Just realized that I have 8 invites left for Google Music beta.. You might want to try it out just to get your hands on a few hundred free songs. (Admit it, you really do like the Bay City Rollers Saturday Night!)

First 8 emails posted below get an invite.

#gplus

Welcome to Google+, Lalit Sarna

#gplus

Hey look, it's the Fedora Project! On Google+

Check out Fedora 16 if you're into Linux distros. I just finished upgrading the home server last night and it's running smooth. (even if systemctl reminds me way too much of solaris SMF)

Fun fact: I've been upgrading the same system image since Red Hat 6.0. No reinstalls.. and since I never had a CD/dvd all upgrades were via rpm/yum.

#gplus

You can stop reading now if you don't care about software that keeps the internet from falling over.

Memcached 1.4.10 is now out and this release looks to be the best yet. Check out the release notes and send some kudos over to http://dormando.me/ (Hey Dormando, get on G+ already!)

To do my part I just built the fedora RPMs for f15/f16/rawhide. Try it out on your favorite high-volume server.

#gplus

One of my favorites, hopefully they'll start posting soon...

#gplus

A Blue Bottle latte and the aroma of roasting coffee beans almost makes up for missing the google shuttle this morning....

Always worth a visit if you're near Jack London Square.

#gplus

Hi -- have a few ideas on how 8tracks can work better on Google+

Feel free to drop me a line here or email [email protected]

#gplus

4 years ago today OpenSocial launched to the world at the first Google Campfire One event.

You can find me at 4:14 and 4:30 operating the browser next to Akash Garg and Jeremiah Robison. Today Akash is doing infra work at Twitter, Jeremiah is over at Jawbone working with a bunch of the former hi5 crew, and I'm working on making Google+ better with some of the same folks that participated in the original OpenSocial effort you see below.

Also don't miss the Vic Gundotra's intro at

Campfire One: Introducing OpenSocial

and performances by Joe Greenstein, Marc Andreessen, Adam Nash and others.

How time flies!

#gplus

Have a Google vanity domain? This is what you've been waiting for!

Originally shared by Ronald Ho

Hi, I'm Ronald Ho. I’m a product manager at Google and for the past months I’ve been working on making Google+ work with Google Apps accounts.

We hoped to have this out to you earlier, but it took more technical work than we’d expected. With that work out of the way, the day is finally here and Google+ is now available with Google Apps.

You can find more details in our blog post including links to resources to help get Google+ enabled for your domain.

Let us know how you plan to use Google+ with your Google Apps account, and give us your feedback on any part of the experience that we can improve. Thanks!

#gplus

Another java project "goes guava"

Originally shared by James Snell

More Abdera2 Updates... this is a copy of an email I just sent to the Abdera-dev mailing list...

----------

Ok, for those of you who may not have seen it, I posted another major update to the Abdera2 code yesterday. Where as the first round of updates focused primarily on updating dependencies and the introduction of the Activity Streams capability, this update focused more on API Refactoring and the introduction of two new major dependencies: the Joda-Time Library (http://joda-time.sourceforge.net/) and the Google Guava Libraries (http://code.google.com/p/guava-libraries/).

First up, Joda-Time... for those who aren't familiar with it, joda-time is a comprehensive code library for working with dates, times, durations, intervals, etc. When I wrote the first version of the Abdera Feed Object Model API, there wasn't a good open-source implementation of the ISO8601 DateTime format required by the Atom specification available so I wrote a fairly limited, down and dirty implementation in the form of the AtomDate class. It had decent performance, fairly good coverage and got the job done. Joda-Time, however, has emerged since as a top quality rich implementation of the 8601 standard... so even though it is a breaking change to the existing Feed Object Model API, I have gone through an have replaced Abdera's own implementation with Joda-Time's DateTime class, which, when used in combination with the mechanisms provided by the Google Guava libraries, provides for some very interesting and compelling new capabilities.

Which, of course, brings me to Guava. This library is a collection of extremely useful utility classes from google. This update brings significant deep integration with Guava in a number of ways, the most important of which is the new Selector API that I introduced as part of the first Abdera2 checkin.

Among many other things, Guava defines a number of interfaces and utility classes aimed at making it easier for developers to write quality, functional, readable code that has a more natural flow to it. It is easiest to show by example.

In Abdera 1.x, if I wanted, for instance, to extract a list of entries from an Atom feed that had been edited after a specific date and time, it would look something like this...

AtomDate ad = new AtomDate("2011-09-10T12:12:12Z");

List list = feed.getEntries();

List selected = new ArrayList();

for (Entry entry : list) {

if (entry.getEdited() != null) {

if (entry.getEdited().after(ad.getDate()))

selected.add(entry);

}

}

Note that feed.getEntries() will return every entry from the feed whether we want it or not. We then have to iterate back over that list, check to make sure there's an edited date, compare those and build up a new list. The code is ugly and cumbersome and inefficient. With the code I just checked in, the same process looks like this...

import static org.abdera.abdera2.model.selector.Selectors.*;

import static org.abdera.abdera2.common.date.DateTimes.*;

List list =

feed.getEntries(

edited(after(dt("2011-09-10T12:12:12Z")))

);

The portion, edited(after(dt("..."))) constructs a Selector that filters the list of items returned by getEntries(), keeping us from having to iterate back over the list.

Suppose we wanted to add another condition to the mix.. say some custom selector that checks for the presence of a particular extension... We can implement our CustomSelector by extending the AbstractSelector class, and merely append that in to the code above like so...

import static org.abdera.abdera2.model.selector.Selectors.*;

import static org.abdera.abdera2.common.date.DateTimes.*;

Selector customSel = new AbstractSelector { ... }

List list =

feed.getEntries(

edited(after(dt("2011-09-10T12:12:12Z")))

.and(customSel)

);

Underlying the Selector API a large chunk of the Guava API... specifically the Predicate, Function, and Constraint interfaces. The Selector interface actually extends from Predicate and Constraint and provides a mechanism for being cast as a Function.

A broad range of utility methods have been provided that create constructors for many of the most common cases, in particular DateTime related operations. Look at the following classes for those utility methods...

org.apache.abdera2.common.date.DateTimes

org.apache.abdera2.common.selector.Selector.Utils

org.apache.abdera2.model.selector.Selectors (for Atom specific utilities)

org.apache.abdera2.activities.extra.Extra (for Activity Streams specific utilities)

The Selector mechanism has been baked into both the Atom and Activity Streams APIs now. For instance, suppose we have an Activity stream but we only want a max of 10 activities for which a given user is the intended target (using the Activity Streams Audience Targeting Extension.. which I can explain later .. lol).. We could get that list of entries using...

PersonObject person = new PersonObject();

person.setId("acct:[email protected]");

Iterable list = stream.getItems(isTo(person).limit(10));

Additional changes in this update include....

1. Refactoring classes into immutable thread-safe objects. This will be an ongoing change. As much as possible, a Factory/Builder model for most basic object types will be used as opposed to the more traditional getter/setter model. The motivation behind this change is simple in that it helps make more a much more scalable architecture and significantly more readable code.

For instance, if you wish to construct a Cache-Control header, you can use a simple fluent builder api...

CacheControl cc =

CacheControl

.make()

.isPublic(true)

.noTransform(true)

.maxAge(1000)

.get();

Likewise if you wish to construct a new WebLink HTTP Header,

WebLink link =

WebLink

.make()

.iri("http://example.org")

.rel("alternate")

.title("Home")

.get();

The pattern is simple and consistent throughout.

2. Added support for Guava objects in the URI Template implementation... specifically, a URI Template Context can now include the Guava Multimap, Supplier and Optional values. In addition, support for java.util.concurrent.Future, java.lang.ref.Reference and java.util.concurrent.Callable were also added. The one caveat when using Future, however, is that the context will not wait for a value to become available. The Context calls Future.get() and takes whatever it gets back as the value so before you use a Future in a URI Template, make sure it's been completed.

3. org.apache.abdera2.common.text.CharUtils has been refactored. This class was always a bit of a hacky mess. It's been cleaned up significantly around a new CodepointMatcher that is modeled after Guava's CharMatcher interface. Codepoint matcher, however, is designed to work specifically with Unicode Codepoints rather than Java Chars. For the most part, CharUtils and CodepointMatcher are internal classes that the majority of users won't ever have to mess with.

4. Filter/FilterChain has been refactored. This is the part of the Server framework that allows you to plug in a chain of filters before invoking a Publishing Protocol Provider. Previously, the Filter and FilterChain interfaces were very specific to the Server API.. they have been refactored into generic Chain and Task interfaces and moved to org.apache.abdera2.common.misc.*. This allows the use of Chain anywhere you may need a simple interceptor framework...

A trivial example,

Task lower =

new Task() {

public Void apply(

String input,

Chain flow) {

if (input == null) return null;

return flow.next(input.toLowerCase());

}

};

Function print =

new Function() {

public Void apply(String input) {

System.out.println(input);

return null;

}

};

Function chain = new Chain(print,lower);

chain.apply("HELLO!");

The Google Guava api does provide the means of composing multiple Function objects together such that the output of one flows into the input of another, but it only works in one direction.. the Chain here allows you to intercept inputs and outputs.

There are a number of other additions here and there throughout the code, and there will be more to come. One MAJOR change that I'm currently exploring is the use of Guice as a complete replacement for the Classpath-based configuration model we currently have. Let's face it, the current stuff provides a significant amount of flexibility and power, but initialization is slow. Guice is significantly faster and much more powerful than what we currently have.

Anyway, that's it for now.------

#gplus

http://gplusglobe.com/ is very well done. Nice use of WebGL and Google+ APIs.

#gplus

Couldn't agree more...

Originally shared by Brad Templeton

When I saw the news about Steve Jobs it was a shock. But the news that Dennis Ritchie has died was much more like a blow. I didn't know him super well, we attended Usenix together for many years, but he was mostly a quiet man, not the sort to seek the limelight.

Dennis was instrumental in two things -- the C language and Unix -- which are the foundation of almost all the computing in the world today. Certainly much of C came from its predecessors like B and BCPL, and many things in Unix from its predecessors like Multics, but these two focal points were where all of 60s and early 70s computer science came together, and spread out. Of course Linux and MacOS and Android are very direct descendants of Unix, but even Windows is filled with ideas from Unix.

Far more than Steve Jobs, pretty much all your computing is based on Dennis' work. Last week Google noted Jobs at the bottom of the home page, a very rare honour. But Dennis Ritchie would be even more deserving of it.

#gplus

This one is for the Java programmers out there.

Originally shared by Kevin Bourrillion

At long last... Guava 10.0 has been released!

It's been a long wait since 9 (almost six months!), but I think you won't be disappointed; there's tons of new stuff in here. CacheBuilder/Cache, EventBus, Range and ContiguousSet, Optional, UnsignedLongs, MapJoiner and MapSplitter, the completion of Equivalence, many more new classes, dozens of new methods, and hundreds of smaller improvements scattered all over.

If this comes as good news to you, please join me in thanking the team:Charles Fry (release-master this time, took MANY bullets for us), Chris Povirk Kurt Alfred Kluever and our summer Deranged Intern Louis Wasserman. And as always, the number of other Googlers (and one non-Googler!) who contributed is too many to even list.

Please upgrade, and please help us spread the word!

Now back to work on 11.0 I go. :-)

#gplus

Hi Qiwenm

Thanks for adding me to a circle on Google+. I work at Google on the Connected Sites team. We build tools that help your friends find you. There are a number of things you can do to help:

Add your other Accounts on the web to your profile:

1) Click on your profile https://plus.google.com/me

2) Click on "Edit Profile"

3) Click on "Other Profiles"

4) Add links!

If you have a Hotmail or Yahoo account don't forget to import your contacts here:

https://plus.google.com/circles/find

Also consider visiting the Connected Accounts settings page where you can connect your various accounts:

https://plus.google.com/settings/connectedaccounts

Thanks again for using Google+!

Paul

#gplus

Hi Stephen!

Thanks for adding me to a circle on Google+. I work at Google on the Connected Sites team. We build tools that help your friends find you. There are a number of things you can do to help:

Add your other Accounts on the web to your profile:

1) Click on your profile https://plus.google.com/me

2) Click on "Edit Profile"

3) Click on "Other Profiles"

4) Add links!

If you have a Hotmail or Yahoo account don't forget to import your contacts here:

https://plus.google.com/circles/find

Also consider visiting the Connected Accounts settings page where you can connect your various accounts:

https://plus.google.com/settings/connectedaccounts

Thanks again for using Google+!

Paul

#gplus

Hi Sana!

Thanks for adding me to a circle on Google+. I work at Google on the Connected Sites team. We build tools that help your friends find you. There are a number of things you can do to help:

Add your other Accounts on the web to your profile:

1) Click on your profile https://plus.google.com/me

2) Click on "Edit Profile"

3) Click on "Other Profiles"

4) Add links!

If you have a Hotmail or Yahoo account don't forget to import your contacts here:

https://plus.google.com/circles/find

Also consider visiting the Connected Accounts settings page where you can connect your various accounts:

https://plus.google.com/settings/connectedaccounts

Thanks again for using Google+!

Paul

#gplus

Hi Fahad!

Thanks for adding me to a circle on Google+. I work at Google on the Connected Sites team. We build tools that help your friends find you. There are a number of things you can do to help:

Add your other accounts on the web to your profile:

1) Click on your profile https://plus.google.com/me

2) Click on "Edit Profile"

3) Click on "Other Profiles"

4) Add links!

If you have a Hotmail or Yahoo account don't forget to import your contacts here:

https://plus.google.com/circles/find

Also consider visiting the Connected Accounts settings page where you can connect your various accounts:

https://plus.google.com/settings/connectedaccounts

Thanks again for using Google+!

Paul

#gplus

Thanks for adding me to a circle on Google+. I work at Google on the Connected Sites team. We build tools that help your friends find you. There are a number of things you can do to help:

Add links to any other Accounts you have on the web to your profile:

1) Click on your profile https://plus.google.com/me

2) Click on "Edit Profile"

3) Click on "Other Profiles"

4) Add links!

If you have a Hotmail or Yahoo account don't forget to import your contacts here:

https://plus.google.com/circles/find

Also consider visiting the Connected Accounts settings page where you can connect your various accounts:

https://plus.google.com/settings/connectedaccounts

Thanks again for using Google+!

Paul

#gplus

Hi Rohama,

Thanks for adding me to a circle on Google+. I work at Google on the Connected Sites team. We build tools that help your friends find you. There are a number of things you can do to help:

Be sure to add your other Accounts on the web to your profile!

1) Click on your profile https://plus.google.com/me

2) Click on "Edit Profile"

3) Click on "Other Profiles"

4) Add links!

If you have a Hotmail or Yahoo account don't forget to import your contacts here:

https://plus.google.com/circles/find

Also consider visiting the Connected Accounts settings page where you can connect your various accounts:

https://plus.google.com/settings/connectedaccounts

Thanks again for using Google+!

Paul

#gplus

Hi Ferjani,

Thanks for adding me to a circle on Google+. I work at Google on the Connected Sites team. We build tools that help your friends find you. There are a number of things you can do to help:

Be sure to add your other accounts on the web to your profile!

1) Click on your profile https://plus.google.com/me

2) Click on "Edit Profile"

3) Click on "Other Profiles"

4) Add links!

If you have a Hotmail or Yahoo account don't forget to import your contacts here:

https://plus.google.com/circles/find

Also consider visiting the Connected Accounts settings page where you can connect your various accounts:

https://plus.google.com/settings/connectedaccounts

Thanks again for using Google+!

Paul

#gplus

Hi Gourav,

Thanks for adding me to a circle on Google+. I work at Google on the Connected Sites team. We build tools that help your friends find you. There are a number of things you can do to help:

Be sure to add your other accounts on the web to your profile!

1) Click on your profile https://plus.google.com/me

2) Click on "Edit Profile"

3) Click on "Other Profiles"

4) Add links!

If you have a Hotmail or Yahoo account don't forget to import your contacts here:

https://plus.google.com/circles/find

Also consider visiting the Connected Accounts settings page where you can connect your various accounts:

https://plus.google.com/settings/connectedaccounts

Thanks again for using Google+!

Paul

#gplus

Hi Hande,

Thanks for adding me to a circle on Google+. I work at Google on the Connected Sites team. We build tools that help your friends find you. There are a number of things you can do to help:

Be sure to add your other Accounts on the web to your profile!

1) Click on your profile https://plus.google.com/me

2) Click on "Edit Profile"

3) Click on "Other Profiles"

4) Add links!

If you have a Hotmail or Yahoo account don't forget to import your contacts here:

https://plus.google.com/circles/find

Also consider visiting the Connected Accounts settings page where you can connect your various accounts:

https://plus.google.com/settings/connectedaccounts

Thanks again for using Google+!

Paul

#gplus

Here's the start of the Google+ APIs. Read-only People and Activities

Opensocial folks shouldn't fret -- oauth2, json activity streams and poco all overlap nicely with the ongoing work for OpenSocial V2.

Originally shared by Chris Chabot

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Lao-tzu

I’m super excited about how the Google+ project brings the richness and nuance of real life sharing to software, and today we’re announcing our first step towards bringing this to your apps as well by launching the Google+ public data APIs.

These APIs allow you to retrieve the public profile information and public posts of the Google+ users, and they lay the foundation for us to build on together - Nothing great is ever built in a vacuum so I’m excited to start the conversation about what the Google+ platform should look like.

Please follow the link to the blog post to find out what exactly we’re launching and you can find the technical details on how to use this on our new developer site at http://developers.google.com/+

I’d also like to take a moment to introduce my team who will be joining me on working with our developer community (ie: you!) and answering any questions you may have about the Google+ platform on our discussion forums.

We’ll all also be doing a bunch of Hangouts over the next few days and beyond to talk to you directly and hear what you think of the +Platform as well as helping with any coding questions you may have, so make sure to add them to your Google+ developers circle!

Timothy Jordan

Jonathan Beri

Ade Oshineye

Will Norris

Jenny Murphy

Wolff Dobson

Now let's see lots of re-shares on this post & let's get this party started!

#gplus

Reverse polarity -- fixed.

Using this handy testing tool I found eight outlets with reversed polarity this weekend. Fixing it was fairly straightforward -- cut the power and rewire the outlets so the hot and and neutral wires are connected properly.

If you live in an older house I'd highly recommend getting one of these since reversed polarity can harm sensitive electronics and creates a shock hazard.

#gplus

Just got an email that Plaxo is discontinuing bare OpenId support and only allowing Google/Yahoo/Hotmail/Facebook for login. Despite OpenId's shortcomings it's sad to see things regress.

-----------------------------

Hello from Plaxo,

In an effort to improve our login experience for users, Plaxo.com is simplifying and standardizing our sign in options. As such, Plaxo will discontinue support of generic OpenID logins as of 08/23/2011. Instead we're offering login via Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, or Facebook oAuth -- or you can, of course, create a Plaxo specific account.

How will this affect me?

If you use a Google, Yahoo, Hotmail or Facebook openid to login, just click the appropriate button when signing in. Plaxo will ask for permission to use your account credentials; click accept/grant and then go on using Plaxo as you normally would.

If you use any other openid to login, please visit our Forgot Password and follow the instructions for Reset Password, which will create you a Plaxo specific password.

#gplus

Don't forget Doctor Who this weekend. I'll be buying it off Amazon and watching on the Google TV instead of suffering through Comcast's SD and BBC America's commercial interruptions...

#gplus

This is pretty cool.

The images marked for 7th & Howard match some of the photographs currently hanging in Lighthouse Lofts.

Originally shared by Dan Vanderkam

Raven Keller and I just launched oldsf.org. Check it out! 13,000 historical photos of San Francisco on a Google Map.

A few fun ones:

- Dolores Park as a refugee camp: http://bit.ly/rbJxl2

- The second Cliff House: http://bit.ly/r29Dlh

- Woodward's Gardens: http://bit.ly/r9RdMA

#gplus

I just linked my MySpace account. Hadn't logged in there for a while. Found out I qualify for the Old School badge, plus I can see Tom Anderson over there too!

Link your account in the usual place:

https://plus.google.com/settings/connectedaccounts

#gplus

Hi current/former hi5ers -- what do you think of the new Google+ games?

Of course anil dharni had a hand in one game, and justin kruger is working for another partner.

Small world!

#gplus

private to you.

I am not engaging in RN discussions in public and probably won't be doing much of it inside Google due to the mischaracterization of my views on this subject which are not as black and white as some people might think.

Thread hijackiing is pretty rude too you know.

#gplus

Big props to Andrew Davis, Mark W. and the rest of the Opensocial community for getting this done! Major accomplishment.

Originally shared by Evan Prodromou

Voting has started for the new OpenSocial 2.0 specification. If you're not already involved, and you're interested in open apps, this is a great time to get activated. The steps:

1. Sign up here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?key=0Aki8A6bvOtZNcGNXZXY1cUtjMk9DQXhvUjNBYlpjWl... Participation in OpenSocial is free and open to all.

2. When you receive notification that you've been added, vote on this revision: http://code.google.com/p/opensocial-resources/source/detail?r=1520

OpenSocial 2.0 is a huge step forward for the specification, incorporating many of the systems (like ActivityStreams and OAuth) that we use on the modern social web. I'm excited by this push -- let's get it released!

#gplus

More weird Dr Who stuff found via Sparks...

Google has life-size Tardis too, however I couldn't find it last time I looked. (Maybe it dematerialized??)

#gplus

Crazy stuff here at Google...

Originally shared by Frances Haugen

And I thought my heart couldn't be melted by Google magic anymore... Today the Google+ team was surprised at our weekly All Hands meeting to find out we were having a surprise beach party right outside our building! Check out the wave pool they installed in the parking lot and various Googlers surfing!

#gplus

I've always loved naming machines. Starting out as a sysadmin it was one way you could have fun, especially when setting up large clusters. Here's my fun names through the years:

A Sun 3/80 lab named after japanese authors - kimitake, mishima, yukio, (can't remember the rest)

30 X Terminals named after creatures in the B52s Rock Lobster song. (Sea-Robin, Bikini-Whale)

I'm sure some people can guess what this set of NeXT machines were named after: hafnhaf, ashpool, mrfrosty, tessier.

Prod backend hosts at hi5 were named after the Simpsons (moe, bart, etc.) We ended up having so many we had to name machines after the guest-stars. ssh'ing into lindaronstandt or michellepfeiffer at 3am was a real spelling test.

Currently at Google I have machines named arcwelder and huskerdu for my dev purposes. Other musical acts that have had the honor of their own machine name over my career include mudhoney, danzig, and even... anthrax.

Originally shared by Paul Lindner

#qotd

What's the most creative name you've ever give to your computer?

#qotd is my occasional "Question of the Day" non-feature feature. At some point it will become a way for people to connect on diverse topics across their circles. Reshare or comment, just use #qotd

#gplus

Have an Address Book? Want to invite some friends? We have the solution for you. You can now upload contacts on the Find and Invite page by clicking on the Upload address book button :

https://plus.google.com/circles/find

You'll need an address book file on your computer. Get one by performing any of the following actions:

Outlook -

Select File > Import/Export > Export from the main menu

Choose Comma Separated Values (Windows) > Select "Contacts" > Save exported file

Outlook Express -

Select File > Export > Address Book from the main menu.

Select Text File (Comma Separated Values).

Click Export.

Your Other Gmail account -

See https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=24911

Apple Address Book -

Open the Address Book application on your Mac. Click on the 'all group' of your contacts. Select File > Export Vcards.

Thunderbird -

Click Addressbook, Select Personal Address Book. Click Tools, then Export. Save as *.csv.

Others -

Most other contact managers or email systems support contact export in VCard/VCF/CSV format. Consult your local help system to find out how. Leave a comment if you want to share you exporting experience.

-- If you have problems please feel free to click on the 'Send Feedback' link in the lower right.

Happy Inviting!

#gplus

A totally different type of Gopher than what I'm known for :)

Going to have to pick one of these up tomorrow at the Google Store...

Originally shared by Peng Ying

I wish this wasn't 11.95.. what the crap man

#gplus

Welcome aboard!

[sharing private to only you..]

Google+ is the crazy project I'm working on. Would love to hear your opinions on how you and your friends use the product. My eventual goal is to get the entire family signed up and do a 10-way video hangout.

Paul

#gplus

I feel compelled to post something to counteract the dozen reshares of Christian's Google+ for business post..

I hope this season of Torchwood is decent. It can be pretty hit or miss, but when it hits it's pretty darn good.

#gplus

Remember Vox? I had the good fortune to be at Six Apart for it's development and launch. A lot of amazing work went into it and sadly it is no more. Vox was ahead of it's time and I feel that Google+ has much of what I liked about it.

You see back then Six Apart acquired Livejournal for it's amazing technology and it's foothold into the social space beyond blogging. There was a hitch though, LJ code was open sourced and GPL'd. It would be hard to sell a rebranded LJ to people like NTT, or other Typepad partners.. Also as a service LJ had developed it's own culture that might not benefit from a wave of mommy bloggers, nor would said bloggers be comfortable with the cutters and goths over at LJ.

Thus Comet was born and launched as Vox. You could follow with Friends/Family groups. Each post could be as private and public as you liked. You could cross-post to LJ, apply stylish themes to your blog and there was the #qotd (question of the day) which sparked up some great conversations and helped build a sense of community.

Some of the features found their way into Typepad, and Typepad's profiles. Sadly, many did not.

What do you think Six Aparters? What features do you miss that you'd like to see here?

#gplus

Spent some time mapping the shortcuts my neighborhood using Google Mapmaker. Luckily I was able to get most of my data from the Oakland Urban Paths database.

My mapmaker profile is here:

http://www.google.com/mapmaker?gw=66&uid=216375860650465931580

The crazy thing is despite being a tech lead for Google+ Connected Sites I didn't have this in our node mapper system. I'll have to get right on that :-)

#gplus

Picked up one of these this weekend at Peets. It makes great iced coffee!

(Obligatory Google+ tip: This was shared directly from http://shopping.google.com/ which uses http://schema.org markup to help make sharing easier!)

#gplus

Pseudo invite to Google+

Hi Oren,

Senidng on behalf of Byrne Reese.. I'm pretty sure this post will send you a Google+ invite. If not please email me at [email protected] and I'll get you when the next window cracks open.

Paul

#gplus

Help your friends find you! - another Google+ tip...

Add and verify all of your email addresses to your Google Account here:

https://plus.google.com/settings/general

This makes it easier for your friends to find you now and in the future! I've found that I don't know the gmail address of many people, but I do know their corp email or another alias. Plus if you lose your password you can send a recovery email to your alternate address.

Be aware that you can only associate one email per Google account and you can't add another gmail address to another account. If you want to associate email addresses to your primary account you can visit this page:

https://www.google.com/accounts/EditUserInfo

1) If the email is listed as a secondary address, remove it on the old account and add to the primary.

2) If the email is primary you can change the email address of the unused account and replace it with something like [email protected]. Then add the renamed email to the primary account.

Cheers.

#gplus

Hi current and former Six Apart folks..

Hope you're enjoying your foray's into Google+.. Sending this out so some of you might receive invites. (It's somewhat non-deterministic, so I'm not sure if it'll go out..)

Feel free to hit the send feedback link in the lower right or ping me. Also I'm happy to work with anyone on driving deeper connectivity to Six Apart or other properties. (My main focus is on connecting sites, contacts, activities, all that..)

#gplus

Here's a good article on what I've been working on lately including an inside look at what goes on at Google..

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/inside-google-plus-social/

#gplus

A couple of people have asked about importing facebook contacts. Sadly we cannot do that, however there is a workaround:

* Import Your facebook friends via Yahoo:

http://www.ymailblog.com/blog/2010/03/facebook-friends-meet-yahoo-contacts/

* Then connect your yahoo account to Google+ here:

http://plus.google.com/circles/find

#gplus

A whole new class of Google+ jokes has sprung up....

Originally shared by Anil Dash

Your moms so fat, she huddle all by herself.

#gplus

Welcome aboard Google+!

Invites are still flowing out, so pay attention to your inbox (and hopefully not your spam folder!)

#gplus

Hope you'll take the plunge into Google+ -- It has a lot of the Vox vibe that I miss so much!

Also I'm doing connected sites work (try connecting your yahoo/live account!) there's a lot of cool stuff we can do together. Just let me know at [email protected]

#gplus

A better follower email might make all the difference to the people that complain that ES is spam.

Here's the flickr follower email. Nice and concise, it illustrates the asymmetrical nature of the relationship and provides some useful information. Furthermore there are two calls-to-action that reinforce the viral loop, specifically asking you to check out the _contacts_ of the person.

https://picasaweb.google.com/107786897865850743842/April252011?authkey=Gv1sRgCKnsktjV2sD36gE#5599453...

#googplus

#googplus