Andi Narvaez: Re-learning PR

Today was Google’s.

Everywhere I turned, the one thing I kept hearing people talking about was the new Google Latitude feature on mobile Google maps and iGoogle gadgets. The service is available in 27 countries and allows users to let others know where in the world they are located. If you choose to opt-in (because that would be the only way Google could ever get away with this) you can use Latitude to find friends and communicate with them via SMS, Google Talk or simply by dialing their phone number.

After reading articles in The New York Times, Wired and GQ it’s becoming clear that Facebook Connect will trascend and surely be a huge step in the direction of blurring the barriers to entry and access that currently stand in the way of users’ seamless experience with the web. The best by-product of this new development could be, in my opinion, simplicity and what can be achieved when things not only fall into place but when they so in harmony.

Today I tried TweetDeck and went back to Twhirling almost immediately. I could tell right off the bat that the simplicity and basic functions of Twhirl were less threatening to my productivity at work and life in general, thus I opted to opt right out of Tweedeck (no offense).

My feed gets a massive dose of blogs daily that talk about the latest applications, sites, updates and online tools available to all web users, which as of last week include even my grandmother in Quito, Ecuador, the unchallenged epitome of the phrase “out of the loop”… or so I thought. 

The new pick-up line

The Friday after Thanksgiving a few friends and I went to Mantus Lounge, a very posh club in Dallas that, regretfully, people seem to frequent more for its poshness than for the DJ/owner’s unmatched (according to me at least) ability to mix songs seamlessly and almost effortlessly. 

It was while scoping out the dance floor that I witnessed one way in which new media and technology have changed ways in which people interact with each other, even face-to-face.