Google Plus Twitter Divided By Facebook Equals Better

So, who's using Google Plus by now?  If you answered me, then you're among the 10 Million people who have signed up since the service launched just a mere two weeks ago.  At the rate it's going, and if those numbers stay consistent G+ could be a "Facebook Killer" after all.

But hold on, why should the world's newest social network kill anything?  In the mortal words of Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?"  And there's no reason why Twitter, Google Plus and Facebook can't.  I know it would be convenient to have one social network to rule them all but there isn't a one that's perfect.

I've found different use cases for each.  Facebook is where my family and friends are.  Twitter is more of a news feed and G+ is really good for conversation.  Social Media and Tech star Robert Scoble did an experiment tonight and found the maximum number of comments per-post on Google Plus is 500.  

Talk about dialog! 

We also can't forget competition breeds innovation.  With the launch of Google + came the introduction of the "hang out," where up to you and 9 friends can video conference all at the same time.  What did Facebook roll out a week later?  Their own video chat service, which is the result of a partnership with Skype.  Granted it's something FB had already been working on but it's a good guess that Mark Zuckerberg and company put the project on the fast track and got it out earlier than they wanted to once they found out what Google was doing.  

Just watch and you'll be able to see the cat and mouse game heat up in the months and years to come.

I'm hoping none of the 3 social networks get killed because with each comes more choice and more innovation.  

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

Sh** My Dad Says

I was listening to the Bob and Tom Show this morning and they had a news story about a new television show called Sh** My Dad Says starring William "The Shat" Shatner as The Dad.

This television program is awesome on a couple levels.  First, the obvious, it's got Captain Kirk!  Second, it's the very first TV sitcom to be based on tweets.  In case you don't know, a tweet is the short 140 character messages people post to the popular social networking site Twitter.

Here's the story.  A guy by the name of Justin Halpern moves from Los Angeles, back to his parents' house in San Diego.  Shortly after he starts a Twitter feed called Sh** My Dad Says which is a series of quotes made by Halpern's father, Sam, regarding random subjects.  Justin started tweeting on the account on August 3rd, 2009 and within less than a month, the page was featured on The Daily Show, a popular San Francisco blog called Laughing Squid and on Forgetting Sarah Marshall star Kristen Bell's Twitter feed. As of April 2010, Sh** My Dad Says has about 1,260,000 followers.

A book was released based on the feed and has reached #8 on the New York times best seller list for hardcover nonfiction.  And, that led to the television sitcom starring William Shatner. 

Obviously they've had to change the name and according to sources the pilot episode has been shot and will air this fall on CBS. 

Dangerous Dave

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New Hotmail

Ah, Hotmail, we had good times together didn't we?   I had my first e-mail address with you after all and I'll always cherish those memories.  It's been years since we've seen each other though.  I wonder if you've changed.  Damn, you look good!  Have you had work done?  Oh, you have!!!

Yes, Hotmail has gone through a metamorphosis and it's aim it seems is to take out Gmail.

Here are just a few of it's upgrades that Microsoft just announced.

Hotmail Highlights Gives you a quick overview of what’s new in your inbox organized by source, such as e-mail contacts or social contacts from Facebook or Twitter.

Sweep is a function which claims to be a simpler alternative to e-mail filtering, enabling you to quickly organize the messages that aren’t exactly spam, but that you don’t want at the top of your inbox.

Microsoft Office Web Apps allow you to edit documents directly from your inbox. You can also store the documents and photos you send on Microsoft SkyDrive, which means you don’t have to worry about size constraints because they live in the cloud.

The new and improved Hotmail also allows you to view photos in a slideshow or videos received from Hulu or YouTube right in the inbox. If you receive attached photos, you can see them in the form of a nifty slideshow.

And finally, Microsoft mentions some other features it hasn’t discussed in detail, like enhanced account protection, full-session SSL, multiple e-mail accounts, subfolders and contact management.

As far as the amount of users Hotmail has, they still have a commanding lead over Google, with an impressive 343 Million to Gmail's 150 Million.  But, in the tech world if you don't keep improving you're bound to start losing market share eventually so that's probably the reason for this overhaul.

The new version of Hotmail launches sometime this summer.

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