My two-week review of Google Glass: it all depends on the price

This week I gave five speeches while wearing it.
I passed through airports four times (two more in a couple of hours).
I let hundreds of people try my Google Glass.
I have barely taken it off since getting it other than to sleep.

Here's my review after having Google Glass for two weeks:

1. I will never live a day of my life from now on without it (or a competitor). It's that significant. 
2. The success of this totally depends on price. Each audience I asked at the end of my presentations "who would buy this?" As the price got down to $200 literally every hand went up. At $500 a few hands went up. This was consistent, whether talking with students, or more mainstream, older audiences.
3. Nearly everyone had an emotional outburst of "wow" or "amazing" or "that's crazy" or "stunning." 
4. At NextWeb 50 people surrounded me and wouldn't let me leave until they had a chance at trying them. I haven't seen that kind of product angst at a conference for a while. This happened to me all week long, it is just crazy.
5. Most of the privacy concerns I had before coming to Germany just didn't show up. I was shocked by how few negative reactions I got (only one, where an audience member said he wouldn't talk to me with them on). Funny, someone asked me to try them in a bathroom (I had them aimed up at that time and refused).
6. There is a total generational gap that I found. The older people said they would use them, probably, but were far more skeptical, or, at minimum, less passionate about the fact that these are the future, than the 13-21-year-olds I met.

So, let's cover the price, first of all. I bet that +Larry Page is considering two price points: something around $500, which would be very profitable. Or $200, which is about what the bill of materials costs. When you tear apart the glasses, like someone else did (I posted that to my Flipboard "Glasshole" magazine) you see a bunch of parts that aren't expensive. This has been designed for mass production. In other words, millions of units. The only way Google will get there is to price them under $300.

I wouldn't be shocked if Larry went very aggressive and priced them at $200. Why would Google do this? 

Easy: I'm now extremely addicted to Google services. My photos and videos automatically upload to Google+. Adding other services will soon be possible (I just got a Twitter photo app that is being developed by a third party) but turning on automatic uploads to other services will kill my batteries on both my phone and my glasses (which doesn't have much battery life anyway). So, I'm going to be resistant to adding Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Evernote, and Tumblr to my glasses. Especially when Google+ works darn well and is the default. 

Also, Google is forbidding advertising in apps. This is a HUGE shift for Google's business model. I believe Larry Page is moving Google from an advertising-based company to a commerce based company.

The first thing I tried that it failed on was "find me a Sushi restaurant." I'm sure that will get fixed soon and, Google could collect a micropayment anytime I complete a transaction like reserving a seat at a restaurant, or getting a book delivered to my house, or, telling something like Bloomingdales "get me these jeans." 

There is literally billions of dollars to be made with this new commerce-based system, rather than force us to sit and look at ads, the way Facebook and tons of other services do.

When you wear these glasses for two weeks you get the affordance is totally different and that having these on opens you up to a new commerce world. Why?

1. They are much more social than looking at a cell phone. Why? I don't need to look away from you to use Google, or get directions, or do other things. 
2. The voice works and works with nearly every one and in every situation. It's the first product that literally everyone could use it with voice. It's actually quite amazing, even though I know that the magic is that it expects to hear only a small number of things. "OK Glass, Take a Picture" works. "OK Glass, Take a Photo" doesn't. The Glass is forcing your voice commands to be a certain set of commands and no others will be considered. This makes accuracy crazy high, even if you have an accent.

I continue to be amazed with the camera. It totally changes photography and video. Why? I can capture moments. I counted how many seconds it takes to get my smartphone out of my pocket, open it up, find the camera app, wait for it to load, and then take a photo. Six to 12 seconds. With Google Glass? Less than one second. Every time. And I can use it without having hands free, like if I'm carrying groceries in from the car and my kids are doing something cute. 

I've been telling people that this reminds me of the Apple II, which I unboxed with my dad back in 1977. It was expensive. It didn't do much. But I knew my life had changed in a big way and would just get better and better. Already this week I've gotten a new RSS app, the New York Times App, and a Twitter app. With many more on the way.

This is the most interesting new product since the iPhone and I don't say that lightly.

Yeah, we could say the camera isn't good in low light. We could say it doesn't have enough utility. It looks dorky. It freaks some people out (it's new, that will go away once they are in the market). 

But I don't care. This has changed my life. I will never live a day without it on. 

It is that significant. 

Now, Larry, find a way to make it $200 and you'll have a major hit on your hands.

(Attached are dozens of photos I shot over the past two weeks with it).

Oh, Google+ has a problem. If you start a full-on blog post from a Share of someone else's post, it isn't collapsable or sharable. Sorry about that.

So, here's my tips for Google+ new users:


My tips for newer users of Google+:

1. Learn what circles are and how to put people into them. When I first started out I went crazy with circles, opening up something like 20 of them. That wasn't very smart, it turned out. Now I'm back to seven. Simple ones like "friends, family, coworkers, geeks, VCs, tech press." Etc.

2. Learn how to distribute content to circles, or public, or certain people. When you post here you don't need to send it to everyone. You can send it just to people you've put in a specific circle, like "friends" or you can send it to a specific person, like me.

2b: Learn not to use your home feed as your main place to visit. Start a circle called "my home circle." Now when you add people you can add them to multiple circles, but if you don't want to see someone everyday you can keep them out of your home circle (unfortunately if you follow people they will always be on your actual main feed).

3. Find a few "seed followers" that you like to follow. Then look at who they are following. You'll find lots more people to follow that way. For instance, I'm following 3,200 geeks, including most of the execs, tech press, VCs, etc. If those kinds of people float your boat, look through my list and pick and choose who you also want to follow.

4. Remember, posts with photos or video do better than just text posts, so see if you can figure out how to get other media in here.

5. If someone gets too noisy, let's cover how to handle that.

A. Too many posts. Sometimes you'll follow someone like +Chris Pirillo who posts a lot. What I've done with those folks, is put them into a "Noisy buttheads" circle. That way they don't pollute all your other circles, although they still will show up on your home feed. Feel free to put me in that circle for now.

B. Too many comments on some posts. Some posts will go viral here. It won't just happen to me. For instance, it might happen to you now that I've pushed you into 33,000 people's view by resharing your post (more on that in a second). If this happens to just one post, you can click the drop-down-menu over to the right of a post and choose "mute." You'll never see that post again. This is a good way to get rid of some things that are cluttering up your feed.

C. Consistently high engagement noise (there are already about 50 people who are consistently getting high engagement, folks like me, Trey Ratcliff, Leo Laporte, etc etc) and for us you just need to segregate us into our own circle. Or just put up with that kind of noise (I enjoy engaging in a lot of rapid-fire comments).

6. Turn off email notifications, or learn to filter them with Gmail's filters. I have turned them off. Too much email, too fast, especially if you get hit by one of the whales here (sorry for hitting you on the first day).

7. Setup your profile and make sure it's hyper complete. Look at mine at https://profiles.google.com/scobleizer and then go set yours up at https://profiles.google.com (I've spent a lot of time on mine).

8. Try to talk about something other than Google+. Try to say what you'll be doing with this. Post something original. Or, start a good debate about something that you care about. Etc. I'm really trying to do this because I'm getting bored with talking about Google+, but I see a lot of new people coming in here, so wanted to write down my thoughts based on my first 13 days.

9. Try using keyboard. J moves down. K moves up. I'm sure there's others coming.

10. If you use Google Chrome as your browser, there are a bunch of extensions you should try: http://pear.ly/fDvaa

11. Learn how resharing works. For instance, I took your original post and reshared it with my audience. Right now that causes some duplication noise (folks following both of us will see your post twice, once from you, once reshared from me) and there will be separate comments under both. Fragmentation is gonna be a problem until Google fixes that here. But resharing is how things are getting very viral. For instance, I just reshared your item with 33,000 people. Now, what if 10% of those reshared it with THEIR audiences? This is why things get crazy very quickly.

Anyway, that's some things. I'm sure you'll hear lots of other advice today. Have fun and looking forward to seeing what you post here.

Dear Tim Cook: I'm sorry

I gave you a tough time today. I thought you didn't come up to some imaginary bar I held in my head. I didn't get why you didn't come out with bigger news. I didn't get why everyone in my network was telling me about the big things that were planned that didn't come out.

Now we know.

Today a guy I know at Facebook told me that Apple just "went dark" this weekend and stopped answering emails and phone calls (they had amazing new iPhone and iPad apps and a new developer platform all ready for announcing). Folks inside Facebook thought they had done something massively wrong. No, they hadn't. Truth is you had something deeper to deal with.

The fact that you, and your team, went on stage, knowing that Steve Jobs was close to death, is a testament to your professionalism. I felt that you had called it in a bit, but now I know the truth. You weren't calling it in at all. You were doing an amazing job while knowing what was coming.

Today I feel guilty because I gave you a tough time about your first press conference. Now that I know what was going on behind the scenes I owe you an apology. I'm sorry, I owe you and your team one.

My heart is with you during this tough time.

Here's my first uploaded photo of STS-135's final flight.

Off we go! Godspeed Atlantis! This is a photo of the final launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis.

I'll be honest, the tears were streaming down my face. It's unlike anything I have viewed ever before and I've viewed some awesome things.

I love geek shirts. This one was on a developer who was interviewing yesterday at +Rackspace Hosting's San Francisco office. Well, he sure knows the culture of Rackspace! (I know people who have hundreds of such shirts in their closets).

Do you have a favorite geek shirt? Please post a link to a photo below.

Congrats to GoPro for getting a stunning new camera out the door (the Hero 3). 1/3 smaller than old one. Much better video quality. Captures up to 120 frames a second, so you can do super slow mo.

This entire video was done with it. Stunning. GPS and Wifi built in. I can't believe this company was born 200 yards from my house. It's a real treasure and they are just getting started. I hear they are working on contextual cameras that will blow away anything Japan is thinking about. But they aren't the only ones. Google Project Glass is going to change photography and video in a big way and GoPro better innovate to stay ahead.

Oh, and +Chase Jarvis has one of the new cameras already and, yes, I'm freaking jealous! 

This video is a must watch. Already at more than a million views.

Is USA greatest? Something to think about as political conventions open

There is a lot of political posturing on both sides right now in America, as I watch Facebook, Google+, and Twitter, thanks to the political conventions, that start tonight. Instead of giving you more of that, on either side, this video clip from the TV Series, +The Newsroom, resonated with me big time. Reminded me that I need to add the Newsroom to my DVR and catch up with the rest of you.

May Santa bring you more monitors

I hope you all get tons of monitors. This is how I keep on top of everything going on on social networks.

The Windows on my iMac are, from the left:

1. Quora.
2. Hacker News.
3. Google+.
4. Gmail.
5. Techmeme.
5b (hidden): Spotify.
5c (hidden): Skype.
6. Facebook.
7. Salesforce Chatter.
8. Twitter.

On the iPad: StreamBoard.
On the iPhone: Teleportd.
On the MacBook Air: AngelList.
On the Vizio 65-inch TV: Apple TV or Comcast or Xbox.

All of these windows stream and change in real time.

The microphones are Blue Microphones (my favorite is the Baby Bottle on the left).

This system absolutely rocks and I feel so fortunate to be able to afford it. I remember seeing multiple monitor systems when I worked at Microsoft and feeling so jealous that I couldn't afford them.

By the way, I blame +MG Siegler for this. He wrote in Techcrunch that the new iMac could support two Thunderbolt monitors and I knew then that I had to have this system.

This has made me a lot more productive although I'm still horrible at answering email. I do read every single email, though.

Anyway, hope Santa brings you all more monitors. I've decided you can't have enough.

Oh, off screen I have a Google Chromebook and a Toshiba Tablet, along with a few other phones, but I figure I'd only include those screens I regularly use.

Mind-blowing hand-controlled computing room from Oblong Industries. This is worth the watch.

The guy behind it was the tech mind behind Minority Report. Yet another piece of that future arrives here.

This is cool stuff. John Underkoffler, chief scientist, Oblong Industries, was the tech advice behind the film "Minority Report" and then he built his own company to make that science fiction real. Here he shows me his latest work which is, indeed, mind blowing. This is part I, in Part II, you'll see a new conference room that Oblong has built using these technologies. Learn more at http://oblong.com/

New keyboard "pops" off of glass screen

If the next iPhone has this I might just give up my Android (which has a much better keyboard than an iPhone has).

Tactus shows me how its new keyboard works (it pops off the glass). Really awesome engineering and I dig into it here (it won all sorts of awards at CES earlier this year). Learn more about this technology here: http://www.tactustechnology.com/

I talked with Google VP +Vic Gundotra tonight (disclaimer, he used to be my boss at Microsoft). He is reading everything we have written about names, and such. Both pro and con.

He says he is making some tough choices and that he will be judged over time how those choices turn out.

He says that he is trying to make sure a positive tone gets set here. Like when a restaurant doesn't allow people who aren't wearing shirts to enter.

He says it isn't about real names. He says he isn't using his legal name here. He says, instead, it is about having common names and removing people who spell their names in weird ways, like using upside-down characters, or who are using obviously fake names, like "god" or worse.

He says they have made some mistakes while doing the first pass at this and they are learning. He also says the team will change how they communicate with people. IE, let them know what they are doing wrong, etc.

I pushed him to make more of the changes, like give us a good appeals process, etc.

He also says they are working on ways to handle pseudonyms, but that will be a while before the team can turn on those features (everyone is working hard on a raft of different things and can't just react overnight to community needs).

After running through his reasoning, mostly to have a nicer, more personal, community, I feel even stronger that Google is on the right track here even though I feel they weren't fair or smart in how they spun up these new rules, but Vic convinced me to hang in there and watch their decisions over the next few weeks.

I am on board and it will be interesting to watch Vic and his team. Me? I am having a ton of fun here and that is most of what counts.

My son and I agree. The new World Trade Center rocks. Google Glass? The hit of the crowds in New York.

Our bartenders were just raving over them. A guy on the street stopped me and asked if I had Glass. "yep."

"Sick!"

Translation for those who don't understand youth language: "can I try them on pretty please?"

#throughglass of course!

The world-changing 3D sensor we saw at CES

You've seen 3D sensors before. In the Microsoft Kinect, for instance. That sensor's design was licensed to Microsoft by +PrimeSense. 

This year, though, we visited Primesense to get a look at its latest 3D sensor. What is big about it? First of all, it's small. Small enough to fit into tablet PCs. Second of all, it's lower cost. Will sell for under $100. Third of all it's more accurate and higher resolution than the one in Kinect (it is so accurate it can tell how hard you are pressing on a surface).

What does this mean? Well, we got several demos of what 3D sensing can do. Learn more at http://www.primesense.com/

Also, listen into this audio interview we did with the founder: https://soundcloud.com/scobleizer/the-freaky-future-of-3d

Why is this world changing? Because nothing can track human behavior quite as well as a 3D sensor. Expect to see these start to appear everywhere. In cars. In games. In tablets and TVs. And more.

What I learned about mobile in China

In China I met several entrepreneurs and others at the Bluetooth World conference there. China has a very different mobile culture, so thought I'd share what I learned here:

1. Facebook and Twitter and many other sites don't work. Neither do their mobile apps. Yes, you can use a VPN or a proxy server, but most sites are very slow compared to when I use those sites in the US. (The government blocks those sites. Most of the entrepreneurs I talked with said the government does that to protect local businesses and their own pocketbooks).

2. Almost every high-end user had an iPhone. Others had Android. I never saw Windows Phone or Blackberry's being used. Android is coming on strong, everyone admits.

3. Every iPhone was jailbroken. Why? Because using the Apple App Store is painful at best and totally unusable at worst. Why? The speed of downloading apps from Apple is horrid. So, everyone makes their phone have a Chinese app store so they can download apps fast. That means Apple will see lower revenue per device than it does in the states, where it can sell movies, music, and apps directly.

4. Every service has a Chinese copy. In the shot I took below there is a YouTube copy. Actually several copies. 

5. The Chinese hate the firewall too, but they say it just means you gotta be "entrepreneurial" to get around it. Either by using Chinese copies of services you like, or by using VPNs.

6. There isn't LTE in Shanghai yet. That I thought was totally shocking, given how modern and wealthy the city is. My phones, back in San Francisco, are dramatically faster on videos and things like Waze. Everyone says that LTE finally got approval from the government and should be showing up by the end of the year.

7. There is a strong mobile culture. It felt a lot like San Francisco, with lots of apps for local food, transit, etc. Plus, the people i met with knew exactly how the local apps compared with things like Yelp or OpenTable.

8. Many apps have "offline" features. Baidu maps, for instance, aren't as accurate as Google's maps, but they work offline, which matters because of lack of LTE and also pricing plans that charge you per megabyte downloaded.

9. There are lots of low-cost Android phones and systems coming out. Think about how Facebook's new Home App takes over app launching and you are close to how these new Chinese phones take over your notifications and app screens. They also strip out all Google stuff and add in their own apps and search. 

10. Everyone knows how to get their phones customized. You can pay people to root your phones for a few dollars and load you up with the apps you want. This lets people who buy very low-end phones get similar experiences you'll get on more expensive phones.

For those of you who have visited China, or who live there (Google+ was the only social network I could use directly -- the others I used through Flipboard just fine) what other things have you noticed about how Chinese use mobile phones vs. how people in US and Europe use them?

Why Android is ahead of iOS contextually

I'm sitting with +Binil Antony who is showing me his app, Friday, http://www.fridayed.com/ which collects all sorts of stuff. 

Why can't he do this on iOS? Because Apple doesn't let him code stuff that touches the dialer or the SMS functionality.

So, why is that important? 

Well, what if you want to build a new kind of photo search? One that lets you do a query like this "show me all photos that I shot within an hour of getting a call from +Rocky Barbanica." Now, that might not seem all that interesting, but that kind of thing is important to figure out context. But certainly searching for "all photos taken at Rackspace San Francisco" will be.

Add that to location, device state, and maybe even how close you are to a wifi radio (another thing Android lets developers study, but Apple doesn't) and you add up into a new kind of system.

As +Project Glass comes along at the end of the year, think of all the use cases. This will be a lot more important, too, because we're going to shoot about 100x more photos than we are today. I might even set mine to automatically shoot photos every minute or so.

Already Binil's app is a better context gatherer than, say, Moves, on the iPhone. He showed me another app, Dialer+, which lets him build a custom phone dialer based on the frequency someone calls. This is impossible to do in iOS.

Here's a few screen shots of Friday running on Binil's phone. Notice that this feed on his phone notes when he shut down his phone, or when he went into airplane mode, or did other things. Also, when calls came in. Or SMS's. Or emails. 

I haven't seen an app like it on iPhone and I want one. So, I am being forced by Apple's lack of openness to switch to Android.

Which device am I getting? Well, Samsung is announcing a new device on March 14th. I'm trying to rearrange my schedule to be at the launch in New York.

Apple, if you aren't scared yet about this contextual trend you should be. I've been a die-hard iPhone customer ever since 2007. But you are forcing me to go elsewhere because of how you treat developers and how closed your systems are. 

I think this is actually a sizable win for Samsung

Why? It only cost $1 billion to become the #2 most profitable mobile company. Remember how much Microsoft paid for Skype? $8 billion. So, for 1/8th of a Skype Samsung took RIM's place and kicked HTC's behind.

Not too bad. Unless the judge rules Samsung can't sell its products. Even then I bet Samsung arrives at a nice licensing deal with Apple.

Plus, Apple has opened up its kimono and not too voluntarily at that. Finally, Apple got Google/Motorola to sue it too. So this might end up being a financial wash for Apple in the end.

But on the other hand Apple won the PR as the innovator and Samsung will always be seen as the copier. This gives Apple the ability to bring new, innovative products to the market and have people at least show up to its press events. Samsung's events never get the "Apple buzz" and this verdict won't help Samsung move up in the world's eyes as an innovator.

That said, I bet that RIM wishes it had copied the iPhone a lot sooner than it did. So does Nokia, I bet. Samsung is a much healthier company than any of those BECAUSE it copied the iPhone.

UPDATE: also, realize that Samsung sells an ecosystem. It sells big screens. Appliances. PCs. And other things Apple doesn't sell. By being so in your face about taking Apple's best Samsung set up the whole company extremely well. This was a very good risk to take.

Now we know why Microsoft rushed its tablet announcement last week

This is why Microsoft didn't announce a price for its Surface tablet last week. Imagine if they had announced a $399 price. This week that will look incredibly lame. It is very clear that Microsoft has to get under the $200 price point with its tablets. I've been saying that the ballsy thing for Ballmer to do would be to price it at $99. People have been telling me I'm nuts, but that's really what it's going to take to get Windows RT taken seriously by anyone. 

Microsoft's shareholders aren't gonna like that at all. Remember how it cost Microsoft about $10 billion to build the Xbox brand? I do. Microsoft is going to have to spend $20 to $30 billion to marketshare here. That means a $99 tablet. If Microsoft tries to price against iPad it'll fail and fail horribly.

Do you hate animated GIF's? My somber visit to 9/11 Memorial

I was just looking at my vacation photos from yesterday and Google+ showed me this set which it automatically converted into an animated GIF.

I used Google Glass to shoot it, took something like seven images very quickly by pushing the camera button on top of the glass while not moving. I was just standing up. Turns out your head is a very good stable platform for photography. 

It's interesting to see the kind of vitriol that animated GIFs cause. But I like them a lot and it's one MAJOR differential from Facebook. I guess if you don't like them, Facebook is a good alternative.

But I do wish they had some controls. For instance, I wish they would only run for 15 seconds and then stop animating. 

I also wish there was a way to filter them into their own feed and get them off of the main feed. They are distracting from other content on the page. 

Anyway, onto the 9/11 Memorial. It was my first visit. I used to work at Fast Company which is located in World Trade Center 7 (my window there used to look down on the workers building these) and the memorial is stunning and going to get better once they finish off the museum (should be another year). 

It's a somber place. It's weird to feel such deep emotions 12 years later, but they are there. And are there for many many people. At the end of the tour you can visit a store where they have a video playing. A crowd just stood there watching. We are captivated by 9/11. 

If you visit the Newseum museum in Washington D.C. they have a room dedicated to 9/11. The guy who runs the Newseum told me that the dwell time is off the charts. Visitors spend about 45 minutes in that single room, which he says is an extraordinarily long period for a Washington D.C. museum.

One thing I took away from the experience: terrorism doesn't pay. Why not? Americans just rebuild bigger. It isn't lost on me that the new Freedom Tower looks like a big middle finger from New York to the folks who murdered 3,000 that day. 

I can't wait for 2015 when we'll get to go up inside the new World Trade Center. That is a fitting way to remember that day back in 2001. 

Anyway, I like the animated GIF feature here. It seems to be a better way to remember my visit here than just a photo. 

What do you think? 

#throughglass  

RESHARE:
I try not to share too many of them, but I sure love the fun graphics a lot of people are sharing on Google+. Here's a fun example that will resonate with lots of you.

Reshared text:
一張圖講完Google+的皇圖霸業 http://www.wretch.cc/blog/billypan101/16667524

This guy is rethinking spreadsheets, I can't wait

A new spreadsheet is coming called Grid at http://grid.binarythumb.com/

Here's a look at the mind behind it: +Josh Leong. He used to work at Microsoft on Excel. Had some different ideas about what a spreadsheet should do. Can't wait to use this!

Here's a look at his thinking.

RESHARE:
Nice set of tips for Google+.

Reshared text:
A lot of great G+ tips are coming through. Created the beginning of a tips and tricks doc that is editable by all who have the link below.

This app will freak you out, but it's the future of, well, a lot


Everyone I've shown this app to today (it came out last week) says "that's freaky."

What does it do? It captures a ton of data on your phone as you move through the world. Right now it keeps a list of places. But here I sit down with founder Sam Liang for a discussion about just what data it captures, how that data could be used, and how he's going to get people to cross the freaky line.

This is the future folks and, it, is, indeed, freaky. Learn more at https://www.placemeapp.com/placeme/ It's a free Android or iPhone app.

Last night I spent a few hours with Liang talking about this kind of persistent ambient sensing app.

It studies all the sensors in your phone. Temperature. Compass. Gyroscope. Wifi and bluetooth antennas. Accelerometer. It collects all that data and uploads it to his servers.

This app knows EVERYTHING about where you are, even more than you do. It is TOTALLY FREAKY and TOTALLY is the future.

I'm already addicted to it, and Highlight, which uses some of the same data to show me people near me.

I'm not the only one. +Tim O'Reilly is using it. So are thousands of other people.

Let's see what it learns pretty quickly.

1. Where you live.
2. Where you work.
3. Your route to work (it can tell you're driving).
4. What church you go to, or if you go at all.
5. What strip club you go to and just how excited you are (seriously!)
6. What gas station you stop at. It also knows how many miles you have to drive before you have to get more gas.
7. Whether you are walking or running or just standing still.
8. Whether you just got in a car wreck.
9. What your favorite restaurants are and what kind of food you both like and hate.
10. What kinds of things are you likely to have bought inside stores, or at least the departments you visited.

Everyone should watch this video to see what the future will look like once you cross the freaky line (I already have and I predict you will too -- these kinds of apps will save you money and make your life better. We talk a bit about the use cases in this video.

Are you freaked out yet? You should be. But let me know if you are joining me in using apps like this and Highlight, which are both over the freaky line.

By the way, I shot this video late at night in front of the http://blackbox.vc/ Blackbox VC Mansion, where I met Sam at a party. More on that soon, it's one of the coolest startup incubators I've ever visited. This is why I love Silicon Valley so much. Where else can you meet guys like Sam who freak you out and show you a mind-blowing future?

Sencha demonstrates HTML 5 can be faster than native iOS or Android apps (Facebook example)

You've heard that Facebook switched from HTML 5 to "native" apps on iOS and Android recently to "speed them up." That pissed off the developers from Sencha http://www.sencha.com/

So they built a Facebook app completely in HTML 5 that's even faster than the native Android and iOS apps that Facebook released last week. 

Sencha builds HTML 5 programming tools and here we discuss the market for app developers and the choices they have to make. Later today I'll be at Facebook and will ask them more about why they can't match the speed Sencha displays here.

This blew away many of my assumptions of native vs. HTML 5 and proved that I was wrong when I said that the reason Facebook's app was faster was because it was native. 

Did it change your assumptions?

Attached here is the video I shot at my house on Friday. 

More from Sencha: 

- Sencha's own Video: http://vimeo.com/55486684
- Fastbook App: http://fb.html5isready.com
- HTML5 Is Ready App Contest: http://html5isready.com
- Blog post on tech details: http://www.sencha.com/blog/the-making-of-fastbook

Why I'm treating startups more critically lately

I've noticed that lately I'm treating startups much more critically. Today I chewed into an entrepreneur who was pitching me a new thing that was sort of like Oink, or maybe it was Foursquare, or maybe it was Foodspotting.

It's the third company I've told off lately.

I figured it was worth talking about why I'm being so harsh behind closed doors to entrepreneurs lately.

The bar has gone up.

What do I mean by that?

Well, Bizzy, a Foodspotting competitor, has recently closed its doors.

Why? Because no one was harsh enough with it.

The marketplace is far harsher than I am and I've seen signals from the marketplace that entrepreneurs better heed: there are too many startups, too many things to try, too many apps that really don't do much more than Google.

What I learned today is that entrepreneurs are often being given bad advice "ship now, and iterate," I learned from the CEO I was chewing out today. "Oh, how did that work for Color?" I asked.

See, the market is very crowded now for certain kinds of apps. Especially location-based and social network ones. So, if you're gonna pitch me something it better provide magic. Angels better sing when I open your app up. Otherwise, why should I use your app instead of Instagram, Foodspotting, Foursquare, Yelp, or my new ones, Batch, SocialCam, or Oink?

If your design isn't better than Flipboard, or at least as neat looking as Oink, why are you even trying?

Some advice:

1. Have at least one very clear, and cool, use case. I.E. have something you can show someone else that makes them say "oh, my, that's freaking useful."

2. Make sure every piece of your app at least matches the competition. The other day I was using a consumer electronics pricing engine and the search just wasn't working. Oh, really? I still might run their video but it sure doesn't feel good.

3. You gotta bring something really useful and new to the market. "But we let you search your past locations" isn't good enough. I can do that with Google and Foursquare. Telling me "but we have better social network features than Facebook," isn't good enough. Google has spent half a billion on Google+ and even IT is struggling to get people off of Facebook. You really think you're better than +Larry Page and +Vic Gundotra? Well, here's a hint: no you are not.

4. You gotta make it easy and make it work for all users. We live in a world now where we give apps only about 30 seconds. OK, maybe 60 seconds. Instagram hooked me instantly (and the entrepreneurs LOADED THAT APP FOR ME). One entrepreneur showed me their app this week, which had +MG Siegler on it. "Give it to me right now," I demanded. After they resisted they admitted that they probably wouldn't be able to deal with my contact list. Another company tonight that I met showed me a similar app, when I started it up (I do that while you talk to me) it gave me an error. Gone.

5. Your product must match your story. If you tell me "we're going to help you find great TV" but then you force me to build yet another social network first, I'm going to feel ripped off. So many companies present one thing, while saying another.

6. I hate the term "minimal viable product." That's like telling me "we're shipping without any features because, well, our investors and advisors told us to ship and fix the product later." Good companies do ship, but they pick the right features and they ship magic. Siri? Magic. Flipboard? Magic. Instagram? I had five comments within two minutes (and that was back when there was only 80 users on it). Tonight I used SocialCam again for the first time in a while. Within 60 seconds I had likes and comments. That tells me that that system has users and has a feature set that gathered lots of users (the CEO has a whole story about how they hid their best features and users keep praising them -- the future version he showed me tonight is making those features easier to find).

7. If it doesn't do something with both Facebook and Twitter (with Google+ to come) then you are gonna look lame. Why? I watch 33,000 of the world's best users and if they aren't using your app I probably will delete it after a few days and forget it. It's amazing how forgettable so many apps are. The best ones? Keep getting discussed and shared over and over and over again. How many times have I seen Foursquare used? Evernote? Instapaper? Mint? Foodspotting? Instagram? Thousands and thousands of times.

Anyway, one reason I do this is:

1. I want better technology to use. Many entrepreneurs have the right instincts. They are scratching their own itch, which makes for interesting products, but they often don't take into account the competitive landscape. After all, they don't have time to code all night AND keep up to date on what +Kevin Rose or +Kevin Systrom or +Alexa Andrzejewski are doing.

2. My own brand goes up if I support great companies. If I bring you more Flipboards and Siri's people take me more seriously. If I bring them more Bizzy's, that flounder in the marketplace, people take me less seriously.

3. The stronger entrepreneurs are, the better my employer does. I work for +Rackspace Hosting and if we're hosting companies that go all the way and get big and important then we do better economically. Even if you're on a competitor I want you to do well. Why? Because generally as companies do better they need better service from their hosting partner, which puts us in play for that business.

4. I remember when +Gary Vaynerchuk chewed out a winery on air that had just put him up, had given him 250 cases of wine to throw a party, and I always respected him for that. It's so easy to just rub the back of someone who is showing you respect. It's another level to lay out the harsh truth. I find that laying out the harsh truth isn't easy, but generally builds better relationships. People remember what you did for them, and if you tell them to take another two months to get it right it might hurt, but it'll hurt a lot less than to go through the pain that Color or Bizzy went through.

All that said, I don't have all the answers. Some things that I missed have gone on to be major companies (LinkedIn and DropBox, for instance). Sometimes I'm too much of an early adopter, so my advice can turn out to be wrong. And sometimes companies will go on just to prove me wrong. So, I try to be humble about it and I try to put myself in their shoes. But, if I was building a product or a company I'd want people to give me the harsh truth too (it's why I always read my comments and especially consider the critical comments. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong, but I almost always learn something by listening).

Anyway, if you're an entrepreneur, I'm getting harsher. Bring your A game and it'll all work out and if it doesn't, there's lots of other journalists now, so you don't need to go through me to have success.

One promise, though: if I am harsh to you, I will always give you a second, and probably a third chance. Why? I've invested in you my time and my instincts and I want to make sure I'm not wrong when I do that.

Who's building a company that meets the bar? Drop me a line. scobleizer@gmail.com

Photocredit: I shot this photo of fish at the Guangzhou Fish Restaurant in China.

Think iPhone wouldn't sell? It already is sold out

In just about an hour Apple sold out all of its "ship first day" inventory. The only way to get one the first day now is to wait in line at the store. If you buy on the Apple.com page now you'll get yours in about two weeks.

Like I said. Love it or hate it, this is going to be the fastest selling product in history. By far. 

By the way, I didn't get one. Verizon has me locked out of my account because I couldn't remember my password and it locked me out. Stupid me for not figuring that out. It's really lame that Verizon didn't have tech support on phone. I have to call back in the morning. I forget that not every company has +Rackspace Hosting's 24-hour-a-day customer support on phone. Sigh.

Before you ask, if I do wait in line for mine, it will be the Palo Alto University Avenue store. I have a box of wine that http://us.nakedwines.com/ sent me and I've been looking for a reason to share it. Might just have a wine tasting there next Thursday night. :-)

Photos from the Olympic Closing Ceremonies

What a great show. Hope you all got to see it too. It was the best stadium show I've ever been to.

In the photos you see the LED panels that lit up the stadium with different scenes and colors.

Thank you to +Badoo for bringing me.

Hope you enjoy these photos. View them full screen for best effect.

HERE IT COMES AGAIN: MY BLOG POST ABOUT GOOGLE+: Why you momma won't use Google+. :-)

Yes, Google Glass survives a wet shower

You thought I was kidding when I said I would never take them off.

Yes, they survive being wet. I had them full on soaked in my shower this morning. +Google Glass  still works. 

So, they will be usable out in rain or other weather. Feel safe #GlassExplorers  !

I'm really getting bored over on Twitter, here's my analysis. Are you seeing the same thing?

Wow, Windows 8 leader is out of Microsoft

Wow. I never expected Steven Sinofsky to leave Microsoft, particularly half way through the pivot they are undergoing. 

Steven remade the Windows team and flattened the management layers, got rid of lots of fat, and he did a lot more than I was expecting out of him. 

Is this shocking, or what? What does this mean for the future of Microsoft?

I always thought it would be Ballmer who would be getting the boot for letting Apple have a four-year-lead in touch computing.

I've been calling folks involved in Microsoft land and they are answering with "wow, wow, wow." They can't believe it. More to come, I'm sure.

First public Google Glass unveiling

+Dan McLaughlin was the first, here's his video report.

I get mine tomorrow at 1 p.m.

Giddy like a school girl. 

Of course this is going on my "Glassholes" Flipboard Magazine at http://flip.it/ZoHRp 

Scared of our robot future yet?

More on CNET here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57560357-1/darpas-latest-footage-of-ls3-robodog-astounds/?ttag=fbwp This robot is built by Boston Dynamics. I met the CEO earlier this year at the Google Zeitgeist conference. Very interesting technology. They are wholly aimed at the military with these things. One thing I learned about that is generally within a decade tech that was developed for the military turns into consumer products. Imagine in 10 years when you have a "dog assistant" who follows you around and helps you do stuff. Crazy future, huh?

RESHARE:
This freaks me out. You? Our brains aren't meant to be fed such visual imagery so quickly.

Reshared text:
What was that about hats again?

The Google Glasses are real!

Thomas Hawk and I are at a dinner to raise money for the Foundation Fighting Blindness.

When I first got here I spotted Google co-founder +Sergey Brin. He was wearing THOSE GLASSES!

He quickly told me it is a prototype. I saw a bluish light flashing off of his right eyeball. I could only guess that my Google+ profile flashed up, or maybe some PR voice said "stay quiet" or something like that.

But the glasses are real. Very light looking. Most of the people around us had no idea that these glasses are pretty special.

Anyway, we are still at the dinner. They will soon turn off the lights to let us know what it is like to be blind.

More later. Thanks to Thomas Hawk, who is blind in one eye, for shooting this photo of us together.

I just spent an hour talking with a Google exec about + and I came away with a few things:

1. Google employees used to not be able to tell you what they are working on. Those days are gone.

2. There is more intellectual curiosity inside Google than I have seen in quite some time.

3. The + team is driven by our excitement and that has caused sizable shifts in employee attention. Translation new features are coming. Everyone wants to work for a winner.

This new Google attitude is something that feeds on itself. Translation I am excited about the future here in a way that I was never excited about Buzz.

(UPDATE: Facebook PR responded) Facebook is keeping you from being an asshat in comments

OK, so I go over to +Max Woolf's content area on Facebook, and respond to his post about +PandoDaily, (which is here: https://www.facebook.com/max.woolf/posts/326466947419794 ) but Facebook keeps me from posting the below comment. It gave me this error. Looks like Facebook is doing content analysis in real time before it will let you post and is looking to keep the service "happy." I sure wonder now what kind of algorithms Facebook is running on content.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this before? I haven't, and I've posted tons of comments to Facebook.

My comment?

++++++++++++++++++


I'm so glad I didn't start a media business. It's actually really tough to get new and interesting stories and to avoid falling into drama. People forget that Techcrunch was built step-by-step as a new publishing form was taking shape. PandoDaily doesn't have that advantage and, is, indeed, facing competition from social networks that is quite good indeed.

I no longer visit blogs. I watch Twitter, Google+, and Facebook, along with Hacker News, Techmeme, Quora. These are the new news sources.

Plus, Pando Daily actually doesn't have enough capital to compete head on with, say, D: All Things Digital or The Verge, both of which are expanding quickly and have ecosystems behind them.

++++++++++++++++++++

UPDATE: we're discussing this over on Facebook too: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150829960634655&set=a.458123019654.251938.501319654&type=1

UPDATE TWO: Facebook PR responded:


Facebook PR responds.

I just talked with Facebook PR about my "comment censorship issue." They say what actually happened is my comment was classified as spam. He further said that this was a "false positive" because my comment was one that Facebook doesn't want to block.

Turns out that my comment was blocked by Facebook's spam classification filters and that it wasn't blocked for what the comment said, but rather because of something unique to that message. They are looking more into it and will let me know more later, after they figure out what triggered it. Their thesis is that my comment triggered it for a few reasons:

1. I'm subscribed to @max.woolf https://www.facebook.com/max.woolf and am not a friend of his in the system. That means that the spam classification system treats comments more strictly than if we were friends.

2. My comment included three @ links. That probably is what triggered the spam classification system.

3. There might have been other things about the comment that triggered the spam system.

The PR official I talked with told me that the spam classification system has tons of algorithms that try to keep you from posting low-value comments, particularly to public accounts (er, people who have turned on subscriptions here on Facebook).

I actually appreciate that Facebook is trying to do something about comment quality. I had to recently change my privacy settings to only allow friends of friends to comment on my posts because I was getting so many poor comments on my posts (when I did that the poor quality posts instantly stopped).

The PR person also said that a team is looking into why this message got a false positive, and will be adjusting the algorithms to let messages like these get through the system.

Also, the error message made it sound like the message was blocked because of the content of the message, not because it looked spammy. They are looking into the wording of the error and will update that to make the error clearer as to what's going on and why the spam classification system got kicked in.

More as I learn more.

One day I met Steve Jobs in the street (back when I worked for Microsoft). He said "nice to meet the guys who are copying us."

I never imagined just how true that would turn out to be. Steve Ballmer's strategy seems to be:

1. Copy iPhone. Check!
2. Copy Stores. Check!
3. Copy AppleTV's ability to play video wirelessly from iPad. Check!
4. Copy iPad. Check! http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/the-only-post-you-need-to-read-about-microsofts-t (great post that lays out the new Surface impact from Microsoft).

What else is there left to copy? Oh, the cool aspirational advertising? The love Apple gets from developers? (Last night another developer and I were arguing about whether Apple continues to be in the driver's seat. I was actually arguing that the Samsung SIII was going to take developers away from Apple. He was having none of it).

But seriously, Microsoft has no choice here. Its business model is getting uprooted, as I can tell by all the iPhones I saw in the Tube last night. I didn't see a single Windows Phone. Not a single one out of seeing hundreds of phones and folks who live here confirm that seeing a Windows Phone is a very rare thing indeed. I also saw tons of iPads and Kindles and this new tablet is aimed at both of those.

Well, we know know where Microsoft is going: straight to copying Apple. Will that be a successful business strategy for Microsoft? I'm not very confident it will be. Everyone knows that the iPad has really great apps out for it and this new Surface will be welcomed to the market just the same way Windows Phone has been welcomed to the market: with 3% marketshare or so.

Now the ball is in another Seattle company's court: Amazon. What is Jeff Bezos up to? How will he beat Apple? I think Amazon is going to be the real innovator here. It's the one that probably keeps Tim Cook up at night.

I have noticed a trend, though. Lots of journalists are doing their best to cheer this new Microsoft effort. Just like they tried to cheer Windows Phone (journalists like it when there's a good market competition, because that means more readers, more stories, and more distribution channels for their content). One set of journalists took me aside at yesterday's Facebook Olympics launch and explained why they don't like Facebook all that much: because Facebook doesn't give them much of a way to make money.

They don't like Apple for the same reason because Apple takes 30% of every dollar that rolls through its machine and they are hoping for a real competitor to come along that would keep Apple honest. The thing is the iPad already has Flipboard and until Microsoft Surface has anything cooler the market is going to be fairly harsh. Remember, this new Surface computer doesn't run traditional Windows applications! 

Some kudos for Microsoft, though. Finally you are free of backward compatibility with Windows apps. Finally you are free of all those IT CTOs who want to run old software that they invested in in the 1990s (er, remember Visual Basic?!?) Finally you have a cool hardware design that matches last year's iPad (has any Windows OEM been able to do that? No!)

Well, welcome Microsoft to the new post-PC world. Good luck with that!

RESHARE:
For those who just can't get enough of quantum levitation, this video goes more in depth. Geeky fun.

Reshared text:
Quantum Levitation rocks my socks. Seriously, watch it.

RESHARE:
Great guide for beginners here on Google+.

Reshared text:
Created a Google+ guide with 15 tips for newbies. Hope it's helpful.

(Related: How to make the most of Google+ http://goo.gl/fhZdH)

RESHARE:
A good way to end this week.

Reshared text:

UPDATE: congrats to the thousands of physicists at +CERN where it was announced that, indeed, CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs. This boson explains how mass works. Big day for science and especially physics.

UPDATE: the press conference has now concluded. It was highly technical: http://webcast.web.cern.ch/webcast/ In the comments below we've translated to language average humans can understand and pointing to interesting data sources.

My first Google Glass photos and videos

As a photographer I'm already in love with Google Glass. It lets you capture images without even touching. All you need to do is turn on the glass by looking upward. Then, when it comes on you say "OK Glass, take a picture." (or "record a video") Then it takes a picture within a second. Painless and because they are always ready to go I find I'm capturing moments and images that I just wouldn't before.

You can also take photos by pushing a button on the top of the glass. Hold down and it'll record a video. Because these are always ready and on, that's a great way to get a quick snap of something happening.

Another cool thing? No one poses for photos anymore! This is magic and transformative for a photographer. 

Look at how my son treats me while I was videoing him. Far more natural than I would have gotten if I had pulled out a smartphone and started recording him. If I did that he'd want to see his image on the screen. 

He also would want to pose for the camera. 

This is a REALLY BIG DEAL for photography and videography. 

I'm studying people's reactions to Glass

I've been on three flights so far, about to get on the fourth, to Berlin. So far no crew has asked me to turn off my Google Glass. Why not? They don't realize it's on. It usually is off, no lights, no indicators. But it's always ready to take a photo.

Which means I got a neat photo that would have otherwise got me in trouble.

Other reactions?

Everyone wants to try it on. Even those who are disgusted by it. 

It has not failed to recognize anyone's voice commands, even a guy with a deep Australian accent.

Everyone says that the popularity of Glass will totally depend on the price. Most say they will be interested if it's under $500. 

Most don't notice I have anything weird on my face. But the people who do have seen it on TV and are interested in what it's like. 

I'm giving some in-depth speeches tomorrow at NextConf in Berlin, about it, and will cover my first week's impressions.

I'll say this much. I will never live another day without wearing Google Glass or something like it. They have instantly become part of my life. 

And I don't care if you think I'm a douchebag for doing that, either. They help me live my life.

Oh, little Glass trivia. What was the code-name for the original idea?

"Wingman."

Some people have questioned why I took a political stance yesterday. 

1. I'm human.
2. I'm human.
3. I'm human.

If you don't like the fact that I'm human, please unfollow. I don't just care about technology issues, even though that's mostly what I am passionate about.

But when I look at my two young kids and I see an injustice in the world I will talk.

The opening paragraph of this article in the Washington Post says it all.

The time for action and discussion IS now.

RESHARE:
My tips for newer users of Google+:

1. Learn what circles are and how to put people into them. When I first started out I went crazy with circles, opening up something like 20 of them. That wasn't very smart, it turned out. Now I'm back to seven. Simple ones like "friends, family, coworkers, geeks, VCs, tech press." Etc.

2. Learn how to distribute content to circles, or public, or certain people. When you post here you don't need to send it to everyone. You can send it just to people you've put in a specific circle, like "friends" or you can send it to a specific person, like me.

2b: Learn not to use your home feed as your main place to visit. Start a circle called "my home circle." Now when you add people you can add them to multiple circles, but if you don't want to see someone everyday you can keep them out of your home circle (unfortunately if you follow people they will always be on your actual main feed).

3. Find a few "seed followers" that you like to follow. Then look at who they are following. You'll find lots more people to follow that way. For instance, I'm following 3,200 geeks, including most of the execs, tech press, VCs, etc. If those kinds of people float your boat, look through my list and pick and choose who you also want to follow.

4. Remember, posts with photos or video do better than just text posts, so see if you can figure out how to get other media in here.

5. If someone gets too noisy, let's cover how to handle that.

A. Too many posts. Sometimes you'll follow someone like +Chris Pirillo who posts a lot. What I've done with those folks, is put them into a "Noisy buttheads" circle. That way they don't pollute all your other circles, although they still will show up on your home feed. Feel free to put me in that circle for now.

B. Too many comments on some posts. Some posts will go viral here. It won't just happen to me. For instance, it might happen to you now that I've pushed you into 33,000 people's view by resharing your post (more on that in a second). If this happens to just one post, you can click the drop-down-menu over to the right of a post and choose "mute." You'll never see that post again. This is a good way to get rid of some things that are cluttering up your feed.

C. Consistently high engagement noise (there are already about 50 people who are consistently getting high engagement, folks like me, Trey Ratcliff, Leo Laporte, etc etc) and for us you just need to segregate us into our own circle. Or just put up with that kind of noise (I enjoy engaging in a lot of rapid-fire comments).

6. Turn off email notifications, or learn to filter them with Gmail's filters. I have turned them off. Too much email, too fast, especially if you get hit by one of the whales here (sorry for hitting you on the first day).

7. Setup your profile and make sure it's hyper complete. Look at mine at https://profiles.google.com/scobleizer and then go set yours up at https://profiles.google.com (I've spent a lot of time on mine).

8. Try to talk about something other than Google+. Try to say what you'll be doing with this. Post something original. Or, start a good debate about something that you care about. Etc. I'm really trying to do this because I'm getting bored with talking about Google+, but I see a lot of new people coming in here, so wanted to write down my thoughts based on my first 13 days.

9. Try using keyboard. J moves down. K moves up. I'm sure there's others coming.

10. If you use Google Chrome as your browser, there are a bunch of extensions you should try: http://pear.ly/fDvaa

11. Learn how resharing works. For instance, I took your original post and reshared it with my audience. Right now that causes some duplication noise (folks following both of us will see your post twice, once from you, once reshared from me) and there will be separate comments under both. Fragmentation is gonna be a problem until Google fixes that here. But resharing is how things are getting very viral. For instance, I just reshared your item with 33,000 people. Now, what if 10% of those reshared it with THEIR audiences? This is why things get crazy very quickly.

Anyway, that's some things. I'm sure you'll hear lots of other advice today. Have fun and looking forward to seeing what you post here.

Reshared text:
It's my first day on Google +. Can you show me the ropes? What is your top Google + tip?

This is MIND BLOWING. I think Google and Facebook should get in a bidding war for this technology. Imagine Google+ being able to automatically build circles for you.

I can't underscore enough how mindblowing this is.

It found my wife's elementary school friends in Facebook (she grew up in Tehran). For me it found most of the speakers I hired in the 1990s for our conferences (and I rarely talk with any of them).

Full blog post about the tech: http://www.building43.com/videos/2011/07/12/katango-organizing-your-social-network/

I am asking Google to remove me from the Google+ suggested user list. Here is my thinking.

1. I don't need to be on the list. My bosses don't care. It isn't needed for my role in the industry or my business model. By being off the list on Twitter I have found my natural audience.

2. Any list that has Paris Hilton but not so many other deserving people on it isn't a list I want to be on.

3. I don't want to worry about getting kicked off the list. I want to say what I think of Google without fear of reprisals.

4. Newbies who don't know who I am make horrid followers. I don't want to be in a role where I have to welcome new users like my dad to the service. I want my audience to be only people passionate about tech. Users who find me on a suggested user list and who don't search me out aren't going to be fun to serve.

5. I am pretty sure that whoever is on that list will regularly share my content anyway.

6. I think my name on such a list will hurt Google+. New users will either have no clue who I am, which will lead to people not getting addicted to the service and if they do know who I am it might lead to a decision not to join "it is just for the regular old crowd."

7. It pisses people off who aren't on the list. I know, I hate the way Twitter and Instagram picked their lists.

8. It is too arbitrary and non transparent. Looks like some sort of bribe. I don't want the appearance of such conflicts of interest. I can just imagine the folks at Facebook or Twitter saying "that Scoble guy is in Google's pocket."

9. I need to be a non-biased friend to ALL entrepreneurs and this just gives them an excuse to not call me.

10. I got to 123,000 followers without being on this list and without being on Twitter's list and I don't need more if I don't earn them through the power of my content. It is far more powerful for people to say "he earned those followers, he wasn't gifted them."

11. If Google starts favoring the content of people on this list I want to have the moral high ground to point out how nasty that is.

12. I believe that more people will + 1 or share my content if I am not on such a list. That is far more important to my future than having a few million "gifted" followers.

13. While I am an elitist I really hate systems that are not meritocracies and because I see people on this list that I believe shouldn't be there, and because there are many people who should be there who aren't that there is no way I can accept being on this list.

Anyway, I totally understand why Google did this list. It just isn't a well curated list and so I don't want my name associated with it.

I will be happy to help Google figure out a better way to inboard new users, but until we see that better way I don't want to be part of this.

Make sense?

What is the new social media ghost town?

OK, let me get this straight.

Since July of last year:

I've gone from 0 to 1.5 million followers here.

On Facebook at https://facebook.com/robertscoble I've gone from 13,000 to 261,000 followers.

Yet on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/scobleizer I've gone from 240,000 to 260,000 followers.

I'm also getting more engagement on both Facebook and Google+.

Yet Google+ is derided in the tech press as a "ghost town." I think the data is starting to show that this is unfair and, well, simply wrong.

So, what's the new social media ghost town? I say it's Twitter. Follower growth has NOT kept up there with the other services, which is telling me something.

What is it telling me?

1. That while number of tweets have gone up, people are getting overloaded so they aren't following more people. Why is that? Because there isn't any noise controls on Twitter (Facebook's feed, on my screens, is a LOT more useful than Twitter's feeds).

2. I'm on Google+'s suggested user list, which is gifting me a huge number of followers. But I got up to 230,000 without ever being on that list here. Lots of people are signing up and at least a few ARE sticking around here.

3. Over on Facebook there are ways to get spread around more, and juice its suggested user feature (this is one thing Facebook does better than Twitter or Google+ since this list is algorithmic and doesn't show a single same list to every user), which gets you more users.

4. Facebook juices its subscriber numbers through lists. If you get put on a list with, say, 30,000 followers, all those followers will be added to your follower count.

Seriously, I know Twitter's not a ghost town, but it sure feels like that because of the usage model there. As it has turned into more of an "information utility" and less of a community it feels more and more empty.

A few other things?

I really hate Twitter's list limitations. On Twitter you can only put 500 people on a list. No such limitation exists here on Google+ or on Facebook. Also, on Twitter you can only have 20 lists per account. No such limitation exists here on Google+ or on Facebook. I don't get why they don't fix this, especially given that they say Twitter is an information utility.

Over on Facebook I'm really liking the ticker, which isn't yet integrated into its mobile apps. But these "attention signals" which show what your friends are listening to, reading, liking, eating, etc, are more useful to me than Twitter's tweet stream, especially when you consider that they aren't part of the feed, which means the feed has a lot less noise (over on Twitter I just saw Steve Wozniak check in on Foursquare, which is totally noise to me and is the kind of stuff I no longer see on my Facebook feed).

Finally, if you look at Flipboard and other readers like Zite, and Pulse, I am starting to like Facebook's display a lot more on those. Why? Because Facebook gives more signals through its comments and its noise filtering (which Flipboard then augments with its own round of noise filtering). I expect that when Google+ gets a real API and developer support (I expect that will come in late June at the Google IO conference) that it'll be the same.

This is a long way of saying: am I reading these signals right?

Is Facebook and Google+ going up in your world and Twitter staying flat or going down, especially when you consider time spent on each actually reading other people's content?

I've gotta be honest, I like animated gifs, but the inability for Google to filter out sharing noise keeps me from using them for the most part. Why? I'm sick and tired of seeing that stupid squid gif, for instance. I know if I used them very often you all would uncircle me.

I decided to give in, though, to give props to +Tom Anderson who is doing some awesome writing and uses animated gifs to get your attention and have some fun. He also pointed us at this Chrome plugin that lets you delete them: http://geek.michaelgrace.org/2011/07/google-filter-kynetx-app/

One thing I find fascinating, those of you who follow me use a LOT more animated gifs here than the 5,000 people I'm following (click on the "Incoming" stream to the left to see the people following you, are you seeing the same thing?). I'm still trying to figure out what that means.

Anyway, I used this gif to riff off of something Tom said. I'm finding my creativity is going up a lot because of Google+. I see it like the Gibbon ape here. My inbound is sort of like the ape, it gets me going and motivated and out of thinking about myself. That gets me to try to come up with something even better.

Speaking of which, got a ton of videos coming at you this week. Hang on.

What's your favorite place for finding funny animated gifs?

Why Google won't talk about stats and why there is blood in the water

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_plus_engagement.php

Read that first.

Then read this:

The tech press will continue to attack Google+. I think that's just fine.

We all know the truth. On my screen I'm seeing a new post EVERY 20 SECONDS scroll underneath my window.

It's to the point where I can't keep up and I'm only following 4,900.

Yes, Twitter, alongside of it, is moving a lot faster. But there I'm following 33,000 people (a number that has taken me almost three years to get to, by the way).

The tech press won't give Google+ a chance and that's OK.

We can write them off as "not getting it" or "not trying hard enough" but that really won't help. All it will do is piss off the people who should be doing some real reporting, coming to my house, and studying what's going on.

Hell, all they need to do is call up the folks who make Topsy. They are building a real-time search engine that studies Google+. But they won't do that. I did http://youtu.be/-8CP0zcFOVQ Why won't the tech press? Hello +Richard MacManus why haven't you called them yet? They have the stats.

But I won't do their work for them. I don't think anyone will give Google a fair shake and, to tell you the truth, I don't think the numbers are all that good if you compare to Twitter or Facebook, which is the real reason +Vic Gundotra won't get into a stat war.

After all, let's say there's a million posts a day being made on Google+. That's a small number compared to the 100s of millions of tweets and Facebook status messages being made every day. So why would Vic release those numbers? All it will do is make Google+ look lame in the tech press.

Vic knows that you should never help the competition.

See, the Tech Press wants Google+ to compete with Twitter and Facebook.

I think that's unfair for a service that's way late to the game.

Hint: it won't compete. Anyone who thinks it will is smoking some good crack.

Google+ is NOT going to get your friends and family. I've been saying that since day #1. Remember back on July 1 I said that. Go back and read it: http://scobleizer.com/2011/07/01/why-yo-momma-wont-use-google-and-why-that-thrills-me-to-no-end/ Yeah, I know, I know, some of your friends and family are here. Fine, but that's the exception, not the rule.

Google+ is NOT going to get the news media. Heck, when I was one of the first to Tweet that Steve Jobs had died I did that first on Twitter. Why? Because that's the best place for signaling to others something important happened. I did the same thing last week when we had a small earthquake here. Yes, yes, I know, some of you came here to discuss Steve Jobs and the earthquakes. Again, that's the exception, not the rule.

So, what's Google+ for, then?

Here's what Vic should start hammering ON EVERY APPEARANCE:

Google+ is for finding, and talking with, the people who are interested in the same thing you are.

Facebook is NOT a good place to do THAT. Does Facebook have a search engine? No! Can you find other people interested in Autism on Facebook? NO! You can on Google+ https://plus.google.com/s/Autism

Can you find that on Twitter? NO! Try the search: https://twitter.com/#!/search/Autism On Twitter you get a stream of links, news, and a BUNCH of noise!

Try it for a bunch of other searches.

Quilting: https://plus.google.com/s/Quilting

Football: https://plus.google.com/s/Football

Pottery: https://plus.google.com/s/Pottery

Deep sea fishing: https://plus.google.com/s/Deep%20Sea%20Fishing

DSLR Photography: https://plus.google.com/s/DSLR%20Photography

Now, try doing those searches on Twitter. Crap. Facebook? Doesn't have a search engine.

Should I keep going?

Photography, in particular, is beautiful on Google+ but look at the above searches. Most have a photo, or a video on most of the posts. Why is that?

Google+ has an affordance for visuals. The other services don't.

But there's another reason why I keep posting here and linking here from Twitter, which drives the tech press nuts:

This is how I can scale my work.

Huh?

Here, let's talk about conversations. On Twitter we can have conversations, right? Sure we can. I can Tweet something like "I love my new iPhone, found any new apps?"

Then you can Tweet back about the apps you've found.

But, now, assume you are a third party. Can you see both sides of the conversation? No.

So, all that extra data you put into the system is LOST. THAT IS NOT SCALABLE.

It means that your work did NOT add any value to MY WORK. That sucks.

On Google+ (and on Facebook) the conversations "stick" together. So now you've added value to my work. And, my work added value to your work. This is what we mean by "scalable." All of a sudden 1+1=3, not 1, the way is on Twitter.

Why do I say three? Because someone can see you are interested in the same things I am, and can click over to your Google+ account and find that you are also interested in the same things. That just does NOT happen on Twitter. It does happen on Facebook, but there's a HUGE problem on Facebook. What is it?

Most users on Facebook have locked down their accounts so this value creation can NOT happen.

For instance, my wife has locked down her account. She does NOT want a discussion with the public. So, her conversations are NOT scalable.

Ours are, here.

So, what does that mean?

Well, the press wants to be the gatekeeper of scalable conversations.

See, if we have conversations here, rather than on the pro blogs, they can't advertise to us, er, monetize us.

That really pisses them off, even if they will never admit that publicly.

Which is why I'm having so much fun here. I don't care about monetizing or getting you to view my pages. I only care about having conversations with people who care about the same things I do.

Which is why a new post every 20 seconds is more than enough and why Google+ isn't going anywhere, no matter what the tech press thinks about it.

If there's a lesson here for Google it's that they are explaining Google+ badly to the tech press. I think that will eventually get fixed as more and more people figure out the real value of Google+ when compared to Twitter and Facebook.

It just will take time. Eventually they will follow enough good people and stop following the usual suspects (like their friends and family). Eventually their screens will have enough flow. Eventually they will see the power of the search engine here. Eventually the brands and the other Google users (apps anyone?) will show up. Eventually the posts per day will go from a million a day or so to 50 or 100 million per day. Eventually Vic will be able to give Richard his stats.

In the meantime, thank you for the great photography, the great autism posts, the great tech news, the great videos. Keep it coming. I'm struggling to keep up, but it's a lot more interesting here than on Twitter or Facebook BECAUSE we're scaling up a knowledge base here together. One that's a lot stronger than any blogging company I've ever seen.

Here's my question: how many posts did RWW/Techcrunch/VentureBeat/GigaOm have today? How many comments? How many photos posted?

Why doesn't anyone start drawing comparisons there?

Hint: because those stats DO NOT MATTER to anyone!

One great post is all a tech blog needs every day.

Excuse me, I just saw a bunch of great posts flow by underneath my Google+ window. Gotta run and read some of those.

CC: +Vic Gundotra +Natalie Villalobos +Louis Gray +Bradley Horowitz

RESHARE:
GREAT shirt! I think my wife might get me one of these for Christmas.

Reshared text:
hahahaha!

Imagine their lives. They will learn to drive with a self-driving car. They wont remember what physical keyboards are like. They will put in glasses to watch videos, or make them.

This is the class of 2018 and 2016.

I love them so much and their entire world will be over the freaky line.

What challenges will they face? Meet Ryan and Milan, YouTube addicts.

RESHARE:
You are about to see this 50,000 times. I've seen it five times in the last minute already. Yet another Google+ song.

Reshared text:
Google+ gets a theme song. :-)

Want more followers, here's the mistakes to avoid

OK, I'm going through all the 5,000 people I'm following one-by-one. I'm on "F" right now and I'm already seeing some patterns. Some of you are making a lot of mistakes. At least if you want people to follow you. So, if you don't want followers, here's what to do:

1. Don't be clear on your bio what drives you. Look at my bio. https://profiles.google.com/scobleizer I'm very clar what I want and what turns me on: "world changing technology." Yet many of you don't have bios, or, worse yet, are wishy washy about what you want.

2. You don't have good public posts that match your bio. If you say you are a photographer in your bio, don't be writing essays, post some photos! If you are a scientist, post something about science! If you say you are the world's best plumber, post something about how I should upgrade my bathroom, don't be posting only stuff about the new Android apps you found.

3. No video. Video helps me know who you are. Especially if you are in it. OK, you might not think this is important, but it is. Google+ has video affordance. What does that mean? It LIKES video! So, if you aren't thinking about it you are messing up.

3B. No photos. Google+ likes photos better than any other service. If you haven't loaded any photos you really are missing out. Make sure you load them directly into Google+. Make them match your bio, even better!

4. Not enough posts. If you aren't posting a few times a week you won't be visible enough to get a lot of followers.

5. Too many posts! If you are posting more often than I am you'll lose followers (a good rule is more than four per day is probably too many unless you are hanging out with Barack Obama or +Trey Ratcliff and even then it's probably too many). Heck, I know I've lost followers because I've posted too often so don't try to post more often if you care about followers.

6. You post more kid or pet photos than anything else. Listen, I know your kids or pets are cuter than +Louis Gray's kids, but, really, we don't care. Post once in a while, but if every post you make is about your dog or your kids then you probably won't get many followers.

7. You can't write. Now this one is a subtle one, but some of you just can't write very clearly. Look at the top users here, they are using a few tricks. If you can't write, put everything into a list (look at what I'm doing here). Write short, punchy sentences. Pick a fun headline that will get people to read your posts. Etc etc etc. If this is your problem, ask for help, I'd love to help people write better if the rest of it is there.

8. Post a lameass image of yourself, or, worse, don't post an image at all. Lots of you could really use an upgrade on your image. Hang out with one of the photographers I'm following and beg them to make you a better photo. Mine? It was done by professional +kris krüg while an intern for pro photographer +Chase Jarvis held a $2,000 flash. There's a reason I use it everywhere. It's a cool photo, shot in Seattle.

9. Don't tell us where you work, or what you do. Yeah, I do look at your bio. I try to follow people who are real, and who really have jobs. If you don't have a job, make up what you really want to do at your future job. That will help us help you.

10. Only repost other people's stuff. Yeah, I want to follow people who repost +Chris Pirillo's videos and nothing else. Really, I do! Not. I already follow him. So, write something original! Or, better yet, post a video, a photo, or at least brag that you have a better high score in Angry Birds than I do.

11. Be a racist or, um, post some hot Victoria Secrets' models. I've already seen several jerks, that's easy, but unless you personally photographed the Victoria Secrets' models, like my friend +William Storage did (his blog is at http://blog.theeyegame.com/author/bstorage/ and he really did have them naked in his kitchen which made me jealous forever) then don't be trying to post that stuff and get followers.

12. Don't be interesting. Oh, really? You have a job working as a garbage man? You think that's not interesting? I bet your job is more interesting than most other people. I bet that even an accountant could find something interesting in their daily lives to share. It might take some work, but, heck, if you teach me a cool trick about Excel every day I'll follow you.

13. You aren't following interesting or active people. When deciding to follow someone I look at who you are following. If you are following all dead accounts I know you haven't put much care into this. So I won't follow you. You are defined by who you are following. If you follow better people your output will be better. So, follow better people!

Also, pay attention to your Klout Score. If you say that anyone who cares about Klout is a douchebag then you probably aren't worth following either (every single person who has said that has been a real bore and never has many followers). http://klout.com (they will soon be watching Google+, so don't worry if your score is low right now, they will catch up to your value here).

Any other tips? Post them here.

Oh, and if you don't care if you have an audience keep your trap shut for this post, OK? Just mute it and move on with your life.

Apple Adulation

I just found this short clip on my hard drive from Apple's product launch of the MacBook Pro. Since I'm trying to decide on whether to buy one, I figured it'd be fun to upload this video and see what kind of conversation it will cause. (It's of the crowd at the latest Apple press announcement for the MacBook Pro).

I've been to hundreds of press events for all sorts of companies from Panasonic to Sony to Apple. I go to CES every year. There is nothing like an Apple press event in the industry. It's crazy just how many press show up for an Apple event and it's crazy how hard it is to get close to the product to get a picture.

In the first clip you see +The Verge's +Joshua Topolsky taking a photo of the new MacBook Pro. 

And, yes, I'm sure I'll be called a sheep just for being there. 

Well, OK.

By the way, why does the press get so "Apple happy?" Because the press knows that an article, picture, or video of Apple stuff usually gets far more traffic than articles about other companies' product announcements.

So, I guess you are helping reinforce this effect if you comment on this post. 

Can you hold back? :-)

UPDATE: sorry, I forgot, the new "diss" of Apple people is "so creepy." Hey, I'm WAY over the creepy line! :-)

The geekiest shoes as seen on +Nick Longo. He got them at Steve Madden. We are in a meeting at Rackspace headquarters.

RESHARE:
Must watch. Unreal bicycle skills. Just love the videos Google+ brings to my screen every day.

Reshared text:
I almost couldn't believe my eyes as he rode the bicycle across the 1" wide cable, but it just continued to get more impressive.

http://youtu.be/ShbC5yVqOdI

Dear Google+ community. Tomorrow you will see several articles saying that Google+ has been matched by a competitor (my NDA ends at 11 a.m. Pacific). These articles will miss the point. Somewhat.

Instead of lashing out at the messenger, or lashing out at this competitor, why don't we try something different?

Listen and help.

Listen to the feedback and learn from it. Help Google become a service that's actually different, and better, from its competitors.

How?

Have you sent feedback in lately? Have you rebuilt your circles and found someone interesting and new yet? Have you put a great post in here about something you care about? Have you posted a great photo?

Great content and a great community are going to be the differentiators here.

The competitors can beat the feature set. But they can't match that.

So, instead of complaining tomorrow, or grousing that Google hasn't given us what we want yet (I have a long list, believe me) get a stiff upper lip and post some great content. I'll be looking for that, believe me.

Oh, and to all the Y Combinator startups that are launching tomorrow too, congratulations! I'll be there in the morning making content to help do exactly what I'm preaching.

The real spy camera I was wearing this week

This week I was wearing a Memoto camera. You see it here. What does it do? It captures an image every 30 seconds. No one has any clue this is a camera except for geeks who have seen it. 

If I were a privacy freak I'd be far more worried about these small cameras.

By the way, this one captures a TON of context. Has a compass, accelerometer, and other stuff inside.

It's funny that everyone is keying in on Google Glass, but I can't take more than one image at a time with Glass. This, however, can make images every 30 seconds and I can even take extra images simply by tapping it. 

I've bought one of these, too. Arriving this summer. Learn more here: http://memoto.com

RESHARE:
Yet another reason that the iPad is just running away from the rest of the field.

Reshared text:
Wow. This looks amazing.

You going to see this at least 50 times. Wow, what an innovative dance idea.

The brands are coming. The brands are coming. The brands are coming.

OK, part of my job is studying how brands, er companies, use social media. Since I've been doing social media on behalf of companies since 2001, when I blogged for NEC, then Microsoft, then Seagate, and now Rackspace and since I've visited with some of the top social media teams in the world, like NASA a week ago, but also Zappos, Chevy, Comcast, Dell, etc I am noticing some patterns and thought I'd start a conversation about what brands might do with Google+.

First, I've noticed brands do the following things:

1. They are helpful to their customers. This is why Zappos and ComcastCares use Twitter.
2. They demonstrate authority and credibility over the marketplace they serve. This is why Rackspace pays me to interview startups and share that learning on YouTube and here.
3. They encourage evangelistic/promoter behavior by their customers. This is why GoPro has a Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/goprocamera
4. They use it to share news about the company. Look at the tech company list on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/Scobleizer/tech-companies and you'll see mostly press release types of things.

So, how could companies use Google+ once brands are allowed here, and what could Google do to help brands?

1. Brands should have an impulse to do something different here than on Twitter, Facebook, or on Get Satisfaction. The Hangout feature shows something. I'd like to offer "office hours" where people can talk with representatives. Already Rackspace has 24-hour live chat on its home page, but wouldn't it be cooler to be able to video chat with someone to get help? Absolutely!
2. Follow GoPro's lead, and let customers post photos and videos to a circle that others can follow.
3. Brands should have a separate feed for pushing out press releases and info about the company. Some customers might want to see only that, or avoid that, which is why separate feeds are needed.
4. Brands should have a separate feed for taking questions from customers, or integration with Get Satisfaction, which already does great job of letting customers interact with brands.
5. Brands need a way to communicate with live video. I can't wait for YouTube to turn on live video capabilities and hope they are well integrated here. Imagine there's a crisis and your CEO is able to turn on a live video feed and pipe that directly into a circle.
6. Brands need separate feeds and circles for different product lines. If I worked at Procter and Gamble I'd like to have a different place for diaper brands than their soap brands.

So, what can Google do to help brands and is there a way for Google to monetize any of this?

1. Make landing pages very "brandable." Most social networks force their own brand, not the brand of the company. Look at how lame the RedBull Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/redbull Compare that to their home page http://www.redbull.com/ It doesn't look the same. Now compare Coke's home page http://www.coca-cola.com/en/index.html to its Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/cocacola Looks crappy in comparison.
2. Make it so teams can manage Google+ accounts on behalf of brands. On Twitter you have to use third-party tool like Cotweet to do that. Things like let different people who work for a brand easily answer questions and be identified with brands so that customers know that an official brand representative is interacting with them.
3. Make it so customers can be enabled to post content directly onto a brand's profile/page and give brands management control so that those posts can be deleted, moderated, etc.
4. Let people watch a brand vertical, like technology companies, and especially have popular posts pushed to their home feeds. For instance, I'd love to know which are the most retweeted company posts from my https://twitter.com/#!/Scobleizer/tech-companies tech company list on Twitter, but I can't because Twitter doesn't let me do that. I guess I could use DataSift to do that, but that's a lot of work and costs money.
5. Many brands are location-based (like restaurants, plumbers, movie theaters, etc) so it'd be nice to see brands from the location you are at and have location-features built into Google+. For instance, if you are in Seattle, which nightclub has a jazz band playing at it tonight and can customers post photos and videos of that band while it's playing? That seems to be something that Google would really do well in integrating here.
6. Brands need much better "Hangout" features that would allow teams to have inbound requests routed to different employees and also let them more easily moderate and split up different calls. Also, it'd be very cool to have recording and broadcasting features added to Hangout, so that a management team could hold a press conference, for instance, or an earnings call, and have that shared with everyone, not just 10 participants.
7. Let brands share their circles. I have a circle with Rackspace employees in it, for instance, and I'd love to share that with you but I can't. Also, I'd love to better tag each person so you know who to contact if you want to work on OpenStack, for instance, vs. getting someone in HR. Very different people and you probably wouldn't want to interact with both.

How will Rackspace (my employer) use Google+? Very little right now. For now we're in learning mode. Watching, following, reading, seeing what usage model gets adopted here. I could see that soon we'll use it to be helpful to our customers. Already I see many Rackspace employees and managers here, like +John Engates, +Robert La Gesse, and +Lew Moorman, among many others. What does that mean? Well, we'll have to see how Google+ integrates brands here but we definitely see many of our customers here, so are excited about the possibilities.

What about you? Do you see how your company can use Google+?

This is the coolest whiteboard, er, surface computing gadget I've seen this year.

Check out Jody Forehand and Rafi Holtzman showing me http://www.luidia.com 's new interactive whiteboard gadget. Keep watching until the end and you can see how you can turn a table into an interactive computing surface too.

Why am I a Google+ Fan? Well, let's look.

I posted a link to my blog about Facebook's new features at 11 a.m. on both Facebook and Google+.

Here's what I posted on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/scobleizer/posts/255658977787753 Here's what I posted on Google+. https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/UaK31dbh4R7

What's the results?

On Google+ I got 46 + 1's. 84 shares. 100 comments. So far.
On Facebook I got six likes. So far. NO comments.
On Twitter I got 11 retweets. So far. Very few comments back other than "nice post."

Says it all, really.

Sometimes these 16-year-olds blow me away

When I was 16 I barely knew anything about anything but here is +Nick D'Aloisio who does a better pitch for his technology and company that many CEOs who are twice his age can do. Listen in, as he describes his technology and app, called http://www.summly.com which summarizes longer posts.

I met Nick in the hallways at the DLD Conference in Munich.

The Age of Context claims its first victim: Scott Forstall (more trouble ahead for Apple)

This morning Google Now got a new version. The Verge properly gives it its due: http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/29/3569684/google-now-android-4-2-knowledge-graph-neural-networks This one feature is more innovative than anything Apple has done this year. 

This is Scott Forstall's problem and, today, it cost him his job: http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/29/3573226/scott-forstall-leaving-apple

See, if you get on top of the mountain you better not celebrate too long. You need to compete with yourself, otherwise someone else will.

Glad to see that Tim Cook recognizes he has a real problem. What is the problem?  

Google is way ahead in the world of context.

I'm now seeing apps, like Maluuba (listen to their team talk to me at TechCrunch Disrupt: https://soundcloud.com/scobleizer/cool-context-app-i-found-at ), that are way better on Android. Why? Because Android is more open. Open systems are going to beat closed ones in the future. Forstall should have seen that and opened up iOS more.

Developers tell me over and over that Apple is holding back real "Age of Context" innovation. How so?

1. Developers can't have access to the dialer. That means you can't study who people call, or build new kinds of phone experiences. On Android they can.

2. Developers don't have real access to the radios. That means that developers can't build systems like Tawkon can: that see radiation or energy levels used by the device, but it also doesn't let developers build real indoor navigation apps. You do realize that if you had access to the radios you could tell exactly where in a room you were standing, right? (Wifi is like light, it sprays across a room, and if you can triangulate its strength you'll know where in your house you are standing).

There's more, too. Android is quickly being switched to as the default platform. Glympse' CEO told me he builds on Android first, because he can iterate faster. Then he moves to other platforms. This is horrid for Apple because, really, if Apple loses its lead in apps, what does it have? A thinner phone? That won't sell. Especially as Microsoft is powering into the market.

So, what does Apple need to do?

1. Get on board on context. And fast. Open up its maps. Make those completely open source. Make +Waze seem closed. Let us add things to maps and help Apple build a better map than Google. (Apple's customers are more likely to help than Android users, but the window on that is closing fast since early adopters are switching to Android in droves).

2. Get on board on context. Open up the dialer. 

3. Get on board on context. Open up the radios.

4. Get on board on context. Open up the data silos that each of its 600,000 apps represent. Get those apps to share data with each other and with the base OS.

5. Get on board on context. Build systems that go deep into your email and calendars to figure out extra stuff that could be shared with developers. This will happen (already I've seen one such app coming from SRI, the lab that invented Siri). If you let those things come out on Android first you are dead when the +Project Glass gets here.

6. Get on board on context. Instead of copying Google or Microsoft), think about how people will work in the future. Build more stuff like +MindMeld, the hot app from Techcrunch Disrupt (it listens to meetings on your iPad and shows you interesting stuff.

7. Get on board on context. Buy Nest, the thermostat folks. Don't miss what's going on there. Tony Fadell (he worked at Apple on the iPod) is building sensors for your home that will augment your life. There are others, too. Get on board as the most sensor-friendly platform.

8. Get on board on context. Start spending your money on context. Build an "Age of Context" startup incubator.

9. Get on board on context. Businesses are already asking for "contextual intelligence" that goes way beyond what Salesforce and Microsoft are offering. Yet you have nothing to offer businesses that want to know more about why customers are buying or what they might buy next. I visited Aspen/Snowmass and they want to know more about their visitors so they can offer new kinds of customer service. So go buy companies and serve these new business needs.

The Age of Context will bring human service to a next level. Highly personalized. Very aware. Probably displayed through wearable computing (you did notice that the Pebble Watch raised a lot of money on Kickstarter, right? Why hasn't Apple done a wearable computer? Google sold one +Project Glass to every two attendees at Google IO, and they are charging $1,500 to those people (I bought one, because the future is in context).

If you don't know what the Age of Context is, listen to the CEO of Alohar. https://plus.google.com/+Scobleizer/posts/3iqjCACkBuz Why hasn't Apple bought this company yet? 

I think Forstall got shown the door because he didn't have a good answer to that question. 

Google is positioned to really rip Apple wide open. Tim Cook better solve that problem and solve it fast.

RESHARE:
Robot porn...

Reshared text:
Ok, impressed :)

Flags half staff at Apple headquarters. Sad day in Cupertino.

Former designer of Pinterest now lets you sell stuff on a link

Every once in a while I meet an entrepreneur who just hits you as brilliant. Yesterday that happened to me when +Sahil Lavingia walked into my office. He was one of the first employees at Pinterest (was a designer there) and now has started http://gumroad.com

I had no idea who had invested in him, but remembered the words of Ron Conway (investor in Google) that once in a while you'll meet a born entrepreneur. Funny enough that Ron and other great investors like +Chris Sacca (investor in Twitter) have invested in his company.

What does it do? Let's you sell virtual things with just a link. Sounds simple, huh? But it's not and listening to Sahil I'm getting that feeling. The feeling that he'll change the world.

Hope you enjoy this conversation. http://gumroad.com

Much better JPEG compression

I am hanging out with +Dror Gill who is CTO of http://jpegmini.com

His team has done something quite remarkable. It makes JPEGs at about 1/5th the size of JPEG's compressed with other techniques. Go there and try it. Hey, +Thomas Hawk and +Trey Ratcliff you should check this out.

How does it do it?

It compresses each piece of the image using different quality levels with no degradation in image quality. I just tried it and it's quite remarkable. I'll get an interview up with Dror soon where we talk more about this company.

RESHARE:
Cool human trick video of the day.

Reshared text:
A video a day to blow your mind away! Nr. 35
WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW YOU MUST SEE THIS FREE RUNNING VIDEO
Let's make this series go viral on G+ by sharing and if you're new to it check out my stream! ; )

Walk around my neighborhood with Homesnap, one of the coolest iPhone apps I've ever seen

Aim your camera at a house. Snap a photo. Learn all about that house. How much it sold for. What it's worth. Even its MLS listing if it's being sold.

Here I interview CEO +Guy Wolcott in front of my house and we walk down my street.

This app shows that there's still lots of innovation to be done on mobile apps. Wow.

The flowers start arriving at Apple headquarters in memoriam of Steve Jobs.

Must watch for any developer who is going to build for mobile

Qualcomm makes chips that are inside many of our smartphones. You might not know who they are, but this is a company that has a higher market cap than Facebook does. It's not to be taken lightly.

Its new SDK lets mobile developers do something pretty mind-blowing: add context to their mobile apps. Why do you need that? Well, in the future apps will know what you are doing. Whether you are walking or driving. Or what you are looking at. 

This is the future and it's so important that I'm writing a book about it with Forbes author +shel israel  . This technology will be featured in our book.

Here  Ian Heidt, who runs the Gimbal team, talks to me about Qualcomm's new SDK. Learn more at http://www.gimbal.com

Oh, and wonder what the Google +Project Glass might do? This SDK gives you some big ideas. 

Does this future excite or scare you?

I always listen to what +Larry Page says to discern where Google might be going. Love those glasses Larry, can I sign up for the beta test? :-)

Great to see talks from Google's Zeitgeist conference posted online.

How do you improve the world with Google+? what would you say to a crowd of 90,000 people? Can we improve the human condition? I only have X days left with you all. What I find fascinating is EVERYONE here has 90,000 followers. Don't believe me? Everyone who comments here has the same power I do. What will you tell 90,000 people to do? What actions should we take to make this "field trial" more than just a place to post cute photos? Go ahead, take the microphone and focus our attention on an issue you care about! Or, tell us about a way we can make a difference in someone's life.

Here, let's get it kicked off. I have $1,000. what is the best way for me to make a difference. Keep in mind that while that isn't a huge sum to many, billions of people live on $2 a day. Let's work on putting that to work in a leveraged way.

It is your turn. How can we change the world?

UPDATE: Several have asked what I meant by "I only have X days left with you all?" Here's what I meant: No one knows how much time they have left here. I remember going to TED and sitting next to a guy named Omar Ahmad. He was mayor of San Carlos. He had a big impact on my life. Told me he made a bit of money in the Venture Capital business, but not enough to be Bill Gates. He said he looked around and saw lots of needs in his own backyard that he COULD have an impact on, which is why he started working in his local city government. He's the same age as me. One day he woke up, didn't feel well, had a heart attack and died. This thread is dedicated to his memory and his leadership. It is my way of looking around and asking "what can I do?"

It's interesting. I got almost 900 +1s here for my Shuttle picture, while over on Facebook I only got 40 likes. Amazing the difference in engagement between the two systems.

247 Tech Journalists and Bloggers who actually use Google+

Slowly I'm cleaning out my circles of folks who aren't using Google+. Why? Because I want to make room for new people who are actually using it.

I learned something interesting today while cleaning out my Tech Journalist and Blogger circle: the churn rate here is fairly high, about 30%.

What's churn? It's the rate of people who come, try this out, then leave never to come back. I removed all those people.

For the next few days I'll share just my tech circle with you all, so you can follow them yourselves (just visit https://profiles.google.com/scobleizer and click on the "View All" under "In Robert's Circles."). I'm following more than that, but one thing Google+ does well is let me share just certain circles with you.

Some other things I've learned?

1. It's way too hard to look at everyone in a list and see if they are actually active.

2. People who don't post something publicly bug me. Worse are the folks who only have one entry: when they change their photo.

3. Google recommends the lamest people to you to follow. Why is that? Because the first users on the network followed people we knew from other networks. That got them added to the recommendation system but the recommendation system didn't actually keep track of whether or not they were actively using the system.

4. This circle tends to be more professional than the average user (the content posted here tends to be more interesting and better written, etc).

Anyway, hope all this damn work of reading and finding and curating is worth it for you.

If I'm missing someone who is active and good, let me know!

Magical Technology (extra bonus: A Google+ Magic Trick)

You might have seen +Marco Tempest's video on TED where he fooled the audience with three iPhones. But do you know how he did it? (His TED video is at http://www.ted.com/talks/marco_tempest_the_magic_of_truth_and_lies_on_ipods.html you should watch that one first, because if you watch my video first it'll blow the illusion).

I visited his studio in New York last week to get a look.

What was even better was he gave me a preview of stuff he'll do at the LeWeb Conference in December in Paris and, even, did a cool Google+ trick too.

Oh, and make sure you don't miss his last two tricks. Those are, well, wow.

I think any TED speaker better see this. Why? The bar is going up on performance and it won't be easy to match. Even after you see the secrets.

This is a little preview of some of the things he'll perform at http://leweb.net/ in December in Paris. I'll be there too.

Facebook clones another Google+ feature, keeps Google+ from gaining mass adoption

Today Facebook announced new photo features that take away yet another cool thing about Google+. This has got to be frustrating for the Google teams, even as they keep a stiff upper lip in public, right +Vic Gundotra? (He runs Google+).

So, why do I keep posting on Google+ and not on my blog? Well, I like the competition between Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.

Facebook, yesterday, turned on a new "interests" feature on my account that totally rocks. Would we have gotten that if Google+ hadn't shown up on the scene? Probably not.

Would Facebook have given us bigger photos if Google+ hadn't existed? Probably not.

But, now that Facebook has shipped these features, what is special about Google+? The search engine and video hangouts and YouTube integration.

The search engine isn't that far ahead of Facebook, though, and is missing HUGE features. For instance, why can't I see every item you've plussed? That's really lame Google and Vic should be ashamed that the search team can't even do that yet.

So, if I were Vic, where would I be going with Google+?

1. Figure out if Google is really going to be an identity play. Today it's not, which is why apps like Highlight are forced to build on top of Facebook. Here's a hint: can you see everything about me on a page on Google+? My family relations? My sexual orientation? Whether I'm married or not, and to whom? My politics? My favorite movies? Books? Music? Sports teams? Whether or not I went running this morning? What my favorite foods are? Etc etc? You can see all that on Facebook and Google has to decide whether it's going to go there, and figure out how it's going to get us there. Not having a write API is a HUGE hole. Being anti OpenGraph-style stuff is a HUGE hole.

2. Figure out if Google+ is REALLY about stitching all of Google's stuff together in a new, collaborative way. Right now it's hard to use Google+ with my coworkers. I'm actually scared of putting something here into public because I missed a setting or two. I'd rather have two separate brands. One for discussing stuff with public and friends, and one for working with coworkers on things like Google's Docs and Spreadsheets. Why is Google letting Yammer and Salesforce Chatter have all the fun at work?

3. Rethink what being social means, especially on Smart Phones. Highlight shows me there's a new way of being social. Plus its mobile app works, is fast, and is simple. Compare that to Google+'s mobile apps that just aren't there.

4. Get over your hatred of iPad. Do a really awesome iPad app that blows away Twitter and Facebook and makes it a joy to use all of Google's things on that. iPad is winning. Android Tablets are not. Get over it. Learn from Bill Gates. In the 1980s Microsoft made the best Macintosh apps. Then, later, when Windows finally got good enough (around 1993) Microsoft cloned the Mac apps and made them work great on Windows. Use iPad as your lab, then move stuff over to Android but MAKE KICK ASS iPAD APPS. Facebook hates Apple. So this is a good way to have a competitive advantage.

5. Fix stupid stuff with Google+. Why does every URL here have a stupid long-ass version and no built in shortener? That makes it hard to tweet and URLs look like crap. This small stuff matters.

5b. Give us custom domain names. Like we used to have on Google Buzz. For instance, mine is https://profiles.google.com/scobleizer but new users can't get nice URLs like these.

5c. Let us see all the stories we, and other people, have liked. It's really lame that you haven't yet matched features little startups had four years ago.

5d. Let us follow more than 5,000 people. Twitter is kicking your ass in flow because of this. (But then you gotta fix your design limitations with Google Contacts).

5c. Let us have a REAL blogging tool here. You have Blogger. Why isn't it integrated here yet?

5d. Let us have videos and photos in comments. Facebook has them and it's a killer feature.

5e. Let us clean up our social graphs. Show us people who no longer post. Start suggesting ACTIVE users to us (I still am getting suggestions to follow people who've never posted). Make it easier to see people's content, trends, and stats, and delete, people from our social graphs. Right now it takes way too long to clean out Google+, so I just let it rot and new users, who probably could really add something to my life, can't get followed because of the limit of 5,000.

5f. Let me customize my profile page more. I want to use different fonts, background photos, and logos to differentiate me from the other writers here.

Anyway, I'm finding I'm rethinking my social media usage patterns. I'm starting to see that +Fred Wilson was right. I should have kept my blog as my home (it's at http://scobleizer.com ). I expected Google to innovate a lot faster than it has for publishers. Hey, Vic, it's great you ship lots of small things every week, like it's better to block spammers here than it used to be, but we need some really big breakthrough features to keep people engaged here and we haven't had one of those in a while. When are we going to see something really eye opening?

If not soon Facebook and Twitter are going to continue to own the social space.

RESHARE:
I love this graphic. By the way, on this topic, today we're celebrating completing the ninth year that +Maryam Scoble decided to stay with me. She's the best.

I can't wait until everyone who wants to get married can do so. It's ridiculous that people who love each other can't get married.

Reshared text:
two words......

Am I turning into an Android fan?

+Rackspace Hosting's "Mr. Gadget" might have just turned me. Listen in. He had four Android phones at dinner at at home he has Windows Phones, and iPhones, and a ton more gadgets!

Damn, that Samsung Galaxy SIII sure kicks my iPhone's ass. Hey, +MG Siegler what you gonna do if that new iPhone that's coming in September isn't mind blowing?

Vyclone brings killer multi-phone video to the world

Shoot video with multiple iPhones. Say at a concert. Or a wedding. And Vyclone joins it all together in its "Angle's app." Watch what it does here. Sign up for it here: http://www.vyclone.com/

Are we really arguing over a logo?

I am seeing a TON of consternation over Microsoft's new Windows 8 logo. http://www.techmeme.com/120217/p30#a120217p30

Um, I'm instantly bored by such talk.

Aren't we paying attention to the wrong thing?

What's the right thing?

The technology inside! Right? Or does the logo matter that much to everyone? it doesn't matter to me.

Oh, and I LOL'd at the parody logo that I'm including in this post. I guess that makes the point I'm trying to make.

Personally I'm looking forward to Windows 8. Why? Because Microsoft is still used by about nine out of 10 people in the world. So, what it does is still important. But let's focus on the tech, OK? The logo really doesn't matter.

RESHARE:
This is a really cool idea for holiday card envelopes! Wish I had thought of it.

Reshared text:
Good morning Google Plus. #Craftidea for today- if you want creative envelopes, go to #Google Maps, map the route from your letter to the other person's mailbox. Print them up, fold them into 8 by 11 envelopes (or smaller if you are sending #holiday cards).

RESHARE:
Finally we see some balance out of Forbes and +Paul Tassi (Link to his stuff below)

But he actually is just ahead of the crowd. Even more journalists, today, will say "there's no way Facebook is losing its 750 million to somewhere else."

In fact, I'm going to be one of those people.

This is why Google needs to develop its own philosophy, its own feature set, and get out of the "we must compete with Facebook" mindset. I was so excited to see Google Hangouts as one of the features here, for instance, BECAUSE it signaled to me that Google was going to be creative and find its own path.

Let's be honest. Most of the rest of the stuff here is a copy of FriendFeed that we had three years ago (albeit with the aggregator turned off, so the noise level hasn't gotten too crazy for most people).

But Paul asks a good question: Why would average people WANT to follow strangers?

For that, I have a great reason:

If your real life family and friends don't care about what you care about, you gotta go look for strangers.

For instance, no one in my life cares as much as I do about tech (if you remove those from my life who are already on Google+, that is). Usually when they get together they don't argue out the future of HP. They don't obsess about what the iPhone 5 might have in it. They don't talk about why Twitter hasn't shipped many new features in the past two years. They don't brag about the 300 Android apps they've been using. They don't jailbreak their iPhones. They don't know what Ruby on Rails is. They think clouds are some puffy white things in the sky. They think Cassandra is that cute girl down the street. They don't hang on what the newest startups from YCombinator or Techstars are trying to do. They don't follow every word of +Tim O'Reilly or read many of his books. They don't know +Dave Winer and what he's done for news distribution. And on and on.

So, since I do all that, I must look to you, my strange friends, to have the conversations I want to have and that you want to have.

I've noticed this outside of tech, too. Visit Washington DC and you'll find people interested in politics at a level that I would never be. Visit New York and you'll find artists and media people and financial types having conversations I never might want to get into that deeply, but there ARE lots of people around the world who do. Heck, look at StockTwits, +Howard Lindzon's company. He saw that people wanted to talk about stocks on Twitter. He made an entire company around just that.

Or, look at the great photo community that's sprung up here around +Trey Ratcliff , +Thomas Hawk and +Lisa Bettany -- there are tons of people who've bought DSLRs, spent thousands of dollars, and now are looking to talk to people who can help them improve their game. Inspire them, etc.

Inside Silicon Valley we call these things "Interest Graphs." Facebook owns the social graph. You know, that rolodex of your real-life family and friends. Google+ isn't going to be able to touch that.

But the interest graph is still in play. No one has nailed that yet.

Quora got close, but doesn't have a big enough lever to get into the marketplace in a huge way. Heck, ask your friends on Facebook "have you heard of Quora?" If they aren't a tech-passionate person they most likely will answer "what's that?" Now ask those same people "have you heard of Google?" Of course they have.

That's why Google+ is interesting. Google, if they are lucky, can get enough people to build out an interest graph.

Actually, the interest graph is so much more profitable than the social graph it isn't funny. Why is that?

Because the interest graph condenses people into transactional units. Huh?

Think about it. Would a camera store want to advertise to a social graph? Yeah, but it's inefficient. To find a camera buyer they are going to have to spray ads over a lot of people.

But if we are focused on an interest graph? All the photographers will self identify. Now camera stores can spend a lot less money and effort and get a LOT bigger return. Just advertise to those who follow Lisa or Trey.

Google+ is a lot more attractive to professional media types than Facebook is. Why? Ever hear of Google search? We still get a lot of traffic off of the long tail of people who use Google (the search engine) and Facebook isn't going to be able to match that anytime soon. The interest graph will help out search even more.

I think this is why Google decided to go its own way and not renew the Twitter search contract. They saw that Tweets didn't add a whole lot of value to search pages. Why? Too unfocused, too many things that weren't relevant.

That's what's so brilliant around the engagement and interest-graph system that I see Google putting in place here. They will be able to put only the best items from people interested in politics into searches. Only the best items from people into photography into searches. Only the best items from people interested in mountain biking into searches and so on and so forth.

I think that's why we haven't seen the search engine yet from Google for Google+. It's so important that they get that right that they are taking their time and making sure that interaction is absolutely nailed.

FriendFeed got close, but it was too geeky for most people to use. The search engine there was a thing of brilliance. You could tell it "show me all items about 'ruby on rails' but only if Tim OReilly has liked them." Or, "show me all items about 'ruby on rails' but only if they have 15 likes or more." Or "show me all items about 'ruby on rails' but only if they have 15 comments AND 15 likes or more." (Likes=+1s here).

But doing that meant learning a lot of options. What if Google just does something like that automatically in every search result page? That's what I'm hoping for, and why I'm spending so much time here.

See, there are tons of reasons to "talk to strangers." Let's go over them again:

1. You can find people into what YOU are into. That's hard over on Facebook, if you can do it at all.
2. You can build a custom feed of those people. Hard to do over on Facebook.
3. You can have conversations with those people. Hard to do over on Facebook OR on Twitter.
4. You can have those conversations show up on Google's search results (future feature). Hard to do over on Facebook OR on Twitter.

So, let Facebook own the social graph.

I hope Google finally comes to peace with that and that Google takes over the interest graph (which is much more profitable anyway).

I actually think that +Vic Gundotra gets this a lot, which is why he's forcing down our throats the whole real-names policy (which, I bet, will make a lot more sense when they start displaying our results into search).

One question: will this land Google into anti-trust troubles? After all, they have a pretty near monopoly on search and if I'm right they are going to tie a new product (Google+'s interest graphs) into search. I guess that's a fight for 2013 to worry about.

What are the reasons you post to strangers?

Reshared text:
After a week of using Google Plus the "right" way, I've written a follow-up to my original two articles to describe my findings with the site now that I've increased interaction and contribution.

I predict many of you might disagree, but you may actually find you concur with a few of my points, as I do think I bring up some legitimate issues.

I'm curious to see if +Mike Elgan , +Robert Scoble or +Tom Anderson in particular have any comments, as they all had thoughts on my initial articles. Check out the new post for yourself below:

PEOPLE. Stop comparing Facebook to Google+. And if this is a ghost town why does a new message show up on my street every 15 seconds? Oh, yeah, the mainstream media is threatened by Google+.

What am I talking about? The Wall Street Journal says the "Minuses are adding up at Google+" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204653604577249341403742390.html?mod=wsj_share_goog

Ouch.

That said, I celebrate this. Listen, how many of you would love to spend time at the TED conference? Total attendance? 1,500. It's a ghost town.

Or, how many would like to go to the World Series? I did that once. 40,000 in attendance. Ghost town.

Or how many would like to see the Knicks? 30,000 in attendance. A ghost town.

Truth is ghost towns are the best place to spend our time. Think about it? Is the best restaurant in town the hole in the wall that no one knows about yet or is it the big chain where everyone goes (like McDonalds)?

I have been very fortunate to have many of the world's best experiences with people as varied as +Jim Long (cameraman for NBC in the White House) to hanging out with Neil Young with +Marc Benioff (CEO of Salesforce.com).

Yet I enjoy coming here more than going to Twitter or Facebook or other social networks. Why? The audience might be smaller (it's not, actually, according to my blog's traffic logs) but it's more fun than the others because of the engagement here. Just read my other posts from earlier today and see the quality of the discussion.

When you read stuff like this ask yourself "why does the journalist believe this?"

It is true that Facebook has more people and more addiction. I told you that would be the case the first month Google+ was around: http://scobleizer.com/2011/07/01/why-yo-momma-wont-use-google-and-why-that-thrills-me-to-no-end/ Lots of you argued with me.

I was right and this has become a great place to come even though my wife still won't join in here.

This speech, by +Cory Booker, makes me feel so small

Small? Yes, small. I have done so little with so much. My family gave me so much. I have not faced the challenges Booker's family has. I have not held the body of a dying child, the way Booker has. I have not helped a community the way he has. 

We need more leaders like Cory. 

This inspires me to do more. A must watch.

How popular is Google+? Well, in less than a week I will have more followers here than I have on Facebook despite being on Facebook for more than three years. Wow. Not sure what that means, but here's some theories.

1. Google+ is far more popular with geeks than Facebook is.
2. I have a "tribe" of folks who follow me on Twitter, but won't follow me to Facebook, but will follow me here and on Quora (I have more followers there, too).
3. Something about Google+ makes me more discoverable here than on Facebook (I wonder if I'm popping up on everyone's suggested users list here, where on Facebook I'm not).

The question is, will this be like Quora (growth has slowed there. Most of my followers there happened in late December and January) or will it continue to see growth over time? (My gut instinct is that growth here will die down until Google releases another set of features. Of course, it seems like Google is iterating faster than Quora or other social networks).

Some other notes:

1. I'm getting more engagement here than anywhere else.
2. The team and execs at Google are far more active here than any other exec team in social media. I've seen all sorts of Googlers hang out and comment on a wide variety of posts and show up in all sorts of video hangouts. When has an exec at Twitter or Facebook done that in a very public way? I can't remember.
3. I think this shows that Google has tapped into some existing boredom of a group of people who haven't been served by other social networks.
4. The speed of notifications and new items here doesn't match Twitter, yet, but blows away Facebook's speed, even adjusting for the numbers of people I'm following (and, if I adjust for Twitter's numbers -- I'm following 32,000 there -- I think that per user we're seeing more posts here than there).

Anyway you look at this I think the first five days of Google+ have been quite successful. Can't wait to see the next five! (I'll be using an Android phone to post live updates from the Shuttle launch and will be visiting Bill Gross' Idealab to get his thoughts on Google+ too).

Thanks for following and this is a fun experiment to be part of together.

Another great video from GoPro.

I love Jeb Corliss: he says he's terrified by most of us who work jobs inside an office. I'm terrified by his job, which is jumping off of mountains.

On Monday I'll be at GoPro. It's my favorite company. Why? Because it's the only company I can walk to from my house. So there. :-)

The world of mobile just shifted to a new contextual age

Read my blog for how significant yesterday's announcement by Qualcomm is. This is huge and will affect everything mobile for years to come.

Swiftkey 4.0 makes keyboarding on Android even faster

Want to know why I'm switching off of iOS? Swiftkey is the #1 reason. I can type way faster on Android, using Swiftkey, than I can on an Apple keyboard.

Watch this video and you'll learn why it's so much faster and what they just announced today. 

Get it for your Android device here: http://www.swiftkey.net/en/

A toy both my 18-year-old and my 2-year-old approve of

This weekend I got a http://littlebits.cc set. Cost? $89.

What does it do?

It lets you plug modules together that do various things. Start with power, a button, and a light, and you have instant fun. Add a pulse, or a dimmer, to teach your kids how electricity and circuits work. 

Lots of fun, and is the modern science-minded toy. Have you seen this before? I didn't until my friend +Barak Berkowitz showed me this weekend. Damn him, I'm off to buy more bits to have even more fun!

In the pictures below you see the hands of my 18-year-old son, +Patrick Scoble and my two-year-old son, Ryan. Both liked it. That's pretty rare for a toy.

How do I know they loved it? Cause they had to get me to give it up first!

Driving with Google Glass. How safe is it?

Samsung really screwed up with its Galaxy S4 presentation. Whoever planned it should be fired.

So, here's some rules.

1. Your presentation should NEVER take away from the product.
2. Your presentation should NEVER alienate some of your customers (the presentation was extremely sexist and tone deaf and that's not me saying that, it was Leo Laporte. I agree, BTW).
3. You should make it easy to understand the next features. Samsung made it hard to really get what's new here.

That said, the Galaxy S4 has a bigger screen, better specs, and does stuff like picture-in-picture cameras.

Man, and I happy I didn't travel to see this. A total disaster in my view. Look at the tweet reactions!

Totally took away from an otherwise nice product that has some interesting gesture controls and new features.

RESHARE:
This TED video rocks and it's so fun to try to figure out how +Marco Tempest did it.

Reshared text:
great talk about deception

I wish I had never heard of Google+'s brand pages. Well, at least it got me blogging!

I can't wait for the GoPro brand page.

GoPro makes these fun little cameras that are waterproof and high quality. The videos people make with them are just totally cool. The latest one that's going viral (I've seen it shared already several times on Google+ is this skateboarding video).

GoPro has one of the coolest Facebook brand pages ( https://www.facebook.com/goprocamera ) where its customers upload photos and videos they made with their product.

But look at how crappy Facebook's videos and photos look in comparison to over here on Google+. Google+ is going to be crack for companies like GoPro and RedBull (which sponsors similar kinds of content). This stuff gets us to share and talk and engage.

I'll be honest, one reason I like GoPro so much is the company's headquarters are literally 200 yards from my house in Half Moon Bay, CA. The CEO is a lot of fun. I'm not yet seeing him on Google+, but am gonna bug him to join up here (I'll send him this post in a few minutes, so let him know if you have a GoPro camera).

Anyway, the story of how Nicholas created the company is quite unique: with his mom's sewing machine and only a few thousand dollars. No VC until recently and it's done quite well. One of my entrepreneurial heroes who saw a need and made it happen. If you want to know more about GoPro, check out my interview with Nicholas and get a look at their new 3D camera, too: http://scobleizer.com/2011/04/03/first-video-look-awesome-new-3d-gopro-camera-system/

Thanks +Eddie Codel and +Scott Beale for bringing me this (little known fact, Eddie is the guy who first showed me Twitter, along with +Irina Slutsky).

Why Google Glass isn't a Segway

+Mike Butcher, of Techcrunch, just wrote on a comment over on Facebook that Google Glass is the next Segway. He was skeptical from the moment I let him try mine. Just never even gave it a second thought. He's not alone, I've seen dozens of people repeat this refrain on Twitter and here on Google+. 

But this isn't a Segway. Here's why not:

1. Segway is, even today, years after launch, $3,000 to buy. 
2. Segway never got me excited. I can't use one in my life.
3. Segway has no utility for most of us, who need to commute and carry kids and pick up groceries, etc.
4. Segway just doesn't integrate in a car-based society well.
5. Segway just doesn't provide enough additional value over a $200 bicycle to make it worth it (I just was in the Netherlands where EVERYONE rides to work on low-cost bikes).
6. The reason many of us use bikes is to get exercise. Switching to a Segway has a real lifestyle cost here.
7. UPDATE: Paul Graham says that using a Segway has a "fashion" cost: http://www.paulgraham.com/segway.html

So, let's see if Google Glass measures up.

1. I believe Glass will be $200 to $300 to start and will quickly come down in price after that. Even if it starts at $500, it will quickly come down to $200 over the first three years. 
2. Google Glass has me excited and I already own one and will never take it off the rest of my life.
3. Google Glass has instant functionality for 95% of those 400 people who tried it on. It takes a new kind of picture, helps you live your life, and lets you focus on the world around you even while watching your emails and notifications.
4. Google Glass is safer to use when driving than your existing smartphone or even your car's navigation system. It can be used at work. At play. At home. In the mall. Even while watching a movie (if the babysitter is trying to get ahold of you it's a lot better to see that in Glass than on a Smartphone screen because it's less distracting to other people).
5. Google Glass brought me INSTANT value over my smartphone. Yesterday it showed the gate and time of my flight. Even while dragging two suitcases through Amsterdam's airport. 
6. Google Glass is the first tech product that actually is usable while getting exercise. Either at the gym, while walking around, or while using my bike.
7. +Tau-Mu Yi pointed this one out: the Segway stays the same after you buy it. Google Glass gets better and better as more apps come out. Already in the past two days I've gotten three new apps.
8. UPDATE: as to #7 above, there IS a social cost to wearing Google Glass at the moment. Some people think you are a dork. Others might get angry. But unlike the Segway, I can usually turn these people into fans when I show them the utility and when they consider that they will eventually be lower cost than a smartphone.

The two just can't be compared and even the launch was very different. 

Segway was hyped up by rich people only. This week I let school teachers and taxi drivers turn mine on. With Google Glass it's the average person that's hyping them up to me. My taxi driver said "this is crazy, I want one." Segway NEVER had that reaction.

I asked five separate audiences about them after showing them off this week. Thousands of people. Nearly every hand went up when I asked if you would buy one if it was $200. That simply NEVER happened with Segway. 

Mike Butcher is wrong about this product. See you in 2015 to see just how wrong.

The video below was made by +Nicolas Charbonnier who has been wearing wearable computers for far longer than I have (he's the one that +Sergey Brin came up to at CES a few years back and started asking questions about what he used them for).

A mind-blowing look inside an +Autodesk's CTO's mind

A walking TED talk. Meet +Brian Mathews, group CTO at Autodesk.

This guy blew my mind.

What Autodesk knows about the world is pretty cool. Here we meet Brian Mathews, group CTO. He's a nerd. Self described. But we spent a few hours looking around Autodesk's Gallery, which is open to the public on Wednesdays in downtown San Francisco. If you're interesting in visiting the Gallery, here's more info on that: http://usa.autodesk.com/gallery/

The meat of the discussion here is that Brian runs the technology that helps people build things, like buildings. We talk about the coming Age of Context and what the trends are that will bring nearly everything we touch, drive, walk into, or use, to life. 

Things like viral bacteria evolution. 3D printing. Big data and cloud computing, what he called, infinite computing, sensors, wearable computing, and many other trends are discussed.

If you are interested in the future of the world, this is a must watch.

http://autodesk.com