Facebook has gone out of vogue. It’s no longer cool. Nothing says “I’m hip” right now like “I don’t have a facebook account”.

There’s actually good reasons for that. I remember the very early days of AOL and the moment it struck me that AOL was nothing more than a gated community – with an annoying landlord named Steve Case who demanded I read what he says before I could get into my house. The lack of freedom and the lack of exclusivity made it one giant cesspool of new internet users. The bottom line was that even though I met many new friends via AOL, I found my life was better without it. I cancelled it, and never missed a second of it.

Facebook has become AOL with a better interface, a nicer way to share photos, and millions more people. Along comes Google+, who has the advantage of identifying and fixing the issues that make facebook a place I can’t wait to leave. The fact that Google+ got 10 million users in a very short period of time is proof that there is a huge demand out there for a facebook alternative. Could Google+ be it?

The Google+ Circles feature solves a ton of problems for me over facebook. With Circles, I can separate my friends, family and people I barely know, and I can separate them as well by political ideology. Bottom line, I can compartmentalize my life a little. We can discuss all day if that is a good idea or not, but for me it works.

The interface is a tiny bit kludgy right now on Google+, but in the weeks I’ve been on it, the Google team is making very quick changes to it, and all of them have been for the better. The photo upload, albums, sharing… is all MUCH better than facebook.

Google+ is not without some problems; I don’t like how much information they want from me, when I already think Google knows way too much about all of us now. But it’s optional, so you don’t have to give it to them. The +1 button? I’m not liking that, no pun intended.

But if Mark Zuckerburg isn’t crapping his pants right now, he should be. Google has real money and real resources to make this work. Zuckerburg’s money is all built on ridiculous valuations that are basically a house of cards. If a mass-exodus has already begun on facebook, it will take just months for him to lose millions and millions of users… and facebook will quickly become MySpace II. There is real demand out there for this, and it appears Google is responding to it faster and better than facebook.

We’ll see. In any case, one of them has to lose. With so many options on where to put your information out there it becomes overwhelming… people will seek to simplify and that means cutting out services that are not making your life better.

And remember, with everyone of the social sites out there, someone else owns the property you are parking your information house on. You’re better off having a central website that you own and can update and style anyway you choose.. then send people back to your site with a link from all the services where you are sharing information.

That’s my 2 cents for today.. more as I play with Google+ and cancel my facebook account(s).

If you are a Podomani client and would like a Google+ invite, shoot me an email.

UPDATE: Facebook gets and “F” in Customer Satisfaction. Even the airlines did better. Customers don’t like the interface changes, the increasing concerns about privacy, and the expanding use of advertising.

Don’t just take out word for it that we can get you real results for your website! Check out what one of our longest running customers, Jim Strandlund of Strandlund Heating and Refrigeration says about us.

“Honestly Larry is one of the best website company/people I have ever worked with!!

His background understanding of how the web works has done wonders for my company. He grasped my idea’s and developed a new website that reached the top of search engine rankings very quickly. He has always been current with suggested updates and or changes to keep my web site current and fresh.

I often hear of other company’s going back to him after they had went elsewhere to develop their sites or for optimization of them. I just did a Google search for Geothermal Minnesota and Podomani has 2 websites in the top 5 positions that they have created! One is for a New organization MNGHPA.ORG which I am currently the president of. I know our industry is very competitive and Larry has done a fantastic job keeping us on top. I hope this helps and I feel you will be very satisfied with Podomani’s services!”

Thank you Jim. Jim has great ideas for his business. We added some and them put them all into motion and helped Jim grow his business – despite being in one of the worst recessions ever. We are in the process of redesigning one of Jim’s websites for him – look for it soon, and let us know if you would like to hear more of what our customers have to say about us.

I’ve battled the Yellow Book people for several years now, trying to get them to stop leaving their garbage on my lawn, or in front of the office door.

Yet every now and again I find another one of the yellow books cluttering up my space, waiting for me to dump them into my trash to take up space in my garbage can. I called them, emailed them, did anything you can think of to tell them "please stop leaving that book for me, I don’t want it!", but nothing did the trick.

In a final act of desperation, I removed my mailbox from my house all together. I really thought that would do it. But the other day I came home and found the people who deliver that thing actually went all the way up my considerably long driveway and dropped it on my front door step.

It’s obvious now they are not going to give up, and it makes me wonder about the people advertising in these books. Why are you still wasting your money on these things? I don’t use it – do you? If you don’t use it, why do you still think your customers are?

If your not at least thinking about dropping the wasteful spending on phone book ads, please read this article from some blogger on the internet.

Then ask yourself: If I’m not looking at this thing, who is?

Answer: No one.

In 1992, I was living in Los Angeles and I brought home a rather large box filled with electronics called a “modem”. I was pretty sure it was going to allow me to do magical things with my computer. It also came with a large book on how to hook it up and configure it. It took the better part of one late night and the next day to get it to work. When it did, I was so thrilled, that I thought I alone had discovered the last great frontier.

There wasn’t much for browsers back then; most interactions were text based from command lines. I got into a few bulletin boards and chat room type places. The people there were different from the musicians I had been around all my life. They spoke a very different dialect, and very much had their own culture. It was fun, fresh and pretty darned exciting for a guy who was just starting to discover and embrace his inner geek.

Today I just can’t help but chuckle when I think of how far we have come: There was a time when just getting a picture to show up in a browser was pretty cutting edge. This summer we built an extensive new application in just three months. A couple of years ago that would have taken over a year. In 1994, we spent a lot of time convincing people they needed to get in early on having this thing called a “web site”; This summer we’ve also helped several companies learn how they can make good money by extending their brand through the use of Facebook and Twitter. In 2005 were were helping a lot of companies increase revenues through better search engine rankings. Today we’re helping them make sure any customer with a smart phone can find them, see them and interact.

I’ve always loved technological change. I have a lot of ideas of where we are headed with technology, and I’m looking forward to see a lot of them happen. But I can’t deny that I have a nostalgic streak. We just remodeled the office, and I couldn’t help putting the first computer I ever owned on display in the corner. I can’t help but look at it and smile when I think of all I learned and went through with that little piece of now ancient technology. That computer – and the people I met because of it – helped me build a very solid foundation I can now keep adding to.

I would love to have that first modem sitting there as well. But it was tossed out years ago, replaced several times by a newer, smaller, faster version. Nostalgia is good. But is living in the past? Not so much.

I confess I just started tweeting recently. I had been watching Twitter out of curiosity for a long time before I decided to jump in.

The more I looked at it the more I found it to be … well, random bragging about your unexceptional life. As best described in this SuperNews cartoon.

Slowly but surely I find myself replacing my daily blog reading habits with Twitter. I have a bunch of RSS feeds and a long list of bookmarked blogs. But I find myself just checking in on my Twitter page. Almost everyone I am following on Twitter is someone who has a blog I was checking almost daily.

Some of the blogs I followed are done be exceptionally good writers and story tellers. I would much rather read a full blog posting or story from these people than just a Tweet – and many of these people have already effectively figured out how to Tweet and get my attention – and then I’m off to their blog to read the full story.

For the other blogs I check out… Twitter helps me avoid wasting time scanning through their blogs. Twitter forces them to get to the point – thank God.

So has Twitter killed blogging? Not yet. But with our ever shorter attention spans … it’s got a shot.

As I was walking into the office this morning, a man was fumbling through a large and heavy tote, about to pull out a big slab of dead tree and leave it in front of my office door. I could tell by the girth of the thing that it was a phone book.

A phone book? I haven’t opened one for at least 5 years, maybe more. I’m annoyed to keep finding them on my home and office doorstep. Trying not to sound annoyed, I asked the gentleman “do I have to take one of those?”

“No” he exclaimed. He sounded relieved to not burden me with it. “But would you mind signing that you took it anyway?” he asked.

“Will you throw it out for me?” I responded. “Sure!” he said, letting the book fall back in the tote.

So I signed his electronic receipt as “Stuart Smalley” and he scurried off. Walking past our trash bin outside, I saw him toss not one, but several of the heavy books.

This got me to thinking. Does anyone use a phone book anymore? Why to they keep publishing them?

I could not help but wonder what the Phone Company will do with that signature from Stuart Smalley. Most likely they use it to proclaim how many thousands of people still use the phone book. Thus the reason they keep publishing it.

Don’t fall for it. Especially in a slow economy, accountable web marketing from dedicated professionals is your best bet.

Even better,  we can show you just exactly how it is working. We won’t have to collect signatures from Saturday Night Live characters turned politicians to convince you.