Google Buzz

Having just spent the whole day syncing various corporate PR videos and apps onto lots of Apple iTouch devices (not for fun, but for a large multinational company’s annual conference in case you were wondering), I came back home to a googlemail account that was covered with this “supposedly exciting” message and uninspiring logo:

I had just read about Google deciding to “invade” (or should that be join) the over-burgeoning world of social networking gone mad. I actually read about it on Twitter and even though it did excite me for about 10 nanoseconds I did start to wonder how I could fit yet another social networking site into my already social network crammed life. And I don’t even have a job (yet).

I do love the internet, the web and all things tech, but even I have my limits (which will surprise many). That said I obviously joined, as I already have a Gmail account so I was already Buzzed up anyway. I am intriugued to see who will come out on top in the Social networking wars (here’s me hyping the mundane up again). I personally like Twitter the most as it basically gives me access to lots of links on articles about Technology, Culture, Politics and the news from a wide variety of sources. It would take me ages to trawl through all these various news and story providers but Twitter makes the job easier. I can also access it via my iPhone, and, not to put too crude a point to all this, since I spend a lot fo my time on the loo (I couldn’t think of a more sophisticated way to mention this) Twitter on my iPhone means I have access to the world and all its different events from different angles in the one place I need it the most. What else would I do on the toilet? I am always loathe to take a good book in there as books are sort fo sacred to me, and it would be like defiling literature. Anyway, my Irritable Bowel Syndrome problems aside, social networking does serve a useful purpose in my life, given my specific lifestyle. Yet even I don’t spend that much time locked away from civilisation to be able to go through every Plurk, Tweet, Facebook status update, Flickr update or Buzz that comes my way. I wish I did. I really love the way that social networking on the web connects like minded people who would otherwise never meet as they are separated by geography and other traditional barriers.

I was planning to write a blog post about social networking anyway, before all this Buzz commentary. The angle I planned to take was to discuss why I have more than one Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail account and how that connects with the myriad of different aspects of my personality. Social networking and the web in general allows me to share different parts of my life and personality with a diverse range of very different people. This gives me and my thoughts a great deal of freedom to express themselves. If I did not have this option all my thoughts would fester deep within me, like a swirling vortex of pent up frustrations, boiling and bubbling with rage until they erupted and offended all around me.

So maybe buzzing in addition to tweeting may help keep me a sane, normal, and probably more dull person in real life?

Who knows, I probably won’t have the time to even update my Facebook status with the fact that I am buzzing about twitter.

A lot of people have commented on how social networking has become overbearing and gone into overkill. To an extent I agree about the overbearing comment.  With all the social networking sites around one could spend all day every day just reading status updates (half of which are exaggerated half truths or designed to project a specific self image people want to create). I am already singed up for Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, Moolto, MSN Live, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, WordPress, Blogger, Library thing and Goodreads! They need one service that combines all of these!

I feel that it is up to the individual to act in a balanced and sensible manner (some might say I am expecting too much, given how humans often abuse advances in technology), when picking which services they use to communicate different types of messages and ideas. Of Course there are some geeks out there locked away in a room with wires attached to their internal organs from their computers who live for the next status update and electronic hit, but most people just use it to share their thoughts and ideas with like minded people.

It is hard to find like minded people who you click with in the real world. It always had been. Most of the people we are surrounded by are with us out of pure chance. They happen to be our neighbours, school friends and family. We have geography and maybe blood or language in common but often we don’t have much else.

Personally I have found sites like TED and Mashable to provide me with a very rewarding experience. I would never have discovered them were it not for Twitter. I have also got back into listenign to more music, and the joys of discovering new bands through sites like Spotify and last FM. I haven’t even joined MySpace but I know it has helped a lot of good bands break through. Twitter has also been a great place for aspiring and struggling writers to network with other writers and get useful tips and make valuable contacts. Like many things social networking can be a positive as well as negative force, and both those forces are at work in our lives.

I hope that I can find the right balance in terms of sensible social networking use, which I think I can, and use it to enrich my life instead of distracting me from facing life.

With all this in mind I will now post this blog onto WordPress, link it to blogger, post a link on Twitter, Buzz, Facebook and Plurk and check any comments on my iPhone, when I should really be finishing “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.”

Re education

In 10 minutes time the course advisor from Home Learning College will arrive at my house. His aim is to sell me his courses, my aim is to re train as a Web Desinger plus refresh my rusty Bookkeeping skills. The modern world and it’s ever amazing technology mean that I don’t have to leave the chaotic mad house that is my home to gain new skills that will hopefully help me get a job and start earning again.

Job hunting in this adverse economic environment, with all the ever increasing obstacles in my way, has not been easy. At least it has got easier to blog, with the amazing WordPress 2.0 iPhone iBlogging app. As my life is is a state of permanent chaos, being able to blog on the move using my iPhone is very useful. iBlogging is the way forward, just like iTwittering and the Google Chrome web browser with its spell checking facility that ensures my pots are readable.

With regards to my failure to find gainful employment, I sincerely hope the number of obstacles to job hunting will reduce as I keep trying to be resourceful and develop my skill set whilst staying positive in very depressing times. It has been anything but easy.

Last week my wife’s uncle died and I went to his funeral. My father in law is still in hospital recovering slowly from his major stroke. We were living in 2 houses trying to help my mother in law. That only added to the chaos. My daughter is ill with a viral infection, my IBS and CFS have returned with a vengeance. Money is running out!

Anyway I better go as the man is here!

iBlogging

It seems the etheral cyberworld of blogging has caught up with me.

I have been unable to blog for what seems like an eternity due to the increasingly ridiculous nature of my drama and crisis ridden life. It is in these circumstances that I find myself blogging from my iPhone in a spare 5 minutes between the consistent madness of my daily struggle.

I am able to return to the blogging world thanks to the amazing WordPress 2.0 iPhone application. I discovered it today and it has breathed new hope into any future blogging attempts. Twitter was always easier to update when you are running from one hospital to another and living in more than one place, commuting between them in a car that seems unable to not breakdown on a monthly basis.

Now that I can blog from my phone and I will try to blog more often. I have experienced far too much in a short space of time recently but some interesting thoughts have emerged from the swirling vortex of drama.

One day my life will become normal and no longer resemble a less humourous version if “Curb Your Enthusiasm”.