We’re back with a new podcast. This time there are three of us, so you know it’s the real deal. We decided to pick up on our Tablets discussion and dive into some really good tech topics.

Joining me in Matt and Dave. Both dudes are big tech and gaming geeks. We manage to stay focused on technology and keep our sinful vulgarity ways under control.

Topics
-Why Dave wants a tablet.
-What others are on the market.
- Blackberry PlayBook impressions.
- How will new operating systems be different, better?
-Google + vs. Facebook vs. Twitter.
-Matt and Dave basically hate Facebook.
-Will the current services go the way of MySpace?
-Who is going to see Harry Potter?

Google + is on its way to being a success. It has 10 million users that are being very active in sharing content. That’s cool. But there has to be much more for the social networking service to actually be a social networking service. Here are three things I would like Google + to do.  You have any to add to the list?

1: Mobile, mobile, mobile

People want to do more with smart devices. This includes updating social media accounts with text, photos, and video. Google + is currently a mobile mess. There is an Android app but it’s not all that impressive. There is a mobile site for the rest of us mobile users, but it’s a joke.

If Google + wants to take over Facebook and maybe carve into Twitter, we’re going to have to be able to edit and update our profiles entirely though an app. As it stands, I can’t upload photos, invite people, or really adjust my profile settings with the mobile site.

2: Immediately plug it into the Chrome store

I occasionally use the Chrome browser and have found it to be quicker than the other two browsers in the room. The big feature with Chrome is the web store.

If Google + is to take off, it will do so after it gains functionality from the extensions and apps. Many people love Facebook because of what it does outside of gathering status updates. Farmville, Mafia, and other games exploded on the scene because of the Facebook platform. There is a cottage industry based off Facebook. Google has to carve into that.

3: Cater to the mainstream users

If Google significantly revamps its mobile strategy and plugs in its web store, the search engine giant will have cleared to major hurdles in the race to attract mainstream users.

It was our mothers, fathers, aunts, and uncles who really took Facebook from a niche college website to the social media monster it is now.

It helped that major media outlets also clinged to the pages feature and started interacting with readers and sourcing stories through Facebook.

Everybody involved is going to need to see much more before they consider starting over on Google +

I think one of the hardest things for consumers to do is buy a smart device. iPhone and Android phones are giving people far more options than were available two years ago and tablets have begun to take over the market.

So how do people decide on which device to buy? In this podcast we’re focusing on the tablets. Specifically we’re looking at the differences between the iOS devices (iPhones and iPads) and the Android devices. My friend Matt joins me in the discussion.

He recently bought an Android tablet after doing some research and spending time with an iPad. Maybe this podcast will help you decide. Feel free to ask any questions or offer your opinion.

Topics
-Why Matt picked the Samsung Tablet.
-Why he decided against the iPad 2
-Some differences between the two.
-Why I prefer the iPad.
-Do consumers have too many options?
-Some tips for picking a tablet.

One of the easiest ways we can collect outside content for our readers is with Storify. You can create a static page of various pieces of content that includes posts from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and Google.

The key thing is to find something that your audience will be interested in and to know which kind of content works best for the topic. This is a Storify on fireworks. So pictures is what we need. It took my about 10 minutes to do. Locally, the goal would be to do a sidebar thing to live coverage of the event.

Google + is out and those who were able to get in have been busy experimenting. So the key question has become whether it will replace Facebook all together or whether it will just be a nice little side social media account to have.

I was able to spend some time with it before recording my first podcast for the site.

Topics:
- What are some good things and concerns for Google +
- How I used my iPhone 4 to buy a car.
- Don’t sleep on Storify
- Nexus S 4G and Overdrive Pro impressions.
- How I wish people used Twitter.

This isn’t it, but I will have a full iPad 2 review to post later this week. My challenge will be focusing on how it can help journalists do what we do when I only want to focus on the bad@ss Garage Band app.

Maybe I’ll do both. My plan is to have something posted Friday night.

Did you see the story yesterday about the guy proposing to his wife inside a mall with the help of Santa? If you did, it’s probably true that you didn’t see it on the Orange County Register’s website unless you happen to live near there.

It’s a pretty good little Christmas story that has all the elements for what makes a great online story. There’s young love, a marriage proposal, a mall, Santa, and some great photos.

Sadly, though, this piece of news also illustrates why local websites need to get much better with SEO. Much better.

Stay with me on this one.

I first saw the story on our website. After reading it, I realized that it was probably a wire story picked up from the Orange County Register because the byline was AP but the photo was the OC Register’s. I wanted to see more photos. So I Google “Santa marriage proposal” because how many people could have proposed with Santa’s help?

That turned out to be a perfect Google search to find that story. Both the web and news results gave more than 200 instances of the article.

Like most people probably would do, I stuck to the results that showed up on the first page without digging too deep into the results. First up was the UPI link. Second in line was the Washington Post.

Nowhere to be found was the OC Register, which is the originating source of the article. I know they’re the source because every photo shown after my search had the OCR credit line. They documented this deal yet their story was being engulfed by news orgs using the AP slug.

Why?

There are many reasons why Google would pick up on the Washington Post before it would the OCR. The Post is a massive news site and probably just has more search engine cache. UPI isn’t exactly a newcomer. That doesn’t mean, though, that smaller sites are helpless.

There are two major things smaller news sites can do to fight off the larger ones. The first thing is improving search engine optimization, known around the hip newsrooms as SEO. I’m not saying this is new or even that I’m the expert. Hell, I’m not even our newsroom expert. But we need to tighten this effort up a little if we hope to control our traffic.

Let’s take a look at how each of the three mentioned news orgs handled the Santa story.

UPI

• Headline: Mall Santa aids marriage proposal
• Slug: Mall-Santa-aids-marriage-proposal.
• Lede: A California man pulled off a festive proposal, enlisting the help of a mall Santa and his elves to pop the question to his longtime girlfriend.

The Post

• Headline: Santa lends a knee for surprise marriage proposal
• Slug: AR2010122001891
• Lede: Santa has conspired with a love-struck California man by lending a knee for a surprise marriage proposal.

OC Register

• Headline: Santa lends a knee for surprise marriage proposal
• Slug: santa-280913-jenny-jonathan
• Lede: It was Santa himself who called Jenny Hoang to his side on Sunday, waving a white-gloved hand her way as one of his elves gave a secret signal to her hidden boyfriend.

What’s interesting here is that all of them got the headline right. Santa, marriage, proposal, are all accounted for. From there you get a mixed bag of results.

UPI was the only one to do everything almost perfect according to SEO awesomeness. Only “marriage” isn’t in all three key components there.

The Post seems to not care too much about SEO slugs but did well with the headlines and lede. I guess when you’re that big of a news site you can stick with numbers a slug.

The Register, though, doesn’t have the luxury. It has to be perfect with SEO to have any hope of getting Google’s attention. That slug is pretty useless. They might as well have gone with the numbers gimmick that the Post uses.

Nobody trying to find that story is searching for “Jenny” or “Jonathan.” So that leaves “Santa” to carry the CEO load. Poor Santa.

The there is the lede. It’s pretty good if you want to ease your way into a cool moment of life. But it’s SEO suicide. I actually had to read eight graphs, including quotes, to know for certain that it was a marriage proposal. #seofail.

I don’t want to pick on the Register here, though. It’s just a great reminder that smaller news sites are battling the world for traffic to our own stories. That’s just a fact.

It’s not all bad news for the OCR, though. Their version of the story is doing great with social media, which is the second tool we have to fight for traffic.

As of mid-afternoon Wednesday, the Register’s story had been shared on Facebook 145 times and Tweeted 10 times. That’s not bad for a story that national readers couldn’t find.

That means that local readers, the core audience after all, liked the story enough to share with other people. Very good.

The UPI and Post version didn’t hit double-digits in either social media service. Facebook likes, tweets, digs, stumbles, reddits, and even freakin email alerts are all there for us to us.

Social media has become the new word of mouth when it comes to spreading news. We don’t pick up a phone or even talk to people about stories we think are interesting. We just post them somewhere and move on with our lives.

That’s where we can fully engage an audience that is evolving faster than we are.

As a class assignment, how about you all tweet this thing out. No? It was worth a shot.

You can expect more tech reviews and impressions to be posted on my blog. I did some Windows Phone 7 videos earlier and have a full video review sitting on my desktop to be posted later.

Today I present you with a review written by a friend of mine who is a regular dude who loves tech. Here he has a review of the OtterBox Defenser series case for the HTC EVO, which he owns. A video review is embedded below for those who hate to read.

By Matt Vongthongkham

The smartphone craze has left users clamoring for a phone that fits their lifestyle.

While with finding the right device, though, customers often forget what a hassle it can be to keep that device protected.

Let’s face it; all devices aren’t created to handle the dings, drops, and spills that come along during our daily routine. I’m guilty of breaking plenty of devices due to being the clumsy geek that I am.

Fortunately, OtterBox’s Defender series is here to save the day for me and my trusty HTC EVO 4G. OtterBox definitely had the clumsy user in mind when designing this case, which turns your phone into a tank for the price of $49.99.

There are four pieces to the case, which also comes with a screen protector. The main body pieces includes a backing that has its own stand so users can still dock the EVO. The front piece has a highly durable screen protector that fits perfectly snug onto the screen while allowing full usage of the touch screen.

Because the touchscreens on these phones can sometimes be picky, I was iffy on whether my 4.3 inch screen would even be usable when covered with the case’s built-in screen protector. But I can say for certain that the thick protector does its job perfectly without causing issues operating the touch screen.

The back piece of the case also protects the camera, flash LED, and speaker, by offsetting the distance about a centimeter to insure any dings or scrapes happen to the case and not your phone. When snapped together, the front and back piece make for an awesome vest.

The Defender series also includes a highly durable and solid silicone house that absorbs all kinds of drops and shock done to your device. I dropped my phone many times while trying the case without breaking a sweat.

The silicone housing has a very fine tuned diamond design that helps give it grip when placed on a dashboard or table. The two hard pieces have ridges and stoppers to hold onto the silicone cover. The cover gets an even tighter grip along the upper edge of the case.

The Defender series also goes as far as to have flaps that cover the mini HDMI and mini USB ports along the bottom of the phone and a flap that covers the headphone jack. The silicone cover also has built-in covers for the volume and power button.

The Defender series also includes a nifty belt clip holster. It is deliberately oversized but snug enough for users to holster their device front face in or back side out. I personally holster my phone front side out to have the holster protect the camera and speaker while allowing me to still have full access to the touch screen.

The actual belt clip is not removable but fully rotates. My only gripe with the Defender series is the weight it adds to the phone.

The HTC EVO is already at a hefty size and weight, and goodness does this case about double both. Although the silicone cover was manufactured well to contour to the hard pieces, I found the flab that covers the ports to be a little loose and stretchable unless tucked into place.

That may cause an issue with plugging in the mini HDMI or mini USB plugs. But when tucked in, it is fine. The front piece also does little to cover the speaker grill on the face of the EVO.

I would’ve liked to see some kind of mesh grill for the speaker and maybe even a glass cover for the camera and led flash.

The Otterbox Defender series definitely does not allow you to submerge your device in water but as stated before, dresses your phone up like a tank. The built in screen protector alone saves you money from having to purchase a screen protector film.

There are far more positives than negatives with the OtterBox Defender series. It protects your phone from more damage than any human being could cause. I highly recommend it for any user given the amount of protection and its low price of $49.99.

The Video Review

I’m working on a full review of the Windows Phone 7 platform via the HTC Surround phone. It’s a pretty impressive operating system that I think will eventually compete well against Android and the iPhone.

But it’s still too early to tell and there are a number of missed opportunities. All that will come with a full review. For now, I have these videos to give you a peak into what the software does.

In these videos, I look at how the Windows Phone 7 platform looks, how it handles music and social networking, and how it works with the Xbox Live platform. That last part is because I’m a gamer and I was interested to see how Microsoft managed to spotlight its brilliant gaming interface.

So expect a full video review later this week, after I post my written review for work. Here are the videos.

Windows Phone 7

Windows Phone 7 Zune Marketplace/Social Media

Windows Phone 7 and Xbox Live