I’m not sure if this was the initial intention of Google when they launched their Google+ service, but by having all their key engineers involved and end-user facing, they managed to get to a point where they take feedback from the users and implement it as they see fit. Beside the feedback tool in the bottom right-hand corner of the site, their engineers also monitor key people’s updates and subsequent comments and give immediate feedback where they can. Google+ is now essentially a crowd-sourced social network and considering the alternative, this makes a lot of sense.

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I love reddit.com. They are a great community of people from all around the world, and when I saw this post today and then the subsequent comment I felt that more people should see it.

It started with a question from a 14 year old that red: “I was wondering if some of the older or wiser members of reddit would care to lend some advice. It could be about anything really. Just some tips or advice you’ve learned over the years. Thanks!”

The following comment, by Warlizard, just inspired me and I felt that I just had to post it here:

1. Make decisions based on what YOU want to do, not on what other people want. Following the crowd is easier, no doubt, but you won’t be happy.
2. Don’t ever close any doors through laziness. Sure, school is a pain, but you don’t want to limit your options by screwing around. Be excellent, try your best, and if you choose to go to college or not, know that it’s YOUR choice, not one foisted on you by poor decisions.
3. Try everything. You’re at a point in your life where the world is open to you. Just because you haven’t done something doesn’t mean you won’t like it and it can’t provide you with a lifetime of satisfaction.
4. Be kind to everyone. It’s easy to get approval by picking on those weaker than you. Avoid that temptation. Everyone deserves your regard.
5. Forgive your friends when they wrong you. They will. It’s part of life.
6. Don’t do drugs until you’re old enough to do it responsibly. The consequences of getting caught aren’t worth the momentary pleasure.
7. Wear a condom. Dear god, wear a condom.
8. Be kind to your parents. Odds are they love you and want what’s best for you. Alienating them will hurt them and those scars will last for decades (personal experience here).
9. If someone asks you out on a date, go. You never know.
10. Read. Everything. Get a list of the top 100 books and slog through it. Yeah, everything won’t make sense but you’ll understand the world so much better. Everywhere in our culture people allude to things that you just won’t understand if you haven’t forced yourself to become well-read.
11. Take every opportunity to travel. Seriously. The world is huge and you want to lose your provincial view as early as possible.
12. Get involved in politics. You may as well get disillusioned early.
13. Masturbation is fun and free.
14. Go easy on porn. You don’t want your expectations to be that your girlfriend is going to go ass-to-mouth and then let you blow a load all over her mom’s face.
15. Stay in shape. It’s so easy now and it will last your life.
16. Don’t smoke.
17. Learn a foreign language.
18. Don’t be contemptuous of those who know less than you.
19. Take every opportunity to tell your family you love them.
20. Learn to cook. This will get you laid.
21. Save your money for things that are important, not things that give you momentary satisfaction.

“Hope this helps.”

You can see the original post here: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/isezb/advice_for_a_14_year_old/

The short answer is yes, I think Google+ has the potential to steal a lot of Facebook’s dedicated users, provided it gets adopted on a massive scale.

In case you’re not aware, Google announced the Google+ project earlier today and after looking at the promotional videos and accompanying blog post I must say that I think it’s a giant leap forward for Google. This can fundamentally change the way we use the internet. Think Facebook, but without the “walled garden” approach, that’s been my biggest problem with Facebook since day one.

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Well not really, but In the last week I finally had the opportunity to code something using HTML5 and CSS3, not that I haven’t done it before, but this would be the 1st time that someone else would get to see it.

“Why did it take so long?” you might ask, and the reason is simple.. most people that I do coding for just isn’t at the point where they think they need to drop older browsers and start doing cool things. So as you can imagine I was quite excited when this opportunity fell in my lap.

I specifically had to make a lot of use of three properties in particular: background gradients, rounded corners and drop shadows. The cool thing is that by just using those three properties you can make a rich, great looking, interface without using even a single image.

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As you know, facebook is now everywhere, you can’t even go to your favorite grocery company’s website without seeing a little facebook box in the sidebar telling you that 5 gazillion people like this brand and 20 of them are your friends.

But what do these boxes really mean? Yes 50 people like this site, brand or post, but does that really mean anything if there isn’t a vote in the opposite direction?

I’m sure that if you open a site for some racist movement you can get a few hundred people who will click “like” on it. That will give a certain impression to the visitors of that site, maybe something like: “There are a lot of racist people around, maybe it’s acceptable”.

That might have been an extreme case, but that same logic can apply to every day companies that give overall bad service, there will be a percentage of its client base that would get great service, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the norm. If there was a “Don’t Like” button on said company’s page then you might see an accurate representation of that company, which would drive them to actually try and better themselves or if they don’t get their clients to go look elsewhere.

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