Blog Event: Google+

Yesterday I was invited by the iFabbo team to visit the San Francisco Google headquarters. The iFabbo team and I met Lisa and Inci from Blogger. Lisa and Inci moderated a webinar demonstrating how Bloggers can use Google+ to reach their readers and share content.

First of all I was super excited to check out the Google offices and let me tell you, they lived up to the hype. Photobooths, Telephone booths, a massage room and bidets were just some of the Google luxuries I saw while walking around. Second of all I was really interested in learning more about Google's new social network Google+.

Lisa and Inci explained the basics of Google+, a social network with real time public sharing features (think Twitter), and private controlled groups "Circles" that allow you to selectively share the right content with a target group of users. For example you might not want to share your Friday night shenanigans with your boss, and your friends might want to hear about the work conference you attended, or see pictures from your Grandma's 80th birthday.

The same concept works for blog content. By using Google+'s Spark option, you can also selectively share blog content with groups of people that specifically want to read your content. For example if have a fashion blog, or want to find a new fashion blog, Google+ allows you to find and share content with a sub-group of like-minded people. And the Google+ Hangout video sessions allow you to "hang out" with friends, and readers virtually. It's by far one of the coolest video chats I have experimented with.

I had a great time learning about Google+ from the Google staff, themselves. However, I'm still not totally sold on the network. I have always found that Google apps are not easy to use, or intuitive. Although I think Gmail is the best email system out there, I have yet to organize my Gmail inbox, or figure out the full potential their email gadgets. We will see where Google take their social network and what people use it for, in the meantime I 'll be playing around on Google+ to see how it works for me and my blog.

At the headquarters. Myself, Sinead iFabbo founder, Nancy from FashionCHICsta, Inci and Lisa from Google, and Sara From The Makeup Snob.

Getting Geeky.

Playing around with the Hangouts with Sinead and iFabbo memener Jen from My Beauty Bunny.

I have 10 Google+ invites to giveaway, leave a comment with your email (has to be a Gmail email) and I'll send you an invite.

Blogher11 Recap: Day One & Two

Yesterday I returned home after my weekend in San Diego and LA (yup LA was not part of the original plan). Blogher was kind of awesome. I came home with more swag then I thought was possible, a new-found excitement in blogging and an unexpected best friend.

I arrived in San Diego Thursday morning and my friend Annie (Confessions of a Navy Wife) picked me up at the airport. Annie lives in San Diego but we made a staycation out of the weekend. We got a room at the Gas Lamp Marriot, and our room overlooked the ball park and had a cool roof top bar, where you could watch the baseball games from.
We started off our weekend by exploring Down Town San Diego and stopped for Happy Hour at La Puerta, before heading to the iFabbo Blogher Party.

At the iFabbo party we received array of complimentary beauty treatments.
I enjoyed a facial by Dermelogica, a hair-do by the folks at Robert Cromeans, and I had my nails Shellaced. We also recieved goody bags from all the fabulous companies involved.
Big thanks to Sinead and BeautiSol!!

It was an awesome night, and it was the night we first met our new best friend Kimmi of Plastic Diaries.
We were pretty much inseparable once we met.

We back up the next morning for the Newbie Breakfast and got serious some of the day...

But mostly we just got silly...





I'll be back with more recaps, and shenanigans later. Missed you all, time to catch up on my blog reading.