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The Google Plus 50

ceb — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 08:23:57 +0000

If you’re curious about Google+, the new social network platform from Google, you’re not alone. I’ve logged several hours already on the platform, experimenting, testing, and observing. It sparks my attention from several angles: marketing, technology, community, media, mobile, advertising, and more. To that end, I wrote down 50 things to think about with regards to Google+, in no particular order:

The purpose of this list is to get you thinking about a bunch of different possibilities. You’re welcome to dispute them all, but that really wouldn’t be the point. Instead, make your own similar post and link back. People can compare.

The Google+ 50

Google+ is built to take you away from either Facebook or Twitter (or both), and it could do it, in time.
If it seems like FriendFeed, and thus you worry it might burn out, know that Newt Gingrich has already joined.
With a G+ account, you get unlimited photo storage on Picasa. (Flickr feel threatened? FB photos?)
With Circles (how one groups people), you control privacy in a way that makes clear and obvious sense.
Your “about” section is rich, robust, allows links, photos, QR codes, and more. Marketers rejoice.
If Google+ starts influencing Page Rank (meaning, if a link shared on G+ is weighted more than others), it’s game on for SEO/SEM.
If Google Music integrates into this platform the way YouTube is now, it’s a powerful entertainment media platform instantly.
The Android integration for G+ is strong already in these early days. If the platform does take off in a big way, this could shift mobile OS choices, and spending. (very speculative, I admit)
You don’t need Quora, if you can ask detailed questions in G+ and share them with specific Circles, etc.
The live video chat feature is a powerful addition to collaboration and workshifting scenarios.

“A question to ask yourself is, ‘Should I get in early, before anyone’s there to bother with? If I don’t look at it for a year, will I lose ground? If it’s still early days, why should I bother with Google Plus yet?’”

A standalone Google+ Apps version plus Google Docs = a very powerful business collaboration environment that would trump most white label social enterprise tech easily.
With G+ seeing our comment streams, their ability to better plot social graphs and integrate AdSense and maybe even Google Affiliate opportunities is huge. (Yes, FB does this, but Google thrives on Adsense.)
If Google+ offered a WordPress comment integration, I would give G+ my comments in a heartbeat.
That lame +1 button from a few months back now became something rather valuable, if G+ takes off.
People keep citing the FB has 600 million, so no one’s going anywhere argument. AOL, anyone? People migrate. It happens.
There are more big name visionaries poking around on Google+ right out in the open than on any other social application that I’ve seen (this just might be the nature of G+, that everything is so visible, but it FEELS like big news to have Michael Dell and Mark Zuckerberg and others checking it out.)
G+ pushes more use of Gmail. I’ve received 15 non-spam messages in 2 days from my core gmail account, after having had almost zero traffic (nonspam) for 2 years.
If Google integrates Calendar into + and makes it like Tungle, then social calendaring gets pretty interesting.
Google Buzz, which went nowhere for most folks, now looks like a nice sharing stream in your G+ profile, especially if you share a lot via Google Reader.
The photo display interface in Google+ is stunning, adding to my thoughts of this making for an amazing media platform. The moment G+ full-throttle opens up accounts for businesses, you’ll hear big news plays about this platform.

“Would all Google’s efforts in building an OS plus their commanding growth in mobile point to a potential rapid leapfrogging of either Twitter or Facebook? I don’t think so, but Google is wealthy enough to play the long game, and if you think of all these various integrations, this becomes much more interesting to consider.”

With Google’s ChromeOS push, plus the proliferation of Android, Google+ now becomes quite a robust integrated communications, media, and sharing layer on multiple platforms natively, plus it is supported by browsers on all other platforms.
Hangouts (live multi-user video chats) works with Google Translate to faciliate multi-language instant communication. Neither Skype nor Facetime do that.
Google+ is perfectly configured to run social customer service, if only they allowed baked in search capabilities akin to search.twitter.com.
It would take relatively little to integrate Google Voice into this stack in a meaningful way to add SMS to this, plus GTalk already does voice and video 1-to-1.
I don’t think that Blogger integration would improve G+. WordPress has won that war, though Blogger is still serviceable and people still like it.
G+ also won’t replace blogging, such as it is, but not unlike the decline in blogging frequency after Twitter and FB became more popular, G+ makes is really easy to see how you could do the same things inside G+ and maybe get more traction.
(Don’t be swayed by the above. Your blog is your own real estate. Blogging inside anyone else’s platform is like renting a hotel room, putting up posters, and thinking it’s your place.)
Twitter makes a cleaner “newsroom” feel, but G+ has many more methods to tell and deliver a story. A news Circle in G+ would feel as rich as Flipboard.
Oh, I almost forgot: G+ on an Android Tablet is pretty darned good.
Advertising integration seems simple and obvious. Commerce integration doesn’t seem that hard, if you squint.

“Will the mainstream pick this up the way they did Twitter? Does the fact that the URLs for your account on Google+ are messier mean it’ll lack that simple audible sharing we hear on the radio and on TV?”

If you enable location on your mobile device, G+ creates circles by “nearby,” thus allowing for instant location-centric social networks.
If G+ did something special with QR and empowered more location-focused media delivery, then you’d have a powerful media/marketing opportunity right there.
G+ could enable some really interesting multi-format publishing if you turn it around: mix audio, video, photo, text, link, and location data into a “package” or a “project,” and you’ve got a powerful digital publishing platform. (See also the last part of the next point.)
How long before we see our first Hangout live music “jam?” That’s one record button away from being supercool. And one “name your price” Google Checkout tweak away from being instant micro content for sale.
If Google Places integrated with G+ and one were using the mobile/nearby functionality, interesting “migratory” graphs suddenly become a new datapoint for marketers (or researchers, or whatever).
The nonprofit tech use implications of Google+ are quite interesting, especially of Google Pages is reimagined for Google+.
If I can move a Google Presentation into my stream, then I can share business information in a valuable in-system way.
Google+ needs a “sticky” post for streams, so that we can hang a daily status or special update on our stream/profile for the whole day.
When Google+ gets off-site sharing and/or bookmarking abilities, plus when it integrates a URL shortener with stats built in, kapow.
There are no private message functions built in, but that’s because there’s a “send an email” on everyone’s profile page. This is still clunky. This belies the motivations of Google (let us see it all) versus Facebook/Twitter (you just keep feeling like you’re private, if that helps you!).

“Remembering for a moment that Google’s biggest monetary trick is to serve highly targeted ads, what does the Google+ platform do to enhance their data set? Hint: lots!”

The Spark area isn’t that compelling yet, but add user-created materials, plus let us curate that area differently, and we’ll eat out of your hands.
If I were Google, I’d buy Alltop and replace Spark with that.
If users could add themselves to “public” or “member’s only” circles, Google+ would make the ultimate conference attendee/participant tool, almost as-is.
There talk about how some of us are using hashtags inside Google+, even though they don’t function that way. What we’re saying is, “Please let us have tools to create our own folksonomy,” and when Google listens to that, they will see even more interesting social graphs.
Ford is already investigating the heck out of Google+. Location data plus Places plus users’ friends data makes for a rich marketing profile, and some really useful tools.
Google+ would be the ultimate environment for ethical affiliate marketing, if the concept of “objects” or “things” existed. Meaning, if I could say, “I’m enjoying my new !TDK Boombox! today,” and that use of !! became a link that paid me a few bucks if someone bought a TDK boombox after my recommendation, that would be nifty for some.
I saw many early worries from users that marketers would come and ruin things. They’re right to worry. This is a new place to experiment and it will happen. But I’m optimistic.
Small Businesses would benefit from an integration of Places, Pages, and Google Plus. That whole social customer service movement? Pow. Done. Easy.
The minute I can pump a bunch of saved search RSS feeds into Google+ directly, the sooner Google+ would feel like a listening station mixed with a media making/curating platform all in one platform.
The notion of “trending topics” would be exponentially more valuable inside of Google+, depending on how the algorithyms reflected this.

I Could Be Wrong All Over the Place

Again, the point isn’t to be right. The point is to get you thinking on any of these potential directions above, and thinking about how it might impact you, or your clients, or your company, and the like. You’re definitely encouraged to share your own perspective of what else Google+ might mean. Speculate. It’s something we’re allowed to do as bloggers. So share your thoughts. Disagree. That’s the whole purpose of doing a post like this. But also, take time to speculate on what WILL happen, because I feel some of these possible futures are closer at hand than you or I can imagine.

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More Google+ Posts:

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Google Plus: First Look

Originally posted at [chrisbrogan.com]

Colin Wants His Kids Back

ceb — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:08:07 +0000

It’s really hard to imagine what life is like right now for my friend and coworker, Colin Bower. His children were illegally abducted over a year ago, and transported to Egypt against Colin’s will and against the law. It’s been a year of working to get them back, and that’s far too long.

I’ve been acting as a solo dad for the last few days while my wife and son are away in Canada, and it’s been time really well spent. I’ve learned that trying to comb very long hair on an 8-year-old girl is a painful thing for both of us. I’ve learned that just because I fell asleep doesn’t mean that she did, and that she’s quite happy to watch documentary footage about the Titanic all night until I catch her hiding out in the bathroom with a little “cinema” of stuffed animals and the laptop.

Juxtapose those two things: I’m fortunate enough to be a dad to my young child, and Colin’s kids were illegally abducted and he hasn’t seen or heard from them in over a year.

There are people in the US government working to help this process along, but we need your help to keep this situation front and center. Given all the things on our government’s plate, you can imagine how important it is to keep up the voice until Colin’s kids are returned.

Please do Three Simple Things

1.) Please visit this Facebook page and send a letter to Secretary Hilary Clinton (It’s super easy to do.)
2.) Please tweet or share this link: http://bit.ly/noorramsay (which leads to the facebook page).
3.) Please keep Noor, Ramsay, and their Dad, Colin, in your thoughts and prayers.

And thank you.

Bring Noor and Ramsay Home

ceb — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 01:04:56 +0000

Imagine someone taking your kids. It’s any parent’s nightmare. It’s also what’s happened to my coworker and friend, Colin Bower. Now, imagine that you can help. Because you can. It’s our job (and by “our,” I’m hoping that you’ll help), to really raise some awareness for this case, be cause so far, the quieter channels haven’t worked well enough. We need to get some attention on this story, and for that, I turn to you.

The Story

First, you can watch a news story that gives you some information and introduces you to Colin’s world right now.

The Support

Second, there’s a Facebook page that gives more of the story, plus gives a few calls to what we can do to help Colin.

The Most Important Part

The US government is doing much to try and bring home Noor and Ramsay. What we can do is keep the light on this as much as possible. We can reach out to the most influential people we know and ask for their support. We can make it easy for them to reach out to THEIR influential people, by giving them the above-mentioned links and by asking them to help get the Egyptian government to do their part in bringing Noor and Ramsay home.

We can help. You can help. Please take a moment and visit the Facebook page to help.

And thanks.

I Support Jim Buckmaster and Craigslist

ceb — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:30:52 +0000

There’s a lot of negative media coverage and advertising going on about Craigslist, the online classifieds company. Some of it is covered here. It involves reports of human trafficking that are alleged to have occurred via the site.

Jim Buckmaster responded with this post, asking for some help with proof and more corroborating information related to the allegations.

What Craig Newmark Asks

Craig Newmark has asked for the following, in the company’s efforts to continue fighting issues of this nature:

If you know or suspect that any such crime is happening on craigslist:

– send the links to the cops immediately!
– ask the cops to contact us
– send us the links!

If you know of any such crime in the past:

– send us the police reports
– send us anything other hard evidence

It seems like a reasonable request. They want to help just as much as anyone. If people are running into these cases, the best way to solve them is to involve the police quickly.

The Media Part of This

The other side of this story is that a lot of people have run with the reports, but are making lots of allegations without much proof and with mostly anecdotal stories. That’s the part that bugs me. That’s why I wanted to write this post.

If crimes are happening, then they need to be addressed, wherever they are happening. But the part where people keep pushing around allegations and generalizations can really do a lot to thump on the credibility of an organization and individuals.

I support Jim Buckmaster’s stance on this one. He wants to solve any wrongdoing that’s transpiring via his company’s platform. He doesn’t want people to go around making allegations without backing evidence.

(I turned off comments for this post, simply because I don’t want to debate the merits of the Adult section of Craigslist, which is where the argument seems to go most times. By all means, feel free to have an opposing view on this. That’s why we have the Internet.)

iPad is Pretty Decent

ceb — Fri, 21 May 2010 03:19:32 +0000

In an effort to keep you up to date with my iPad experiments, I’m now a few weeks in and feeling pretty good about the purchase. I take the iPad with me quite often, and have lots of business uses for it. There are still a few things that bother me (I just want simple transfer of files, and the ability to use something like Finder), but overall, I feel like the platform works well, and I can recommend it.

Reminder: I’m using the wifi version not the 3G version, and so far, that’s been going well, too. With the addition of my Novatel Mifi service, I have 3G from Verizon’s network, which I find pretty darned fast and powerful. I don’t have an opinion on the size. They only had the big drives when I bought it, but I’ve got tons and tons of room, even with seven movies and many video podcasts loaded onto the box.

Applications

So far, the apps that I use the most on the iPad are:

Pages – for writing my next book with Julien Smith
Evernote – for keeping notes (there’s a new update that I hope fixes a few earlier complaints).
Mindnode – for mind mapping.
iBooks – for reading books.
Skype – for phone calls (quite a trip).
..and the rest, I’m still reviewing.

I’m going to say it once more: I’m annoyed that Keynote doesn’t “just work” with a sync between the desktop version and my iPad. This device would be the ULTIMATE presentation tool, if apple would just fix this one bit.

Battery Life and Hardware

The battery life on this device is ridiculously good. After owning an iPhone 3G back in the day, and currently owning a Macbook Pro 15″, once I made a few tweaks (like darkening the screen brightness just a little bit, and keeping wifi off until I needed it), I’m getting hours and hours of battery life out of the device. It lasts for an entire cross-country jaunt, like Boston to Oregon, for instance.

As for hardware, I have the docking keyboard. I will also try out the bluetooth keyboard soon (bought one for home, but might steal it for my testing). The reason I like the docking one is that I don’t have to remember batteries, and because it gives the iPad somewhere to sit.

Laptop Relacement?

No, the iPad can’t replace a laptop. I do a lot of video projects, so I need my laptop for that. The iPad helps me single-task, which is really useful, but sometimes, I need lots of apps open, and I have to work in between them. I need my laptop for that.

Something Else

Yes. The iPad is something else. You can use it for status. You can use it for quick messages. You can use it for viewing entertainment. You can read and edit many office documents on it.

I’ve been to three business meetings in the last 7 days where someone other than me is using an iPad to keep notes, check for information, and search the web for more information. It just feels natural.

Do YOU Need One?

Absolutely not. You don’t need one. It’s not going to change your world. If you’ve got a smart phone, this is a bit different, but not so much so that you’ll change the world with one. If you’re a writer, it’s really easy to justify this thing as a powerful focusing tool (as I’m finding out from writing the new book). But need? Too big a word.

Instead, it’s interesting and worth considering. It’s definitely got some valid uses for accessibility, for working with seniors, for all kinds of other applications outside of nerd-minded technology. Will we see an iPad in every house? Now that’s possible.

One quick note: I’ve got iBooks and Kindle for iPad. I note a lack of Nook for iPad. If I’m B&N, I’m working fast to correct this (if Apple is allowing such), because otherwise, there’s a huge distribution gap. Amazon knew better than to hold people hostage to their device. I hope Barnes & Noble does the same.

And You?

What are you thinking about iPads? Do you have one? What else are you using it for?

The Design Experiment- Contest is Over

ceb — Thu, 20 May 2010 20:14:18 +0000

I finished up my experiment with using 99 Designs. It was quite interesting. There were just under 100 designs entered. In the long run, the designs were mostly “good enough.” I liked the one I awarded the win to, and I liked two more as well.

What I ended up doing was awarding one person the prize, and contacting two more to pay them for their designs, too. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Will I use 99 Designs in the future? Not sure. My designer friends all did a great job of explaining why the contest model wasn’t lovely. I get that. But I wonder what I’ll do about a low-cost model, because these types of logos I need aren’t the life-changing kind: they’re the “for a project” kind. I will continue to explore.

Anyhow, I thought I’d circle back and report.

Grrr Apple Grrr

ceb — Mon, 10 May 2010 03:24:54 +0000

So, I have an iPad. I own Keynote on my Macbook Pro. I own Keynote on my iPad. I just tried moving my Keynote files from one to the other. Swell. There they are. Oh wait. They can’t be opened, because I created them all in iWork08. Please go get a copy of iWork09.

Well, sure.

I go to Apple.com. I find the software. I can “add it to your cart” to get it shipped to me. Or, I can download a 30 day free trial.

I can’t just buy a download, a key, and call it a day.

So, Apple is asking me to buy a piece of cardboard and some plastic, shrinkwrapped, and either use my own gasoline to go get it, or ask a boat, an airplane, and a few trucks to bring it to my house.

Is the Apple green? Oh no, says I.

(Mostly, I’m just frustrated that I can’t have my toy right now, damn it.)

Oh, and there’s this thing called the App store. Wouldn’t it be amazing if I could just buy apps in there and download them to my… What the?

Charge For the Right Thing

ceb — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 08:30:33 +0000

I just read this bit in paidContent that talks about how Fox is planning to make apps to charge for their content, and it’s got me thinking. Because I’m just recently a citizen of the iPad, I’m buying some new applications to test out what’s interesting and what’s not. I had one for the Wall Street Journal, but I deleted it (don’t feel like paying for news headlines that I get for free from your competitors). I had a few magazine purchases from Zinio (which does seem interesting), but I’m still not sure because I think they need more subscription partners.

The problem I’m bumping into suddenly is that I’m seeing publishers charge at the wrong point. They’re mistaking their mainline content as the value, instead of the value extraction that I get just a little bit more downstream. This is because they are just trying to replicate their offline model (charge a modest subscription and sell the ads) and hack it to fix their mistakes on the internet model 1.0 (charge nothing and give the ads away for cheap). Instead, the new model is even weirder (charge even more for the content and give away the ads for cheap).

Magazine and news publishers of earth: please observe the success of GigaOM (run by Om Malik’s team), and observe some of their models (free content, expensive ads, premium subscription benefits), and also the Huffington Post (free content, celebrity draw, expensive ads, blanket acquisition of eyes from other spaces).

I wrote about the audacity of free before. It’s a tricky thing, considering pricing models. But it’s the only thing. Because as you’re getting new potential readers/subscribers (me!), you’re also losing them just as fast by putting the price wall in the wrong place, or around the wrong parts.

The Importance of Modeling For Business Success

ceb — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 08:30:48 +0000

I asked people the other day who they modeled their business after. The answers were interesting. Some said their dad. Others said they made businesses for their children. In most cases, I wasn’t sure that I’d asked the question the right way, or that it had been interpreted the way I meant to ask it. My question was: your business isn’t a beautiful and unique snowflake, so what kind of model are you following?

It can be tricky, but it definitely is something to answer, if you want to feel like you’re following a path towards success.

A Few of My Business Models

For example, here are a few business models that I’m currently executing against to make business for myself:

New Marketing Labs is a marketing consulting company. It follows the service model. Charge clients for services and deliver against the promises made in the contract. The basics of the model are to charge companies for service, to pay employees to execute the service, and make small profits off the margin.
[chrisbrogan.com] is a media platform. It makes some money via affiliate ads like my support of Thesis (affiliate link), but more so, it’s a media hub that lets me point towards projects and ideas I think are interesting. It’s lead generation for my professional speaking. It’s lead generation for NML. So, the site isn’t the business model, exactly, but it’s part of other models.
Professional speaker – I make money off speaking professionally to companies about marketing, online media, community, sales, lead generation, and topics like that. It’s a simple model, where you make money for intellectual property, but it’s a tricky model in that you have to be there to earn the money. It’s an “active income” model.
Third Tribe Marketing is a media model as well. Build an active community, give it useful information, provide it lots of resources, and make money off the membership dues. This is a bit more passive (I’m on there daily for 1-2 hours a day), but it’s a little easier than flying all over the world speaking, so it’s a great business line to add to what else I’m doing.
Books and other media. You don’t get rich selling books. But they’re great lead generators for other business.

So, those are just some of my own business models. In there, I didn’t mention events, which can be a good model for earning money. I didn’t talk about informational products, which can be lucrative. I didn’t talk about a lot of ways one can make money.

Find Models and Mentors

One of the best things you can do for yourself, should you want to improve your own business, is figure out models and/or find passive mentors. For instance, when I read Business Stripped Bare, by Sir Richard Branson, I felt like I’d found a kindred spirit in how he likes to organize his companies. I thought, “Wow, I’m not crazy.” It’s not like I spent any time across a table with Sir Richard. I simply read his book, took scores of notes, and then tried applying bits of his ideas to my own work, and found out what worked.

I do this with as many business books as I can get my hands on. I look for the bits I can apply. I also do that with blogs, and I do it with videos (you do watch TED, don’t you?).

Figuring out models is tons of fun, too. For instance, I had a great talk with John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing for some content I was building for Third Tribe, and John was talking about how he built out his training package, how he built a network of people to refer business into, and some of the other facets of his business. It’s all very replicable, all without ripping off John, and all something you could build towards growing out another niche.

I had a great talk the other night with Joe Sorge (I’ve talked about Joe’s business before), where I riffed some of my new business ideas off him, and he gave me his experiences back. It was immediately apparent that Joe was far more than a guy who sold hamburgers. The more we talked, the more I realized that he had a lot of experience in picking apart business models and finding inspiration to make them succeed.

Modeling Your Own Business

Ray Kroc used to quiz MBA students as to what business he was in. Everyone thought he was in the hamburger business. When I heard this, I thought, “A-ha. No. He’s in the franchising business.” But no, I was wrong, too. Ray was in the real estate business. McDonalds owns more real estate (more PRIME real estate, by the way) than even the Catholic Church. When you look at a business, the model isn’t always immediately apparent.

What’s your business’s model? How are you looking to make money? What is the longer-term vision behind your company? Have you modeled it?

Here’s a hint, by the way: in doing this, in taking out a piece of paper and writing down what you think your business is, if you can’t describe it in just a few words, it might not be a very successful model. Further, if you don’t work on ways to emulate some of the more successful models that are out there, you might be missing the opportunity to learn and piggy-back off the success of other pioneers.

Ted Turner turned billboard profits into a media company by having the vision to see that he wasn’t in the billboard business. What business are you in? How wide can you cast your vision, while still keeping the model simple?

The Internet has given us simple means to create businesses out of nothing. But to sustain them, we need solid models. What’s yours?

The Cost of Paying Lip Service

ceb — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 16:49:29 +0000

I just read this piece by David Weinberger about how the Internet wasn’t especially useful to him during the traffic misery caused by the Iceland volcano issue. The services work fine when everything is going well, but when the crisis hit, the sites became immediately useless.

I’m not surprised, but I’m also wondering what we can all take from that. See, the problem is that our social media efforts will fail the same way. News issues and concerns hit companies all the time. How do they respond? I just went looking for a few social media people who I imagined would be responding to international news stories about their company. Not a word. So, instead of being lit up to keep relationships afloat, I’m seeing silence.

When the going gets tough, how will you respond on these new social channels? How will you use the Internet as a primary driver instead of as a bolt-on?

David Weinberger’s story points out that the Internet presence of these companies was obviously an afterthought to their telephone presence. More than two decades after companies have come to the web, they still look at their online presence as secondary.

Social media’s even newer. How will it fare?

Something to think about. Are you in? Or are you just setting up a facade?