Here are a few products and pages I’ve been snorkeling on the last few weeks.

Social Media Marketing Class – I like Dan Martell and have a similar passion for guerrilla marketing hacks.

Time Crunched Cyclist – I’m building spreadsheets and ripping out pages to make sure I follow the training plan this year.

Warby Parker Glasses – Got two pairs and love them.

BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits – Established 3 new habits in one week. Saying good morning, flossing my teeth, and staying on top of my todos.

21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic (Updated 2012) – Rand Fishkin is the SEO authority. Stay up to date with what he says to do.

AdSense Flippers Archive OK, this is one I haven’t delved into yet, but I listen closely to the recomendations of the Lifestyle business podcast dudes.

Outbrain – I’m experimenting with it on this blog, will let you know the results.

Sean Malarkey interview. Here he reveals the tools he used in a recent $500K launch. Awesome of him to share the guts of his operation.

Nike+ Fuelband – Quantified self goes mainstream.

Last week, I discovered The Rise of Developeronomics via Brad Feld. As long as I’ve lived, it has always been a great time to be a software developer. The economics keep getting better for us. My favorite quote:

The one absolutely solid place to store your capital today — if you know how to do it –  is in software developers’ wallets. If the world survives looming financial apocalypse dangers at all, this is the one investment that will weather the storms. It doesn’t matter whether you are an individual or a corporation, or what corner of the world you inhabit. You need to find a way to invest in software developers.

The article also introduced me to the concept of a “10x developer,” and linked to a thoughtful explanation.

The 10x effect is the anecdotal observation that great programmers aren’t just a little more productive than average ones (like 15-20%). They tend to be 10 times more productive.

The second blog post is a fascinating analysis of 10x engineering in terms of thrust (high value flow state work) and drag (administrative necessities).

All this got me thinking, what do I do that makes me a 10x developer? I quizzed Ben Sharpe, Collin Watson, and Jonathan Locke, author of Coding – On Software Design Process. Here is what we came up with.

1. Only do the work that needs to be done. Use the agile process. Involve yourself in UX design. Communicate first. Coding might not be the solution. Premature optimization is the root of all evil. Choose the simplest solution that solves the problem.

2. Build on the shoulders of giants. Use open source frameworks. Use shorthand languages (HAML, Jade, Coffeescript) to go faster. Don’t re-invent the wheel. Leverage package managers for public and private code distribution. Don’t be at the mercy of Central Command (i.e. Microsoft) to fix a bug in a library. And don’t wait for your employer to let you learn it. Learn it on your own, and get a new job that pays twice as much.

3. Know your data structures and algorithms. Our profession is open to self taught tradesmen, but you can’t be a 10x developer if you don’t know when to use quick sort, identify an O(n2) routine, or write a recursive function. Be multilingual – so you can see how different frameworks solve the same problems over and over again. Know enough about the plumbing to be able to make informed decisions (how is this Web framework storing the session state? What is a cookie actually).

4. Don’t be afraid of buying tools that save you time.  Ben says: “I bought a bitmap font tool yesterday for $50. It easily saved me more than $200 of my time.”

5. Find focus. Don’t keep your email open all day. Same for Twitter, Facebook, HackerNews, and Techememe.  Minimize interruptions during productive moments.  Close email, turn off chat, put headphones on… whatever it takes to not be interrupted. Tiny hack:  I wear headphones at work even though I don’t listen to music because people don’t interrupt me.

6. Refactor early and often. Kill your darlings.  Sometimes you have to throw out clever code to do what’s right by the project, but that’s OK. If you have to touch code on an existing project, always leave it better than you found it.

7. Just do it. Think small. Do your weekend project, participate in Startup Weekend. I bought a Mac and worked in a Windows Virtual Machine on .NET projects for a year before I was able to fully leap to Unix and Ruby on Rails.

There are 3 more tips below. Click one of the sharing buttons to reveal tips 8, 9, and 10..

Traditional marketing is interruption marketing. These days, it is much more effective if you can earn a customer’s interest (as opposed to forcing them to look at your advertisement). This is called inbound marketing. In a recent presentation, Rand Fishkin from Seattle SEO company SEOMoz hadsome great tips on on successful inbound marketing. Here are the notes I took.

There are 3 more great hacks below click one of the sharing buttons to reveal tips 8, 9, and 10 (text will appear instantly).

Here are my notes from yesterday’s HIVE conference presented by AIGA’s Seattle chapter. This is the first design conference that I’ve attended. I enjoyed the emphasis on design. This is a bit of a brain dump, I apologize that I did not take the time to write a shorter post.

Shauna Causey, Kathy Gill, Sean Malarkey, and Adam Loving
hold a Google+ “Hangout” to discuss the new social network. In part two, we talk about the implications for businesses, what new Google+ users should try, and whether Google+ will “kill” Facebook.

Adam: So, one of the things we were talking about while we took a quick break there was the implications for mobile. And I was going to have a survey of who’s on Android and who’s on iPhone. But all four of us are on iPhone. So one of the strategic advantages I thought might be behind Google Plus was the fact that they’ve got good integration as the default social network for Android. But of course, that’s a battle that’s still being waged, and the four of us are iPhone fans, obviously, so we can’t really speak to that. The other thing I wanted to really make sure we touched on tonight was, What are the implications, if any, for business accounts? You know, I get called on a lot as a developer to implement integrations – that API isn’t available yet, or Google Plus. But you know, I’m sure people are going to be wanting to do that, for their business. Shauna, obviously – it’s also the number of big companies on their social media policies and marketing and all that. Do you guys have anything on the radar with regard to Google Plus for that, or do you see this being just one more channel that you’ve got to go find your customers on?

Shauna: Well, one of the reasons I would like to get on as soon as possible as far as business use – which we’re still on this data list right now – is because I think that when you look at the early adopters, they’re exactly the people that I would hope that we can talk to. On the other hand, as a user, I think it is kind of nice that we don’t yet have businesses there. There’s less spam. Obviously, you would opt in to get their updates. But it just feels like a cleaner experience, and it still to me feels a little bit more like a neighborhood. You know, when Twitter just came out, it was like all of your tech friends are there, but you also don’t have these – at least I haven’t had very many weird accounts from weird names or weird people yet.

Adam: Right.

Shauna: So that feels like a nice clean experience. But yeah, I think the implications – there are so many. I saw Ford – you guys may have seen Ford talking about, Well, should they do an analyst call and a hang-out, or how can they start incorporating Google Plus into the entire business cycle. So, looking at all the things that they do and figuring out how can we better use this technology and use it in different ways than we’re using Facebook. And I think now it’s pretty similar for how you can use both, except that there is that serendipity level of different people being able to follow conversations and being added that you don’t have on Facebook, or it’s not as easy. So I’m really excited to see what happens. And I’m surprised it’s actually taken this long for them to allow more businesses to actually use the platform.

Sean: I think it’s a big screw-up on their part.

Shauna: Yeah.

Kathy: I think that someone underestimated how the demand was. I mean, that’s the only thing that makes any sense to me is that somebody underestimated the demand. Because I’m with you guys. It just seems like, Oh, my gosh! This is so obvious.

Adam: Well, yeah. They were right that keeping it personal, not launching with an API did keep it cleaner. Everything that you see on there was posted by a human, and it was probably someone you have corresponded with by email. So that makes it a friendly, safe place to start. And then they kind of take riskier steps as they go.

Shauna: I’m so impressed, still – I don’t know what you guys think – but at the way that they rolled it out with that data invite. And just seeing it spread. I’m sure they’ve got a great info graphic that I haven’t seen yet on how that spread actually – you know, what that looked like.

Kathy: That first 24 hours, you mean?

Shauna: Yeah, or even the first couple of weeks, just seeing all the different connections and how people are invited. And then I think the fact that for awhile we couldn’t invite people, and “when is the button going to be back up” was newsworthy. I actually was just – I mean, we saw the same thing with Google Wave, you know, a little bit. But I just still couldn’t believe the hype that it created just in that whole invite and data process.

Kathy: All the work-around’s. This is how you get someone on, even though you don’t have an invite button. This is a sidestep, Adam, and kind of may be backwards a little bit, but I really want this platform to succeed, because I would like to Facebook to go back to being a reciprocal relationship with my friends, where I don’t have to deal with the business stuff, and my students and faculty, and I can turn it back into what it is for normal people, which is friends.

Adams: You closest friends and family.

Kathy: And have this be my public me. That will make me happy.

Adam: Right. That makes sense. And one other thing, Shauna, I’m interested in asking you about is, the amateur marketer in me, or semi-professional marketer in me, was very intrigued by this possibility of segmenting everybody into circles and then addressing them very specifically. Am I getting too excited about that too early? So, for example, if I created a list of just my previous clients, people that had hired me previously, and another list of people who found me via my blog, and who like social media – that it could be rewarding to share very specific things, or you know, get to the level of marketing where you’re selling a different product to each different circle. Do you think that’s promising, or do you think that would be too much work?

Sean: That’s a good question. Were you going to say something, Shauna?

Shauna: I was just going to say that I think you hit the nail on the head, and that’s the number one reason why I’m excited as a business to use Google Plus. And I think even just segmenting, just alone being able to segment men and women, which we can’t do on Facebook right now from our page, would make all the difference from our end. I cannot wait to use this platform just because of that one thing. I think that’s a great point, Adam.

Adam: I hadn’t thought about that, but yeah.

Sean: From a business perspective, that would be huge, I would think, for you guys, if you have certain promotions that you’re running that would appeal to women and not to men, and vice versa. But Adam, back to your question – I mean, for me, yeah, segmenting is huge. And we do it with email lists. But I know to a certain extent that if I send an email, 20 percent of the people are going to open it. Whereas on Google Plus, I don’t know if I’ll get 2 to 3 percent of the people to see that update. So back to you question, is it going to be worth the time?

Adam: Right.

Sean: I don’t know, you know. And for me – I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the time right now to go through – I think I have close to 1000 people following me here – I don’t have the time to go through them. I should do it, but it would probably take two hours to go through and segment that list. And how accurate that data would be – I might know, honestly, a third of where they came from – in other words, how to segment them. I wouldn’t know.

Adam: Right.

Kathy: But this is kind of how I’m trying to talk on Google Plus, and I’m not doing it like a business, I’m doing it by interest. Are you a journalist, are you an educator? Are you somebody that’s a friend of mine in Seattle? It’s the same sort of thing, and I’m with Sean in that it is labor-intensive. But I think your messages have a better chance of coming through when they’re that targeted. And a part of it’s going to depend on how people use their streams. Because I do both. I look at notifications and I look at streams. And I don’t see the same things because of that.

Adam: Right. Yeah, I know that’s interesting. I mean, I think as a developer, I’m looking forward to the day a couple of years from now when you can fully automate the entire cycle. So, if someone clicks a link somewhere, that they’re automatically tracked into a certain circle, and you can address that circle as people who have opted in on a given link, or they found you by the blog. The circles, I hope, will be created automatically, and therefore – I mean, it still comes down to what you’re trying to accomplish, if that equally weighs out with the amount of time maintaining those circles . Because you know, the more focused the stream is, also the less serendipitous it is, right? Like, I think my “customers” or clients might be interested in my biking occasionally, or might be interested in my dog occasionally, and it makes me look more personal. So, I don’t know. But it’s probably better for me not to share all the funny cat pictures with all my bosses! (Laughter)

Shauna: Well, really, just from a business standpoint, it is so brilliant. Because right now, if we want to segment on Facebook, we have to pay for an ad. And if you think about putting that in a stream and being able to segment it. Given that everything is moving into a more specialized world – I mean, I think as consumers, I can see myself in four or five years – or sooner than that, probably two years – where if they’re sending me updates for men’s jeans that I’ve opted in for your account, I’m going to think, Why is this company doing this. You know, they’re sending me something that I would never – unless I want to buy it as a gift – would never care about. And I think we’re going to start being able to be more selective about how we get business updates, which is exciting to me from a consumer standpoint and from a business standpoint.

Adam: Right. And I know Robert, who was going to join us tonight, but I got his message on the side that he’s babysitting – he’s a real big – he was vice president of marketing for [JIST]. And one of his big themes, one of the things that he would always talk about was marketing as a conversation. And you know, the more you segment your audience – obviously it’s more overhead and expense for your business to do this, but the more conversation you can have, the better, to get to know your customers better. And that’s the whole promise of social media, I think.

Kathy: Can I ask Shauna a question?

Adam: Sure.

Kathy: Shauna, have you thought about scale, and the scale issues associated with a company like Nordstrom, managing multiples of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people?

Shauna: For Google Plus, specifically?

Kathy: Yeah.

Shauna: Yeah. And the way I see it is, there are really only a couple buckets right now that appeal to me as a start, and it’s really figuring out how we can segment men and women.

Kathy: OK. That makes sense.

Shauna: And then, you know, I almost see another one where it might be people who have engaged with us already, and maybe one with people whom we want to engage with but haven’t yet talked to them, and there’s some reason why we might want to reach out to them or learn from them. So I almost see those four buckets as a start. But I think you’re right, you could get all the way down to people who are interested in beauty products, or people who, you know, love Nordstrom’s shoes, or things like that. But I see that almost as a detriment in some ways, because we would like to, if we’re talking about products or asking people what they think of products or getting feedback, we’d want to have that go to a broader group, unless they’ve opted only to get updates about shoes. So we can show them the different types of products they’re getting, but not have something that totally doesn’t make sense show up in their stream.

Kathy: Yeah. It’s going to be interesting to watch.

Shauna: Mmm-hmm! I could see some companies having maybe a hundred different circles. And you’d have to figure out how you’d hire for that, and scale for that. And then, how do you track it and measure success? Because that’s another thing – as we start using Google Plus, it’s not built into any of their systems yet to track like every other network does, and to monitor.

Adam: Right.

Kathy: And it won’t be until you have an API.

Adam: I can’t wait for that. I can’t wait for the API! So I’ve got a couple of broad questions that I just want to end up with. We’re all very hooked in to social media, obviously. We’ve gotten good social and business benefit from it. But we all know those people that say, Oh, I’m too busy. This is just one more social network. I signed up, but I never went back. What’s the one thing that you could sort of encourage, or you think that those people might be missing out on specifically with Google Plus? What’s the one thing that you think people should do, colleagues or co-workers – not necessarily family, because they’ll come when the photos get there. But other professionals – what’s the one thing you think they should do or try on Google Plus?

Kathy: Well, not try so much, but the thing that is so easy here that’s not easy on Facebook is sending a targeted message and knowing exactly who you sent it to. The privacy stuff here is just so simple compared to Facebook, that for anybody that’s frustrated with Facebook – if they’re not frustrated with Facebook, and they don’t have friends here, they’re probably not going to come here. You go where your friends are.

Adam: Right.

Sean: For me, I guess it all just depends on what someone’s goals are. But one the biggest advantages I see with Google Plus right now is the exclusivity of it and the access to top-level people. And just about any niche, industry, or field that you’re in, you know, if your goals are to make some progress in a certain arena, it’s probably the easiest time ever, since, I think, Twitter came about, to access those people and befriend those people, and build your network as someone who’s known in those circles .

Adam: Right. Excellent point. Any other tips, Shauna?

Shauna: Yeah. I would just add to what Sean said. I think one thing that I sometimes recommend to people who are just starting out, for instance, on Twitter for the first time, is figure out who you want to talk to or who you would like to meet, and look them up and start following them. And I think Google Plus is another great way to do that. I’d probably also recommend that they try and hang out.

Adam: Right. This is good. I’m enjoying it. OK, so my last question is one that we can all just weigh in on for whatever answer we want. But if you had to guess, is Google Plus going to beat Facebook? Yes or no, and why?

Kathy: Define “beat”! (Chuckles)

Adam: The way Facebook beat MySpace. So I’m giving away my answer. Sorry. So in the beginning there was 6 Degrees – anybody remember 6 Degrees? This was in the late 90’s, where you’d say who your friends are.

Kathy: Yeah.

Adam: And you could navigate to their friends.

Kathy: Mmm-hmm.

Adam: And then there was Friendster, and then there was MySpace. I’m probably leaving out five or ten that were big in the Philippines, like High-Five, and all that – and Amebo. It seems like Facebook sort of killed them all and was able to become the global social network. Do you think that Google Plus has the potential, or could likely render Facebook obsolete?

Sean: In my opinion, no. I don’t think so. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of years, but I think it’s just going to be another network that – like all of us, we spend – I mean, I haven’t left Facebook. I know a few people who say they’ve left Facebook altogether, and that’s fine. But my mom and my sisters, they’re on Google Plus yet. My good friends that aren’t in the tech world are on Google Plus. And certain things about it – I don’t see it killing it, I just see it as being another network that’s out there. And I think it’ll definitely put a dent in Facebook. I think the best thing that comes out of all of it is the innovation that will come as a result of Facebook fearing its death from Google. But if I had to put money on it, I don’t think Facebook – I think Google is a threat, but I don’t think it will kill it.

Kathy: So, I’m with Sean. I don’t see this being a slighter. And the death of the predecessor thing, that’s fairly new in this field. I mean, think about it – people still have 45’s and LP’s. Not many people, but –

Adam: I’ve got some right here under my desk!

Kathy: Yeah. But the 8-track didn’t kill the LP, and what did die was the 8-track, due to technology. But I see it changing. Again, I would like to see Facebook – I mean, I would just personally like to Facebook go away. But it isn’t going to go away any time soon, and for some people, I don’t know that it every will. MySpace has not gone away. It’s just changed.

Adam: True.

Kathy: It’s kind of back to what it was when it started, which is music.

Adam: Right. Shauna, yes, no?

Shauna: Well, I agree with what everybody said. But the interesting thing is with this finite amount of time that we have, where are we spending more time, and where are we concentrating our efforts? And I did an informal poll last week. And it was very interesting. I just asked people if they were spending more, less, or about the same amount of time on Google Plus as they were – and this was a month after launch that I asked. And there was this line right down my friends. And it was if they were friends – if I knew them because of technology in some way, they were spending more time on Google Plus. If not, they tried Google Plus and then they left and haven’t really come back.

Kathy: And they won’t until their friends are here. Until there’s some critical [inaudible]. I mean, Sean made the point earlier that there are what, 750 million people on Facebook?

Adam: Right.

Kathy: I mean, it’s an iceberg. It’s not going to move easily.

Adam: It’s a social phenomenon. It’s about critical mass more than technology. But Google Plus has made a few advances – I mean, the new stream that Facebook invented is only a few years old. And so we’re just starting to see the first iterations on that, and this really interesting channeling of content, and segmenting of audiences, etc.

Shauna: I’m really interested, though – and this is the only other thing I would add – to see how each network treats advertising and spam. And I think if one fails in a big way, and people feel that it’s not a good experience any more, or there’s a much better experience in a better place, then I think we’re going to start to see things shift. That’s the main indicator for me on what might be a differentiator.

Kathy: It should be privacy, but you’re right. It will be advertising.

Sean: And you know, there could be some innovation that none of us have heard of which Google can come up with, and it gets us all over here.

Adam: Yeah. My answer would be it seems inevitable that through evolution it would be slightly better, probably slightly more users than Facebook, but still it doesn’t have that much of a lifeline beyond that. Maybe they get to be the biggest for three to five years. But the good news that you guys were hinting at is that the internet is designed to be distributed, designed to be a very competitive feature dish or evolutionary soup, right? So the best thing, hopefully – my opinion is that the next best thing always has a fighting chance. So who knows what will happen:

Sean: You know what’s interesting? Everybody talks about it being a Facebook killer – and this is funny coming from me, being a Twitter guy – but to be honest, Twitter is getting less time from me because of Google, more so that Facebook is. I don’t know why – I guess I just find this a little bit more appealing because it’s new and it’s fresh. But I find myself going to Facebook, going to Google, and then Twitter, or Google, Facebook, then Twitter.

Kathy: Well, but Twitter’s niche as a news source is – well, Twitter as a news source is not going away. And if you’re using TweetTech, or if you use TweetTech well, for information density, nothing beats it, if what you’re trying to do is high scan, environmental scan, and what’s going on in the world. If you want conversation, then Google Plus is like Friend-feed. So Google Plus to Twitter is like Friend-feed to Twitter.

Adam: Right.

Kathy: It’s a place that’s Twitter-like, that enables a conversation that’s really impossible to do on Twitter. Why are you laughing?

Adam: I’m just imagining, you know, some of my friends listening in on this conversation, which I could have all night long about – is it Friend-feed to Twitter, is it – I think maybe a better question to ask is, If you had to pick one – but I agree that I love them all, and like Shauna said, I just find myself dividing up my time into smaller segments on each one.

Shauna: But it’s interesting to note that even Tom from MySpace is on Google Plus.

Kathy: Yes.

Sean: I think he’s on the payroll! (Laughter)

Adam: That would be a very smart marketing move, yeah.

Sean: I’m being facetious with that, but I think he’s spending more time on Google Plus than any other user! So he’s putting out brilliant contact.

Kathy: Brilliant contact! But Adam, if I had to choose, I would choose Twitter.

Adam: I’m thinking that would probably be my choice, too, because it’s the lowest friction. I mean, I don’t spend the most time there any more, but if I had to choose one, you get the advantages of the social network, and it’s a really pared-down one. And you get lightweight messages, and it’s public. I don’t know.

Sean: If Twitter could just evolve just a hair more, I’d be there if I had to choose one. But I’m leaning towards Facebook, much as I hate to say that. That will be the out-take from this video – I’m just going to give it to Kathy.

Kathy: And everyone will know that I was talking about Facebook!

Adam: Well, thank you guys so much for joining me tonight. I’ll let you go, because I know it’s getting late, and I really appreciate you hanging out on a week night. Anybody have any last-minute thoughts, or anything they wanted to say that they didn’t get a chance to say?

Kathy: Thank you.

Adam: All right. Well, it’s been great, and I will try and get this posted as soon as possible, so we can share it out.

Sean: Awesome!

Adam: All right. Have a great night, guys! Good talking to you. I’ll talk to you soon.

Kathy: Bye!

Adam: Bye!

Shauna Causey, Kathy Gill, Sean Malarkey, and Adam Loving hold a Google+ “Hangout” to discuss the new social network. In part one, we talk about the differences from other social networks, non-reciprocal friending, using your real identity, and segmenting your audience.

Adam: Well, thanks, guys, for joining me tonight. Joining me from Seattle, up the street here in downtown Seattle is Shauna Causey. She does social media for Nordstrom and a number of companies over the years, and she also is involved with a number of local causes, so her last name is very appropriate. And as you can see, it’s still sunny here in Seattle tonight, which is a rarity. So, thanks for joining me on such a sunny night, Shauna.

Shauna: Yeah. Thanks, Adam.

Adam: And then from Columbus we’ve got Sean Malarkey. He’s an internet marketer and entrepreneur, Twitter trainer, blogger – what am I forgetting, Sean, anything?

Sean: A father, a husband! (laughing)

Adam: Excellent. And then Kathy’s here tonight, too, from Seattle . She’s a senior lecturer at UW – University of Washington, my alma mater, in digital media, and knows more than hang-outs just in the five minutes we’ve been getting set up here than I did. So thank you, Kathy, for the intro. What she pointed out was that whoever’s face you click on here will show. Otherwise, it’s going to follow who’s talking. So I’m just going to click off, and if you click it twice there it will follow who’s talking. I guess it’s defaulting to Shauna or me. But anyway, thanks everybody, for sending me your questions. I wanted to have this informal chat, because I know a lot of people have been asking me, What’s the big deal with Google Plus? It got a lot of real big publicity over the last month – or it’s been about six weeks that it’s been around, I’m guessing. The first three weeks it had like 20 million users, the fastest-growing social network, or something like that. Obviously, that’s a little bit skewed because anybody who’s in G-mail gets the invitations from G-mail. It pops up on your screen, and your friends are inviting you, so it’s really easy to sign up. But nonetheless, you know, everybody is wondering, is Google going to kill Facebook, and what about Google Plus is good or better – what have we learned? You know, I’m a developer, so I’m very interested in what application designers learned over the last – it’s only been five years, if that, that Facebook’s been around. So I thought I’d collect a few discussion points and run it by these guys, who are the most bona fide experts I know out there. I know that’s a dirty word, to say you’re a social media expert – but these are guys who actually live it and do it and teach it. And so I thought it would be fun to just have a casual hang-out and see if we could make our browsers crash, because that’s what we do, on the cutting edge! (Laughter) So, first of all, the first question is, What is Google Plus? Let’s talk a little bit about how it is different from Twitter or Facebook, and the other ones. Anybody who wants to jump in, just jump in.

Kathy: Well, the first thing is, it’s not reciprocal. So that’s the really big difference – well, it’s one out of two from my perspective, really big differences. It’s more like Twitter in that you can follow or put in the circle anybody that you want to, which means that you can see their public stream, if they’re actually making stuff public. I’ll let somebody else go.

Sean: I think that’s a good observation. One of the things, too, that is different, is that it doesn’t have a messaging system, which I can’t decide if I like that or I don’t like that. But I definitely don’t miss all the messages that I don’t care to get. So, for me personally, it seems like a stripped-down Facebook, but a lot more like Twitter in the sense that you can, like you were just saying, you can follow other people, you know, follow their public stream and get their information. It’s not inclusive or exclusive, I guess, in that regard. So I like it from that perspective.

Adam: Great. So Kathy, you mentioned it’s not reciprocal. What does that mean, in terms of circles – because circles are the big concept in Google Plus?

Kathy: Right. So Facebook and Lined-In are what we call reciprocal networks. That means if I want to see your stuff, you have to agree, and then you get to see my stuff. So both people have to say, Yes, I know this person, or Yes, I’m willing to share my information with this person. Twitter – wide open, you know. Anybody can follow anybody. Yes, you can block someone. All that means is they have to go to their web page to actually see your stuff. You can’t stop them from seeing it. This is that same thing. You can put anybody in a circle. And you can send them a message. They don’t have to look at it. If they haven’t put you in a circle, it’s unlikely they’re going to see it. What I like, though, Sean, about the lack of messaging, is that it’s the same screen. So if I want to send a note like Adam did, to three or four people, you just put their names in it like an email. It’s the same screen as you do anything else in, and then you just have to make sure that all of the people that you sent the last post to, you have erased from that bar. And then you hit “Post.” I mean, I kind of like that.

Adam: Yeah. It’s worth noting that that’s how I organized this little hang-out that we’re having – we’ll talk about the hang-outs in a second – so I posted once, and then I just tagged six people who I wanted to invite, and only those six people saw it. And then we could correspond on the comment thread there about questions we should talk about, or who can make it, or etc. And then I posted again for everyone, saying, I’m going to have a hang-out, and we’re going to discuss questions. What are your questions? – to the rest of my followers, or the other people who have me in circles . And so, yeah, it was completely separate for everybody else, but one stream for me, which was convenient.

Sean: And here’s – just to kind of counteract that or go against it, honestly, I didn’t even see the post. Like, I have a lot of stuff that’s shared with me, and so I missed it. And I had to go to your wall tonight to find it. And if we had a messaging system, I probably most likely would have seen it.

Adam: Right. Yeah, I had a little bit of angst about that, because I didn’t take the step to go find everybody’s email and email them or send a calendar appointment. I was like, you know, did everybody see it? Did they see the time? And being that it’s integrated with my G-mail, it seems like that should have been easier, and that there should have been a check-box. And I have seen a check-box appear in a few places where it says, Would you like to email them? And they’re not on Google Plus. But since you were all on Google Plus, it didn’t give me that option. But Google is probably hoping that G-mail is their messaging for the social network.

Sean: The platform, yeah.

Adam: But of course, not everybody’s on it. And yeah, that did give me a little bit of hesitation, and I wondered if you all had received the invitation.

Shauna: And that’s actually how I looked it up. I just went into my G-mail to remember, Adam, what you said. And it was really easy to find. And I think that’s a key point, is if you are using G-mail, it’s a great experience having everything in one place, and you know, whether it’s search, whether it’s going on to look at what you friends are doing or share updates, and then having email right there, that’s one of the reasons I hear people really like Google Plus.

Sean: Right. That’s true.

Adam: So what are some of the circles you guys – I’m sorry, go ahead.

Kathy: It’s also one of the things that we have to be wary of. There’s this big mega-corporation across the pond in Redmond. Integration can be your friend, and integration can be an impediment to competition.

Adam: That’s true. Didn’t Google get in a lot of trouble with their earlier Buzz product for assuming the people that you emailed were your friends on the social network, which revealed some connections people didn’t want revealed?

Kathy: Yeah.

Adam: Well, what are the types of circles that you guys have built in using it over the last month or two? I’m just curious.

Kathy: For me the hardest thing was figuring out that I have two kinds of circles. So when I started out, I did my circles like I did a Twitter list. I did them by, “You’re an educator. You’re a journalist. You’re Seattle”, which is the way I organize Twitter stuff. But then I realized that there are people I want to talk to, and there are people I only want to read. And so I restructured my circles. So I have a set of circles that’s like a Twitter kind of feed for people who say things publicly. So it’s just a stream. And then if I’m saying something about motorcycles, I send it just to my motorcycle people. Or if I’m saying something that’s just about education or UW, then I have a little circle that’s those people. But they may be all clumped together in another circle that’s a reading circle.

Adam: I see. Interesting.

Sean: Yeah. I haven’t gotten that far.

Shauna: It’s making me laugh watching this, because I feel like it’s so mysterious, and now we’re all going to be looking at Kathy’s stream and going, I wonder what circle I’m in? (Laughter)

Kathy: Well, you were all in more than one!

Shauna: Well, I haven’t seen any motorcycle updates, so –

Adam: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking! (Laughter)

Kathy: Yeah, you’re not in that circle. (Laughter)

Sean: Do you have to have a Harley to be in that one, Kathy?

Kathy: Not a Harley, not a Harley. There’s two Harley’s at our house, a Ducati, a BMW, and a Honda.

Adam: Wow!

Sean: Wow!

Kathy: I’m not the Harley person. That’s Mike.

Sean: I’ve got a scooter, if that counts.

Kathy: It does.

Sean: Yeah, if you’ve got like a push-bike biker’s circle, that’s for me. But otherwise, I haven’t graduated to motorcycles yet!

Kathy: But, I mean, how are you guys doing? That’s been the biggest thing for me, is figuring out how to wrap my mind around talking as opposed to reading.

Sean: You know, what, I’ll just be honest, I have like three circles, and one is just a whole bunch of people that I added that were pretty cool people, but I exported a list out of Facebook, of cool people that I really like, and it’s about 600 people. So I put them in there. And the only other one – and I have my close friends, people that I hand-selected as I went through and followed, which is about 100 to 150 people. And then outside of that, one day – I like to post stock updates, so there’s different stocks that I follow and pay attention to. And you know, just like you with the motorcycle thing, it’s not going to appeal to everybody. So I opened the thread up and said, Anybody who wants to get in on this, let me know. And that’s been pretty cool. There have been about a half dozen people in there, and 90 percent of the people, every time I post an update, will comment on that thread, that are in that circle.

Kathy: Because it’s very tight in topic, yeah.

Sean: So I’ve enjoyed that. That’s cool.

Adam: So, any other nuances?

Shauna: Yeah. Well, I went out of control, I think. I feel like I need to simplify. I’ve got about 20 different circles. And I guess the thing that might be different for me, I don’t follow celebrities at all on Twitter or Facebook, unless they’re funny or there’s something unusual about them. But I do on Google Plus, which is different for me. I have a Celebrities, or I think I call it Famous People, circle, because I’m seeing that they’re adding some updates that I’m finding useful even though I don’t intend to connect with them. So that’s different for me. I do have a Funny People circle (laughter) and I’m not sure who’s in it, but just people who – if I just want to laugh, I’ll just look at that stream, and it’s guaranteed to make me laugh out loud. So I have to make sure I don’t look like a crazy person, looking at my screen by myself, laughing out loud! (Laughter)

Adam: That’s funny.

Kathy: You know, I have a Celebrities circle, too. Most of my celebrities are science fiction related – and I don’t do celebrities anywhere else. But yeah, I have found it interesting to see the early adopters in this space in that very high-profile – not the Ashton Kucher type, but yeah, it’s kind of interesting to see how you’re using this.

Adam: Yeah, myself similarly. Let’s see, I’ve got one big pool of following and one big pool of followers. So I’m just kind of trying to be a little bit scientific about how people discover me, and what proportion of the people that I follow follow me back. I’m not seeing the kind ‘return on investment”, quote-unquote, that I got on Twitter from following. But I am seeing that the more I follow, it seems to recommend me to more people. I don’t know what the percentage is – it seems like less than 30 percent following me back in its early days. And then I do have a circle for family. I love to use Google’s photo-sharing app, because it’s hooked in to i-photo. So I’m finding it easy to share with family, although only a couple of us are on there yet. And I liked Shauna’s comment about the funny circle, because for whatever reason, on a new social network, I’ve been more liberal with the cat and dog stuff. (Laughter) And it’s just doing great. Like, the internet always comes back to the funny cat videos. It was cats dee-jaying, and then I had one that was dogs shaking their faces, and it was super-slow photography, or whatever. And those have by far gotten the most likes and the most re-shares, and whatever. So, I don’t know. At the end of the day, it’s all just about the funny cat photos, it seems like to me.

Kathy: One of the things that I’m doing in terms of serendipity, or trying to expand the kinds of information that I get, is you know, Google had that thing where it made suggestions in the very beginning – “You might want to follow this” – I mean, I haven’t looked at that in centuries! But I went through and I specifically looked at women. Because I thought that women who are early adopters could be an interesting group of people to follow. And so I set up a circle that’s called “Following Women”, all right? And I might never move them into another circle, but it’s like a subset of following. And if then, when I see in the notifications that women that I don’t know have followed me, I’ll look – do they look interesting, or are they posting something – sorry – other than cats? I’m just not that interested in funny cats and dogs. (Laughter) Then I will put them in that category. And so I’ve built up – I mean, I “met” some amazingly interesting people that I would not have otherwise.

Adam: Right. Well, it’s interesting that – I mean, you’re a power user, obviously, Kathy – but that the way Google has structured it allows you to sort of create these social experiments and have your own circles and all that. I think that in and of itself is a fascinating fun pastime for people to manage their – you know, I mean, as a developer, another thing that people love to do is pick out their top friends and look at the photos. So if it’s an app that’s all about people, it’s bound to more viral and more engaging than others.

Kathy: And FYI on that experiment – I have a student who’s experimenting, and he’s been taking that Google Recommendations and putting people in a circle 100 people at a time, like in a big block. And then he’s doing what you’re doing – he’s looking to see, How many of them follow me back? The interesting thing about that is – because Google makes those recommendations based on other people in your network – Google recommended about, oh, I don’t know, 50 of my motorcycle friends to him in the same block. And so he added them, right, in a block. And then on my motorcycle list there comes this question, Who’s this guy? And before I had a chance to get in and answer, someone said something sarcastic about, Well, we know where he found this. So I got panicky. I thought, Oh, my gosh, did he like look at the people I’m following and check them off? So I went in and hid – in my motorcycle account, I hid who I follow, thinking, okay, I’m helping protect this part of my life. These people don’t want to be public. They don’t like this part of me that’s, you know, out here talking all the time. And then I realized that – then he told it was the Google algorithm. And I realized that my hiding doesn’t help at all, because Google knows.

Adam” Yeah, it’s advertising your social network whether you want to or not, based on the fact that you’ve organized it. Interesting. Great! So sort of on that note, one of the other distinctions – I didn’t quite follow all of the headlines a few weeks back, but there was a question of whether or not you’re required to be who you say you are, to use your real name. What was the outcome of that? I think it was that Google is enforcing this now, that you have to be that person, just as Facebook does. They have a team that shuts down accounts that look fake, or accounts that look like businesses. Is that what you guys have heard as well?

Sean: Yeah.

Kathy: That’s what they said. Was it last week – yeah, I think it was the end of last week – basically they said they hadn’t changed their policy. And I think their policy is wrong, and I’ve written about it quite a bit. And Facebook’s real name policy is a joke!

Adam: Hmmm.

Kathy: A joke!

Sean: Facebook is too big to even monitor it.

Shauna: I actually had one yesterday that was a fake account set up under an executive that I know. And I ended up being able to see the wall, and it was really – they were posting inappropriate things. And so I asked Facebook if they would take it down. They were actually using the image and name of the person.

Adam: I see, in their name.

Kathy: Yeah. But that’s not what I’m talking about when I say it’s a joke. I say it’s a joke because, like, when I’ve gotten spam on my Facebook page, when I’ve done things that may have been controversial, or whatever, the spam that comes through is from people who have made up names. And they have made them up in a very creative fashion! I’ve got some screen shots, the names of their universities, and all sorts of stuff that’s just clearly fabricated.

Adam: Right. With 750 million users, or whatever it is now, there’s no way you can keep up with them all. I mean, it’s a big question on the internet, is whether or not you are required to be a real person or whether you can be anonymous as a very different social dynamic. On Twitter, obviously, you can take on whatever name you want.

What if there was a Startup Weekend for music? Let me back up a second, then explain.

First off, what is Startup Weekend? Basically, a bunch of people get together for a weekend, pitch business ideas and form teams. Over the weekend, they refine the business plan by contacting customers and producing a prototype. On Sunday night, judges and the other attendees pick the business (team) with the most promise.

I love music. I occasionally experiment with playing guitar, writing lyrics, recording, and remixing songs on my laptop. 10 years ago, I managed to write and complete about 10 songs. Since then I’ve fallen off, and rarely do anything.

From my friends that have actually been in bands, I’ve heard that it is hard to find band members (especially those you work well with). It’s hard to co-ordinate practice time. And of course, it’s hard to make enough money to make music more than a hobby.

So, what if there was a Startup Weekend for music? On Friday night, everyone shows up at a venue, pitches ideas for songs. Then they find band members and knock out a demo track over 12-48 hours. At the end of the weekend, all the songs are played for the judges and audience to pick a winner.

My pitch might be…

“I’ve got some lyrics and a basic melody for a radiohead-sounding song. I’m good at laptop recording, but I’d like to work with a real guitarist, bass player, and maybe a female vocalist.”

Of course not everybody pitches a song idea, some are just there contribute and meet people. Those that do pitch must then recruit others to join their “band.”

One issue is experience and talent level. With Startup Weekend, this seems to work itself out nicely. Experienced players take on the big tasks, and less-experienced team-mates help however they can. Another issues a space to host this (presumably very load) event. Perhaps practice rooms at a local college would work.

I think the most important premise of StartupWeekend is the willingness to share ideas. With sharing as a premise, finding people to work with falls together easily.

What do you think? I’m not looking to host one of these just yet, by the way, but I’m hoping someone else will!