>>Male Presenter: --pipeline for writing more
books. So, if you have ideas for other things
you think he should write future books on,
you can pitch him on your ideas. So, his most
recent book is "iPad Means Business."
And it's all about how the iPad is being received
and how excited, particularly enterprises
and educational institutions, are interested
in this new format--the tablet--and what Apple
is doing around the tablet as well, some of
the software and some of the services that
they're offering around this.
How this is changing the landscape, what potential
he sees, and also how he's been using it.
A lot of the book is case studies and it's
some personal experiences of his, but case
studies of other people. So, do dig in and
ask about some of the specific ways that people
are really using this technology.
He's been sort of an anthropologist out there
learning about it and he can tell you all
about what he's seeing in tablet usage and
where he sees this going. So I think that
covers it. Is there anything else I should
mention? OK.
>>Julio Ojeda-Zapata: My next book is about
Google+.
>>Male Presenter: Yeah, his next book sounds
like will be about Google+. And we've been
tickled by the idea that it might be, there
might be a book out there even further about
Google Apps as well. So, this is why I say
he's maybe open to pitching if you can get
him interested in something.
But Google+ is on his mind for sure right
now because it's hot. So, without further
ado, Julio. Take it away. And he'll present
for a little while and then we'll open it
up to Q&A. I may ask some questions, but I
think we have enough people here that we can
just open it up. Thanks.
>>Julio Ojeda-Zapata: I'm really happy to
be here, because I'm a long time user of Google
services. Big fan of your company. Big fan
of your products. Two notes of apology.
Number one, I lost my glasses. I don't know
where the hell my glasses are. And so, you
guys are all fuzzy blobs, which is great for
my stage fright. So, but I might be squinting
a little bit. And the other note of apology
is I'm a little intimidated that I'm here
on the same day as George R.R. Martin, who
is one of my personal heroes.
That's a lot of pressure. What I'm gonna do--.
I was talking to Jason about the appropriate
format. I had prepared a long presentation
and his suggestion was de-emphasize that a
little bit and just have a conversation. So,
I'm gonna whip through my deck, like super,
super fast. If I'm going too fast, slow me
down.
But you guys are all Googleheads, so you should
be able to keep up. I'm speaking to you today
as a tech-book author and as a technology
enthusiast. So, I cover technology, but I'm
also fond of technology, which is what makes
my job so much fun.
I'm a user and lover of most things Google,
going all the way back to the time when Google
first started allowing people to associate
their domain names with Google Apps. I've
been using Google services for ages. At the
same time, I'm a somewhat frustrated Google
user.
I have some specific issues, some specific
problems, some specific complaints which I'll
briefly address today in the form of a constructive,
courteous criticism. And I'm gonna keep things
really simple. I'm just gonna very quickly
touch on three things today. The first one
the column.
I write a weekly technology column. And my
column, this Sunday, is about Google Apps.
So, I thought I'd give you guys a sneak preview
of that. It's very unorthodox for me to be
revealing what I'm writing in my Sunday column
well prior to that. I hope I don't get in
trouble with my boss, but I'm gonna talk about
it a little today and if you go to my Google+
account, you can see the full text of the
column posted there.
The other thing I'm gonna touch on briefly
is my iPad book and how it relates to Chromebooks,
which I'm pretty excited about. And I'll tell
you a little bit about my next book, which
is about Google+. And just a little background
about myself. Google Apps are my life.
I have my personal domain name associated
with Google Apps. I've done that for ages.
I love it. Moving my domain name over to Google,
it was a long time ago, it took me a lot of
courage to take that step. I had my domain
name somewhere else. The Google option was
very appealing, but sometimes I don't embrace
change as freely as some other people.
So, it was a really big step, right up there
with marriage and having a kid for God's sake.
I'm only partly kidding about that.
[laughter]
So, Google services are my life. These are
examples of other services that are just huge
in my life. My Google Voice account is my
primary phone number. If you're calling me,
you're calling my Google Voice.
It's my primary number. Reader is amazing.
It's a treasure trove of information every
day. I just can't believe it. I've recently
gotten into cooking a little bit to help my
wife out. And being able to search for recipes--huge.
Tasks. I recently discovered Google Tasks
canvas view, which is this very elaborate
desktop interface that I didn't know was there.
It was really amazing and so, I've been using
Tasks heavily since then. And Google+ is currently
my favorite social network. I'm a big user
of Twitter. I hate Facebook. I love Twitter.
I've written a book about Twitter. But Google+
is just really amazing. I really like it a
lot.
The subject of my column for Sunday--I'm just
gonna whip through this very quickly--is--.
I love Google Apps, but I also have some frustrations.
Apps, for a very long time, has been my productivity
hub. I reached a moment of great frustration
at the Pioneer Press.
The Pioneer Press where I work has Windows
PCs with Microsoft Word loaded on it and they're
doing the Exchange thing. And if you write
a story at the Pioneer Press, you're doing
it at the paper. And if you go home you're
screwed because if you think of a change you
wanted to do in the story, it's back at the
paper.
And it's like, suddenly it dawned on me. This
is madness. It's absolute madness. I should
be able to work everywhere from any computer
any time I want. And so, I did something very
rebellious. I didn't ask for permission. I
didn't tell anybody anything. I just moved
all my work stuff to the Google cloud and
I've never looked back.
I'm the only one at the paper who's done that.
And it's been great for productivity. And
so, it's really, as a family man, it's nice
to be able to just go home and pick up where
I left off at the office if I need to do something
at home. But I'm having this very fierce internal
debate about the cloud.
I like the desktop paradigm, as well. I mean,
I think sometimes there's a place for the
desktop and I wonder if there should be a
hybrid situation when working in the cloud,
but I'm also working on the desktop. I realize
that when I say that, is Apps too cloud-centric?
I realize that's sacrilege in this room, but
this is what I've been thinking about. I've
been thinking about cloud/desktop hybrids.
And you guys have tools that are like that.
There's Google Apps Sync. There's Google Cloud
Connect. Very interesting experiments. As
I understand it, they're only regarded as
the interim measures, but they've been useful
for me.
And Microsoft's Office 365 is coming on the
scene. It's a Google Apps competitor. It emphasizes
the web as well as the desktop. It has these
working together. Very interesting. It's very
interesting to me. Apple's iWork is a different
situation.
Apple emphasizes the desktop, but with its
latest version of iWork and the latest version
of IOS mobile operating system, it's setting
up a syncing engine so that if you're working
on a Mac, a Mac laptop or a Mac desktop or
an iPhone or an iPad, it doesn't matter which
version of, for instance, Pages for word processing,
you're using.
You make a change on one device, it's reflected
on all other devices. You can't edit the document
on the web in the Google way. There's no web
interface, but everything is synced from device
to device. I'm a big Mac user. I'm a big user
of Google services and I'm a big user of Macintosh
hardware.
And this is very interesting to me. Again,
I'm a long time Google Apps user. I love it,
but this is the first time I've actually toyed
with the idea of actually using Pages as my
primary. I've never liked Pages, but this
whole iWork’s syncing is very interesting.
So Apple has my attention there.
The Mac OS X now has AutoSaving in versions
which is similar to what I use in Google Apps.
Seamless editing across desktop and mobile.
And here's the rub. Here's where we get to
the key problem. If I'm using Google Apps
on a Mac, a Windows PC, a laptop, a desktop
computer, perfect.
The hardware fades into the background. I
get my work done. I'm not worrying about my
physical location. I'm not worrying about
which computer I'm on. I'm just focused on
my work. But then, if I try to use Google
Apps on the iPad, everything screeches to
a halt.
Earlier today, I had a briefing with a Google
Docs manager and so this slide may be slightly
out of date. He told me that they're working
on that. They're really working to make the
mobile experience for Google Docs and Google
Apps users better. But my question is, when?
Now? Tomorrow? When?
'Cause this Apple stuff is calling to me.
So, right now I'm just experiencing too much
friction, too few features on the mobile.
And so, that's my bottom line. You gotta fix
the whole iPad situation, or I'm, unfortunately,
just gonna move on.
So, and the other thing I talked to Jason
just a little bit about is today I'm a little
annoyed that the shiny new bells and whistles
that are rolled out to generic Google users
are often slow to arrive for paying Google
Apps users like myself. And so again, I don't
think I'm telling you anything you haven't
heard about.
But Google+ has amplified that frustration
because I had to dust off an old generic Google
account that I never use to start a Google+
account, which has taken off. I mean, the
amount of energy, the amount of engagement
that I have found on Google+ is amazing.
I just, in a very short time, I have almost
a thousand followers now. All of these great
conversations going on. But I'm really stressed
out because all of this is happening on this
Google account that I don't wanna use. My
primary Google account is over here.
And I'm doing Google+ over here. And how's
that gonna work? Is Google gonna let me port
it over at some point? How easy is that gonna
be? Do I have to export my data, then reimport
it over here? I know you guys are thinking
about that, but I just thought I'd throw that
out as a source of frustration.
And Google+ is just the latest example of
that for me. As a paying Apps user, I want
the shiny, new stuff. I should mention that
Google Apps is very big in my family. I persuaded
all my relatives, my son, my wife, my parents,
I told them, "You should all use Google Apps.
You should get your own domain name. Get your
own identity on the internet. Port it over
to Google Apps account. Get busy with Google
Docs." My son and my parents and I, we all
collaborate on documents. We're all in different
places. We can all work together.
And my son was visiting my parents in New
Hampshire the other day and I said, "Hey,
I should do a Hangout. We should do a Hangout,
do a Google+ video thing." And then I screeched
to a halt. Oh, wait. We're all using Google
Apps. It's just not gonna work. So, source
of great frustration for me.
So, very quickly, my book is not a how-to
book. It's a business book. It's a work of
business journalism. If you read my book,
you're gonna read a lot of stories about entrepreneurs,
about large companies, about K12 schools,
universities and why they're using their iPad,
how they're using the iPad, how that's going.
It's a series of stories. My book is the only
book of its kind. It's the only book that
addresses this whole iPad as productivity
in a journalism capacity. I'm a journalist.
I tell stories. And so, my book is a very
good complement to a lot of other books that
are out there that are how-to.
How to do this. How to do that. Those books
are the how and my book is more the why. So,
I think if you haven't read my book, I think
you'll find it enlightening. The central thesis
is that the iPad is great for work. And as
a tablet devotee, I'm very interested in Android.
I'm very interested in Android Taoism.
I can't wait to get back to my office because
there's a shiny ten-inch galaxy tab waiting
for me on my desk there with Verizon LT. Ooh,
I'm real excited about that. But I'm also
very frustrated because I'm rooting for Android.
I see how well Android has done on the phone
side.
But I'm wondering, why aren't there more apps,
more tablet-friendly apps for Android devices?
And maybe you can, when we have a conversation,
can shed some light on that. So, and just
very briefly want to say that I'm very, very,
very excited about Chromebooks.
The Chromebook technology appeals to me greatly
because I can just crack the lid on one of
these devices and see all the tools that I'm
familiar with and get right to work. So, I'm
very excited about Chromebooks. I'm a little
torn, though. Some of the pluses are it has
a keyboard.
I'm hopeless with the iPad's virtual keyboard.
I just can't use that thing to save my soul.
So, being able to have a physical keyboard
is important. All the web apps, I already
know. Chromebooks are very affordable. But
Chromebooks may be a little ahead of their
time.
I'm a big science fiction reader and I read
about novels that are set in the near future
where the internet is this ubiquitous mist
that you never even think about, you never
even worry about it. It's just there. And
I don't think we're quite there yet. And I
think the Chromebooks lives in that future
where it's assumed that the internet is always
available.
And we're almost there, but not quite there.
So, one of my big things is what happens if
you get on a plane with a Chromebook? Everything
screeches to a halt. And I think Google had
an answer for me on my flight out here. It
was the first flight I was ever on that had
Wi-Fi.
So, I paid five bucks and I Wi-Fi and I used
my Chromebook. Yay. So, and just very briefly,
my next book about Google+--. My publisher's
based in Cupertino. They're called Happy About.
And they have a series of THiNKaha books,
which are quick reads.
They basically take a concept and they synthesize
it down to little, pithy nuggets of wisdom
and information. And the series tackles every
subject under the sun. It's sort of like For
Dummies books, but even more abbreviated.
And my publisher talked me into doing a book
about Google+.
I'm very excited about that. So, I'm happy
to take your questions.
>>Male Presenter: So, let me just lead it
off with a question that's going back into
the presentation. I think one thing that would
be interesting to hear a little more of is
some of these particular case studies, uses
of the iPad, or tablets generally, that you
thought were unexpected, really interesting.
You mentioned TV anchors. Maybe just two or
three of these things that opened your eyes
or got you thinking a different direction
with how this new form factor might be used.
>>Julio Ojeda-Zapata: Well, the iPad, I must
confess. I'm a little set in my ways, frankly.
I'm very fond of my desktop computer when
everyone's using laptops. I'm very fond of
traditional computers when everybody's using
tablets.
I must confess, even though I'm a tech writer,
sometimes I get set in my ways and the new
stuff initially confuses me a little bit.
And it took me a while to understand that
tablets, they had very little onboard storage.
Tablets are windows. They're windows into
the cloud.
A very Google concept. And in my book, it
was very interesting to run into example after
example after example of companies that figured
out, "Hey, all we have to do is stash your
stuff in the cloud and just give everybody
tablets--. Architectural consultants that
are at work sites or whatever.
And they punch up their box dot net accounts
and pull up all their information." And companies
have been thinking along these lines for a
very long time. But they have never had hardware
which lent itself to this. The hardware that
existed before that was very heavy, very awkward,
very hard to use.
So, the iPad came in and filled a need that
existed there for a long time and a need that
people had already felt and had been asking
for. But it was the right device to solve
that problem. That's the fundamental concept
that I run into with company after company
after company.
Like schools, it's the same thing. I was recently
at a middle school where they were about to
deploy, they were about to give every kid
an iPad. It was a fun day because the students
knew the iPads were coming but the teachers
were playing coy. They didn't tell the kids
when the damn things were gonna get here.
The kids kept asking, "When are iPads coming?"
The teacher says, "I don't know. Just go do
your work." And then the PR people at the
school said, "Hey, you might want to come
to our auditorium. We're having a pep rally
that will have a very interesting ending."
And at the end of the pep rally, the rotund,
the principal with a big belly waddled onto
the floor and he started dancing. And then
all of a sudden, all the teachers came dashing
off the bleachers and they all had t-shirts--
the school is called Heritage Middle School--the
t-shirts all said "iHeritage."
And all these teachers with their black t-shirts,
they all started line dancing. And at the
end of ten minutes of line dancing, they unfurled
this big banner that said, "The iPads are
here." And the kids just went berserk. It
was amazing. And I mentioned that--.
There's a Google side note to that. I mentioned
that the excitement, the way the kids went
crazy, was really amazing. I mentioned that
because there's sort of a Google counterpoint
to that. I was watching Jimmy Kimmel the other
night and Joshua Topolsky, the very well-known
tech writer, was on there and Joshua Topolsky
did an Oprah thing.
I don't know if any of you guys saw this.
He did sort of an Oprah thing where he announced,
"Everybody in the audience is getting a Chromebook."
And it was the same situation. Everybody went
absolutely berserk. Somebody said, "It was
the best day of my life, man."
And the reason I mention that is because I
personally liked the idea of Chromebooks,
but I was a little dubious about whether people
were gonna go for them. And I'm pleasantly
surprised to see that they're selling well
and that there does seem to be a degree of
underlying enthusiasm for them.
And that makes me happy because I think the
Chromebook is a great counterpoint to the
whole tablet thing. I'd like to see both kinds
of technologies flourish. So, I'm rambling.
Any more questions?
[pause]
>>MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER #1: Sort of a follow
up on the last one, but I was also curious
about some of the other applications like,
news anchors and stuff that you mentioned.
So, if you can go and just tell us how people
are using tablets in business.
>>Julio Ojeda-Zapata: Yeah, you might seen
it on a slide I whipped through really quick.
I was walking through my newsroom one day
and I walked by the desk of a women. Her job
is to monitor the local TV newscasts.
And I walked by her desk and one of the--.
Vineeta Sawkar, which is an anchorwoman of
Indian extraction, she was doing her newscast
and I walked by the TV on the desk. And it
was like, I sort of did a double take and
said, "Is she using an iPad for God's sake?"
And I did a little poking around and as it
turns out KSTP TV, one of the local, it's
a local ABC affiliate where I work, they had
apparently issued iPads to all their anchors
and created a backend web app that would have
all the latest scripts and would update. Up
to that point, the anchors would, whenever
they had scripts to use on the set, they would
print them out.
And if there were any changes they had to
print them out again. And the TV station went
through just a massive amount printing money
every year. So, the issued iPads to all the
anchors, gave them this web app, just click
the button to refresh to update all the information.
And not every anchor at the TV station went
for it. A lot of them were just old school
and they just wouldn't have it. But this woman,
even though she's not very much of a geek
at all, she embraces instantly and she just
loves it. And so, if you watch her on the
news, you can't tell there's an iPad in front
of her.
But she's basically using the iPad as kind
of a teleprompter. And there's this other
TV station in Duluth, Minnesota, which is
northeast of the Twin Cities. They're doing
something similar, which is really interesting.
Apparently, you can buy a teleprompter, a
full teleprompter-like apparatus that has
a slot.
You slide the iPad in and the iPad interacts
with mirrors that are built into the device
and that becomes a teleprompter that journalists
can sort of use in the field to read off the
iPad. So, that's a very interesting example
of a specialized way that the iPad is being
used in a particular niche industry.
If you watch the Royal Wedding, the ABC anchors
that were sitting in their little booths,
overlooking Buckingham Palace, they were all
using iPads and holding up the latest thing
from Twitter or whatever. So, the tablet and
specifically the iPad is really, really taking
off in television journalism.
They're just absolutely--. TV journalists
are just absolutely nuts about it. So.
>>Male Presenter: What about the construction
site? [ inaudible] where you've seen that
type of [inaudible]?
>>Julio Ojeda-Zapata: When we get into like,
really specialized situations like construction
workers, architectural consultants and so
forth, working out in the field at project
sites.
Or people in warehouses, like driving their
forklifts around. In those kinds of scenarios,
the iPad has become absolutely ubiquitous.
It's being used everywhere in all those situations.
And again, it gets back to specialized information
that needs to be at people's fingertips.
There's this one company that I researched
that has a very large warehouse. And they
have a lot of people driving the forklifts
around, moving things back and forth. And
they need to periodically get instructions
from a back end database. And in the past,
they would have to stop their vehicles, get
out of the vehicles, go up to the wall, poke
a monitor to get their latest instructions.
And now they just have the iPads built into
their vehicles and they're just massively
efficient. I researched this one company that
does a lot of shipping out of centralized
shipping facilities. And the iPad has massively
increased their productivity because essentially
the iPad is feeding them the information that
the workers need on an as needed basis and
telling them what are the most efficient routes
within the facility to get from Point A to
Point B to Point C, do this, do that, do that.
And it just feeds them information at regular
intervals. And they're not doing these wild
goose chases through the facility anymore.
They're working at maximum efficiency. So,
those are examples.
>>Male Presenter: [inaudible]
>>Julio Ojeda-Zapata: I'm being general because
there are many solutions for this. In some
cases, native apps are developed. In other
cases, they're working off the web. The general
idea is the same. So. Higher education is
really big. I talked to a lot of--.
There's this one college student who's the--.
He's a good friend of a friend of mine. And
he was the first college student to take an
iPad around with him to class. He'd take the
iPad with the keyboard. And he's kind of a
grumpy guy, so he initially was the only person
doing this and everybody would walk up to
him and say, "Is that an iPad? Can you tell
me about it?"
And it was like, he just went--. He reached
the point where he just became suicidal 'cause
he was sick of hearing that question. He's
very relieved now because everybody at his
college is doing that now. Do you have a question?
>>MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER #2: I actually used
to live in Minneapolis for the last three
years. And I still read the Star Tribune,
the Pioneer Press, and NPR news and MinnPost.
And one thing I noticed was that I never actually,
I never saw tech columns in those sorts of
newspapers.
Maybe I just wasn't looking for them. Do you
find that local news and newspapers like Pioneer
Press are really pushing for tech because
of all the cutbacks and buyouts that they're
just letting PC Mag and CNet do all that sort
of work?
>>Julio Ojeda-Zapata: I'm sorry, you didn't
see a lot of tech columns out there?
>>MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER #2: Exactly, yeah.
I didn't even know the Pioneer Press had a
tech column. And granted, I wasn't specifically
looking for it, but it didn't seem like it
was promoted. And I just wondered is there
a place for local news to have coverage like
that, or do you find that that's fading away?
>>Julio Ojeda-Zapata: It started--.
>>Male Presenter: Step up to the VC mic. Right
this way. Check one.
>>Julio Ojeda-Zapata: It's a case by case
situation. For example, the Pioneer Press
has me. I write about consumer technology.
That partly involves reviewing products, that
partly involves researching local stories
that have a technology--.
Just to give you an example, last Sunday I
had an article on the front page of the Sunday
paper about social media overload. The subject
that triggered that--. The reason I did that
story was because of Google+. Some people
were saying, "Oh, jeez. Now there's another
social network?"
And so, I interviewed a lot of people and
asked them, "How are you dealing with all
these networks that are making demands on
your attention?" So, that's what I do at the
Pioneer Press. The Star Tribune doesn't have
anybody like me. They do have a guy who writes
a tech help column.
And that guy writes business stories. And
so, each of the news entities in the Twin
Cities does it a little differently and I
think that is the sort of thing that is reflected
in other news markets as well. Technology
coverage at mainstream newspapers has faded
a little bit.
Not as many papers are doing that. Not as
many papers have dedicated tech sections like
they used to. But the Pioneer Press still
seems to think that they have a place for
me, so I'm grateful for that.
>>MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER #3: A lot of the use
cases that you listed for the iPad, especially
the most recent ones, they seem like things
that could be done with any portable computer
or a laptop, maybe even a smartphone, possibly
a Chromebook, but maybe that's too recent.
So, what would you say is the factor that
makes it the iPad specifically that makes
this all take off?
>>Julio Ojeda-Zapata: The one thing that people
have told me over and over is that the iPad
very often is like a piece of paper. Like,
if you have something on a piece of paper
and you wanna show it to somebody, you say,
"Here. Take a look at this."
And so, the iPad at meetings, salespeople
talking to prospects in hallways or university
administrators gathering around an office
table or whatever. The iPad, there's a level
of intimacy to the iPad 'cause you can just
pull up something on your screen and just
hand it to somebody else.
It's a little more awkward to do that with
a laptop with the lid and you have to fumble
and pull something up with your mouse. There's
a neighbor of mine who's in the book. He works
for an engineering company. His company in
Minnesota does a lot of business with companies
in the Orient.
And they have a factory that has certain specific
procedures, things that they make. And they
came up with a series of videos to show to
potential customers. So, they have all these
videos queued up on the iPad and wherever
they are, whenever they're trying to woo a
new client, they can just pull up the videos
on the iPad.
And the iPad is just the perfect device for
that. There's something about presenting information
to people on a laptop that flips a switch
in many people. People say, "Oh, you're gonna
show me a PowerPoint or something on the laptop?"
And they just completely zone out.
It's a visceral instinctive thing. You're
gonna teach me something on a tablet? They
completely switch off. That happens a lot.
For some reason, that happens less with the
iPad, but maybe because it's a shiny, new
toy that everybody's fascinated with.
But if you want to get a visual point across
to somebody and you're picking the device
you wanna do that with, the iPad potentially
is a better option because you're gonna have
a more receptive audience. So, the smartphone
is obviously another option. The smartphone's
a computer in your pocket.
It's very small. So, I think the iPad hits
that sweet spot. Does that make sense? Any
other questions?
>>Male Presenter: 
And is there anybody on VC who has a question
as well? We should open it up.
>>Julio Ojeda-Zapata: Can I talk a little
bit about Google+? I just wanna tell you a
little bit about Google+, why I'm excited
about it. There's an iPad connections to that.
I wanna compliment Google on Google+ because
Google+ has done something very interesting
that I didn't know could be done, which is
to create a kind of social network that's
different from other social networks and fills
a certain specific needs that I didn't even
know I had.
This has all been very interesting for me.
I love Twitter. Twitter, to a large degree,
is my life. I met a lot of friends on Twitter.
I have a lot of very elaborate, very constructive,
very fulfilling interactions with other human
beings in Twitter, but the text limit is a
constraining factor.
It cramps my sail badly. Facebook is a really
creepy place. And I think that is largely
due to the character of the people who founded
Facebook. I'm not gonna go into too much detail,
but there's a level of trust that I lack in
using Facebook because there's a level of
trust that I lack in the people that run the
place.
And it's prison-like. You can get in but it's
very hard to get out. Facebook fills a role
in my life 'cause a lot of my family members
are on there, so I'm on there because a lot
of people are on there that don't use other
social networks. As a journalist, I have found
Google+ to be liberating because very unexpectedly,
it has become for me an alternate blogging
platform.
I like to blog, but the problem with blogs
is it's hard to build and to sustain an audience.
And I tried a little experiment on this trip.
I decided that on this trip, I would do the
bulk of the documenting--things that happened
to me, pictures I posted, things I wrote about
the trip--I would do that on Google+.
And I discovered to my very pleasant surprise
that it's a blogging platform. You can write
long posts. You can go back and edit the posts.
There's an edit button for God's sake. Other
social networks, you can write something,
you're done. You can't change it.
There's a mistake, you can't fix it. You can
attach photo albums. And so, I've been pleasantly
surprised by the level of engagement. I'll
write something and I get a lot of feedback.
I get a lot of plus ones. People comment on
it. And so, I just wanna tell you guys, I
think you guys are onto something.
I think this is gonna work. And I'm really
pleasantly surprised about that. But what's
the deal with the app networking on the iPad?
I mean, what is up with that? I just--. It
just blows my mind. And Facebook, by the way,
is about to release, if it hasn't already,
released an iPad app.
So, you guys gotta keep up with that. So,
thank you very much for Google+. I'm very,
very excited about it.
>>Male Presenter: OK. Well, I think if nobody
else has questions, I think we're set. So,
thank you again, Julio. Appreciate it. And
thank you everybody for coming. Thanks to
the folks on VC.
[applause]
