Not long ago, I wrote that google does not have the DNA to do social sites correctly. They are engineers, who by default are not social. But that might be changing.

I recently checked out google+ and I have to say I like it. It’s elegant and finally brings some innovation to the social space.

But many will say that half the planet is on facebook, surely they are unassailable?We need only look at the quick demise of MySpace to see that social sites can fail as quickly as they rise. Andrewljohnson on hacker news said it best:

Most businesses can’t “die” suddenly. It’s very hard to turn a $850,000,000 business into a $35,000,000 in just a couple of years, unless something truly catastrophic or industry-changing occurs.

The exception to this rule is social internet companies. Social companies are built in a day and can die in a day – we’ve seen it happen again and again, and Facebook’s scale is no protection.

To beat Verizon, you need a network. To beat Google, you need search technology, data, and great engineers. To beat a car company, you need some factories. But to beat Zuckerburg, all you need it timing and a good strategy, and equivalent engineers. And in this case, Google seems credible on all fronts.

This is the first serious threat to Facebook’s existence.

If google is successful, I won’t be mourning facebook’s passing. It’s served a necessary purpose, but it’s walled garden, “incorporating” other’s technology, and evil PR tricks make it hard to be a fan. Google’s no saint, but at least they are mostly transparent and their motto is “don’t be evil”.

As xkcd explains, google+ may be a facebook clone that is just not run by facebook (and maybe that’s all we need)…

One of the things you often hear about Marijuana is that it’s a gateway drug to the harder stuff. In my opinion, the same could be said about the iPhone.

Will the iPhone cause you to sell all of your possessions and end up living in a van down by the river? Not quite, but once you start on the road to Apple there is no turning back.

I know of many people who were hardcore PC users. At work, they used PCs, in their pocket they had a Blackberry, and they were very satisfied.

Then Apple decided to “reinvent the phone” and it became the new “it” device. Everyone had to have one. And once they tried it, they were happy. Very Happy.

In fact, the iPhone was such a good phone it made you wonder, what could they do in regard to desktop computers? Would they be as elegant and fun to use?

There was only one way to find out. So you dipped your toes in with a Mac Mini — it’s cheap and let’s you reuse your existing PC monitor and mouse. It’s worth a try…right?

And, lo and behold, the mac mini turned out to be a great device. The out of box (oob) experience is extraordinary. It’s clear that a lot of love went into the package design and you feel as if you’re opening something special.

When first turning the machine on you are greeted by a flashy welcome screen and it’s ready to go. Backup is suddenly as simple as plugging in a USB drive and letting time machine do its thing.

Editing pictures of the kids becomes fun again with iPhoto. Now when someone in the family needs a new machine you find yourself recommending a MacBook because you know it will be easy for them to use and less support calls for you.

Then when you see the MacBook you are amazed at how nice the screen looks. In fact, it looks much better than the screen on your high-end IBM laptop and you start to wonder — should I get a MacBook?

For a little bit you resist because you’ve used PCs your entire life. Will it be too much of a learning curve and what about all that new software you need to buy?

But the attention to detail and build quality start to pull you in. It’s the little things like the backlit keyboard which only turns on in low-light; the way it *always* sleeps properly when the lid is closed; the way that the help menu shows you exactly where something is with a little bouncing arrow.

Finally, you decide to throw caution to the wind and visit the Apple store. After trying out the high-end mac book yourself, there’s no hope. You’re a goner. Hooked on the drug that is Apple and wondering how you just spent $2400 on a laptop.

And to think it all started with a phone…

My first thought is that pair programming is a huge waste of time. When only one person has access to the keyboard, aren’t you wasting the other person’s time?

I could just see myself chomping at the bit and thinking — how could he not use windows+e to launch windows explorer–there has to be a better way. My brain would keep wondering why he wasn’t typing something the super efficient way that I knew to do it.

And yet, he started doing things that I didn’t know how to do — so you don’t actually need a GO between those SQL statements? huh — who knew? I guess that means I don’t know everything. And therein lies the key of pair programming. You don’t know everything, and if you pair with someone else who is a good programmer you will certainly learn something from them.

Not only that, but there’s something about the shared energy that comes from both of you working to solve a problem. For some reason, you seem to solve it faster. I think it’s because while one of you is trying one possible solution, the other one is thinking about another way to solve it.

Does that mean that pair programming is a panacea that you should always do? I don’t think so. Not yet, but it’s definitely something that I will plan to do more often because I think it’s a great way to encourage and learn from each other.