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20% say their phone is the only device they’ll use for researching gifts online this holiday shopping season

San Mateo – December 15, 2015 - 62% of US consumers will have researched Christmas gifts online by looking on Amazon this holiday shopping season, with 44% performing searches on Google according to a new study. Mobile phones are expected to play a big role, with around 67% of people planning to use their smartphones for researching gifts and 20% saying their phone will be the only device they use for the task.

For the first time in 15 years, my family doesn't have a website to call their own. In January 2000, I registered the domain Bryansplace.com. This was the first website I ever built outside of work and it became a sandbox for me to express my interests as well as a way to seek personal growth. From handwritten HTML pages, a detour with Frontpage, and eventually to a number of CMSs, the software and content at Bryansplace evolved as my life evolved.

Earlier this week, I questioned whether social media could replace my need to blog. In my article, I mentioned that Google+ and LinkedIn as social network platforms are able to provide near blog-like functions. Since that article posted, I've already heard comments from my Facebook and Twitter friends that no one uses Google+. I respectfully disagree with my friends. While people like to call Google+ a ghost town the numbers would indicate otherwise.

Ever since social media and social networks have gone mainstream, our digital lives have become complicated. There are a number of social media management tools already out on the market that aim to give users the tools they need to better mange, filter, and prioritize the content they read from their favorite blogs and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Almost all these tools fall short of their intended goals and why I'm always on the lookout for something better to come along. 

While Twitter remain my social network of choice, I've struggled over the years with Facebook. For me personally, there is something about Facebook that has rubbed me the wrong way. Facebook's user interface has always felt "cluttered" to me and the addition of "social advertisement" this past year hasn't helped win me over either. More importantly, the seemingly never ending changes to both Facebook's privacy policy and privacy tools has left me very uncomfortable. These days, I'm only on Facebook because my closest friends are on Facebook. In short, with Facebook I feel like I'm a hostage as it may be the only way I keep close ties with friends unwilling to try Twitter or Google+.

I have used Google+ for about a week and I like it. Compared to other social networking solutions I found it instantly useful, with a clean design. When I started using Facebook it took quite some time to get a grip on what the benefits was for me, but for Google+ I didn't have to look as they were very visible directly.