Good Day Google+ - Let's Get Busy with Marketing Imagery and Publishing!

Hey everyone, I am Chef Dennis and we're here today with Good Day Google+. I'm sorry I don't have a song for you this morning. I kind of keep my debuts down to here or there on singing. I don't want you guys to get too used to it. But we have a great show today and like I always like to say, it's always a good day when you're on Google+. And the best part of the week for me is having my friends on my show. You get to know them as people. As real people, and you get to learn a little bit more about them and ask them some questions. And we just have a good time here. No controversy, just an easygoing show, lots of fun, lots of engagement. And again, we're all coming away with some new friends from it. So sit back, enjoy the show. If you have questions, put them in the comment bar and we will do our best to get to them. And I'm just gonna run across the panel real quick and introduce everyone, and then we'll get down to business. So I'm gonna start with Jessica, and how you doing today, Jess?

Oh my gosh, I'm doing really great, and it's still morning here, so I'm like on that morning energy high that I typically love and run with.

You mean what I normally refer to as a coffee high for me.

Oh, see, and I don't drink caffeine, so mine's all natural.

Woohoo!

Now where are you, Jessica?

I'm outside of Seattle.

Okay, good, very good. So do you know Jean Layton? She's out that way.

Yes, Jean and I have crossed paths. She's such a wonderful lady. And Scott, my co-host on the Jess and Scott and You show, right? Yeah, he's also like 13 miles from my house, but we spend more time on video calls than we do in person.

Isn't that amazing?

I know, I know.

Gotta love this. And I have a fellow Floridian here. I don't know if it's just while you're going to school, Clayton, but I know you're in Orlando. So how are you doing today?

I'm doing really well. Yeah, I'm actually originally from Orlando. I just stayed here to go to University of Central Florida after I'm graduating high school as well.

That's great. You're enjoying this— well, we're not having a beautiful day today, but as opposed to like Northeast weather, it's a beautiful day, so we'll take it.

Yeah, definitely. Probably better than the ice and snow that they're dealing with for months up there.

I do not miss it at all. I mean, I miss the bread from Philadelphia, but that's— and maybe the soft pretzels, but other than that, I'm doing fine here in the warmth and blue skies of Florida. All right, well, we will come back to you. And I have Charlotte. How you doing, Charlotte?

Great to be here after seeing your show so many times and just love tuning in. But I'm up here in the chilly gray northeast near Boston, but we had such a wonderful week. My kids were off school, so we went skiing and we just got out and away from the screens, and so I'm ready to rock and roll now.

Well, that's good. Yeah, I have family up that way in Natick, outside of Boston. So he had an uncle that worked for MIT and did rocket science. He was pretty cool.

I have a friend who does rocket science, and, you know, we tease him about it. He's a real character too.

Well, my uncle would forget he drove and take the bus home. He was brilliant. He was absolutely brilliant, but he would forget little things like that.

My neighbor's in his 70s.

He's the chair of some electrical engineering over there, and he bikes every day. Today, he bikes. Biked.

Got to love it. Got to love it. Those are the minds that are keeping us ahead of the rest of the world, so that's good. Then we've got Adam. Adam's down in North Carolina, and he is one of my older friends here on the internet. I'm very happy to have you with us today, Adam. How you doing?

Thanks, Chef. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me to join you. I'm doing well. All that snow, Charlotte, that you got visited us first.

Yeah.

Finally clear of about 14 inches of snow, which was actually really kind of nice. We live up in the mountains. It was the first real snowfall we had this winter. It was real pleasant. We can't get to our actual house when it snows that much. You just can't get the car up the hill. So it was just— I mean, it was nice, but you know, honestly, I'm a warm weather person. And while I appreciate the seasons, I'll be glad to see the spring come rolling on in just another couple of weeks.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

I've sent him envious emails from time to time about his move to Florida. Um, but things are good. And like I say, I'm very happy to be here. This is a great group.

Yeah, you just had a birthday too, right? I remember when I was talking to you a couple days ago.

That's right, the other day I had a birthday and Cheryl made me my yearly birthday cake because she's a cook. Every year I challenge her to make me a different birthday cake.

What did she come up with?

Well, she rose to the challenge. It was more of a French-style cake. It was multi-layers with coffee buttercream and like a chocolate ganache and almond flour.

It was really good. Sounds good. Now you're making me hungry. I haven't had lunch yet.

I told you we'd have some food porn on here today. Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

We'll probably be photographing it and posting it on Picture Perfect Meals. Good. So I think so.

And then we also have Matthew has joined us from the Huff Post. Matthew, you are muted, so if you're—

Yes, hey everyone. Yeah, I know I put my mute on because I was busy typing away.

Oh, I appreciate that. So how you doing today?

I'm good. How are you? It's great to be here. Thanks for inviting me. It's a pleasure. I think this is the first Hangout on Air I've guested on as a host. So exciting.

Well, that's cool. We're happy you could jump in with us. And anytime you're around and you feel like coming on, just let me know and we'll be happy to put you in the group. Everyone loves the Huffington Post and we're always excited to see more going on from you. So it's nice to meet a face from behind the post too. There you go. I like it.

Yeah, I only started in November, but I'm a Pluser like you guys and the opportunity came by and I said, Hey, that's great. Huffington Post, I love it like you guys love it, and I wanted to see the Google+ presence and the HuffPost explode together. And HuffPost Live is behind me too, so anything that I can do to bring the community and HuffPost and what Google+ is doing to the world is my pleasure.

It seems like HuffPost is really savvy about social media, you know, along with the New York Times. You know, I think it's one of the more more attuned to the platforms.

Yeah, New York Times definitely is on Google+. I know there was a— it's funny because I had written a piece and New York Times had written a piece, and it was a lot of back and forth between the whole ghost town thing that won't go away. But yeah, for sure, social media is— we have a team of people doing social media. We have verticals that have people doing social media. So everyone has a dedicated account for everything— Google+, Twitter, Facebook. Instagram, Vine, Pinterest, you name it, Tumblr. We're all over the place, so for sure.

So you just handle mostly the main page for them, or?

I'm handling HuffPost, Google+, I'm doing HuffPost Live, I'm also doing, I have a community that I started using commentary, and I was doing some Tumblr, but now someone else that actually is really talented with GIFs, more than I am, is doing it, which is cool. And I've been doing some Hangouts too. I just talked to Gabby Douglas, which was cool. And hopefully I'm going to do an Oscars one, if some of you want to join that. I want to do a community Hangout. That would be great. You know, the problem with— like you probably can imagine with Hangouts— is trying to get the guests and scheduling and timing and technical and getting it all figured out, especially for people that don't know how to use Hangouts yet or don't know— like the location behind me is not the best, but it's something, trying to find a private area.

Well, it's nice because it sort of gives It gives a reality to your position and where you work and stuff. I like it. It's like showing the newsroom on CNN or something.

Yeah, we're a little different than CNN, but yeah, no, for sure. For sure. It's a pleasure to be here, and I've been a fan, Chef, and I didn't know if you were going to cook anything, but I'm good with the talk.

I am doing a new show. We're still working on how I'm going to set it up, but I have a new cooking show that will be coming hopefully sometime in March. I have a kitchen designer I'm working with, Susan Sarah, who's just brilliant, and we're gonna put together something a little new and a little different than just your normal everyday Let's Cook This show. So hopefully we'll get that going, then you can bring in as a guest for that. So, but yeah, I, you know, people— and I was kind of getting egged on because people are saying, well, you are a chef, but now all you do is you're the darling of social media. So I kind of got—

hashtag darling of social media.

Yeah, that's it. I don't wear the tiara.

Well, you don't have to wear a tiara. The darling is— I mean, come on.

I love it.

Google a fact. I think you could probably find a hat for your head.

You could go for that crown you were showing earlier, Shel.

I know, I know. I don't want to take away anything from my sister Mia, so we'll leave it at that. OK, well, let's move on down the line. I'm going to give Jessica a shot here. And let's talk about what you do on and off the Plus.

What about Clayton?

Oh, you want Clayton to start?

Alright.

Well, no, we haven't said hello to Clayton yet.

Yeah, we did.

No, we didn't.

Oh, we did?

Shows how much you pay attention.

Maybe she wants more.

I was waiting for you to hear.

She wants more. She wants to hear more.

I think when we drop off, you two can kind of stay.

Yeah, I would be happy to start then.

As my friend— as my friend from Ecorico TV would say, hiya. I love it.

Yes, sure, I'm up. Tell me, what am I doing now?

Now you're doing a song and a dance.

Okay, well, it is the Ellen Show.

Talk a little bit about what you do or what you like to do on and off the Plus, whatever interests you.

Oh my gosh, I don't even know where to start. I love what I do, which is helping people find their sparkle and have their voice in a way that makes sense for them, that propels their business or their message or their hobby forward. So that's really what I'm all about, and that is the overarching theme of my life. And I get to do that every day, and I get to practice living in the present and enjoying the learning process because I am the mama of an almost 3-year-old. And I have to tell you, between being the— my husband and I both work from home. We have decided that we don't want to have daycare. He does go to a preschool for a little while, but we don't have any extra daycare. So Ryan and I are both on, and we love the challenge and the constant activity and the amazingness that both the power and the freedom and the knowledge-seeking and mastery of the skills that we want to have, and then to be able to bring that home to our family and really have some good family time where we unplug and connect as a little local unit too.

So what does Ryan do?

He is—

I don't even know what to call him. He's an application developer. He, um, I'm sure you know what to call him sometimes. Well, there is that, but going back to what he does, he is an application developer and works for a company called FastSpring. He actually founded the company and is the infrastructure architect of the entire system. And it's a payment processing intermediary. So if you think of somebody like PayPal, which is really big and wide and diverse, the FastSpring platform focuses on independent and small and medium and large businesses that are all about software. So they specialize in the software market of ecommerce. That's where I started.

That's where you started?

That's where I started, yeah. Not at FastSpring, but Ryan and I had a different ecommerce business together, and that's how I got online. And we dropped out of college to start and run our first business, and after it was acquired, I did a ton of amazing things and then went back to school and finished school 10 years later. And, um, I beat to my own drum, I love my song, and there's, you know, there's nothing like every step of learning every single day.

Sounds good, I love it. Alright, Clayton, you're on, buddy, and I see you got your Glass on. I think everybody wants to know more about the Glass as you're one of the Explorers.

Yeah, so I guess I'll tell a lot about myself. So there's a lot of different things I'm involved with. Primarily you can see on my lower third, Google+ Daily. I started that with a few other guys last January— or I guess a little over a year now, because it was January 2013. Google+ news site focused very much on this niche where a lot of bigger news sites may not cover everything. So HuffPost, obviously, they cover bigger news, but not the little updates that Google+ junkies really care about. So that's who our target audience is there. Yeah, Google Glass Explorer. I got it in November and having a lot of fun with that. I'm a student at University of Central Florida here in Orlando doing marketing, graduating in May. And I guess my last thing is I'm a digital marketing account manager at a digital agency here in Orlando called eComIQ.

Very good.

What do you do in your free time?

What's that?

What's that? I know.

Like Mia said, he builds log cabins in his spare time.

So I really like being involved with the entrepreneurship startup scene at UCF. It's really being built or kind of organized right now, really. There's a lot that was going on and now they're trying to organize it all this past year or so. Doing some things with that is sort of like, I guess, my free time activity.

I've, you know, I've never seen so many Google Glass people in one area. I ran into some of your other buddies. Oh my God, I'm going nuts here. I can't remember the names.

Carolyn and Greg.

Yes, thank you very much. See, I'm old. When you get old, the brain doesn't fire quite as well as it used to. So yeah, Carolyn and Greg. Yeah, coffee, I know, I do that too. I have to cut myself off at a certain time though.

Too much wisdom in there, Dennis.

But yeah, it's just great to see people, so many people around with Google Glass having a great time with it. And Carolyn and Greg have both had them on, you know, when I've been around, and people just stop them in the street to say, you know, is that Google Glass? You know, I've heard about it. So I'm waiting for them to come out with it so I can wear my glasses because I'm not really big on contacts. So when that happens, I think I'll make the switch.

They have frames now, uh, released a couple weeks ago where you can get frames so that it— so like, I don't know if you can see on the video, but there's a screw right here. This piece comes off to put a frame for prescription lenses on.

Great, well then I may be getting them shortly. I know Samsung— yeah, no, well Samsung was putting them out, but they don't have anywhere near the capabilities of these yet, so I'm sure we'll see more.

Alright, yeah, probably. Yep.

Alright, moving right along then. Charlotte, how you doing up in Boston? Is it wicked cold today?

No, it's not wicked cold, but it's one of those like mid-late February, you know, rain with a lot of snow on the ground. So yeah, we're good, we're good. I'm a small publisher, independent publisher, and I have about 5 books in my list. I've actually ramped up recently and am doing more, more, more books now. And I also freelance and play around with technology. But I'm also on the board again of the Independent Publishers of New England. So we are gearing up for our annual conference, and I'm the secretary of the board, so I'm kind of touting that. It's a challenge to get people, especially independents, all over a 6-state area to focus on the fact that this really cool thing is going on. So that's on April 4th and 5th in Southbridge, Mass. And we are having someone you may know, Eric Enga is coming to be a keynote speaker.

Cool.

Yeah, yeah. So I think he will really open the eyes of a lot of these. We have some really interesting characters who are publishers in our organization. There's about 150 now.

Now, is he bringing Mark Traphagen with him to sing?

You know, that would really pack them in, I know. But no, I think he's going to be on his own for this one.

That's a shame. I was talking about doing a duet with him, but I think he might just— I might not be at that level. You know, he's really talented.

I know, these guys— did you see him marching in this New Orleans parade or something?

I didn't see that.

It was a Martin Luther King parade in North Carolina where he lives.

I did lead a parade at the Animal Kingdom, but that's pretty much the only parade I've done for a while.

Right, right.

And you like to ski? Were you Were you recently in New Hampshire? Did I hear that somewhere?

Yeah, we went up to New Hampshire where the— don't try to run a Hangout on vacation. You will not be able to do it if you're in New Hampshire. Wi-Fi is like— it was a joke. It was like right below Mount Sunapee, so it's a diocese proposition anyway. I was going to try and run my Indie Office Hours and I just had to postpone it until next week. When Eric will be on.

There you go.

But yeah, the Massachusetts kids have a spring or winter break right now, so this week. So I took my daughter up, she went downhill, and then she took a snowboarding lesson. And I was kidding her that, you know, we probably have to check into the tattoo parlor and the piercing, body piercing too. Oh yeah, the snowboarders are kind of a little a little edgier than the skiers.

Colorful, they're colorful.

But I went cross-country. I found this really great place. It's kind of a cooperative at a conservation area, and I went 3 days cross-country skiing, and man, am I ever sore.

I was gonna say, you must feel it now too. I can imagine.

I do, but it was great. It was just nice to be out there in the woods, and we had a lot of snow. I just like getting away, you know. I grew up on a farm in eastern Washington, and then I went to Seattle for college, and that's why I have an affinity for Jessica and Scott Scowcroft.

Mwah, mwah, mwah.

Because I was there in the early '80s in Seattle, and there was a big music explosion, so I have so many memories of And some things I can't remember quite so well.

You know, there was a— I just got done watching the new version of Red Dawn, and the North Koreans attacked us through Seattle. I'm going, as caffeinated as that city is, I don't know if that would happen.

No, they're alert.

What's that dropping from the sky?

Get this, we went to the first Starbucks in the '80s. In Seattle, late '70s, early '80s, in the Pike Market. And nobody, you know, it was when we, we just started, um, from going there and getting good coffee, we started getting our own beans and getting grinders, you know, and like learning how to do it and putting it in the freezer. And so we, you know, we were little gourmands there, and, uh, you know, with our little quasi-poke.

I am married to a, um, a coffee snob, and I learned that there are some grinders that can actually cook the beans a little bit when you're grinding them because of the heat. And so you have to be careful about the grinder that you choose, otherwise it'll affect the taste of the coffee when you're making it at home. Wouldn't want that. He's actually at the point he has a little hand grinder.

Well, I have this Bodum one, and it's a grinder, it's not a chopper, you know. So they said that was better, but I hadn't thought about the cooking of the beans.

Well, we actually sent away to Italy for my bean grinder. I don't even want to tell you what it cost.

Yeah, no, we have one from— we have an automatic organic one from Italy as well. I know. Oh, fellow coffee snob! Yes. Come to my house.

Oh yes. I've been jonesing for good coffee. I finally found a couple of places in Orlando that sell some good beans, some really good— well, actually, Winter Park, and there's a guy I found at a farmer's market that has some good coffee.

Is there coffee that people, that some of you won't drink? I mean, sometimes you're just so desperate, it doesn't even matter.

I'll drink anything if push comes to shove.

I will have tea before I'll have bad coffee.

Oh.

I might be with you.

I have an espresso maker in my office, so I make 2 double espressos in the morning, and that kind of gets me going.

I would think it gets your heart going. She said kind of.

Kind of gets me going.

Well, I've been trying to figure out if I can grind the beans fine enough so I can just inhale them. But I don't know about that. Let's not put that on a placard. Chef Dennis snorts coffee.

No, we just put it on YouTube. Don't worry.

Yeah, we are.

Exactly.

I always think I'm at the time of my life now where I can see where old people would say anything they wanted to because they just don't give a crap anymore. So I'm always using that as an excuse now.

I'm old, I'm hard.

I got the card, I'm playing it big time. Well, Adam's feeling all left out. Let's get down to Adam now and talk to my buddy. And Adam is a photographer photographer, for those of you who may not know him, and he is an amazing photographer. So how you doing today, buddy?

I am good. I was not so much feeling left out as quite honored to be in such company. I mean, this is a great day. Jessica, I loved your— I love your enthusiasm. You know what you said, helping people, you know, find their way is such a wonderful— it's just a great thing to do. You know, I've been lucky in life. I've made my life as a photographer. I've been all over the world. I started in Italy. I was there for about 10 years, and then I was out west, and I've been very lucky. And then we settled down here and started— well, it's not when I started working with food, but it's when my wife and I started. We created Picture Perfect Meals, and she's a food stylist, and She's not a trained chef, but I mean, she's— I don't know what you would call her, but, you know, extremely capable in the kitchen. And so that largely is where we've gone. It's interesting to meet you, Charlie, because we've just taken the leap into publishing, into serious publishing. We're going to be releasing our first and second cookbooks in the next few months, the first one probably at the beginning of May. And it's really been an adventure. It dawned on me that we do so much of what a publisher would do anyways. We do the photography, we do the layout, we do the design, we do the editing. You know, the other side of that is, you know, printing, marketing, and distribution. Distribution we can manage. So it's really— I mean, this is a new thing for us. It's really very, very exciting, and it's a lot of fun. They're cookbooks. I mean, it's what we do. I'm glad to be not at the mercy of an art director because often all the hard work you put in gets altered or butchered in one way or another. Not always, but frequently enough. So, you know, we live in such an extraordinary world. This goes back a little bit to what you made me think, Jessica. We live in such an extraordinary world today. You know, I'm old enough to remember the Jetsons cartoon. Some of you may not, okay, when I was a little boy, and I remember Mr. Jetson and his boss. Do you remember his name, Chef?

Quick, no.

Anyways, his boss would pop up on the TV screen.

Cogs, right?

Cogs, Cogsley's Cogs.

Cogswell, Mr. Cogswell.

Cogswell, yeah.

And they would be You know, he'd be— well, it wouldn't be video conferencing, he'd be yelling at him over the video conference. You know, and today we're doing all this stuff, it's extraordinary. But the other thing, Jessica, you said that really is something that I kind of think about a lot is the idea of encouraging people with their passions. You know, we have an unprecedented ability now to share our ideas, our hobbies, our passions, our expertise. In so many different ways. One of the things that we do that I really enjoy is we conduct these food photography workshops for bloggers primarily, although a couple of them have gone on to actually work professionally as photographers, which was very pleasant, very gratifying to me and obviously to them. But, you know, to— we do very small workshops. It's limited to 5 people. It's all hands-on stuff. They're a lot of fun, but at the end of the day, it's really cool to see and be a part of people expanding their lives and bringing— making their world bigger. And this is one of the things that just daily astonishes me, the resource of the internet and things like these conferences, Google+, all the different places that you can As far as our blog, Picture Perfect Meals, go, I've been so busy with these books that I really haven't gotten into trying to share that. There's so many avenues, and really, daily, I'm amazed.

Do you have other people, like subcontractors, working with you on the books? Do you have a designer?

Not at this point. I am a designer. So I've got that taken care of.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm really—

Sometimes there's a book, in a book there's specific elements that you need to think about.

Well, I have people that I do confer with. I'm not completely on my own. And, but so far so good.

You know, marketing, you have a marketing plan or do you—

Well, this first book, yes. The second book, the bigger one, is going to be— this, this first book has a niche audience, and it's really a captive audience. The, the bigger book, the second book that we're doing, those are questions that I'm still going to need to answer, but I'll find the answers to them.

I mean, I don't know. Now publishers, unless you're Stephen King, they don't do much on the marketing side for any author. They just, you know, they— the author is assuming more and more of the responsibility for marketing and publicity.

And from what I gather, you get involved with agents, you know, marketing companies.

In fact, check out what Corey's saying about your bling. I love the bling on your ear, Adam.

Yeah, that's cool.

Thank you, that was a Christmas present. It was just bigger bling than it was before, but thank you.

As long as no one's holding you by the bling.

Yes, well, he won't tell you that part that Cheryl—

That's a secret.

Yeah.

I had a question for Clayton. Are you doing anything with the Glass in this Hangout? Are you like recording or controlling your computer in any way?

Uh, no, I decided— I mean, I could be looking at maybe comments or something that we're getting, but I figured I'd focus more on here. The video quality is not the greatest, and the battery's not either, so I probably wouldn't be able to get the full hour of the show on video, actually. I haven't tested it yet, more than maybe a minute or so, but people say that more than 45 minutes of video and the battery dies.

What do you do with it?

I mean, what do you— do you apply it? Do you own it, or are you testing it?

Yeah, so I bought it. So my— actually, my dad bought half of it. He wants to program with it. And then my fiancée bought the other half as my Christmas birthday, and she wants to make it everything else this year's present. Because it is— because it was— her half was $700. So, but yeah, with it I mainly just use, the main uses for it is replacing looking down at your phone, right? You get all your notifications up top, take pictures, video, I don't know, pretty much everything you can do with your phone, but it makes it a lot easier. Some people say, think, well then aren't you more attached to technology then? But really I found that I'm more efficient at doing what I need to get done and getting away from the technology. I'm not constantly looking at my pocket to see if I've got another notification because it's all right up here.

Do you get any hostility? I've heard people saying, you know, don't— are you filming me with that or something?

I haven't gotten any like that. I have had some people that just have misconceptions and they start to talk to me, they're like, are you filming me right now? But they're usually they're at least semi-joking, I think. And then I tell them no, that I'm not going to be doing that because it's 45 minutes and I don't get to use it for the other cool things it does.

I was supposed to mention that— or I found this comment from Corey May. Don't forget to mention that Clayton Pritchard runs all the Google events at the University of Central Florida.

Yeah, I forgot to mention that.

What are all the Google events?

I forgot to mention I'm actually the Google Student Ambassador for UCF. As well. So I did— YouTube had their music awards this past year, so I did a viewing party for that. I'm doing a Glass event for a few people later this— next week, actually, for about 100 students, and help out with, like, when the recruiter comes or those sorts of things, just giving out some Googly love across campus to the students.

And now UCF is the second largest university in the country. That just blew me away when I heard that.

Yes, 60,000 students.

Whoa.

I thought the University of Washington was big when I went there. It was 35,000.

Yeah, it's growing, growing quickly. Unfortunately, we don't have the history of being over 100 years like like University of Florida or some of the other large universities. So the name is not there to match, but we did win the Fiesta Bowl this last year, so it helped a little bit with getting our name out there.

Oh yeah, it will be interesting to see who they replace the quarterback with. I hope he does well in the NFL. I kind of thought he should have stuck it out one more year, but you know, it's hard to pass up that much money.

Yeah, I was hoping for it. It would have been kind of dumb for him not to pass up going to the NFL supposed to be one of the top 5 picks, but I was hoping you would come back for the UCF State next year and that we continue to do well, but too much to hope for, I probably would have left too.

Well, I can't hope for too much, I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan and the prospects of us winning on a regular basis is— it's a shame. So Matthew, you got anything else for us? You've been a little quiet over there. How are things?

Yeah, I've been posting, been trying to listen Good to see you guys.

Oh, good.

Yeah, yeah, trying to rock. I shared your post. I mean, everything's great except for, like you said, the snow in New York. I mean, it looks like it's finally over. Knock on wood, I don't know. The weather is getting nicer. Social Media Week is going on right now here in New York, and there was a Twitter party last night which I didn't get to attend. I was busy meeting some of the other people that are working at HuffPost, so that was nice. And there's a lot more coming. I'm working on featuring more people. I'm working on doing more with the community, getting more involved, Hubposts and everyone involved. I think the interesting thing is that brands in general have issues with social, especially Google+, but in general. And I think part of that is too many of them are trying to market, or too many of them don't have the time or the manpower, and they don't understand the value totally.. And it does take time, it does take effort, and I think a lot of people look for a quick fix when you really need to take the time to interact with people and talk to them and really be involved with them and not just be a broadcaster. And that's what I'm trying to do. You know, with some of the Hub posts, a lot of people expect— not a lot of people, but some people think, you know, okay, it's a news organization, and people think of us, some of them, as just news or politics. But you know, Hub Post has over 60 verticals. We have lifestyle verticals, we have food, we have taste, We have entertainment. We have a comedy vertical. We have so many people that I work with, and I think the idea that HuffPost is all the things. It's supposed to encompass all the internet. And it's hard to do, really, especially on Google+ when there's longer posts versus Twitter where we can just kind of put out links and stuff. So it's definitely been exciting and interesting to see how they work from an inside-out news organization. And seeing Arianna just walking around. I haven't officially shook her hand yet, but I have been in a room with her.

Tell her if she ever wants to come on my show, I'll be happy to have her.

Right, no, exactly. She's not busy. No, no, no, but yeah, I would love to have her do more of that, do HOAs, Ask Arianna, something like that. She has a new book out. She's very big on Third Metric and talking about how life should— your life, your work, you need to recharge, you need to be— make sure you take care of yourself and not burn out. And I think that's important in today's day and age, that you can work from home, that you can— you don't have to stress out. You know, too many people get stressed out with work when they're trying to, you know, be there by a certain time or fight the bad weather, like all the snow we had. You know, if it was a bad weather day, I would work from home and just not deal with the stress of commuting, and I think a lot of people are doing that more and more, being able to work from the internet, being able to have Hangout meetings. I'm still trying to get everyone to do Hangout meetings. I think the phone is the easiest thing. They don't have to open up their computer.

And then some people still want to pull you on Skype, too, and I'm like, "Oh God, please don't make me load that again.

I can't stand the sounds." Well, you know, we have the board of the Independent Publishers of New England has a About half, well now about a third are not. I mean, they're kind of older, couple older ladies. And it's really like pulling teeth to get them, get the plug in, get the webcam, get the headphones. And I have to kind of slow myself down sometimes because I just kind of, I get it. And I get it why it's important and why it's useful. But do you have any tips for organizations that are trying to take advantage of this? Even Skype can be difficult.

Yeah, Skype. I think Skype is even more difficult than Hangouts. I mean, it depends on—

And it's not free. If you want more than one person, I think you have to pay, right?

I think the hardest part with Hangouts is the initial loading. Once you get them to people open it up and it loads, I think then it shouldn't be as hard. But Google, obviously, it's only 2 and a half years in, and they're still working on it. And I think a lot of people out there expect Google+ to be as ready as some of these other networks that have been around for a decade. Facebook, what's around 10 years now? And I think part of that— is there a question? I think part of that is—

Yeah, there's one.

Is really taking the time to set it up. And I think that's what people are resisting. They're resisting putting in the time. And I think if people sat down, took an hour or two to set up their Google+, set up their profile, download the plugin— I think one of the reasons I got hooked, which probably a lot of you did, was I was hanging out right away. When I got my beta invite, I clicked everything I could. I clicked Hangouts. And Hangouts is really where you meet people. You can see people in the stream, but it's not the same thing. Now that we all see each other's faces and our voices, it's really that connection that says, "Oh, that person was cool to talk to or interesting. I'm going to circle them. I'm going to look at their stream, interact with them, and now I can visualize what they look like. I can hear their voice when I read their content." All that clicked versus I think a lot of people are hesitant.

Yeah. We were talking in the green room a little bit about Easter eggs and how Google+ is a little bit about Easter eggs. I think that that You know, that's kind of one of the fun things. I think one of the challenges is there are so many things to do and so many ways to use this platform that it's overwhelming to a lot of people, and they don't— they're not quite sure where to start. And, you know, Matthew, I think you're right on about picking a place and jumping in.

Mm-hmm.

I— yeah, for sure. And I see there's a question from David Kuchner. I have to change it, but actually we— I addressed that. Funny enough earlier in the broadcast about the New York Times article.

Yeah.

Which is funny. But yeah, for sure. So there's a thing about— that's another topic, journalism. But just to finish up with the— or to talk about the connecting people, I think it's a matter of Google still has to do things that they haven't done yet. And what I mean by that is that I think that they still need to have tools, have ways for someone, anybody, to jump on Google+ and be able to just get it and be able to just click on something and have it work. And I think that is one of the things missing from Google+ that I think makes it harder for people that come to Google+ trying to figure out, all right, I'm here, now what? And I think that that's what's missing for people that don't want to click and explore on their own, that they want it kind of in their face.

Well, so wouldn't you say— and I'm going to totally change the— take a little tangent here— but wouldn't that be the difference between a Windows Windows machine or device versus an Apple or Mac device, one is actually easier to use if you took the time to learn the new thing. In terms of its design and its functionality and its flow. So I think that some of it is also what we're used to. I am a big proponent of innovation and like, you know, just because it's the way it's always been done shouldn't mean we should continue to do it or make a new product like what everything else is, because then we're losing the opportunity for innovation.

No, I agree with you. And I think it also is what you're comfortable with. It's kind of like whether it's a computer or a video game system or a phone, whatever you start with, that's what you get used to. And some people have to think about change, and they don't want to do it. So there's that.

I don't want change. Ugh, change, ugh.

Even when Google+ makes a big change, people are like, you know. Or any of these now.

You're right.

Walk them out.

Well, that's why people like Adam and Jess are, you know, all of you, all of us are, you know, we, when we see somebody who's new who has something to say, we mentor them or we help them along. And, you know, I think if people can realize that there are help people who will help you and you can ask for help, you know, might be a little easier for them.

And also, as far as the journalists go, I was just going to say, I think journalists, their job is to write, and they're writing stories that are going to get attention one way or the other. And I think that, like, this New York Times piece did very well for them, and she wrote a follow-up because all the people that were upset about it, they were sharing it and saying, look how upset I am about this. So it's kind of encouraging them to write more. And it's going to happen. It's just the way— nature of the beast. But I think that people should— I think people should not think, like, oh, it's the New York Times that feels this way, or oh, it's the HuffPost that feels this way, because there are individual people that work at these organizations, and they're writing the stories, and they have editors that are changing one way or the other. Like, my title got changed. It happens. So I think that people need to take it with a grain of salt when these journalists say, oh, it's a ghost town, or this or that. They're just, you know— they're not necessarily sitting in their cubicle or wherever and being like, yes, I hate Google+, or I love Google+. They're not. They're writing a story, and they're putting it out there, and they're on to the next story. And I think a lot of people don't think about that because they're protected.

Yeah, it's not like the editorial policy of the New York Times that Google+ is a ghost town.

Let's hope not.

Yeah, exactly.

Because they do Hangouts. I mean, they're doing Hangouts On Air.

Well, so check out this. There's a side conversation that's been going on in the comments about single-tasking. And Kim and Mick and Carolyn have all been talking about this, and a few other people too. I grabbed this one so that we could get everybody that was talking about it, I think, at once. And I'm, you know, I'm curious what you guys do. Are you multitaskers? Are you single-taskers? Which makes you happier and feel more productive? That's my question of the day.

I'm a single tasker.

Yeah, me too. I, uh, one thing at a time and then, uh, because I can't, if I go through too many things then I end up not getting anything done because I already get, well, uh, my mind can wander or something and so if I focus on something that's when I get it done. If I try to go back to something then I forget what I was doing or forget to even do it so if I don't write even at, you guys complain about old age, even at young age you still need to be doing those things about writing things down and such because you can be doing too much and then forget about it.

I don't think there's any such thing as multitasking. You just, it's just switching and you can only do one thing at a time really, I mean.

I think the only place I've ever been able to really successfully multitask is in the kitchen. And that's when I've got 3 or 4 dishes going on at one time, or I've got food all over the place getting cooked or prepared.

But in drinking your hand—

oh yeah, coffee.

You're still only dealing with one pot at a time. I mean, you're still only one place at a time.

I've had situations where I could run 4 burners at one time with different things in them. That's because you're in the zone, you know, you have this years and years of training and But I mean, that starts to get hinky a little bit there too, so you have to be careful. But I mean, that's the only time. Other than that, I'm lucky if I can pick the cup up and talk at the same time sometimes.

I don't know.

I'm with you on that very much. I'm like, what? And I'm so dazzled by shiny things and cool things that people are saying.

Luckily for men, most women are dazzled by shiny things. Otherwise, as a society, we probably wouldn't have advanced this far.

—there's a question here from Donna to me, but I think Charlotte could address this as well. The question reads, "Will your books be hard copy or ebooks? I'm working with a new cookbook author who's decided to focus completely on publishing ebooks. Thoughts on how Google+ can fit into an ebook marketing plan?" Look, as far as we're going, we are very much Johnny-come-latelys to this.. But my general philosophy is if there's a market for it, we will find a way to produce it. Hard copy, there is still a market for. My wife is quite insistent that particularly with regard to cookbooks, that people, women particularly, that, as she states it, like to have the book in their hands Also, another point has been brought up to me with regard to ebooks that— and I was at a store where I saw, you know how they make those book holders for kitchens? It'll look like a loaf of bread or something. You put your book in there, it stays open to the page. Well, this was designed in that way except that it had a little slot for an iPad or Kindle or something of that nature. I'm probably in that middle generation between the people who are completely technophobic and the people who are completely lost in technology. Although I'm not technophobic at all, but I would still be reluctant to take a laptop, an iPad, an expensive piece of electronics in a kitchen where things get spilled and wet and so on and so forth. This is some of my wife's thinking about it too. This is an area to me that is Like I say, it's still pretty new, but from my point of view, if there's a market, then we're going to address that market in some way. Now Charlotte, who is far more experienced than I am at this point, I'm sure has far more to add than I do.

No, I just— as far as Google+ and marketing of ebooks or any books, I mean, I agree. I think there's definitely a market for print books, I think there will be for all of our lifetimes, even Clayton and Jessica. But I've been doing for, on behalf of IPNEE and on behalf of my own author show, hangouts for authors because I, like, my thing is I really love discovering and helping people discover share the ideas out there that independent publishers are generating and the books that they're generating. So we have Face the Book TV, which is more of an author-centered hangout, and Indie Office Hours, which is kind of like this. It's only half an hour at the present time, but it's on Tuesdays at noon. And we just kind of hang out and talk about more publishing procedures. Those types of shows, I'm always looking for people to be on. I want you, Adam, when you come back, and Matthew, anyone who's involved in publishing. I'll stop here in a second, but one of the questions that we wrestle with is what is a book these days? What is a book? We're all publishing.. We're publishing blogs, we're publishing on Google+, we're publishing on other platforms, and it's a fuzzy area. To me, I think a book is a concept that you present to people that's been thoroughly researched and thought out and tied up in a format, whether it's electronic or print.

I think you bring up a good point. I actually disappeared because I was writing down, Yuri. I wanted that information so I could catch you, but I think you bring up a good point. You know, we're all professionals in this industry here, okay? I deal with a lot of non-professionals, but the point that you bring up that we are all publishers, you know, we approach the blog that we publish as essentially like a weekly magazine. Every post we approach in the basically from the concept of it sort of being an article. And this is something I try and impress upon people because while there are people like ourselves who are professionals in these fields and who have, you know, developed skill sets and so on and so forth, when you are putting yourself out there, when you are publishing something out there, um, this is the arena you're stepping into. Whether it's a blog or whether it's a book or a newspaper, people need to understand that with this brave new world that we're all in where we have all this tremendous opportunity to present our product, whatever that may be, at the same time we have an equal amount of competition. And you really need to bring your A-game. And I mean, I'm really speaking now to a lot of the bloggers that know me, and I know that's not all that this is about, but for those that are watching, I mean, it is important to realize that even as a blog, you are in effect a publisher and that you need to approach what you're doing with that sort of sense of responsibility to your reader. Because if your reader is not getting— I say Your photograph is your calling card. If there's not a photograph that's going to draw them in, adiós. You know, equally what you present in your copy, if it's a family story, if it's historical context of the food or whatever, if it's not done in such a manner as to engage your reader's emotion and interest, game over. That's true.

And you know, Chef Dennis Littley, he's publishing us right now. We are helping him publish his story. The whole idea of this whole video hangout, so the idea of what we're publishing is expanding into this three-dimensional form, really.

So the hangouts for us and for our authors are part of the, they're part of the marketing, they're part of their author branding. You know, it's all kind of a holistic whole.

Good way to think of it. You know, I think we are branding ourselves and as Adam said, publishing— I think a lot of food bloggers don't think of themselves as publishers, although they are very ready to think of themselves as a brand immediately. And the branding on Google+ is a little different than branding in normal. And I'm going to say the F word now, so bear with me. Facebook has taught us one thing. Google+ has showed us the reality of another thing. So now getting people to unlearn something that they learned through Facebook, which made us all believe we had to have a brand page, we had to have a brand page. As an individual, as a business I understand it.

A brand, that's a word that gets bandied about a lot, but I mean a brand is simply an expression of an identity. I think that there can be too much corporate branding, because behind every corporate brand, behind Picture Perfect Meals, there's Cheryl and there's Adam. And, you know, where we have success in that particular area of what we do, it's because it's Cheryl and it's Adam. You know, honestly, if I had it to do all over again, I might actually have gone with a different title than Picture Perfect Meals, although it's worked out great. But no matter how great the brand, especially in the blogging world and in this, this internet world, there has to be somebody behind it. And I think that Michael, you were saying earlier that a lot of big companies, they're resistant to this idea. I think in a lot of cases because there's not a somebody behind it, or they have to find a somebody to get behind it. I don't mean necessarily as a public figure in terms of on television, but certainly as a public figure in terms of Google+, as somebody that people can relate to. There's a name they can and they can connect.

Michael is my cousin. No, I'm just kidding.

This is Matthew.

Yeah, no, it's all good. Who I've met, interesting guy. Yeah, no, I agree. I think it's a matter of investing. It's investing people, in people, in time. It's all of that. And I think that the problem— this is the biggest thing, is that Facebook and Twitter have been around longer than Google+. I mean, without a doubt. And so they already have that head start as far as people knowing them as social, people knowing them— Twitter had that issue and probably still does a little bit now too. And so news organizations are used to using Facebook and Twitter, and they're seeing crazy amount of traffic, which they've seen. And this Google+ comes along, and they just— it didn't click instantly. And news organizations weren't using Facebook and Twitter When they first started, Facebook was only people if you really knew that person, which they're going away from. And Twitter was just following each other. But people weren't necessarily— brands were not necessarily using it the way they're using it today. So if you think about how Facebook and Twitter started, and then how it evolved, and then Google+ comes along, and everyone's used to how Facebook and Twitter is now versus how they used to be, it puts it into perspective thinking about why these organizations are a little hesitant because you have younger people working that grew up with Facebook and Twitter now, not necessarily Facebook and Twitter then, before that. And so the mindset is a little, if it's not working instantly, it's not working. And that instant gratification comes along. And I think that a lot of people have that issue. And people, you look at Pinterest, and I mean, I see that Pinterest logo on tons of advertising. I see the Instagram logo tons of advertising and people wouldn't necessarily— they might, you know, they would say the same thing about those, like, oh, who uses Pinterest? You know, it was a long— when Pinterest first came out, it was just for women, or it's just, you know, it's just for pictures. And now you have GIFs, you have videos and sound clips, and you have all these different things. So I think that the spaces are going to keep evolving and people are either going to get involved in the spaces or they're going to lose out. And I think that's all there is to it.

You can see how some of them are changing right now because LinkedIn has been trying to get posts. Now there's this big article last night all over about posting on LinkedIn and how much interaction you're gonna get. I don't really buy that because, I mean, I've been on LinkedIn a long time and I posted on LinkedIn a long time, and I don't see that as a place to really get engagement. And then Klout, what, a month ago or so, started letting you post on Klout.

Really? You can schedule now. Yeah, Klout has a scheduler that's supposed to use algorithm to determine the best time to post content that they're providing to your audience. I used it once, I don't know how great it is, but yeah, it's more about getting people involved and getting content out there and figuring out new ways to do that. But sure, I mean, LinkedIn wants to be part of social too. They want to be— the problem LinkedIn has is they have like a membership feed upgrade that they keep bothering people with.

And that's— I'm going to just go back to it. Everybody's got their own voice, everybody does something amazing, go do it. And go be amazing and let us come discover how we can be amazing with you. There's not a rant or anything.

I wanted to highlight a question here that's a little bit different but it speaks to something. I have a project with some people in Tanzania and I can't wait to see— Kim Vij, Vij, Vij, can't wait to see a day when Hangouts are utilized in classrooms around the world with ease, slowly rolling out and I love it. Such an amazing untapped resource for global education. I have to say that with Tanzania, I have tried with Skype and I've tried with Hangouts, and it's all— it's a bandwidth thing, and it's really hard to get that. It's 2 o'clock.

Oh, 2 o'clock. Easily. And talking about Pinterest and everything too a little while ago, for For those of you that don't know Kim Vege, she is half of the Educator Spin on it and I'm thinking, what was it, 1.5 million followers, Kim? Something like that on Pinterest. I know, blew me away when I heard that. I'm like, oh my God.

So I mean I know people are working on different technologies too, like through cell phones and personal networks. In Africa and other places where the bandwidth issues are preventing video conversations. But I think there's a whole population out there in the world that isn't part of what we're doing here right now, and it's sad. I mean, it's, it's something to work for, to work to change.

And here's an opportunity, you know, Cory's talking about everything can coexist, and so I think that that's, I think that that's a really cool thing. Granted, we have to deal with the change, but at the same point in time, how cool is it that we're always— and what we're using today is not going to be what we're using in 6 months or a year probably either.

People can use whatever format they want, and there's people that I hope never come to Google+ from Facebook. We've had this discussion, oh God, please stay there. Just block them.

Yeah, but that's the other thing too. I know we joke around about that, but I think there is that people— some people do think there's this kind of set group of people. I mean, we don't want— I think we want to keep Google+ open and warm. I know you're just joking around, but I think there is that people do think, oh, Google+, they're like the tech people, science and tech and education. And that's like Google+. They don't think of it necessarily as the fun place or the place that is— as open and warm, and I think it is. I think they just— it's just a perception issue. I think that's the biggest problem. And going back to what Jessica had about coexisting, people can say that they don't have the time, but if you have a smartphone, you have plenty of time when you're commuting or wherever you are. When you open up your phone, you can easily open up the Google+ app, you can open up the Facebook app, you can open up whatever, you can have notifications. You click on a notification, you respond. Maybe you only respond to one Google+ notification, but it's not going to— even if you're responding to one or two a day, you're still being active on all these platforms. And I think there's a way to do it with not making you spend hours and hours each day on Google+ or on all the platforms, because I'm sure that could drive people crazy.

Yeah, the apps help a lot. The apps are a simplified version. Get people into it. For sure.

Alright guys, well, you know, we've hit the 2 o'clock mark, so it's been a really nice talk. We've gone into some different subjects, and what I'm gonna do is pass around one more time to everyone and give me your final thoughts on the day, and then we're gonna call it a day for Good Day Google+. I'm gonna start at the end with Adam. So Adam, thanks so much for being here, and I know you have your series of workshops coming up, and your first one starting in April. April. April. And if you guys haven't seen the mountains of North Carolina, it's a good excuse to get down there and see some beautiful sights and get some one-on-one attention. I think there's only 5 in each class that you have.

There's 5 in each class. Cheryl and I produce one photograph by way of showing how it's done. Everything else is done hands-on. I keep the classes small. It's working with, you know, real equipment in a real environment and how to translate those ideas back to your home environment because obviously not everybody has a photography studio sitting around their house. We've been very successful and they really are a lot of fun. And Matthew, my apologies. I'm sorry I was carried off in the— I'm sorry I got your name wrong.

Oh, it's fine. I'm just messing with you. You're not the first.

That's all right. Thank you. This was terrific. Oh, if you're interested in workshops, go to Picture Perfect Meals, scroll down, you'll see photography resources, and there'll be a link there.

And if you just want to see some really beautiful food, if you're not interested at all in the workshops, still go to Picture Perfect Meals because Adam is just dynamite with that camera. And Cheryl is a master of the kitchen. She may not be a chef, but let me tell you something, I'm thinking Julia Child here.

So Well, thank you, Chef.

You do fine. All right. So—

If I could just say to Charlotte, how can I get a hold of you for your Tuesday thing? I would be very interested in joining you if I could.

Absolutely. I'm serious. It's like, I know, I think people don't think I'm overwhelmed with guests or something, but I really, really love to have people approach, you know, volunteer to come on. And it's— Boy, Charlotte Pierce is my Google profile.

We'll make sure you're all connected when we—

Yeah, IPNEE.org is our— should I just go now?

I'll catch— I'll find you. Yeah. We're good. Thank you, I'm looking forward to that.

Yeah, so, Shabnam, I'm so happy you could be on with us today and we got to meet face to face. It was a nice surprise for me today to have you on. Or not a surprise, but it was a nice thing. Anything you'd like to leave us with before you leave?

Well, I would like to urge people who are publishing or interested in publishing a book to join an organization like ours. We're centered in New England, but it is a tremendous support, and you get into the book mentality, the publishing mentality, both There's a lot of people in our organization that are, you know, have— go way back in publishing. So it's, you know, it's something to tap into that tradition and to know what a— to think about what a book is and to get that support. There's a lot of online resources, and we will be going into those in our Indie Office Hours on March 4th. So I'll put all those links on the the event page. Great. I would just urge people to, you know, kind of join an organization like ours because it really helps you organize your thoughts on publishing books. Thank you.

All right, Clayton, I'm so glad we got you on today, and we have to do a hurrah. We have to get Greg and Carolyn and Tina Willis out and get us all together and do a hurrah. Definitely. So any last thoughts you'd like to leave us with?

Well, something I wanted to say earlier when Matthew and everyone was talking about the reluctancy that some have, that's something that I— coming onto Google+, like you said, they already are getting, even if they're not a big news organization, but even I see some at UCF, some of the departments there. They have a few thousand followers maybe on Facebook and Twitter, so they get some engagement there now. And then they come over to Google+ and they're starting over new, and they forget what it was like when they started on Twitter and they only had 50 followers or 100 followers, and they didn't get any type of engagement for maybe a year really until they started to really grow it. So just putting in that time there, and also like Ivory said, trying to learn it as well, because it is different. Part of the issue that Google+ has is when you got on Facebook at the very beginning, it didn't have as many features as it has now. And so Google+ is a more feature-rich social media, and you're learning all the features all at once instead of gradually them being added in. So it's definitely something more to learn. It's one of the things that we— and not everybody has time to learn it or to keep up with the changes, so that's another reason why That's one of the focuses we have at Google+ Daily is to do some how-tos, quick tips. We try to make sure that they aren't all for people that are power users, which are our main audience really, but also for people that are new to it, that they don't know how to do something that now to us has been simple because we've been doing it for over a year or 2 years or more. And then also, like I said, keeping people updated on changes that are made. So that they know what's going on with their photos when they go there and it's something different than what it was last week.

Very good, that's good service you provide there too. So let's move on to Jessica. Jessica.

This has been so fun, I want to come back sometime, Chef.

Absolutely, you are welcome on here.

That's awesome. Yeah, I want to just leave everybody with this today. I would say dare to be different and go find that sparkle and shine brighter than anybody else at what you love to do. And that's the kind of stuff I like to talk about. It's the— anything that relates to what you're doing to be better for you, for the people around you, to find commonalities with other people, to amplify a message across whatever spectrum you're looking to do. I want to know about it because I just think it's very cool, and I love the idea of this human-to-human interaction. It's so cool that I get to be on the West Coast and everybody else is everywhere else, and we can still come have tea, coffee, snacks, and enjoy some time together.

Absolutely. Thank you. And Matthew, so nice of you to stop in today. And any last thoughts for us?

Yeah, no, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me, Shep. And I was excited that I got to do this. I mean, there's kind of— you know, HubPost is interesting. I kind of— it's, you know, they hired me for Google+ and I'm trying to do different things, and so I'm excited to do a lot more. I have plenty of ideas for Hangouts. Marce, hey, picture feature. And I agree with what Clayton's saying about there's a lot, and I think that's the problem people— like, you know, when you sign up for Facebook or MySpace, it was, you know, a profile picture, basics, and now there's just so much, and the longer people wait to join, the more there is, And Google I/O every year, they release new stuff. So people just have to, quote unquote, deal with it. And they'll figure it out. But baby steps. Kim Boltman asked a question that we didn't get to. She said, has the, quote unquote, news succumbed to an entertainment format more than reporting? How has journalism been influenced by social media and folks' attention spans? And like I said, HuffPost specifically has multiple verticals. It's not just news. When it comes to comedy and entertainment and style and good news and weird news. All that stuff exists on HuffPost. And, you know, HuffPost is on the internet, and we have HuffPost Live, too, versus an organization like CNN or MSNBC that are reporting news. But even they have their entertainment shows. They have their entertainment reporters. They have, you know, people talk about viral videos on the news. I don't necessarily think it's an attention span thing. I think it's just including more of what interests people. And I think that people on Google+ can sit there and read a really long TL;DR thing, and it can be popular, or something with 1 or 2 words and a GIF. And I think it's just a matter of not finding one thing, but a matter of multiple things and multiple topics. And I think that the more you can be creative and the more you can expand what your posts are and Use media, use the Auto Awesome feature, make GIFs, make videos, use Hangouts on Air, they're great. Even if it's for like 2 minutes, even if you jump on your own Hangout on Air and say, hey, you all, what's up? I'm so-and-so, and I love being on Google+. I mean, that's more interesting. And I think you just need to explore how you can use Google+ like you can't use any other social networks. And it's a pleasure to be here. Sorry to go on for so long. That's OK. I enjoyed being here and hopefully I'll get you, Chef, and a lot of great chefs on Google+ get you all into a cooking hangout and I can watch you all cook.

I would love that. I would love that. Well, thank you. Well, thank you all for being on here today and I had a really great time as usual and like I said, my happiest moments are that I got to connect all of you with each other and hopefully, you know, you'll be friends now and you can engage with each other and. You never know what comes from it. I've made so many wonderful friends on Google+. I just like to pay it forward and introduce everyone to each other. So thank you so much for coming today. Have a great day on Google+. And as always— what am I going to say as always now? The camera just freaked me out too. There you go. Now I see what it did. Anyway, have a wonderful weekend everyone and I'll see you all again soon. So bye-bye. Bye. Thank you.

Bye. Hasta la vista.