Google + – Google taking over more of the universe?

For the first time Facebook has competition. Google + is in town and i’m sure there are more than a few million stakeholders and shareholders in Facebook that are a little bit nervous right now.

Google will have a real advantage if it can leverage off the billions tied into gmail & google already. It needs to make its self more than just  ‘another page to check’.  It also needs to get its self integrated to other social media aggregators such as Tweetdeck, Digsby and many more. That needs to happen quickly.  They have made a good start by adding the new nav bar in black/grey that sits along the top of your Gmail account and all other Google pages. They change varying on the level you are at. When you are on Google, Gmail is present. When you are in Gmail, the second level of nav is present. Now there is a nifty little ‘laura +’ sitting there when im logged in. It’s integrated. But will it win?

The Circles concept is interesting if not a little tiresome. If i have to put in too much work to set it up then it gets difficult. Categorising friends, colleagues, family etc is hard and another thing to do. Some are both. Some are none! I am not overly enamoured by it and i don’t see how it will make my life easier/faster in the long run.

It will be interesting to see if it will take off or not. Stayed tuned on that one.

 

Rome

After the delights of Venice, Rome was always going to have some big shoes to fill.  We arrived via train from Venice. A 4.5 hour journey. A really nice train, clean comfortable and super quick considering we were going just about half the length of Italy.

We had used only-apartments.com again for Rome and were again very pleased with the outcome. Margherita met us at our arranged time showed us into our lovely double en-suite with kitchen area apartment. Perfect. She couldn’t have been nicer. Top tips a plenty and just so lovely.

The first day we hit The Colosseum. AMAZING. I felt like I was on the set of a movie. Having purchased our Roma Pass for 25 Euros we skipped the very long que and walked straight in. I would highly recommend the pass as it’s valid for 3 days, and a little more as we found out, and gives you entry to several key sites, museums and galleries as well as unlimited public transport on buses, metro and trans. And if you’re in Rome in late June in the heat you will want to hit that public transport FO sure.

Venice

Quite simply I have never been to anywhere like this in my life. I’m not sure another place like Venice exists. I am so intrigued by the houses on waterways and the way that dictates the way the city functions and how people live their lives.
The streets themselves are tiny. All of them. There is not a central high street per say, they are all tiny little side streets opening up to the occasional square. It’s fantastic! The city is built on a few small lagoon islands but the majority is built on piles of wood driven into the ground. Dodgy? Apparently not so much as wood submerged fully in water, especially sea water, petrifies and turns into a concrete type material. Houses are built on top of that and there is your city. As you do.
We are here with Ox and Ursh and its so lovely to see them again. It’s been a just over a year since we last saw them which was in Auckland just before we departed for our big OE.
It feels like only yesterday as we are getting on just like old times when we used to meet up in Taupo at The Oxnams for various long weekends or in Akl or Wlg when various events were planned. Except this time we are in Venice. And its amazing.

We have rented a small apartment for the 4 of us. It’s so much better, and cheaper than s hotel. I booked it at onlyapartments.com and I highly recommend it. We were tucked in amongst where the locals live, were able to get local food to take home as pre dinner snacks and save money by eating breakfast at home as well. The best bit however was having a local Venetian meet us and circle the best restaurants on the map, let us as know the best ways to get around and suggest itineraries for our days there. It’s knowing a local without knowing a local.

We had two full days of sightseeing and getting lost in amongst the pathways of Venice. As usual when away in groups something will happen that turns into a bit of a running joke. Ours for Venice at least is the ” iced coffee”. This is a faux pas started by myself while we were visiting the Peggy Guggenhiem Museum. I ordered an “iced coffee” expected something similar to what one would get at home. It was essentialy an espresso cooled over ice and served in a cold glass. I couldn’t drink it for the life of me! (4.50 euros later!) So from then on the jokes began. Ursh had her ‘iced coffee’ moment with a campari and soda and Forrest with a wad of salami that subsequently needed to be fried to be edible.

We have had fantastic food, carbocide has been a factor in many dinners. But were loving it! Great food, great company and amazing surroundings, what more can one ask for?

Rome is next. BRING. IT. ON.

Supermarkets and information architecture

So the other day I was in Tesco. One of their larger stores. It was about 8pm. I had finished a run and was yet to have dinner. FYI a normal occurence for living in London, any meal completed before 9am is a small victory. I was tired and hungry. I wanted to be out of that supermarket almost as quickly as I entered it.

Anyway, getting started, vege section completed, meat and frozen goods also. Then comes everything else…

A common analogy for explaining the structure of a site to clients is that of a supermarket. You need bread, you head to the bread aisle, then you further define by type of bread, wholemeal, white, brown etc. At this point price may factor into the equation unless you just say screw it and grab the Vogels.

At our delightful Tescos they seem to be conducting some sort of social experiment on their hangry users. It’s called “Find your product by brand.” This would make sense if there was some sort of higher level categorization. In many cases there is not.

An example of the pain. Pasta sauce, tortillas, fajita mix, hallapeneos red and green, and guacamole and salsa. All in the Old El Paso bank of the God knows what aisle. Fine if you are planning on eating Mexican and only ever buy Old el Paso seeking no brand and or price comparisons.

In this situation the architecture crumbles. Top level signifiers begin to mean nothing as they come to represent very little of the items that sit beneath them.

Overall it becomes a very frustrating shopping experience and one which means users need to heavily rely on learnt behavior, a problem if they are new to the store. Not easy with new brands emerging all the time, or rely on the expertise of the staff. I came to the end of my tether twice and did so and was directed to the right area. However stopping the staff from completing one of their tasks in the meantime. Staff end up being used as the website equivalent of a call centre. Not terribly efficient at all.

I genuinely hope this is not the way of the future and to be fair it does appear to be a bit of an anomaly amongst UK supermarkets. Perhaps it is an experiment and we are the users being tested. If so, I want to know where the ‘suggestion’ box is and where the bloody hell are the canned tomatoes?

Christchurch Earthquake, Tuesday 22 Feb, 2011

The Earthquake happened just after midday on a sunny Christchurch day. The destruction and loss of life was unfathomable for a 1st world country like NZ. It sounds bad but we are used to hearing about stories from countries where perhaps the infrastructure is not that great and things are expected to go wrong when a natural disaster hits. It doesn’t make it any less terrible but the shock of this happening to a 1st world country so close to home is as scary as it gets..

I think the shock came 10 fold for us living in London as we woke up to the news. Being a Kiwi away from home makes you even more patriotic than you will ever be if you are living in NZ. I found this growing up in Dubai. There were a handful of us Kiwis and when it mattered we all came together. There is something reassuring about it. Something im sure anyone who has lived overseas will understand. Your own kind just get it.

Music. It Rocks. Vampire Weekend cover of a Fleetwood Mac track.

This is one for all of those peeps in Chch and all the family back in NZ. Disasters like the one in Christchurch really make you value what you have and miss those who are out of reach for a hug.

And when you’re sad, music makes you happy so enjoy.

Fleetwood Mac remixed by some more legends, Vampire Weekend. A fun quirky take on the original track.

http://hypem.com