New Latitude Leaderboard adds points to check-ins

Posted on 21 February 2012

When I checked in to work this morning as I usually do I was surprised to discover a new Leaderboard feature had been introduced with the latest update of Google Maps with Navigation for Android. With each Google Latitude check-in you make, you earn points which are tallied to give you a total score for the week. Your score is then compared to others in your Google+ circles. The person with the most points leads the leaderboard. It would seem most of my friends on Google+ don’t check in too often! Early reporting on the ninja release are likening it to Foursquare, which I suppose in some ways it is (points and leaders). Of course Foursquare has a much more sophisticated incentive structure…

Categories: !Rapid fire, Desktops & devices, Geolocation & maps

I’m on the (Google)+ one list!

Posted on 4 July 2011

I’ve been on Google+ for half a day or so, so here’s my take on it so far. I’ve reflected on the key features Google announced the other day, plus detailed (quite!) a bit more I’ve discovered on my explorations. SIDENOTE: Before I talk about functionality further, please indulge a little gripe I have with Google+ a moment: why can’t I use Google Apps account for Google+?! I mean come on, I thought the whole new architecture for Google Apps rolled out late last year was supposed to sort this kind of shit out?! Anyway, moving on… Stream While Google didn’t mention it for obvious reasons, the stream is a crucial part of the Google+ infrastructure. Basically it’s much like Facebook’s News Feed. UPDATE 15 July 2011…

Categories: Internetz & the social web

Tagged: Facebook, Gmail, Google, Google +1, Google Apps, Google Contacts, Google Docs, Google Images search, Google Latitude, Google Maps, Google Maps for mobile, Google Mobile, Google Places, Google Plus, Google Profiles, Google Talk, Picasa, Picasa Web Albums

Google announces Google+ service

Posted on 29 June 2011

Over night Google (officially) announced the launch of Google+. I am yet to get an invite (if anyone’s got one, hook me up yeah?) but here’s some of the basics from the Official Google Blog: Obviously Google+ is designed to interact with the recent Google +1 recommendation infrastructure that was rolled out in back in March, but this YouTube video (below) details a whole raft of new features that make up Google+. At it’s core, it’s an attempt by Google to rethink their previous attempts to enter the social networking market. It aims to overcome some of the short-fallings of Facebook by allowing much greater control over how and what gets seen by who when you post. I’ll post more about why this is interesting and what it…