Is There an App for That?

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Yeah, there is. However, if you dream it up at this point, you probably won’t be the first with that notion.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered a website where I could make my own app. For free. Oh, it’s crude, elementary, and not interactive but hey; I created it and it’s mine. 

Perhaps it's most redeeming property is the ability to easily read my blogs while on the go (hint hint)! While visiting a friend recently she suddenly held up her phone, and there was the front page of my app. So I know at least one person besides me has downloaded it. 

Whenever I poked some people back on Facebook they instantly poked me again.  Every time. For a while I thought: “Do these friends have anything better to do than wait around for me to poke them so they can poke back?” Finally, I investigated and found several “autopoke” apps. And no, they weren’t on Google Play! But will I use such an app? Must ponder.

But more importantly, in particular to all the developers out there, here’s my app wish list.

Friend for Life App: Hey, you want to friend me then you’re STUCK with me. 

This app eliminates that sinking feeling in your stomach when you’ve figured out (or maybe you already have a tool that tells you) that you’ve been unfriended. 

Oh, they can TRY to unfriend you but it won’t happen. A message says “unfriend systems are down; try again later”. At some point, they’ll stop trying. Perhaps then they’ll actually speak to you and clear up the beef they have with you. All the better!

Auto Flower App: Sends flowers costing an amount you specify for birthdays and holidays. It will pull in your friend’s birthdays automatically from Facebook and any other sources and utilize info from your phone contacts. One time set up: Plug in type of flowers, colors and vases.  Never miss mom’s special day again!

Wait a minute! Scratch that one. It takes all the warmth out of giving!

Auto Hide: If a friend is going wild with posting, this app will automatically sense this and temporary hide them from your news feed. Everyone should have this! It would cut down on the Share-o-holica syndrome if the culprit notices that no one is liking/plusing or commenting on their posts. This may encourage them to curtail this practice!


LOL Silencer: Takes away the ability for a selected friend, tweep, or circler to use LOL, thus forcing them to actually say something instead. Engagement encourager. Optional: Silences ROFL, LMAO, ROFLMAO and Ha Ha.

Instant Crumb Cake: Transports regional dishes to your out-of-state location. I’ll use mine for New Jersey Crumb Cake from B and W Bakery, Taylor Ham (invented in New Jersey) and Dunkin Donuts Vanilla Kreme (because there are no DDs in California). Caution: May be calorie enhancing.

Bash Banner: Automatically eliminates negative comments related to politicians of any party from your news feed. Works on any major social network. The question is: Will there be any news left for you to see? 

Peace App: Instantly creates world peace. One time use per person. Choose when to hit the activate button wisely.

Is this too much to ask? 

Are you apt to stop by and say Hi?: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or the website.

Google, Google+, YouTube, and You.

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One big happy Google family! I wasn’t a bit surprised to learn that YouTube has been integrated into Google+.

There it was. The YouTube icon, beckoning me on the upper right of the page. I clicked on it. A little window opened with a friendly question: “What would you like to play?” so I typed in one of my favorite tunes by Melanie, Peace Will Come. Then I clicked, and a new window opened up with a whole list of videos for the tune. The first one automatically started playing, so do be prepared and don’t have your speakers cranked up at full volume.

How cool is that? But I became even more joyous when I noticed the little green share button at the top right of the video. A comment is easy to add and the choice of public or just a circle or two is available as well. Sweet!

What does this mean? For starters, we’ll probably start getting inundated with music videos on Google+ just like on Facebook! Yeah, I should talk! Some of you know I have a music/pop culture page on Facebook, Groovy Reflections, where many videos are posted every day. I’m going to defend myself and say “that’s different”. It represents an element of a business endeavor by solidify the imagery of the brand and besides, people choose to like the page, thereby saying “I WANT to see your posts”.

Wondering if Google+ will section off the YouTube feature at some point, sort of like what they’ve done with games? Personally, I’m happy that I don’t have to worry about hiding or blocking games or getting requests to join games all the time like on Facebook! But I really DON’T want to see zillions of music videos all the time. Wouldn’t it be nice to just click on a little icon to see a stream of everything just from YouTube? Like Blip.fm, for example, but with video right there? You could pick a tune or two and take a five minute break …then get back to work! Just kidding.

Facebook, on the other hand, has discouraged folks from posting videos as they move forward with their integration with Spotify and some other music sites. And lately, I’ve noticed that many posts I’ve attempted to make from YouTube come through without a thumbnail. Don’t know if Facebook is the one doing that, but hey, why would they want posts from YouTube since it belongs to the competition?

Will be interesting to see how things unfold over the next few weeks. I’m assuming that people will embrace the new feature on Google+ but who knows?

Google has their smarts on and it will be wonderful to see more of the blending of their tools in the future.