Yes, things have been awfully quiet around here for the past two months. In that time while juggling work, I squeezed in a holiday at an awesome resort nearby and have been actively posting stuff on Google+. The idea of using Google+ as a blogging platform isn’t new but I’ve been figuring out if it would work for me.
The Good Parts
It’s easy to post from the desktop and mobile. I can do life stream-like things with check-ins and photos with location information (although location information for non-place check-ins is mysteriously broken in the API for now).
The Not-So-Hot Parts
Google+ has no built-in RSS feeds and I can’t do proper inline links there — I wish they had fully implemented Markdown. It’s actually a reflection of the new kind of social web that we have now. I’m sure there are more drawbacks when compared to traditional online journaling (i.e handrolled HTML or WordPress or Textile or whatever) but Google+ (or Twitter or FB or anything else social) isn’t what traditional used to be.
The Experiment
Whatever I post on G+ will also be available at dullneon.com/googlenotes — it’s an evolving mirror of what I post publicly on Google+. And the current RSS feed will very soon get redirected automagically (and I hope to share my feeble, pathetic PHP source code for everyone to laugh at). All the content here stays — permanent links have to, you know, stay permanent.
See you on the other side, friends.