Let's get the circles right

My main frustration with Twitter, Facebook and now Google+ is that my feeds/streams become clogged with irrelevant (to me) twaddle. I had hoped with the potential of Google+ to easily pigeonhole people into multiple  circles that some more thoughtful sharing of messages might occur.

I have circles for Android, Australians, Family, Friends, Education, Genealogy, Libraries and Strangers. I am so pleased that I have been able to connect with a number of genealogists that I have met online and know by reputation. These people I just pop into the genealogy circle and try to post into their streams only things that can be related to genealogy. Other genealogists with whom I have a more personal relationship I have also added to my friends circle so they can hear my news of new babies, great meals, frustrations with my elderly mother and weather reports. I do not share Android news with all genealogists, many of whom are Mac disciples, as I am not into conversion but collaboration with folk with a shared interest.

Google+ allows us to share but it also gives us the ability to share judiciously and easily. I  am concerned that as Google+ grows its potential for real collaboration will suffer because people are not thinking before they post.

Whether we are writing  fiction, a blog post, a science report or a news article one of the first things we must do before putting pen to paper is to identify and think about our audience. If we apply that to our use of Google+ we will have a powerful tool.

Now it's time to turn my attention to my Mum :-))

Genealogists meet on Google+

In not quite two days I have developed a circle of  22 genealogists on Google+. That's certainly not up to the number I connect with on Facebook and Twitter but is encouraging.

I have organised the 43 people in my circles into a number of groups: Australian, Education, Family, Friends, Genealogy and Libraries as these reflect my interests. I had an IT circle but deleted that because everyone  in the circles shares an interest in technology and social media. Some people are in one circle, some in more and one is in four circles. ie Australian, Education, Genealogy and Libraries (I wonder who that is, Sharon?).

The major benefit this has over my one Twitter account is being able to target my communications to a particular group and not clog up their streams with too much irrelevant stuff. If something from one of my Education mates that will be of interest to my other mates appears in my stream then I can share it appropriately and so on; just as I did this morning with this video about Google+ circles.



I have tweaked my public profile so that people looking for contacts with similar interests should be able to find me. Just as with other Social Networks when someone adds me to one of their circles I take a look at who else they have added to seek new contacts.

I am pleased that a number of people I invited: Shelley from Twigs of Yore, Tanya Honey, Sharon Brennan, Pru Mitchell, Thomas MacEntee and  Amy Coffin accepted my invitations to join. I also found Drew Smith whom I had met at Rootstech 2011 and Tami Glatz whose Relatively Curious blog I follow. I follow Dusty Rhoades  and Andrew Kemp on Twitter and now on Google+. Australians Shauna Hicks and Stephen Phillips were members of Google+ before me. Of course, most important, is Banai Feldstein who made it possible for me to join. Members of my family have also joined; I wonder if they will enjoy the genealogy posts I send their way?

I have installed the Android Google+ app on my Galaxy tablet. Although I prefer the interface on the desktop  I am quite happy to use the tablet. The tablet does have one feature, Huddle, that does not appear to be in the desktop app. Shelley has set up a Huddle for The Galaxy Girls as a tool for us to discuss our tablets and apps. 

I am finding The Spark function  relatively useless at the moment. I have set up a spark for "genealogy" but it is not returning much valuable information. The results when I set up one for "genealogy Australia" were even worse - that returned an article on Miley Cirus and one on Masterchef!

One of the features I am finding refreshing is that, for the moment, this tool is focused towards people rather than institutions. I envisage that I will continue to use Twitter to follow organisations and commercial bodies, Facebook to follow friends and organisations who are not so into social networking and Google+ to follow my contacts from genealogy, educations and libraries with an interest in social media.

I hope that this venture is successful so, as I did with Google Wave, I am giving it a go. I do have a few invitations to hand out to genealogists who are committed to giving Google+ a  rigorous tryout.