Google+

For users who aren’t familiar with Google+, they think it’s the actual Google website. It is not. It’s a service, just like how Blogger and YouTube are. Blogger is Google’s blogging service, YouTube is Google’s media service, and Google+ is Google’s social network service.

People do not have to sign up for Google+. If they have a Google+ account and don’t want it, they can delete it. Once deleted, it will not affect the entire Google account. For a time, when new Gmail accounts were being created, Google+ accounts were created by default. I know this because it happened to me. (I often created alternate Gmail accounts). Since I was already familiar with Google+, I deleted my profile, stating the reason, “I already have a Google+ account.” I think when this default occurred, people probably thought they were stuck with it.

For a while, Google has been integrating Google+ with its other services, most notably YouTube, Gmail, and Blogger. Regarding the YouTube integration, it started with Gmail. Meaning, people were able to sign into their YouTube accounts with their Gmail information. Prior to that, people signed in with their YouTube username and the password they created during registration. I found the Gmail integration to be convenient. When I first started using YouTube, I had a Hotmail account. (Gmail wasn’t around yet at that time).

Now, they’ve integrated Google+ with YouTube’s new comment system. I think it’s better. It’s more clean and it shows comments that are more relevant to the poster and the video. It also shows a better threaded discussion. A lot of people don’t like the new comment system though. I guess they prefer to read hate, sexual, or spam comments.

Anyway, a lot of times when I read comments from people regarding Google+, especially from those who are not familiar with it, they’re generally negative. Also, they always compare it to Facebook. I don’t think they even take the time to explore Google+. They’re too busy having the mindset of Facebook. Google+ has a simpler navigation system and it doesn’t bombard users with ads that aren’t relevant to them. In fact, it doesn’t have ads displayed at all. There isn’t anything obtrusive either. Users get a smooth experience. People need to remember that Google+ is not Facebook. Stop treating it like Facebook. Explore Google+ before you say it’s too hard.

Edit: Google+ is required for the new comment system on YouTube. If people want to post comments, they’ll have to sign up for Google+ or connect their Google+ to YouTube.

Why People Won’t Use Google+ and Why I Use It

It’s funny how peoples’ main excuse for not using Google+ is that their friends are not using it. So what? My friends aren’t using it. I’m still there. I don’t always flock to where my friends are. When I think about it, even if my friends are on the same sites I am, I’m still alone. You can make new friends, you know… Unless your friends in real life get jealous. I do have a Twitter and Facbeook account (surprise, surprise), but I still prefer Google+ to those. I just happen to not post as much on Google+ because my posts tend to be rants about my daily life and Google+ is way too good for that. So, that is reserved for Twitter and Facebook.

I’ve been a member on Facebook since November 15, 2008. One of my friends invited me to use it since 2005, but I never wanted to. I eventually did for whatever reason. I’m mainly on Facebook to keep up with news regarding my favorite celebrities. Although they have Google+ pages, they rarely use them. That really irks me! The “friends” that I have on Facebook don’t even keep in touch with me. The ones that do keep in touch with me are the ones I see or talk to pretty often. Also, I keep getting those annoying birthday app and games request. Firstly, if they were really my friends, they should know my birthday or try to remember it without the use of an app on Facebook. Secondly, if they ever paid attention to my duration on Facebook, they should notice that it’s usually within 5-10 minutes. That’s not enough time to play the games on there, surely. At times, I don’t even log on for weeks. That should be a clue that I’m not using it as much. The only time I’m on Facebook for a long while is when I’m looking through my timeline for something I’ve posted because I want to post it elsewhere. Of course, during this instance, a friend might see that I’m online and send a chat my way. I’ll either chat for a bit or ignore it completely and sign off.

As for Twitter, I joined in March 2011. I wasn’t all that interested in joining Twitter either. I did so for promotional purposes. I was promoting my blog as well as my friend’s YouTube channel. My tweets were pretty much just linking my blog entries and I thought that looked too much like spam, so I started tweeting random stuff. Then, I started following my favorite celebrities and YouTube celebrities. As for helping my friend promote her YouTube, I actually created another account because she wanted me to follow back fans who’ve followed her. She made a Twitter account for her channel and my other Twitter is an affiliate of it. Of course, when I followed other fans, their tweets became annoying. If they tweeted something worth reading, I wouldn’t mind. Every day, there’d be hundreds or thousands of tweets saying, “Follow me, follow me.” Those get annoying after the first five.

I’m not a newbie when it comes to social networking/web community sites. I’ve been on a few throughout the years. The first social network/web community I’ve joined was in 2003. They sites I’ve been a member at were Are You Khmer (the name was changed to Khmer Life), Asian Avenue (is now a dating site), Xanga, Friendster (was bought by a Chinese businessman in China), Nu Tang, Gaia Online, MySpace, YouTube, Khmer Connection, Khmer Future, Khmer City, Khmer Dynasty, hi5, Anime Fever, Veoh, Daily Motion, Vimeo, My Yearbook (now called Meet Me), Khmer Honor, Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, Tumblr, and now I’m on Google+. There were a few more along the way whose names I’ve forgotten. Out of all the ones I’ve been on, I like Google+ the best. It’s still fairly new and people aren’t giving it a chance. They keep saying it won’t last. People have Google emails. They use YouTube. They have Blogger accounts. Videos can be uploaded to your Google+ and YouTube, or it is linked together (meaning your YouTube videos show up in your Google+ videos). Photos can be uploaded. Songs can be uploaded. In fact, you can upload 20,000 songs to Google Play for free. Just to show a comparison, Amazon lets you upload the first 250 songs for free and for $24.99/year, you can upload 250,000 songs.

Ok, my point in all of this is that I don’t get those annoyances on Google+. Well, not yet anyways. I don’t think I will be annoyed because people on Google+ seem to post about things that actually matter or have some kind of relevance to something. Google+ is convenient because when I sign into it, I’m also linked to my YouTube, blog, Gmail, and whatever other Google services I use or haven’t used. I don’t have to sign a few different times. It’s convenient for sharing too. The navigation also happens to be simple and straightforward. If that were too difficult, there are even icons to go along with the text.

*Note – I had to put the label as “Google Plus Hangout” because it didn’t recognize “Google+” as a label. Posts weren’t showing up.*

Khmer Finest

Site: khmerfinest.com
Facebook page: Khmer Finest Facebook

Khmer Finest is a new Khmer (Cambodian) social web community that an online friend of mine created. It was created on April 2, 2011, but was founded a few years ago. The creator of this site also created Khmer Dynasty and Anime Fever, which I blogged about before. The Khmer Finest’s web address served as an alternate address/URL redirect link to Khmer Dynasty in the past. Now, it’s a standalone site. Everyone can join. It’s not just limited to Cambodians. The main focus of the site is interaction of members as well as entertainment. Since it is relatively new as a standalone site, it’s pretty much still in BETA phase. Everything is functional and there are some members who have signed up to test the site. More features will be added later. If you’re interested in Khmer culture or just want a place to hang out besides the most popular places then stop in by Khmer Finest.

Khmer Dynasty

Site: khmerdynasty.com

A few days ago, I blogged about a site called Anime Fever, in which my online friend created. He also created a site called Khmer Dynasty. It was also created in 2005, or maybe even earlier. Like Anime Fever, Khmer Dynasty was also on hiatus for a few years.

Khmer Dynasty is a small Cambodian Community forum site. Everyone can join. It’s not just limited to Cambodians. The site offers Khmer news, member blogs, member homepages, a photo gallery, forums, information about Cambodia, and has a shoutbox. Some other features it had were Khmer music and a game section. Both these sections are possibly gone due to the lack of a database backup.

A lot of the site has to be updated and fixed, so I’m sure there are other features that I didn’t mention. Well, if you’re interested in Khmer (Cambodian) culture or just want a place to hang out besides the most popular places, then visit Khmer Dynasty.

Anime Fever

Site: animefever.net

An online friend of mine created a site called Anime Fever a few years ago. I believe the site was originally created in 2005, but he didn’t really do much to it at the time. A year or so later, he asked me if I wanted to be the Administer on the site to help get it rolling. Some years later, we had another person join the Administrative staff. There was another site with the same name except a different extension. The other site was a .org extension. I just wanted to clear that up because people always confused those two sites. However, the name/link of that other site has been changed to animeboy.org, so I guess there won’t be anymore confusion.

Anyway, my friend’s Anime Fever site was a small forum community site for people who like Anime and Manga. It was a rather quiet site though and had been on a hiatus for some years. I think we failed to bring in members because it was just a discussion site. I know most people hoped to watch free Anime and read free Manga. However, that couldn’t be offered on the site as we didn’t want any legal issues.

Although we were a relatively unknown site, it was possible to still attract trouble. We had a photo gallery and some puzzle games. We had Anime information that included the titles, summaries, characters’ photos, and characters’ description. We also planned on writing reviews. As the years went by, the owner, my online friend, didn’t have the time to manage the site anymore due to school. That was why the site was on hiatus. I’ve visited various sites that are forum based and always see people who are interested in Anime. However, I couldn’t even bring them to visit the site. It’s always hard to maintain a site because users are what make a site successful. We did have about 30-50 visitors a day, but that wasn’t enough. We’ve had a few active forum posters, but sometimes they drifted away.

I just wanted to mention this site. If any of you like Anime and Manga, maybe you can join the site and help make it more lively. We’d love to hear your ideas!

Kanye West Will Let You Finish

As you may know, recently there was a lot of buzz regarding how Kanye West disrespected Taylor Swift. The little “rant” that he said to Taylor is garnering a lot of parodies. I read my brother’s blog and he linked a site that had the parodies. I’ve included the link below.

Website: http://imaletyoufinish.com

The parodies are in picture format with a funny Kanye rant like caption. I just submitted a picture there a few moments ago. I thought the parody pictures were funny, so I made one of my own. This was the one I made:

Anyway, I just thought I’d mention that. I may make more later on if I could think about some funny ones.