Google+ launched just a few weeks ago, in invite-only beta. Yet, it seems like literally everyone on the web has already prophetic claims about its future:  Google+ is going to kill Facebook and Twitter… or Google+ was doomed to failure since before it was even conceived, and will go the way of Buzz…

A number of us here at Beaconfire were lucky enough to get invites early on, and it’s been the topic of conversation at most of our recent meetings, so I figure it’s time for us to weigh in.

Our question this week: How do you like Google+ so far? Any predictions on its future?

David, Software Engineer: I’ve been active on Google+ and so far very impressed. The fine-grained control make me far more comfortable than Facebook. I’ll be interested to see how fast the community grows and if Facebook people just duplicate facebook posts on G+ (creating echo chambers).

Marissa, Functional Consultant: (As shared on Twitter last week):

“Geez, I just learned how to use Twitter…I can’t handle another new Social Media Outlet.”

Tim, Functional Consultant: I’m withholding final judgement until a few bugs get squashed in G+, but Facebook hasn’t been useful or enjoyable for me in quite some time.  G+ feels to me like something I will use over Facebook certainly, Twitter maybe, and LinkedIn (wait, what’s LinkedIn again?).  I like the character limit of Twitter and feel like it forces it to be something very specific that, so far, G+ has not been.  I can see using them both and using them differently enough to justify both, but really look forward to enough people getting on G+ that I can delete my FB profile.

Jeff, Principal: Liking Google+ a LOT. So many possibilities, most of them business related. I imagine the personal stuff will stay on Facebook given that grandma and casual users are unlikely to make a switch to something new. My take is the personal stuff will be the last to move if at all from FB.

But the business stuff will move as FB is a poor tool for business relationships given the inability to separate personal from professional. The fact that we mixed at all is an indictment of the social aspects of LinkedIn and the different nature of Twitter.

So, LinkedIn could be in big trouble, if Google ever allows you to start making connections in other people’s circles. But let’s assume for now though that LinkedIN is in ok shape but the growth of their tool as a social business tool is over, IMO.

I think Skype could be in trouble for business use of video chat. We’ve just been exploring this as a company for remote workers. Thus far, I am looking for a reason that we couldn’t use Hangouts for business calls, at least among staff.

Anyway so far like what I see.

Jo, Marketing Consultant: I’m excited about Google+, and I’ve been enjoying it. The interface is friendlier than Twitter, and the privacy controls are much better than Facebook. I like the Circles concept a lot – even though most of my posts will probably be public, or will go to all my circles, I like that there’s a higher level of control when I want it.

I suspect that over time, it will put a serious dent in the use of Facebook, or perhaps Twitter. It nicely fills the role of professional networking that many people use Twitter for… but Facebook has many skeptics, and Google+ offers enough of the same features that Facebook users may find it easier to ditch Facebook next time that company does to bug their users, which they will inevitably do again.

On some level, I’m uncomfortable with the fact that this new social network (which seems, in  many ways, to be the one I’ve been waiting for) comes from Google.  It’s the same discomfort that I felt when I got my Android: so Google not only has my email, my search history, and my location data, but now they own my social relationships, too? On the other hand, Google has historically been pretty responsible with their users’ data, compared to certain other companies.  I just hope they’ll use their power for good.

Amy, Functional Consultant: I’m still getting the feel of G+ but right now it’s hard for it to compete with my FB account, as I have 6 times the number of FB Friends as people in G+ circles.  A lot of what I use FB for is communicating with family and most of them are not early adopters, so it’s going to be awhile before I switch over completely.

March has been a busy month for us: with SXSW Interactive and NTC happening back to back, it felt like all conference, all the time.  Now that we’re all settling back into our regular routines, we asked staff: what’s your favorite thing that you learned or saw at a conference this month?

Rebecca, Functional Consultant:

My favorite UX-related sessions had three things in common: they were entertaining (even completely hilarious at times), shared specific stories or case studies, and gave very actionable advice. Check out Jared Spool’s Anatomy of a Design Decision, Joshua Porter’s Metrics-Driven Design, and Lou Rosenfield’s Site Search Analytics for a Better User Experience.

Ashleigh, Marketing Consultant:

My favorite thing was learning about the new web made movie tool by Mozilla Foundation. It’s an open source HTML5 video framework that allows you to intersperse web pages, Google Maps, etc throughout your video. The platform is free and offers the ability to use it right away or customize it with coding. The goal of Popcorn and Butter are to make videos more interactive vs. them being stand alone boxes that just embed into a page.

See more at www.popcornjs.org and http://butterapp.org/butter/.

Jo, Functional Consultant:

It’s hard to pick my favorite session from SXSW, but the highlight was probably hearing Clay Shirky explain why social media is playing a huge role in revolutions in the Middle East: not because it’s helping protesters coordinate in the present, but because it’s been a channel for protest groups to organize and grow stronger for years, long before the recent protests started in Tunisia and Egypt.  It’s their long-term relationships that social media helped to develop.

Another great session was a Q&A with representatives from Google and Bing about how SEO works. The key takeaway: if you have good content, and it’s properly formatted, that’s the most important thing you can do. Once you have that, focus on building links from other sites to your site (which other sites will be happy to do if you have valuable content).  This is what we’ve been doing all along, but it was very nice to hear it put so concisely, by the people who make it happen.

Mark, Functional Consultant:

At NTC, I attended the Managing Stakeholders: the Art of Managing Up, Down, and Across, where there was an interesting discussion around using and managing “backlogs” in organizations. Typically a document that helps to drive “sprints” in Agile development, a “sprint backlog” is a running list of features/functionality that you use to prioritize and manage what you try and tackle in each sprint. What doesn’t get addressed in the current sprint gets kept in the higher level “product backlog” as a starting point for deciding what will be in the next one.

However, backlogs as a concept can be applied to different types of projects and situations as well, to keep track of features, functionality, ideas or decisions ongoing. Be it from phase to phase, project to project, or just over a period of time, the backlog can be used to actively track and document the conversation, and continually help prioritize what’s next.

I found the idea interesting in that it’s a tool meant to help prevent anything from falling by the wayside. In the backlog, you never delete but only continually prioritize what to focus on next. It’s also seems an interesting way to help organizations think bigger picture than just the current project and by revisiting it, continually be looking down the road.

Rob, Marketing Consultant:

Convio hosted a session on personalization of emails, and a presenter from the American Cancer Society discussed the impact of personalizing emails. Clickthrough rates grew enormously with just a little bit of customization. Appending“in [YourState]” to the subject along the lines of “Making a difference” nearly doubled clickthroughs. Mentioning the specific interaction that a person had with the organization (walk-a-thon versus donation) had a similar impact. A small difference in wording made a huge impact!

Jeff, Principal:

The two best sessions I went to both involved HTML5/CSS/JavaScript topic.

One was a good discussion about the future of flash in the new world where some mobile devices don’t support it and on others the performance isn’t quite there yet. The conclusion was that for cross platform considerations use flash for additive features rather than core features unless you can’t do what you want to do any other way. The emergence of HTML5/CSS3, and JavaScript JQuery allows you to do ‘most’ of what flash is normally used to do. But flash will also evolve and likely stay relevant but just for different uses.  (session was Flash is dead / Long live flash)

The second (HTM5 Hack) was about the convergence of HTML5/JavaScript powered web applications with the mobile app development. There are an increasing number of projects and platforms that will allow mobile development in core HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3 that can then be deployed cross platform and into native apps. This is exciting for web development shops who can focus on these foundational tools and not have to create completely separate teams who know the languages for iOS, Android and other competing mobile platforms.

Neal, Software Engineer:

I learned that you can follow along via Twitter and get fairly good coverage.

Scott, Functional Analyst:

The Future of the Map panel showed how easy it was for technical novices to setup a map, using either Google maps or Ushahidi’s new hosted mapping platform, explored some fantastic collections of data, and gave examples of best practices for making your data useful and discernable.

Amadie, Marketing Consultant:

SXSW provided so many takeaways – in fact, each day was chock full of learning with very little time to process and integrate the new knowledge. It’s only now that I’ve had the time to step back and reflect on what was discussed in the panels and in the hallways. But it’s the basics that stick with me, particularly advice around engagement and relationship building. “Today nobodies are the new somebodies,” said Guy Kawasaki, noting that marketers need to reach beyond the usual suspects. He advocates for a broad-based approach to influencer outreach, noting that influencers are at all levels of companies and that you don’t necessarily know who your evangelists are. But it’s also important to understand what activities truly engage supporters – as one of the panelists in “The Future of Philanthropy: Social Giving Takes Off” session noted, “pushing an action button isn’t loyalty.”

In addition, a few personal takeaways.

• True popularity at SXSW does not come from introducing hot new products, hosting hip parties, or rocking awesome panels. It comes from being the person who has remembered to bring the power strip.
• It is possible to eat grilled cheese for lunch every day, and we don’t even need the Big Cheese Truck (@bigcheesetruck) to come to Courthouse to do so.
• And finally, from Tony Schwartz of The Energy Project (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-schwartz/unitasking_b_838861.html): “Sleep is the single most undervalued behavior in our lives.”

Were you at SXSW or NTC?  Comment and tell us about your favorite part!

NOTE: This article is for those who have an extreme case of the Mondays, but still want to make an effort to engage donors.

Question: what is the one piece of last minute fundraising advice you would give non profits that haven’t planned for any year-end giving?

Jo, Marketing Consultant:

Around the Holidays
 “Year-end fundraising” is used to describe two very different types of appeals, which are lumped together because they happen around the same time of year.  Holiday giving – focused around Thanksgiving and the various December holidays – is a good opportunity for donors to show their generosity by making a gift donation in someone’s name, or simply to support a good cause at a time of year when we’re all supposed to think about doing good. Holiday fundraising is all about the warm fuzzies.

Donate for Tax Purposes
On the other hand, true year-end donations usually happen in the last week of the year, when non profits remind their donors: “hey, you know all those tax-deductible donations you wanted to make in 2010? Better do it now!” Year-end donors are also interested in doing good things for the larger community, but they’re more focused on meeting that 12/31 deadline for tax purposes.  (And, usually, they give more money than holiday donors, so your ask can be higher.) Even if you’re putting together a last-minute, bare-bones fundraising campaign, think about how holiday and year-end giving can both play a role.

Mark, Functional Consultant:

Celebrities
Secure a celebrity endorsement and have that person ask for donations through web videos, related images, email marketing and social media like Twitter. A good tactic includes sending out a series of well-timed tweets. Of course too, choose a celebrity that will likely appeal to a majority of constituents.

Amy, Functional Consultant:

Include Images AND Text
Make sure that your most impactful content is included as text in your solicitation emails. The text needs to visible even if images are not displayed.  Many users do not bother to download pictures in their email. So if your key messaging is image-based, potential donors will never see what great work you could do with their donations.

Marissa, Functional Consultant:

Entice Them with What You Need
Test readers about something this year that you can use next year.  

Remember, planning for year end fundraising typically starts in late summer – just to ensure you’re prepared to solicit donations effectively, in every possible way. But if you’re like many who haven’t had time to focus on planning, there’s still hope. Make sure you are transparent in your messaging, engage donors in a real and meaningful cause and use common sense, and you’re bound to raise something.

Jo, Marketing Consultant: Hiking at Mount Rainier – standing on a ledge at 7,000 feet, breathing the cool, crisp, completely smog-free air blowing off a glacier.

Mark, Functional Consultant: On the beach in Duck, NC – watching my daughter play in the sand for the first time.

Amadie, Marketing Consultant: We went to San Francisco Bay area, Yosemite and Monterey. Tie for the most amazing moment: 1) having lunch on a rock next to Emerald Pool at the top of Vernal Fall, 2) lying on a rock in silence at the base of Bridalveil Fall, watching white puffy clouds drift across the sky.

Neal, Software Engineer: Helicopter ride with doors off over Kauai followed by my brother’s wedding on the beach.  I was the best man and my one year old son was the somewhat negligent ring bearer that shirked his duties by sleeping on me through the entire ceremony.

Sara, Project Manager: Lots of memories from our two beach vacations: getting through 2 books while the kids played with their cousins, ghost crabbing hunting with the kids at night, teaching my son how to pick a crab for the first time, rocket balloon fun on the beach, seeing my daughter hysterically laughing and talking to the otters at Brookgreen Gardens.

Michael, Principal: Fantastic time on the “Float and Bloat” cruise to Alaska with Noona, Boompa, nephews, sons and Kindra!

Arlene, Office Manager: Atlantis, Paradise Island Bahamas – relaxing on the lazy river with my kids and watching my parents playing with their grandkids.

I’m talking about using psychology to design better online interactions. In usability, we aim to make websites easier to use. In contrast, you can instead motivate (seduce) users to want to use your site, whether it is usable or not. That’s where the psychology comes in. If your site is funny, or playful, or surprising, visitors will be more motivated to use it.

The phrase “seductive interaction” comes from a talk by Stephen P. Anderson, who has put together some great examples and a large set of psychological techniques that can apply to the web. You can listen to a podcast of his talk from SXSW 2010, or read his slides, which are packed full of examples.

It’s a great reminder, especially to all of us who work with nonprofits, not to take yourself too seriously, or to stay too much within the mold. It’s all about standing out.

So, we asked staff:

What is your favorite example of a “seductive” interaction on the web?

Amy, Functional Consultant: Blogger does a great job with this.   “Create a Blog.  It’s easy and it only takes a minute.”  – which, even better than being seductive, is HONEST!  There it only takes a minute and it IS easy!

Marco, Software Engineer: This may be too tech focused for the blog.  But during the meeting I thought of the ZumoDrive service I use for online backup.  When you first sign up, they have this Learning “Dojo” that you go through to get familiar with the different features in your account.  And it’s presented like a game where you earn belts and there’s a reward.  When you’re done you get an extra  1GB of storage.  Check out the screenshot.

Marissa, Functional Consultant: The winner has to be Google Pacman.

Scott, Functional Consultant: I like Jeremy Keith’s narrative-style form. http://huffduffer.com/signup/.  One of the reasons is that It’s pretty simple to do.

Jo, Marketing Consultant: Every time you sign into Flickr, they teach you how to say “hello” in a random language. It makes me smile every time.

How about you? What’s your favorite example?

(update: 6/25/2010)

Mark, Functional Consultant: Found a couple of more recently that I thought would be worth sharing…

Skype advertisement to use their advanced web to phone calling feature

When you install Skype, they allow you to try their advanced web to phone feature. In doing so they prompt you to, “call someone you love.” Kind of delightful and unexpected.

Additionally, when you check out a preview of Flickr’s recent feature additions from the photo page you get a surprise. After stepping through four previous steps and clicking on the fifth, all of a sudden a panda bear appears in the bottom right of your screen and you are prompted to, “now have some fun with it.”

Final step page in new Flickr features preview

I thought this was great… totally unexpected (surprising) and delightful at the same time. Great example of bringing in several of the “sexy interaction” attributes that Stephen Anderson has been talking about.

What was the best April Fools joke you’ve ever played or been a victim of?

Mark, Functional Consultant: Best and worst joke I’ve fallen prey to… VA Beach’s Mount Trashmore Methane explosion joke of 1992 – #9 on museumofhoaxes.com all time worst April fools day jokes: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/worstaprilfools.html

We thought it was real for awhile, as 2 local DJ’s pulled off a total ‘war of the worlds’ type thing on their rowdy morning show.

Scott, Functional Consultant: Victim – http://techcrunch.com/2008/03/31/youtube-rickrolls-users/
terrible.

Marissa, Functional Consultant: One time, someone in my family put a rubber band around the spray nozzle attachment to our sink. When you turned on the sink for the first time, you’d get soaked.

Cara, Project Manager: My kids get me with this about once a month….they have the timing down to a science….I don’t always laugh…

Marissa: I changed my mind. This is my new favorite: http://www.trainsignal.com/windowstraining.aspx

Kesah, Client Manager: In the spirit of the day, I played an April Fool’s Day joke on myself this morning.  I accidentally got on the blue line train instead of the orange line.  There’s nothing like starting your day with a surprise trip to Arlington Cemetery.

Twitter is an increasingly important player in social media – even Congress is tweeting. But while some people love Twitter, others love to hate it.  We asked our staff: To tweet? Or not to tweet?

(As a twist, tweeters were limited to 140 characters in their defense.  For non-tweeters, no limits.  It seemed only appropriate.)

Amadie, Marketing Consultant (@amadie): I tweet on online community, fundraising, analytics, and general randomness. My TweetCloud: tweetstats.com/gr…

Tim, Functional Consultant: I swore I would never – and didn’t see how it was anything but splattering my friends with the minutiae of my life.  Now I splatter daily.

Mark, Functional Consultant: 2 tweet, bt carefuly. No m@r hw shrt or fleeting, tweets stik arnd, r srchable & shw up lk NEthing. esp if ura celeb. Ask Gilbert Arenas.

Shiloh, Marketing Consultant: RT @Mark: tweet carefully. No m@r hw shrt or fleeting, twts stik arnd, r srchable & shw up lk NEthing. esp if ura celeb. Ask Gilbert Arenas.

Miro, Software Engineer: Tweeting needs to die a quick and painful death, at least in its 140 character iteration. The phone technology is progressing at such a point that within a few years, we should have fully web and email-enabled phones in every hand at which point the silly texting limitations and hvng t abbr evrythg is just a ridiculous requirement.

Instead of limiting our communication by the early 20^th century technology, we should move it all forward by about a hundred years, and just call it all data … voice, web, texting, email. It’s all just bytes moving around.

While tweeting has its useful social uses (see Iran, natural disasters), and should be kept around for those reasons, far too many abuse it and try to make it deeper than it should be. See tweeting from Congress people as they’re in session, and the likes of Sarah Palin. If your entire thought can fit into 140 chars, maybe you should keep it to yourself.

Jo, Marketing Consultant: I tried to like Twitter.  I really did. I got an account, I followed a bunch of smart, entertaining people… but I gave up. There was too much noise, not enough signal.  And in too many cases, no thought behind the content.  Twitter has some good uses, I’ll admit… but give me a good ol’ blog, and I’ll be much happier.

Susan, Administrative Assistant: When I was taking the metro, I would count on the Express for my daily news.  Now that I’m driving again, it’s all about WTOP news radio.

Amy, Functional Consultant: Indeed, I read the Washington Post every morning on my commute.  Sometimes, if I glance a picture or graphic in The Express over another commuter’s shoulder, I might read a little of that, too.  During the day I get my news from various news feeds on my iGoogle page – particularly CNN.com Headlines and “Top Stories” which pulls headlines across an array of providers (Bloomberg, The Post, The NY Times, Wall Street Journal, etc).

Tim, Functional Consultant: I haven’t read a paper in years.  During the day I get news via RSS feeds that I follow in Google Reader.  I listen to NPR radio shows via podcasts which I listen to during my commute.  Since picking up an iPhone, I increasingly get news via NPR, WSJ, Washington Post, and other apps.  In the evening I watch Jon Stewart who rounds out my daily news picture.  For real in-depth analysis, I read monthly and weekly magazines (Harpers, the New Yorker, and The Economist).

Andy, Project Manager: Every day I read DemocratandChronicle.com for local news, the Washingtonpost.com for national and political news, and search Google News for economic and financial stories of interest to me. I also read the print version of the Economist every week religiously.

Kristin, Project Manager: I listen to news radio on my drive in. Otherwise, re: papers, only on Sundays…it’s a luxury to sit down and read a paper these days…

Marissa, Functional Consultant: I get a Sunday Newspaper, but I don’t really read it for the news – I read it for that “Easy Like Sunday Morning” feel. I have an RSS Feed set up to send me local news. As for National News, I don’t have a specific way I follow it. I’m on the Internet all day, so somehow the really big news always trickles down to me somehow. I’m ashamed to admit it, but my most steady source for National News is the Daily Show.

Jeff, Principal Consultant: Yes newspaper every day. Something about seeing stories I wouldn’t normally choose to read.  I also use the AP news widget on blackberry when I don’t have the paper or want to see newer headlines.

Ali, Marketing Consultant: Washington Post online in the morning.  Facebook status updates in the evening.  Blogs on the weekends.  I spend about 2 minutes scanning the Post in the morning and click “read later” for articles that interest me.  This tags them to Instapaper on my iPhone so I can read them on the metro on the way home.  At night, I usually scan status updates for articles, blog posts or videos friends have found interesting.  I let them serve as an information filter.

Lynn, Principal Consultant: I use my Blackberry a lot and use the Google News Reader.  But I still enjoy sitting down with the physical newspaper over my morning breakfast.

Shiloh, Marketing Consultant: During the week I listen to NPR and supplement with my Facebook feed (my friends know what kinds of articles I’m interested in) and, if I’m lucky, episodes of the Daily Show/Colbert Report to put it all in perspective. I read the newspaper but only on weekends.

Amadie, Marketing Consultant: On the weekends, I love to sit down with the print newspaper – the Post on Saturday and Sunday, and the Sunday New York Times – and read them pretty much cover-to-cover. During the week, though, time is very limited. I follow several reputable national and local news sources on Twitter and scan the headlines throughout the day, and catch the top of the hour news on the Today Show while getting ready and the Daily Show each evening.

Jo, Marketing Consultant: I used to read the paper on the metro every morning, but I find it too big and awkward to read in a crowded train.  Now, I read the Washington Post via their mobile site on my way to work, supplemented with blogs later in the day.  And, of course, I need my dose of fake news from the Daily Show.

We asked the staff: What’s your favorite example of user-generated content that has been bum rushed by people who resist coloring inside the lines?

Rebecca, Functional Analyst: I read that Amazon’s Tuscan Whole Milk is the product that started the whole review trend about 3 years ago.

Featuring a very impressive Edgar Allen Poe spoof:

Once upon a mid-day sunny, while I savored Nuts ‘N Honey,
With my Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 gal, 128 fl. oz., I swore
As I went on with my lapping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at the icebox door.
‘Bad condensor, that,’ I muttered, ‘vibrating the icebox door -
Only this, and nothing more.’

Amadie, Client Manager: One of my favorite examples is the Playmobil Security Check Point toy

Review highlight:

My son said he wants the Playmobil Neighborhood Surveillence System set for Christmas. I’ve heard that the CC TV cameras on that thing are pretty worthless in terms of quality and motion detection, so I think I’ll get him the Playmobil Abu-Gharib Interogation Set instead (it comes with a cute little memo from George Bush).

Erika, Operations Manager: Amazon’s Fresh whole rabbit reviews

A review of the rabbit:

How many weekends have I spent, in the loincloth, knife clenched in my teeth, running through the fields trying to find a rabbit? (A bunch, trust me on this, a bunch.) All so I can have something to sacrifice on the altar once I get to the cave.

Now, with this, home, fix a cocktail, go through the day’s mail, finish my drink and drive over to the cave, yank this carcass out of the box and offer this at the feet of my dark lord and master, boom, done. I’m happy, my dark lord and master is happy, everybody wins.

Other items viewed by the rabbit viewers: Uranium Ore

Miro, Software Engineer: I would have to say that Google-spamming to connect the word George Bush with “miserable failure”. That one is my favorite.

And of course, Colbert trying to get NASA to name the space station module after himself. Or the turtle. Oh well, I’ll admit it, I don’t think Colbert will ever get old for me.

Do you have a favorite? Add it to the comments!

Tim, Functional Consultant: I like it personally, but I can see how this redesign is rubbing some users the wrong way. The reason I like it is that it has pretty much stripped it down to what I’m interested in: the status updates, postings, and wall conversations of my friends. I don’t really make use of groups or applications, so the feed on my homepage is pretty much just things that my friends have said or posted. It seems a bit shortsighted for Facebook to have assumed that all users will be interested in the same things I am. I guess I’m just lucky this time.

Just don’t get me started on the new Digg.com toolbar!

Elizabeth, Senior Consultant: Hate it – I can’t find anything, and I can’t seem to move certain elements around to where I want them (i.e., putting the birthday reminders at the TOP of the right column rather than the bottom) or control my settings for what shows up in my news feed as finely as I’d like to.

Also, some of the applications I have liked in the past are so buried now, I rarely think to go to them. And I can’t figure out a way to change where they show up.

Mark, Functional Consultant: I mostly like the new layout of Facebook. The home page body cleanly gives most of the real estate to what people really want most: a regurgitation of all the witticisms, “bon mots” and general brickety-brack from their friends. I also like the “hide all chatter from this person” feature (perhaps this isn’t new, but I like it) so that you can filter out overly eager types who give you three posts between taking the dishes from the kitchen table to the kitchen sink. The right-column gets glossed over and runs together, perhaps due to a lack of design elements, or perhaps because I’m just fixated on the body.

Rahul, Tech Lead: I love it. Except that the Filter to hide people and applications on the feed needs to be fixed so that I can set it to only show me people’s normal activities, and not what their favorite cities, philosophers, etc. are.

Jo, Production Specialist: I’m fairly indifferent to it. All the things I use most often (like status updates, posted items, etc) are still right there. So, I have no problems with it.