It’s beautiful, that’s for sure. But is it easier to navigate?

Although it’s not as entirely intuitive as it could be, to me it is as easy to work with as possible without succumbing to an Apple-esque interface.

With the left sidebar navigation clearly marking different aspects of Google+ I may want to explore, the new Google+ certainly puts greater focus on trending topics and new connections. In fact, it’s a little Twitter-ish, wouldn’t you say?

What I like most, however, is that it is now easier for me to find different circles, look at my different managed pages, and find other content. Hangouts are easier to initiate or join, and it feels like much more of a network than a complicated segmented stream.

Immediate thought — I like it. We’ll see if I change my mind as I work through it more over the next few weeks.

In addition to the cover image, Timeline replaces the FB wall with a two column display that highlights different aspects of a brand’s activity and organizes it chronologically.

Other changes to features businesses will notice:

Promoted Posts: Timeline allows businesses to promote certain posts by “pinning” or “starring” them. Pinned posts will always show up on the top left of a page’s Timeline so that they are one of the first things a visitor sees when they visit a page. When you star a post, it expands to the full width of your page giving it more visibility. Both of these tools give page administrators greater control over what page visitors see and should be useful ways to highlight seasonal promotions, major news, or popular posts.

Milestones: One feature of the new Timeline is milestones. These are key events, dates or accomplishments in the history of a business and with Timeline, you can now go back and enter past milestones to provide visitors to a page with a complete history of the brand. Milestones can be used to let people know when a business opened, if the business won an award, moved office space, opened a new branch, etc. Keep in mind that Timeline’s format lends itself very nicely to telling stories. As you can go back and add historical milestones, your Facebook page can become the repository of your company’s history, showing how your business has grown over time into the business it is today.
Messages: At last visitors to a page will be able to privately message page administrators using the “Message” button just under the cover image on the right side of the page. This is great news for visitors and page admins alike as it provides a direct channel for communication.

If you are an internet marketer that is looking for additional ways to get a compelling message in from of potential customers you might want to consider direct mail. Despite all the hype about the internet and how much it has grown as an advertising medium, direct mail still provides a powerful piece of the marketing puzzle. Unlike other traditional mass media channels such as TV, radios, newspapers and magazines, direct mail continues to grow because it is still so powerful.

How is it, you may ask, that direct mail continues to grow while other traditional forms of media advertising are declining and giving up market share to web based marketing alternatives? The answer is digital printing. While other traditional forms of advertising have not introduced any significant innovations in decades, the printing industry is still reeling from the advent of direct mail personalization.

Personalization in direct mail campaigns is made possible from digital printing technology. If this concept is still fuzzy to you, you may want to visit the local printer that produces your business cards. More than likely, they can initiate you into the world of digital print and show you how you can get powerful results by tailoring personalized marketing messages to the unique interests of the recipient.

In an article on the Knowledge-Wharton Marketing website, Wharton marketing professor Eric Bradlow, states that print offers marketers a distinct advantage over digital media, like email. “Many people see email as impersonal and costless to write,” he says. “People want to feel special. In marketing [terms], email is transactional; paper is relational.”

Digital printing technology has the ability to deliver a highly-individualized message. Digital printing embeds the recipient’s name and other personal information into the marketing copy just like personalized email does. The printing industry refers to this process as variable-data printing. It is sometimes also referred to as one-to-one printing.

In recent years one of the most powerful uses of digital printing personalization is to combine it with web-based marketing campaigns. Savvy marketers are melding online and print marketing technologies into cohesive multi-channel campaigns. This produces a synergistic outcome that is more effective than either of these marketing technologies on their own.

The digital nature of this printing technology enables each direct mail piece to be personalized using customer database information. Personalized URLs, and individualized product information can be constructed and integrated into the marketing message on the fly, allowing for direct mail to be used as a combined media marketing approach.

Marketing innovators are using direct mail to drive consumers to websites and blogs. Conversely, they are using email and websites to drive consumers to printed marketing materials as well. The internet is successfully being used to get consumers to look for and anticipate special offers coming to them in the mail. Another idea is to send email messages (or even blog messages) about a special offer that requires the readership to find a “secret coupon” at a local downtown retailer or service provider.

The possibilities are endless with regard to combining digital direct mail printing technology with the internet. They can complement each other in a powerful way to generate new customers and additional sales. Check out digital printing technology to see how compelling personalized direct response mailings in conjunction with online marketing campaigns can be implemented to obtain significant results.

Disclaimer: This is a guest post by a third-party unaffiliated with Bullfrog Media. The post below does not necessarily reflect or represent Bullfrog Media.

Apparently, Groupon is letting them use the new service, along with a phone to do the processing on, for one whole year to try it out. The fees are super low — similar to that of Square. She even showed me the app on the phone that had the Groupon icon, with a dollar sign in the background.

I tried Googling the new service, but didn’t find anything about it. I couldn’t even easily find anything on the Groupon site.

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I’ve noticed something over the years, both as a corporate executive and as a consultant: if you’re the guy in the room with a point of view – someone who has a vision of where the ship needs to go and how it ought to get there – you’re probably alone. It’s a rare gift. It’s also a dangerous one.

Tamsin Smith, the former president of Product (RED), gave me a wonderful interview setting up a chapter in Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath In Your Industry. In it, she explained the power of (RED)’s point of view and its catalyzing effect on partners.

“(RED)’s impact was that there was an idea that gave brands a point of view and an energy and excitement above and beyond what they’d normally encounter in their scope of business… it lit a fire because people want to believe in something.”

To be clear, GAP had a point of view – it just hadn’t found its voice. (RED) gave them an amplifier that helped them form the message. The result was, in Tamsin’s words, some of the best work to come out of GAP in ages.

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You can’t throw a stone on the Internets right now without hitting ten dozen posts on What Steve Jobs Taught Us. Or perhaps, What We Can All Learn from Steve Jobs. Or something identical. I’ve got a problem with all this.

I don’t think we have too much to learn that we can actually apply.

This isn’t the first time we’ve gone down this path in recent memory. How You Can Apply the Social Media Strategies of Barack Obama ring a bell?Equally useless.

The problem with both is that you’re not them. You’re not the taste-maker who happened to be the guy the moment the moment arrived. Hell, even Steve Jobs wasn’t Steve Jobs a few years ago. He only became Steve Jobs in the last couple of years. Same with the current president.

You can’t be them. Circumstances aren’t the same.

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More organizations seem to be realizing the need for better opportunities for students to become tech proficient. Today, I discovered the 21st Century Youth Project which is an after school program offered for free as a way for students to be able to supplement their learning activities and be mentored by some of Chicago’s many entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts.

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I have three questions for you if you plan on killing the giant in your industry.

1. How are you going to become a bigger idea than the category you play in?
2. How do you plan to change how the world thinks about what you do?
3. What is the missing 3rd piece of the puzzle that could unravel your biggest problems – or unlock your biggest opportunities?

I’d love to tell you that the obstacles will magically fall by the wayside and all will be well, but let’s just agree that if you can handle these, you’ll at least be well on your way. You’re no longer buried in minutiae and thinking small. You’re re-imagining your business. And if you see these three ideas through to their logical completion, it’s fair to say your competition has good reason to worry.

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Why do we even make commercials anymore?

Will it sell more burgers? Who can say. That’s frankly all that matters in the world of Jack In The Box advertising, as I’m sure their franchisees would agree. So let me briefly step into the somewhat unfamiliar role of Ad Critic – a sub-species of social media-ite that I’ve often ridiculed – and view their latest ad through the lens of social anthropology.

Here goes.

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