PYRAMIDS

PYRAMIDS

I have been struggling most of the last 4 or 5 days with what to write about. Part of this post will be about social media for sure but thats kind of boring if your not really into the genre. Then, just this morning, I had my world rocked in just 10 minutes. And it is related to the last post.   I'm talking about 99% Invisible #34 The speed of Light for building pyramids.

How about this: the pyramids were not built or designed by aliens but by practical considerations, logistics and lifespan. Oh and not by slaves.

The designers and builders had these things about the pyramids to consider:
1) How much weigh can the ground support with out sinking. That tells you how much weight your pyramid can weigh.
2) What kind of rock and how big are the blocks? OK that data gives you how many blocks you can put on the site thus how high it can be (once the pyramid shape was chosen and that was a practical consideration as well. Optimally! But then there are the logistics to consider.
3) The building is a tomb so it needs to be finished before the ruler dies (in a lifetime).
4) How many blocks can be put down by how many people in a year times the average lifetime of a ruler yields another limitation.
5) Finally, How many blocks can you quarry and deliver to the building site per year.

When the designers considered all of these factors, we have the pyramids. Optimal buildings for the tombs of Kings, for the land, the stone, the time available.

But we all remember the story books with teams of slaves pulling blocks of rock across the desert. Probably didn't happen. Another little twist in the history we learned as kids. Go and take ten minutes and listen to the 99% invisible episode and I think your impression of the pyramids will be radically rocked as mine were.

http://soundcloud.com/roman-mars/99-invisible-34-pyramids

SOCIAL MEDIA:

Google+ is probably the better platform than Facebook or Twitter. It certainly is technologically. But G+ growth has stalled. The question is why?

I wrote in a online forum two months ago, when Google+ (G+) quickly got close to 20 million users, that G+'s primary challenge would be to move Facebooks installed base over to their platform quickly. Facebook had everyones family members, co workers, friends, acquaintences etc.  It was in daily use by everyone in social media. G+ needed to move them to their platform or Facebook would suck them all back to the platform that they knew and where the could find people.

G+ has really failed at that task. Facebook has reformed and charged back making changes to their system making it closer to what G+ offers and making movement to G+ less and less attractive. Where G+ could have done to Facebook what Facebook did to myspace, well that window has shut.

What G+ should have done was a marketing attack that was relentless not just on-line but in conventional media as well. They moved the early adopters, the tech wonks, and the computer savy. But they left behind, as Facebook users, Mom and Pop America. The were new to online experiences and did not understand G+, if they were even aware of it. G+ as the giant in the social media space may happen but the war is now incremental in its progression where the geometrical gains in user base has past them by.

WWII, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and devastated the American fleet.  But they did not eliminate it in their attack. That gave America the time to react, retool and reform. The quick victory passed by and the long war that followed could have turned either way several times but ultimately that interval left by not destroying Americas naval firepower, led to the Japanese defeat.

G+ has done the same. They opportunity was there for the quick kill but was squandered. Now the war that is left is an island hopping like strategy. They can still win but its going to be a long war.