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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Childhood Dreams


Just like any child, I too had my share of dreams.  Barely ten years old, I aspired to become a tourist guide, speaking different languages while showing foreigners the different tourist spots of our country.  I said to myself I will take up Foreign Service or a related course in college.  It seems that my love for travel has already manifested at a very tender age.

Photo taken from Google Images

A couple of years passed and this time I wanted to become a nurse.  Why a nurse not a doctor?  Doctors earn more than nurses.  I was inspired by the nurses who took care of me when I was hospitalized twice for appendectomy and chicken pox.  They were the ones that came to my room to check on my condition more often than my attending physician.  I already had a picture in my mind of myself in a white uniform, white cap, white shoes and white stockings.  I would be a perfect nurse, I was not squeamish to blood and other hospital stuff.  My dream of being a nurse was replaced when I was in junior year of high school.  What made me change my mind again?  

Photo taken from Google Images

In junior year, I was introduced to a subject that is totally new to me, Economics.  Economics is a social science that dwells into the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services.  I found market analyses using price, quantity, supply and demand very interesting.  Though what I had in high school was only a bird's eyeview of economics, nevertheless, it helped me on what course to take up in college.  Thirty years after, my children are questioning me why I took Economics.  All three of them find Economics boring.  Well, to each his own.

Barely two years after graduating from high school, I found myself a freshman at De La Salle University for a degree in Bachelor of Science in Applied Economics.  There was no turning back and I was able to graduate on time.  That course prepared me for my first job as a Money Market Trader at a quasi-banking institution.  I had a firsthand account of Economics at work.  It would have been a good foundation for a career in the financial market but was nipped in the bud with the collapse of the money market as a result of the assasination of Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr.

On the hindsight, I would say that childhood dreams are more often than not products of the influences of the people around or events that happened in the past.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Going Gaga over Google+

Photo taken from Google+ Facebook page

For the past two days I was preoccupied trying to find out what Google+ is.  I got so curious of this latest Google innovation as my Facebook news feed was inundated by postings from my friends from my Digital Marketing days.  From reading the articles posted by my friends, I found out that only a few were given invites to Google+.  It helped that my blog mentor, Janette Toral, sent me a link if I want to sign up for Google+ Project.  I readily signed up but was successful only after several attempts.  Who were the people who received invites for Google+?  Mark Zuckenberg, CEO of Facebook has a page already and is the most followed user right now.   


Google+ is Google's social network which was launched to a limited number of people last week.   It was developed by Vic Gundotra, an IT graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, India.  It is still in beta version and that explains why it is not available to everyone.  Google+ expects its users to give feedbacks to further improve it and make the experience seamless when Google launches it soon. 

A picture grab from the Facebook page of Google+
It has five components, namely, Circles, Sparks, Huddle, Hangouts and Instant Upload.  Circles made me categorize my friends that makes for relevant sharing of posts and photos.  No need for my friends' Stream to be flooded by my family pictures or vice versa.  Sparks on the other hand acts like a reader for stuff that interests me and could be shared to any of my circle of friends.  I can chat to my friends in Huddle on any topic under the sun right on my phone.  Hangouts on the other hand, features a live video chat, IM chat or watch YouTube video together of up to ten of my friends..  It's as if my friends are in the same room as me.    Though the other tools could also be found in Facebook, Instant Upload could sway Facebook users to migrate to Googles+.  ReadWriteWeb said that the real killer of Google+ is Instant Upload.  The popularity of Android phones totalling half a million as of May 2011 makes photos from Android phones instantly online and could be shared with friends of an appropriate Circle.  Oh one more thing, Google+ is also coming out with Google games.  It can't afford to include game applications as these were instrumental for Facebook's exponential growth in 2007.  

The thing that I find so cool about Google+ is that once I was at my page, I need not open another site to be able to access my emails from Gmail, articles or blogs that I subscribed to in Google reader, Google documents, my blogs.  Everything is just a click away.  

Is Google+ out to topple Facebook from its ivory tower just like what the latter did to Friendster and MySpace?  What does Facebook have on its sleeve to prevent it from suffering the same fate as Friendster?

Photo taken from Google+ Facebook page