What I Learnt Today

I’m not sure what’s going on here, but you’d think someone would notice when a cheerleader goes missing.

At least Bambo the mascot is chivalrous

I will be the first to admit that I don’t know much about Finland.

However, it was a source of a Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon for me today.

Rear Vision on Radio National featured Finland this morning.

It appears that Finland made some bad choices during WW2, and found itself at different times allied with and then fighting against each of Germany and Russia. After the war it had to pay enormous reparations to the Russian government – which it did, and then prospered during the Cold War.

And tonight Mike came to the Lembkedome still whistling tunes he’d been listening to from the Leningrad Cowboys. The Cowboys have been touring the world for years, and are famous for their hairstyles, and because they are always accompanied on their tours by the Red Army Choir, and because they are from Finland! 

According to YouTube:

Currently, the band has eleven Cowboys and two Leningrad Ladies. The songs, all somewhat influenced by polka and progressive rock, and performed in English, have themes such as ‘vodka’, ‘tractors’, ‘rockets’, and ‘Genghis Khan’, as well as folkloric Russian songs, rock and roll ballads and covers from bands as diverse as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, all with lots of humour.

Finland is stuck between Sweden and Russia. It has been independent of both since 1809. It has a population of 5.4 million, not all of whom work for Nokia. The capital is Helsinki.

Now you know at least as much about Finland as I do.

Google has had a few forays into the workd of Social Media.’Buzz’ was the buzz last year. Itwas closed within the 12 months as it failed to gain traction.

However, Google has very very deep pockets, and this week they launched Google Plus. Google Plus brings together all the Goggle Services (Search, Mail, YouTube, Apps, Chat, Picasso) and adds in a Social Media function.

Google Plus looks like Facebook on steroids. You have ‘friends’, but they move in Circles. You drag your contacts into the circles that they belong – friends from Uni, local freinds, workmates, family. You decide, and overlaps are allowed.

This allows you to share different things with your friends from the rugby club than the things you share with your gran.

You can arrange to meet with your friends using a ‘Huddle’, which is a group SMS servce.

Or you can all just ‘Hangout’ in a very neat Skype-like video conference – where you can see all the people on webcam hanging out with you at once.

Sparks allows you to register an interest in a topic and receive updates when Google finds news about that topic.

About 50% of web users visit Google every day! Facebook is not far behind. If Facebook appears unassailable in Social Media, it is worth remembering that in 2008 MySpace was the king, and Facebook a minnow-sized competitor.

Google Plus is currently in testing with a limited number of invitees.

You can sign up to be next in line at this page

Google also hosts an interactive demonstration of the Google Plus Service