By David Cohn on MediaShift, Sept. 1 – This month’s Carnival of Journalism, a site that I’ve organized where bloggers can convene to all write about the same topic, was hosted by Kathy Gill, a social media consultant and senior lecturer at the University of Washington, who seized on the new social network that is Google+.
Still in its infancy, Google+ has been the topic of many-a-tech blog posts. As a former tech writer, I love and hate this stuff. Sometimes I want to slap Mashable right in the “http” and tell them to never do another “Top X Ways [name your industry professionals] Can Use [new social-networking tool].” If you are curious though, here are the top five ways journalists can use Google+, courtesy of Mashable.
Equally, I want to avoid speculation about Google+ vs. Facebook or Twitter, etc. It’s a valid conversation, but there is already plenty of it. If a Facebook executive has a sneeze that sounds like “aww-choogle-phluss,” the tech press is all over it. I personally am not a fan of Facebook and welcome my Google+ overlords. I do have a post in me about privacy, Silicon Valley speculation, etc. — but I don’t want to add my voice to that already loud chorus.
Instead, I want to write about Google+ in terms of everyday average use — both how journalists use the Internet and how everyday average people use the Internet (assuming the latter is slightly different).