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Google+ Revitalizes Online Discussions

Bwana — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 19:01:21 +0000

Ever since FriendFeed was consumed by Facebook, online discussions have been dominated by Quora, Twitter and Facebook. Without getting into my opinions about those three services, let me say, I wasn’t motivated to have discussions using them. I really enjoyed the time I had with FriendFeed and the ease of contributing to a topic.

Enter Google+.

Google has been dabbling in social networking for quite some time and in my opinion, has been a bit out of focus. We’ve seen orkut, social bars, and of course Google Buzz, but we really haven’t seen a robust, solid solution. With Google+, I can say that Google is serious about making online discussions easily accessible. Google has made engagement with existing and new contacts about as easy as one could ask. I find myself more willing to talk about technology on Google+ than I ever did on Quora, Twitter and Facebook. That’s enough for me to consider Google+ as a success.

Is it perfect? I don’t think so. There are still a lot of issues to work out with the Circles implementation of managing information streams. The hangouts feature is somewhat unstable and prone to crash, while sparks is sort of just out there without a real underlining purpose. Google+ definitely has room to grow.

I’m happy to have a place on the web to have discussions much like the days of FriendFeed. Click here to view my Google+ profile.

Apple, iPhone 4, and Competition

Bwana — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 22:10:34 +0000

I recommend you watch the WWDC 2010 keynote before reading.

If you watch the video above, you’ll note that I was generally impressed with the announcements made by Apple. I’ll attempt to go into more detail on this post as to some of the other features and what I think about them.

History repeating itself?

Before I talk about the iPhone 4, I want to comment on a statement that Steve Jobs made regarding the pre-iPhone world. He said that before the iPhone and App store, things were completely different. If you think about it, he is absolutely right. I can barely remember what it was like to run apps on my phone, perform firmware upgrades, check email, and surf the web on my smartphones. iPhone was definitely a game changer in 2007-2008.

So will the iPhone 4 be a game changer as well? It’s really hard to predict these things, especially with how often Apple reinvents features that sucked on other phones in a way that we love them somehow. Distortion field? Magic? I don’t know, but it’s a force to be reckoned with. Take for example, the engineering of the iPhone 4 case. What other smartphone maker will take you into the manufacturing process and explain to you why they made the choices they did? I can’t think of many. Apple has put together an integrated antenna design that I have not seen before. Has it been done before? I don’t know, because other companies don’t bother to share these important information. Some may dismiss Apple’s focus on their stainless steel + space age glass design as “useless” or a “distraction from what’s not there” but I disagree with both of those points.

The Screen

My Mechanical Engineering background kicked in a bit when I saw the manufacturing process in action. It sounds pretty unique. Has anyone else done this? I don’t know because companies don’t openly share this information. Apple uses a special lamination technique to bond the screen to the glass, so no more dirt particles as stated by John Gruber:

It’s mentioned briefly in Apple’s promotional video about the design of the iPhone 4, but they’re using a new production process that effectively fuses the LCD and touchscreen — there is no longer any air between the two. One result of this is that the iPhone 4 should be impervious to this dust-under-the-glass issue.

Combined with Apple’s pixel-packing “Retina” technology, we have the makings of an absolutely amazing reading experience. Did you notice how many times Steve Jobs referred to the screen being akin to reading high quality print? Apple sees the trend that everyone else is talking about: the death of print. This is a preemptive strike to capture that rising market through the iPad and iPhone 4.

Two Microphones

For the first time on the iPhone, Apple has introduced a second microphone for “noise cancellation”. Before FaceTime was announced, this didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but now it does. I imagine this will be utilized during video calls and video recording. Currently on iPhone 3GS, the audio quality is not that great on recorded video. I imagine this will not be the case on iPhone 4. We will have to wait and see if this second microphone will help at all.

The A4 Chip and Battery

Apple was proud to announce they are using their own A4 processor in iPhone 4. Not only does this chip offer great performance, but it does so without the cost of heavy power consumption. I think it’s amazing that Apple is able to produce a 40% increase in talk time while providing more power, functionality, and a slimmer design. Again, a lot of critics will overlook this as “ho-hum” because it’s not some futuristic amazing bell or whistle, but I will disagree and will say this is an enormous feat and Apple should be commended.

The Gyroscope

This one surprised me as it did others. The gyroscope has opened up new doors for developers to create spatial awareness type games. Steve Jobs gave a great demonstration of this using a clone of the popular puzzle game, Jenga. As he turned around physically, the iPhone’s display updated its point of view. This is absolutely brilliant!! Think about some of the applications that could utilize the new CoreMotion APIs to create amazing experiences. Kudos to Apple for this one.

The Camera and HD Video

Steve Jobs did an outstanding job explaining protons to a bunch of journalists, and I believe they understood him completely. He went into detail about how megapixels aren’t everything (by the way, thank you Steve for re-iterating this important point). iPhone 4 uses a backside illuminated sensor to produce sharper photos. The 3GS brought a huge increase in quality in photos over the 3G and I wonder if iPhone 4 will do the same. Apple’s example pictures are there, but I’m a bit skeptical until I take my own photos with the thing.

I was extremely happy to hear that Apple has enabled HD video capture from iPhone 4. It will be 720p at 30 frames per second which is perfect for most of us. I doubt it will be professional grade HD video, but I think it will be on par with popular pocket HD cameras like the Creative Vado 3 (which I own), Kodak Zi6 and the Flip HD series. As I stated in the video, I think this opens a new market to Apple which was previously untapped. Pocket HD cameras are fabulous, but we don’t carry them everywhere. We carry our phones everywhere. This is a possible game changer in terms of iPhone reach.

While HD video is not new to smartphones, the ability to edit them on your phone is not common. iMovie for iPhone completely blew me away. This is a fabulous idea and will definitely encourage iPhone 4 owners to shoot more video and to edit it (with transitions, titles, effects, and music) right on the phone! While most of us travel with a laptop where we can edit video, we don’t always have them with us. We carry our phones everywhere. Yet another possible game changer.

Apple is creeping into other markets with iPhone 4.

The Name Change

iPhone OS is now known as iOS. First off, I hate the name, but that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. It actually does make sense to come up with a single name for the OS that powers three separate mobile devices: iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad. Apple was smart this time and licensed the name from Cisco. I welcome the change, but I hate the name.

iOS Tidbits

Apple reiterated a lot of points they covered in the iOS 4 launch event including multitasking, folders, and iAds. All of these are great additions to a polished platform that is getting better and better. I was happy to see iOS will be a free upgrade for all supported devices now.

And Now, Competition

Steve Jobs was on the defensive in this keynote more-so than ever before. He addressed many of the concerns raised by Google’s Android camp including: App approval process, market share, and App store health. For the first time (that I’ve heard of), Apple has publicly acknowledged their main reasons for rejecting apps in the App store: 1. Use of private APIs 2. They crash 3. They don’t do the functionality they describe. When we hear of all of the horror stories of why apps are rejected from developers, it’s usually one sided. We never hear Apple’s side of it and now I’m really skeptical about all of the developers who cried foul. Were your apps actually stable? Did you use private APIs but aren’t telling us? Did your app do other things you didn’t describe? Before this knowledge, we could only assume Apple was being evil and randomly rejecting applications. It’s something to think about.

Apple also did something that I was pleased to see. They didn’t make useless jokes and cracks about their competition. Google, on the other hand, felt it was needed to constantly bash Apple’s products, process, and philosophy. It’s this attitude that has me leaning towards the Apple side of this competition. I acknowledge Android’s incredible momentum and their feature set differentiates itself from iOS in many ways. I hate to see unprofessional, childish acts when your features could speak for themselves.

With this competition, Apple and Google have two very different approaches:

Google – Appeal to technical features, capabilities, and freedom

Apple – Appeal to emotional ties through technology

Which do you believe is more powerful? I’m going to say it’s Apple for me, but that’s not the case for everyone. Android has snatched up all the people who are frustrated with Apple’s “limitations”. They’re also capturing folks who want an alternative to the iPhone. Let’s face it, Android is the only real alternative to the iPhone in the marketplace in terms of point by point features. Nokia and RIM may dominate the worldwide marketshare, but neither of these two companies has a direct answer for the almighty “app store”.

If you watch the FaceTime video, you’ll see very clearly why Apple does what it does. You see families connecting and sharing intimate moments through technology. This can be done easily with iPhone 4 because there is zero setup, zero configuration, zero worry. You can’t say the same about Android. Android appeals to those who want to tinker, who want to configure, who want to customize, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a difference in their approaches. We know video calling on smartphones has been around for a long time on Symbian, but you don’t hear about ordinary, non technical people using it. Why? Because it’s hard to set up, requires technical know-how, and the experience sucks overall. Apple comes in, and makes the experience as simple as a phone call. See what I mean? Android will likely have 50 applications that crop up that do the same thing as FaceTime and we’ve already seen the Qik app on the platform. Will it be as seamless as Apple’s? No. That’s the difference.

Some people don’t want it be seamless. They’d rather have total control of the experience than have it be easy as possible through Apple’s implementation. Apple wants to move the technology in the background and let you make a video call. Some call it “draconian”, I call it “a great experience”.

Apple controls the experience for a reason, and that reason is so you can experience emotion through your technology and not experience technology for emotion.

Conclusion

Overall, iPhone 4′s unveiling went great. Even with technical difficulties, Steve Jobs was able to show why he is king of keynotes. He took control of the situation and actually made it pleasant.

Apple continues to innovate despite the critics. Look at all the engineering that went into iPhone 4 before passing “ho-hum” judgement. Realize that Android is great where it is, and iOS is great where they are, and these two packages offer different perspectives on smartphones. The choice of platform is personal and depends on your preferences and desires.

Google Comes Out Swinging At IO ’10

Bwana — Thu, 20 May 2010 14:58:35 +0000

Wow.

We expected a lot of announcements related to Android (more coming today), but yesterday’s barrage of Google news was downright overwhelming. Google IO is a developer’s conference hosted by Google in California to … well this:

Google I/O features 80 sessions, more than 5,000 developers, and over 100 demonstrations from developers showcasing their technologies. Talk shop with engineers building the next generation of web, mobile, and enterprise applications.

Quick breakdown of highlights:

That’s just some of the news.

The most exciting ones for me were Google Buzz API and WebM. When Google Buzz came out, Google promised us an API in the future so that developers could write custom applications and consumers could mingle with Google Buzz’s data. That day has finally come and based on the partners that have launched Google Buzz support, the future looks great.

WebM, however, has me excited on a whole new level. Why? Because it could mean a Flash free browser for me.

[WebM is] an open web media format project and open-sourced VP8, a high-quality, web-optimized video codec, that we are contributing to the project under a royalty-free license.

Hear me out. Even though Adobe has already announced that they are going to implement this new WebM/VP8 codec into Flash, we really don’t need it. Based on what I’ve gleaned from this new open sourced video codec, it’s perfectly compatible with HTML5. (although not in the official specification…yet) Anything that gives me a way out of Flash is excellent news.

I’ll have many more thoughts as Google IO progresses, but for now, these are my two favorites. Look for more Google announcements today at approximately 10:30AM EST on their live stream.

Get The New Google Docs Now

Bwana — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 19:14:35 +0000

You may remember Google announcing a new version of Google Docs a few days ago. Now anyone can opt-in to these new features under the Google Docs Settings:

Let me know what you guys think about the new version!

Official Google Buzz Buttons Available

Bwana — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:49:07 +0000

It’s no secret that I’m on Google Buzz more than any other social network lately. So I was happy to see the announcement by Google:

We’ve seen lots of people using Google Buzz to share interesting links from around the web. To do so, you had to copy and paste the link from one browser window to another — there weren’t buttons that made it easy to post to Google Buzz without leaving the site you’re on. Savvy sites like Mashable and TechCrunch quickly got creative and implemented their own Buzz buttons, using Google Reader as the backend. But not every site owner should have to hack together their own version of these buttons (and not everyone who uses Buzz also uses Reader), so this morning we’re making copy-and-paste Buzz buttons available for anyone to use.

I’m updating my sites now to include this button and if you are a user of Google Buzz, I encourage you to share my posts to Buzz.

Get your Google Buzz buttons here.

Create A Kiosk This Thanksgiving With Chrome OS

Bwana — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:15:10 +0000

Thanksgiving. My favorite holiday, ever.

Seriously.

Family gets together and fellowships together and gives thanks to God. It’s a beautiful thing. During these times, family tends to utilize technology as well. Often I bring my laptops and let my siblings, nieces, and nephews use them. I notice they primarily use the web browser to check their email, facebook, myspace or whatever. Yesterday, I saw an article about a USB bootable version of Chrome OS and immediately I thought: “Wow, this could be handy on Thanksgiving”.

Instead of worrying about where people are surfing, if there’s any malware or spyware being downloaded, you can let them use your computer with peace of mind with Chrome OS. The premise is simple:

Install Chrome OS on USB
Plug USB drive into laptop/computer and boot
Smile at your worry free, web browser only kiosk

It’s a self-contained image with one purpose: web surfing. If you fit this category, I recommend you download and install the Chrome OS USB image and give it a try. I understand Chrome OS has glitches here and there, but I think this is something worth trying. (translation: It may not work perfectly on your machine)

As a side note, I’m considering creating a dummy google account just for this purpose. Let me know your thoughts.

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Google Sidewiki Shakes Up The Web

Bwana — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:59:35 +0000

No one likes losing control.

Hence the backlash to Google’s new Sidewiki product. Sidewiki is described as follows:

Google Sidewiki is a browser sidebar that lets you contribute and read information alongside any web page.

Sounds familiar? Well there are several sites out there which allow you to “annotate the web” such as Diigo. You may recall 10 years ago the nasty backlash over ThirdVoice due to spamming problems with their service. This, and other concerns have the web’s experts up in arms.

Here are some choice reactions from folks on the web:

Dave Winer writes:

Anyway, the web is all an illusion created out of 1s and 0s traveling over wires and air waves. You can reduce it down to any level you like, and at some level anything will seem unobjectionable. Yet we do have rules that allow us to get along with each other.

Phil, how would you feel if my router, through which your words pass, changed your words to something I liked better? Or added a message for one of your competitors? Or pictures of horrible things being done to innocent people? It’s my router. Don’t tread on me.

You might say — well then I won’t pass my words through your router. And then you would understand how I feel about what Google is doing. I wouldn’t mind it at all if it were opt-in for the author.

Robert Scoble posts on Twitter:

@ChrisSaad you don’t get the problem with Google’s Sidewiki: it’s not that I can’t see the content. It’s that I don’t control it.

Leo Laporte seems bit more optimistic on FriendFeed:

At least there’s an API so services like Disqus and Echo can – in theory – fold the sidewiki back into the comments. I’ve been very happy with Echo’s ability to gather all the activity about a blog post back into the comments. The Third Voice is going to happen thanks to sites like this and Twitter whether we like it or not. We just need to be able to capture and save the content.

Jeremiah Owyang believes it’s time to rethink our mindsets. He believes corporate websites now belong to the customer and companies should adapt:

Shift your thinking: recognize that you don’t own your corporate website –your customers do. Accept the mindshift that your job is to not only serve up product and corporate content but to also be a platform and enabler for customers to discuss, share, and make suggestions to how you should improve what you offer.

All are interesting perspectives on this topic, and it shows how big of a deal this new product is. What does Bwana think?

Well, I believe there are two basic perspectives:

From a user perspective, it’s an easy way to leave feedback on any website.
From a content provider’s perspective, it’s yet another feedback loop that needs to be maintained.

As Robert Scoble stated, he wants more control over the comments left in Sidewiki. Google does provide a “Report abuse” link for every comment, but who knows how efficient it is? It’s a valid concern. Many of us are content providers and tend to see it from this angle first and foremost.

We think: SPAM.

If Google’s Gmail spam magic is ported to this somehow, then maybe we’ll be able to maintain our feedback loops effectively. If things get out of control, Google will likely be forced to shut the whole thing down. As Leo Laporte stated, the API provided may make things manageable and easy to utilize as developers create plugins and widgets. If companies like Backtype utilize the API and aggregate comments, then I think it’ll make content providers a little happier. Time will tell.

End users, however, have an effective way of leaving feedback globally. No need to worry about commenting engines, accounts and the like. If you’re a part of the Google universe (i.e. utilizing Google profiles) then it fits right in since your SideWiki comments are aggregated there complete with an RSS feed. (See mine here) I’ve played with it for a few hours and I can already see the convenience (other than the Google Toolbar requirement, but a workaround is here)

I’m going to keep using Google Sidewiki for a few more days and see how things go. As for the content on my site, maybe I’ll get a sense of how well Google’s abuse features work if someone were to abuse it. Leave your comments in Sidewiki for this post if you like, or go old school and comment below.

Why I’m Not Running Picasa On My Mac

Bwana — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:58:03 +0000

I’ll make this brief. I was excited when Google’s Picasa was announced for Mac since I was eager to try it with my photos. Upon installing it yesterday, I noticed something very disturbing:

On initial launch of Picasa, it forces you to scan your computer for images. It gives you two choices: 1. Scan your entire computer 2. Scan specific folders such as Documents, Pictures, and Desktop (which they choose, not you)

There is no opt-out. You either scan or you force quit the program. I don’t like this. In fact, I hate it. I don’t want Picasa to know or even care about ALL of the photos on my computer. I’d like to pick and choose which it can use. I don’t like being forced to scan my computer for anything. It bothers me for several reasons that I won’t go into here.

I’m uninstalling Picasa and I don’t think I’ll run it again. iPhoto it is.

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My Top 10 Websites of 2008

Bwana — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:07:30 +0000

It’s coming to the end of 2008, and along with the holidays, vacation, shopping, we also tend to find a lot of “best of 2008″ tv shows, specials, and even blog posts. I’d rather not go into why I’m doing this, I just find that it’s a fun activity. Last year, I did a video on my top 5 console games of 2007. It was met with a potpourri of comments that mostly disagreed with my choices. I didn’t care obviously, but I found that it’s something people like to be a part of. So, I’m going to do a few of these this year. The first, is my top websites of 2008. These sites will range all over the place, but I’ve found these (web) sites to be my best of the best for 2008. Let’s count it down.

Posterous – Blogs are commonplace now and there are so many platforms out there, that it’s hard to really decide on one. When one does decide, there is usually a fairly steep learning curve for new users. Posterous is one of those sites that I just like. I don’t know if it’s because of the ease of use (no sign-up blogging is very cool), or if it’s the look and feel, but I just like it. I’ve been using it as a ramble blog that I can post to from my iPhone (via email). Very handy for when something interesting pops in my head and I just want a quick post. There are lots of other features that make it awesome, but this is why I like it
Socialmedian – Socialmedian shocked me when I found news on it that I didn’t find anywhere else. Usually, there is a huge amount of overlap on the internet and if you find a news aggregation site, you’ll notice some stories you’ve seen elsewhere. This was not the case with Socialmedian as I found a new set of users and with it, a fresh set of news. I did a video about Socialmedian being a refreshing take on news aggregation.
Ustream.TV – Live streaming really boomed in 2008 and sites like Ustream.TV hit the mainstream during the 2008 elections. Barack Obama and John McCain both had live streams on ustream.tv that brought in thousands of simultaneous users. Ustream has always been my favorite live streaming site for their feature set and community. Ustream has not always been the most stable of platforms, but I’ve looked past this shortcoming and enjoyed the site nonetheless. I utilize Ustream.TV for my live streaming show, Bwana.TV Live, where I live stream the recording of my videos as well as my audio podcast.
Youtube – What can I say? Youtube is the biggest and baddest video sharing community on the web. If it’s a popular video on the internets, there’s a big chance that it’s on Youtube. There are tons of videos to explore and you can waste hours there if you’re not careful. I host my Bwana.TV videos on Youtube and through their partner service, I have generated enough adsense to pay for my hosting and other costs. Not only is it fun, but if you’re serious, you can make some serious cash through Youtube.
Twitter – Twitter is the most intriguing site of them all. To say I have a love/hate relationship with Twitter would be an understatement. Here’s a site that I’ve gotten so much value and information from that frustrates me to no end. There’s so much potential with Twitter that it’s impossible to put into words. Much of the web is starting to recognize the power and Twitter is definitely picking up steam. You may recall, I was one of the organizers of a Twitter boycott called the “Twit-Out” which was aimed at taking a day off from Twitter to discuss all the issues and concerns we had with it. We didn’t expect Twitter to make any noticeable changes due to this event, but we got some great discussions out of it, and it gave us time to reflect on why we love/hate Twitter so much. Once Twitter balked on the IM/Track feature, I left the service for a few months out of frustration, but decided to return once I accepted the fact that IM and Track were essentially dead. Since then, I’ve revamped the way I use Twitter and am finding TweetDeck to be an acceptable experience (but no where near what I had with IM/Track). Follow @Bwana at Twitter to see my rants.
FriendFeed – FriendFeed is where it’s at. If you’re not signed up for FriendFeed, then I urge you to join today. Most would call FriendFeed an aggregator with community discussion capability, but I would call it a community discussion platform that has aggregation capability. I find that the best discussions take place on FriendFeed, not only because of the people, but because of the technology. The way the site is built, it encourages you to comment. It doesn’t load a separate page, or load a popup window, but simply expands a nice little box for you to ramble your thoughts in. I love it. The other features add to this, but I believe this is why FriendFeed stuck with me. You can follow me at http://friendfeed.com/bwana
Gmail (Google Apps Mail) – Webmail has been popular since the 90s, but personally, I had been going back and forth between desktop clients (such as Apple’s Mail.app) and using the web interfaces. I signed up for Google Apps For Your Domain (GAFYD) and pointed my bwana.org domain to it to use for email. This gives me Gmail’s interface with my own domain for no cost at all. Since I’ve mastered (somewhat) Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts, I can tear through hundreds of emails in a matter of minutes. In 2008, Gmail was definitely a valuable site for me.
Hulu – I’ll admit, I was skeptical at first. I didn’t believe Hulu would take off. I saw it as Universal’s tantrum against Apple and iTunes. Needless to say, I was very very wrong about Hulu. Hulu started small, but eventually grew to the one stop shop for premium online video. If there’s a TV show you like and you’ve missed an episode, your first reaction would be to check if Hulu has it. I’ve watched House, Terminator (the new series), and The Office solely on Hulu. These are shows I used to record on my DVR, but I’ve since moved to Hulu for that content. The experience is great, the commericals are tolerable, and the quality is consistent. If you’re not a part of Hulu, you need to become a part of it today.
Google (Search) – It’s now a verb. To Google something means you are searching the internet for something. It’s become part of our vocabulary. In 2008, Google solidified it’s dominance as the search engine of choice. All other search engines are a distant second to the almighty Google. It’s amazing that 10 years ago, this site was barely off the ground and today’s it #1. When someone asks me a question about tech, the first thought that comes to my mind is “Did you google it yet?”. There’s even a site called “Here, let me google that for you“. You can type in a simple question and it, *gasp*, searches Google for that question. It literally shows an animation of the question being typed in Google, and the search button clicked. It’s a little bit harsh, but it makes a valid point. If there’s something out on the internet that you’re searching for, Google is a great place to start looking.
Google Reader – My number 1 site for 2008 is definitely Google Reader. This is my information hub. This where everything comes in and I’m able to digest it and possibly share it. I use it on my mobile phone (iPhone) and on all my computers, no matter the operating system. Google added features to Reader that allow you to view your contacts shared items. When my friends share news from Google Reader, I can see them in my view. Google also added notes so that I can add my own commentary to shared items to help spark conversation. These notes can be imported into other sites that I love such as Socialmedian and FriendFeed. RSS is a wonderful thing and as I discover new sites on the web, I can syndicate them all in one place, and that one place is Google Reader. It is definitely my most valuable player in 2008.

Honorable mentions: Feedly, Remember the Milk, Toluu, Strands

What were your top sites this year?

3 Ways To Utilize Google Friend Connect

Bwana — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:00:25 +0000

The masterminds behind Google are pushing an initiative known as OpenSocial which aims to connect many different types of web sites using one single API. One of the fruits of OpenSocial is Google Friend Connect which seems like a technology demo on the surface, but I’ve found a couple of possibly useful gems to utilize. First off, to get started with Google Friend Connect, make sure you are logged in your Google Account, then navigate to http://www.google.com/friendconnect. If all goes well, you should see this screen:

Click “Set up a new site” and you’ll be presented with a wizard to set up your website. I don’t want to focus on this part, but the main four steps to creation are:

Add two required files to your web server
Copy “members gadget” code
Paste into a page on your site
Choose more social features as desired

The focus of this blog post will be step 4. I’m going to show you some of the things you can do with Google Friend Connect which may not be obvious.

The first of the three is done by default once your site is setup: Setup a members gadget. The members gadget lists current members of your website, allows you to view their profiles, and add friends. If this sounds familiar, then you’re not crazy because MyBlogLog offers a very similar service. You’ll find the interface to be similar as well:

Image taken from inquisitr.com
The second use is not obvious and is accessible by clicking the Social gadgets link in the sidebar of the Google Friend Connect site. From here, there are a few gadgets to choose from (and I do mean a few). Choose Wall Gadget from the list of options, and it will walk you through the process of adding this gadget to your website. What is a wall gadget? Do you remember Shoutbox? Well, that’s essentially what it is, but this Facebook generation calls it a “wall”. If you’re a fan of the Facebook wall, and want it on your site, you can do so with your Google Friend community. Google takes advantage of its Youtube power and allows you to also embed Youtube videos in the wall. Unfortunately, they’re not truly “embedded’ but offer a javascript popup window of the video. Good enough methinks. Once it is setup, it looks similar to this:
The third use is my favorite. It exists in the same section as the wall gadget and it is called the Review/Rate gadget. This gadget allows your Google Friend community to review or rate your entire site or individual pages.

I believe this is a useful mechanism to solicit feedback from your community. It offers the familiar 5 star system that everyone knows and loves and supports anonymous feedback as well (The wall gadget also has an anonymous option for the daring).

I’ve implemented all three of these social gadgets on bwana.org and will soon implement them on bwana.tv and see it how it goes. As with OpenSocial, the whole Google Friend Connect thing is still fairly new and rough around the edges, but I believe these three gadgets will add value for some of the early adopters out there.

Feel free to join my website by utilizing the members gadget in the sidebar. You can also rate this blog post if you feel it is useful.

Update: Here’s Google’s official video

Adsense For Feeds, Awareness API, Oh My!

Bwana — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:50:33 +0000

I’ve recently moved Bwana.org’s RSS feed to utilize Google’s Adsense for Feeds program which allows advertising embeds within your RSS feed. I was reluctant at first since I didn’t want to hand over control of my feed to FeedBurner. Anyway, after I got a setup with Adsense for Feeds, I ran into an issue which took some time to resolve. I could not figure out how to utilize all the nifty features of FeedBurner with my Adsense for Feeds account.

How is that you ask?

Well, with Adsense for Feeds, the feeds are hosted on a different domain than FeedBurner’s even though they use the same technology. FeedBurner’s feeds are hosted at http://feeds.feedburner.com/yourwebsite, while Adsense for Feeds accounts are hosted on http://feedproxy.google.com/yourwebsite. There’s been a bunch of controversy on how Google is handling the “switchover” to the new domain (it is currently a manual process which is not perfect).

My problem was, I didn’t know how to access the details of my “FeedBurner”, Adsense enabled feed. I didn’t know how to log in to FeedBurner since I didn’t already have an account there. The Adsense for Feeds section of Google Adsense shows a different set of options than what you see on FeedBurner. The main thing I needed was to enable the Awareness API so that I could show my feed count on my blog. By default, Adsense for Feeds accounts have the Awareness API disabled. So after scouring Google for solutions I finally stumbled upon it myself. The solution is:

Log into your Google Account at http://www.google.com/accounts using the same credentials as your Adsense account.
From there click the FeedBurner link:
You are automatically authenticated to FeedBurner with your Adsense for Feeds credentials.

From here you can configure and customize to your heart’s content. A very simple solution for a seemingly difficult problem. Hope this helps.

T-Mobile G1: Beware Of The Limitations

Bwana — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:50:47 +0000

Today, the Google Android platform had its coming out party, and the first phone to use Google’s new mobile software, is the T-Mobile G1. Rather than bore you with all the details you’ve read about one the web already, I’ll summarize some limitations of the T-Mobile G1:

No 3.5mm headphone jack. (Update 09/25/08 – T-Mobile will eventually ship adapter but not in first shipments)
No modem tethering
Includes only 1 GB Micro SD memory card (expandable to 8GB)
~~Data transfer limited to 1GB/month~~ (Update 09/25/08 Lifted by T-Mobile)
Lack of Microsoft Exchange support out of the box
No desktop/computer sync option. All data in the cloud!
No A2DP/Stereo Bluetooth
Google Account required to use
No video capture
Update Copy & paste is limited to form fields. It is not global.

Granted this is the first release of many Google Android supported phones, some of these limitations can be taken with a grain of salt. The major limitation I can see at this time is that Google Android is all about cloud computing, and I don’t think adoption rate will be swift with that limitation. Not everyone is ready to completely move to the cloud. Since I haven’t had first hand use of the device, I can’t really recommend it or not, but on paper, if I were to make a decision today, I would pass on this model.

Google Reader Shared Notes Feature

Bwana — Tue, 06 May 2008 04:32:44 +0000

Today, Google announced a cool new feature to Google Reader: The ability to share an item with a note. I could see this being useful for me and my podcast as Google Reader shared items is my primary source for collecting links to podcast about. Now I can do this outside of Google Reader by using the bookmarklet and also append a note about the story to use during podcasting. I didn’t want to use Google Shared Items for this as I do a lot of my link gathering through Google Reader, but occasionally, I’l stumble across something in Twitter or FriendFeed that I want to discuss. This note feature will work perfectly with that.

Now there are some who believe this feature is lacking, and while I agree, I think it’s outside the scope of the its intent. It sounds as if people want this to be FriendFeed and it’s not.

At any rate, I’ll definitely get some use out of it, especially given the amount of time I use Google Reader. Now all we need is the ability to do this from the iPhone and my workflow will be much smoother

Update: FriendFeed now imports Google Reader Shared Item Notes. Scary fast.