New Study Marks Trouble For Google+

May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

google_plus_logoA new study out from RJ Metrics indicates low user activity and weak engagement for Google’s social network Google+.

Google, running a little late to the party on this one, released their version of a social network late last year. Google+ adoption, if you believe Google’s number has been fairly strong, with 170 million users already. Of course that pales in comparison to Facebook at 900 million users.

After a somewhat slow start, Google has decided to put a considerable effort behind Google+. Google looks at Google+ as a backbone of it’s entire company and has been moving to Google Plus-ify everything it can. You will find Google+ wrapped into more and more Google services as we move along.

So with Google banking so much on Google+, this new study should be very troubling. 30% of users who make a pubic post never make a second one. You would think with Google being Google and with a majority of the world using it to search for information daily, it would have a huge leg up on moving users into its social network. I’m sure that’s what they thought to, but while you can lead a horse to water, you can’t make it drink. 170 million users in the short time of Google+ existence is impressive, but users are just not taking to the service. There is nothing inherently wrong with Google+, it’s quite nice technically, but I think we are starting to reach social network fatigue. With Twitter and Facebook and YouTube already so dominant, how much time and energy do people have for yet another social network. The answer, I believe, is little.

So the key question we always want to address here is what does this mean for you and your business? Do you need to put time and attention into Google+ for your business or can you safely ignore it? Unfortunately, this is not as easy question. If it were anything but Google, I would say ignore it for now, but since it is Google, you cannot simply turn a blind eye. Google+  profiles and activity is starting to show up in Google search and that alone is powerful enough for me to say, you should have at least some presence on Google+. Search, as we know is the critical component and anything attached to that is automatically important.

Google+ supports brand/company pages with multiple administrator support and your company should have a Google+ page. Unfortunately, Google+ does not support automatic posting via other applications, so everything you do on Google+ is a manual process. I would try to post at least some content but I wouldn’t put anything but the most limited time into it at this point. Social media is so fluid, however, Connected World Media will be keeping a close eye on things in case conditions shift as they can in a moments notice.

Filed Under: Blog, Social Networks Tagged With: , , ,

Google Hangouts On Air Challenges Ustream.tv And Others

May 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

hangouts-on-airUntil now, Ustream..tv has been the king of online streaming video. The Ustream platform has been solid for years and, for the most part, devoid of serious challengers. Until now. Enter Google.

This week Google launched Hangouts On Air for all of it’s Google+ users. Hangouts are online video chats for the Google+ social network. Until now, Hangouts were limited to 10 participants and video chats were not recorded for later viewing. Hangouts On Air provides a true live broadcasting capability with virtually unlimited viewers and in addition, Hangouts are recorded and posted to YouTube for viewing later. This puts Hangouts on par with other broadcasting systems like Ustream and Justin.tv. Of course Ustream.tv has more features, a more mature platform and user base, but whenever a giant fish jumps into a small pond, it’s going to create big splash. Another big advantage for Google, Hangouts On Air are already connected to your growing social network on Google, whereas Ustream.tv does not have nearly the social network features.

What all this means for your business is video continues to grow in new and different ways. It’s a force you will not be able to avoid soon. What kind of video content could your business provide on these platforms?

Filed Under: Blog, Social Networks, Video Tagged With: , , , , ,

Google Ad Thinks Like Apple

April 24, 2012 By

I love this Google ad so much. For one thing, I am a dad, so I do connect emotionally to it, but more than that I love the fact that it is centered on data.

I used to work for the hard disk manufacturer Quantum Corp many years ago. The folks at Quantum were always obsessed with the mechanics of the drive; the rotation speed, data density per platter and error rate. These are all wonderful things to have in a quality disk drive and when you are selling primarily to computer makers like Dell and Apple I suppose it makes good marketing sense. I always wanted Quantum to do a consumer campaign that centered around what I knew what was truly important, the data that lived on those drives. Much like the Intel inside campaign, this would be an effort to get consumers to specify Quantum for their hard drive. Consumers buy based on emotion and what they are emotionally connected to is their data.

I also love that this ad does not talk about features and specs, but focuses on the utility of Google+ and the automatic upload feature. This is a very Apple thing to do by the way. Look carefully at any Apple and you will see a greater emphasis on the utility than specs and features. This is one of the great secrets of Apple’s marketing, they understand people care a lot more about what a particular product can do for them than they do about specs. Other companies can try to compete on specs, but they never tell or show you how their product can change your life.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, Social Networks, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Beware Too Much SEO: Google Changes The Rules

April 12, 2012 By

Search GuyMany times, when I hear people talking about Internet marketing they are mostly talking about search engine optimization (SEO). Companies are obsessed with search ranking on Google, often ignoring other forms of social media marketing. SEO experts have been raking in the cash as well selling companies their fancy tricks for climbing the search ranks. I don’t necessarily have anything against SEO per se and I do reasonable  SEO on Connected World Media projects, but it’s not the complete story.

The party is about to end, however, as Google will be changing their algorithm to compensate for “over optimized sites”. This penalty for overly SEO’ed sites will level the playing field, giving sites with great content a better shot at ranking above sites with not as good content but great SEO.

It’s a constant fight between Google and those that seek to artificially manipulate results. Google’s job is to help customers find what the are looking for in the most pure sense possible. It’s always been about the content and this new change is going to make that even more true than ever. Rather than paying thousands of dollars a month for SEO wizardry, companies will be forced to focus on the content. Real, honest, authentic content. It’s about time.

Connected World Media has always been more interested in content and the strategy that surrounds that content than SEO tricks. Please give us a call at 503-208-6426 if you would like help getting your content strategy in order. In the meantime I would recommend  reading Content Rules by C.C. Chapman and Ann Handley. This is one of the few new marketing books that focus on content and content strategy exclusively.

Filed Under: Blog, Blogging, Marketing, New Media Tagged With: , ,

Google Goes Radically Transparent: Unedited Meeting Video

March 12, 2012 By

Google ImageI’m old enough to remember the days when Google was the scrawny upstart and the king of Internet search was Yahoo. Oh, how times have changed. Yahoo now struggles to survive and Google is a giant. One of the downsides of Google’s meteoric rise is that it’s lost a little big of their original mojo. Google controls so much now it seems like just another large, dominant company. It’s lost some of it’s personality and charm. Many even view Google with suspicion and wonder about it’s “do no evil” credo.

Just recently, Google has done something I think is pretty extraordinary. They have posted an 8 minuet video of an engineering meeting on Google search. Completely unedited and unscripted. It’s not particularly thrilling viewing as it’s filled with technical talk about how the spelling corrections work in Google search, but it’s a fascinating look inside one of the world more important companies. It helps people realize there are actual people behind the giant company, people who care about the product they are producing.

So much of what we see from large corporations are heavily produced and edited video and productions. The message crafted. Can you imagine Apple doing much a thing as this? Not in a million years. People like behind the scenes stuff anyway. I wish more companies would have the courage to do things like this. It is moving much closer to what I call talking in a human voice. Being this way and realting better to your customers and prospects is one of the largest strategic advantages smaller companies have against their larger rivals who often are not capable of doing it. Bravo to Goggle on this move.

Filed Under: Blog, Branding, Marketing, Technology Tagged With: , ,

Connected World Radio: The Connected Explosion

January 13, 2011 By

Connected World Radio

Topics include:

New Android tablets debut at CES

The new Apple Macbook Air and what it means for the future of mobile computing

The coming flood of Internet connected devices or cloud based computing

App stores in the connected world. Apple vs Google

What do businesses need to do to capitalize on all that’s been discussed on todays show

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Filed Under: Audio, Marketing, Mobile Computing, New Media, Podcast, Social Networks Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

YouTube and Apple: Together We'll Take Over The World

July 1, 2009 By

Well the online video world at least. The latest statistics on the new iPhone 3GS and YouTube are staggering. The iPhone has a history of taking something that has been around for awhile on other mobile phones and blasting it into the mainstream. Browsing the web was nothing new on a mobile phone when the iPhone was launched, but Apple took it to such a level and made it so easy and fun to do, mobile web traffic has exploded since. Now it’s happening with video. Nokia phones especially have always been great for taking video, but it has taken the new iPhone 3GS with it’s built in video capabilities to make it massively popular. Again, Apple takes mobile video to the next level by allowing simple on phone editing and super simple distribution to YouTube. I’ve always thought mobile video was going to be the next big thing and it looks like the new iPhone is going to confirm that thought.

What does it mean for your business? All this new video is going to drive more people to YouTube to watch. It will solidify YouTube’s dominance in the online video world. If you are doing any kind of video for your company and you do not have a YouTube channel yet, you are passing up a massive opportunity. You simply cannot afford not to be on YouTube. You should also be watching and monitoring YouYube for videos about your company or your industry. What are people saying, what are they thinking? This is the best market research/customer opinion lab you have ever had. You may not like all the content, but you had better pay attention and be ready to respond and engage.

What kind of opportunities are you giving your customers, your raving fans to share their videos? Maybe you should share the best YouTube videos on your main website. What other ways can you encourage people to create good video content about your company? These are the kinds of things you should be brainstorming with your social media consultant. Don’t have one? You might want to give me a call, I’m happy to help.

Filed Under: Blog, Mobile Computing, Video Tagged With: , , , ,

Flight To Open Source

June 3, 2008 By

Weather it’s attributable to a fear of Google Open Social or increasingly savvy executives there is a real movement to open up social network platforms. Facebook has been the hottest network of late but is also once of the most closed and restricted. Not anymore as Facebook announces an open platform. Not to be outdone, Myspace also has plans to open it’s code. What the open platforms will do is enable outside developers to create extensions and addons to these services. New features will not be solely at the mercy of the original developer.

Within five years it’s going to be hard to run any kind of web service or application that is not open source, or at least provide a strong set of open API’s. This is part of the new paradigm of Internet business. Open Source has been around for years, but only now it is really starting to take hold. This is partly why Google has the strategic advantage over Microsoft as we move into the future. Open Source is built into the Google DNA. Microsoft has been built on the concept of proprietary systems and control. Buying Yahoo makes sense for Microsoft not just for their search advertising program, but for the Yahoo culture and philosophy. Yahoo also has Open Source built in. If Microsoft would allow some of that to seep in, it could benefit them emencly.

Filed Under: Blog, Social Networks Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Google Android is Coming

April 23, 2008 By

According to reports T-Mobile will be first out of the gate with mobile phones based on the new Google Android specification. I am excited to see what becomes of this and I hope Android phones are sucessful. We need more competition in the mobile market when it comes to software. Palm has been left for dead and Nokia is not a player outside of Europe. The iphone has been the only real breath of fresh air in the market in years.

Although many will play it off as such, I don’t see Android as competition as much for the iPhone as it is for Microsoft and Windows Mobile. Google is taking the Microsoft approach, not focusing on hardware at all, but providing a software platform upon which many phones can be built. Apple’s iPhone is a unique experience unto itself and I think it will continue to stand apart. The pressure is really going to be on for Microsoft to make Windows Mobile more compelling.

What all this means in general is that the mobile market will continue to accelerate and companies had better start thinking about how mobile fits into their plans. Already I am disappointed that my bank Washington Mutual has no mobile access to their online banking. Customers will soon factor mobile access into their buying decisions when looking at things like online banking and bill payment.

Synchronization features will also be an important part of any new product or service. Ideally I want my data synced between my desktop, mobile and Internet. Evernote is a new note taking program that I am loving and it does a masterful job of synchronization. All they need now is a better iPhone client.

Filed Under: Blog, Mobile Computing, Technology Tagged With: , , , ,
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