I started using Google+ for the job. Our marketing guy told me, it improves the search-ability of my post blogs if I am there with an avatar showing my face. I trust my colleagues they aren’t telling me stories if they aren’t sure. So I created my google account to be used for Google+ and started adding people to my circles. Created some for different aspects of interest. One for family. Posted some small posts about our product. Nobody noticed. Family wasn’t engaging either. They had more fun in Facebook. And Facebook was a place I didn’t want to go again. Ok.
I took a step back and started to read what other people were posting. Maybe it is not about active posting after all. It could be all about having links and getting perhaps new input for fresh ideas. Fine with me, so I spent some more time, reading, plus-ing and maybe commenting. Nothing more than yak-shaving came from that.
Nothing, until I got from a friend an old photo camera and started playing with it. It was fun. It relaxed me so I tried more shoots, more options of the camera, more ideas of my own. And boy! How joyful it was. So I started posting in Google+, half proud about me, half questioning why I should at all post my photos. They weren’t photos of a professional. Why should anyone be bothered with them? But then I thought, why not and simply clicked the ‘Post’ button.
While my profile was getting more filled up with photos, I discovered Johnny Wills and his #joinindaily theme. Johnny will post a theme, and if anyone would like to play along, he/she can post his/her photo complying to that theme. Everyone playing is doing it just for fun and simply adds to the photo the joinindaily hashtag for Johnny (and all the others participating to the game) to be able to find it. What a whole new aspect of fun this game developed in me. Yes the theme is this, but if all shared photos are indeed showing exactly this, what an awesome joy if I could share that other meaning. My interpretations of the theme seem to be of liking to other participants of the game? Or even Johnny himself comments on it? I am in heaven, saying to my self: Hallelujah, I’m clever…
Time goes by, a lot of photos get posted. A bunch of connections to other fellow semi-professional-photographers do develop. I read a good book. I am coming along well with my running and find a runner community in Google+. So I join it, plus the workouts of the members and start to post those of my own. So now there are three aspects of Google+ which interest me. My photos, the daily theme and running. Awesome.
More time goes by and at some point I found it boring entering posts for each training I participated in, or had to cancel due to injury. So… back to photos… And there was a lot more in Google+ going on than just the stuff on my profile or by Johnny. An awful lot of communities to discover and to join. So discovered, asked to join, joined, and then sometimes quickly after, sometimes later on left again the community.
But all good things come to an end. My positive attitude towards Google+ changed in a flash right after I red it too had been hacked. Don’t get me wrong. I know everything which is out there, and by out there, I mean the internet, will get attacked. Those things happen, sooner or later. Was it not Facebook, that admitted a security breach the other day? And wasn’t my Skype account which was hacked just last month? Or our company WordPress installation some years ago?
Well, ok. Those things happen. But sometimes you simply get fed up of reading or hearing those news and maybe tell to yourself: enough is enough. Better the system you have and control, then yet another portal which will get hacked eventually as soon as it gets popular enough to attract some more users. That being said…
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Quote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest
- I am perfectly clear in that I am not clever, or more clever than others.
- My photos are not professional, or more interesting than those of others.
- It’s hard recovering from an injury when you are in your late forties and was enrolled to run a marathon prior to your injury.
- Life is sometimes cruel, but most of the time wonderful.
- Let’s continue here, there were I left things when I started getting more involved in Google+.
Goodbye Google+.