Streamified - Everything in One Place

This blog began as an experiment in social media integration/aggregation with the launch of Google+ as why would any person or organisation restrict their "friends" or followers to just one platform? Also why would a person or organisation want to have to individually update a number of platforms with the same information? Just as it is with traditional media it is important that no one platform has a monopoly and followers should be a able choose which platform they want and receive information from. This should especially be the case in the public sector and it should also be important that one platform is not favoured over another or that followers have to sign up to a certain platform in order to access information or to engage. Also the public sector should not be able to justify the staff time involved in adding the same information to numerous platforms, whilst the private sector should be able to see the obvious inefficiency. Why should a monkey have more than one grinder?

There are numerous solutions available, especially for organisations, such as Hootsuite, Viral Heat and Alternion. Though only Google+ page updates are possible it is mainly limited to paying customers. Also posts were just feeds from the host site, so in Facebook they only have a thumbnail image as with the posts generated by RSS Graffiti on the Moons Facebook page. However, since the Facebook upgrade they do have a limited visual impact compared to posts with a full size image. Hootsuite do now allow you to attach images to your posts and so fully import them into Facebook and also now allows all users to post to Google+ pages, as does Alternion which also has a great interface but it not so great and cross posting links.

However, if you want to do fully fledged posts to Google+ and Facebook profiles, the Stremified browser extension is the only option the Moon is aware of at present. Originally called SGplus which allowed users to send your Google+ post to Facebook and Twitter etc but only in a feed format. A while back it was relaunched as Streamified with a rather clunky notebook design to go with a iPhone application and a website from which you could view and update all but Google+, though Google+ pages were added later.

It has had a number of teething problems especially for the extension; as with apps and changes to operating systems plugins have to contend with numerous browser updates, plus Google are still developing Google+. It has however been pretty successfully relaunched and is lighter with a clearer "Alternion like" design  - see streamified.com .

Though Google have stopped allowing updates to Google+ pages the website is an excellent way to view posts and feeds from anywhere else and to posts comments or tweet. It claims to work on any browser, which is not quite right as it is too much for Opera mini/mobile for Symbian to cope with but you can at least view your streams on a Nokia browser, you would presume it would work pretty well on a newish Windows mobile, then there is the apps for Android and iDevices and Windows 8 "app" is in development. It of course will not work Internet Explorer in Vista, Chrome is probably the best option for both the website and the plugin.

If Google would release the full API then the website would be all that would be necessary but you can include Google+ by using the plugin, which now does seem to have less teething problems and since the re launch load quicker. The other big change, for both the plugin and the website, is that it now fully imports images to Facebook so the only thing you have to do actually in Facebook is decide whether you need to highlight your post or not.

See below a test post posted from the plugin to Facebook and then viewed in the Streamified web page.

For $8 monthly fee an organisation could have small team updating multiple acounts on multiple platforms, as well as monitoring conversions though having access to the analytics and reporting features cost $80, so one would think that for many organisations the £9.99 Hootsuite Pro option would be better. For "teams"  in Hootsute you would need the enterprise version which matches the $80 Streamified option but there is no published fixed cost.

The main downside is that browser/Google updates may continue to cause problems with the extenson, though the website has been far more reliable, on which all but posts to Google+ can be generated at present. They do seem to be a small startup but one that has survived for quite some time now and have come up with some great innovations. The Moon hopes it continues and thrives and that Google realise the potential in what they are doing.

See update post