Techies and social junkies got all fired up when Google+ first launched on an invite-only basis. The mystery and buzz was something akin to Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory opening up to a few lucky golden ticket holders. Speculation was rife – could Google+ be a serious competitor to Facebook?

In the initial days after launching publically on 20 Sept, traffic to Google+ soared 1200%. But things quickly started to look decidedly less rosy for the search giant.

Last week, blogger Michael Degusta posted the potentially embarrassing fact that only three of the 12 people on Google’s management team page have ever posted on Google+. When a product gets such low-level buy in from its own makers (even Google CEO Larry Page has only made a handful of public posts), you have to wonder why you should engage with it yourself.

Then the Daily Mail splashed the headline “Traffic plunges for Google+ as 60% of users log off”. The hyperbolic reportage followed figures released by data analytics company Chitika, which should be taken with a pinch of salt. One might well expect to see a plunge in traffic as usage levels off after a dramatic post-launch spike.

With its innovative content-sharing features such as +Circles and +Snippets, the opportunities for social marketing on this network are undoubtedly exciting. It is now down to the users to decide whether Google+ is just a storm in a teacup or a serious contender in the social space.

1. The human face of information

Google has stumbled at its previous attempts at social media where it focused on information to the detriment of interaction (remember Google Lively or Google Wave? Anyone?). Proving the nay-sayers wrong, Google’s newest project is ‘scalable’, ‘customisable’ and ‘people-centric’, fulfilling the needs of its users and therefore soon to please the social media industry.

2. Power to the people

Google+ neatly combines the most useful features of all its competitors. Via its Circles feature, users can keep up with friends, Facebook-style, separately from LinkedIn-reminiscent business contact, while also having the choice to follow and post quick thoughts a la Twitter. This is also good news for brands, offering the means to target messages to those interested in particular products or services.

3. No information overload

Perhaps as a response to Facebook’s often-overwhelming News Feed, Google has created Stream. Continuing the user-friendly theme, one can filter inbound updates to keep out irrelevant information, as well as directing one’s own feeds towards just those contacts who wish to read them. The potential for social media marketing via this tool seems a little hazy right now, but it’s bound to be there.

4. Bright ‘Sparks’

According to searchenginejournal.com, Sparks – streams of regularly updated search results designed to match users’ interests – is Google+’s ‘most promising feature’. Content generated from a Spark search is different to a Google search – with highly ranked websites, fresh and visual content ranking highest. The SEO world waits with baited breath to grapple with Spark’s evolving algorithms and link-building opportunities.

5. Distinguishes between people and brands

Nobody appreciates the irritating stream of event invitations and general bumph that seems the price of accepting brands using aggressive Facebook marketing. With brands still waiting offstage in an as yet unidentified place, Google+ is deadly serious about keeping its social experience strictly personal. Still under wraps, the social media marketing opportunities are bound to be sleek and innovative – will company pages be open to being +1’d?

Speculation is rife, but for the meantime, the best you can do is apply for one of the limited company test profiles and start taking Google+ seriously.

Source: adapted from searchenginejournal.com

Company Profile

Bellingham Smiles is a dental practice owned by Dr. Jeffrey Prager, based in Bellingham, Washington, US

The Challenge

Primarily relying on word-of-mouth referrals from existing patients, Dr Prager’s dental practice is looking to increase current marketing tactics and decided on Google Places as a way to build an online presence for the practice.

The Solution

By setting up a Place page for the business, the listing for the dental practice’ appears for free when potential clients search on Google.com or Google Maps for services like “dentist in Bellingham,” As the business evolves, the dentist Dr. Prager updates the page with new treatments and promotional offers. “It’s best to stay on top of it and modify it as you add new services and any new emphasis in your practice,” he says.

In many cases, patients come to the practice via the Bellingham Smiles Place page in hopes that Dr Prager can save a tooth that has been targeted for extraction by another dentist. It also helps him publicise his niche expertise in laser procedures that help patients avoid painful gum surgery.

The Results

With the realisation that customers want information about a business before they call or visit, the dental practice has built a strong online presence to help target potential clients.

The free business listing and Place page has delivered the highest return on investment (ROI) of any marketing that the practice has previously implemented. Dr Prager says “Google Places has been very helpful in getting people who want to save their natural teeth to find me. The thing that counts in marketing isn’t what you spend, it’s the ROI.”

Source: Google Small Business Blog

Coinciding with the launch of Times Online’s much debated paywall, Google appears to have removed the paper’s online site – www.timesonline.co.uk –  from their index entirely.”

According to a report by freshegg, by way of Malcolm Coles, searches for “times online” or for the entire subdomain return zero results.

Freshegg says: “it seems that Google has manually removed the entire timesonline.co.uk site from its index, either at the direct request of Rupert Murdoch (or his best minions), or perhaps this was an initiative from Google itself”

Subdomains such as  business.timesonline.co.uk and technology.timesonline.co.uk are currently still indexed though this may change down the line.

Nod to Garry Davis at WhyCommunicate? for bringing this to our attention.

Google’s description of  Google Jail for Communities  reads: ‘Google is planning to launch an experiment that we hope will make prisons better for everyone. We plan to test ultra high-tech incarceration facilities in one or more trial locations across the country. We will deliver Googleplex-quality services 100 times better than what most American prisoners have access to today, including fiber-to-the-cell connections. We’ll offer service to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 inmates.’

Some commentators have noted the similarity of the initiative to Google Fiber for Communities, a high-speed broadband initiative that also aims to reach between 50,000 to 500,000 inmates.

A video of an internal presentation on the project has also been acquired:

Figures for week ending 13th March, released by Hitwise shows Facebook visits accounted for 7.07 percent of all websites, compared to 7.03 percent for Google.

Facebook has temporarily spiked ahead of Google before, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2009 but Hitwise charts show that Facebook, with more than 400 million members, may now surge ahead of Google permanently.

Membership growth is one factor, the rapid rise in social gaming another, with games like Mafia Wars generating nearly 10 million Facebook fans.

Facebook’s marketshare of visits has grown 185% in a year, compared to Google’s 9% rise in the same period.

Microsoft has knocked Google off its top spot in the 2010 Business Superbrands survey.

Google, ranked first in the two previous surveys, changes places with Microsoft who were in fifth spot last year.

New entries to the top ten include BlackBerry, 42nd  last year and British Airways, back to eighth from its worst position last year – 36th. Rival Virgin Atlantic however, also appears, above BA, in fourth position.

Revealing the fall-out from the financial crisis, the list of the top 10 biggest fallers includes UBS and Morgan Stanley, with the Royal Bank of Scotland falling out of the top 500 altogether.

Proving that a re-brand can have a positive affect Aviva, the re-branded Norwich Union, is the second highest riser in the top 500 climbing from 315th to 144th.

The biggest year-on-year riser is Premier Inn, which has jumped a significant 197 places to 240th. Other fast risers include DHL, BDO the accountancy firm, and trade media title, Management Today.

Brands are ranked by a panel of judges and 1700 business people for quality, reliability and distinction.

The suit has been filed on behalf of one Eva Hibnick from Florida – chosen to represent the proportion of 31.2 million Gmail users who are unhappy with Buzz.

Hibnick’s lawyers reportedly accuse Google of breaking laws in relation to legal communications with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act alleged to have been contravened.

The lawsuit reportedly asks for an assurance that Google, which says it has not yet seen the lawsuit, will not repeat Buzz style actions in years to come.

Google has been reacting to privacy concerns in a series of blogs since the launch last week, including offering the option to turn Buzz off completely.