On the (Google) plus side

Google's attempts at a social media platform have been widely ridiculed by the internet, and with the entrenched positions of Facebook and Twitter they face an uphill battle when it comes to user adoption. I use Twitter and have a Facebook that I never check and I'm here to tell you that if you're not on Google+, you're missing out.

Why should you take all the time and effort to invest in another social media platform when you already have Facebook, Twitter and other accounts? No one you know is on Google+, so what's the pay off? Well... maybe the fact that no one you know is on Google+ is a benefit. Your grandparents are not there, and even if they were, the circles allow you to easily control what you're sharing with whom. Certainly it gives you a lot more control than Facebook.

But if no-one you know is on the platform... won't it be boring? It is anything but boring. Google+ has, in my opinion, found a perfect synergy between the publishing/subscription style of twitter, the micro-blogging abilities of sites like Tumblr and the "friendship management" of Facebook. There are enough interesting people, groups and sites posting to Google+ that if you have an interest in a subject, there are multiple feeds that you can subscribe to. Much like when you first join twitter, you can subscribe to the feeds that post content you are interested in.

As an example, here is a sampling of the posts that I've found and shared on G+:

• A post about robotic jellyfish
• A news update about the headlining fight at UFC 189
• An epic geeky tattoo
• Lots and lots and lots of awesome street art 

So maybe next time you're going to refresh your facebook page for the 12th time this hour, click on over to my Google+ page and have a look... you might enjoy the visit enough to try it out for yourself.

-Odd
"One of us, One of us." -Freaks (1932)

To the Red Planet

I recently found the coolest thing. The new NASA Mars rover, Curiosity, is tweeting updates to us.

I think this is a super cool use of social technology. You could use your twitter feed to see what the Kardashians are doing (that's still a thing right?) or to stalk Bieber, but I would rather fill it with edifying and interesting phenomena.



The Mars missions are arguably the coolest things happening in science at the moment. They're at very least the most accessibly mind-blowing (the Higgs Boson is cool, but you need to be a physics nerd to really understand it). So you can follow Curiosity on twitter: https://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity or get the updates from the NASA Website: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html. 


Curiosity is 13 days away from the landing, and I'm really looking forward to getting updates on the fly :) it's going to be awesome.

-Odd
"Exploration is really the essence of the human spirit." -Frank Borman