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Friday, July 8, 2011

google+

google+ is the new social network from google. It's in a state the call "field trial", a fancy name for a beta. People talk a lot about this new network. Everybody is impressed, looking forward. Even those who never heard about this before, maybe you noticed the +1 option that appeared in google searches a few days ago. Maybe you noticed the minor changes in the search interface.

I have some feelings about this upcoming google product. This will probably be a revolution in social networking. Let's see: take google's search engine, add gmail, add picassa, add google reader, add all the search results and all the google searches you ever made. For example: you are probably logged into gmail while making your google search. This means google knows what you are interested in. Then we will give then our friend, interests, pictures, everything. It will be a lot of fun, I bet, but in the end, google will know each one of us better then our own mothers do.

Just think about how much power does one have with such an amount of information. Then  think one step ahead: that information in the wrong hands. IT is fun, social networking are fun, but we should be aware of where the things could go wrong. I don't think there is any point in avoiding these network, it won't help, it won't because probably you will not be able to avoid them entirely. So what if you don't upload your pictures to facebook or picassa? Probably your friends will. My conclusion: no point in avoiding these "evils", but we'd better be prepared for the worse. Make worst case scenarios, think big, then maybe there is a chance the impact will not be so harsh.

PS: I just my google+ account today!