The app gives you access to Google+’s Stream, Huddle, Photos, Profile, Circles, and Notification bar. All the basics.

You can read and post to your stream, upload and view [...]]]> The Google+ app for iOS debuted today in the App Store. It really isn’t anything groundbreaking. In fact, it’s more or less what one would expect.

The app gives you access to Google+’s Stream, Huddle, Photos, Profile, Circles, and Notification bar. All the basics.

You can read and post to your stream, upload and view photos, create and edit circles, and start huddles. And that’s it. You can’t edit your profile. You can’t video chat. You can’t access Sparks…

My hope is that Google expands upon this app. It’s a start, but I don’t think this app will entice people to join the Google+ craze. It needs something more, something that you can’t get elsewhere. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

That’s the way it sounds anyway.

But it’s not true.

I don’t have any data to back that up, but really? Why would anyone leave Facebook for a brand new site that is still in beta?

Don’t get me wrong. I love Google. [...]]]> So… Google+ is here and people are leaving Facebook in droves.

That’s the way it sounds anyway.

But it’s not true.

I don’t have any data to back that up, but really? Why would anyone leave Facebook for a brand new site that is still in beta?

Don’t get me wrong. I love Google. And, I see a lot of potential in Google+. But, I really don’t see any reason to abandon Facebook at this point.

I can understand that someone might be fed up with Facebook, but are you really going to leave it, and the massive following you’ve developed over the years, for Google+. At best you probably have a handful of friends on Google+. Isn’t the point of a social network to have a “social network” of people to interact with?

Are you going to leave behind the countless pictures you’ve uploaded?

What about that game of Farmville you have going?

How are you going to know when you’re friends are having events?

How are you going to send messages to people that you don’t have email addresses or phone numbers for?

I could keep going on, but as you can see, Facebook still has a leg up on Google+. I hope that changes. I hope Google+ becomes successful, useful, and everything a social network should be. But it’s not there yet.

So, hold your horses. Don’t abandon Facebook yet. Let’s see what Google+ does first.

From what I’ve read, it sounds like Google has learned lessons [...]]]> I’m really excited about Google+. It’s a new “social project” from Google. Currently, as with most Google products, it’s in a beta, invitation only, stage. I have yet to receive my invitation but have been reading about the service through the tech blogs.

From what I’ve read, it sounds like Google has learned lessons from their last few product launches and is taking this slowly and deliberately. They aren’t rolling the service out to all Gmail users like they did with Buzz which proved to be a big mistake. Really, it didn’t bother me, but it caused a lot of privacy concerns, and people don’t look too kindly upon being automatically enrolled into services they don’t want, or understand. It seems as though Google+ will be a service you opt in to, which means it will take longer to build up a critical mass of users, but that’s true of any new service.

What I like about Google+ itself is that it seems as though Google is building the service around other Google products and creating new products that work together to fill the “social” gaps. I’m excited to see how it all fits together. I think it is a great idea and ultimately could be what makes Google+ a success. Hope I get an invite soon.

Don’t get me wrong, iTunes Music Match sounds great. Almost too good to be true. It’s hard to believe the Apple was able to get the record companies to agree to let them scan your music [...]]]> Did Apple miss the boat by not including music streaming with their iCloud offerings announced today? I think so.

Don’t get me wrong, iTunes Music Match sounds great. Almost too good to be true. It’s hard to believe the Apple was able to get the record companies to agree to let them scan your music folders and match the songs in iTunes for $24.99 a year. That’s amazing. But here’s my gripe, I don’t want to have to download my music to listen to it. I want Apple to host it, allowing me to stream over wifi, or 3g. Downloading across multiple devices would be a great added bonus, but streaming is really what I was hoping for.

Amazon and Google seem to get it. Both of their services allow streaming. Amazon will even let you download music you’ve purchased through them from their cloud player. Why didn’t Apple take one more step and allow streaming? If they had, their service would have been heads and shoulders above everything else. Instead, we’re left with something that has great potential, but isn’t quite there.

I hope Apple sees the light and adds streaming. If they do, they can count on having me as a loyal customer.

When you initially sign into the service it asks you to [...]]]> So, I got a Music Beta invitation yesterday. My bet is Google is trying to get their service out there before Apple can officially announce iCloud at WWDC on Monday. But anyway, I’ve spent a couple minutes with it and it has some potential.

When you initially sign into the service it asks you to download a music manager that will allow you to scan iTunes, windows media player, and your music folder. You have the option to have it add songs automatically, on a specified interval, or completely manually. I chose manually as I’m not ready to give it free reign over my music collection. The upload process can take quite a while for larger collections so music manager has the ability to pick up where you leave off if you need to shut down your computer for a while.

Once your music is uploaded, you can access it from music.google.com with your Google login. The web music player is pretty simple. You can access it from any internet connected computer or most smart phones. I was able to use it over 3G with my iPhone.

The web music player is divided into three sections. On the left side of the screen are organizational controls for your collection. Options include New and Recent, Songs, Artists, Albums, and Genres. Below that are various playlist options including your iTunes playlists if you’ve chosen to import from iTunes.

Along the bottom of the screen are your standard music controls: Play, Pause, Skip Forward or Back, Shuffle and Volume.

And, the main window contains your music. Depending on your selection you’ll either see a listing of songs or album covers. Pretty much what you’d expect.

I understand there is an Android app that makes the mobile experience even better. One feature that sounds pretty cool is the ability to indicate which songs you want stored locally and which songs you want to stream, enabling you to listen to music when you don’t have a data connection on your phone. Unfortunately I was unable to test that.

All in all, I really like Google’s initial offering in cloud storage for music. It’s very similar to Amazon’s Cloud Storage in function and look. As the service grows I would like to see apps for iOS and Windows phones, and a built in music store but we will see what happens.

I’m excited to see what Apple releases next week. Some reports indicate that they will not allow music to be uploaded to their service initially. That would set the Google and Amazon services apart giving them the advantage in that area. I think that would be a big mistake for Apple but we’ll see. They have a tendency to decide certain things aren’t necessary.

Gtalk users have been able to sign into AIM with their AIM screen names through Gtalk for a while, but this is the next step in integrating the two services. And, to make the functionality [...]]]> Google and AOL just launched this cool new functionality where Gtalk users can message AIM users and vice versa.

Gtalk users have been able to sign into AIM with their AIM screen names through Gtalk for a while, but this is the next step in integrating the two services. And, to make the functionality even cooler, AOL built a import tool to help Gtalk users import their AIM contacts. Pretty cool right? I thought so… at first.

Excited about the newly integrated services, I started to go through the import process. And, then I stopped. Why would I want to clutter my Google contact list with old AIM contacts that I haven’t really used for close to 10 years.

After thinking about it more, I decided that this integration really wasn’t all that exciting.

What Google and AIM should do, if they really want to integrate their services, is allow people to set up their Gtalk screen names and AIM screen names as aliases. That would allow the two services to be seamless.

Here’s the problem, with the new integration method, I’m not going to sign into AIM. All of my AIM contacts can now be in Gtalk so there’s no longer a need for AIM. The only issue for me is that my old AIM buddies aren’t going to know how to find me because I’ll be using my Gtalk screen name. But that’s a issue I’m willing to deal with.

I’m betting this will be the case for a lot of users. It’s bad news for AOL. The best solution is to move to an aliases integration, as I mentioned above. That would be a win for both Google and AOL. What do you think?

If you were to pick an email for the rest of your life would it be a gmail account? It’s popular now, and the company looks like it will be here for a while, but at one point everyone had @aol.com and then everyone [...]]]> Another friend (yes I have more than one friend) asked me this question today.

If you were to pick an email for the rest of your life would it be a gmail account? It’s popular now, and the company looks like it will be here for a while, but at one point everyone had @aol.com and then everyone had @yahoo.com.

My response to him was that it’s hard to say what will be around forever. Regarding Google and Gmail, I don’t think there’s a better option, unless you were to purchase your own domain. The biggest downside to having your own domain is that you’re paying for your email. To me, Google seems like the best bet right now if you want free email.