So far in the journey I have invested a lot of time understanding, working with, and . With nearly a third of the experiment over, I decided it's about time to switch gears and take a look at some of the other aspects of Google+, so today I am checking out Sparks.

For some reason, Sparks doesn't rate a position on the top icon bar alongside the Home, Photos, Profile, Circles, and Games icons. But, on the left pane of Google+, under my name, and beneath the Stream, and the links to filter updates by specific Circles, there appears the lone word "Sparks".

What Is Sparks?

On the page, Google describes Sparks using an analogy of my grandfather cutting articles out from his local newspaper and mailing them to me. Maybe my relationship with my grandparents was deprived, but the analogy is lost on me.

It seems very "Normal Rockwell", but I can't recall the last time I saw anyone in my family actually read a physical newspaper--much less clip articles to send by snail mail. If anything, they might see an interesting article in the paper, then jump online to find a link to that same article to send me via email--but honestly they don't do that either. I imagine the nostalgic analogy is lost on most people, but what do I know?