Wikipedia's home page on the day of the protest.

An almost spontaneous movement that culminated in one historic day of protest effectively killed two bills being debated before Congress, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). I’m definitely not the most well-versed person in regard to either of these bills, but suffice to say enough respected heavy-hitters in the online industry rallied against it and served as a Pied Piper of sorts to hoards of followers. Wikipedia went black for the day. Other sites (Google, as an example) obscured their logos in protest, or became forums or points of distribution for protesters (Twitter). In less than a day, two bills which were seen as slam dunks for quick passage were suddenly withdrawn, with politician after politician going before the media cameras and saying how they needed to take a “fresh look” at the proposed legislation.

In other words, they went from “done” to “dead.”

On a personal note, I first suspected something big was afoot when my 13-year-old texted me and asked me to sign Google’s online petition. In case we doubted the Internet’s ability to take “sticky” information and make it “slippery” (easy to pass on), here we had it in spades.

In a world where “power” usually translates to money and connections, the SOPA/PIPA protest showed that if you have an idea that is simple enough and compelling enough and can get enough “social proof” behind it, nothing is impossible. Regardless of where you come down in terms of whether this legislation is a good idea or not, you can’t help but be awed by what transpired.

A word of caution, here. At some point, this process could lend itself to some serious forms of digital malpractice, especially because many movements can grow at a velocity where potential members may not have an opportunity to vet the authenticity of what’s going on. So before we sign online petitions or forward manifestos to everyone in our contact lists, we need to do some due diligence. Being the transparent self-policing place it is, the Internet will (in time) weed out the scammers and the low-lifes, but it doesn’t happen instantaneously.

The Internet, then, is at a point where we can view it much as we do electricity. It is so ubiquitous, we almost take it for granted. The power can be harnessed, but must be respected.

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1) Think mobile. Already, it is reported that more than 40% of smart phone owners have made a purchase by using their smart phone. In fact, about half of them made the purchase while in the store. The mobile phenomenon is just getting bigger. By 2014, it is predicted more people will access the Internet via smart phones and tablets than with all other computers combined. So if your web site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’ll miss a lot of web traffic.

Use 2012 to shore up your mobile interface. Optimize for the 4-inch screen. Make the experience rewarding for your visitors. Don’t make them scroll or endlessly click to open more pages. Forget Flash. Make your site clean, readable and well-organized.

2) Get serious about online video. Be honest. Would you rather plod through a bunch of IKEA assembly instructions, or watch a video of someone putting the piece together? It is this preference that has propelled YouTube into being the #2 search engine in the world (and the #3 most-visited site). People aren’t just going there for cat videos anymore. With more than 40 hours of video being uploaded EVERY MINUTE, there’s a staggering array of all types of content hosted on YouTube. Internet viewing is up over 35% this year (with mobile viewing up even more). The average American web user spends 7 hours a month on YouTube (stats from Pixability). Videos with key word-rich titles and descriptions work wonders with getting you found on Google and other search engines. And—going back to resolution #1—YouTube is already optimized for mobile, so your videos are available to a much wider market.

3) Plan ahead for the Election season from hell. This year, with the Citizen’s United ruling in the books, money will be pouring into political campaigns like never before. And probably 99.99% of it is going to be spent in the same mass media (TV primarily) that you’re planning to use to reach YOUR audience.

Chances are, Q-4 air time is going to be a scarce commodity. Darned expensive, too. So make 2012 the year to think tactically. Traditionally, it is thought you must make 12 mass media impressions on a subject to incite action. Challenge yourself to cut that number in half. Create edgier commercials. Reach your audience in unexpected ways. Make sure your online efforts complement what you are doing offline. Make sure the communications all grow from the same “brand narrative.” Speaking of which…

4) Integrate, integrate, integrate. Sounds obvious. Yet recent studies show only about 17% of businesses feel they do an “adequate” job of integrating their social media into their overall marketing mix (source: eMarketer.com). Understand how you can best use the platforms available to you. Don’t slide into the habit of “dumping” content on as many social media pages as you can. Have a content strategy for each platform, and stick to it.

5) Focus on what works. The last few years have been more than a little overwhelming when it comes to new opportunities in the way of engagement platforms (Google+ is but one of the latest examples). It’s easy to get the feeling that if you’re not on board with the latest and greatest, you’re falling behind.

In 2012, take a trip up to the 10,000 foot level and decide what’s really working for you. Forget the pundits. What works for YOU? Find the platforms that produce, and stick to them. Don’t be afraid to experiment, but also, be careful not to spread yourself too thin. If you’re going to invest your time and resources into a platform, do it right. Then make sure it delivers.

So go ahead, pick a resolution. And revisit it every month or so just to see how you’re doing. And with a little planning, you can count on a killer 2012.

Happy Holidays one and all, and thanks for reading in 2011!

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As you may recall, Pepsi was one of the first big-name marketers to aggressively go “all-in” in a Social Media sense, with its much talked-about “Pepsi Refresh Project.” This was a commitment from Pepsi to support worthwhile causes recommended and voted on by its customers and fans. Pepsi used Social Media (primarily Facebook) to elicit suggestions, to “crowd source” the causes (have fans and friends vote on them), and to report news developments.

What gathered a lot of media attention for Pepsi wasn’t so much the program itself, but the fact that Pepsi was pulling back in its traditional media spending in order to fund this program. As it turns out, the brand really didn’t need to cut back much, just the couple of spots it traditionally ran in the Super Bowl.

In the year following “Pepsi Refresh,” Pepsi’s flagship product slipped into third place in the soft drink category (behind Diet Coke). Many Social Media naysayers were quick to blame this slide on Pepsi’s move from mass media to Social Media. While I, for one, don’t think Pepsi’s descent in the cola wars was due to the fact that it didn’t run a couple of Super Bowl spots (more on that in this post), I do think the marketer dropped the ball when it came to defining and managing the “Pepsi Refresh” program. Specifically, I take Pepsi to task for three key reasons:

1. The focus was more on the “crowd sourcing” part of the program than in the good works themselves. Pepsi seemed to be more interested in social media for social media’s sake rather than dedicated to a specific cause and serving as a catalyst for building a community of fans who also supported it. Social Media is most effective when it is used to amplify a strategy, not become one.
2. The program didn’t have a clear mission. Instead of focusing on a clear, single goal (for example, fresh drinking water in third-world countries), suggestions from fans were all over the map. Many were geographically limited, so the Pepsi community as a whole would not benefit or see the results. If you’re going to start a movement (which is what Social Media at its best is capable of doing), you need to have a clear, succinct, non-compromising vision of what it is you will do and how specifically your audience can contribute and participate.
3. The program didn’t treat all community members fairly. The more active you were in Social Media, the more influence you had over the process. There were charges, in fact, of cheating on the part of some charitable entities in order to extort funds from Pepsi. This is not the kind of PR you want.

Contrast what Pepsi did more than a year ago to what Coke is doing now. Coke has teamed with the World Wildlife Fund to help preserve the habitat of the Arctic Polar Bear. Promoted by both mass media and Social Media, this program spells out exactly what the marketer intends to do (donate up to $2 million for Arctic habitat preservation over five years) and how the Coke community can help support (purchase cans and bottle of Coke with the polar bears on it). Simple. Elegant. Easy to understand. Easy to take part in. A cause that is hard to say “no” to. By partnering with WWF, Coke also aligned itself with a an organization which is beyond reproach, giving the program more legitimacy. What’s more, when you see someone drinking a Coke from a polar bear can, you immediately identify him as a fellow Arctic preservationist.

Of course, I do have some issues with this campaign as well. An annual donation of just $500,000 for an organization that has annual sales in the billions is less than a drop in the bucket. Chances are, Coke is spending at least 20 times that amount in paid media promoting this campaign alone. Hey Coke. Don’t be so chintzy. Increase your contributions ten fold.

In case you haven’t seen it, here is the spot Coke is running promoting its Save the Arctic efforts:

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That’s a question a lot of us in marketing have been asking for the past few years. There seems to be no shortage of ways for brands and marketers to get involved in Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogging, etc. Some require just a few minutes a day to keep up to speed. Others significantly more. But which platforms do users find most engaging, and which have the higher likelihood of leading to creating a new customer or sale?

We’re learning more and more about how people interact with Social Media all the time. And recently, the folks at Marketing Sherpa created a graph that took into consideration potential engagement versus the amount of time required to keep up.

The graph, show here, predictably shows that the easiest Social Media ventures to take part in (social buttons on your website or emails, for example) also drive the lowest engagement. And that those that require the most time (managing Search Engine Optimization and building relationships with noted bloggers) generally drive the most engagement.

The one platform that seems to give marketers the “most bang for the buck,” at least according to this study, is the practice of blogging. Weighing the time required to blog versus the potential payback seems to be time well spent.

Now before you jump over to Wordpress to set about creating your own blog, a word of caution. In our experience, it’s never as simple as saying “do this in Social Media and you’ll be a hit.” That’s because consumers don’t care about platforms. They care about content. Is what you’re putting out there for them (regardless of which platform you use) relevant, interesting and useful? If so, your content likely be found and passed around. If not, it doesn’t matter where the heck you put it.

Our experience has shown that the Social Media our clients are most comfortable with are usually the ones to drive engagement. For some, it’s a strong Facebook presence. For others, YouTube is the 800-lbs. gorilla. For me personally, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of Twitter and (of course) the Quisenblog. Just depends on what you’re most comfortable using.

While I’m thankful to Marketing Sherpa for taking time to plot this stuff, I myself take it with a grain of salt. For me, it’s not so simple as picking winners and losers. It’s about finding what works best for each marketer, then sticking with it.

If you’re interested in reading more about this study, here’s a link.

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Brian and many others who silently think along these same lines use undocumented generalities, personal anecdotes and a form of tortured logic to back up their theses.

They really owe it to themselves and their readers to take the time to review the research that’s been done to quantify effectiveness of mass media advertising. For example, in his article, Brian supports his claim that television advertising is no longer effective because, “…a lot of (DVR) customers fast forward through your expensive commercial.” Knowing that 44% of homes now have a DVR present, it’s easy to imagine Brian’s on to something when he portrays TV as a dying ad medium. Unfortunately, the facts don’t back him up. Recent studies by Nielsen, for example, show that 90% of TV viewing is still done live, and fewer than 1/2 (44%) of DVR users ever fast forward through commercials. Furthermore, whatever viewers have been lost via DVR and online views have been more than made up for by the fact that real-time TV viewership is UP 7% year/year.

Brian goes after other traditional forms of advertising too, and the facts don’t help him there, either. Radio listenership is impressively up. And while Direct Mail response has always been low, for most advertisers, response rates in the expected 1 – 2% range are the norm.

Overall, ad recall scores across all mass media are basically unchanged over 20 years.

But the new media types’ broadest generalization about advertising (that no one pays enough attention to it to remember it) was shot down by research done last year by Melanie Dempsey (Ryerson University) and Andrew A. Mitchell (University of Toronto). In essence, their study found that even when the consumer was unable to recall brand claims or even the brand name itself from advertising, he/she could very well been left with a subconscious positive feeling about the brand or product. One which he or she may not even be aware of, that often manifests itself in the form of product purchase. When Dempsey’s and Mitchell’s subjects were asked why they purchased brands they were unknowingly exposed to via advertising, the general response was “I like it, but can’t tell you why.” Follow this link to a summary of Dempsey’s and Mitchell’s study.

I’m sure the intentions of Brian and the multitude of others out there sounding the death knell of mass media advertising are pure. I don’t think they have an axe to grind. I think they truly believe that the Brave New World of Social Media is THE place to build a brand at the current time. If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you’ve no doubt figured out that I, too, am a fan of Social Media. Not to build a brand, but to amplify your strategy. To touch your customers where they spend their time. Where you can hear what they are saying and contribute to them in real time.

But trying to build a brand with Social Media without the reach and emotional appeals of mass media? That would be like trying to boil water with a flashlight.

It’s great that writers like Brian are willing to stir up a little controversy by “poking the snake.” But it would be nice if they did their critically-thinking readers a favor and relied on more than what they hear in the Social Media echo chamber.

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People’s relationships with their smart phones is one example of how the “always on” culture of contemporary life is affecting us. Where once we had the ability to be “in touch” 24/7, now we’re expected to be. What used to be considered “down times” are now opportunities to check in or catch up.

One side affect of the “always on” society is an affliction some social psychologists have dubbed the “Fear Of Missing Out” (FOMO). This refers to the blend of anxiety, guilt and irritation we may experience while checking email, clicking through to links from our Twitter stream or seeing who’s checked in around us on Foursquare.

Deep down, we know that at some point, the technology that keeps us connected ends up serving as more of a distraction. We feel the pangs of wanting to disconnect. But then we think, what if I miss something?

How’s this for irony: the very technology that connects us with so much has us fearing we’re not connected enough. In this short video from Fast Company, author Scott Belsky refers to this as “Reactive Workflow.” Reactive Workflow comes about because of effort it takes to deal with all the stimulation that comes to us, primarily via new technologies.

One of the things that happens in our reliance on technology is we cease to be creators and instead become responders. We may be linked to our world 24/7, but is our work getting any better?

What ever happened to thinking time? To the ebb and flow of life? To the idea of self-reflection? Traditionally this “down time” gave thoughts and perspectives time to gestate. It was a powerful ingredient in the problem solving recipe.

Most of what we do via today’s new communications platforms is a reaction to something else. We might be checking our email ten times an hour, but we’re not creating nearly as much as we used to. Or as we should.

As marketers, there are two edges to the Fear-Of-Missing-Out sword. First, the realization that we can easily succumb to it, and spend our precious time in reactive mode as opposed to creative mode. And secondly, that the people we’re trying to reach with our communications are struggling with the same issues.

The best way I can think of to approach this from a communications standpoint is to keep things simple. Messaging. Products. Promises. Don’t ask customers to jump through a lot of hoops. Be relevant. And be authentically helpful.

Most importantly, we can keep ourselves from falling into the FOMO trap. Don’t be afraid to power down from time to time just to give yourself some space. If you didn’t look at your email until 10 a.m., would the world really come to a screeching halt?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m feeling the need to check my email.

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Thanks to the Internet, there is another form of a “permanent record”: once something is said online, it’s being indexed by the major search engines. And when you Google search a company, an organization or an individual, what you get is a long list of relevant postings regarding that company or person.

The much ballyhooed permanent record.

The good news is, even though we may not be able to control all the online content out there that pertains to us, we still have an opportunity to “manage” it.

Here are five things you can do to manage your reputation online:

1) Accept that knowledge is power. If you don’t know what is being said, you won’t be able to address it. Make it a best practice to survey major social networks and blogs for comments about your company, products or competitors. Free tools such as Google Alerts and SocialMention.com can help you get started.

Too often, companies don’t like to even admit that negative things are being said about their brand. Their attitude seems to be, “If I ignore it, maybe everybody else will, too.” Reality check: they won’t.

2) Take steps to “organize the speech.” While you can’t control what people are saying about you, you can organize that speech by making sure your “good stuff” indexes high, that you add fresh, interesting content on a regular basis and that you correctly “claim” the listings (Google Places and Yelp! for example) that you are entitled to.

3) Don’t be shy about rationally responding to the not-so-good stuff. And do it with an attitude of “helping.” By “respond,” we’re not talking about arguing, justifying or trying to bribe commentators into pacification. It is more of an acknowledgment that you’ve heard the person, and you are sincere in your attempt to help them work through their issues.

While it’s understandable to think of Social Media as a dialogue with many, actually, it is a one-on-one conversation that takes place in front of a very large audience. Once your community sees how you deal with comments—both positive and negative—they’ll have a fuller view of you. For a crash course in how NOT to do this, check out this experience Kathi Kruse wrote about regarding her experience with Hertz Rent-a-Car.

4) Reach out to the people and groups that love your brand. Getting others to talk about your brand, whether on your pages or elsewhere, is a terrific way to get positive comments indexed. Embrace the people who love your brand and challenging them to speak up and share the good word.

5) Check your Google results regularly, and regularly add new dynamic content to the mix. Google doesn’t index websites, it indexes “pages.” So whenever you add a new content page to your blog, you’re giving Google one more opportunity to help you show up in a positive light.

It pays to regularly to a “Google check” of your brand and other trademarks to see what’s out there. If you come across some less-than-flattering comments about some aspect of your organization or its services, indirectly answer them by writing a blog post that provides your point of view on the matter. There’s a pretty good chance your retort will show up in the same search as the original negative content.

The advantage of knowing what’s being said about you, good and bad, is that it gives you an opportunity to respond immediately. You have a lot invested in your good name. It’s worth taking a few pro-active measures to protect it.

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Once upon a time, naming your competition was pretty simple. Your competitors were the businesses in your market area that sold the same sort of products or services as you. But thanks to the Internet (more specifically Google), all that’s changed.

Now your competition isn’t so much who you say it is. It’s who Google says it is.

When your key word search terms are entered, who shows up? Is it the “usual suspects” you’ve been going toe-to-toe with for quite some time? Or are there new “competitors” (online or offline) that show up in the search?

Whichever is the case, before you can figure out how to take on your competition, you first have to know who they are.

For the sake of simplicity, here are four different types of competitors it pays to consider:

1. Brick-and-Mortar Competition
These are the competitors you have a pretty good handle on. They’re the ones you compete with on a fairly regular basis. If you’re Staples, your brick-and-mortar competitors are mom-and-pop stationery stores, as well as chains such as OfficeMax and OfficeDepot. Chances are you know these guys pretty well, and you’ve gotten quite adept at competing head-to-head.

2. Competition That Ranks For Your Keywords
Thanks to the Internet, it’s not just local companies you need to worry about. You also have to be aware of your search competitors – the businesses that are stealing customers by ranking for the keywords you want to be found for. The Internet doesn’t care if Jenny’s Book Emporium is run out of her parent’s basement in Nogales, AZ. If Jenny’s ranking higher on the page for your search terms than you are, tough luck. There’s a pretty good shot she’s going to steal some business that under other circumstances would likely come your way.

Let’s go back to our Staples example.

If you’re Staples and you want to rank for “hanging file folders,” your competition isn’t just the brick and mortar guys. You’re also up against Amazon, The Container Store, Walmart, Sam’s Club and who-knows-else. There doesn’t need to be a physical location within 200 miles of your storefront. If their website is showing up above yours (or comparable to yours) in the search results, they’re a direct competitor.

3. Competitors Whose Social Media Pages Rank For Your Keywords
Like most organizations, you’ve probably got a website. You might even have a Facebook page. Maybe even a LinkedIn business page. But what about the competitors who are seemingly everywhere in Social Media? They blog, they contribute to industry forums, they comment on articles. They post videos on YouTube and photos on Picasa. Keep in mind that Google indexes each and every one of these pages. And the more dynamic the content (the more frequently it is updated), the higher it will generally rank, usually against the very words you’re hoping to be found with.

This is a whole new category of “search competitor”: those who get in through the side door while everyone is trying to push through the front. This is a big reason why it’s so important to have a meaningful presence in as many social platforms as you can manage, and why all digital assets related to your brand need to be optimized for search.

4. “Share of Buzz” Competitors
Thanks to social media, there’s another class of nagging competitor to think about – the ones who are winning in the “Share of Voice” battle. These are the businesses that sell similar products or services as you but who seem to be involved in every social conversation out there. People are tweeting their stuff, sharing their links on Facebook, talking up their promotions and referencing their videos or SlideShare presentations in conversations all across the web.

Bottom line, your competitors are no longer just the names you’ve always known; your competition is anyone who gets themselves in front of your customer’s line of sight.

Once you’re aware of the volume of competition you truly have, you can take action to come out on top. Yes, a big part of that is to focus on a sound SEO strategy (more on that here). And it’s also important to have a meaningful presence across several platforms. But more than that, it is important that you truly understand the value your customers consistently say they receive from you that is unique and meaningful. And turn that value proposition into a Brand Vision that is reflected throughout your organization and your communications.

Just as you compete with your local brick-and-mortar types by being uniquely “you,” so too can you successfully compete with virtual entities—as long as you narrowly focus on what you do best.

Heck, you might even show up in your competition’s searches and steal a few sales from them.

If you’d like to read more about competing with search engine competition, I recommend checking out this thoughtful blog post from TopRank.

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Do one-day daily deals from Groupon, Living Social and the myriad of copycat group buying sites deliver new repeat customers? Do they add incremental profit to the bottom line? Do they allow you to generate income from unused capacity?

Or are they money-losing propositions that create ill will among regular customers and attract only opportunists who’ll never show up again?

Chances are, the answer you get probably depends on who you talk to.

The major group buying sites have only been around since the fall of 2008. And while they currently boast of heavy participation (Groupon alone claims 55 million North American subscribers, of which at least 16 million have purchased at least one Groupon), we really haven’t been able to ascertain how effective Groupons are as a marketing tool.

Now, however, a few pertinent studies have been released that, while not conclusive, at least give us some hints about how customers and businesses view Groupon-like deals.

A survey conducted by Utpal M. Dholakia at Rice University revealed that new customers made up more than 77% of deal buyers for the sites studied. All spent over the deal value and, on average, about 20% became repeat customers. And a ForeSee Results study in June showed that 62% of deal purchasers are either non-customers, lapsed customers or infrequent customers, which bolsters the position that Groupons don’t just cannibalize full-price customers.

In perhaps the most interesting study, conducted by ConsumerSearch.com and the About Group, 67% of daily deal consumers claimed to have gone back to businesses where they had previously used a daily deal. In this survey, 48% of daily deal buyers were new customers, and in the case of restaurants, 83% ended up recommending that restaurant to family or friends.

I’m sure more comprehensive research will be forthcoming shortly, and what it will show is anyone’s guess. It’s safe to say, however, that at least for some businesses, the tactic of offering a Groupon or group-buying discount could pay off. So should you take the leap?

Before you do, I’d advise you to utilize some best practices. The standard Groupon deal is half off or more the everyday price. Of the other 50%, it’s split between the issuer and Groupon. So in general, Groupons seem to work for products that have huge margins, minimal incremental costs or when inventory is not an issue. And ideally, you’ll be offering a product or service that people will have use for over and over. Offering 50% off a yoga class makes sense. Offering 50% off auto body work might not.

If you’re new to Groupon, consider limiting the number of Groupons you’ll sell. Determine what the minimum is that Groupon will issue, and start there. If you see it’s a success, then you can always sign up for another one.

Another thing you could do is be creative in your offerings. Instead of just a straight “50% off” Groupon, consider putting together a special package, or a his-and-her special.

Also, consider how you’ll handle regular customers who now pay full price. One strategy could be to send an email to your very best customers, and offer them the same deal, without going through Groupon (that way you’ll be able to pocket the 25% that would go to them). Even if they opt not to participate, they will appreciate the thought, and will feel somewhat special.

Above all, recognize that Groupons are a way for people to try you out. Front line personnel can fall into the trap of viewing Grouponers as transients, so be sure to re-enforce with them that by creating an amazing experience for these trial customers, you’re setting yourself up to grow a new wave of repeat customers, loyal customers and advocates.

We’d love to hear your experiences of using Groupon, either as an issuer or as a redeemer. Let us know your opinion in the comments.

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As for me, I’m not sure exactly where Google+ fits in. But I sure feel like I could do without it.

That must sound like heresy coming from someone who spends quite a bit of his day working with and advising clients regarding Social Media. Especially since it comes from such a proven heavyweight as Google. But truth be told, I’m involved up to here in Social Media. My personal Social Media ‘Inbox’ is currently full. I’m active on Twitter. I participate in a variety of LinkedIn groups. I blog. I get notifications up the yin-yang from Google Alerts. I’m active in online discussions, and regularly contribute to industry sites or comment on articles.

I have a SlideShare page, a YouTube channel and an RSS reader. And yes, I spend at least as much time on Facebook as the average 16-year-old. So excuse me for not doing cartwheels about nurturing and keeping up with one more platform.

Sorry, Google+.

I can’t help but wonder if the world at large is sort of in the same boat. Do we all suffer from a form of Social Media overload? Recent statistics show that aside from time spent on Facebook, the average American actually spends less time online than she did last year. A lot less (9%, to be exact). Part of this I surmise to be because we’ve narrowed down our online world. But another could be we’ve reached the saturation point.

So while the social media pundits seem intent on comparing Google+ with Facebook, my stance is that its true competition is the status quo. Remember how your mother used to wisely say “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” Unless most folks find that something is “broke” in their Social Media worlds, I suspect they won’t be in a hurry to fix it.

Who knows, I could be all wet. Maybe the world is salivating at the chance to join Google+ and create “circles.” Maybe this is the “Social Media Magic Bullet” marketers have been waiting for.

Or, maybe it will collapse under the weight of its own hype.

This entertaining video was intended to show how Google+ will enhance your Social Media experience.

My takeaway was one of dread. There’s even something a little Big Brotherly towards the end, the idea that “You don’t have to choose Google+; Google+ has already chosen you.”

Ick. But judge for yourself. And let me know if this is something you’re planning on joining.

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