Yesterday, Google released a major update to its search engine and drew the collective ire of the Internet. Dubbed “Search, plus Your World,” the change personalizes search results for people who are signed into their Google accounts. According to Google,
“Search has always brought you information from across the web. Now, search gets better by including photos, posts, and more from you and your friends. When signed in with Google+, you’ll find personal results and profiles of people you know or follow. You can even expand your world by discovering people related to your search.”
Oh, the humanity! Critics have expressed hyperbolic alarm at the move, with many framing the release not only as an anti-competitive move with potential antitrust implications, but also as step towards aggravating non-techie, everyday users of Google’s search engine. Competitors such as Twitter even piled on with fake outrage, ostensibly in defense of individual privacy.
U.S. Mobile Apps vs. Web Consumption, Mins/Day
Yes, this is a big change, and Twitter (among others) has reason to fear the move (read: $$). But the bottom line is that Google desperately needs to counter the rise of social networks as competing destinations for ad spending. And don’t even mention Google’s paranoia regarding the likely release of a competing search product from Facebook.
So I ask, People of the Internet, with your brilliant strategic minds and obvious business acumen, what would you have Google do instead?
Would you have tried to make more money with traditional website display ads, relying on the good ol’ web to stave off the rise of mobile apps?
Oops. It seems like that wouldn’t be a good plan (Consult the chart from Flurry above).
Would you have advised Google to focus its efforts — and future profitability — on serving up ads within text-based mobile search results?
Oops. You mean you forgot about the imminent threat from Siri (And Kinect, and all inevitable clones of the two across all mobile platforms)?
OS Share of Smartphone Sales (click for source)
Would you have told Google to leverage the unchecked rise of Android?
Oops. You mean Android actually lost 13 percentage points of U.S. smartphone market share last month, while iOS gained 17%?
So go ahead, dear Brilliant Business Strategists of the Internet, who obviously have an amazing alternative strategic plan up your collective sleeve, lend us your keen insights and sage business advice.
I’ll wait here.
Radian6: New Year’s Resolutions Social Media Infographic
Millions of people are about one week into working on their goals/resolutions for the 2012 year. For tech savvy types, these plans may involve learning to code via Codeacademy’s Code Year initiative, or obtaining a new technical certification. For others (aka the “Normals“), plans might center around losing weight, becoming more active, or saving more money (at least that’s what this fantastic infographic from Radian6 shows).
And for me? I’m committed to reading more books, trying new foods, and learning to meditate. But each of those resolutions will be a piece of cake compared with my most ambitious goal for 2012:
I’m going to spend less time on Twitter.
To be clear, I’m not planning to spend less time on social networks. It’s just that I’ll be allocating my time differently. Twitter is great, obviously — it’s become a daily essential for me alongside air, food and water — but it has become relatively less interesting as other apps and/or social networks increasingly pull away my attention.
Like other established heavyweight networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn, Twitter has come to resemble a presidential candidate who has survived a grueling nomination process and must now focus on appealing to a more moderate general electorate. In other words, these social networks are racing to to the middle, adding “me too” features that newer users expect and appreciate.
A couple of examples:
- Facebook’s recent “subscribe” feature that enables individuals — especially public figures — to share public posts with non-friends, providing for asymmetric follower relationships similar to Twitter.
- Twitter’s enhanced profile pages that allow businesses to manage initial consumer impressions, similar to landing tabs on Facebook (yes, I know they’re not actually tabs anymore).
And there are more. This is a good problem for these networks to have, of course. But the need to cater to the expectations of newbies due to mainstream acceptance doesn’t always lead to terribly interesting innovation.
As a consequence, I’m starting to spend less time on the heavyweight social networks. My average time spent on Facebook per day has dropped by about half, and LinkedIn has been relegated to a few visits per week (Yes, I know this is a bad thing. I know.). And Twitter? I’ve refined my Twitter lists to segment professional connections, news sources and personal relationships. These lists are so finely-tuned now that I keep up-to-date with news related to digital strategy and social media during the day, and scan through tweets from friends when I have free time.
From Instagram: "Opah Carving"
So where will I be spending more of my time online? In place of Twitter, I’m going to commit time to a handful of other apps that are simply more interesting to me right now, such as:
- Pinterest: A self-described “Virtual Pinboard” that facilitates easy sharing of images from across the web via virtual boards. It boasts a phenomenal growth rate – over 5x from September 2010 to December 2011. Here’s my profile.
- Instagram: It’s the fastest-growing mobile social network ever, and it provides an easy means for sharing photos with amazing filter effects.
- Path: Taking a unique approach to social networking, Path caps the number of friends for each member at 150. The focus is on closer, more personal sharing between friends (without the acquaintances and professional colleagues who have started to bleed over into your Facebook friendships).
- Google+: I’ve had the unique experience of recovering from Google+ page suspension; despite that, I’m bullish on its potential. G+ is fresh off of its largest-ever surge in traffic during December 2011, and the Google+ continues to add features to improve the service. Here’s my profile.
In addition to spend more time on these four apps, I have also started up a photo blog on Tumblr, a platform that I adopted early-on and then abandoned a long time ago. I’ve found a reason to give it another shot this year.
Thus, 2012 will be a year of trying out new things and spending less time on the networks — especially Twitter — that have garnered most of my attention over the past couple of years. It’s not just a case of chasing new and shiny objects, either. I view Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ and Path as apps/networks with real staying power, and the first three are especially interesting for brands.
Sometimes, it’s important to look beyond what is mature and proven. It’s certainly more interesting — wouldn’t you agree?
We love SOPA, yes we do! We love SOPA, how 'bout YOU?
Hello sports fans! Are you ready for the big games this weekend? Well, before you settle in to watch the action, consider this inconvenient fact:
In all likelihood, you’re tacitly supporting the controversial — and misleadingly-named — Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
If you’re not familiar with SOPA, then you should be. You can read the full proposal, but here’s a good executive summary from Social Fresh:
“SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act. Essentially, it is a bill that was created to protect American intellectual property… While the intentions of the bill were good (to protect American intellectual property), the vague language of SOPA will empower corporations to censor the internet. Which is not good. If the bills were passed, the attorney general could create a list of sites that were essentially blacklisted by search engines, service providers, payment providers, etc – without a court hearing or trial. (Um hello, first amendment violation, anyone?!)”
As you can imagine, people — or more appropriately, We The People, not big media conglomerates and the politicians that they contribute to — are mostly outraged by the potentially chilling effects to free speech that could result from SOPA. Many companies have even publicly expressed their objections to the proposed bill.
But not all companies are against SOPA. GoDaddy, the web hosting and domain registration giant, posted a blog entry backing SOPA, only to withdraw its support after individuals and businesses alike threatened to boycott GoDaddy. But GoDaddy isn’t (or rather wasn’t) alone. At least 142 companies have pledged their support for SOPA. And some of the names of might surprise you.
The National Football League (NFL) supports SOPA. And so do Major League Baseball (MLB), ESPN, ABC, CBS, Comcast/NBC Universal and the United States Tennis Association.
Good luck watching a game this weekend without silently supporting censorship.
So what’s an anti-SOPA sports fan to do? The way I see it, you have two choices:
Option 1: The Scorched-Earth Approach.
Cancel your season tickets. Show up to stadiums with handmade signs to protest SOPA. Get rid of cable and cease visiting ESPN.com for news and scores (you know they make money on website ads too, right?). Stop buying merchandise from your favorite teams. Toss the t-shirts and hats that you have into the garbage. And so on. You get the picture.
Not a very attractive option, is it? And moreover, as Evo Terra points out via a great post on Google+, it’s extremely impractical to boycott each and every company that supports SOPA. Which leads me to the other option:
Let's not strikeout in the bid to defeat SOPA (click image for credit).
Option 2: Voice Dissent, But Get Real.
Yes, it’s fine to pressure companies to drop their support for SOPA. Hit up the NFL, MLB and other sports media entities via social media channels. Tell them that the presumed intent of SOPA — curbing online piracy — is admirable, but that the means do not support the end. Your efforts might even get a few organizations to change their positions (after all, GoDaddy caved in to pressure).
But more importantly, take actions that will actually make a difference. Ben Parr lays out a practical road map for stopping SOPA, in which he advises:
“Focusing our attention on these companies is a waste a time, though. We are wasting our precious energy and resources on these corporations when we really should be doubling down our efforts on getting people to call, email and snail mail their Congressman.
There are far better ways to fight piracy than SOPA.
You may think that contacting your Congressman doesn’t work, but trust me: it does. I used to work for the House of Representatives. I know first-hand what impact jamming the phone lines has on a Congressman looking to get re-elected.”
So while you’re busy cheering on your team and tracking your fantasy football statistics this weekend, put together your own plan of action to help defeat SOPA. I’d suggest the following actions, all of which can easily be done while you watch the big game:
- Research the OPEN Act, an alternative to SOPA that has drawn support from Google and other companies as an alternate means of fighting piracy.
- Look up your local congresspeople here. Voice your opposition to SOPA and educate them about OPEN. Make an appointment to see them in person, if possible.
- Contact the co-sponsors of SOPA to express your views. Ask friends and family who reside in their districts to reach out to them as well.
- Follow up with an email to your congressional leaders. There’s a handy form for that purpose here.
- Take a quick moment to sign the petition to veto SOPA on the White House’s official “We The People” page. This petition has already received enough signatures to merit consideration by the Obama administration, but more signatures cannot hurt.
- Reach out to your favorite teams via Facebook, Twitter and other channels.
In summary, it’s likely that while you’re cheering on your favorites sports teams, you’re also supporting organizations that back SOPA. Unfortunately, it’s impractical to boycott every organization that has thrown its weight behind this controversial proposal. You can make a difference in the fight to prevent a bad bill from becoming law, however, by taking the actions that I’ve outlined above.
Please act now. Also, let me know if you have any additional suggestions. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this matter, so please consider posting a comment below.
Smartphone + Beer = Problems
There’s a well-known remedy for saving smartphones that have been damaged after being submerged in water. As detailed in this thread on Quora, the solution involves filling a plastic bag with rice, sliding your phone in, sealing the bag up, and letting the rice wring the moisture out of the phone.
For a whole week. Seven. Whole. Days.
So there I was yesterday, holding my iPhone in one hand and a bag of rice in the other, all the while regretting my choice to read Twitter while holding my phone over a pint of beer (yep, it fell in).
As I prepared to slide my phone into the bag of rice, I stopped for a moment and pondered whether the actions that I were about to take were realistic. I was moments away from a week without Instagram. No foursquare or Path. No texting. None of the magic of Siri. And perhaps most frightening, time apart from mobile Twitter.
Slowly, I put the bag down. I decided to spend an afternoon field testing life without my smartphone, and make a decision based on the experience.
I could go into the whole afternoon and evening, step-by-step. But here’s the short it: Waiting in lines without the ability to kill time by reading Twitter was painful. I couldn’t check in anywhere — and this has become as reflexive as breathing. I wanted to Oink, but couldn’t, and had no idea what was going on within Facebook. And to top it off, some dude was wearing a huge furry hat with horns and I couldn’t even Instagram it.
Thank you, sir. May I please have another?
So what did I do? I went home, cooked the rice, and made an appointment with the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store to trade in my phone for a replacement unit.
It’s going to cost me $199. But get this: there are 168 hours over a seven-day period. For $199, I don’t have to go without my iPhone for those 168 hours. That’s a cost of $1.18 per hour.
Think of it another way. If someone offered to pay you $1.18/hour to go without your smartphone (whether it’s an iPhone, Android device, or Windows phone), how long would you be willing to take the deal? Could you go a whole week?
And what if you had to rub salt in the wound by using a BlackBerry in the meantime?
I couldn’t do it. And no, I’m not made of money. The $199 replacement fee is going to hurt, especially after I’ve just finished buying Christmas presents. But my smartphone has become an integral part of nearly every waking hour of my day — so I just couldn’t.
Could you? Let me know with a comment below!
Google+ Page Suspension Notice
Google+ is still a new social channel, and consequently, there is a relative dearth of guidance on how to successfully navigate and stand out on the network. Mistakes will happen, and in fact, may even be probable.
I should know.
You see, my employer’s Google+ Page — the one I created and continue to manage — was recently suspended, forcing me to dig deeper into Google+ and learn some of its nuances. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I’ve learned a lot from the experience, and have decided to share some of the lessons learned here in hopes that others will benefit from the process.
Here then, are some trial-by-fire lessons that I hope prove useful:
1. Leverage both Google+ Direct Connect, and the Google+ Page Verification Process.
Google+ Direct Connect accomplishes a couple of important things. First, it connects Google+ Pages to brand websites via a snippet of code. This code produces a badge to embed on an official website to add a measure of authenticity for a Page. Second, Direct Connect creates a shorthand search operator (“+brandname” — such as “+Angry Birds” or “+Dell“) to enable quick searches of official brand pages — both within Google+ search and via Google’s main search engine. The + shorthand operator even provides a mechanism for re-claiming a brand name that has been high-jacked by clever SEO techniques, as this article points out using Rick Santorum’s Google problem as an example. In combination with Google’s verification process for Google+ Pages, these steps signal to Google that a G+ Page is an official brand account.
Key takeaway: Take the time to send the proper signals to Google that your page is legitimate. This will save you time, effort and possible embarrassment later on.
2. Don’t Fret about Brand Impersonations. These Fears are Overblown.
Almost immediately after Google+ launched Pages for brands, fake profiles — such as this Bank of America spoof– sprung up. This sparked fears among large organizations that Google+ would become a problematic platform that would, (a) require significant monitoring, and (b) place a heavy burden on community managers.
In response, Google pledged that it would monitor Google+, spot fake brand Pages, and suspend them until steps were completed to verify the authenticity of suspect Pages. This approach is what affected my employer’s page.
As a member of the Google+ team explained to me by email, “We do some impersonation sweeps regularly… The best thing you can do to make sure it’s all correct in the future is connect your page to your site,” so that Google “can see a bi-directional link between the two… [which] ensures that you also have control over that website. That tells us it’s the authoritative page for that site.”
Key takeaway: Don’t let fears of “brandjacking” cause you to jump into Google+ before you’re ready. It’s a great idea to get started with Google+ while nearly everyone is a novice and the repercussions of mistakes are minimal. But understand that you have ample time to outline a clear plan for Google+. Nobody is going to steal your brand name.
3. The Google+ Community is Awesome. Leverage Them, and Give Back.
Shortly after learning of our Page suspension, I posted a plea to members of the Google+ community to help identify members of the G+ team who could help expedite the process of reinstating the Page. After a short time, Denis Labelle (whom I’d mistakenly placed into a Circle of Google employees — he now resides in my Most Awesome People in the World Circle), responded with an offer to help share my plight. Denis — along with a handful of other Google+ members — re-shared my post, which quickly caught the attention of the Google+ team and led to a speedy resolution.
The G+ team had also picked up on my original plea for help and was busy working through internal channels to resolve the issue. But Denis’ offer to help was the true catalyst toward quick resolution of the issue. Members of the Google+ community saw Denis’ post, voiced their support, and helped build awareness of the issue.
Key takeaway: The early adopters of Google+ are passionate about the current and future prospects of the network and are extremely engaged and helpful. Now is the time to get engaged on Google+, learn from the community, give back to it, and build an invaluable network that will continue to grow in exciting new directions.
Key takeaway, part two: Denis Labelle is pure awesome. He is not only helpful, but he posts interesting and helpful content to Google+ every day. You should pause right now and go Circle him. I also owe thanks to Chris Vennard, Oscar Fuentes, Raphael Polanco, Yan Tseytlin, Harp Grewal, Kamal Singh and others for their help.
Google+ Shared Circles are Powerful
4. Tap Into the Power of Shared Circles.
Google+ makes it easy to share the Circles that you’ve created with friends and other G+ connections. This feature is helpful for sharing Circles of subject matter experts or photographers, for example. It’s also useful for curating a list of customer support representatives for your brand, or from brands that you follow. Google+ is a great vehicle for building a list (or even several specially-targeted lists) that can be shared with current and potential customers, partners and suppliers. Stakeholders can then post queries to these support Circles in order to reach several customer support members at once.
A shared Circle, in fact, is what led me to Denis Labelle and the other Google+ members who jumped in to help resolve our Page suspension. Another Google+ member had created and shared a “Members of the Google+ Team” Circle, which I found and added to my own Circles. While Denis and a handful of other members of the Circle were incorrectly identified as Google employees, the Circle did help alert several Googlers to our Page suspension.
Key takeaway: Consider using Shared Circles to make it easy for your target audiences to connect with groups from your organization. It’s also a good idea to seek out Shared Circles that will prove useful to you in a time of crisis. A good starting point is the list of Shared Circles on G+. It’s also advisable to Circle Google+ Your Business. It provides up-to-date information related to G+ that is targeted to brands and Page owners.
Conclusion
Google+ may be the fastest-growing social network in history. And yet, it’s still far from being a mainstream channel for brands and individuals. There are few established paths to success on Google+, and mistakes are inevitable. Use the guidance that I’ve provided above to help your brand to not only avoid a suspension, but to also overcome obstacles that could impede success.
Do you have any Google+ tips? If so, let me know with a comment below!
Google Music has finally shed its “Beta” moniker. At this week’s “These Go To 11” event, Google announced that it has secured licensing deals with EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and over 1000 independent labels, thereby enabling a music store to emerge as a core component of Google’s music locker.
And the reaction from online and social media? Tepid, at best. Predictably, most of the discussion seems to center around what Google Music is not. It’s not freemium subscription service, like Spotify or Rdio. It’s not as polished as iTunes. In short, it’s not the game-changer that many had hoped for.
Collective disappointment?
Some Perspective
But changing the game isn’t really Google’s goal here, is it? Google isn’t really trying to “kill iTunes,” just as Google+ isn’t designed to “kill Facebook” and Google Wallet isn’t a real threat to “kill PayPal.” This simply isn’t Google’s modus operandi. Rather, Google seems intent on launching products in beta, watching them get skewered with criticism in the media, and then evolving them into “good enough” products. Google’s real goal is to be just competitive enough in an array of battles to build out a moat to surround its Search Castle.
Up until now — and even including now, really, as Google hasn’t yet proved that this strategy is a winning one — all efforts to fortify Google’s Search Castle have been largely disconnected. But that’s where Google+ comes in, bringing along the two keys to Google’s castle: (1) data, and (2) Android.
The First Key: Data
Each time a website (or any other object, for that matter) is shared to Google+, a Google Music song is purchased and/or streamed to Google+, or a YouTube video is +1′d, two things are happening in the background.
First, user data is being collected and aggregated to build a more complete individual profile. This data is a prized and saleable asset, of course, as part of Google’s AdWords platform. Second, as information from Google’s products and services is shared to an integration layer (Google+), Google is effectively advertising these services for free on Google+ and encouraging other members of the network to adopt them. Then, as adoption rates rise, more data is poured into the integration layer, thereby buiding a self-reinforcing process and raising the value of Google’s trove of data.
This isn’t a new concept, of course. Facebook has been doing it for years, and they’ve been doing it so effectively that it’s become almost a forgone conclusion that Facebook will release a search engine to rival Google Castle — er, Search — and further siphon away lucrative advertising revenues. So clearly, there is a strategic imperative to get products to market that enable Google to rival the type of data that Facebook is collecting — music preferences, reading habits, social connections, etc.
These products don’t have to be world class, at least not initially. They just need to be of a reasonable enough quality to gain some traction, integrate seamlessly and enable the network effects described above. In other words, lay the groundwork for a larger moat.
Android adoption: faster than iPhone
The Second Key: Android
This is where Android comes into play. Let’s assume the following scenarios hold for the next few years:
- Google Music doesn’t become as slick as iTunes
- Google+ lags behind Facebook as a fun destination for keeping in touch with real friends
- Google’s Zagat is dwarfed by Yelp in terms of the quantity of reviews
- Google Places is never mentioned as a serious competitor to foursquare.
But Google has something that none of those competitors have — the 1-2 punch of world’s fastest-growing mobile operating system (according to this report by Mary Meeker) and the fastest growing social network in history.
Update 11/17/11: TechCrunch is reporting that new devices running Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Android, are prompting users to register for Google+ and enter their credit card information, in order to enable Android Market purchases via the Android Market.
As the world continues to trend toward mobile information consumption instead of PC-based consumption, Google is uniquely positioned to ride that growth by placing its portfolio of competitive, albeit flawed, products onto a larger and larger share of mobile devices.
Granted, Android’s fragmentation issues have been well-documented, and they pose a problem for Google’s ambitious ploy. The likely remedy involves Google leveraging its acquisition of Motorola Mobility to set an Android standard that embeds its services so deeply into the Android operating system that music, location, photography and other services become a core part of the user experience. In this scenario, Google Music doesn’t have to be better than iTunes or Spotify, it just has to have evolved to the point where, as a “me too” service, it gets the job done while keeping friction to a minimum for end users.
The Long View
So cut Google Music some slack and take the long view here. There’s a bigger picture to consider, one that extends several years into the future and involves not only music, but also commerce, location, mobility and social networking. Only time will tell whether Google’s strategy is a winner, but its moves start to make sense when you begin to arrange them as pieces of a larger puzzle.
What’s your view? Is Google Music a viable component of a broader strategy, or merely a half-baked sign of desperation? Let me know with a comment below!
Google+, the social networking product from Google, has been available for use by individuals for months. But Google+ had been off limits to companies and other organizations (except for a handful of test partners) until last week, when the search giant opened the door for brands with the release of Google+ Pages.
Google+ will permeate Google services
Many brands have jumped into Google+ right away to begin communicating and engaging with various Circles of stakeholders. Others, however, have stayed away from Google+, as questions and misconceptions about the product have spread by worth of mouth and through social channels. Most of the concerns about Google+, however, are entirely without merit.
You’ve probably heard them. Hopefully, however, you haven’t let these common fears stop you from getting started with Google+:
1. You can’t transfer ownership of a Google+ brand Page!
While it’s true that Page ownership transfers are not currently allowed, Dennis Troper (a member of the Google+ project team) has already posted an assurance that this feature is in work and coming soon. According to Troper, Google+ will soon provide “multi-admin support, ownership transfer and page analytics.”
2. The inability to cross-post to Google+ and other networks (such as Facebook, Twitter etc.), is a serious liability that will doom Google+.
Wrong.
Question: What would Google+ would look like if it provided an API to support incoming posts (from other networks and tools)?
Answer: A lot like Google Buzz, which accepted posts from other channels and quickly became irrelevant.
Google needs to build a critical mass of daily Google+ users before opening an API to permit incoming posts from other networks, and from tools such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. Otherwise, there will be very little incentive for brands to develop a unique G+ presences.
Update: Google has announced that a handful of third-party apps, such as Hootsuite, Buddy Media and Vitrue have been chosen as partners for a pilot program to enable posts to Google+ via social media management systems. It’s worth nothing that these solutions cater to enterprise customers.
3. You need to hurry and reserve your Google+ Page name! Or it will be gone forever!
Fake brand pages — such as this parody of Bank of America – have already sprung up on Google+. However, verification badges will be made available soon distinguish “official” brand accounts from impersonators. This approach follows Twitter’s verification model, and balances freedom of expression against the need to recognize authentic Pages. Launch partners like Angry Birds and Pepsi already have badges to promote the authenticity of their Pages, for example.
Source: Search Engine Land
4. Google+ is a ghost town.
Google claims over 40 million Google+ accounts and boasts an early-stage growth rate that exceeds the rates witnessed by Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. Undoubtedly, however, Google+ doesn’t enjoy an engagement rate anywhere close to Facebook’s 50% daily sign-in rate. And Google has been coy about the number of active daily G+ users.
But a ghost town? Hardly. G+ may currently be dominated by early adopters and geeks (I include myself in both of those groups), but anyone who actually spends a significant amount of time on Google+ knows that the “ghost town” assertion is false.
5. Facebook’s promotion guidelines are too restrictive, but Google+ is a new opportunity!
In fact, Google+ is even more confining. While Facebook’s Guidelines permit administration of promotions via third-party apps, Google does not allow any promotions on Google+. The Google+ Pages Contest and Promotion Policies clearly outlaw them, and instead permit only links to separate websites that host contests and promotions.
6. Google+ is just another social network.
Google+ is much more than just a social networking platform. Instead, in Eric Schmidt’s words, Google+ will be “a social component [to Google's core products] to make them even better.” Most notably, Google+ Pages offer a distinct Search Engine Optimization (SEO) advantage over content from Facebook and Twitter. While Google+ already has limited integration with Google search (You can see +1s from your friends in search results! Yay!), Google+ posts will soon populate search results in near real-time. Compared with content from Facebook and Twitter, which Google is unable to crawl as effectively, Google+ content will offer an SEO advantage over content from competing channels.
Furthermore, as Google continues to weave Google+ into its other products and services (as it already has with YouTube and Google Reader), the service will fetch an ever-increasing set of valuable data for use in ad targeting.
Twitter's early days weren't so rosy
7. Too many features are missing; Google+ just isn’t useful for brands.
Do you remember what Twitter was like in its infancy? No lists. No automatic URL shortening. No auto-completing of @usernames within Tweets. No promoted Tweets for brands. Lots of Fail Whales. In short, it sucked compared with the service that we all know and love today. And let’s not even get started with Facebook. In both cases, users demanded features, and the services matured. Google+ will follow the same path, evolve into an increasingly-valuable platform, and offer first-mover advantages to brands that adopt the service early.
8. Circles make it easy to manage Google+ Pages!
Google+ Circles provide a powerful means for targeting content to specific audiences. Along with Hangouts, they differentiate Google+ from other social networks.
The bad news about Circles is that they don’t scale well. After a person has Circled a Page to express an interest in a brand, a G+ Page owner has to then assess the person and then decide how to categorize them into an appropriate Circle. This quickly becomes a time-consuming task.
This cumbersome process may have driven Google to acquire Katango, a startup that has developed powerful algorithms to sort people into groups automatically. For now, however, human-decision making is still required to sort people into groups for targeted content delivery.
Overcome Your Fears and Get Started with Google+
In summary, don’t let FUD dissuade you from building a presence on Google+, but be sure to know what you’re getting into ahead of starting a brand Page. There are many misconceptions about Google+ that can cause a misalignment between expectations and reality.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on Google+ in the comments section below.
Like a lot of other people — about 4 million, to be precise — I’ve recently upgraded my mobile phone to an iPhone 4S and started enjoying Siri, the personal assistant that is perhaps the smartphone’s most talked-about new feature. Siri has garnered attention for several reasons, including:
- Siri’s ability to understand and translate natural language into useful responses. Limited commands, such as “Get Weather Report” aren’t required. Instead, Siri does an admirable job of interpreting regular speech, such as, “Is it going to cool off next week?”
- The potential for integrating Siri with a wide array of apps once developers are given greater access to Siri’s API. Imagine being able to use Siri to compose tweets, check in to venues, and buy movie tickets — all through natural language as opposed to a limited set of commands. This will happen, and it will be incredibly powerful.
- The application’s human-like sense of humor, which has spawned websites such as Shit That Siri Says. Apple’s engineers have apparently had a lot of fun enhancing Siri after Apple’s 2010 acquisition of Siri Inc.
Siri, will it be cold this week?
Clearly, consumers are captivated not only by Siri’s current capabilities, but also by its potential to tie apps together through voice. And after several days of using Siri, I am too.
But do you know what data point jumps out to me as a far more important fact? The number of times I’ve used Google search since my first use of Siri = Zero.
That’s right. The idea of launching my mobile web browser, typing words into a text box (on a small screen, no less), and clicking a button to initiate a search suddenly feels about as antiquated as file/folder structures do in Microsoft Windows in comparison with touch-based app experiences. Just as Apple took on Microsoft by re-inventing (or at least perfecting) the process for storing and retrieving data, they’re taking on Google by attacking the search giant’s bread and butter. Why type the words “Best Mexican food Phoenix” into a text box when I can simply say, “Siri, I want a burrito?”
A few caveats that favor Android
If a humble end user like me can recognize this potential disruption to Google’s crown jewel, then Larry Page and company almost certainly do. They’ll counterpunch, and in fact, may have an upper hand for a few reasons:
Android adoption: faster than iPhone
- From a growth perspective, Android is far outpacing the iPhone (which you can learn more about in Mary Meeker’s amazing Presentation on Internet Trends, which I’ve embedded below). This may blunt the impact of Apple’s attack on Google Search.
- Android phones have had solid, if unspectacular, voice-based functionality for years now.
- Competitors (which can be acquired) will undoubtedly emerge to offer a competing level of Artificial Intelligence. For example, Iris (yes, that’s “Siri” spelled backwards) has already sprung up — with similar functionality — as the result of a mere eight-hour hackathon project.
Undoubtedly, however, Apple has changed the future of search with Siri. And if one company has proved that it can re-imagine an existing process, provide a user experience that promotes its rapid adoption, and turn the process into “the new normal,” it’s Apple. Siri is an outright assault on Google’s position as the dominant player in search, and this assault will become even more effective when Siri’s API permits interactivity with popular apps such as Yelp and foursquare.
So sorry Andy Rubin, but you’re wrong.
Even Large Brands Don't Seem To Get It
Rarely does a day go by now when we’re not prompted to follow a brand on Twitter, Like them on Facebook, or snap their QR code. Organizations large and small, from large multi-national corporations to non-profit causes, are embracing social media and seeking to engage with customers and supporters. It has become easy to connect with the brands whose products and services we enjoy.
This is the good news.
But the bad news is that most brands are not providing compelling reasons for consumers to make connections. Sure, they’re describing “how” consumers can connect with them. But they’re not answering the critical question: “Why bother?”
Is your brand guilty of this approach?
If so, you may be missing out on opportunities to connect with customers and/or supporters. Fortunately, however, the steps required to effectively prompt engagement are simple:
1. Ask your target audience to make a connection.
Whether you’re asking consumers to follow your brand, Like it or even join your email list, make a specific call to action and let your audiences know where they can connect with you. Most companies seem to have this part down.
2. Tell your target audiences what they’ll gain from making the connection.
Will they get member-only discounts? Will they be the first to know about new products? Will they have access to exclusive content? Or will they just find news about your brand (which is a perfectly good reason, by the way)? Tell them, using concise, plain language that informs them of potential benefits.
3. Follow through on your promise.
You will lose the trust of your new audience if you dangle exclusive benefits as bait, for example, but deliver only a steady diet of links to press releases. Don’t waste your organization’s time and money by making this mistake. Deliver on what you’ve promised.
Why connect with a pizza restaurant?
Pretty Simple, Huh?
These steps seem obvious at first glance. But the reality is that far too many organizations do not maximize the attention-grabbing connection requests that they’re investing time and money to create. By following the three simple steps above — especially step number two — you can avoid a similar fate for your brand.
Do you think I’m missing any steps? If so, let me know below.
I’m taking a timeout from Uptick Sports. There. I said it.
Over the past two years, this personal side project of mine — an NFL fantasy football stock market — has totaled over 6.2 billion shares of stock traded. Trading volume increased by 188% in 2010 to 4.6 billion shares, up from 1.6 billion shares the prior year. What mattered more to me than the growth, however, was the fun that I had connecting with people who share my passion for fantasy football.
The Empire Badge will have to wait.
When the 2010 season ended, I felt energized, and I set about designing improvements to the stock market. I created a set of badges that traders could unlock through specific achievements, in order to add an additional game layer to the stock market experience. I also began work on an improved user interface, and collected bids for iPhone and Android apps in order to provide a more mobile-friendly trading platform.
But the NFL lockout that followed last season diverted my attention away from the process of making improvements to the Uptick Sports website. During that time, I also started a new role that I really love. I’m passionate about the digital strategy work that I do now, and I find that the line between personal and professional time is increasingly blurred. I simply enjoy spending my free time doing research and work related to my career instead of programming new stock market functionality and keeping track of NFL roster changes.
So, while it’s tough for me to come to the conclusion that a timeout is, in fact, necessary, I’m taking one. Uptick Sports will most likely make a comeback, however, in a form that provides a better user experience on mobile devices. It just won’t happen this year.
In the meantime, I’d like to thank the traders that have made managing Uptick Sports so enjoyable. It’s because of your insights — through both your trades and your interactions — that I’ve had more fun than usual with fantasy football over the past two years. Let’s stay connected! I’m always willing to join a new league, so hit me up with an invitation if you’re in need of an extra league manager. Just be forewarned that I may have to employ Zaarly to find someone to sit in on a live draft.
