As you may have noticed over the past week the blog has morphed into Google Plus Guide. Local’s interesting and all, but G+ is where my head is at and I am liking it so I will keep posting until you stop reading.

I have been fascinated by the original ways that Google Plussers (Plusters?) have adapted the G+ system to their imaginations. A couple that caught my eye:

Christopher Hewitt has been testing group meditation via Hangouts.
“Within an hour it was up and running. I set up some shakuhachi music, and was joined online by another meditator from New York State (others expressed interest but couldn’t attend due to insufficient notice). Using the hastag #PlusZen we also promoted the session on Twitter. The half hour session ran very well based on the interest received by Natalie and myself there will no doubt be more of these mindful sessions. Some discussion also included a global 24 hour meditation sitting using Google+. What this process taught me was that the connectedness that we experience through computers and other technologies need not only be about doing – reading, watching, talking & sharing. It can also be about stillness – if we let it.”

Memories: A Circle for the Future
“This idea is a Google+ version of what I do with a Google calendar of the same name (the difference there is I have a reminder set for each year so we can talk about it again each year).

Essentially the Memories circle is a feed for all the funny and important things that happen in your Children’s lives (or family if you don’t have children). It can be trips, funny things that were said (My favorite), Important moments/milestones in your lives, etc. Later, when they are older you can go through the post similar to a slideshow or home movies viewing during the holidays. Maybe in time a feature will exist whereby just adding them to the circle can open up the older posts too.” – James May

Improving Hangouts for Deaf People
“One area that i’m personally quite passionate about is facilitating communications and community for the deaf. my grandfather, aunt, and uncle were/are all deaf. while i’m very much a novice, i find ASL to be a beautiful expressive language. i hope that hangouts can be awesome for the deaf & hh community as well as the hearing.

that said, i know that Hangouts aren’t good enough yet for this purpose. voice switching on the loudest speaker isn’t the right cue in this world; we need an indicator for who has the floor; i’m sure there are subtle issues that i don’t know.

so i’m asking for help. i’d like to invite a set of deaf/hh users and their signing families into Google+. we need folks who will actively dogfood Hangouts with their friends and family. we need folks who will partner with us, giving us feedback and iterating with us. i’ll jump them to the front of the invite line to get into Google+.” – Chee Chew, Engineering Director at Google

Anyone got any others?

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10 Response Comments

  • Mullins Farms  July 9, 2011 at 6:55 am

    No liking the interface and it’s not all that intuitive for me… But maybe I’m just a tard…

  • Little Whiner  July 9, 2011 at 8:15 am

    I’m still waiting for by +1 account to be active. I have a felling google will push this until they are the dominate sharing force. I think it is unfair that google steps in to control every good idea someone else has, they are google and can dominate any online market of there choosing.

  • Jer Thomson  July 11, 2011 at 12:20 am

    I just got a plus 1 invite a couple days ago. From what I’ve seen so far it’s a pretty decent site. I really like being able to pick and choose who I share what to.

    My only complaint with it so far is with uploading videos and images. I find them both really awkward especially videos considering YouTube is owned by Google and they don’t seem to have any type of YouTube share button or upload thingy. Either way Facebook is in for some serious competition.

  • Tim  July 11, 2011 at 9:51 am

    let’s start writing posts that AREN’T about Google Plus, a service most of us do not have access to.

  • Andrew Shotland  July 11, 2011 at 10:00 am

    I like writing about stuff that is of interest to me and right now G+ is pretty interesting, even if you don’t have access.

  • Jer Thomson  July 11, 2011 at 10:35 am

    @ Tim relax do you think Google is going to twiddle it’s thumbs and keep this to a select few. If they push Google plus like their new plus 1 button, everyone should have access very soon.

  • Tim  July 13, 2011 at 8:35 am

    I’m referring to this blog, not Google Plus. I am interested in other topics than Google + each day.

  • Jer  July 13, 2011 at 11:05 am

    @ Tim I know what you were referring to. Personally I like the fact there are a lot of posts related to Google Plus on this site, which is one of the reasons why I’ve started reading it. You might not like it but Google+ or plus or however it’s referred to is a huge topic right now. So sit back relax and enjoy the ride.

  • Andrew Shotland  July 21, 2011 at 9:49 am

    Just saw a + post on how someone is using Hangouts to monitor their nanny