I sat in on the SXSW panel entitled ‘Do ad agencies need to think like software companies?’ On the panel were Allison Mooney (Google), Ben Malbon (Google), Matt Galligan ( SimpleGEO ), Rick Webb ( Barbarian Group ) and Rob Rasmussen ( TribalDDB ). Software companies need ad agencies to distil culture, to understand who your buyers are and to offer untethered creatives who can inspire, create and launch. That’s why software and ad agencies need each other. As you can see from the photo above of the crowd in the room this was a hot topic. MORE >>

Retail software prices are often eyebrow-raisingly high, and for the most part, inflexible. These prices are no doubt in line with professionals who require the software to live, but for more casual users, who might interact with the software infrequently, paying full retail price seems exorbitant. This sets up a market imbalance, similar to that of the world of music pre- Napster , where the consumer at times can seem justified for obtaining the software freely using another method. Napster Adobe Software Apple Microsoft SpotifyIt's early days. MORE >>

The social media software industry offers some amazing functionality, but it suffers mightily from murky messaging and customer confusion. The truth is, many marketing professionals do not know what this software can do, much less what specific companies’ versions can do. And the software companies themselves make it worse by not being specific about their capabilities and areas of focus. There are five specific categories of social media software, and lumping them all under “social media management” does us all a disservice. ” . MORE >>

Will Google+ be a “Facebook killer” or just Google’s next failed social network? Then again, the average Facebook user spends nearly seven hours per month on the site—compared to just three minutes for the average Google+user. Many of this year’s best posts about Google’s newest social platform were written early in the year. “Ghost town” or not, many experts agree that Google+ is here to stay, and it’s valuable for b2b marketing, SEO , personal branding, and reputation management. So what makes Google+ special? MORE >>

Some folks were asking me what to do once they got into Google+, and so I shot this quick screencast. Getting Started at Google+. The VERY first thing I’d do at Google+ is go to the settings gear in the upper right hand corner and work out my privacy settings. First off, when you start, you won’t have any people in your Circles (which is how Google Plus organizes people), but some people might have already added you. The Stream is the main message section of Google+ and you can add text, pictures, video, links, and place information there. Whoops! MORE >>