Glass and Social Media

I've been writing a lot about the potential of Glass and things that could be developed for it, and a lot of my focus has been on Glass as the prototype for future wearable computing and Glass for special niches. Yet you can do a lot with Glass as is, particularly in terms of social media. However, even in this area, there is work to be done.

I now wear Google Glass most of the time that I'm awake. I've run into issues, from time to time, with it not posting to Twitter or Facebook. It needs to be a bit more reliable in this way. I haven't really used the voice to text to add captions. I just don't trust voice to text, or "Gotham boys two text", as my friends like to call it, enough for tweeting.

Yet as a social media manager, tweeting for many accounts, I wish I could easily select a Twitter account to send the pictures two. The same thing applies to Facebook. I'd like to be able to post a picture to a page.

Google+ has even more issues. Currently, I'm following about two thousand people on Google+. With Glass and Ingress, my use of Google+ has been picking up and we'll see what the latest changes result in. I've also made copious use of Circles to organizes things, so, when I try to share a picture, I'm given about sixty different choices of who to share things with on Google+ as well as one for Twitter, a couple for Facebook, and a few for random other apps that I've been testing.

Ideally, when I select share, I should be able to select the platform next, and then within the platform be able to select the specifics for the Platform. For example, tap on the picture, and get the Share or Delete option. Tap on Share, and get Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Path or Google+. Tap on Google Plus and then get my sixty choices.

On top of that, ever since Google+ came out, I have been calling for hierarchical circles. I have circles for Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, and a few other states. Within Connecticut, I have circles for Woodbridge, New Haven, and a couple other towns. It would be nice if I could set up Woodbridge as a subset of Connecticut. If I add someone to Woodbridge, I also want them in my Connecticut circle.

This could also be used to help people with lots of circles organize them better. For example, my circle hierarchy might be something like Locations, and Topics. Within Locations, I would have Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, etc. Within Connecticut, I would have Woodbridge, New Haven, etc. Within Topics, I would have technology, healthcare, games, and others. Within technology, I would have Glass, Ingress, Drupal and so on.

To share a picture with just my friends in Woodbridge, I'd tap on Share, Google+, Location, Connecticut, Woodbridge. Yes, that would be five taps, but would be much easier than scrolling back and forth amount over sixty different cards. Glass could be configured to make hierarchical selections an option for those people with much smaller numbers of circles.

In terms of getting the news on Glass, there is plenty to work with. For me, the high priority tweets, direct messages and Gmail messages seem about right for me. CNN news is pretty good. It comes up with a picture and a headline. If I drill down, I can share the story. The New York Times does not fair as well. They take up most of their screen with their logo, and only have small pictures and no text about the stories. When you drill down, I've not been able to find an option to share the stories. Generally speaking, I don't look at the Times on Glass and I'm thinking of removing them from my timeline.

As a camera, I'm getting to like Glass, but have some concerns. I'm never sure exactly what I'm aiming at, so sometimes my pictures come out off center. Mostly, however, I like the way photography works, especially being able to hit the shutter button, and tap on the side of my glass a couple times to get a pictures online.

A friend has gotten Glass and is apparently considering returning it. It doesn't do much that you can't already do with a cellphone. I'd take that a bit further. Everything I can do with Glass, I can do much better with a laptop and a DSLR. I just can't do it as quickly, easily, or seamlessly.

In terms of my use of Glass and Social Media yesterday, several photos I shared were retweeted. One person asked if my photo of Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman is the first portrait of a Lt. Gov. that has been shared via Glass. So far, I haven't found any others.

That's my Glass and Social Media recap for right now. What are you finding?

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