Google being crafty to push Google Plus

You have to give the folks over at Google credit. They might have been slow out of the blocks launching their social media site Google+, but they’re doing everything they can to make sure it takes off now – and not everyone is pleased about it.

On Thursday Google CEO Larry Page laid out his company’s earnings picture, and at the same time bragged that Google+ has more than 90 million registered users. That’s more than twice the 40 million users Google reported in October.

“We’re very excited about the growth we’ve had, and we’ve certainly seen a tremendous number of people added every day,” Page said during the presentation.

It took Facebook almost four years to reach the 90 million user mark, but at the same time Facebook now boasts over 800 regular users. So Google Plus has a long way to go to catch up – which is where the creative tactics come in. Read more »

How HTML 5 will usher in Web 3.0 – and why you should care

HTML5The latest buzzword in the web world is HTML5. For web designers and developers it’s old news, having actually been around for years. It hit the news more recently, though, when former Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrote a public letter arguing that Adobe’s Flash was dead and HTML5 was the future.

For anyone outside the web design community this seems like a very industry-specific and technical debate the couldn’t be of less import (and interest) to them. A closer look, however, shows that this move might just usher in the next generation of the internet – with implications that will be far ranging and have an impact on everyone who uses the web or a mobile device.

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Memo to parents: Hockey is supposed to be fun

Between the World Junior hockey championships hosted in my home province and coaching two completely hockey-crazy boys – along with a few other things – hockey has been on my mind a lot lately. That’s why a recent column by Joe O’Connor prompted me to write the letter below, that was today published in the National Post.

The original column is a fascinating look at the numbers around amateur hockey in Canada and how the US is catching up to Canada in terms of the number of kids taking the game up and then sticking with it to go on and play at high levels. The writer gives Hockey Canada, and all hockey-loving Canadians, a lot to think about, but I thought there was one part of the discussion he overlooked. Read more »

Hockey is more than a game

Writing about anything more personal than my take on new technology isn’t something I’m real comfortable with. I tend to avoid anything more personal than bragging about my kids – or complaining about them, as the case may be.

But something touched my life last summer that stuck with me, changed my perspective, and inspired me to try be a better father, husband and coach.

A good friend of mine passed away while on holidays with his family at age 40. The story was covered in the media a few times, in part because Jason Turner was a hockey coach, and an overwhelming number of his hockey family came out to remember him.

But what those stories didn’t capture was just what an amazing person he was. Read more »

Google+ ‘Circles’ its killer new feature?

Google+ CirclesAside from a cleaner interface with no games and ads, the differences between Facebook and Google+ are not all that significant. Except for Google’s ‘circles’.

Google+ is set up so that when you add ‘friends’ you also assign them to one or more ‘circles’. That means you can categorize people into friends, family, colleagues, people you don’t know but still want to follow and so on. Read more »

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