Website Design:

Facebook Apps:

Website Design:

“Instead of having to go to the bottom of your wall and clicking more. Imagine expressing the story of your life where you have all the recent stuff that you’ve done, and then all the most important and meaningful things from you’re life are highlighted and called out for you to see right there.” Zuckerberg explained.

My first reaction was this is a cool idea, but do people really want to see all that. Then it hit me, what if you build this Timeline of yourself, a scrapbook of your entire life on Facebook if you will, and it stayed there even after you died. What if my great great grandfather or a historical figure had something like this available to them, a virtual diary/scrapbook and I was able to somehow view it now? That would be pretty powerful. It would be our online autobiographies, and a way for all of us to live on forever in the virtual world. A history of our existance, a record of who we are, and who we were.

But will people really take the time to curate their lives on their Facebook profile? Do we really want to be an open “book” in that way. Yes we can control what we share and who can see it, but the whole point of the new changes to Facebook is to share our life past and present. I guess with a new generation this will eventually become second nature. Won’t more and more generations just share their lives from an early age online? But we have to admit at this point it still gives all of us a bit of an uneasy feeling. Who do we limit this information to. What could people do with this information? Not to mention where do you draw the line from spending time sharing and interacting online, with actually living and interacting in the real world?

The other thought that came to mind was in the context of the Social Networking battle between Facebook and Google+, this really is a genius move on Facebook’s part. If people take the time and energy and invest it in curating their entire history of existence on Facebook, they will be even less likely to quit using Facebook and switch over to Google+ or any other service that comes along. I mean, we are already overloaded with social networking, we aren’t going to take the time to redo the story of our life on every site that comes along.

I know I’m torn, and it will be extremely interesting to see how users react to these major changes. Are we ready to invest even more of our lives and go all in and put our entire history of existence on Facebook? If so, I guess then years from now our kids, kids, kids could find out directly from us what our taste in music, art, and food was like. Well that, or they could at least see what our high score on Angry Birds was in 2011. Guess it depends on how seriously we take ourselves online and off.

Facebook Design:

Website Design:

Facebook Design:

I am too.

Check out some of the other celebrities that are on Google+:

+Mark Hoppus
https://plus.google.com/106086121009771648314/posts

+Alyssa Milano
https://plus.google.com/118254993345625377660/posts

+Mark Zuckerberg (It really is him, it’s been confirmed, and ironically he is the most followed Google+ user)
https://plus.google.com/104560124403688998123/posts

+Ashton Kutcher
https://plus.google.com/100300281975626912157/posts

+Pete Wentz
https://plus.google.com/111431694377519332046/posts

+Kanye West
https://plus.google.com/114559689060216093873/posts

Know any others that you’re pretty sure it’s really them? Post them in the comments.

Now that I’ve managed to score the elusive Google+ invite and check the service out first hand, I have to admit… I was surprised. Mostly, because it really isn’t a complete rip off of Facebook as most would assume. Yes, Mark Zuckerberg is right. Google+ is validation of Facebooks vision. But as it’s been pointed out… Facebook was validation of Myspace’s vision, and look at Myspace now.

I found with Circles, Google+ is making it easier to share different content with the right people I intend it to be seen by. Yes, Facebook has lists, but it’s not as easy and upfront as Circles. For me it’s powerful to be able to separate with ease what’s appropriate for people I have a professional relationship with, and what’s appropriate for those I joke around with. It’s sharing in the same way we do everyday. We don’t have the same type of relationship with each person we interact with, so why should we with our social networks? It’s not a totally new concept but it is emphasized in Google+.

Hangouts is a cool feature allowing you to video with up to 10 people and even watch Youtube videos. Even though Facebook launched one on one video chat, the two are completely different concepts. I already use one on one video chat in Gmail quite a bit, so as soon as I installed Facebook’s video chat I tested it, but other than that I don’t see myself using it much. Where Hangouts is different is that it gives you the ability to do just that, hang out, bump into and interact with your people online.

Despite all of these features, where I feel Google+’s real advantage over Facebook is expectations. Google+ has the ability to change and adapt without as much scrutiny, because people aren’t invested yet the way they are in Facebook. This, coupled with Google’s interest in user feedback is what I believe make it the first real threat to Facebook. After all, I’ve always felt when Google launches a new product it’s like they are running it by me. With Facebook I feel like they are telling me what I want. That being said, after I post this blog, I’ll make sure I update my Facebook Status, not my Google+ Stream. Wonder how much that will change in a year?