The Uber problem

Uber set its lighter to the news touchpaper last week. Thousands of people, me included, began shouting ululations to Zaamun Rul, lord of fiery outrage. This was not solely a reaction to Emil Michael’s unacceptable comments, but the latest page in the ‘Uber is evil’ story.

Whatever your take, Uber has a reputation problem. It seems intent on acting like a villain in an HBO drama. But the reaction to Uber seems increasingly disproportionate.

It’s surprisingly hard to separate truth from distortion. The details of any given ‘kerfuffle’ (he says, avoiding the word ‘gaffe’) are murky—a lot of ‘he said, she said’, but people are quick to buy into the ‘evil’ narrative.

I can't decide whether Uber is very bad or very good at PR. It's probably a mixture. Its handling of recent events doesn't paint a picture of competence and control in dealing with its audience. That said, confusion follows each issue, which could be intentional.

I don't believe 'there's no such thing as bad publicity'. Whatever the true intent behind Emil Michael's comments, I don’t believe they helped Uber (though it’s arguable how much it’s hindered), but it impacts our trust.

An Uber you can get behind.
Image: Scott Schiller cc by-nc 2.0

Over the past few months, we've seen sexism, threats against journalists, irresponsible use of customer information, suspect investment tactics, and reputed exploitation of  drivers. Quite the rap sheet.

Some of these—the French ad campaign, Emil Michael's comments—can be rationalised away as the actions of a few; not representative of whole company. I don't buy that. Yes, individuals can ‘go rogue’ and hurt the company, but that doesn't happen in isolation. There must be an environment in which people think it’s acceptable. Even giving Emil Michael the benefit of the doubt on intent, he should have better judgment than to make cracks about digging up dirt on journalists in front of journalists (especially if your company has a track record of creepy behaviour).

These investment tactics are hardly unique to Uber. That doesn’t make them ethically right, and if someone considers it sufficient reason to ditch the service, I won’t argue, but it's dissonant to do so while not applying the same principles to other services. Targeting Uber on this point demonstrates the willingness to accept this narrative—it’s what we’ve come to expect

Irresponsible use of customer's private information bothers me. 'God View' has a ‘legitimate business purpose’, but access is too broad, the name, understandable in the context of a ‘cool’ tech company, sends the wrong message; using it as a backdrop to a party is downright insane. I think it's more indicative of immaturity than Machiavellian intent, but a cavalier approach to this sort of power does not inspire trust.

Treatment of its drivers is the hardest nut to crack. The majority of the articles I have seen from the drivers’ side have praised the service as an enabler, offering a model differentiated from, restrictive existing systems, potentially benefiting consumers and drivers. I’ve seen plenty of criticism too, but it’s largely anecdotal and unsubstantiated. That’s not to say conditions aren’t bad, but there’s little solid information and a good amount that speaks to its benefits. I simply don’t know.

Image: David Holt cc by-sa 2.0

Is all this criticism just a smokescreen—FUD spread by those with an axe to grind? Clearly not, though I’m sure Uber have ruffled enough feathers that the narrative gets amplified.

What interests me the most is how quick we are to grasp the ‘Uber is evil’ angle. Much of what’s happened is typical for other companies. It’s a self-reinforcing effect—stories appear which lead us to distrust Uber; we frame every story that follows in a way that fits our perception.

We’ve seen erstwhile-beloved companies grow up and change the world—Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others—and go from our scrappy tech darlings to figures of suspicion. We saw the flipside to their services at a point when we were over-invested in their infrastructures. Now, the cost of extricating ourselves is too high, and they can act with, if not carte blanche, carte-really-really-light-grey.

In Uber, we see the potential for the same—an ambitious, fast-growing company with a powerful and commanding vision, looking to disrupt the world. But we’ve seen where that path leads, and are far less forgiving. We punish Uber for not only their own missteps, but the sense of violated trust we have built up.

I’m not looking to excuse or forgive Uber (I came to right this post with the opposite intent). We can and should be critical. They provide an amazing service, but we should judge the cost of use in terms of more than the monetary; we should do what we can do avoid being held hostage to a service because we didn’t look at the whole picture. That said, I don’t think the way Uber acts departs much from its peers.

I’m not going to tell you that you should keep using Uber, or if you should deleted it; boycott it; whatever. That’s for you to decide. What I’m telling you is to think critically—weigh it up and reach your own decision. Don’t buy into the ‘Uber is evil’ narrative just because it’s the obvious story that’s presented, but don’t give them a pass either.

That said, our actions matter less and less. Uber’s most recent valuation put them at around 40 billion dollars. I think they’re already past the tipping point, and it would take a pretty huge hit to dent their armour.

A brief history of obsession, in pictures

Going through my iPhoto library, I noticed that (to the surprise of no-one) I had amassed a fairly detailed picture sequence describing the evolution of my desk. It amused me, so I thought I'd share.

A blank canvas.
An excellent desk, by the way—the IKEA Malm with side panel.

Command Centre 1.0, a.k.a. 'humble beginnings.'

Starting to present a workable number of screens. iMac with 19" external monitor. 13" MacBook Air with 24" external monitor.

Sadly, a bad picture. PC tower just visible on the right. 27" and 24" externals to PC and MacBook. iMac present but not visible. Mountain Dew Code Red and Stark Industries wallpaper because: of course.

Command Centre 2.0, a.k.a. 'the tipping point'. PC with 27" and portrait 19" on clamp,  24" freestanding. MacBook Air on Griffin stand. iPad 3 on gooseneck. I still love the shape of this.

Command Centre 3.0, a.k.a. 'panopticon'. 

What I wear

Wearables are the next big leap for personal technology. This is not news; anyone who follows technology news will have seen wearables talked about as the ‘next (next) big thing’. While I think that the hype machine is running with full steam and setting unrealistic expectations (I think it’s hovering somewhere around the ’Trough of Disillusionment’ mark on the Gartner Hype Cycle), I do believe that this is the next big area where consumer technology will make a real, positive difference to our everyday lives.

Jeremy Kemp. - Own work. The underlying concept was conceived by Gartner, Inc.
CC-BY-SA-3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0; Released under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Rather than going on at length around my thoughts on wearables in principle (though perhaps that’s something I will share in the future), I thought I’d take you through my own current set up. This year, for the first time, I think we’re seeing the emergence of wearables as truly useful, consumer-ready devices rather than merely interesting oddities, but they still seem to remain in the territory of the early adopter. A practical example of how they have improved (or, at least, changed) my day-to-day life seems more appealing and illustrative than a discussion of the theory.

My ‘personal area network’ is now made up of three wearable devices, slaved to my phone: my Pebble, my Jawbone UP24, and my LG Tone+ Bluetooth headset. This has grown up over the past month or so particularly in response to having a large phone. I’ve been curious to see the amount of interest it’s received, in sum and by parts, and that it has proved far more useful than I had originally envisioned.

The Pebble smart watch was Kickstarted last year and was, by all accounts, pretty good (the total amount raised at that link rather speaks for the demand...), but it only received the software update that really brought it up to spec earlier this year. The basic idea is simple: it’s a watch (with a bunch of changeable digital faces) which receives all the notifications that come to your phone. When a notification hits your phone, the Pebble lights up, vibrates, and shows some or all of whatever message you’ve received. Notably, it’s currently the only smartwatch that works with iPhones (upcoming 2015 products notwithstanding). It offers a lot more than that, including activity tracker displays, Evernote, vibrating alarms, music controls, and, as of last month, even step tracking through UP. It does most of these things very well, but the notifications aspect is where it really shines.

For some people, the idea of receiving notifications directly on their body is some sort of Borg-esque nightmare. Surely it’s invasive; a way of making our over-connected, over-distracted digital chains even more inescapable. I expected a little of that, but have actually found the opposite. While it might seem counter-intuitive, this more personal means of receiving notifications has actually untethered me a little from my phone, which now lives in a state of near-permanent silence and non-vibration.

Such a personal form of notification-delivery is actually, in my experience, less distracting. The act of checking a notification is changed from taking out your phone and looking it over to just glancing at your wrist. You can decide pretty quickly if it’s worth your time at that particular moment and dismiss it, or take action there and then. When in conversation, meetings, or the like, looking at your watch can still be a little rude, but far less so that glancing at your phone. If you’re expecting an important message or phone call, you know you’re not going to miss it, even if your phone is on silent and buried in a bag. In my flat, I can go one or two rooms over before the signal starts to get a little dicey, so even if I forget to bring my phone, I’ll still not miss what’s coming through.

The only downside right now is not being able to reply directly from the watch. That’s something that the Apple Watch will bring next year, but seemingly at the cost of battery life (I’m not sure those two factors are in strict trade-off against one another, but that’s where the Pebble has the edge—it can go a little over a week before needing a recharge).

The next device that you can see me wearing on a day-to-day basis is the LG Tone+ wireless Bluetooth headset. It is great; I was looking for a device to fulfil this function for a while, and I was finally inspired by @scubbo to properly look into one.

The Tone+ sits rests around your neck in a U-shape with slightly widened ends that house the controls and hold the earbuds, held in the tips by magnets. They’re never really invisible, but are at their least obtrusive when you’re wearing a shirt with a collar they can sit under. You can slip out the earbuds and be connected to a paired device in less than ten seconds.

The big thing for me has been having earphones you can quickly put on or take off with a minimum of fuss and cable-tangling. I’m a serial listener, and the ease of donning these has let me take advantage of downtime I wasn’t even fully aware of to press on with audiobooks and podcasts.

Stepping away from your desk to get some water or go to the loo? I would never bother wiring myself in with headphones just to fill those two minutes, but plugging into something that’s already around my neck makes it worthwhile. I can even leave my phone at my desk. Okay, so you’ll only get in a couple of minutes at a time, but if you’re doing that on every occasion, that’s a reasonable dent in what you’re listening to. Since it’s time you’re not using for anything that’s really productive anyway, it’s essentially ‘free’ time you’ve gained. You can even leave your phone on your desk.

The Tone+ is also a wireless headset, so you can take and make phone calls on it without ever taking your phone out of your pocket (the Pebble being a handy way of checking caller ID). If you’re invested enough in your Siri usage (other Personal Digital Assistants are available), you can accomplish all manner of small tasks without burying your head in your phone while out and about.

The last of my wearable devices doesn’t synergise quite so well as the other two, but I find it useful nonetheless.

My Jawbone UP24 tracks my steps and sleep through the day, sending them to my phone via Bluetooth. Honestly, this has less of an impact on my day-to-day, but I’m enough of a nerd to invest time in tracking these alongside my exercise and calorie intake.

I’m not going to argue that it’s a game-changer or worth the time investment if you’re not interested in that sort of thing, but I find that it’s an easy way to effect positive lifestyle changes. It’s certainly true that measuring or monitoring your own behaviour tends to change it, but tracking your food intake at the very least forces you to confront exactly what you’re eating (there’re how many calories in my Whale Lard Flavoured Crisps?!). It is a time investment to track this sort of thing full time, but there are apps and devices that make it easier. If nothing else, tracking these things periodically for two weeks at a time can be useful.

You on UP. Results not guaranteed.
Photo by BMclvr. License: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

There has been enough convergence in the last year to make dedicated fitness trackers like the Jawbone Up less necessary. Pebble can now track these things, and iPhones can now track your steps as part of iOS8. I stick with my Jawbone, for a few reasons. Firstly, it’s a lot easier to wear all the time than my Pebble or iPhone, so you’re not missing steps because you don't want to carry a bigger device. Secondly, my rationale is that a dedicated device should, in theory, be better at tracking this sort of thing that devices that have had it enabled through software alone. I have no idea if that’s actually true, but it’s good enough for me.

There’s a paradox here—however much time I’m willing to put into experimenting with these sorts of things to make myself more productive, or my day-to-day life easier, the gains are offset by the time investment to get everything working ‘just right’. So, do me a favour, and if any of these things sound good to you, check them out, and let me know how you get on.

Do you use wearables? Does this sound crazy to you, or just crazy brilliant? Questions? Sound off in the comments below.

Pebble (other colours & Steel edition available)
LG Tone+ (other colours available)
Jawbone Up24 (other colours, sizes, and non-wireless edition available)

Big Deal - the iPhone Six Plus

I've had my iPhone Six Plus for about two weeks now, and while I've been travelling throughout that time, meaning that my usage pattern has been atypical, it's been attracting a lot of attention everywhere I've been. People want to look at it, talk about it, hold it (yes, the phone) and know whether it lives up to the hype and if really is that big. And some smartarses want to know if I've bent it yet (spoiler warning: I haven't). 

So, even if I can't yet speak within the frame of reference of my normal day-to-day use, I have been travelling with it and working, so surely if it is all that unwieldy, that fact will have revealed itself by now. So here are my key takeaways, in brief (okay, so it didn't turn out that brief). 

Battery Life

This was one of the big draws of the Six Plus for me. The bigger physical body of the phone leaves space for a bigger battery, and while some of that extra power is needed to drive the higher resolution display, it is a net improvement over the Six. Having been on a multiple charges a day routine, I can now go the whole day with Bluetooth running and still have up to fifty percent left by the evening, depending on usage. This is how smartphones should be. 

Verdict: Great

Screen

This is, literally, the big one. It's nice, really nice, but it's not best feature of the phone right now. It looks amazing and having all this space on a device that fits in your pocket (and it does) is fantastic.

There are two big problems. The first one is psychological. I still use an iPhone 4s for work. I've never had problems with it before, but now it feels like driving a clown car. I have to hold it right up to my face, and the keyboard feels like garbage. I'm for the first time seriously considering consolidating my work and personal phones. 

The other is one of ecosystem. Because of the big resolution jump, a lot of apps just haven't caught up yet. I'm typing this in Evernote, which has that crisp, correctly sized look. But when I switch over to Google Chrome or a host of other apps, it zooms the screen to compensate for the older app, and it looks horrible. Sure, this will be fixed in time, but it's not nice for an out-of-the-gate experience, and doesn't really sell the larger-screen phone from the get-go.

Nice-looking, correctly-sized Evernote

Overzoomed Google

Verdict: minor gripes, but fundamentally great. 

Size

I hinted at this when talking about the screen. The phone feels big. People notice when you wap it out. At first. After about four days of use, it seemed normal; not uncomfortable to carry, not even noticeable in your pocket. It was a little clumsy to use one handed, but since I put a back case on it that provides more grip, it's much more comfortable (the sleek aluminium build is nice, but feels precariously slippery). 

That said, it's not necessarily for everyone. I have freakishly extensible thumbs and hands big enough to grip the phone and reach most areas. Someone with smaller hands will probably find the Six more suitable.

Verdict: I love it, but your mileage may vary. 

Camera

Awesome. Okay, so it's never going to be perfect in bad lighting, but apart from when I was taking photos at a concert (yeaahhhhh *rock fingers*), they've come out really sharp with very little effort. The Six Plus has Optical Image Stabilization for video, which is a nice plus (hah), but I'm not sure how often I'll find that coming into play. If you're buying a phone primarily for the camera, I'm sure there are better options out there, but this is the best iPhone for that, and a better all-round phone than most comparable ones.

Verdict: a solid improvement on an already decent phone camera.

I basically wanted a chance to use this picture. Shot hastily on the Six Plus

Worse lighting conditions. Decent, but much lower quality picture.

Keyboard

This was the biggest disappointment for me. I was hoping that the landscape keyboard with this big screen would have so much more to offer. As it is, it keeps the keys the same size, but adds a lot of buttons round the periphery. This is fine, in theory, but the layout is changed in some subtle and awkward ways. I feel like I could learn it and get some good use out of it, but I've found myself sticking with the portrait keyboard for the most part, which is really good. 

The introduction of third party keyboards is interesting, but has some issues. I was itching to try SwiftKey, and was determined to stick with it through the learning curve. That part was fine, but there were stability issues and slow loading times to launch the keyboard, which pretty much screws the whole thing when it comes to very short-fire inputs such as such terms. Waiting that extra second for at those times is really jarring. I'll try this approach again in a few months.

Verdict: disappointing 

Bending

This...isn't even a thing. Seriously. Some guy made a video where he really has to straaiiiin to bend it. It takes something like 90 pounds of force to bend these things - there are all sorts of things you can bend with that kind of force...

If your day-to-day activity involves risking that amount of force on your phone, get a rugged case for it, but, honestly, that kind of thing should be beyond regular operating parameters anyway. 

Verdict: seriously? 

The low-down: should you buy it?

If you're due for an upgrade and are after the larger and more powerful experience I've talked about, then sure, go for it! I absolutely love it. I've found myself able to use my phone for so much more (and seriously, typing on this thing is a huge step up). If you're less keen on those features, it's slightly harder. The Six is still a great phone, and that might be better (or you might find either too unwieldy for eat you want in a phone). 

If you're in doubt, I exhort you to go and grab hold of some in an Apple Store and try them out. The overwhelming reaction has been that it's not as big as people were expecting (*cough*), so you might be surprised.

Is Bigger Better?

Me in 2015 (artist's impression)

After the Apple announcement yesterday, I mentioned to a few people the to was going to get the iPhone Six Plus (I have, in fact, been wanting them to make a larger iPhone for years, and doubted that they would until they forked products with the 5s/5c last year). Their response was 'why?'.

I was initially a little stumped. Of course I wanted a bigger phone, why wouldn't I (if there's one thing I know, it's that 'moar screenz is bettor')? But couldn't put my finger on the reason, nor why the Apple Watch excites me so much.

After some thought, I realised it boils down to this. Why is a tablet better than a phone? Okay, well sometimes maybe it isn't, but more people have been talking seriously about tablets as a PC replacement than about phones taking over (I think they're wrong, right now, but still, it tells you something).

So why don't we just carry tablets around? Obviously the very size that makes them useful works against them. We need something small enough to fit in a pocket or small bag and, just occasionally, to hold up to our faces.

So the 'phablet' phenomenon is an attempt to bring some of the expanded usefulness of tablets to phones. The size increase has some disadvantages, and they're not for everyone. It depends on your needs and habits. Bigger is bulkier, harder to hold, harder to use one-handed. For me, that's not a dealbreaker - the benefits of the bigger and better display and keyboard outweigh the annoyances - but what if there were a way to mitigate these?

The annoyances of a large phone are greatest when out and about and walking around. So, how we can take advantage of the phone's features without whipping it out every five minutes? Have an adjunct device strapped to your wrist.

The Apple Watch (or, fair enough, an equivalent device) at the very least picks up the strain here. How many times have you dug your phone out when it vibrates only to find it's an irrelevant notification? Check it on your watch. Reply to texts from your watch. Quickly check the time, weather, make calls, control other devices, get summary reports - all on your watch. That's aside from all of the stuff that it actually does in and of itself.

There's no one killer thing a smart watch does - I don't want it to. I want it to make the main device I use - my phone - better and improve the way I use it. This is the future I see. More of the phone as a 'hub', combined with adjoining devices that expand what it can do while piggybacking off its capabilities. These are essentially 'modular', adding and complementing functionality when it is needed. One of the things I think people misunderstand about Google Glass is that if you own it, you don't have to wear it all the time. You can take it off, for politeness, for practicality, and yet still get the benefits that it offers when they're useful.

Of course, there are some big questions to be answered about Apple Watch in particular. Firstly, does it actually work? Secondly, can it do everything promised (if it's 60%+ of what's shown at launch, I'll still likely be happy). Finally - battery life. This is going to be the knotty topic. On the one hand, if it's one-day-per-charge, well, that's not great, but I'm not going to be wearing it at night and am already pretty well trained to connect my phone to charge anyway. If it's getting to not-quite-making-it-through-the-day-territory, then it's going to be pretty horrendous. Time will tell, but I'm optimistic.

So I'm excited. For me, pairing the iPhone Six Plus and the Apple Watch seems like the way to go. With some of the Continuity handoff features starting in the new iOS and OSX in particular, I'm really excited about what the next 2-3 years of personal technology will bring.

Me in 2017 (enslaved artist's impression)

Gearing Update: A Kit Retrospective

As many of you know, I'm a bit of a gear fiend. I tend to carry around more stuff than I strictly need, on the grounds that at some point it might come in handy. This has the power to amaze, as I whip out that elusive item at just the right time (that sounds rather too much like a euphemism, in retrospect), and to frustrate, as someone rolls their eyes at me while I throw a messenger bag over my shoulder for a simple trip to the corner shop.

Last year, I wrote a post on some of the more useful day-to-day gear I had accrued. At the time, I had been using it for just a few weeks. Now, just over a year on, I thought I'd give my thoughts on those same tools after carting them round for a longer period of time. This is a two-part post. Here, I'll talk about the products I mentioned last year. In the next part, I'll give you a look at what I currently have in my bag.

Speaking of bags, let's start with that.


Bag of Holding - ThinkGeek (49.99 USD)

The Bag of Holding is a geek classic, made by ThinkGeek in homage to the iconic Dungeons and Dragons Bag of Holding. This has been my primary bag for the past year. I carry it almost every day, and it has largely replaced my beloved Oakley Kitchen Sink backpack (though I still bring that out on occasion).

A year on, I've just reached the point where I'm starting to consider a new bag. The Bag of Holding is still fantastic, but it definitely has some downsides. It can hold a truly impressive amount of stuff and has a good number of pouches and compartments. But I can help but feel that a few things are traded off for the 'geek caché'.

The durability is okay. The shoulder strap supplied broke pretty quickly and I'm starting to see some wear and holes around some of the fasteners (but for a year of near-daily use, that's not so bad for a bag of that price). The inherent problem in the design is that, while it can hold a lot of stuff, if you really load it up, it tends to bulge out like it's recovering from an epic curry and when you pick it up by the strap the flap tends to pop open, like, well, like my trousers after an epic curry. The other issue with this is, since it's a messenger bag (though they do sell it as a rucksack), when it's fully loaded it's heavy and uncomfortable to carry. That's the time when I really miss using the Kitchen Sink.

I love the bag, but I'm starting to cast my eyes lasciviously at other ones (gear hound that I am) which offer similar dimensions, but that hold themselves together better and are easier to carry without developing back problems. Watch this space.


Telepen - True Utility (6.50 GBP)

Boy, I loved this pen when I got it. I still do, in principle at least anyway, but it's much harder to judge as it escaped from me about six months ago. It was great having a tiny-but-highly-functional pen on my keys, but because of the way I carry and treat my keys the fastening of the pen wasn't sufficient to keep it in. After a few close calls, it finally went missing, leaving me with just the stylish shiny topper on my keyring.

I love the gadget itself, but I've not felt compelled to replace it. I have a pen permanently wedged in one pocket anyway, and carry several more in my bag, so it felt a bit redundant. For anyone who needs a discrete or convenient way to carry a pen, it's a great tool, but its role is easily filled in other ways.


Microfleece Hoody - ScotteVest (75 USD)

If there's one thing I wish I had more of, more of the time, it's pockets (I long for the day when things like this aren't highly unfashionable). The Microfleece hoody gives me more pockets than a mutant kangaroo, and for that, I love it. The one problem with it is that for half the year, it's far too hot to wear. I haven't taken the time to check out any of ScotteVest's other products, but I might be interested in investing in something more lightweight that offers similar storage (and space for internal wiring).

(Editing this blog post actually prompted me to go back to the ScotteVest site for the first time in a while. It's my sort of site - they have a ticker that shows 'total pockets sold'.)


Grid-It - Cocoon (varies by size; should be sub 20 GBP)

Ahhhh, I've been saving this one until last, and with good reason. It's one thing that I am still unequivocally delighted with. I will continue to enthusiastically rave about these - I recommend them to anyone who carries any but the most spartan of bags on a regular basis. It does everything I need it to - it keeps my small items organised (also allowing a quick visual check to see if anything is missing); it allows for easy swapping of key items between bags; it lets you carry lots of smalls bits and cables without losing them in the crevices of your bag or turning them into a rats' nest. It fits whatever you need it to.

My current configuration

Seriously, if nothing else, get one of these. They come in lots of different sizes, so you can find one to fit a massive bag like mine or a much smaller handbag. You can even get them as part of a laptop or tablet sleeve. Scroll through threads of people's 'Everyday Carry gear' (for those who are as obsessive about their stuff as I am), this is the one item I see again and again.

Alright, that wraps it up for now. Come back on Monday, when I'll be showing you what I carry right now.

Google+ - does it have that Spark?

So, I’m starting up this blog to put down and share some of my musings on various aspects of the internet, technology, and entertainment – hitherto confined to dozens of comment threads and message boards.  So, given that just about everyone else on the internet is talking about it ad nauseam, where better to start than with my impressions of Google+ because, hey, it’s good to stand out and be original, right?

 So, I was lucky enough to get onto Google+ right at the beginning of the Field Trial, and my first impressions of the network were very positive.  The interface looked good and handled well (barring the odd hiccup – but nothing unexpected for a pre-beta release!) – both of which were extremely refreshing after the clunky clutter-fest that Facebook has been for some considerable time now.  Taking one of Facebook’s weaker functions – the ability to compartmentalise your connections and sharing – and making it the core of social interaction on Google+ seems like a great idea. 

So far, so retreading-the-ground-of-the-endless-Google+-discussions-already-plastered-all-over- the-web.  Much has been made of Circles and Hangouts – the latter being the impressively powerful video chat, supporting up to ten people with YouTube sharing. Hangouts, though, seem to be the least robust part of Google+, suffering from fairly frequent crashes, along with rampant performance and bandwidth issues.  But there seems to be less attention given to the two other big features of Google+ which were touted to me when I first started the Field Trial.

First, there’s Huddles – a multi-user internet text chat.  I was quite excited by this when I first read the description, but I’ve had to wait until now to try it out – it’s exclusively on the mobile apps, and the iOS native app has only just launched today.  So far, it hasn’t disappointed – though I’m yet to test it off a Wi-Fi network, which is where awesome things like this tend to fall down.  It seems that it would be particularly useful in light of the fact that iOS (text) messages doesn’t support multi-person threads – if you send one out to multiple people, replies go into the message thread for that person.  Understandable, given how hard it would be to implement it otherwise, but it does feel clunky. 

Secondly, Sparks.  Here’s Google’s video introduction to it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DoAl4JXhQo  - complete with obligatory obscure pastimes (yodeling? really?*).

This doesn’t seem to have been given much thought in the coverage I’ve seen, and I can see why.  It’s hardly given any weight within Google+ itself, and seems to have been largely forgotten about – I have only felt the need to check it a handful of times so far, and it’s never provided any interesting links.  Perhaps the problem is that there currently isn’t enough data to make good suggestions.

Maybe it will be fleshed out by the links other people on Google+ are sharing, or by the ability to +1 pages on the web in general – something else I’m not sure how much people are using – is anyone +1’ing links in Google, or on articles with the usual array of social media buttons?  This is perhaps the weakest, or at any rate, least explored, feature of Google+ - though there is plenty of time to improve this!

As has been said elsewhere, the real trial of Google+ will be whether or not it can reach the ‘critical mass’ required for a social network to survive(which is where Google Buzz failed).  With user uptake over the last few weeks in the millions (still pre-beta), it looks like it’s well on the way.

I plan to talk some more about Google+ in other posts, trying to discuss this new position it seems to occupy on the social media ‘spectrum’, which seems to have people somewhat unsure what to do with it, and what feels like is missing from it.

*Apologies to all yodelers out there - not for my comment, but because you probably need them.




Just as a last word - please give me feedback - on the style, on the content, on the pathetic pun in the title, on the blog itself - it'd be very much appreciated!