Google launched its Google+ Communities last week creating another way to connect with people who share the same interests.

It’s pretty easy to use. You search for an interest whether it’s skiing or knitting or Star Trek and join the community. Then you interact with like-minded people. If there isn’t a community, you can create one in less than ten minutes.

So you know what to do if you like Star Trek but Google+ Communities is also a great place to grow your brand. You can set up a community based on your products and invite your brand ambassadors to interact with you, your brand and your product. (more…)

By Mark Evans

Is Google+ worth your time?

It’s a question many brands and individuals have probably been asking since the service was launched in July, 2011 after more than a year of work behind the scenes.

On the surface, it seems that Google+ has been a huge success with more than 100 million “active” investors among the 400 million people who have signed up for the service, which lets people share information and communicate with friends and business colleagues.

Even so, there seems to be ambivalence about Google+, which Google describes as a  “social layer” that sits on top of its other services – as opposed to a social network. (more…)

When many of us think about buying a product or service, whether we’re in the consumer or B2B space, there is no better source for insight and opinion than a “trusted advisor” or colleague. We can ask what their experiences have been with a similar product, how it excels (or falls flat) in the marketplace, etc.   Yes, we can go to a company’s website or talk to a sales rep for information (or a competitively slanted response), but at the end of the day, that kind of research might not really help us make decisions.  In the past, when I needed to find information, get reviews or decide on the brand or product I wanted to buy, Google was my first choice. Today, though, for me and many others, this isn’t always the case.  Social media – and social search – are changing the way we find vendors, get advice and eventually make purchasing decisions.

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In the last few weeks, there has been a lot of buzz surrounding the phrase “net neutrality.” If you haven’t heard, there has been a heated debate on the true intentions of a recent joint proposal by Google and Verizon about how net neutrality should be enforced. So much has been said and written canvassing this issue that maybe it is a good idea to provide a crash course on net neutrality so you can form your own opinion about this multifaceted debate. (more…)