Plus for Google

In a previous post, I provided a link to a set of steps that enabled running the Google + iPhone app on the iPad. It did in fact work, but when I next synced with iTunes, it caused problems. I uninstalled the app from the iPad, apologize if anyone had the same problem, and withdraw my recommendation. I found another native iPad app called Plus for Google that works on the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. It works well. I am certain the native iPad from Google will be superior once it arrives, but in the meantime this one is very nice for browsing through Google Plus posts on the iPad.

Index to patrickWeb stories about Google +

Tags: google, google plus, ipad

Google Plus on iPad

The Google Plus app on the iPhone is very nice but there is not yet a native app for the iPad. There will be one soon, I am sure, but if you are like me and can’t wait, there is a way you can adapt the iPhone app to enable it to work on the iPad. It requires some steps but there is a tutorial on how to do it that I found in one of the tech blogs. You can find it here. I found some variations from the steps outlined, and it took awhile to figure it out. If you try it and have problems, let me know and I will be glad to help.

Meanwhile, Google Plus seems to be growing rapidly. Since my last report, I now have 189 people in my various circles and 145 people have me in their circles. As I mused at the last wriing, where does this lead? Everybody connected to everybody? I am not sure how many people will end up in my circles, but I will try to keep it meaningful. The 189 people are people I know, serve on boards with, have worked with, spoken with, or met at a conference. Many of the 145 people who have added me to their circles are people I have never heard of. I get emails every day from Google + with a picture of a person and notice that John Doe has added me to one or more of his circles. I look at the picture and am certain I have never seen this person in my life.

The people in your circles are visible to anyone who looks at your profile, but what circle or circles you have them in is not visible. I have noticed that some of the people who have added me to their circle have thousands of people in their circles. One was just short of 10,000. I don’t how many people I know, but it is not 10,000. I would call those “connections” not meaningful. Perhaps some people are looking for bragging rights–I have 10,000 people in my circles! Wow, how many people have you in their circle? Um, there is my mother and, and, um, thousands of others that I can’t recall right now.

So it looks like there will be a lot of people who will feel good at having thousands of people in their circles. So be it. What is more important is the meaningful circles, like your family circle, your bike club circle, your XYZ Corporation Board circle, etc. Those are circles you can really communicate with and know that only the members that you have elected to put in those circles will see what you post. You may still choose to post things for the public to read, like this story, but many of day to day postings will be much more private. That is what Facebook has not facilitated very well. You can segment things on FB, but it is not easy. Google has made it trivial. I continue to believe they are going to get a lot of converts.

One more thing. There is a transient circle called “Nearby”. If you allow Google to detect where you are, you can look at postings from “Nearby”. The posters are people, you may or may not know, who are “nearby” who are posting about the great meal they had at XYZ  Cafe or something about traffic flow, or whatever. This is fun to browse through just to see what people are talking about nearby. I like using the iPad to browse through Google + postings. I don’t spend all day at it–maybe 15 minutes. You can browse my all of your circles, look at the postings in just your family circle, or the board circle, or by those who happen to be nearby.

Tags: circle, circles, google, google plus, ipad, nearby

G+ Index

I have no crystal ball, but I see Google Plus as a breath of fresh air for privacy and having a big impact on Facebook. From the feedback I have been getting to some recent posts, it seems a number of readers feel the same way. For those who may have missed the earlier posts on the subject, I have placed an index of those and any future posts on the subject at patrickweb.com/g+. Here is the list of posts so far…

Freedom of Communication
Google + Facebook
Google+ Growth
Google + on iPad
Plus for Google

Tags: facebook, friends, google, google plus, social media, social networking, social networks

Google+ Growth

The Wall Street Journal posed the question of whether Facebook is worth $100 billion. I still have no idea, but I continue to think Facebook is now facing a very formidable competitor. My initial reaction has strengthened. G+ circles are a big deal and clearly the differentiator. As for growth, technowizard Leon Haland has shared some interesting data that shows the relative growth rates of Google, Facebook and Twitter. Haland said that Twitter got 10 million users in 780 days (2.13 years), Facebook got 10 million users in 852 days (2.33 years), and Google Plus gained 10 million users in just 16 days (2 weeks). Google Plus is growing exponentially. The Christian Post reported on Wednesday that Google Plus had reached 18 million users.

Regardless of the exact numbers, I see G+ growing very rapidly becuase it has a better privacy model than anyone else, as far as I can see. With Facebook, a friend is someone for whom you have accepted an invitation. Are they really all your friends? How many friends can a person have? What is a friend? With Google+, you can establish circles for best friends, semi-friends, acquaintances, people you can’t stand, favorite people, geniuses, half-loaves, golf buddies, political cohort, heard of them, never heard of them, etc. In other words, you define your circles, you put people in one or more of the circles you create, you easily upgrade or downgrade which circle a person is in, and you are confident that none of your “friends” can see which circle you have put them in. As that notion takes hold, I think millions of people will migrate to Google+.

I currently have 169 people in my circles and there are 117 that have me in their circles. The magic is that they don’t know what circle I have them in and I don’t what circle my “friends” have me in. I may be in the “jerks” circle of them all, and I may have placed many of my connections in the “heard of them once” circle. I have seen G+ connections come in to me that show that someone has 7,000 people in their circles. That is ok with me. Someone can have 100 million people in their circle if they want. I see Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin in some people’s circles. Are they really friends of these czars? Maybe. I doubt it. My rule of thumb for “friends” is as described previously. My criteria for “industry friend” is someone I have actually met and talked to. Someone else may have a criteria of “heard of them”. It doesn’t matter. The key thing is that if you want to post a message to your family circle or best friends, you know that only this limited group of people that you have defined will be able to read your post. The point is that G+ gives you control. You define what a friend is. You can allow large numbers of people into your circles if you choose, but that does not mean that they can read your posts to “soccer moms” or “my political cohort”.

It is going to be interesting to see how the exponential growth of G+ plays out. Maybe everybody will be connected to everybody, but at least you will have the ability to share with everybody or just your “motorcycle friends” or whatever.  Stay tuned.

Tags: facebook, friend, friends, friendship, google, google plus, plus, privacy, social media, social network

Personal Health Records

Seems like everything is in the clouds or on the way to the clouds — our money, our music and pictures, our email, contacts and spreadsheets. What about our healthcare records?  Some say security is holding back electronic health records. I do not think so and I believe the vision is clear — that encrypted healthcare data that is authenticated and properly authorized for access will be safer than the millions of manilla folders currently guarding our sensitive information. Google.com/health made a bold move to provide a universal repository for storing health records. I was one of the early users and came to depend on it. When did I get the flu shot? What was my blood pressure at last year’s physical? What test results and medications are there?  All that and much more were provided for free by Google Health. Automatic updates were made by CVS, Medco, and Quest Diagnostics. Get a blood test and in a couple of days you can see a graph of how those results compared to the last time or to five years ago. A very nice service. The company announced last month that Google Health will be shut down permanently and all data will be deleted in 18 months.

Google says it’s shutting down the project because they got very little traction, but ReadWriteWeb reported in Google Health: Why It’s Ending & What It Means, that Google Health may have been ahead of its time and did a poor job reaching out to a now growing ecosystem of developers.  They urge that rather than shut it down, Google should put it on slow life support until the momentum builds. Many tech executives believe, as I do, that patient-centric cloud-based electronic health records are a huge opportunity. An executive acquaintance at Microsoft (yes, there is at least one person at Microsoft who will speak to me after the OS/2 wars), tells me that the company sees the opportunity as large and is committed to HealthVault, an offering similar to Google Health. Even though I am not a fan of Microsoft offerings, I decided to give it a try. Step one at healthvault.com was to login using your Windows Live credentials. That almost stopped me in my tracks, but then I remembered that I had actually setup a Windows Live account back in 2003 to try out some other offering and my account is still good. Exporting all my health data from Google was a couple of clicks and importing it to HealthVault was a bit more complicated but not bad. Now that I have all my health data in HealthVault, what can I do with it. So far, nothing.

At Google Health, you can look at graphs of all your blood tests, print out an immunization card for travel purposes, and other handy things. The HealthVault strategy is to use business partners for the applications; Microsoft just stores the data. They have quite a few partners who offer personal health records. I tried several of them and could not get any of them to work. My data is securely in Microsoft’s vault and nobody can get access to it, including me! You have to setup a unique HealthVault email address and cross-authenticate, and, and, and. I spent an hour at it and finally gave up. I am sure they will make it easier and one day when I don’t have a doctoral paper due, I will try again. Our future health will revolve around personalized medicine and it in turn will revolve around our personal health records (PHR). The key question is who will provide the PHR service for us.

It is early in the game and there are many possibilities. First movers will not necessarily be the winners. Having Google or Microsoft provide a PHR service has certain advantages but there are disadvantages. How about if your health insurance provider decides to not share information with one of the big guys? Why would they decide that? Maybe because they want to be your PHR provider. Then there is your hospital. This is a very logical provider for a PHR service in the cloud, but will they have the resource and skills to launch a user-friendly, scalable, secure cloud-based service? And if you move, will your data be able to move with you? And if you decide to go on a medical vacation to China to get a heart transplant, will your hospital allow the Chinese hospital to have access to your PHR? And there is CVS and Walgreen and Walmart. They may all want to be your PHR provider as an integrated service with their pharmacy operations. And then there is Merck and Pfizer et al. Some chronically ill patients depend on certain medications and the manufacturer will be motivated to provide a PHR service tailored to monitor, sell, and communicate about their drugs. WebMd and the many other e-health sites are logical providers based on the wealth of medical information they provide access to. And what role will the government play?

There are many hurdles. A key element is standards. The Internet works exactly the same in every part of the world because it is built on globally agreed to standards. Health records have standards too. A lot of them! I have written a lot over the years about certificate authorities for authentication on the Internet (see patrickWeb category on PKI). In theory, there could be a single central certificate authority that would issue digital signatures that could make Internet email much more secure. In theory. I participated in meetings in Washington 15 years ago on the subject. When there were a few of us in the room we made a lot of progress but when the vendors, agencies, the military, etc. weighed in the whole process fell of its own weight. Likewise one central provider of PHRs could have many advantages, but I don’t believe consensus could be reached on how to do it. I am betting on hospital systems and networks. They may not be able to provide national solutions but they certainly can provide regional solutions through use of their health information exchanges (HIE) and HIEs in turn will ultimately follow standards that will allow them to exchange data on a secure basis. Stay tuned. There will be many developments on this subject in the months ahead.

Tags: emr, Google Health, Healthcare, healthvault, hie, personal health record, phr, PKI

Google + Facebook

The Wall Street Journal posed the question of whether Facebook is worth $100 billion. I have no idea, but the market will sort that out over time. I do, however, have a point of view about Facebook versus Google+. From what I see so far, I think Facebook is now facing a very formidable competitor. My initial reaction has strengthened. Circles are a big deal and clearly the differentiator. What is a friend?

With Facebook, a friend is someone for whom you have accepted an invitation. Are they really all your friends? How many friends can a person have? What is a friend? The Merriam-Webster dictionary says that a friend is one attached to another by affection or esteem. Would you say that about all your Facebook friends? I think of a friend as someone that I would ask for personal advice, invite to dinner at my home, borrow something from or lend something to, or discuss a medical condition with. I know most of my friend’s families or at least know something about them. I think we could all agree that there are various levels of friends.

In theory, you can establish this granularity with Facebook, but it is not easy and when you have done it, you are not really sure who can see the grouping you have established or who can read something you post to that group. With Google+, you can establish circles for best friends, semi-friends, acquaintances, people you can’t stand, favorite people, geniuses, half-loaves, golf buddies, political cohort, heard of them, never heard of them, etc. In other words, you define your circles, you put people in one or more of the circles you create, you easily upgrade or downgrade which circle a person is in, and you are confident that none of your “friends” can see which circle you have put them in. As that notion takes hold, I think millions of people will migrate to Google+.

When you and your family post to your family circle about upcoming Labor Day plans, you all will know that only family circle members will be able to read those personal and private communications. Privacy has been a highly visible issue for Facebook for a long time, but in my opinion, they have not really addressed it. Google has, and hence my optimism about Google+. I don’t rule out that a new entrant will come along and trump them all. That is the great thing about the Internet. A great idea can take hold and scale practically overnight. Stay tuned and keep an eye on your circles.

Tags: facebook, friend, friends, friendship, google, google plus, plus, privacy, social media, social network

Amazon Throws Down the Gauntlet

Jim Milliot’s article, Amazon As Publisher, Publishers As E-tailers, opened with the key point that in the rapidly changing publishing industry, the once clear lines between the various parts of the business have become blurred. Last week’s announcements from Amazon and from Bookish–the soon-to-be launched online book platform backed by Simon & Schuster, Penguin, and Hachette Book Group–is the start of a major transformation. Amazon’s launch of Montlake Romance brought the company deeper into the publishing business than ever before, while the launch of Bookish gives publishers their first destination site where titles from all publishers will be available for sale.

The tip of the emerging iceberg may be Amazon’s announcement that it had acquired 47 Books from Award-Winning Mystery Author Ed McBain. Amazon Publishing has acquired the publication rights of 35 titles in the 87^th Precinct Series–including “The Con Man” and “The Mugger”–by author Ed McBain. Amazon’s approach is the publish once, and make available for reading in multiple formats — the McBain books will be published by another of Amazon’s genre imprints, the Thomas & Mercer, and will be available in print, digital and audio formats this Fall. A significant element of Amazon’s move is that this is the first time any of these books have been available in digital format.  I have to admit I am not familiar with Ed McBain or his books, but my nephew is. “McBain is a master of the mystery genre and we are thrilled to be able to repackage, publish and promote his unrivalled body of work,” said Philip Patrick, Head of Rights & Licensing, Amazon Publishing. Patrick said that one of the things Amazon Publishing can do is offer signature authors a “new life for great backlist titles.”

I am no expert in publishing by any means, but one thing I am quite certain of is that Amazon’s approach of giving customers the choice of where, when, and how they want to consume content is the right one. Many major companies act as though they control their customers; that they can decide what customers want and what they will pay. Amazon continues to gain market share in e-tailing because they have built their entire business around the concept of walking in the customer’s shoes. Ever hear of someone complaining about Amazon’s web site or customer service? This same philosophy will surely change the game of publishing. The gauntlet has been thrown down.

Tags: 87th precinct, amazon, mcbain, philip patrick, publishing

Doo Wop – Why They Keep Going

Most of the entries in the Favorite Concerts pageare classical music concerts, but last night at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts was a different kind of “classical” music. The NY Doo Wop Extravaganza featured The Mystics (“Hushabye”), The Passions (“Just To Be With You”), The Classics (“Till Then”), Buddy Holly’s Crickets (“Peggy Sue”), Charlie Thomas & The Drifters (“Under The Boardwalk”), Kenny Vance & The Planotones (“Looking For An Echo”), The Chantels (“Maybe”), and The Fireflies (“You Were Mine”). The Doo Wop spectacular featured these and many more classics of the 50s & 60s. It was a real trip down memory lane.

The Origins of Doo Wop are debated but most would agree that it evolved from a merging of pop, gospel, blues, jazz and swing elements in the late 1940′s and early 50′s. Some call it vocal group harmonizing at it’s best. It would be hard to disagree that Doo Wop music is, innocent, joyous, romantic and, almost spiritual.

Watching these performing groups on stage is always inspiring. A little arithmetic from the fifties to now can quickly show that most of the performers were well past 60. Charlie Thomas was 74 in April, Kenny Vance will be 68 in December. Some looked their age, some did not. All of them had great voices and rhythm. If you look at their concert schedules on the web sites you can see that they are performing almost constantly — one group claimed 208 concerts last year. Why are they doing this? Why don’t they stop and retire? It is possible some lived past their means or did not invest in their future during the hay days and now need the money. Others may do it out of loyalty to other members of their group. Some may not know what else to do. Most however, are probably doing it because they love it. You could see the sparkle in their eyes and the spring in their step. As the audience raved, the performers were inspired, and the cycle continued. It was a great night and a nice trike ride to arrive back at the Lake at midnight.

Tags: bethel woods, buddy holly, chantelles, classics, doo wop, drifters, fifties, fireflies, kenny vance, passions, planotones

Freedom of Communication

Happy Birthday to all as we celebrate the birthday of our Nation. I am not sure who said it, but it is a great quotation, “The greatest lesson we can learn from the past. . . is that freedom is at the core of every successful nation in the world.” Freedom of speech is a key element from among the many freedoms that millions of people–unfortunately, not all people–enjoy. The Internet has added multiple channels of communication since the early days of Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), the Internet standard for electronic mail (e-mail). The first synchronous communication channel was Internet Relay Chat (IRC), and it was followed by instant messaging, various Web chat services, and Short Message Service (SMS), the text communication service component of mobile communication systems (cell phones). Enter social networks, or social media, and we have a whole new layer of channels. I think of this evolution as starting with the basic communications layer, the Internet. On top of the Internet we have a great application called the World Wide Web, and it gives us multi-media content sharing, e-commerce, e-learning, e-health, and many other applications. I think of social networking as a layer on top of the Web that gives us a way to blog, collaborate, share, hangout, chit, chat, chit chat, tweet, hire, be hired, network, find investors, make deals, find a date, get married, and much more.

Will Facebook dominate the new world of social media? Who knows? Perhaps. Perhaps not. At one point it looked like Myspace would dominate. It was the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006, but two years later it was overtaken by Facebook. Then the company was purchased by News Corporation for $580 million, and then on June 29, 2011, Myspace was sold to Specific Media for $35 million. The unstoppable got stopped. It could happen to Facebook too. The Internet has proven many times that no one company is too big to fail. Enter the Google Plus Project. I explained it this morning around the holiday breakfast table at the Lake. Some family members are tech savvy, some not. They all were shaking their heads in the affirmative as soon as I described Google Plus Circles. You can have a family circle, a boating circle, a friends circle, an acquaintance circle, a new mothers circle, a hospital board circle, etc. When you post something to the family circle, you know exactly who is going to be able to read it. This is the issue with Facebook–when you post something, you are likely not sure who is going to be able to read it. There are privacy controls but nobody seems to quite understand them. Let me cite LinkedIn to make the point. I have 304 “Connections” at LinkedIn. These are people I actually know. The 304 connections link me to 7,487,410 other people, not counting the 76,856 new people that were added to my network since June 27. If you are looking for a job, having friends of your friends’ friends know about you may be a good thing. When you are writing a personal reflection about something to share with your friends, do you really want the network effect? Perhaps not. With Google Plus, when you post something to your friends circle, you know exactly who is going to be able to read what you had to say. The war over social network market share is underway. Based on what I see so far, I would not rule out Google. If key influencers begin to shift allegiance, the momentum for Facebook could change very quickly.

The bottom line is that we should be thankful that we can communicate or not whenever we want. It is one of our greatest freedoms. Let us be mindful of the many millions of people who have no freedom to communicate. Stay tuned and have a nice 4th.

Epilogue: This story appears in the blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

Tags: facebook, google, google plus, myspace, news corp, news corporation, social, social media, social networking, specific media, twitter