Why Google+ Will Still Overtake Facebook

  It's official. Google+ is public. And it's spreading like wildfire. People are ready for a new option to socialize online, and Google+ is the answer. They have combined elements from Facebook and Twitter and made them more accessible, user-friendly and interesting for people to use. You know what's really cool? I joined Google+ with my Blogger username and I already have 4 complete strangers who have added me to their circles within a week, which is actually much faster than my other Google username got people adding me to my circles and I know those people offline. (Sorry, complete strangers if you've been following my blog and I just haven't realized it. Try connecting with Insistent and Persistent using Google Friend Connect. Hint hint.)
    You can also share your circles with people on Google+ so everyone else can see who you're stalking, I mean following. (Sidenote: Thanks, Mashable, for doing all this research so I don't have to.)
    The public grand opening, so to speak, of Google+ just happens to coincide with Facebook releasing a whole slew of new features trying to keep up with, er, compete, with Google+. They rearranged the news feed, meant to look a little more like Twitter and the Stream that you can narrow down with Google+ Circles, and they also created new "lists", obviously meant to imitate Google+ Circles, so you can organize your Facebook friends by location, favoritism, and work, or whatever you want, basically. However, it's still not as easy as Google+ Circles. There are way too many steps in the process. The lists thing is also only visible on the home page of Facebook, and it would be much more useful and practical if it were in the navigation menu so it could be easily accessed.
    With a little help from the social media team at work, I have also seen firsthand the new Facebook timeline thing that all profile pages are going to be converted to in short order. It is pretty snazzy, but only if you want your entire life history on Facebook. I can see the benefits of it, but I just don't care to share that much of my life with the online community, even my limited pool of Facebook friends. It's supposed to be like a scrapbook thing, but considering that I sort of suck at taking pictures, I don't see that this new format will benefit me that much. It actually makes your Facebook profile look a little like the old MySpace pages or a personal blog.
    Facebook knew that Google+ was coming after them, which is why all these changes have sprung up. (Memo to Facebook/Mark Zuckerberg: A little warning might've been nice. An email, perhaps...) But I think they may be pissing people off more than making them want to stick with Facebook rather than try Google+. We shall see.

Why does "Google" sound like a dirty word?

Check out Constant Writer on Google+, and join, if you haven't already! 

I will be sharing my blog posts, and some others that I find interesting or relevant there. 

So, dear readers, what do you think of the new Google+? 

Is it better, worse, or about the same as other social media mediums like Facebook and Twitter?

The Worst Kinds of People

  I read an article today about the worst kinds of coworkers to have, the loud mouth, the bad influence, the rival, the downer, etc., and it got me thinking about people I know who are like this. Not necessarily coworkers, as I have pretty awesome coworkers, but just people I've known or that I know now who are people I probably shouldn't know.
    As far as someone who talks too much, I'm probably guilty of that one. I don't blab other people's secrets. Not secrets. I do have a tendency to overshare my own thoughts, and sometimes, when it's really good news or really juicy gossip, I have a really hard time not sharing it. Sometimes it's just with my boyfriend, and he doesn't really count because he doesn't talk about anything I tell him to other people, but sometimes it's sharing with my coworkers, and I probably shouldn't share all the stuff I do with them. There are some things that, because we work together, probably should be kept to myself.
    Bad influences, I know a few of those people. The ones that tell you to skip class to go to the brewery, the ones that talk you into coming to that party you didn't want to go to because it was going to be nothing but a bunch of people you don't know drinking stuff you don't want to drink, the ones that convince you to hang out or go do things that you don't have the money to do just because it sounds like so much fun. I think we all have this bone in our bodies--we all do a little peer pressuring from time to time, whether it's something little or something big. The difference is that we aren't the pusher all the time. Some people are always going to dare you to do the thing you know you shouldn't be doing because they have a little danger streak that they want to share.
    Overly competitive people--I was in IB in high school. I didn't finish, but I knew my fair share of overly competitive people. The ones that will always ask what you got on your test and caw happily when they find out they got one point better. (I did enjoy doing better than other people, I just didn't say it out loud that I got the better grade or that I was proud of myself for having gotten it.) The people who will always turn in the paper a week early and stick their hand up first to get their answer in. The only person I think I've ever really competed with is myself. I'll admit, I am a little competitive at work. I want to get my good idea in first, and I want my creativity to shine over everyone else's when I get the chance to. But I'm not the most creative person there, and I don't have the experience with certain aspects of the job that other people do, which limits me in some respects, and it means that that chance to shine doesn't come around as often as it used to when I was in school, getting grades.
    The downer is that person that can always find something negative to say about whatever happens or whatever else is said. I have DEFINITELY known people like this. It's really unfortunate because they're usually decent people, they just have an overly pessimistic outlook on life and people and the world. I have days where everything sucks--I think you'd have to be an automaton if you didn't have days like that at least sometimes, however infrequent. But some people are just distrustful, angry, regretful, and unhappy people that live by the adage misery loves company. These are probably the worst ones on this list because they bring everyone else down too, whether they mean to or not.
    I guess the point here is that while we all may be a little bit like these personalities from time to time, the point is not to be any one of them ALL the time. And maybe to be more like a few other personalities some of the time too--the encourager, the shoulder to lean on, the back-up, the giver--to balance everything out. (Sidenote: Using the new Blogger Interface right now. It's clean, and I like the posting part, LOVE the posting part, but the dashboard is weird. Too clean, too few buttons. Hard to find what you want.)

Be ambitious but not a shark. 

Be realistic not pessimistic. 

Be honest but not tactless. 

What kind of person do YOU think is the worst? 

Or... are you secretly one of them?

Share in the comments.