Bruce Bates says:

Hey Tiffany,

Sofrry for a long “post” of a comment.

You asked me to leave a comment about what I mentions on google plus so I figured I’d do you a few better and give you a lot more than what I already said.

Let me start by saying google+ (further called G+) is not a web 2.0 social networking site. G+ is a web 3.0 social networking site. I don’t know how much you follow the industry and if you know what web 3.0 is all about, but a large part of it has to do with this new concept of “cloud computing”. Cloud computing is about using everyday applications in a social manner.

Imagine no more microsoft office. Instead you log onto the web and create your documents. Your ebooks, your documents, your spreadsheets, your presentations, everything. Not only do you create them online, but you can share them with your social circles.

And believe me it doesn’t end there. Imagine every application being tied to every other application. Your documents, your social friends, your search engines, your video sites, your web pages, your email, everything. Sharing becomes a click of the button, who you share with is entirely at your digression.

Not only can you share, but you can assign various levels. So if you are creating an ebook for example, you can have a editing teams edit in real-time, you can have co-authors all writing and making changes at the same time, etc. etc. I think you get what I am saying.

Enter G+. THIS is what G+ is really all about. I anounced this was coming 8 months ago and everyone laughed at me. I have known for some time. The question is why is google doing this and how did I know?

I am a marketing specialist. Marketing is my entire reason for existing. In the recent months google has started to become less effective as a search engine. They have battled with spammers manipulating it at every corner. Then came this great news, Google’s pagerank algorithms patents were running out in 08/2011 and Google was not planning to renew them.

Everyone said how this would open search engines and give others a chance. I said google would release something big and something social that would change the search engine and guess what? 07/2011 google did.

We can see the first signs of this with four unique things. First, the +1 button appearing on every search result of Google. Second, faces of website owners appearing on searches (IF the owner has a G+ account). Third people who +1 a sign, are displayed whenever that result appears in the search engine, and fourth and most important, the +1 button is now influencing WHAT TERMS a website will show up under and what search page result it will have.

This is really only the beginning in my opinion. Imagine being able to collapse any website listing and seeing the stream of what the person who owns the website has been posting. Imagine being able to interact with website owners before shopping at a given website. Imagine results being targeted based on the things your friends recommend. Imagine results being targeted based on the types of things you post and share.

This is what G+ has brought to the world. Facebook, is a social network. G+ is a social cloud.

Mark Upshaw says:

I love G+ and have added all new people to my circles, unfortunately with far too little marketing maturity – mostly Squidooers. It keeps me from hearing their messages when they might possibly have something good to share.

I don’t post marketing messages on G+, yet. I really prefer to share info, relationships, etc that will help me more in my life and business than a one time sale with someone.

Maureen says:

Hi Tiffany,

Bruce wrote all that great stuff which I would love to have just one clue as to what he’s talking about, and also how does one fit all this Google+1 into a day filled with an offline business, running a household and tending a sick spouse???????????

I haven’t asked for n invitation yet as I wonder if I’ll work it out any better than my half completed Squidoo, Twitter and Facebook. I seem to get a certain way through and then can’t fathom the rest out even though I know how beneficial it would be to me.

Also at the moment I’m trying (very trying) to get my site “renovated” but as some nights I’m so tired I fall asleep at the computer and other times like today the garage had water drain through it from all the rain we’ve had and I had to get all the boxes that were wet and move them in preparation of re-packing them so bye-bye site today.

I marvel at those who can just “market” and hopefully in the not to distant future I’ll be one of them although it aint looking to rosy at this moment in time however I’m healthy and like a Fox Terrier (Jack Russell these days) I’ll keep on keepin on until I no longer can. Call me just plain hornery.

Helena says:

I have a G+ account but really haven’t started using it much yet. I’m not very good at the social stuff at all, and getting up close and personal kinda scares me.