Google+ and the Galactic Social Media Frontier
Grace Notes Archive
Google+ and the Galactic Social Media Frontier
By Grace Caroline Walker
Originally published in 2013 · Restored for the Grace Notes Archive
Google Corporate Headquarters
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, California
I am 57 years old, a grandmother, an avid social media enthusiast, and an active blogger.
I started my first blog, How the Internet Gives Me a Voice, in January 2013. It was written in response to a LinkedIn article inviting readers to submit their own reflections on how the internet had given them a voice.
At the time, I did not even know how to create a blog. Because the submission deadline was approaching, I sent my response as an email attachment. The requester later explained that submissions needed to be published through WordPress or another established blog link. Unfortunately, my article was not accepted before the deadline.
That disappointment became my beginning.
Searching for a Place to Publish
I already had Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, and iCloud accounts. With my new determination to publish the article in a proper blog format, I searched one simple question:
“How do I create a blog?”
By no accident—sure enough—Blogger appeared at the top of the search results.
Twelve posts later, my readership had surpassed 1,800 views.
Woot! Woot!
On Facebook, I had 347 friends, at least one-third of whom were family. I linked my Twitter account to Facebook so that some posts could appear simultaneously across both platforms.
But this is where I began to see the separation of the goats and the sheep.
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ each appeared to operate according to different principles of personal branding, market strategy, connection, and participation.
LinkedIn: Professional Presence Without Full Participation
On LinkedIn, résumés were posted and friends and colleagues were invited to connect. Members shared articles, submitted endorsements, followed business leaders, and commented on professional posts. Former colleagues could reconnect, while companies advertised employment opportunities and recruited candidates.
Yet my personal impression was that LinkedIn often positioned the ordinary user more as a guest than as a full participant.
Until someone became a recognized leader within a particular field and attracted a substantial following, many meaningful doors of connection appeared open only to a select few. There seemed to be limited cross-pollination between circles and little visible call-and-response engagement among broader communities.
Google+, by comparison, seemed to master interactive community engagement.
Facebook, Twitter, and the Changing Social Marketplace
Facebook and Twitter functioned more as social marketplaces for personal interests, curiosities, immediate reactions, and frequently abstract sharing.
Even then, I believed Facebook’s analytics would eventually show that many users from their teens through their thirties were migrating toward the more immediate environments of Twitter and Instagram.
Google+ communities, however, felt vibrant, engaging, and robustly populated. Participants ranged from people in their early twenties to senior users like me.
The communities I joined included:
- How to Write Better — 195 members
- Blogging — 2,506 members
- Social Media Marketing — 6,458 members
- Google+ Helper Community — 1,768 members
- Google+ Updates — 42,619 members
- Caribbean Cooking and Culture — 515 members
- Buddhism and Meditation — 27,619 members
- Entrepreneurs, Self-Employed, and Small Business — 17,883 members
Through these communities, I suddenly had the potential visibility of thousands of readers who might encounter my posts.
Entering the Best of Circles
With fewer than six months of active posting and sharing on Google+, I began connecting with what I considered the pedigree of circles—the people who recognized talent, recommended others, and generously shared their knowledge.
One of my earliest and most instrumental connections was Chef Larry Fournillier, a fellow national of Trinidad and Tobago.
Larry had attracted a large and dedicated following. He introduced me to communities, helped me navigate meaningful connections, and guided me toward some of the strongest circles on the platform.
Through him and others, I saw a growing and nurturing expansion of followers, friends, circles, and acquaintances from every walk of life and from parts of the world I might never otherwise have encountered.
Among the experienced collaborators and generous engagers in my circles were Michael Bennett, Karin Sebelin, Martin Holmes, Mark Traphagen, Martin Shervington, Jason Hurtado Daniels, Jacob Travis, J.C. Kendall, and Ronnie Bincer.
These were some of the brilliant social media participants who taught, instructed, and educated others at every level of online interaction.
Tazein Mirza Saad was another regular contributor who shared gifted thoughts, prose, poetry, and encouragement with her substantial following.
The Gargantuan Reach of Google
The grasp with which Google had taken hold of the global social media landscape seemed gargantuan.
For a novice user, many of its features were complex. Repeated exercises and extensive use were necessary before one could become a competent or advanced practitioner.
I installed Google Chrome on my desktop. I downloaded applications and extensions for Picasa Web and other tools for sharing slideshows and streaming videos on my profile pages.
Google Translate allowed readers to translate my writing into their preferred language and allowed me to read the posts of others beyond my own linguistic borders.
I began developing a personal website using Google Sites. I attended Google Hangouts featuring live Caribbean cooking shows, produced in real time with virtual hosts and collaborators in different locations.
What had once seemed technically distant was quickly becoming immediate, accessible, and personal.
Google Voice and the Cost of Staying Connected
After researching international calling rates, I began promoting the advantages of Google Voice to family, friends, and colleagues with relatives living abroad.
At the time, Comcast charged approximately 33 cents per minute for calls to Trinidad and Tobago. Google Voice offered the same international call for substantially less.
“Beam me up, Scotty! Save me nearly 20 cents per minute on calls to my family abroad.”
That saving was not merely technical. It represented a practical way technology could keep families connected across borders.
Could Blogging Become a Source of Income?
Would Google pay me for mentioning the company so frequently in my blog? That seemed like a fair question to entertain.
I became eager to explore whether the AdSense dashboard would approve my pages for monetization. Skimlinks, an earnings qualification program, had allowed me onto its platform, although I still did not fully understand how blog activity would translate into actual income.
I was learning not only how to write and publish, but how the emerging economy of digital visibility might work.
The Galactic Technology Frontier
This Google-powered technological frontier felt volcanic and explosive in its penetration of world destinations.
Could we, as a community, fully comprehend the reach of a company permeating so many areas of social communication at warp speed?
Commercial space travel had not yet fully materialized, but Richard Branson was already sharing updates across social media about transatlantic engineering achievements and the future of Virgin Galactic.
It seemed entirely possible that Virgin Galactic would become one of the leading pioneers in that new realm.
What Was on My Mind?
Facebook routinely asked, “What’s on your mind?”
This was my answer:
Whether you write, cook, train, or operate a business that you want to grow, if you remain hesitant about social media, you may be missing an extraordinary opportunity.
I have been intrigued by this phenomenon, especially as someone over the age of 55. From my posts, as the old song says, “If you don’t know me by now, you will never know me.” Social media is relationship.
Facebook gave people an entry point to share their lives with established friends. Google+ is where communication and the building of networks involving thousands of people are taking place.
My Facebook posts may receive four or five likes. On Google+, my posts have been seen by approximately 1,700 people. Now, do the math.
We are often skeptical of the unknown and resistant to change, but we must stay abreast. Google Translate alone provides access to languages across the world. My writing can be read in English, French, Spanish, Swahili, and many other languages.
It would therefore have been no surprise if my Facebook profile soon reflected this expanding digital identity.
Looking Back
The language, tools, platforms, and possibilities described in this essay belong to a particular moment in social media history.
Google+ was later discontinued. Picasa changed. Social networks expanded, collapsed, merged, and reinvented themselves. Platforms that once promised community increasingly became governed by algorithms, advertising, and the economics of attention.
Yet the excitement captured here remains important.
I was not merely learning how to use a new platform. I was discovering that technology could extend my voice beyond family, geography, age, profession, and circumstance.
That discovery became the earliest foundation of what would later emerge as Grace Notes.
“The internet did not merely give me a platform. It gave me the courage to recognize that my thoughts already had a voice.”
Comments
Post a Comment