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Unless you've been living under a rock recently or are so immured in Facebook that any other social media news is automatically blocked for your own protection, you'll have noticed that Google+ is now with us. Google+ is Google's third, and some would argue first serious, foray into the world of social media. Previous attempts with Buzz and Wave faltered and fell into the digital abyss, gone, largely forgotten and almost universally un-lamented. 

So is Google+ destined to suffer the same fate? A quick Google will (ironically) fill your screen with comments as to why Plus is doomed, how it’s come too late and how, no matter how good the functionality is, people won't move away from Facebook or want to be bothered with managing another social network. All valid points, but as one who's kicked around cyberspace longer than most I'd caution those who are quick to condemn. Why? Well here's five answers to five popular charges against Google+…

1.  It's come too late. Facebook's too well established to be overthrown.

With 750 million users Facebook is a formidable force, but then MySpace at its peak claimed over 200 million and yet the young pretender drove it into the ground in under five years.   

2. Facebook's functionality is too good – and it's growing daily

Fair point…but have you seen Google+ functionality? Even at this test stage it’s looking pretty good. Circles is powerful and has serious business implications, Sparks will allow the lazy surfer (i.e. most of us) to have our content delivered to our door, Hangout is a hoot and for those looking for somewhere to work, rest and play Plus is integrated with Google docs, reader etc etc!

3. Too many people have spent too much time setting up Facebook pages to want to start again.

I refer to the answer I gave earlier re-MySpace…and would just add that anyone with a Gmail account (some 200 million people) will find Google+ functionality seeping into their inboxes soon, and importing contacts is a mouse-click away.

4. Anything Google+ does, Facebook will do better

On that we're in complete agreement. But doesn't that work the opposite way around? And haven't Google got something of a reputation for improving existing technologies? Gmail over Hotmail, Chrome over IE, Google over every other search engine?

5. Search is dying – sharing's the future and isn't sharing what Facebook and Twitter are all about?

You think Google don't know that? Why else would they have staked, if not their shirts, then at least their 'Don't be evil' t-shirts on Google+? And who knows what you like and what you're likely to share more than Google?

So, as far as I'm concerned, Facebook's on the way out, Twitter might as well pack up and go home now and the Google juggernaut will continue to sweep all before it, right? Well, I wouldn't go that far. In my opinion Facebook has finally got a much needed rival and Google has got a mountain to conquer. Who'll be the victor in this latest digital spat only time will tell but there will definitely be one winner: you and I!

By Giles Luckett – Senior Digital Strategist at balloon dog

Excitement ruled the digital waves this past week as Google finally unveiled its much-heralded social media platform, Google+.  Here at balloon dog we were lucky enough to secure an invite to try Google+ (invitations were halted after the world, his wife and auntie's live-in lover stampeded to it and nearly brought it down!) and here are a few of our observations.

Design: Well it’s Google, so an expanse of white interspersed with flashes of colour were to be expected.  What was less expected though, thoroughly sensible if slightly dull, was the borrowing of navigation and display from other Google platforms such as YouTube.  'Hangouts', a virtual way to have a video natter has much in common with YouTube (into which it integrates) and is a fun and easy way to have a virtual get-together. 

Functionality:  If Google+ is going to be anything more than a curio then it’s here that it needs to score over Facebook.  Does?  Well yes and no.  'Sparks' a way of being given content ideas that you'll love and want to share is great and works on the same principle as Google itself.  'Huddle' allows you to create a text conversation via your mobile – great but no great advance on, say, messenger via groups and 'Instant Upload', which allows for social media sharing, which can be done with any number of apps.

Point:  And here's where the whole thing gets really interesting. What's the point of Google+?  Yes it’s a multi-platform all-singing all-dancing social media site but then isn't Facebook?  Yes, it’s easy to use, it’s powerful and free… but again so is Facebook.  Besides platitudes and all sorts of Google-esque niceness about providing an improved hub for your social media it seems to lack a genuine USP; that Facebook toppling blow doesn't seem to be there.  So what is the point?  And more to the point, what is going to entice millions of Facebook users to at least create another Social Media profile or even more optimistically abandon much-loved and long-built Facebook pages.

This last point I cannot answer.  As I say, the functionality's great and with Google ultimately offering it as a free bolt-on to existing Google subscribers it will attract an audience, but will they be able to keep them?  It's a big ask even for someone of Google's size.  Perhaps they are looking to capture Facebook deserters, those people who've grown weary of ads and privacy issues.  It’s a thought but can we really expect Google whose lifeblood is PPC to shy away from ads on plus?   Now that really would be something to 'Like'.

As a digital marketer I shall watch Google+ with interest and will enjoy watching the tussle for attention that will undoubtedly ensue between it and Facebook.  As to which will emerge victorious, I think I know which my money's on…

Giles Luckett

No. It's a Renault Megane.

I spotted this modded SuperMegane this morning whilst on a mission to save the world. Or it could have been dropping my daughter at nursery. One or t'other.

I'd like to think that somewhere out there, there is a Lex Luthor Laguna.

Matt Isherwood

This weekend Transformers 3 opened with the largest-ever July 4th holiday weekend box office taking in the US ($162m) and the third largest global debut in history ($372m). In the same weekend Pirates 4 broke $1bn globally.

Now I won’t lament the death of cinema here but I will say – that’s nuts!

Transformers 1 worked – maybe it was the combination of Megan Fox + motorcycle and Shia Labeouf’s perfectly sculpted hair – but Transformers 2 was widely regarded as a turkey. So why, then, have so many people come out for the 3rd installment?

Pirates 4 has had the worst reviews of the series to date, yet in 6 short weeks it has generated more money than it would take to buy Aston Martin outright.

I can only put it down to escapism. There’s so much doom and gloom that we need 2 hours of mindless entertainment. Something which we will pay good money for, as you’re unlikely to walk away with much change from £50 for a family trip to the Cinema.

Personally I am waiting for the 2011 remake of the Frank Capra masterpiece ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, which has the working title of ‘I survived today’.

James Clifton

Saw this great article in The New York Times …

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/us/30paint.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me

…and it made me smile.  Obviously, some of the names for paint colours they cite – “Metro at 5”, “Weekend in the Country”, “Dead Salmon” – are hard not to laugh at, especially when you realise that people are actually paid to witter on and on, go to movies and over-emote their way to these names.

But there’s a grain of truth in here too: colour  does have deep roots in the subconscious memory and can access a whole bunch of emotions that $100m worth of narrative advertising simply couldn’t.  A study we did about 10 years ago found colour to be enormously evocative and emotional, connecting at an instinctive level with people – male and female – in ways even they sometimes didn’t understand themselves. One dusty shade moved a young woman to tears – it was the precise colour of her grandmother’s faded old housework skirt, the one she used to hang on to as a child, and it triggered a thousand happy memories of a time (and a person) now long gone but not forgotten.

Only smell is more powerful at evoking deep wells of memory.  Combine the two, colour and smell – the colour of a sunny summer meadow with the gentle time-released scent of freshly cut grass, say  – and brands could well be on to unlocking a whole new category. 

Paint?  No, it’s Liquid Emotion.

(Somebody get me Dulux on the phone!)

We may laugh at the marketing w*nk used to create and sell it but, in spite of ourselves, we know it works.

Have an orange day!

Greig