Yesterday Google announced that the company would end development for Google Wave, basically putting an end to the product that we were told would change communication as we know it. It was positioned as email 2.0, a combination of Gmail, Twitter, Facebook and everything else that we love about the world of communication. Only – it would be magical. We could move conversations, bring people in and out – and if you ever had a chocolate craving, it would send you a Snickers bar right through your computer screen.
When Google Wave was launched, it lacked some very important details. Most importantly, it didn’t offer anything useful. There was not a specific use people could latch onto, and the the way it was rolled out did not allow people to have large groups of users they could easily communicate with. It also appeared so different that it came across as complex and unnatural to use.
Hopefully Google will learn from this mistake, especially as it continues to develop social products such as Google Buzz and GoogleMe, in their attempts to overtake Facebook.
In a recent blog post, Socialnomics author Erik Qualman shared updated figures on Twitter’s presence in the online search game. Twitter has officially edged out Yahoo! and Bing in number of monthly searches. See graphic below:
At the Aspen Ideas Festival, Twitter founder Biz Stone shared that Twitter now has over 800 million search queries per day, which is a 33% increase from the last time he shared search figures in April (2010).
On his blog, Qualman writes, “We have indicated all along that Twitter & Facebook would be bigger search competition for Google than Yahoo and Bing. The fact that this is coming to fruition so soon is astounding. Social search and social commerce are becoming reality and it’s a great thing to see. Keep in mind we haven’t even mention YouTube and its social search activity.”
To the people who say social media is a fad, or that these sites are unimportant for business I say, think again. Consumers are searching for your products and services on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and if you are not there, they will find another provider.
Infographics are quickly becoming a media and public relations industry buzz word / topic. Why you ask? Two major reasons. As corporations continue to shift into their role as media companies and content curators, they’re realizing the opportunity to package interesting data to the media and consumers in new ways. More importantly, media organizations and editors are now focusing on finding new ways to engage their readership. Infographics happen to solve both of these problems by packaging data in a way that makes it both engaging and easy to read.
A few weeks ago I sat down with Sam Whitmore of Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey for Racepoint Group’s video newsletter to discuss how brands and agencies can leverage infographics and why they’re becoming the “new slide shows” for media outlets desperate for engaging content. While Sam cautioned that infographics aren’t B-roll (most media outlets like to play a role in building them), he did pass along some interesting insight into how PR practitioners and marketers can leverage the media’s interest in this new category of content.
For more insight on infographics, along with the latest news and trends in marketing, PR and communications in the technology space subscribe to Racepoint’s “The Point: Tech Edition.
As the de facto aggregator and home of what is news in the digital age, Google News plays an integral role in publicly determining the biggest news of the day, hour and minute. For publicists, marketers and brands, it’s also a public viewing area for observing and measuring brand mentions, message penetration, etc. For most stories, a Google News’ alert is the first sign that a piece has gone live.
Those alerts and the homepage layout got a little more personal today, with Google launching “News for You.” News for You allows you to filter and dictate the stream of news headlines you see, based on your interests. Think of it as your Facebook stream and the ability Facebook gives you to tailor the “status updates” and posts you receive from friends. To improve the personalization of the news stream Google is providing an “Edit personalization” box, which allows you to specify your interest in different news categories — Business, Health, Entertainment, Sci-Tech, etc.
In addition to those personalization features, Google is also adding functionality today to share story clusters with other people via email, Buzz, Google Reader, Facebook and Twitter. These news clusters are common around big news and of course product launches, and gives you the ability to quickly see different headlines and views on the same story (like techmeme). After a few years of copying and pasting these news clusters in sharing with colleagues and clients, the addition is music to my ears. To do so today, you can simply select the drop-down menu marked by an arrow on the top-right of each story cluster.
Today Google has added a new homepage feature – allowing users to chose or upload their own background images for the home page. Users were already able to pick their own themes for Gmail, iGoogle and other Google platforms, but now the main page will be customized as well.
Here is a look at how users will be greeted:
Here is one of Google’s background options:
And my customized home page with a background image of Bryce Canyon in Utah.
For years now, start-ups and technology disruptors have been trying to change the television viewing experience. Mark Cuban was hypothesizing about the death of channels, with the introduction of Internet TV in the United States in 2005. However, other than a lot of visions and aspirations the market hasn’t really caught on. Change you see, doesn’t really apply to the television industry. After the “Golden Days” of television that saw a man walk on the moon the industry has been set in decades of stodginess with little or no change — innovation shifting to bigger and better things, with all eyes eventually falling on the Internet.
However, with the introduction of Google TV today, which joins the likes of Apple, AT&T and Microsoft in trying to champion Internet Protocol Television(IPTV), there may finally be enough momentum to trigger the Internet to TV avalanche. An avalanche that some analysts believe will lead to million global IPTV subscribers by 2013.
The innovation desperately needed in the television industry is replication of the Internet innovation in search and discovery that has occurred over the last decade. And, there’s probably no better company to replicate that than Google. With more video content and channels available than ever before before, watching and searching for video content between siloed channels, cable and satellite operators just doesn’t make sense. It’s a closed structure that would be like searching and enjoying the Internet without, well, Google.
Of course the introduction of this type of technology on pre-boxed televisions from Sony and others could also mean the holy grail of television advertising, which Google is really interested in. Advertisers have been seeking and gaining access to millions of consumers shifting to the Web to enjoy video content and technologies including personalization and speech-to-text solutions have enabled them to target these consumers with targeted advertorial better than they ever could through televisions. If “Googling” goes to the tube, these technologies and Google’s own AdWords’ system will be right behind it.
Of all the companies looking for a fearless leader to head their social media operations, I have to say this company is an unlikely choice. Not only do they dominate their primary industry, but they’ve branched out into several new frontiers on what seems like a weekly basis. Who is this hyper successful innovator?
None other than web giant Google. No, you didn’t misread that. Google, the number one search engine (sorry Bing, no matter how many products placements you do on Gossip Girl or the Rachel Zoe Project we still can’t be swayed), the creator of the increasingly popular Gmail, the blogging site Blogger and the photo sharing site Picasa is seeking to ramp up their social media presence in two major ways with the help of a new hire.
First, Google wants to build a social media offering uniquely their own. The launch of Google Buzz was met with extreme consumer discontent, and Google doesn’t want to continue playing second fiddle to Facebook and Twitter in the social media space.
Secondly, Google wants to improve the way it incorporates social media into its existing services. Seth Waintraub of Fortune’s BrainstormTech blog wrote, “Google has tried to play ball. They penned a deal with Twitter to embed a feed of related Tweets in its search results, among other moves.” While Google has this one collaboration with Twitter underway, there are a multitude of other options for strengthening their social media capabilities even within their existing services.
Sounds like a serious undertaking for Google’s newest employee. In her piece for GigaOm, Liz Gannes shares the job description being used by Google’s recruiter to find this diamond in the rough:
“This is a new and very strategic position, as Google knows it is late on this front and is appropriately humble about it. In Google’s view, conceptually, there are two ways to tackle social, each impacting who may be successful in this senior post: 1) building an innovative offering specifically in this area; or 2) developing the capability and integrating social into Google’s existing portfolio.”
While Google is on the hunt for this head of social media, there is also the possibility that Google could acquire an influential company in the social space and have that former CEO or president morph into this new set of responsibilities.
What do you think? Can Google find the right candidate to steer them towards social media domination?
Yesterday in San Francisco Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg rolled out some big plans for his baby at the company’s 8th developer conference, f8. After combing through all the tech round ups, here are the major take aways:
Facebook global domination, one thumbs up at a time: The most notable announcement at f8 was that Facebook’s “Like” feature will now be available on any website that wishes to add the cheery sign of approval to its site. You can indicate your favor for anything on the web – a song, a recipe, a celebrity gossip post – all with one click.
While many support this web-wide expansion, others have strong concerns. John Sutter of CNN writes, “A consequence of these “like” buttons will be that your friends’ Facebook profile photos will start showing up all over the web. If you see your friends’ smiling faces online, it’s an indication that they have clicked a “like” button on the website you’re visiting. In a way, they’re recommending it to you.”
While those concerned with privacy issues are shrieking and scrambling in horror, marketers are smiling and planning ways utilize this public display of brand loyalty to move the sales needle.
Log in, plug in: In addition to the “Like” feature on websites outside of Facebook itself, the company is also going to allow sites to show Facebook user preferences without needing to log into that specific site. For example, if you frequent the music site Pandora, you will be able to see your friends’ music preferences based on their Facebook music preferences. Miguel Helft at the New York Times dives deeper with Pandora CTO Tom Conrad:
“It makes it really, really easy to ring your friends into Pandora and discover the music they’re experiencing,” Mr. Conrad said. Mr. Conrad started listening to a band and a picture of one of his Facebook friends who likes the same band showed up. With a click on that picture, we were able to see all the other bands that his friend also liked.
The features also allow Pandora to know which bands users have included in their Facebook profiles and begin playing music from those bands. That makes it easy for Pandora to begin playing music for new users without requiring them to type in their music preferences.
“Pandora is finally social,” Mr. Conrad said. And he said that Mr. Zuckerberg deserved all the credit for the changes. “You get a personalization with no clicks, and that was Mark’s idea.”
My friends and I already share Pandora station and Grooveshark playlist recommendations and this takes out the need for a third party mode of sharing. Tech and social media guru Robert Scoble tweeted this morning to his 121, 500 plus followers:
@scobleizer: OK, I’m sold on the new Facebook stuff. The new Pandora is FREAKING AWESOME.
So what does it all mean? In his keynote address at f8 Mark Zuckerberg explained, “The Web is at a really important turning point now. Most things aren’t social, and they don’t use your real identity. This is really starting to change.” This new expansion of Facebook preferences into the broader web begins that transition from stagnant to social on the broadest of scales.
These moves are not altruistic, of course. Facebook is opening the door to a whole new set of tactics from marketers and promoters, as well as increasing new opportunities for their own revenue stream.
Jon Swartz of USA Today wrote, “If successful, these functions could help Facebook gain valuable insights about millions of consumers and help it sell more advertising in its escalating rivalry with online ad leader Google.”
You hear that Google? Mark’s coming for you.
Former Fortune writer and author of the soon to be released book The Facebook Effect, David Kirkpatrick, summed it up best in a tweet today:
@DavidKirkpatric: Facebook’s f8 yesterday represents a sea change for the company–now the world clearly sees the scope of its ambition.
Any movie buff could tell you that the Academy Awards telecast is scheduled for this Sunday March 7th. They have seen the nominated films, they have watched the awards shows all season, and they are eager to view the most coveted validation of film success – the awarding of the golden man we call Oscar.
What they might not know, is while they are surfing the web for real time updates, photos and behind the scenes videos, E! Entertainment and Google will be teaming up to capitalize on their interest with real-time updates to E’s internet advertising.
Emily Steel of the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, “If a celebrity makes a red-carpet appearance wearing outlandish attire or an award winner makes a newsworthy speech, E will alter its Oscars-related ads within minutes. The media company’s goal is to make sure consumers searching for the subject on the Web find their way to E’s online photo galleries, live blogs and fashion-police critiques.”
Suzanne Kolb, president of marketing, news and online for E! Entertainment, says “The live updates to search ads will help position our online coverage at the top of the Google search results for people seeking Academy Awards-related content,” and really, nothing beats landing at the top of the Google results.
Despite their strategic efforts to optimize results during the Oscar telecast, E! is not broadcasting the show, ABC is. Not one to be outdone, ABC is turning to the web to take advantage of real time, web based interaction as well.
Steel reports, “New features this year on the Walt Disney network include tie-ins with microblogging site Twitter, interactive games and a live video stream from the red carpet, where hosts will interview nominees. Through a partnership with social-networking site Facebook, viewers will be able to submit questions live.”
While television spectacles like the NFL’s Super Bowl tend to attract major television advertising dollars, it seems the Oscars advertisers are more interested in the web.
If this trend continues, could we have commercial free awards show broadcasts in our future? A girl can dream.
If Google is successful with selling it, the answer may be yes. One of the more under-covered aspects of Google’s launch of Nexus One this week was its proclamation that it would only market the device online. Yes, the device will be in T-Mobile and eventually Verizon stores, in addition to being available online through Google. However, Google won’t be sending any “coverage map” campaigns or Luke Wilsons consumer’s way. Just phones and online marketing, which is something that would scare most retailers to death. No television cover?
But this is Google after all and they’re willing to bet they may be able to reach consumers their way. They have this thing called a search engine that is pretty popular I hear. Step one of that online marketing effort is giving the Nexus One ad space on Google.com’s homepage that is usually only reserved for holiday logos and event tributes. More than 70% of all Internet searches come through that page according to Hitwise, meaning Google will reach north of 100 million users with an enticement and link to check out the Nexus One each day.
Will it work? That’s hard to say. Even the biggest advocates of social media and online marketing believe TV and even radio advertising still get a piece of the pie. However, if Google is successful it will be a strong nod to the fact that television advertising is no longer the foundation of launching consumer products to the mass market.
Yesterday Google announced that the company would end development for Google Wave, basically putting an end to the product that we were told would change communication as we know it. It was positioned as email 2.0, a combination of Gmail, Twitter, Facebook and everything else that we love about the world of communication. Only – it would be magical. We could move conversations, bring people in and out – and if you ever had a chocolate craving, it would send you a Snickers bar right through your computer screen.
