Got Invite? I did. Yesterday my wife sent me a Google+ invite (yes, on my request and out of her love for me) but Google is still taking time to send one to my inbox to start using it. Not sure if they heard the news that I have stopped using Facebook and they are filtering non active social media folks out of their initial list. But what the heck? social media has been around for a long time and you can comment about it even if you are not part of it. Recovering from my last post bidding farewell to Facebook I am again forced to write about social media.
Will Google+ be better?
Well that depends on what you mean by “better”. If it is about using and UI, I can’t comment without seeing it, Yesterday over a beer at happy hour (with my wife) she told me about circles and how you can group your contacts as friends and family and send targeted status updates that only show up for them. She also reminded me that You Tube, blogger and Picasa and Gmail are Google products as well. That was nice because you might end up having a more integrated system and then we cannot leave out Google reader, Google search, docs and Google Apps. So would it be better? Let us see. Anyways we could be moving to an interesting era in social media. Balancing of power is necessary be it geo political or social media landscape
A peek into my Social Media life
Not sure if Orkut is still there or buried. My wife was the person who introduced me to this as was never a MySpace user or Friendster user, and I don’t even remember if I ever had an account in them. But Orkut was mind boggling, it got me the feel of social media and like a dog I use to run around li(c/n)king people online and wagging my tail. One other reason was how it got popular in India and gave me connections with all of my friends, family and old college mates. And then I was told that there is this Facebook (again my wife) and I should try it. I peeked in once and did not like it and continued with Orkut, then FB started hitting the news and I started getting invites from friends and finally ending in a decision that I should start using it and there was my online life transported from Google to FB just like that. Slowly I saw that all my Orkut folks were in FB and honestly I loved it.
I did visit Orkut after that and as they tried to catch up with the FB features, it to me hadbecome so convoluted and messy. But there 
were a few things that I loved about Orkut and all that was because it was a Google product and the most important ones were the blogger and You tube integration. I also hated the fact that if I changed my Gmail I will not able to move my Orkut account to the new ID. That sucked because I am this person who after being late in getting a Gmail had lost all nice combinations of my name to poor replications of me and always tried changing it to a better one. But that being said, I think what I loved in Orkut might get better with Google+. Then over the past few weeks, I had been away from FB more as a test to see how that impacts my life and it is too early to comment. I have not yet had any withdrawal attacks and that is because I also blocked comments in FB. But in short I love Social Media and I think it is a great tool. They should have a timer on the top that you can set for a day and once you meet the time you decide it should automatically log you off from the system and you can log in only next day or else we have no idea what time we spend on it.
Should I fear Google+?
We know privacy is a big concern for FB users and there is a lot of discussion on that lines with the FB usage and the biggest question is should I fear about privacy issues with Google+. Though I have my opinion on privacy and the more you are transparent the less you have to fear, but that does not always gel with everyone and at times with me as well, though I keep saying that. But with Google+, I am still not clear (since I have not used it) how the integration with Gmail will be. What is the possibility that by error or due to some settings gimmick that I am unaware of my Gmail gets posted as my status and gets posted? I am sure the heavy heads in Google would have thought about it and my nut sized brain is trying to crack for no reason, but that is a fear I might have. And also how my existing YouTube and Picasa account will just open up to the public one fine day.
My second fear again is if Google gets an upper hand the balance of power will again get disrupted and will we be at the mercy of another huge company that practically knows everything about us.
But there are few thing that you cannot change and the bottom line is fear only stops you from moving forward and so chill and start exploring Google+…
Categories: Humor, NetLife, Tech & Marketing, Technology
Vinod Narayan 
Hi Mr Vinod,One thing from your article is proven that you are not a social animal yet your wife is helping you to become one with the introductions that she has been doing it – kudos to her hardwork or effort :).Secondly, about privacy – though I am not a crazy user of FB or Orkut and not yet on Google+ but I am pretty sure all of them have their set privacy settings which is individual based and one can do the settings. The problem becomes is when you accept left and right all the friend request – even those whom you don’t know you are opening them your information, pictures and so on by adding them…you might have 1000 friends but how many of them do you go and comment on? And based on that you will come to know where the privacy has gone to the ride. Blaming any of these application is useless when you don’t know where to and how to limit your privacy settings.Social media I look at it as the olden days Katta talk …I am pretty sure many would relate it. You sit on your community or near home area a place where you gather with your school mates or friends and that friend will bring his cousin or so who is visiting during summer and you get connected with that friend’s cousin and the list goes on. Today you are doing the same thing but online…if you are not good in keeping relationships then you will find it like a task, but if its your nature (which should be as man is a social animal), then you will enjoy it. It becomes tough when you are only looking who is commenting on mine or liking mine…! I will say if you have fear you should not even indulge with social media. I read couple of your posts and your company Penpositive, there you talk and promote about social media and other businesses and on your personal blog you write totally opposite….am unable to understand which one is you :).No matter what all these companies are bringing different products and making money we are just a bully 🙂
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I am fuming with anger as I write this and thinking how dare someone comes into my blog and puts a comment telling me I am not a social Animal 🙂 but I forgive you because you said some nice words about my wife 🙂
I am happy that there are people who visit here and also follow the penpositive blog, thanks for that. And my recent posts on Social media are more for humor value and as a Social media researcher I am often guilty of falling into the pit of expressing positive and negative thoughts on the landscape.
You have a very valid point in saying that people accept friend requests from unknown people, and then cry about privacy. And Katta Talk, was’t that fun times?
Also don’t break your brain much on what I write, these are opinion of the moments and these opinions coupled with the comments of folks like you is what helps in forming more concrete perspectives. But do comment and thanks for visiting 🙂
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I am fuming with anger as I write this and thinking how dare someone comes into my blog and puts a comment telling me I am not a social Animal 🙂 but I forgive you because you said some nice words about my wife 🙂
I am happy that there are people who visit here and also follow the penpositive blog, thanks for that. And my recent posts on Social media are more for humor value and as a Social media researcher I am often guilty of falling into the pit of expressing positive and negative thoughts on the landscape.
You have a very valid point in saying that people accept friend requests from unknown people, and then cry about privacy. And Katta Talk, was’t that fun times?
Also don’t break your brain much on what I write, these are opinion of the moments and these opinions coupled with the comments of folks like you is what helps in forming more concrete perspectives. But do comment and thanks for visiting 🙂
hi Vinod, how does it feels when using Google + , can i get invitation for this, i’m very super exited when google announced this , wanna touch it with my bare hands , and play with them 😀 ..looking forward for this respond thanks
Thanks for being more courteous in your response as I did read your earlier version too 🙂
All I want to say is if you are not ready to take critics or feedback and you are not a two-way communication liking person then please you should disable the comment section. It will say both of us.
Regards,
Parag
Parag, Honestly I would have stuck with my first version because my intention was humor and not responding to your comment in a negative way. But then someone told me that my humor might not sound that way to the reciever. I guess that was true 🙂 And again the whole point of blogging and commenting is to communicate openly, so thanks for sharing your thoughts