So, Google's next foray into the world of Social Media is called Google+, as we know since yesterday. I've long thought about whether to write about it – I've spent about ten minutes inside the +, thanks to Michael, who already has an account. It seems well thought through, very well designed, is about all I can say.

Also, and this probably is the most important point: Google+ has implemented at its core an important feature that Facebook simply has missed out on: Assigning your contacts to groups. In Google+ they are called circles, in Facebook it' lists. But while you don't have to assign your Facebook friends to lists, you need to sort your Google+ contacts to circles in order to be able to share with them – this seems like a smart way to hand privacy control to the user.

This is just one example which instantly presented itself to me while checking the + out. The image display looks very promising as well! So, with Google+ it most likely is not about what Google is doing differently to the big competitor Facebook, but how they do it.

Wired has a lengthy, but very interesting article about Google+ and its development history. All Facebook has a good round-up of reactions from the Web and says that Facebook needn't worry.

In this video, Google gives you a quick insight:

What are your thoughts on Google+? Another fruitless effort or a breakthrough for Google?

TV (still?) takes the giant share in ad spening, Internet only follows after Newspaper. According to Mashable, nearly half of the money that goes to online buys, is allocated to search and a quarter goes to display. Within these categories, online ads are becoming more social, and spending on lead generation and email marketing is shrinking. Read more
More over at Mashable

Twitter announced a new button a few hours ago. They finally have a Follow Button!

It's now possible for site owners to show which Twitter accounts their visitors should follow. Until yesterday you had the possibility with an @Anywhere button, but this was way too many features for only following.

Besides direct following with a click on "follow," visitors can also click directly on the account name, revealing a nice pop-up with some information about the account (number of followers, lastest tweets):

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And guess who has already implemented it? That's right, Amazee Labs has:

Amazee Labs is happy to announce the launch of a one-of-a-kind Drupal 7 site for Rico J. Baldegger, professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the School of Business Administration Fribourg.

Rico came to us by way of The Institute for Entrepreneurship, an existing Amazee Labs client with a new site launched in April. His goal was to develop a dedicated, online presence to showcase his academic and professional pursuits as well as increase his availability to students.

Because Rico wanted a simple, unique, modern website, a one-page site with auto-scrolling and parallax effects was an appropriate approach... with a twist. While the sections below are displayed here as separate images, they create a long, single chain on the actual site. A top-fixed menu makes navigation easy.

Ajax views and Drupal Behaviors streamline the Publications section, which might otherwise have been displayed in a very long, daunting list (Rico's written or collaborated on more than 40 works!).

And perhaps most importantly (and because we believe in content "below the fold"), there are a variety of ways students can schedule time to meet their professor:

We think students will be impressed with their professor's new site, and hope you are too. Let us know what you think.