Thursday, March 22, 2012

CIL2012: Google Plus or Minus

J. Shore (@7shores) - who is giving an overview of Google+ (G+)

If you have a Google account, you have a Google+ account.
You can see Google Plus in the Google feature bar across the top.
What is Google+? A social media site incorporated into the Google family of products.

There is a public view of any Google+ account,
What you see on your page is different than the public view.
Shows people who are in your circles and people whose circles you are in.  Adding a person to your circle doesn't automatically add you to their circles.
Do you want everyone to see who you ar.e following?
You can do public and private messages.
A Google search will include Google+ results

Julie Strange (@strnglibrarian) - who talked about Circles
If you have an active community on Facebook, good for you!
She believes in playing with new technologies so she knows what technology is available to solve a problem.  For example, when the Dalai Lama couldn't visit Desmond Tutu for his 80th birthday, they did a Google hangout instead! (article)

Google+ Circles allow you to tailor the content that you are pushing out to a specific audience.  Use circles for internal groups or community partners.  Create circles for specific events, discussions, etc.

Share a circle with the people in it in order to create a closed discussion.

Google launched "Pages" for organizations.

But you should think outside of the circle.  For example:
Campaign for a story time.
Create a way of sharing resources.
Create an acount specifically for a book discussion.
Use it for your learning network.
As a travel journal for your bookmobile, author tours, community events.
Could be used as your blogging platform.

You can add the +1 recommendation buttons to web pages.  It is in tandem with Google' social search.  Allows your community to recommend you.  Put the +1 button on your libguides, for example.

There are privacy issues around social search that are not going to be discussed in the session.

Use Google+ to create a poll.  Allow people to vote.  Disable comments.  Cool idea!

You can disable sharing of entire posts.


Patricia Anderson (@pfanderson) - Talking about Google Hangouts

"Hangouts continue to be the bold new feature that can't be ignored" - Quote from an article
What is a Google hangout?  Video chat.  Often 3-10 people, but can be many, many more over the course of a hangout.
You can share different windows or screens within the Hangout.  Notes, sketchpad, presentation features.

Google hangouts are different than Skype.  With Google hangouts you can have a serendipitous flow of people and information.

Multiple people can type simultaneously in the Google+ notes.
Google Hangouts on Air - used for presentations
Could be used to do homework help or job search help.
Job interviews through Google hangouts.  Private hangouts.
Could provide services (e.g., reference) when the library is closed.

Tips - The slides for this session will be made available.  Check the slides for tips.

Joel Shields (@shieldss) - Privacy policy
If you are not paying for it, you are the product.
Google has a new privacy policy.
Big Brother is watch you and Big Brother is Google.
It is not a social network, it is a community network.
No APIs available for G+ yet.  They want the info in G+ to be created by humans.  People are thus curating the information.
Be aware of what th G+ Android app does automatically.
Nothing is private.

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