Street Art Project, by Google Cultural Institute

One of the many beauties of street art is its ability to reach the most public audience of any other form of art in existence. That being said, because the canvas is mostly a wall and semi-permenant, only people visiting said street get the pleasure of viewing it. That is, until now…

Google recently announced it was bringing street art online through several galleries from around the world, Google  revealed it is doubling the number of high-resolution images available to more than 10,000, while also making it available through Chrome, Chromecast, and Android Wear so anyone can appreciate them.

This initiative is titled “The Google Art Project” and is part of the overall Google Cultural Institute. The Google Cultural Institute is the subsection of Google that has been working with art and cultural institutions to digitize offline exhibits. For street art specifically, Google has been working with 86 art organizations from 34 countries to help preserve some of the cool urban creations on walls and buildings around the world.

For this venture, Google partnered with many organizations such as The Mural Arts Program with the hope of preserving street art long after the paint has faded from the walls. The Mural Arts Program is one of the organizations, aforementioned, participating around the world in the preservation of street art through digital means.

The digital collection contains more than 10,000 images, 160 new exhibits and animated “GIF-iti” art from around the world, bringing street art, of all kinds, off the walls to computers and mobile phones a with just a simple Internet connection.

This new Google initiative to savor the creations of street artists for an even more public audience, utilizes technology and its ability to provide a way to preserve these artworks and make them available anywhere and anytime.
For the Mural Arts Program, partnering with Google was an opportunity to reach an audience beyond a certain state or neighborhood that may not have been able to see its work otherwise.

“Google reported it’s latest venture stating, “last June, we added street art from all over the globe—including 5Pointz—to the Google Art Project. Today, we’re doubling the number of public artworks to more than 10,000 high-resolution images. Eighty-five art organizations from 34 countries are sharing pieces, ranging from Sweden’s most famous street festival, to water tanks wrapped with art among New York city’s rooftops, to the abandoned walls of Buenos Aires that are a source of inspiration for street artists from all over the world.”

Amit Sood, director of the Google Cultural Institute and head of the new art project, went on to note,

“You don’t need to be tied to your desktop to enjoy these fantastic collections. All these images are now available on a device near you with Chrome, Chromecast, Android Wear and your mobile devices. Turn your TV screen into a vibrant backdrop and add some color to your smartwatch with our new Street Art Watch Faces.”

The Google Generation

In class we learned that we, our generation, is commonly known in the tech world as the “Google Generation”. I found this interesting as I had never heard this term before but as an avid “Googler” myself I absolutely believed the title. I did some research as to what the Google Generation actually is because identifying it from a subjective view is difficult. For as much of my life as I can remember Google has been such a prominent, staple of daily life, but I never thought of it as a way to label an entire generation.

A journalist named Nate Anderson had some particularly interesting things to say about our Google Generation and the attributes that are included in it. He interestingly noted, “It’s true that young people prefer interactive systems to passive ones and that they are generally competent with technology, but it’s not true that students today are “expert searchers.” In fact, the report calls this “a dangerous myth.” Knowing how to use Facebook doesn’t make one an Internet search god, and the report concludes that a literature review shows no movement (either good or bad) in young people’s information skills over the last several decades. Choosing good search terms is a special problem for younger users.” I agree entirely with this. When Pipo was teaching us ways to search on Google I felt a somewhat disgrace to my generation that I’d been searching incorrectly for all these years. I felt unworthy of being deemed a part of the Google Generation but knew my friends, too, definitely did not know how to search in such an efficient manner.

So what exactly is true about the Google generation?

The British Library had a few characteristics noted such as…

• They like to cut-and-paste. “There is a lot of anecdotal evidence and plagiarism is a serious issue.”
• They prefer visual information over text. “But text is still important… For library interfaces, there is evidence that multimedia can quickly lose its appeal, providing short-term novelty.”
• They multitask all the time. “It is likely that being exposed to online media early in life may help to develop good parallel processing skills.”

I, personally, believe all those to be true. Whether or not they are necessarily good or bad things I can’t really say. Being brought up in this internet age society has made me somewhat biased or unclear as to it’s positives and negatives because it is so inherent in our growing up.

Google+

When I first logged into Google+ I was a bit underwhelmed, but the more I used and explored the site, the more I liked it. While it has already been deemed Google’s Facebook competitor, it is, to me, very different. I want to share my opinion on the pros and cons of the site to help shine a little light on what exactly Google+ is, and what it does (and doesn’t) do well.

Positives:

Better Privacy- Google+ uses a “diaspora -like” way of sharing content with users by utilizing “circles”. I think this format is very appealing to many users who are working to balance their professional and personal life.  It can be tricky because the proper circles must be added for each message. Facebook is often critiqued for their unreliable privacy changes, and Google seems to be catering to those unhappy users with easy to use privacy options in one location. Deleting an account is straightforward, as is deleting social features. This may appeal to some disgruntled “Facebookers”, drawing them to use Google+.

Huddles- Google+ ‘Huddle’ is a non-SMS group chat application for mobile phones. This competes directly with other downloadable apps like Beluga,TextPlus, Kik, and GroupMe. A Google product like Huddles should help boost it to the forefront as pictured below:

Hangouts- Having worked remotely (at least part-time) for the past 3 years, a ‘Hangout’ has a lot of value to me. This allows for a video based group chat, you can invite users, or others see within a circle and join along. I have used many types of video software to perform group chats such as Skype, and there did not seem to be a stand out among them. Google+ could be the solution. Media-The integration of media on Google+ is very appealing, more so than Facebook. Photos are large and captivating when they come through your stream. Location check-in visuals also add to updates and are not an afterthought.Even the close-up view of an image is appealing. To enhance an image comments are shown off to the side and the rest of the site is grayed out.

Integration- One of the main features of Google+ is the ability to tie multiple Google products to one location. Below is an example of a seamless check-in on Google+: Gmail Notifications-Notifications can be some of the most annoying and confusing elements of social sites, but if you are using Google+ and Gmail, it won’t be. Profile pictures are seamlessly tied in and you almost feel you are on a website instead of in your inbox.

Negatives:

Complexity- As soon as you log-in, you can tell that some brilliant people created this site.  But, at the same time, there are too many options and different features for someone who is trying to simply post up information. This is something that Facebook and Twitter excel at – making hard things simple.

As seen with “circles” above, there are just a lot of options for people and it will take a good deal of getting used to for the non “tech-savvy” user. After playing with it in-depth for a day, I now like the communication elements, but those who come in for the first time may find it too difficult.

People & Circles- In Google+ you can assign users to multiple circles. This is a nice feature, but again can be very confusing. Google+ recommends you add users to circles even if they have been assigned a circle. If a user has multiple email addresses, it can get quite confusing.

Sparks-Sparks, the news element of the Google+ service, leaves a lot to be desired in the current state. Instead of some type of news customization, you pick from a channel, or search to make a channel of your own. I expect this to drastically change in the near future to be much more similar to a LinkedIn Today, but there is no benefit to use this today.

Chat- While the ‘huddles’ are a novel of mobile communication, web users are stuck with Google Talk for chat. You cannot chat with your fellow Google+ users, rather you can only communicate with those already connected to your email address. It is an eyesore for a well-designed site and seems like a “band-aid” communication feature.

 

My Conclusion

Google+ is a great platform for those looking to break away from their current social networks. The real question is – how many people are looking to break away from their social networks? I can see avid tech users adopting Google+, but I don’t think this is a replacement to Facebook by any means. There is not much real value switching to Google+ for an average Facebook user, unless you are concerned about privacy or have a need for video group chats. The complexity will also turn away many users.  However, I believe that Google+ has a few different spaces that it could thrive: A LinkedIn/Facebook Hybrid for professionals. I can see Google+ acting as a vehicle for like-minded professionals to communicate freely, utilize hangouts and share information. Overall, I liked the product and the implementation, but I am not really sure what people will use it for. What may really make-or-break the success of Google+ is how fast they can roll out to the public and if they can make the service appear less daunting to the average user. All in all, this is the best social product put out by Google to date, but probably not enough to convert existing social users away from their current service.