get big, little kid

If you work in an area that involves anything remotely digital, or even if you're just a regular law-abiding citizen of the 21st century (i.e. you know what the difference is between a browser & "the internet"), you most likely consume and share information with the use of Email, Blogs, Facebook & Twitter.

Add Tumblr or Yammer or any number of other online services for your slightly more hardcore digital citizen.

These are all great tools in their own right and they have significantly improved the way we communicate and proliferate information with friends, peers and even celebrities - yet, they are separate tools with their own separate niche, and yet another something "that you need to log into".

This is where Google+ comes in - and if you are one of the 25 million users that have already signed up (in the first 30 days of existence), you may have had an inkling of where the future is heading.

And this is not just about bagging Facebook - It's one of the things, yes, but G+ is so much more than just an alternative to Facebook.

In the 1 month that I have been on the service, I have already given up on Email and stopped engaging with friends on Facebook. Further, I'm spending considerably less time on Twitter, and not at all checking my RSS feeds (sorry Feedly!).

For the past few days, I have been trying to work out why this is the case.

Aside from G+ being the shiny new toy to play with, I thought it was something to do with the way I could have a Facebook-like experience with a Twitter-smart audience. I also began to cull some 300 of my FB contacts and I'm still trying to get that down to the Dunbar 150. I later realised, what I was effectively doing was creating a 'Circle' of what I perceived to be real-life friends. The 'Facebook' Circle, if you will.

At the same time, I find the notion of starting a post on G+ and figuring out who it should go to, only at the end of the message, quite natural and liberating. It just feels REAL.

Simply put, I believe what Google+ does, is allow us to be our true self in an online environment. It's just an idea that I'm trying to fully form in my head right now, but I should think that someone will one day put out a paper, outlining the science & psychology behind all of this.

Perhaps a little sooner than that, I suspect Google search will continue to evolve into a more social and real-time experience. And once this becomes the norm for the average user, it should start making a little more sense.

For now, though, please allow me to experiment, disrupt and have a bit of fun while doing so.

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Find me on G+
http://gplus.to/geoffkim 

So just over 2 weeks ago, I proclaimed to the world that I was quitting email. I shouted it loud and long from the rooftops of the interwebs. And it felt good. Really good.

There seemed to be 2 kinds of reactions..

• Good on you! I wish I could do the same thing..; and
• Err, why the heck would you do that?!?

A week later, just to drive my point/intentions home, I applied a permanent 'out-of-office' message to my persornal Gmail account. This is what it currently says:

(yes, I quit facebook too - more on that in another post perhaps)

I had one friend, so perplexed by the auto-reply, he proceeded to forward it to my work address claiming that my Gmail was hacked! I wasn't quite sure how to put it to him - I retorted, "no, I'm doing this on purpose..", and I think he was even more confused after that.

So the big question people have been asking me -- Has anything changed since the advent of #NoEmail?

Apart from annoying my friends with an emphatic and somewhat crude message, saying that I'm too good for them.. well, not much as it turns out.

Since I haven't switched off completely, I still get to read the emails that come through. The subscription emails like ones from Inertia music label, Summify, and posterous digests are all still very useful. 

The only difference has been that I am not replying from that address, so when a group email is sent out, I do not reply within minutes as I normally would. I still get copied into endless 'reply-alls' that do not resolve a thing - however, saying nothing seems to be bothering a few people. And to me, that's one of my key objectives --> that is, to shake things up a little bit and get people to think more about how they use the tools at their disposal, to effectively communicate with one another.

There have just been 2 occasions (count 'em: 2, over 2 whole weeks) where I have thought that just emailing back would be easier, since the recipients are not on Google+ nor are they readily checking facebook. What did I do instead? I sent them SMS's - Yep, that old chestnut.

I expect that over time, I will be copied in less & I will continue to 'reply' in more creative ways. When the floodgates eventually open for G+, my friends at least, would be better equipped to use the channel properly.

The more and more I think about it, I believe Gmail will become Google+'s private/direct messaging feature similar to Facebook and Twitter's. And it will act as the notification centre for all of your online services (if it isn't already the case).

Times are a changing, and we're only at the beginning stages of the comms revolution. Only question left in my mind -- how long before we think of emailing, as something as ancient as sending a fax?

I know, I know. You can't just QUIT email - but for those that know me, you would have at some point heard me bang on about the evils of email and how society is doomed for collapse should we continue to dance to this never-ending beat of the inbox.

For the past 12 months or so however, I have managed to keep my unread gmail items to (0), thanks partly to the Priority Inbox, but more significantly, I oneday decided to mark all unread emails as read - it was as simple as that.

The idea that email should die is a good one - an extremely good one. But what are the alternatives you may ask? Well, except for a small percentage of you, you have already been (perhaps unknowingly) partaking in an exercise* to get to a future where we would see the idea of 'electronic mail' as something as ancient as the fax machine.

How do we get there?

Well, it's simple isn't it?

Stop emailing.

There, I've said it.

Of course, I can't stop receiving emails - well I could just ignore them but that would be rude. What I'm going to do is just not respond to them, not via gmail anyway - slightly less rude.

This all came about after reading MG Siegler's post on Techcrunch yesterday, to which I responded via a tweet.

And now - I'm following through on that.

Unfortunately, I cannot extend this to the workplace, just because of the nature of the work I do. And there may be some exceptions, like in an emergency or there's just no other way.

However, this is a step towards a REAL goal, and any small measure to help get to a world that has broken free from the shackles of the inbox is a great thing. A marvellous thing.

So from today, I will not be responding to you via my personal email of which I call gmail. Instead, prepare to be bombarded with responses on your wall or on your Google+ account. I shall tag my adventures with #NoEmail

Will you join me?

--

Next - Quitting search.

* - for those playing at home, yes, I did mean Facebook.

From the crazyness that was SxSW, to the coffee-mad Pacific NW, to the magical 3 weeks in New York - this is my 68-day trip to the States displayed in tweets, check-ins, and twitpics via memolane.

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Update: Ok, embed is not working. Here is the link to the memolane story (screenshot below).

 

Taken at Mission Dolores

 

Taken at AT&T Park

Trying out Tripline, a Foursquare visualisation tool.

It actually does a lot more things, like being able to plot your own map like with Google My Maps, and there seems to be a Quora-like Q&A engine as well.

Now, this - this is very cool.

Taken at Easy Street Records - Queen Anne