Google Plus is catching on. 11% in Canada

Canada has 11% active users

There are now 2.8 million people in Canada using Google Plus actively (11%) So by Christmas we should be seeing network effects. Already every other person who has joined Facebook is also on Google plus, but they are not active. There are even quite a few people who have deleted their Facebook account but most just sign into both places. I now have 333 followers on Google Plus and only 82 on Facebook.  I haven't deleted my Facebook account because I like to see first hand the tactics Facebook is using to get monies from people. I like their latest one -- putting advertising right into your stream and putting more and more ads up until you only get advertising on your stream.  Mind you, Facebookers can pay $7 / month to get rid of that kind of advertising so I guess according to Mark it is OK. What the users can't pay Facebook to make go away is their user's profile that they can sell to advertisers and that is where the 20 billion valuation comes from. I have been helping people who still want to be on Facebook install a cookie deleter so they can browse Facebook without Facebook knowing everything about them.

Facebook's Security Alert Statement got me upset.

A lot of people do not see the long term consequences of lying or cheating. Most short term thinking occurs prior to our 19 birthday, but with some men it may take until they are 25 years old. I was surprised to see Facebook resort to lying yesterday in order to keep their users from switching to Google Plus.  Their error pop up (see image) shows that the link you clicked on will take you off of Facebook's site and you might never come back so they have to warn you not to leave. In reality Google+ is safer than Facebook because it doesn't display 3 party ads. I realize it is a fight for eyeballs between Facebook and Google, but lying about the other guy's products usually makes you loose. I think what happened is Facebook was loosing a lot of accounts so they turned off the "Security Alert". A mistake made by a young CEO. I sure hope the walled garden approach by Facebook doesn't work for them. 
The making of walled gardens is archaic. It didn't work for CompuServe and AOL so why will it work for Facebook?  We need an Open Internet. I think the winner will be the one who includes all that the Internet provides WD TVLive will beat Apple TV, Linux will beat Windows and Mac OS. You can see this already -- the #1 phone sold is Android based. The #1 encyclopedia is Wikipedia. 
You know what the worst part is ... they blamed their lie on someone else, namely Norton. 

Facebook going public is what Google Plus needs!

Facebook went from being worth $112 billion to $68 billion in 2 days.  Social media isn't the advertising darling of the 21century, at least not enough to part investors with their monies. With over 90% of Facebook's revenue coming from advertisement and Facebook having to imitate Google in order to keep their audience, it will be a interesting play for dominance in the Social Media space in the next few years.
When Google Plus increased the size of the pictures in the post stream, Facebook had to follow suit but this means that Facebook doesn't have as much screen space for advertising.  Facebook only gets one click with over 2000 impressions and the smaller the ad the lower the number of clicks. In my mind Facebook will be another Myspace with just the younger generation joining and posting because of narcissistic tendencies and the sharing of pictures can be done on any website. My friend Roz is already doing this through her blog and she gets to keep the advertising revenue.

Ubuntu 12.04 versus Window 7

Yesterday I got to take a look at Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04

Here is my review.

1. Installation 
•  2 hours on Windows 7 - the CPU and Hard drive serial numbers have to sync
•  1 hours on Ubuntu - no entering in numbers from Microsoft
2. Setup
• Windows 7 would not let me install Chrome I keep getting "This file is not valid".
• Ubuntu 12.04 I had to do 3 extra setups
1. sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
2. Install the Google Talk plugin 
3. Install the Chrome browser and other games from the Ubuntu Software Center
3. Ease of Use
• Windows 7 now has the ability to know if a program is already running so it doesn't start the program again. Same in Ubuntu
• Windows 7 comes with 2 Virus Protection software programs that conflict with each other.
• Ubuntu doesn't need Virus Protection
• Windows 7 comes with Digital Right Management (you have to pay)
• Ubuntu displays website better now that most are HTML5 compliant.
• The customization in Ubuntu is twice as good as Windows 7

Microsoft has done a good job at keep people in the dark about Ubuntu.  1 year ago was the first time you could buy an Android tablet in Canada and you still can't buy a non Windows 7 computer in Canada. I hope my blogging about this helps you.

 

Telus texting versus Jabber

Sending pictures via texting doesn't work on the Telus network. Telus allows you to send a text to an email address, but it doesn't allow you to received a picture text.  We narrowed it down to it being a problem with their servers. Is Telus's walled garden approach giving them more revenue? I always recommend that people use the gtalk instant messaging program on their androids instead of texting someone's number.  There are two main reasons for this:

1. When your out of country you can still instant message without incurring cell phone bills.
2. Once you know someone's jabber address you can always video conference. 

Jabber is an Open Standard just like POP3 is and it has taken Telus about 10 years to join.  I am thinking it will take Telus another 5 years to join the Jabber Federation. Open standards are the key to communication.  

Facebook vs Google+

A lot of people are asking me why switch from Facebook to Google. Let me give you 3 reasons:
1. New members of Facebook can quickly and easily find their Gmail contacts, but it doesn’t work the other way because Facebook owns your data. -That is not right. Vote with your Login / time spent on Google+.
2. You can find new friends easier.  A lot of your old friends are now on Google+ also and by December we will be hitting network effect.
3. When you search Google more relevant (to you) data is returned.

200 Million Google Plus Users and counting

Today is the day Google+ gets 200 million users.  This is more users than LinkedIn and Twitter but still below Facebook. My methodology is quite simple. Search Google+ for the total number of users via this command site:plus.google.com -inurl:about then subtract the total number of users that haven't filled out their Google about page on Google+ via this command site:plus.google.com "has not filled * profile yet" -inurl:about 

223,000,000 - 23,900,000 = 200,000,000

This is a lot of users! I will try give that number some perspective.

• 200 million was the total population of the earth at the time of Jesus' birth. Now that would be one person I would add to my circles.
• 200 million is 60 kilometres of business cards stacked on top of each other.
• 200 million seconds is 6 years 4 months.

I have high hopes for this social network and I do hope that Google keeps it word in that they will do no harm. My methodology does need some work, but it is better than Facebook's method of just telling you how many email addresses have registered on Facebook (800 million). I know people who have 3 Facebook profiles.

We are long past the early adopters and are starting to see network effects in countries like Iceland. There seems to be a high adoption of Linux in Iceland - especially in government.

Google Plus is gaining 40 million new users per month

Is it time to dump Facebook and only use Google Plus? Personally, I have twice the followers on Google Plus than Facebook, but changing requires time and energy and are the benefits worth it. 2 months ago Google Plus had 186 million users now it has 266 million users (here), over 40 million new users per month or 21% monthly growth. Facebook has less than 1% per month growth.
I find it funny when people tell me "I can't leave Facebook because all my friends are there" when they don't have a Google Plus account. Maybe half of their friends are on Google plus and they don't even know who they are missing out on. I do find that with any social media it is a lot like reading the news -- if it is not in the feed you don't hear about it. I could go on about how much better the security is on Google Plus or how you still own your pictures / videos, but most people are convinced via fear so let me leave you with this last statement. If you don't join Google Plus now you will be left behind. :)

How to sell your Website -- G+ Badge

Last week I have been adding G+ Badges to web pages and then logging into Google Analytic to see the difference. Organic search results doubled. WOW! When you realize that it takes over 2000 ad displays in Facebook to get 1 click doubling your page views, just by adding a G+ Badges is a marketers dream. You might not even have to buy Ad words any more. A lot of the visit might just be from new people logging into Google+ and seeing what their friends are plusing. Or it might be the amazing growth of Google Plus, *Over 1.5 million per day*. One problem I see with Google Plus is people aren't forced to ad their friends like they are "used to" on Facebook. I encourage every one to at least add their Real Life friends to their Friends Circle. As in the example below.

Is Google+ growing?

I just learned of two ways of telling how many people are using Google+ 1. Total number of Google+ Profiles :site:plus.google.com -inurl:about 2. Total number of Posts :site:plus.google.com -inurl:posts If you haven't used the :site: command in Google you need to give it a try. Select the text and highlight, Right Click, and select “Search Google for” on these links Right now I get 186 million profiles, but probably only half of that are daily users. Yesterday I blogged about that facebook had 10 times more users, but according to Khalil only 9 times more unique users.

Google unveils Search Plus

I have been watching the adoption of google plus grow like wild fire. Today, I have 111 followers. I think the main reason people are leaving facebook for google plus is how facebook treats your data. Google has a contact export feature where as Facebook doesn't.

The circle way of controlling your news stream seems a lot better as well. But today Google unveiled the killer idea that is going to push facebook into the dust and convert a lot of "on the fence" crowd to post to both places or only to Google Plus. It is called "Search Plus" It basically allows for content from your friends to be included in your Google search. So if you want to be noticed either as a singer or actor you better finish filling out your Google Plus Profile. Every one knows getting hits via search engine optimization techniques is a lot cheaper than paying for every hit. It still will be an interesting fight. Facebook has 10 times more users than Google Plus, but the growth rate on Google Plus is climbing and it is now starting to see the network effects. If you don't beleive me read this.