Having negotiated my way past Yahoo’s infernal DOWNLOAD YOUR NEW MAIL screens, then figuring out I had to subscribe to the Welcome Waggin’, I suddenly found myself here…and had no idea what to write.Then a flash of inspiration-and my ADD meds-were able to…uh, inspire me-I’ll write about Google+.
I received an invite from someone on a porn site-you’d be surprised at the folks you meet there…or maybe you wouldn’t be. Anyway, some guy I corresponded with offered, and I accepted-the only other offers there are usually of the “please include your credit card number” type-oh, and sometimes a webcam pops up and I’ve been startled by…never mind.
So I set up a Google+ account using the same name as on my 2nd Facebook account; I set that up because I didn’t want any relatives to see that I’d commented on Nikki Sinn’s photo or Lexi Swallow’s wall-just to let you know what kind of friends I have. I also thought it might make Facebook more interesting, which it kind of did, but…I still think it’s incredibly overrated-the only thing more overrated is its alleged valuation at $20 billion-was that done by the S&P folks?
Google+ allows you to have “circles” of friends, or people you’re “following”-no, not like that (and there’s nothing as ridiculous as the “poke”- I remember looking at the Facebook Help Center and it was full of concerned postings about how “The poke doesn’t work”-OMIGOD!). For instance, I’ve got Russell Brand in my “following” circle; after reading Katy Perry’s latest post, I helpfully informed him “Hey-your wife needs a foot rub. Just thought I’d let you know.” He never did thank me for the heads up, now that I think about it. However, I appreciate the fact that you can post comments on everyone’s profile, unlike Facebook. I assume that you’ll eventually be able to make it your home page; we’ll see if their data excavation techniques are as slippery as on Facebook.
Anyway, Google+ isn’t too crowded-it’s apparently still in the design phase; but there’s really not much they can do-people have profiles, they post comments, photos, etc. I’m just waiting for the first quantum computer: posting a comment will mean that your physical avatar will materialize-more interesting than a webcam, that’s for sure.