A hugely important but often overlooked feature is the Profile page, which provides a public view of you in the same way that a blog does: you have your posts, and also an “about” page. And an obvious question is to  what extent this displaces the need for a separate blog. I think it does, but then I’ve never been an obsessive blogger. Certainly I’ve written more words on Google+ in the past six weeks than I have here.

There are limitations with Google+ : you can’t, for example, embed images with your text, so if you have an image-heavy blog, this may not be for you. But I’m giving it a try.

So, six weeks after joining Google+, I’m spring-cleaning my online house, starting with this blog. Well, at least, I’ll be locking the doors and windows and leaving it shut up. Maybe forever.

Follow me on Google+ if you want to.

Techcrunch had this mildly interesting story today, about how Twitter has apparently supplanted Facebook as a key component in the forthcoming iOS5. Yeah, whatever. But it reminded me of something I’d intended to blog about: how important a part of my social networking Twitter is now, how important it is for others, and how secure that place is for the future.

As far as I know, Twitter still doesn’t have a revenue stream sufficient to cover its costs. Probably not even close. The only thing I can see is promoted tweets, and I can’t believe they bring in a huge amount. So essentially, while being valued at $3.7 billion at the end of last year, the company appears to be dependent on continued injections of venture capital ($200M last December). So in spite of that outstanding valuation, the future of Twitter cannot be considered in any sense secure. Couple that with the obvious underfunding of infrastructure evidenced by the continued appearance of the Fail Whale and similar problems, and Twitter devotees can be forgiven for being worried.

So how important is Twitter?

I have only been a regular (obsessive?) user this year, although I’ve had an account for a long time. The addition of lists and hashtags has, for me, made a significant difference to it’s utility, as has improvements to the web interface, and the acquisition of an iPad with a (moderately) good Twitter app. But I work on the principal that my behaviour is unlikely to be unique, and so I would expect that many others would also be using Twitter more often. This seems to be borne out by the statistics, with Twitter showing a surge in new accounts over the past year.

The second thing, and unless you’re a hermit you’ll know this already, is the surge in the use of Twitter by peoples protesting for democracy and freedom from repressive regimes, notably in the Arab world. This has led to a view of twitter being an invaluable and essential tool for democratic change.

So … on the one hand, we have Twitter as an increasingly valuable, if not essential, service to millions of people. And on the other hand, it’s future seems entirely dependent on continued injections of VC funds. A worry? Has Twitter become a service so important that it simply cannot be allowed to fail?

Happily, the Techcrunch story cited at the beginning of this posts suggests an answer. If Apple are embedding twitter into their next iOS release, and given that Apple has a cash reserve of $50 billion, can an acquisition be far off? Or, even if there’s nothing planned, can we at least assume the likelihood of an Apple buyout should twitter get into strife? Or if not Apple, then Google, who desperately need some cred in the social mediascape?

Pure speculation, but I suspect the future of Twitter is safe, one way or another.

1. meh
2. wtf?

Did this whole storyline just jump the shark? Maybe that’s too harsh, but it always worries me when an episode throws in all the old villains and characters from past episodes. Sontarans, Cybermen, … the only one missing was the Daleks.

But mostly, I think it’s the inconsistencies with the entire Dr Who mythos that irk me. At the start, we have Rory popping up all over time and space gathering the help. No explanation of how he got there and back. At the end (small spoiler) River Song pops in to say hello. Does nobody need a Tardis anymore? If anyone can flit around time and space, where would we be, I ask you.

Also, in the previous ep., fake-Amy is disintegrated with the sonic screwdriver, which is all it takes with “The Flesh”. Um. Can it be that in all the previous eps. she’s never been around when the Doctor used it? Someone, please go back and check and let me know in the comments.

What’s bothered me most, for a long time now, is the lack of any clear explanations for what’s going on. You get a quick line such as “The Golgafrinchans have an Interociter”* and then, before you can say “WTF?” the action rushes along quickly to the next bit. I suspect I haven’t understood a word of the series since Tom Baker. However improbable, there used to be Science, and sometimes philosophy at the centre of the series. Now it’s all just dashing  about.

BBC – Doctor Who – The Official Site.

* Points if you know what an Interociter is without Googling. No points for Golgafrinchans, too easy.

http://oneworldgroup.org/2011/05/11/im-a-climate-scientist-official-music-video/

I especially like the digs at Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt.

At the back of it all is an issue that is one of my pet peeves: why are we all so ready and willing to listen to former football players and/or radio shock jocks, but not experts? There are fundamental and widespread misunderstandings about the nature of science, but I can’t help thinking there’s a deeper underlying issue, or issues. The bearer of bad news is never welcome, for one. And people seem to crave the reassurance of those who offer certainties over probabilities.

In a broader sense, we would be much better off following those who have doubts but suggest a way forward as the best of the available alternatives, rather than the super-confident psychopaths who insist that their’s is the only right way. And beware of anyone offering simple solutions. They’re almost cerainly wrong.

Now, people are entitled to choose whatever colour they like, but I question the wisom of buying a car that is the same colour as the road. If other drivers can’t see your car, they’re more likely to run into you.

There are lots of studies on this available through Google. E.g. this one from Monash University. They don’t all agree, except (pretty much) that white is the safest colour. Of course.

That was weird. And/or totally unexpected. And unpleasant. I just went outside — as I do, occasionally — and found a dead possum in our pond. I’m guessing it must have died of old age and fallen in, since the pond is tiny and nothing bigger than a mouse could possibly drown in it.

Sad to see. And rather stinky to dispose of.

There were two major examples of this from the past week.

First, the live export of cattle to Indonesia, where the unspeakable treatment inflicted upon them caused widespread outrage. We have as one of our values the humane treatment of animals, as evidenced by the care taken for their welfare on Australian cattle farms and on the transport ships, and by the outrage unleashed by the Four Corners documentary.

Sadly, the revelations were met also with mealy-mouthed apologists who were somehow able to reconcile the mistreatment of cattle with excuses for the perpetrators. “Much has been done to improve …“, “we are working closely with …“, etc. Which in a sense makes it worse, because if those people knew of the conditions and still allowed the trade, they are as responsible as the abattoir workers who, as the excuse ran, “knew no better”.

The second example concerns the “live export” of human beings, with the proposal to send asylum seekers to Malaysia. The best one can say about this deal is that a larger number of refugees will be taken by Australia in return. As we have seen this week, however, conditions in Malaysia for refugees range from bad to appalling. Couple this with revelations that orphaned children may be sent there, and the “solution” starts to sound morally untenable. And yet our elected government, made up of people we voted for because they appeared to embody our values, continues to pursue this option.

In both cases, what we are seeing is a lack of moral courage. I don’t believe the people involved are bad, evil or corrupt. I believe most people are fundamentally nice, caring individuals. But what seems to happen, time and again, is that they lose sight of their values, or at least allow them to be sidelined, in pursuit of expedient solutions. This is a lack of moral courage, of the courage of one’s convictions, of the strength to hold fast to what we believe in.

The correct action in relation to cattle exports would have been to make sure we knew what would happen to them in Indonesia before we sent them. The Minster has taken action, post revelation, and that is to his credit. But it should not have happened in the first place.

The correct action in relation to refugees is to hold fast to our belief in fundamental human rights, including the right to seek a better life for oneself and one’s family. Shipping these people offshore is an act of cowardice, in essence a washing of our hands of them. But sending them to Malaysia, in the full knowledge of the likely outcome, would be an act of bastardry. And to contemplate sending unaccompanied children, as is still being debated, is unthinkable. In all, what we see here is, again, a complete loss of moral courage.

The mainstream political parties have lost our respect, because they demonstrate, time after time, a lack of moral courage, compromising their own (and our) declared values for the sake of expediency. The Liberals espouse individualism and personal initiative, and Labor espouses a fair go for all, yet when people come to our shores, at great personal cost and at the risk of their lives, seeking a better life for themselves and their children, both sides want to ship them out to be some other country’s problem. Both parties lack the courage of their convictions.

The moral compass is spinning wildly. Perhaps our government and opposition need a new one.

Everyone is entitled to their view, but I’m here to explain why these people are wrong, and give you four good reasons to get involved.

1. Profile. You can use your Facebook profile to tell the world as much (or as little) as you want. Extensive privacy options allow you to control who sees different aspects of your profile, from contact details to employment history to personal interests. It’s no substitute for a well-crafted CV, but does allow you to present yourself as you wish.

And by claiming your Facebook identity, you get to have a nice, short URL to give people as your profile. Mine is http://facebook.com/spotrick

2. Friends. Once you’re set up, you’ll need some friends, and with over 500 million active users world-wide, there have to be at least a few people who want to be your friend. Many people have a small friend list of family and real-life friends. And that’s fine. Facebook is a great and simple way to keep in touch. Others have hundreds of “friends” — let’s call them connections — across the world, and for them, Facebook is a powerful tool for sharing ideas, promoting causes and otherwise making a difference, however small, to the world.

If you have something to say, then Facebook is an excellent medium for saying it.

Now I would like to make two points about this:

1. Any “rules” that someone may give you on this are completely arbitrary. There are no rules, only what works for you. And it depends very much on how and why you use Facebook. If you just want to maintain contact with a select group of family and friends, then let that be your guide to Friending.

2. My own policy is to Friend many people, so long as we have shared interests. And this is because, perhaps, that my posts on Facebook tend to be less about me, and more about what interests me. I share a great deal of things that I find on the web. And obviously, there’s no point in making that effort to share, if my FB friends are not interested in that stuff, and if I have very few friends. So the more the merrier.

Whichever way you roll, I think you’d agree that Facebook is a marvellous tool for connecting people. I was struck, as were many, by the visualization of Facebook friendships produced by a Facebook Engineer. This showed the strength of links between different cities of the world as a function of the number of friends and the distance between them. And what emerged was a representation of a map of the world — not a map, as such, but:

“Not only were continents visible, certain international borders were apparent as well. What really struck me, though, was knowing that the lines didn’t represent coasts or rivers or political borders, but real human relationships.”

And that, to me, is why Facebook is great. It links us together in ways previously impossible. And for me, the more connections, the better.