So ... I've done what was asked of me in this session. I already had a Google mail account set up for my blog so logging in and playing around with it wasn't a problem. But I never use this email ... I use my Hotmail account which I've had for years. That's the one listed on my cards, the one everyone contacts me through and it's also an upgraded account that I pay for. I'm happy with it so don't see why I also need to use another email.
When I became CILIP Vice President, people started emailing me using my name and the CILIP handle and these messages were disappearing into the ether. I also soon realised that checking the official VP account as well as my Hotmail (and I also have a work email) just meant more for me to do, so the IT guys at CILIP set everything up so any emails sent to either the official account or my name@CILIP were automatically directed to my Hotmail. Perfect! I'm all for making things simpler and life easier.
Have also had a look at the rest of Google+ ... have added some extra things like a photo and profile summary but not sure why I need to fill out all the details that I also have on my LinkedIn profile. To me, it's just more of the same. A few thoughts ... what are the advantages of having a Google+ account over LinkedIn ... or of having both? Are people using Google+ instead of Facebook and Twitter or are they using all of them?
The way I see it is the more places I have online where people can contact me means the more places I have to check out ...
But I do agree it has some useful features and have used some of them, such as Google Drive, to share and collaborate.
I'm currently working on my PC. Prefer this to my netbook as it has a nice large screen and is on a big desk with lots of space. But it doesn't have a webcam so haven't tried the hangouts feature yet. It's not a problem though as I can either connect my phone or camera, or use my netbook instead. I can see why skyping would be great if you had friends or family living at a distance, or if your partner worked away a lot and I've used video-conferencing before but generally wouldn't be bothered viewing people whilst I talked to them.
Have to say, I'm never very comfortable being viewed, would much rather be on the other side of the camera!
My own impression of what’s most useful about Google is very close to your own. Google docs is very handy. Google Hangouts can clearly be useful – free tele-conferencing with multiple users, which is better than Skype in that, as far as I know, having more than two people in a call is a premium service. For those with Gmail, it’s a great email platform, but if you’ve got a Hotmail account you’ve been using for a long time, there’s probably no particular advantage to Gmail (when I got my Gmail account, it was because the free Hotmail at the time had storage of only 2 Mb; Gmail offered 2 Gb for free). And although I haven’t tried it yet, I think Google Hangouts-on-air has a lot of potential in terms of putting together online demonstrations and tutorials and such.
ReplyDeleteGoogle+ and whether to invest a lot of time into it as a social network may be an open question. It certainly doesn’t have the active user base of Facebook, or even Twitter. Certain interest groups /communities seem to have taken to it; the most active user in my list of Google+ contacts is a photographer who shares a lot of his photos. The question then, I guess, would be, do librarians use it? Well, there is a librarian Google+ Community, for instance, with a certain amount of activity on it, here: https://plus.google.com/communities/107650174557257755836. Is it enough to sustain an interest? Maybe, maybe not!
Anyway, after several false starts in terms of social networking, and despite apparently lacklustre buy-in from users, Google seems to be sticking to Google+; so myself, I’m at least going to keep an eye on it to see what happens with it.
I'm actually part of the librarian community on Google+ so get notifications but don't really participate. I have lots of other non-technology things I like to do and have this feeling that my online life could take over even more if I let it! I also try and keep the social stuff, things like holiday photos and status updates regarding family separate from professional areas. Thus I use Twitter to post (or retweet) library related comments, links to relevant reports, etc. I have set it up so that any tweets go to my Facebook page as well as lots of my contacts on there happen to be librarians. Means I don't have to do things twice!
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