“Demi Masa … sesungguhnya manusia itu di dalam kerugian” … ye, kekadang saya rasa macam tak cukup masa je di dalam satu hari. Bukan apa, sekarang ni saya ada 2-3 projek pembinaan laman web yang perlu diselesaikan, termasuk pula saya perlu melakukan sendiri kerja-kerja rumah seperti mengemas, memasak, membasuh baju dan jaga anak …

Bila masa nak rehat, rasa rugi pula masa tu bila tak buat apa-apa. Akibatnya dua-tiga hari ni saya rasa kurang sihat kerana terlampau letih, sampai tertidur-tidur sepanjang hari dan malam.

Maybe I shouldn’t try to do too much at one go, tetapi saya ni jenis orang yang tak boleh duduk diam. I can’t just sit back, tengok TV or lie around je, I have to have an activity, whether it’s cleaning my house or modifying a site to improve it.

Oh, I have to admit, nak tulis blog post ni pun lambat, kerana tak cukup masa. But now, saya cuba selitkan jugalah masa to write this, walaupun idea tengah karat macam besi buruk yang terkena hujan terlalu lama …

Okay, for now, suffice to say that saya tengah sibuk dengan projek-projek klien tapi alhamdulillah, at least ada juga masuk rezeki, kan?

Wassalam.

You see, back in the 1980s and early 1990s, the internet was a vast empty space filled with solitary websites, not really interconnected to one another, where once in a while, people came to visit to read up on some information and then leave. At the most, anything on the internet was a virtual advertisement or a place where only computer scientists and ultra-geeks gather and exchange data. Only the most privilege few had the internet. In fact, googling was part of baby-talk and definitely not something you or I would do, back then.

Fast-forward to 2011 – nearly everyone is ‘connected’. Most people are internet-savvy. In fact, websites now want visitors to stay, not just to read up on articles, but to comment, to praise, to criticize, to rant, to vote ‘like’ or ‘dislike’, to play games … in other words, to interact. Well, not just interact with the website itself but with other users as well. Hence, the birth of social networking sites. The social part – because there are people involved, and the networking part – because of the interaction between people.

So how can GooglePlus + beat Facebook? Well, here are some tips:

• Better PRIVACY settings and policies. A few people I know (including my Dad!) are afraid to use social networking sites because they think that these sites sell personal information to third parties, are too lax on their privacy policies and that these sites encourage stalkers and identity-thieves.
• Faster-loading (downloading/uploading) time. Not all parts of the world run on 10Mbps. Heck, I’d be lucky if I even reach 1Mbps internet speed at times. Sometimes I can’t even chat with my friends on FB, much less upload an entire album. This is the internet speed in Malaysia according to Ookla: Internet Speed in Malaysia. See the lowest figure quoted there? Yup, that’s what most Malaysians get.
• Group Chat. Yes, this feature is important. As humans, we like to discuss. Even on IRC, you get group chat. So one on one chat is so … 1990s.
• Video Chat. What better way to get people to stay on a Social Network site than to allow Video Chat. Something like Skype …
• News Feed, Live Feed, whatever – this is just like Twitter, isn’t it? Improve on this. Make users be able to control the settings to allow comments for EACH individual statuses. Example, people can comment on your status A, but you disallow comments for status B, etc … or you can limit who can comment on A or B … without having to click on the Privacy Settings tab.
• Integrate search (or Google Search) so that ‘GooglePlussies’ can not only search for friends on GooglePlus+ but also search for everything else.
• How about making that GoogleTranslate button available somewhere so we can understand those comments in Spanish or Chinese …?
• GoogleMaps … with location tracker and updater! Yup, what better way to making stalking your exes easier and to keep tabs on your kids …
• Blogging – heck, those ‘notes’ on Facebook are boring … allow me to have a blog ALA Blogger on GooglePlus+ and I’m good to go …
• Shopping cart – if I’m gonna spend so much time on your site, might as well allow me to buy and sell stuffs easily there … and hence …
• Auction … yeah, eBay on a social networking  platform …
• GoogleWallet / GooglePay … so I can pay and accept payment …
• Games … of course! I wanna play GoogleFarm and GoogleMafia on GooglePlus+
• World of Warcraft (AKA GoogleWOW). I’m sick of those 2-D  turn-based games on Facebook. Yup, all you need is GoogleWow on a social networking site and I will NEVER leave my house again. Give me GoogleWOW. Now.

So, that’s my 10 bytes for now …

Thanks Technorati: CEGGRJJS83Z2

I’ve been blogging since 2005, using various blogging platforms such as Blogger, WordPress,com and TBlog.

My most famous blog was at www.internetmelayu.com/blog, which was on internet marketing, IT and computers, but due to some personal reasons, I lost access to my hosting and all my domains.

So, I’m gonna resurrect everything, restart on my blogging path (though I have to start AGAIN on post no. 1) … to share my knowledge on the internet, computers and other IT-related topics.

Though you may fall a million times, you’re not a failure if you can pick yourself up each time …

Galadriel.

Malay:

Saya telah memula berblogging semenjak tahun 2005 lagi, dengan menggunakan berbagai blogging platform seperti Blogger, WordPress.com dan TBlog.

Blog saya yang terunggul terletak pada www.internetmelayu.com/blog tetapi disebabkan beberapa hal peribadi, saya telah kehilangan akses ke hosting dan nama domain saya.

Maka, dengan ini, saya akan memulakan kembali perjalanan ‘blogging’ saya untuk kongsi pengetahuan saya tentang internet, komputer dan apa-apa sahaja berkaitan teknologi maklumat.

Walau jatuh berjuta kali sekalipun, anda tetap tak gagal jika anda dapat bangun semula …

Galadriel / Kak G.