Menoggling [men-ogg-ling]; do you Go-Ogle???

NO IT'S NOT MY BIRTHDAY TODAY - but this is what appeared on my Chrome search page on the actual day recently. Do you see what they did?  Has anyone else received their own personalised greeting from the Big Ether Engine?

Now two things sprang to mind; Awwww isn't that sweet?.... and eeerrrrcckkkkkk, they know where I am....!!!

It's a double-edged sword this being online. We all know that. However, as with anything in life, one must stare it in the face and decide how best to utilise what is on offer and reject what doesn't fit for one's own particular needs. One of the risks we run when we have so much on offer, though, is that we can become very set in our ways and thus unadventurous. Either that or we run scared from the effort it takes to sort through and 'upskill'.

Those of you who have been around here long enough, will recall that the YAMster was an analyst/ programmer in an earlier chapter (...note to self, really must get back to the MacHistory stuff...) and despite a number of other qualifications and skills pushing that well into the background, one of course never really lost the geeky nerdy techy interest.

For all the fascination with tech, though, there is a strong streak of the Luddite in me and it has to be said that not everything which appears is necessarily something that is wanted. Take the mobile telephone as an example. As a Trekker, I always said that when personal communicators became available, I'd want one. Mobile Bricks started to arrive and I said, 'when they get pocket size'. Then they became pocket size... but I had realised by then that just because you had a phone in your pocket, the world thought it had dibs on you wherever and whenever you were. Not my style. When selling property back in 2004, I succumbed as things were not going to move smoothly without one.  (That's it on left.)  It served me well right up till I left for India in 2011.  When I got to Scotland at the end of 2013, my brother said I had to have a mobile. Did I?! To make sure of it, he handed me his old set. So this is what I currently hold (at right). Now, there are a fair few of you out there wrinkling your noses. I can feel it. Tough. It does all that it is required to do. Serves for travelling and emergencies. It is otherwise ignored. Operating one in the dairy aisle because you want to ask the kids if they'd like extra cheese with their pretzels? Unnecessary, folks!!! 

(..ahem..) This explains something of why I don't go 'booking face, talking with birds, hashing at folks, instanything' and very most certainly am against the [un]interesting pins, (which BTW is infamous for its lack of attention whatsoever to copyright... jus' so you know...)

I know a lot of you do. Not me though. What has this to do with Going the Ogle? Well it comes back to the fact that being online does enforce some element of visibility to the masses, even if that is not a preference. It is possible to hide behind 'doors' and folk can only visit by invitation, but that is also not desirable. One may be a loner, but not a recluse!

We are gathered here in Blogville and its 'suburbs' because we like hanging together, we have common interests and are keen on visiting and learning about new places. We do so through blogging which, for the majority here, is through Blogger itself which is a Google subsidiary. There are some on the WP and Weebly and other such blogging platforms. Blogging is the place to be when you want to do more than just whitter. It is a fairly solid place (as much as any such can be which operates in ether). It permits and encourages meaningful commentary. Of course there are those which are geared up for 'look at me' and 'buy me pay me'. Just like moving about in real society though, one can move along and only pay attention where you find the quality which suits. One of the heartaches for me is that there is so much of interest and quality out there and only so many time units available to find and visit them! (Take note of that last sentence. It bears relevance to my topic - which point will eventually be reached ;~})

Having recently embarked upon a level of enterprise at RedBubble, one was faced with all the linkups available. Thankfully, the Pin thing could be 'arrested' and right-click disabled in attempt to prevent image theft. Also chose the only networking tool that I opt for and that is Google Plus. That said, the default 'share' option with the Big Little Eff is still there, but that is fine - if others wish to spread the word on my behalf I can hardly quibble. There are other share options available but it requires a couple extra clicks to do that and again, am fine with that. As long as I am not being forced to join up all over the place myself.

Two things. Spreading oneself about over many platforms enlarges the possibility of personal invasion. Spreading oneself about over many platforms enlarges the amount of time one is required to invest in order to make them at all worth having a presence.

Dunno about you, but my time units are all very involved and have yet to find the magic potion which will expand those units.

When I signed up for Blogger a couple of years back, the Google Plus pages were strengthening up and there was the option to take a profile that was specifically Blogger, or take a G+ page.  I opted for the latter - not really understanding much about the difference. At the same time I opted into Chrome as my primary (now only) search engine. As time has progressed the functionality of G+ grew; now the MY TAKE blog posts are automatically loaded into the G+ page, drawing quite a few more followers as a result. (Have yet to figure out why Aatmaavrajanam doesn't autoload....)

To be honest, I still didn't pay a lot of attention until the start of this year. Fellow bloggers were 'plussing' my stuff and I was also doing this to posts I particularly enjoyed. One does this by clicking the little G on the post, or at the top of the screen. What I started doing this year, (this pertains to my point above regarding time versus visits), was plussing posts on blogs which I visit irregularly and do not necessarily have on my list, or on regular blogs during high traffic times when I cannot spend too much time making my usual pithy and pertinent comments, just so that they'd know I had 'sniffed around'...

However - and here is the cruncher - it started to dawn on me that not everyone will have realised I was there, even then.  Why? Well, unless that blog owner has shifted from Blogger profile to G+ profile, they most probably are not getting the notifications. These notifications show up on the top right of the screen in Chrome (the bell symbol). Which means they also require to have Chrome as their operating browser - I just checked IE to confirm and definitely the notification bell is not there. Heaven knows about any other browser.

Are there benefits to swapping to Chrome and to G+?  I believe there are. Next Friday I shall discuss the Plusses... and some minusses!!!

(...and in case you are wondering, this is entirely my personal view. I have no affiliation whatsoever so you're getting the benefit of direct experience, trial and error, long hours of personal upskilling and not a small amount of swearing.)

..and don't forget our invitation to Blogville!

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