I hate to admit it but I’m missing Google+.
I used it as a place to go for serious research, reading, and topics. Yes, I am on Facebook but it’s more of a fun place. I had a great collection of things to read on Google + like Technology Coordinators, some of the organizations that support teachers directly, a number of education forums, Formula 1, and probably a bunch of other things that I can no longer remember!
I contributed when the mood hit me but I really liked the curated sources that I got from the groups I followed. I shared back and also used it as a place to automatically share posts from this blog. It always a hoot to get a +1 from Skip Zalneraitis and he was good enough to share posts with his network at times. In particular, he seemed to like the This Week in Ontario Edublogs series of posts.
But, that’s all gone now and nobody has left a forwarding address!
Except for Peter Vogel, that is. Don’t know Peter? I think he’s in line to go to the International Space Station.
I got an invitation from him yesterday to join him on MeWe.
The landing page looks promising.
So, I took Peter up on his offer. Peter has a great selection of interests – security, astronomy, photography, … so I was interested to see how he was using the service.
The interface looks modern and yet somehow very familiar.
I started a chat with Peter to thank him for the invitation and that sure looked familiar too. I wondered about the tracking and uBlock Origin only identified 1 (mewe itself) and Privacy Badger had nothing.
Then, I poked around and added a number of groups to my set of interests. With each login, there are red dots notifying me of new things. I poked around looking for friends and couldn’t find anyone other than Peter! Maybe I’m just early to the party?
I thought about setting up my blog there. I’m OK with a bit of work but it’s typically directed towards automation so that I don’t have to do it regularly. i.e. daily from this blog. Sadly, I couldn’t find any IFTTT scripts or auto posting ability from WordPress. Maybe with time and success, MeWe will get support.
In the meantime, I’m like a kid in a candy store looking through the shelves deciding what it is I want and what I don’t. The content focus, at this time at least, is very American but that too can change.
So, I’m over there kicking tires and trying the candy. Are you interested in joining me? For former Google+ users, where have you gone? Is there a party somewhere I don’t know about?
doug --- off the record 