At Large: New immigration law sparks protests, calls and letters. 4D
Business&Money Who is covered?
S U N D A Y , J U L Y 3 , 2011
SECTION D
WWW.TUSCALOOSANEWS.COM
WAYNE GRAYSON
GADGETRON
Can Google+ become the Facebook killer?
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espite the company’s monolithic presence on the Web — including its search engine, Android mobile operating system and Gmail to name a few — Google has yet to stake a worthwhile presence in social networking. But on Monday, the company launched Google+, a well-designed and serious effort at stealing clicks from Facebook. The fi rst thing you notice about Google+ is how strikingly clean it is. The aesthetic is dominated by whites and light grays with subtle highlights of primary colors here and there. Meanwhile, no ads populate the sides of the page and no horde of apps or annoying games spam you inside your news feed or timeline. It’s rather empty in an extremely refreshing way. The main focus of Google+ is sharing with the right people. Google+ gives you the ability to strictly defi ne your interactions on its site through a feature called Circles. The idea is that we don’t always want to share things with everybody we’re connected to in social networking. Sometimes you want to share things with your family. Other times you want to tell your friends something that you’d never want your family to know. And a lot of the time you want to post something but are worried about those you work with seeing it. With that in mind, you can think of your posts on Google+ as miniemails that you type out then quickly address to your Circles or individual people. Those emails then neatly populate the feeds of those you’ve addressed them to. All in all, Circles is a really clean way of transferring your real-life connections to, and really, feelings toward, a person to the virtual world. My favorite feature, Hangouts, is multi-user video chat app that supports as many as 10 people at once. With other video chat and instant messaging services, you have to initiate a conversation by either sending a message or a request to chat with a person that’s signed on. But a lot of our conversations with friends, especially when we bump into them on the street, are based on our surroundings or what we happen to be doing at the moment. When I IM someone or request a video chat, the other person stops what they are doing and we’re both in a bit of a limbo because what we are now “doing” is this conversation. With Hangouts there are no requests to send. You simply make it known to your selected Circles that you’re hanging out. People see a friend has started a hangout and they join if they want. It’s not exactly like bumping into someone on the street but it’s as close as any service has come to replicating the experience. So can Google+ kill Facebook? Thanks to better design and layout, I think it has the potential to be better than Facebook, but Facebook’s 500 million-strong user base tells me it will be just fi ne. Google+ is a lot like what people remember Facebook as before it became cluttered with ads, spam and games, and because of that it has a shot. The only downside to the service right now is that none of my friends are using it because it’s locked down. When it becomes more populated, we’ll be able to tell if it will stick around. In the end, the challenge will be convincing people that Google+’s simplified interface and streamlined navigation will be worth uprooting from Facebook. Read Wayne Grayson’s Gadgetron blog at tuscaloosanews.com. Reach him at wayne.grayson@tuscaloosa news.com or 205-722-0209.
By Patrick Rupinski Staff Writer
TUSCALOOSA inutes after the April 27 tornado destroyed the Steak- Out on McFarland Boulevard, three of the restaurant’s employees crawled from the rubble. They were alive but badly battered and bruised, with cuts and contusions. An off-duty manager who rushed to the demolished business insisted the three get medical treatment. One employee with head injuries was admitted to the hospital that night. Another was treated at the hospital and released, and the third saw a doctor the next day. Their wounds healed, but less than three weeks after the storm, the employees got hit again. Their workers’ compensation claims, fi led to cover their medical expenses, were rejected. “They survived the tornado somehow, taking cover in the meat cooler,” said Bill Pitts, the franchisee of the Tuscaloosa Steak-Out. “We helped them fi le for workers’ comp and felt they should have gotten it. “They were at work doing their jobs when they were injured. If they were at home, they would have been all right.” But in rejecting the claims, Pitt’s workers’ compensation provider, A labama Retail Comp, told the employees in letters dated June 1 that “your injury was not caused by an accident arising out of
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your employment with Steak-Out. Rather, your injur y resulted from an Act of God.” After the letters were received, Pitts said he tried to pursue the matter with the insurer. “They asked if they had personal (health) insurance” and suggested the employees fi le claims there. But he said the employees didn’t have insurance and he got nowhere. Steak-Out and some of its other franchises donated money to help the Tuscaloosa Steak-Out employees affected by the tornado. When he bought workers’ compensation insurance, Pitts said he believed it would cover employees who were injured at work. Pitts, who lives in Mississippi and has Steak-Out franchises there, said he was told the employees probably would have received workers’ compensation under Mississippi law. But each state has its own workers’ compensation law. Alabama’s law requires employers with at least five employees to have workers’ compensation coverage. It allows some larger employers to self-insure the coverage. But the law has some gray areas. Some workers’ compensation carriers are paying some claims from tornadorelated injuries, while others are not. A nuance in circumstances can make the difference on whether a claim is paid or denied. SEE WORKERS | 3D
Determining which tornado injuries are covered by workers’ comp comes down to a ‘risk test’
STAFF ILLUSTRATION | ANTHONY BRATINA
Economic incentives slim for arts projects in Ala. By Robert Palmer
(Florence) TimesDaily
FLORENCE | When manufacturing companies want to set up shop in Alabama, they usually receive generous tax breaks. That’s not the case when small businesses that employ a small number of people open shop, especially creative businesses that can bring national and worldwide acclaim to a community. Case in point — the Shoals region of northwest Alabama. The Muscle Shoals area has long been famous for its music. A renaissance of sorts is under way in the music business, with The Secret Sisters,
Dylan LeBlanc, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit and others getting international attention. But another creative renaissance is taking place. Fashion designers Billy Reid and Natalie Chanin have strong national brands gaining a wide audience, artist and photographer Robert Rausch is in demand, and sculptor and artist Audwin McGee’s work can be seen across the country. There are others making names for themselves in a variety of artistic fi elds. But they don’t get tax credits or other incentives. Reid, the most celebrated men’s clothing designer of 2010, said he
never thought about incentives or tax credits when he decided a few years ago to set up headquarters in downtown Florence. “We could not have started and survived without what we have here,” he said. Reid and Chanin, whose Alabama Chanin is in the Florence-Lauderdale Industrial Park, agree the cost of doing business in the Shoals was an important factor in their decision to operate here. A nd in their highly competitive line of work, that alone is an incentive, they say. “I believe the cost of doing business in the Shoals makes it a very appealing place to start a new busi-
ness — or move an existing one,” Chanin said. Reid and Chanin had been working in New York and other large cities when they decided to go South. Reid is a native of Louisiana — his wife is from Florence — while Chanin is a Shoals native. They say they cherish the small-town atmosphere, and they use it to promote their businesses. “The positive vibe that we get from the people we bring here is tremendous,” Reid said. Grammy-winning songwriter Gary Baker has a similar story. He moved to the Shoals from New York more than 20 years ago, eventually building SEE A RTS | 3D