Rumors have been swirling for more than a year about Google’s new social network to rival Facebook or Twitter. No, it wasn’t Orkut (the social network Google bought that is still surprisingly popular in Brazil, Google Wave or even Google Buzz. A couple weeks ago, Google finally unveiled Google+ (or Google Plus – there doesn’t seem to be consensus yet) to a relatively small network of social media and tech industry insiders and influencers. I was lucky enough to get an invitation from a friend before Google turned invites off and I’ve been able to test out Google+ (I’ll refer to it as G+ from here on) for a couple weeks now and I wanted to give my thoughts on the new network.

First things first: The Plus-1 Button

About a month ago, Google unveiled their +1 button in what seemed like an attempt to compete with Facebook’s ubiquitous Like button. I quickly added the +1 button to several blogs I manage so we could start taking advantage of people starting to use the +1 button. Google first launched +1 as a way to ‘bookmark’  search results that you’ve found helpful. For example, if I search for a Chinese restaurant in Indianapolis and one of my favorites comes up in the list, I can +1 it and it will come up at the top of the list next time I search for a Chinese restaurant in town. Pretty helpful stuff. Now, with the release of G+, the +1 becomes even more useful. Before G+ there wasn’t a way to catalog all the things you +1′ed (search results, blog posts, websites, etc.), but within G+, there’s a +1 tab on your profile page so you can go back through everything you’ve +1′ed in the past – making it a better place to store true bookmarks and pages you’d like to return to than simply liking a site/post/etc. through Facebook (since there’s no ultimate catalog of the things you’ve liked outside of Facebook.com).

Circles 

Circles are the foundation that G+ was built upon. While you can add friends to different lists within Facebook, it’s a feature that was added to Facebook after many people joined, so there isn’t a great adoption rate for the lists feature within Facebook.

G+: Add to Circle

Instead of friending people like you do on Facebook or just following them like on Twitter, you add people to your circles in G+. Unlike Facebook, you can add people to your circles without them having to add you back, but unlike Twitter, by clicking on the Incoming portion of your stream (which I’ll get to later) you can see the posts of people who have added you to their circles that aren’t yet a part of your own circles.

In addition to a simple drag and drop feature for adding people to different groups, Google also has a suggested users section to the right of your stream where you can hover over Add to Circles and easily add people to your circles.

You can also easily view content from and share content with specific circles very easily with G+. Say you want to share some photos with just people in your Family circle, it’s simple to do. If you want to share a link to an article with friends from work or share a photo with friends from college, you can do that as well.

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QR codes are starting to pop up in more and more places. From outdoor billboards (see the image at right) to Twitter avatars to magazine ads, the proliferation of smartphones is helping fuel a huge increase in QR codes.

So what exactly are QR codes? In short, QR codes are 2D barcodes that contain embedded information – a website URL, contact information, a link to a Twitter account or other information about a product or service. You can scan a QR code by using a QR reader on your smartphone or iPod Touch. I like ScanLife (a free download for  Blackberry, Android, iOS and Windows Phones) as it allows you to scan QR codes as well as standard barcodes, but there are dozens of free and paid QR scanners out there. I actually scanned the standard barcode on a children’s book the other day and it brought me to an info page that talked about the book and gave me links to purchase the book online.

Arkansas’s Tourism office started utilizing QR codes in their 2010 Tour Guide and in print ads this year. If you scan the QR code embedded in their ad (click for a larger version), you’ll be redirected to a page on Arkansas Tourism’s website that gives you more information about things to do and places to go in The Natural State. In fact, if you look through Arkansas’ 2010 Tour Guide (and presumably their 2011 guide) there are QR codes sprinkled throughout that give the reader more information about the page they’re reading – an excellent way to extend the print experience to online.

Another great example is this Ryan Adams concert poster. If you scan the QR code, it brings you to a landing page where you can download a free live version of one of his songs and it also features a link to buy tickets to Ryan Adams concerts through TicketMaster.

Those are just a handful of examples of how some companies are starting to use QR codes to extend users’ experience from print or outdoor to the web. Smartphones and QR codes can offer businesses the ability to provide more and more targeted information to consumers in spaces that are traditionally space-limited like outdoor advertising, signage or print ads.

There are even people who have started putting QR codes on their business cards. Simply scan the code and you can easily add the person’s contact info to your address book. That’s so much easier than coming back from a conference and having to manually add dozens of business cards into your contact list. In fact, if you scan the QR code on the left, you can add my contact information to your address book.

Have you seen any interesting examples of QR codes?

Bit.ly, Goo.gl, budurl.com, tinyurl.com. You’ve seen URL shorteners and in recent years, their popularity has exploded with the advent of Twitter and having to get a message across (with a link!) in less than 140 characters. TinyURL.com is one of the original URL shorteners and I used it years ago when trying to send Google Map directions to friends. In the past 18-24 months, the huge growth of Twitter has really fueled the growth of URL shorteners. Since Twitter only allows you to post 140 characters at a time, your URLs need to be as short as possible to leave room for messaging. Here are some features and drawbacks fromsom positives and negatives of some of the leading URL shorteners below:

Bit.ly:

Bit.ly is the most popular URL shortener online today, and for good reason. After bursting onto the scene just a few short years ago, Bit.ly has not been content to sit still for long. They took over as the default URL shortener on Twitter (until Twitter’s proprietary t.co shortener took over a few months ago) and they keep coming up with reasons for people to keep using them. From their easy to access and robust stats to their simple to use API to the inclusion of QR codes, Bit.ly makes using their service very easy.

Features:

• One of the shortest URL shorteners. Since . The minimum length of a Bit.ly link is just 19 characters! That only takes up about 13% of your tweet (140).
• Easy to view click stats: Simply add a + to the end of any Bit.ly URL (http://bit.ly/SocMedrlgy+). You can easily see how many clicks your link received and where those clicks are coming from.
  • The stats even show you how many times your link was retweeted and shared on Facebook.
• Allows for easy customization of shortened URLs: (bit.ly/b4yn9p turns into http://bit.ly/SocMedrlgy) easily.
• Allows for link bundling: Let’s say you’re sending 10 links to some coworkers to look at some research you’ve been doing. You can bundle those links into 1 bit.ly bundle link so you don’t have to copy and paste 10 different links to each person.
• Bit.ly has a Pro option that is free and offers you the ability for your bit.ly links to be branded with your own custom shortened URL. For example, the New York Times uses nyti.ms, the Huffington Post uses huff.to. Just another way you can extend your brand and use a great URL shortener at the same time.
• Robust API that allows you to integrate your Bit.ly account to shorten URLs in many social media management applications like TweetDeck and TwitterFeed.
• Automatically creates a QR code: Bit.ly automatically creates a QR code for each and every shortened URL you create. This is hugely important as smartphones and QR codes are being used more each day.
  • Don’t know what QR codes are? Check out this good intro post for now. I’ll write up a post about QR codes soon too.

Shortfalls:

• Honestly, one of the only reasons I could think to not use Bit.ly is if you’re already using HootSuite or another social media management application that doesn’t allow you to use a third-party URL shortener.

Goo.gl:

Goo.gl is one of the newer URL shorteners. They originally launched exclusively for shortening links to Google-owned properties like YouTube, Google Maps and others, but recently opened up to shorten any link.

Features:

• One of the shortest URL shorteners. The minimum length of a Goo.gl link is just 19 characters! That only takes up about 13% of your tweet (140).
• Easy to view click stats: Follows the Bit.ly model of showing stats for each link by adding a + to the end of the URL (http://goo.gl/VdKMa+). You can easily see how many clicks your link received and where those clicks are coming from.
• Automatically creates a QR code: Just like Bit.ly (in fact, Bit.ly did it first), Goo.gl automatically creates a QR code for each and every shortened URL you create.

Shortfalls:

• Does not allow for customized URLs: http://goo.gl/VdKMa.
• Not used as widely as Bit.ly: This may not really be a negative, but it’s not used nearly as often as Bit.ly (check out this article on ReadWriteWeb all about the top shorteners)

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This is the first in a new series of interviews with local leaders in the Social Media and Technology industry that will be featured on Social Mediarology. Today’s interview is with James Burnes of Mobiltopia, a mobile website and app company in Indianapolis.

James Burnes – Mobiltopia

James Burnes has been working in the digital space for more than 13 years at various companies, including publicly-traded newspaper and television companies as well as private firms specializing in digital communications and development.

James recently launched Project Brilliant – a strategy and business incubator focused in digital space. Project Brilliant assists organizations in developing and planning strategies for utilizing internet technology to grow their business. The goal is to work with companies who need help and assistance putting digital plans in place and, in some cases, help launch those initiatives.

Mobiltopia is a venture launched by Project Brilliant that focuses on Mobile technology, websites, and apps for iPhone, Blackberry, Android and other smartphones.

Why Mobile?

For the last two years I’ve been watching very carefully as the digital space has evolved. We’ve seen a major shift to social media and a focus of businesses of all types to[ward] look[ing] at social media as a core marketing strategy. I identified fairly early on in my career that things change too quickly to just be focused on what everybody’s talking about right now, and to always spend a lot of time looking to what’s next; and mobile has been on my radar for the past two years.

About a year and a half ago, the focus on mobile really started coming to my attention, because I realized it was where social media had to go to be effective. Within the past six months I’ve watched the sale of smartphones grow at a rate that show that we will soon live in a world of screens. There was a definite need within the marketplace for there to be a company focused on specializing in mobile devices.

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One of the most frequently asked questions about Twitter since it became popular in 2008 has been “How will Twitter make money?” People have made across-the-board speculations, including selling out to Google or Microsoft, charging for business accounts and selling ads. It seems that Twitter’s first step toward fiscal solvency is to begin selling “promoted tweets”.

Mashable is now reporting that the first of Twitter’s Featured Tweets are live as see in the screenshot below courtesy of Richard Nevins and TwitPic:

For now, it appears that all Promoted Tweets will be located within Twitter’s search function. In effect, the promoted tweets work a lot like the sponsored ads you’d see in a search engine. Some big names are among the first to get involved with Twitter’s Promoted Tweets: Starbucks, Bravo Network and Virgin America.

I think this is actually a great way for Twitter to introduce ads, and try and generate some revenue, without seriously detracting from the platform. The fact that many of Twitter’s power users update and view their Twitter account from third-party applications like Hootsuite, TweetDeck and various mobile applications makes traditional banner advertising next to useless for Twitter.

Not only do search-related text ads make sense for Twitter, but they can be useful for users as well. If you’re searching Twitter for “coffee” and Starbucks’ Promoted Tweet is the first thing that pops up, it could remind you that a Starbucks Venti Americano is sounding really good right about now.

I have no idea exactly how Twitter plans to integrate Promoted Tweets throughout their site, but the real usefulness for this functionality is how it could align with mobile users. Say you’re visiting Indianapolis and you’re looking for a place to have some locally brewed beer. You type in “local beer” in Twitter’s search on your iPhone and Scotty’s Brewhouse has a sponsored tweet letting you know about their assortment of locally brewed beers. Wouldn’t that be great if Scotty’s Brewhouse purchased a Sponsored Tweet for the phrase “local beer” in Indianapolis? Geotargeting Sponsored Tweets would fit right with my recent posts on Foursquare. Only time will tell if Twitter heads in that direction.

Here are a couple of other great articles about the new Promoted Tweets program:

• Mashable
• New York Times
• Ad Age

I’m as big a Google advocate as anyone. I’ll swear by Gmail,and Google Voice has revolutionized my voicemail and the way I leave myself notes. I use Google Contacts as a central repository for all of my professional and personal contacts. I’m always finding some new way to parse web data in Google Analytics. While I only use Blogger now for my personal family blog, it was where I got my start in blogging. I keep up with dozens of blogs through Google Reader. Even though YouTube‘s new auto-caption feature still has some bugs to be worked out, it has tremendous potential for, among other things, disablity compliance. At home, all of my photos are stored in and organized by Picasa, and every time I need directions, I pull up Google Maps.

Even though that’s all true, I can’t help but feel that Google has lost it’s edge lately. Last September, they launched Google Wave, which was touted as the future of email. Google Wave incorporated Gmail-like email functionality, collaborative capabilities like Google Docs and the ability to see responses in real time. First revealed in the summer of 2009, Google Wave was rolled out to a handful of early adopters in September. Almost as soon as it was released the blogosphere was buzzing with disappointment. Part of that was due to the fact that, with the rolling release of Wave, some of the earliest users didn’t have any one to interact with. In addition, Wave was confusing for even the most savvy web users. Though Google has made some small tweaks to Wave since its release, the general consensus is that Wave has been a let-down.

In February, Google released Google Buzz to all Gmail users. Buzz was to be Google’s answer to Facebook and Twitter. With a built-in user-base of more than 150 million, Google wanted to create their own proprietary social network to let users interact with one another through their email client. In addition to some big privacy concerns, Google only let you pull in updates from Twitter, Flickr, Friendfeed and several Google-owned sites like Picasa, YouTube and Google Reader. Notice that Facebook is missing from that list? On top of that, Buzz doesn’t allow you to push out updates to Twitter, Facebook or other social networks, which makes it even more of a walled garden than Facebook, Twitter or others. Social media is at least in part about openness and ease of sharing and Google Buzz simply doesn’t cut it on those two counts.

Finally, Microsoft recently announced that they would incorporate an optional Foursquare layer to Bing Maps. I blogged about this in a previous post, and the Foursquare layer is now a reality on Bing Maps (Visit maps.bing.com and click on Map Apps, then click on Foursquare Everywhere – you might have to install Microsoft’s Silverlight plugin for it to work). This kind of integration is something I would have expected from Google, not Microsoft. If Google hopes to remain the technology giant that they are, they have to be on the forefront of social technology. Microsoft and Yahoo already beat Google in integrating real-time information (Facebook & Twitter updates) to their search engines and this is just one more area where Google is forced to play catch-up.

Every company is bound to release some products that are duds, but it feels like Google has been experiencing more than its fair share of duds lately. On top of that, they’ve been happening on relatively big products. I’ll still keep using the Google products that I know and love and I’ll continue to try out any new products they launch, but if they keep taking missteps like this, it might not be long until Google is reminiscent of some of the past tech and search giants like Apple before the iPod and Altavista.