Wearable Tech and Its Impact on the Modern You

As wearable technologies like Google Glass and the rumoured Apple iWatch are making headlines – and neither product has been released to consumers yet – it raises the real question, just how life changing will all this tech you wear be?

Very life changing.

Immensely life changing.

Imagine the cute salesperson trying to sell you a new whatchamacallit starts flirting with you big time. You’re instantly attracted to the bright eyes bashing about you – but you don’t know anything about this person.

Using your Google Glasses, you conduct a Google search of the person’s face, and instantly find from their Facebook profile that they went to the same university, studied Environmental Studies, have a dog, and appear to post a lot about hating their work – which is where you are now.

Hmmm.

You bring up their LinkedIN profile and see they used to be a manager of a bank, and have worked on and off in retail and telemarketing.

Hmmm.

You check out their Twitter page and see they recently had a sex change.

Moving on.

Despite the fictional scenario, all of those things – and more – could be quite possible if the smart folks at Google use technologies already widely available – facial recognition, voice commands, and the ability to access search results from those voice commands.

Aside from a lot of lonely nights for our fictitious sales person, what if the reverse happened to you, but instead of a potential date, you were being interviewed for a job?

We’ve all been warned not to post anything online that a potential employer might take offence too – but who listens to free advice these days?

As you sit there, describing yourself and where you want to be in five years, that potential employer could be seeing your drunken pictures posted on Google Plus, or that video you posted of your old boss picking her nose on YouTube.

Don’t worry, there are lots of other great places to work.

Even the rumoured iWatch – and we all know most products Apple leaks out as rumours actually are released – could be a source of pain for those in the hot seat.

It’s bad enough when friends go out to spend a great time with each other, only to ignore each other most of the night as they gaze eyes-down into their mobile devices.

Only with the iWatch, those eyes will be on each other’s own wrists, texting, tweeting, posting updates, checking the scores of your favourite sports teams.

Kind of defeats the whole point of hanging with friends.

Though I suppose there is one benefit to all this wearable tech – unlike our phones which we put in our pockets, rarely do we take off our watches and glasses, so the excuse: “I accidentally tossed my tech in with my clothes wash,” just won’t hold.

But people lose watches all the time.

Hmmm. 

Canada's Budget Locked Down But Tweeted

It's almost budget day in Canada.

I know.

So what?

Unless your an economist, politician, news junkie, or have nothing else to do, the fact that Canada's Finance Minister put on his new shoes, and is ready to deliver his new budget tomorrow for the nation just doesn't matter much.

That's why the feds in Ottawa are hitting social media mega-site Twitter, to spur up some social media interest, and engage Canadians in one of the most important, yet yawn-inspiring political functions of the nation's governance.

Traditionally, journalists are locked down prior to the delivery of a budget. They are herded like cattle into a room, where they get exclusive access to the actual budget.

This allows newshounds reporting on the budget to understand and comprehend the massive financial blueprint of a nation.

However, journalists aren't allowed to discuss what they see until after it's been announced. 

That's the law. 

It'll be interesting to see if politico-junkies manage to keep their excitement muted long enough to obey the law, or if the instant communications of social media leaks budget news ahead of the finance Minister's announcement.

Using social media in politics isn't all that new -- more "newish."

American President Barack Obama successfully used social media to get elected in his past and recent election bids for the presidency. He and his staff continue to use social media to engage younger people in the management of their country.

And perhaps that's the greatest good today, when Canada's Finance Department will tweet news about the new budget.

Budgets are typically long, dull and dreary financial statements. Not usually the stuff which attracts young people to politics.

However, budgets form the foundation from which all other government programs come. From tax breaks for students, to how much the government will fund student loans and repayment programs, to providing tax credits for low income families to send their kids to school -- budgets affect young and old people across Canada.

Using Twitter -- and maybe down the road other social media sites like Facebook, Google Plus, maybe even YouTube and Pinterest -- is a step in the right direction for Canada's Finance Department, and one all federal, provincial and municipal departments should take note of and follow.

Because a more politically aware and engaged youth means a more politically aware and engaged future.

And that's just good governance.

Why Do You Tweet?

It took me a while to embrace social media. I was a late social networker.

I tried Myspace when it first started, got tired of Tom and moved on over to Facebook, discovered Twitter, YouTube, Google Plus, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest and now I’m addicted.

Social networking has become more than a hobby. It’s a daily ritual.

But why do I tweet?

Why do you friend, follow post and pin? Why do you take out your smartphone in a restaurant, and insist on taking pictures of your food in a restaurant, and uploading those images to Instagram before enjoying the taste?

Since social networking began, we’ve been told how it’s all about creating your own personal brand – essentially about making you look good, in a consistent and continuous way online.

You are your own product – just virtually represented.

But many old school social media junkies, or even just ‘newbies’ new to the online world of social networking, don’t have a personal brand, they just post what they are doing, what they are thinking, or what they are experiencing.

And isn’t that what social networking really was about?

Sharing your life experiences in an online virtual social realm, with others doing the same, so you could learn, develop and grow your friends?

Wasn’t the whole point of Facebook to reconnect with family, friends and colleagues that you originally lost touch with?

Twitter’s original homepage encouraged people to tweet “what you are doing right now.”

The essence behind YouTube was the ability to record video of what you were doing, and share it with the world.

Then the friending addiction kicked in, and many of us – myself included – became more interested in growing our friends, fans, and followers.

There may be strength in numbers, and it certainly is impressive to have a million friends following you on Google Plus.

But how many of those people do you actually have real conversations with, and really enjoy getting to know?

How many of those people do you actually care about?

The real test of friendship, is asking yourself if you care about someone.

Social networking has come a long way, but perhaps it has fallen off the rails, as we race to have more friends, fans, followers, circles, subscribers and others we really don’t care about.

Perhaps it’s time to rethink being social?

Why do you tweet?

Lessons Learned from Growing a Social Network

Over the weekend, I added Tumblr and Instagram to the social networks which I use. 

I've tried and left Myspace, been through the many privacy concerns of Facebook, learned to condense my thoughts to 140 characters for Twitter, surfed the many channels of YouTube, and participate in the so-called ghost-town of Google+.

Throughout all of this, I've learned a lot about how each social network functions, the target audiences for each, and most importantly to those young executives running these companies, how to make a social network – well – work.

At least from a user’s point of view. I’m not a programmer, and I have no idea how to make a social network. But making a social network extremely intuitive, and user-friendly makes it more likely to be used, and in turn grow.

Just look at Myspace as it struggles to re-build and re-brand itself after losing over 75% of it’s original user-base.

So listen up Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of you that run social networks – here are my top five user peeves.

Not Everyone Wants to Login Using Facebook

One of my biggest peeves while searching for social networks, are ones that only let you join using your Facebook credentials. With all the privacy issues which Facebook has had, the shear mention of credentials and facebook sends shivers up many spines. Facebook has been known on more than several occasions to change their privacy policies seemingly without letting its users know until after the fact, forcing people to log in and turn off a “feature.” 

Aside from privacy concerns, not everyone wants to share their facebook profile with another social network. I use Facebook for keeping in touch with people I know and see in real-time, while my preferred social network for everyone else is Google+. So I don’t want to share my facebook credentials with all my social networks, because I don’t add everyone to facebook.

We all know that facebook makes arrangements with other social networks and mobile apps to share data so they can make money off us. But social networks that only let you sign up and in using your facebook profile aren’t to lose a lot of potential members, that don’t want to share that info. 

Interoperability with Similar Networks

I did my homework and joined Tumblr and Instagram because they are in the top 10 of most popular social networks in North America.

They are partially in the top ten because they are seamlessly integrated with other similar social networks. When I post to Tumblr, I can instantly share the post with my Facebook and Twitter followers. And when I upload a picture to Instagram, it shares it with Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter.

Cross-posting is big in terms of social networking. It allows you to share your content with all your followers, fans and friends, everywhere, regardless of which social network they are on. And the more you share, the more likely your content will be shared by others.

Social networks that make it hard to share content across multiple platforms – like the original Myspace, or don’t even provide the option, make it harder for their users to grow their social networks, so guess what? It makes it hard for the social network to grow itself to as a business.

Now, when social networks start adding Google+ more to their sharing options I’ll be happier than a pig in you know what. 

Mobile Apps that Make You Use the Website to do Key Tasks

It’s great to be able to access your social networks from anywhere, using a mobile app. What really sucks is when the mobile app lacks key functions, forcing you to log into the app on your mobile web browser, instead of using the app.

Klout’s app has improved greatly over time, it used to only show you your Klout score, rendering it almost useless. It’s a lot better now, but it still missing key functions which force me to check in on the web version at least once a week. I can only see my top influencers on the app, to see everyone else, I have to log onto the web version.

YouTube’s new app for IOS allows doesn't let you delete a video you uploaded. This was available in the previous version, when the app was native to IOS 5 and earlier. But since Apple didn't make it a native app (pre-installed app), the new YouTube app doesn't have this key feature.

Facebook’s app has come a long way too – used to take forever to load, and occasionally crash on my iPhone. The new and improved app is awesome, but how come I can’t change all my profile and account settings in the app? I have to go to the website to do that.

The mobile version of any social network should let you do everything you can do on the web version, only streamlined for mobile devices and bandwidths. 

Enforcement of Mobile and Web Standards

Here’s an odd one which isn't all that common, but stumped me for the longest time, and prevented me from having my Windows Live Hotmail on my iPhone for almost two-years.

For the past two-years, I've been without Hotmail on my iPhone, because every time I tried to set it up, it wouldn't authenticate.

I finally figured it out – Windows Live Hotmail only allows fewer than 20 character passwords. When you enter a password on their website, it automatically truncates it, so any characters you enter past the 20 character limit are ignored, and you gain access to your account.

However, on the iPhone app – and possibly other mobile devices – any characters you enter past 20 are included, you get an authentication error, and eventually locked out of your account, upon successive attempts.

Grrr ... for those of us trying to make our passwords strong enough to prevent problems, Microsoft certainly created a big problem for me!

It would have been nice if the iPhone app truncated characters like the web version, or at the very least, just not let you type in more characters than were accepted.

(I know 20 characters is a lot, but I’m nutty about security.) 

Announcements that Scare You

Another rare one, but still it happens – when you get a pop-up on your phone or on the website which looks like an error message, but is just an announcement, message or alert about a new post or friend.

Fear may move people, but if you scare your users too much, just like crying wolf, your users will soon stop reading these things. And if people don’t read the posts, what good is the social network?

Handling the Unwanted Follower While Being Social

We’ve all been there – you get a message that someone you haven’t heard from in ages has just started following you on one or more of your social networks.

That’s great if you want to catch up and reconnect. That’s not so great if it’s someone like an ex you’d like to be just a distant memory.

Just to make matters worse, now this person has just sent you a message asking how are you, and if that rash ever went away.

What do you do?

Do you follow that person back, and respond to their message? Do you follow back, but ignore their message? Do you respond to their message, but NOT follow them back?

What’s the socially acceptable thing to do with real people from our past, now showing up on our virtual social networks?

Here are some suggestions and the various pro’s and con’s to each to help you handle unwanted followers on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and the other social networks.

1. Follow & Respond – Of course, the simplest solution is to just follow the person back, and respond to any emails or messages they send you.

Pro’s

• Time Heals All Wounds – Maybe they are reaching out to you on the social networks to re-kindle the fire, or simply just want to catch up. You’ll never know unless you talk to them.
• Discourages Hate Mail – If you don’t follow back and respond to any messages they send, they could send you nasty emails or messages back because they know they are being ignored.
• Could Be the Start of Something Good – You never know, maybe they could become a great friend, or more.

Con’s

• People Don’t Change – Sometimes people don’t change, and the person you never wanted to see again may now be all the more present online.
• Wrapped Up in Something You Don’t Want – If you follow and respond to someone just to be nice, it could back fire, and you could end up getting more involved in that person’s life – online and in the real world.
• Sends the Wrong Message – By following the person back, and responding to their email/message you could be sending the wrong message about reconnecting with them. They may interpret your politeness as a sign of interest.

2. Follow and Don’t Respond – You just follow the person back, but don’t respond to them in any other way.

Pro’s

• Getting the 411 -- You have the opportunity to check them out online, before responding to any messages. From what they post online, you might be able to figure out why they contacted you in the first place, and whether or not you want to reconnect.
• Miss Manners Would Be Proud -- You’re being polite by adding them back, and everyone should always be polite, please and thank you.
• Nip ‘em in the Bud – By following them but not responding to their message/email, you send a clear message about your intentions – that you’ll add them, but that’s about it.

Con’s

• All the News Isn’t Always Good – If you check them out, you may learn something about them that you don’t like, maybe they work at the same company, or are married to your boss, or high school crush?
• Nice Guys Finish Last – Being polite is great, but following them and not responding to their message/email could put you in an awkward situation. Sometimes, doing the right thing isn’t always the right thing to do.

3. Respond but Don’t Follow – You could just respond to their message/email and not follow them back.

Pro’s

• Knowledge Is Power -- You can control what they learn about you that they haven’t already learned about you from your online public profiles. And you can ask them how they are, and more importantly what they have been up too – which might give you an idea why they contacted you, or whether you should add them as a friend.
• Slow and Easy Wins the Race – Let’s you start off slowly reconnecting with this person, so you can have a series of messages/emails back and forth, so you can get a feel for whether or not this is someone you want back in your life, even if it’s just your online one.
• Ask Around – If you have mutual friends, you can send them a message/email asking about this person, to get more intel which you can use to decide how you want to handle them.

Con’s

• Flame War – Any contact with someone from the past could ignite old arguments, which can go on forever online.
• Stuff Online Stays Online – Once someone receives a message/email, you have no idea what that person does with it – they could forward it to someone else, or post it online for others to see. Things online never die.
• Will You Be My Friend – After any form of communications, they may just ask you in message/email if you will add them as a friend. Then you are stuck – do you respond with why you don’t, or do you cave in and just add them?

4. Ignorance is Bliss – Just ignore them. Period.

Pro’s

• Quick and Easy -- You’ll never have to deal with them again, as they’ll get the message right away that you aren’t interested in reconnecting.
• No Brain Pain -- Don’t have to rack your brain, trying to figure out what to say in a message/email.

Con’s

• Mutual Headaches – If you have mutual friends, they may ask those friends you have in common to contact you and ask you why you haven’t responded.
• By Other Means – They could become a stalker, trying to contact you by other means, say by on another social network, looking up your phone number, or worse – they could show up at your house!
• Could Have Been – And you really never know what could have been if you don’t even try. Maybe they won the lottery and want to take you out for a wild and crazy time? Then again, they may just want to know if the rash ever went away.

Is Social Media Really the Real You?

Back in high school, while most were dating, I’d be smack dab in front of the computer, chatting and downloading.

This predates the Internet, back to the days of Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and dial-up modem connections.

This goes way back to the days when CompuServe and America Online were king, and only a handful of people actually knew what email was, let alone had it.

I’d chat with some dude named “The Terminator” about his BBS named “The Forbidden Zone,” or with another system operator (called Sysop in BBS slang) named “Mike Donovan” about his “V-BBS.” I remember having long debates in the chat forums with “Tiny Dancer,” “Mayor Hardin,” and someone that called himself “Thing.”

On these dial-up computer networks, everyone went by a handle, some even taking on the persona or character of their chosen name in the chats, by typing as if they really were The Terminator, or whoever else they chose to be.

As BBS computer networks were a basis for the Internet as we know it today, it got me thinking – just how real are the people we chat with online now?

Just as it was back in the era of the BBS, it’s not very hard to log onto any social network site, make up an assumed name, and post content under that assumed identity.

Twitter has tried to prevent people from assuming celebrity identities, by verifying such accounts – but even these verifications can be faked.

I get posts all the time from Albert Einstein on Google+ -- and although I’m honored that one of the greatest minds of the Twentieth Century shares his thoughts with me, Einstein died long before the two young men who created Google were even born.

I also get posts from Planet Earth on Google+ -- which is even more interesting, because I didn’t know the Earth could talk.

Clearly, someone on Google+ is posting under Einstein and the Earth’s identities, which brings us back to the original question, how real are we on our social networks?

We grow friends, fans and followers on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest and the rest. But even if we are posting as ourselves, under our real names, are we really real?

Do we really share what is actually happening right now in our lives online? And if we do, do others really care?

Just how different are you online from the real life person you are, in the real world?

Do your posts reflect the real you?

How would I know that?

How would you know that my posts are really me?

This social networking thing is really confusing.

Is Facebook Drowning Itself?

Ah, Facebook, don’t you ever learn?

Yesterday, the world’s largest social networking site, Facebook, changed all its users email addresses to some silly, impossible to remember number@facebook.com.

Doesn’t matter what you set your default email address to on your contact page, it was changed to the social network’s own email system.

Thanks for telling us about the change. Hell, don’t you knock first? Wouldn’t it have been more polite to ask us users first?

Yes it would have, but that’s never been Mark Zuckerberg’s way. The young self-made zillionare that founded Facebook has never been one to care about the 400 million members when making dramatic changes to their personal information, why would he care about how people contact you from their site?

Over the years, under Zuckerberg’s leadership, Facebook has got flack from members for making changes affecting the use of personal private information, which have created even more tension between the social network’s top brass and various governments around the world.

Facebook has always had the pig-headed blindness to turn on these new “features” or “enhancements” as they refer to them, forcing their members to either turn them off, or disable them after the fact.

If it wasn’t for all the media hype around these changes, most wouldn’t know about them – thanks Facebook for letting us know.

For years we have tolerated this rude behavior – everyone’s on Facebook. But the social networking landscape is changing.

 

Twitter is still king for short status updates, YouTube is the video social network which is always on, and dare we say Facebook is being given a run for it’s money by Google+?

The world’s largest and most popular search engine began a social networking service recently, called it Google+ (or G+ for short) and it is increasingly growing as Facebook continues to give the middle finger to its users and government regulators.

Google+ -- so far – has learned a thing or two about being polite, and not forcing changes upon its users. G+ seems to go out of their way to make privacy settings simple, so you know exactly what information you are sharing and with whom. And the Google+ interface is visually stunning, placing an emphasis on the images associated with the post, making it a joy to browse.

Back when Facebook began, it was the only game in town. People joined often sceptically like myself, not so much to network socially, but to catch up with friends and family from years gone by.

When most started their Facebook pages, we added everyone we used to know, but had lost touch with, because there was no one else using Facebook that we knew to add.

Social networking was a new world, where people were more caught up in the ability to actually connect with old friends and family, instead of just becoming popular.

These days, the popularity bug has bitten most social network platforms, so it’s not who you know, it’s how many. 

And that popularity thing extends beyond the amount of friends, fans and followers, to the actual networks, so the more people saying good things about your social network, the more likely people will use that social network.

Just look at how quickly Pinterest has grown, thanks in part to the positive hype, while the once popular Digg has been long since forgotten, due to lots of negative talk on the social networks and in the media.

The more people complaining about your social network – Facebook take note – the fewer people using your social network, and eventually that social network dies. Myspace was once thought to take over Facebook, but now, most don’t even mention it except when talking about social networking relics from the past. If it wasn’t for the handful of musicians using Myspace, it would have been dead and buried long ago.

Popularity might not be the best judge of character, but it certainly has economic power -- if your once popular product or service suddenly falls out of favor, people stop using it, and the business dies.

Just look at Research In Motion (RIM)’s BlackBerry – once the primary smartphone, RIM ruled the stock market. These days, RIM is the butt of jokes and speculation about the future of the company, as they have failed to keep up with innovations in smartphone tech, and they have lost focus of their primary user-base.

If Facebook continues to alienate and offend their user, as other social networks mature and expand, eventually Facebook will be just like RIM – barely able to float in the cyberspace sea of change.