sites, work
Starting tonight (at 9PM Pacific) you can reserve your own Facebook vanity id. This means (hopefully) I’ll be “http://facebook.com/GaryLaPointe ” instead of “http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=736138968“.
You should be able to just go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ to get your name.
As always, you’re welcome to add me as a friend…
SUCCESS! I did manage to get my name (as above). It’s not case sensitive but I like the caps capitalized. And there is no trailing slash (“/”), it causes an error.
Twitter is neat but I’ve never gotten into to it enough. I just don’t have the time to watch it 24/7, or even close (not like some people), to get the full benefit. I do have a few things I really don’t like that cross my mind every time I use it.
1) Twitter used to have the ability to send you a text message based on keywords and at some point that went away. I can understand that some people abused that. But I just want it to alert me when someone tweets a “@GaryLaPointe” so I don’t miss some feedback on something I said. Seems like it’d been simple to have kept that as a simple feature.
If someone knows if that’s back or a different site I can use, it’d be great.
2) When I view someone’s profile, it says if I’m following them but it doesn’t say if they are following me. Since I can’t DM (Direct Message) someone unless they are following me, it’s kind of important. It really seems like that should be easier to check. The same goes for the my followers page and the who I’m following pages.
I think if I could do these two things, it’d motivate me to tweet a little more…
Tagged social networks, twitter, web sites
So I’m playing around with some of the social networking sites and I need a few more friends. So, if you use any of the following and you’re looking for a few more people to add, please feel free to add me. In particular I’m trying to get a better feel for FaceBook so I need a few more there so I can see how people are really using it…
Tagged concert, Facebook, iLike, MySpace, social networking, social networks, Technorati, twitter, web sites
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