The Failures of New Google Reader & Google Plus Integration

So, as many of you know, I was a religious sharer on Google Reader. It was my internet hub but they recently rolled out a redesign which eliminated the key feature of sharing. Basically, the whole internet hates it. Google has since responded to the backlash but I feel like they are missing the point of the reader community and content sharing.

Take a look at this video (which I incidentally shared on reader before they destroyed its usefulness). The key take away quote for me comes pretty early in Poole's speech:

It's not the audience. It's your context within that audience. It's not who you share with but who you share as and your context within that group. 

I've spent the last several years sharing a ton of content and creating an identity within the Reader community. I know most of the people I share with personally, but I think they would agree with me that Reader-Erin is just one part of the larger online identity which I maintain. My twitter feed and my facebook profile are both very different in and of themselves and different still from my reader identity. I'll be the first to admit that my Reader shares were probably the closest to exemplifying my offline personality, but I am not just memes, recipes, geekery and Juggalo documentaries. (Though Heather has many a time claimed that I am the internet).

I came to take a lot of pride in who I was within and to my reader community. I often shared new memes or viral videos not because I thought they were so hilarious or topical, but because I felt it my duty to my community. Almost as if I was the person in charge of letting everyone know that this video is going viral (though I totally ignored Nyan cat because I hate it and that shit is HUGE now). I like and enjoy cultivating and parsing all of these internet hate machine blogs/sites/etc for the best of the day not just because I get personal satisfaction, but because it was part of my context within my community. The changes to google reader have eliminated that entirely and moved it awkwardly into Google Plus (G+). Reader-Erin had a particular personality and context within the group that was active there. Now, my G+ profile is being forced into being Reader-Erin in a strange and unsettling way. The ability to create circles of contacts which can view particular pieces of content that I post to G+ seems like a half-ass way of creating community. Poole goes on in his Web 2.0 Summit 2011 speech to say, "We all have multiple identities. It's not something that is abnormal; it's just a part of being human." Segregating who I post content TO is not the point. It is who I am posting content AS. Facebook & Google Plus profiles are asking me to separate my contacts into circles and smart lists in order to satisfy my multiple identities but this really misses the point. I think reader is a particularly good example of how miserably this fails. As I mentioned earlier, I know most of my reader followers personally and speak to many of them daily through other means than reader. However, we have developed a robust community of discussion via comments and shares on reader that often never got spoken about in real or other digital life. Reader-Erin talked to Reader-Courtney/Heather/Matt/TJ/etc etc. The personalities they cultivated on Reader is who I was talking to as the personality I was on Reader. Forcing me to take something like my G+ profile, which is a reflection of my real life educational, professional and geographic history, and make it also be my content sharing identity is an ugly hack that ignores my content sharing community needs. My reader friends fit into many circles and smart lists. Having a space which was dedicated to who we were as content sharers and what we thought as those people is far more valuable than having to define who each of my online contacts is to me and if they are worthy of seeing the articles, pictures and videos I find interesting or relevant to my content sharer personality. My content voice was first in old Google Reader and the community that lived there. Not my IRL personality or extraction thereof that lives on G+. Content was indeed king on old Google Reader. New Google Reader remains a great way to aggregate and consume content but it doesn't have the true community element which made it amazing.

And now for some changes to reader and integration with G+ which make me incredibly angry and leave me searching for a viable alternative:


Content not being content first...
What content looks like in (new) Reader:

What the same content looks like when shared via G+:

What content looks like in (new) Reader:

What the same content looks like when shared via G+:

particularly awful! 

I don't know what the hell they were thinking with this... the beauty of (old) Google Reader as a content aggregator is that you could consume & share multiple RSS feeds from all over the internet in one window/tab/site (and new Google Reader is still a great content aggregator). Now when I share content to G+ I am adding to these mindless feeds of content that my new "reader" circle sees... they can't consume or engage with the content in that feed in a meaningful way. They have to click through which I am sure most everyone will elect not to do except for a couple things here and there. Before, I believe, the likelihood that a reader-friend would read the whole article (provided the RSS feed provided it) or watch the video or SEE THE GIF MOVE was much higher if they didn't have to click through or open new anything. 

No more note in reader bookmarklet. :(

Perhaps there is an alternative that I am not aware of (tell me, if so) but it seems to me that they have eliminated my ability to "share" content on the fly. I really liked this for sharing ridiculous photos I found or longer essays that I found via clicking through about a million links. I understand I can +1 this, but this doesn't get the content into my feed (as I understand it). Also not all sites have integrated the +1 functionality. SO DISAPPOINTING!

What's hot with people I don't give a shit about:

CAN I DISABLE THIS?? I DON'T CARE. I've got 92 different RSS feeds that I monitor and read to tell me what is hot on the internets... and they are all on topics I give a crap about. I'll do my own curating thanks.

Commenting and the Lack of Community Discussion

Email Notification of a Comment on Something I shared

Notification Center on Google Top Bar

I don't want a zillion emails saying that people commented on my items (though I am hesitant to turn this off because monitoring comments isn't easy in G+). I really liked the "comment view" of old Google Reader. It allowed me to see discussions and conversations developing on the items that my reader community was engaging with regardless of if I commented myself... Now it seems like I have to hope that I check older items to see if others commented (because notifications seem to be only on those items that you share, not others in your community).

This isn't community. This is just a mess.

Too Many Clicks to Share & Confusing Logic

Click to +1

Click to Share on G+

Final Click to Share (regardless of if you add note/comment)

Old Google Reader you could just 1-click to share. Or 2 clicks to share with a note. Now it seems like I have to jump through about 1 zillion hoops to share and it requires me to +1 everything even though all I want to do is post to my stream for my new reader circle to see... I am not trying to boost search results for these blog posts or have my name come up when you google shit. I just want to show it to people in a more convenient way than spamming everyone's email... SHEESH. (p.s. how great are my screencaps of that gif [look at it backwards]? Cheers to Courtney for finding it)


Hopefully, this will get better and maybe I will find a new space where I can share and engage with a community. Who knows. But for now, I am just so disappointed.

Some People's Children...

If I could fire people from life, I am quite confident that this would qualify as grounds for termination.

think before you tweet

In case you were wondering...

like a BOSS

A Same-Sex Marriage Would Offer Us the Opportunity for Two Bachelor Parties!

So as most of you know California made same sex marriage legal (w00t).
Here is a video if you were living under a rock:




With all that in mind, June 17th will have the gayest anniversary parties ever. A twitter friend of mine (cnelson) posted a link to photos of the gay weddings that are happening today. Here is that link. Some of the photos are really touching. It's an interesting look at the people that are a part of this political debate where the human element gets so often lost in mumbo jumbo. Politics and the bedroom really don't mix. It just doesn't make sense to me to try and legislate a particular set of moral values.

LOLerskatez!

...In 5-ish parts

Some things that are on my mind:

1. doctor visits and the like - I got back the results from my girly parts exam and I have a clean bill of health as far as that goes. I went to have blood work done on Friday which sucked a big fat one. It hurt and they had to stick me a couple times to find my vein. I felt lightheaded after a symptom of my squeamishness, I guess. I am never going to be okay with having needles in my veins (so IV drug use is out, sorry kids). I will get those test results back in about two weeks and we'll see about anemia, thyroid disease and all sorts of other exciting things. I also was diagnosed with fibrocystic breasts which is apparently quite common. I do not care other than it is apparently harder to detect possible cancerous growths in your boobies with this type of breast.

2. school - It is getting to be crunch time. I really need to start working on everything but I am just so damn lazy. I intend on dedicating the majority of the next two days to research and paper writing etc. but we'll see if I can keep on track. I have 3 final projects that are due at the end of this month. One is a rather significant research paper and I am going to do an experimental study. The second is to propose an online community and basically do some proof of concept work and research of the space while incorporating the topics we've been discussing in class. I have a clear idea of what I want to do, but I am finding it difficult to sit down and start writing down all of my ideas. The last project is for my tech class. He has yet to post the assignment, but my instructor has explained that it will be a PowerPoint presentation. This may or may not prove that this class is a waste of time.

3. social life - I've been doing some fun social things of late. I've to hockey games and random lunches/dinners with my parents. I have spent some time hanging out with friends in real relaxed settings. I really enjoy spending my time this way. But I am sort of realizing that my comfort bubble is hindering me. Earlier today I found myself thinking that I know a lot of people that are in relationships and that I would like to have that for myself. Then I inspected my thought closer and realized that most of my closest friends are all single. I know maybe a half dozen couples and can only count 2 maybe 3 as close friends. I feel like I am starting to prematurely worry about if I'll ever find someone and other sorts of down the road stuff. I fear my lazy attitude about all of this is going to bite me in the ass. The "meh, there is someone out there for me and we'll meet eventually" doesn't work if you stay home all the time... but I also don't want to meet anyone at any of the places I have been to socially of late. I am starting to think that LA isn't the city for me.

3.5. social life again - I am considering talking to a professional about my inability to deal with what I have come to call my Jordan issues. I have this weird set of issues that stem from my relationship with him. I keep trying to be what he wants instead of myself and all sorts of other bullshit. I don't know how to stop this vicious circle and feel like me again. I limit myself. It is truly stifling my ability to mature.

4. The Internets - I just want to put it out there that I have recently fallen madly in love with microblogging and Twitter. I started it a few months back but now all I think about is having a cell phone with a QWERTY keyboard so that I can text in my tweets with more ease and frequency.

4.5. The Internets v.2.0. - Read this Mashable article and the root AP article about Virginia public schools teaching internet safety. I am sort of torn on this issue. I love the idea of teaching kids about the internet and including safety and privacy and all of that good stuff in a curriculum. It is imperative that we start talking about these issues with kids early (internet=future, children = future, think about it). It is easy for kids to put their creative work on the internet and they should know about protecting themselves, their identity, their creative work etc. However, it kind of bothers me that this programs seems to be parental responsibility offloaded onto a school system. Howard Rheingold says [I paraphrase] that we teach our kids to look both ways before they cross the street and tell them not to talk to strangers and we must teach them rules for Internet use. Parents need to get involved in their kids lives. This simple rule applies for drugs, alcohol, sex, tv, internet, playing nice with other kids in the sandbox... If parents would talk to their kids about all of this life would be better. I also recommend reading Media Effects Research: A Basic Overview by Glenn G Sparks. It is easily accessible and informative.

5. interior decorating - I have been thinking a lot about how I want to decorate my future apartment (mostly because I haven't bothered to ask Courtney and Kate what furniture they are bringing to the mix) and I am also thinking about getting my own place at some point in the near future (probably sometime in summer/fall 09). I love HGTV and constantly think about how I want to decorate spaces. I for sure am having a red kitchen (if you know anything about my collection of kitchen things, you know that it is all red). I think I've settled on a living room scheme for now. I am working on getting a bedroom together but I worry that when I upgrade my bed when I move into my own place I will want to change my whole scheme (not that there is anything wrong with that, but money will be tight...). I mostly love thinking about the possibilities and not doing anything. This is the story of my life. Thinking and not acting, ever.

Stay Like This Forever

I am having a really hard time managing my time. Mostly because I'd rather sleep and do nothing than do anything at all. I am going to fail at being a productive member of society as a gainfully employed adult.
I have about a metric shit ton of reading to do every week. So far I have been able to stay on track and get it all done, but I feel like it is all that I do. (note: it most definitely is not all that I do, but it just feels like it)
I guess the real issue is that I feel like I get nothing done in a day, though I may read blog after blog and pages upon pages of readings. It is a strange feeling to deal with. It is odd how sitting at a computer often makes you feel like you aren't doing anything when in fact you are often doing a lot. And in the case of much of my reading, dealing with some really complex ideas and problems etc.



I am considering going to a piercer to get a second earlobe piercing. If I do I am going to have them put in my CBRs. I am a flip flopper on the prospect.


I recently started a twitter thing. I sort of like it, though it does seem like it is just adding to the plethora of things that I have to update. I don't want everything to become clutter. I like that I can update from my phone. I wrote about it in my response paper (see other blog) and, to summarize the beginning, I have developed a complex system of what kinds of status updates go where and why. It is a strange negotiation that I have made with all these outlets.