Thursday, July 05, 2012

Google+ events, another good idea I don’t really want …

Googel+ events, are another pervasive add-in to push even more photos and stuff at you. (see also my pixable post)  Underneath its another very cool idea. It begins with a calendar event marked in someone's google calendar (and gmail), fancy invites can be created and emailed to all the guests and those invited automatically update the recipient’s calendars and a event album is created to collate a single photo collection of the event. The big difference with other similar sites/services is that if you have a google+ app on your photo your will be able to use the partymode invitation to the event, which then makes it easy to share your photos in real-time into the shared photo collection.

BUT is it private enough?

A significant problem, in my mind, with all this social media sharing is privacy, and this event features is clearly aimed at family events. It was actually pretty hard to assess how good the privacy is, because I decided not to try and set up an event. Instead I waded through the help files. There is a privacy (opt-in) setting that can be controlled by Invitee names, google+ circles, or email addresses, but I assume it will be like google+photo in that the invitee with have to have a gmail or google account. Like most other social privacy systems this can be compromised (albeit innocently) when your guest’s link to and/or comment of the photos in public. Social media privacy is a big complex minefield and I suggested it is just another place not to share personal photos on the web, at least while everyone works out the shortcomings and workarounds.

A hidden benefit of all this is that everyone’s picture can get collated (and archived from) a single photo/video collection. The real time sharing is a bit naffy for those at the event, after all they are there and if only they put their phones down for a minute they could enjoy it. However it could be a great bonus for an aunt or grand parents overseas or just not able to attend.

So I don’t want to discourage you from using it, but I’m not so sure its for me.

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