Facebook related multi media extraordinaire

I'M PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE... sorry, I left caps on.

I'm pleased to announce the launch of this social media explosion of posts and videos between myself and Tim Clark over at Life, Explained, about Facebook.  Yes, we've crossed the Atlantic Ocean (electronically) and social media channels to hit everyone everywhere about everything that we wanted to write about Facebook.

Facebook, in a world where every day a new app is announced or a new piece of hardware launched, is ten years old.  Ten years ago there wasn't iPhones, or any other smartphones (at least not in a format that we'd recognise), no app stores, again no real tablets...

And my hair was bigger

I apparently joined Facebook in October 2007, which roughly coincides with me getting together with my current partner, so I suspect that the relationship had something to do with me starting on Facebook.  And apparently my first status update was "pondering life" which is relatively deep for me as generally the only thing I ponder nowadays is if I can get a quick nap in before having to do something.  Or it was possibly me attempting to look deep and philosophical to a girl that at the time had recently completed a course on Philosophy.

Knowing me, that seems likely.

Facebook has changed a hell of a lot over time.  I remember when I first used it that the thing that stood out to me was how easy it was to use.  When setting your profile up, you could pretty much click on anything you wanted and type whatever you wanted and it'd accept it.

facebook.com is currently the second most visited website in the world (after Google), and shows little sign of losing its dominance on the Internet, with almost 1.3 billion active users, and that number continuing to grow.

Recently they've been hit by the news that they carried out psychological research on users without clearly telling them, and I wonder if I was one of the people selected.  I vaguely remember going on Facebook one day, and being asked me how happy I was on a scale of one to ten - I thought this was a slightly odd request, but I answered it and carried on reading my timeline.  I must admit that I can't say that I feel particularly upset or violated if Facebook did indeed involve me in their research (although if they do want to give me some compensation then of course it had a very real effect on me and I'd like payment via electronic bank transfer please), that said I am generally fairly oblivious to things that upset other people - I recall staying in a hotel room in Majorca one night, and seeing something scuttle over my suitcase.  It scared me for a moment, then I decided that I wouldn't be capable of doing anything about it anyway and so went to sleep.

I like sleep.

At any rate, this is indeed a multimedia explosion of Facebook-related social media stuff, so catch my video about the future of Facebook (which includes a genuine pretend video of what life will look like through Google Glass with a Facebook app) and get to Life, Explained for Tim's stuff there.

I also recommend the very straightforward way that Tim demonstrates, via the medium of animation, a comparison between Facebook and the world.  Thanks very much for stopping by if you've traveled over from Tim's excellent blog and I hope you've enjoyed today.  If you did, perhaps you may be interested in a warning about a vomit -repelling mattress.  Or, if you'd like to hear more about Facebook, here's some thoughts on its logical evolution.

Google Glass...

Google Glass looks ace.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the video below (or see it here)

Basically it's a piece of eye wear technology.  Walking around, you say "Okay Glass, take a photo" and a photo is taken of whatever you're looking at.  It does translation, sat nav, videos, all the kind of cool stuff your smartphone does now - in this headgear.

If you want one to try out, check out the webpage here for details of how to get one.  Unfortunately they do require you to buy it if successful which is why I'm out (apart from the fact that I imagine I'd need to wear my normal prescription glasses as well and I can't see that ending well)

Again, and this is a favourite subject of mine, I love things like this, the possibilities they bring.  Imagine you're looking at moving house.  You walk down a street, and see a house for sale that you like.  What do you do?  Look at the QR code (it's a sort of square barcode) on the sign at the front, and your glasses pop up with information about the house - how much it is, its features, and how to contact the estate agent.  You like the look of the house?  You tell your glasses to get in touch with the estate agent and set up a viewing, which it does by either email or instant messaging, and puts an appointment in your calendar at a time and date convenient for you.
 No more missed appointments - reminders spring up as required.
 No more danger of getting lost (although saying that I imagine that the navigation ability will be as good as satnav, i.e. about 90% effective, leading to every odd time you end up taking your glasses off and physically asking someone in the street where a certain building is)
 Information is streamed to you as needed.  You're able to transmit videos of a family event, like a birthday, live over the net to friends that can't make it.  And rather than carrying a camcorder it's just your glasses.
 Yes, of course this brings dangers.  Spam windows will pop up on your glasses.  Satnav as mentioned won't always work.  And you'll get seriously annoyed when you lose the things.
 But exciting? Definitely.