Have you noticed that a lot of Google+ users look like they haven't been using the service, or haven't made any shares? You know what I mean... you check their profile and it says "There are no messages to display." Believe me, there are quite a few. We're not all noisy.

It doesn't mean they're not active - although it does indicate they might be shy.

Your Google Profile (mine: http://www.google.com/profiles/louisgray) displays Public status updates to all visitors. It also will show you posts that were shared to a circle you were in. If you're in my Friends circle and I share to that circle, you'll see both Public posts and those sent to you... (Public + Friends)

So about these shy people?

While some of them may have signed up to Google+ and aren't yet ready to get started, or others are waiting for more friends to make the migration from older networks, there's a huge amount of more private sharing that you just don't see. 

One of the best things about this network is the ability to selectively share, just like in real life, so if you don't know me, I never have to see anything you share with your real friends.

Maybe the real note should be "There Are No Posts Shared With You Yet". :)

Have shy friends? Tell them to share as much as they want with the people they want. It doesn't all have to be public.


/via My Google+ Profile.

As the Web becomes more capable, running full-fledged services historically requiring dedicated apps, the option of a cloud-centric operating system like Chrome OS makes an increasing amount of sense. The old model of storing all one's data locally on a single hardware device and putting it at risk from damage, theft, or simply corruption or loss as one upgrades from machine to machine seems antiquated when alternatives exist. But there is still, for some, a gap in functionality, as Chrome OS doesn't yet do everything the typical Windows or Mac box does. Until today, one of those gaps was Netflix, the popular movie streaming site that democratically has made its way to practically every screen, from traditional PCs to set top boxes and even game players, like the Nintendo Wii.


Today, Melissa Daniels, community manager for Chrome OS, announced on Google+ that Chrome OS devices from Samsung and Acer now play streaming Netflix films, assuming you are running the latest system update from Google. Without any additional software, you just need your Netflix account and the browser. While this isn't dramatically different from standard browsers on Macs and PCs, it helps fill a perceived gap.


Without Netflix, I've been renting movies and watching them on YouTube, or from the Android Market, but film studios being what they are, not all titles are in every service at the same time, of course, and Netflix is far and away the leader in the world of Web-based feature film streaming, while Apple holds down its own space with Apple TV and iTunes.

The near-term arrival of Netflix on Chrome has been anticipated for some time, and could be seen with the latest release notes for those of us living on the Dev-Unstable builds of Chrome OS on our Chromebooks. But it's here. The wait is now over. It should be a great complement for the 8+ hours of battery life I've been seeing on my Samsung from Google IO.

I became a full-on baseball fanatic around the age of 10 or 11. While I remember watching the 1986 and 1987 World Series with my dad, seeing the chants of "Darryl, Darryl" in the first and the 7 home wins in the latter, 1988 was when I got completely immersed in the national pastime. Being a Northern California resident, the daily paper was full of exploits featuring the Bash Brothers, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, as the team won 104 games, losing only 58, for a .642 winning percentage. Canseco was the first to hit 40+ home runs and steal 40 bases. Dave Stewart won 21 games and Eckersley had 45 saves. The team was incredible.

After scouring all the boxscores, listening to radio broadcasts and catching the rare televised game, my dad finally took me to a major league game in Oakland. Sure enough, the A's won. Not only that, but Canseco homered, and Eckersley got the save. This same formula repeated three times that year, to the point, for me, only 11, I swore this was the way it always was.

Needless to say, I was hooked. Not just to baseball, but the A's, who I followed to their demise in the 1988 World Series against the LA Dodgers. The next Spring, I got the yearly baseball prediction magazines, and memorized all the stats. They're practically hard-coded now, with Canseco's .307 average, .569 slugging, 120 runs scored, 124 driven in, 24 doubles, 40 stolen bases (against 16 caught stealing) being the most obvious.

Now in the South Bay, and with the A's not exactly being amazing of late, I sometimes get asked why I am an A's fan (and not say... a Giants fan). For me, it comes back to 1988, and the beginning of the A's dynasty that saw them win 4 division titles through 1992, and 3 league championships, crowned by the earthquake-marred 1989 Bay Bridge Series against the Giants.

My wife and I had season tickets for the A's for 3 years until the twins were born in 2008, and we still watch as much as we can. But no matter what happens with this team, who Bud Selig seems to have little interest for, I'm an A's fan and baseball nut for life.

BTW - they are winning 8-0 right now.


/via My Google+ Profile.

Many employees at businesses are focusing on the wrong metrics and keeping themselves busy on tasks that don't help the bottom line - often for reasons like inertia, or because of bad instruction from a superior. In my role as an advisor for multiple small startups, as well as being a third party consultant through the work I do with Paladin Advisors Group, I often find myself talking with people who are frustrated with the bottom line, who know what they're doing isn't having direct impact to success, but continue to do it anyway.

For example:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Web statistics

Search Engine Optimization can be a false god of metrics. Web traffic and user visits can be addicting. Once a company experiences a level of traffic, or a rate of visitor growth, it can be something they don't want to let go. A slowdown in Web traffic or even a reversal can make them react by taking less advisable measures, such as spawning dozens or thousands of algorithmically-created Web pages with low value in an attempt to game the search engines. And if they get caught, as some did with Google Panda this year, the blame goes to the engines, not the people implementing bad behavior.

In discussions with one firm, they acknowledged the quality of the visitors through these non-human pages was pretty bad. Bounce rates were high, signups were low, and they really were not their target customer anyway. But the company struggled with the idea that seeing Web traffic decline, with a better focus on high quality content and visitor conversions was more important. They didn't want to let go of their numbers!

So we talked about what they really should be measuring. Was it revenue? Was it new customers? What about application downloads or signups? What was the right thing to be incentivized on?

User Counts

If SEO is not the catch, user registrations can also be another number that gets out of control. As most of you know, once you get a user, you can always list them as having been a user. So this number always goes up. But how many are active users? And how do you define active? Is this number increasing or decreasing?

Social Media

And don't get me started on counting Twitter followers and Facebook likes... given that social media is so new to some people, they really don't know how to measure success, but I would say it always comes back to the company's bottom line and finding real revenue users.

Busy Work vs Real Value

In my career, I've prayed to false gods of Web traffic and rote activity that occurs "because we've always done it this way". I've run Web campaigns that had little success, but could show that I ran the campaign as a deliverable I achieved. I've sent newsletters that few people opened, yet sent another one the following month. But where I felt the best was getting real new leads into our CRM tool (Salesforce.com) that led to real meetings, opportunities and revenue. Being able to track real revenue back to activity I had initiated or assisted on meant I, and my group, had delivered real value to the company.

So think about what metrics you are measuring. Are you responsible for raising Web traffic? Tracking Twitter followers and Facebook likes? Downloads? Users? Find out what you really need to show business momentum and success, and push on that. For praying to the false god won't work forever.