MeWe versus Pluspora: A Refugee Story

Now that the dust has settled and Google+ resides in the graveyard of Google products, I can take a moment to assess some differences between the two landing sites I've been lurking on, MeWe and Pluspora.

I'll be honest with you, at first, I hated MeWe. Politics aside, I hated the eye-candy aspect of it. As a site, it seemed to really focus on looking good, and that just rubbed me the wrong way. Pluspora, on the other hand, was ugly. The layout was clunky. It lacked the ability to edit posts. With some tweaks to the style sheets, both sites became much easier to use. The multi-column layout is much better for me than the native format. It's still not possible to edit posts on Pluspora, but I can live with it.

Each site stands on its own in a different way. If I want to read scholarly material that will make me think, I can find it on Pluspora. Pluspora contributors write their own well-researched pieces as well as links to quality material found elsewhere. MeWe contributors appear to only post lighter fare. Pluspora is a hearty stew. MeWe is a flaky pastry. On neither platform have I found the back-and-forth conversation in the discussion threads that used to happen with great frequency on G+. People don't seem to know how open they should be on these other platforms. Can they be themselves or should they only be a version of themselves? At the same time, I can't help but think there's a lot of sidebar conversation going on, out of the mainstream, that we're all missing out on. In the end, it's left me feeling constrained. I share interesting links with my wife, instead of sharing them to the public on other platforms. I have interesting conversations with my wife, instead of having them with you, my readers and friends. I'm feeling a lot less social.

Fashion Trends and Social Signals

It's funny how different fashion trends can be used as social signals. I just read a fashion article that talked about how the trend of the bare male ankle seemed to be going away for this fashion season. Honestly, it's been a long time since I kept up with fashion trends. I remember the bare ankle becoming a thing during the 1980s (when I was in high school and college) but I was unaware of its ebb and flow since then. I do definitely recall how my parents absolutely hated the bare ankle trend. For their generation, wearing shoes without socks signaled that you were poor, that you couldn't afford socks. I got many lectures about not making the family look bad because I was keeping up with the trend of not wearing socks with my casual shoes. My parents also did not understand the trend of ripped jeans or faded jeans. For their generation, faded or ripped jeans signaled poverty. My mom actually felt sorry for the kids who wore ripped jeans to school until I explained that it was a fashion choice. What once was a sign of poverty became a sign of cutting-edge fashion sense. At this moment we seem to be moving from bare ankles back to socks, so have we decided it's time to spend more money on the clothing budget to differentiate the fashionable from the broke?

Tales of the Uber/Lyft Driver: What's my name?

After that tragic kidnapping and death a few weeks ago of the young woman who thought she was getting into her Uber (but it was a total stranger's car) there has been a movement for rideshare passengers to ask their driver, "What's my name?" From a driver's perspective, this is absolutely the wrong thing to be doing. Let me explain why.

As a rideshare passenger, you have several pieces of information that you can use to identify me. You get my photo. You get my name. You get the make, model, and color of my car. You get my tag number. You also get the ability to call or text me in the rideshare app itself. Depending on how you want to count it, that's about 7 different ways you can identify me as your driver. Do you know what I get? In most cases, I only get a name. It's often not even your legal name. Most passengers never bother to include a selfie in their rider profile. So, I get a name.

Why should I give you, a total stranger, the one piece of information I have for identifying my next passenger? You could be a scam artist looking to get a free ride on someone else's dime. Once I give you my passenger's name, what is there to stop you from claiming to be that person as you step into my car? No, asking the driver for your name is boneheaded security. Use the tools that you have in the app to identify the correct car and driver. There are many cars that look alike. Don't just verify the make, model, and color. Verify the tag. If you still have doubts, use the app to call your driver. If the person answering the phone isn't the person whose car you're about to enter, that person is not your driver. Expect your driver to ask for your name and confirm your destination. Once all the security stuff has been taken care of, hop in and enjoy the ride.

No Traffic but Twitter

So it appears the demise of Google+ killed traffic to my blog. My only external traffic source has been Twitter. I guess my original thoughts about cross-posting to Twitter were correct. I'm not sure why people on MeWe and Pluspora aren't clicking through to the blog, but they certainly aren't. Somehow G+ provided much better visibility.