Google+1 launched this week, and it seems most people think its sort of cool but just another version of Facebook. I feel that most are missing the "big picture" just by looking at the desktop interface and not all of the features included. Technology introduces the means in which we consume and interact with the world and the people in it. Figuring out "Mobile" is the big thing and Google seems to have seen the light.
Huddle, a feature that is restricted only to Android users (hopefully just for now), allows people to communicate with their circles, setup events, and give updates to those events via mobile group chat in real time. Such a cool feature that at the very least this (ME) individual could use on his Friday/Saturday night adventures.
This ability to take all of those useful functionality of a social network with you, and use them real-time to augment daily experiences is the penultimate "next-big-thing" that is actually already here. Keep in mind that the product is still in "beta", its user-base is slowly but steadily trickling in, and too me the most important feature is limited to Android smart phones only. Still....bravo Google. Something might finally just start to stick :)
Best Regards,
The Marketing Ninja
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Bing Chief Challenges Google "My Search Kung Fu Is Stronger"
Bing Chief Challenges Google "My Search Kung Fu Is Stronger"
This week Bing has released deep integration with Facebook and its search engine. Now things that your friends like/recommend command a high presence in your search results (i.e. if i am looking for sushi and a bunch of friends recommend one place...then it will show up in my search results showing my friends that like/recommend the location). Personally i think this type of partnership for search is amazing. It reinforces the mantra of helping people enrich their lives through search by tightly integrating social networking features right into search results. Effectively it leverages existing conversations and forms new ones by doing so.
All in all, the bar has been set. Google is working hard to bring its +1 feature into full swing but i have a feeling that its functionality and use will pale in comparison to the type of tight integration that Bing has with technology people already care about and use. How many people have set-up a Google profile already? Exactly....
This should make it more imperative than ever that companies have cross- functioning pr, social media and search teams to get the most bang for their digital buck. Especially now in some circles that a Facebook like can directly influence an individuals organi-social (yes i just made up that word)search results.
Best Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja
This week Bing has released deep integration with Facebook and its search engine. Now things that your friends like/recommend command a high presence in your search results (i.e. if i am looking for sushi and a bunch of friends recommend one place...then it will show up in my search results showing my friends that like/recommend the location). Personally i think this type of partnership for search is amazing. It reinforces the mantra of helping people enrich their lives through search by tightly integrating social networking features right into search results. Effectively it leverages existing conversations and forms new ones by doing so.
All in all, the bar has been set. Google is working hard to bring its +1 feature into full swing but i have a feeling that its functionality and use will pale in comparison to the type of tight integration that Bing has with technology people already care about and use. How many people have set-up a Google profile already? Exactly....
This should make it more imperative than ever that companies have cross- functioning pr, social media and search teams to get the most bang for their digital buck. Especially now in some circles that a Facebook like can directly influence an individuals organi-social (yes i just made up that word)search results.
Best Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja
Monday, April 18, 2011
Google Is Serious About Social
http://searchengineland.com/report-google-ceo-page-ties-bonuses-to-social-success-reorganizes-google-mgmt-team-72197
When Larry Page said he wanted to have a social layer applied to Google he wasn't kidding. Apparently he didn't like the direction the company was taking. Schmidt started focusing on developing software for enterprises to nip closer to the heels of Microsoft. This has only caused Microsoft to fire back with better more competitively priced alternatives that further entrench it as the exemplar for business software solutions. (sorry for the msft tangent).
This "social layer" is currently taking bits and pieces from current social network stars Facebook and Twitter (as in twitter and facebook have the opportunity to make your page rank higher in search. This is based on a combination of how many friends/followers an individual has and how many people retweet etc etc) but ultimately, Larry still wants Google to have a proprietary social network.
One of Larrys major change to the business regards employee compensation. Google is now basing internal bonuses on how "social" the work of its employees are. An employees bonus could either by 25% more or less depending on the metrics being used to gauge success.
In my previous blog post i go over the new Google +1 feature and how i feel it will ultimately fail as a social networking tool, but succeed because businesses want their online content/advertisements to rank higher by getting people with "Google Profiles" to "+1" their content. http://the-marketing-ninja.blogspot.com/2011/04/google-social-30-like-remixed.html.
Google Profiles allow you to tag your email address to a face. It gives you the opportunity to say a little bit about you, the work you have done, share pictures from Picasa and a few other limiting features. This oddly seems like how Myspace/Facebook started out? Honestly, do we need another profile page. I know most people who have made one just set it up...then forgot about it. What is the real value in something that you do not use?
I learned from a great professor that people who just say "we will just have to wait and see" will always be left in the dust. I already know that this will fail in a social sense, sure it is cool to get recommendations from my friends that have gmail accounts but that is making a broad assessment from Google. Most other people i know that have gmail accounts are not my friends but classmates i have had to collaborate with or other random people. Most of my friends that i would want to get recommendations from are not on gmail, but are on Facebook. I know that this is a pretty biased perspective but honestly not everyone has a gmail account and not everyone is going to go out, get a gmail account and create a Google profile just for this feature. I think it required too much effort from individuals when they can get a better experience from pre-existing social networks.
Side Note: I do not hate Google in anyway, i just like to give(take) objective constructive criticism. Without the multiple SEO guides, webmaster tools, analytics software, advertising and webmaster blogs that they provide for free i would not have as robust a knowledge of SEO/Search as i do now.
Best Regards,
Antonio Esposito
When Larry Page said he wanted to have a social layer applied to Google he wasn't kidding. Apparently he didn't like the direction the company was taking. Schmidt started focusing on developing software for enterprises to nip closer to the heels of Microsoft. This has only caused Microsoft to fire back with better more competitively priced alternatives that further entrench it as the exemplar for business software solutions. (sorry for the msft tangent).
This "social layer" is currently taking bits and pieces from current social network stars Facebook and Twitter (as in twitter and facebook have the opportunity to make your page rank higher in search. This is based on a combination of how many friends/followers an individual has and how many people retweet etc etc) but ultimately, Larry still wants Google to have a proprietary social network.
One of Larrys major change to the business regards employee compensation. Google is now basing internal bonuses on how "social" the work of its employees are. An employees bonus could either by 25% more or less depending on the metrics being used to gauge success.
In my previous blog post i go over the new Google +1 feature and how i feel it will ultimately fail as a social networking tool, but succeed because businesses want their online content/advertisements to rank higher by getting people with "Google Profiles" to "+1" their content. http://the-marketing-ninja.blogspot.com/2011/04/google-social-30-like-remixed.html.
Google Profiles allow you to tag your email address to a face. It gives you the opportunity to say a little bit about you, the work you have done, share pictures from Picasa and a few other limiting features. This oddly seems like how Myspace/Facebook started out? Honestly, do we need another profile page. I know most people who have made one just set it up...then forgot about it. What is the real value in something that you do not use?
I learned from a great professor that people who just say "we will just have to wait and see" will always be left in the dust. I already know that this will fail in a social sense, sure it is cool to get recommendations from my friends that have gmail accounts but that is making a broad assessment from Google. Most other people i know that have gmail accounts are not my friends but classmates i have had to collaborate with or other random people. Most of my friends that i would want to get recommendations from are not on gmail, but are on Facebook. I know that this is a pretty biased perspective but honestly not everyone has a gmail account and not everyone is going to go out, get a gmail account and create a Google profile just for this feature. I think it required too much effort from individuals when they can get a better experience from pre-existing social networks.
Side Note: I do not hate Google in anyway, i just like to give(take) objective constructive criticism. Without the multiple SEO guides, webmaster tools, analytics software, advertising and webmaster blogs that they provide for free i would not have as robust a knowledge of SEO/Search as i do now.
Best Regards,
Antonio Esposito
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Google Social 3.0: "Like" Remixed
(apologies outright for any spelling/grammatical errors. Blogger has been giving me issues lately)
Lets take a look at Google's attempts to enter into the US Social Networking industry. Google likes to first attempt and acquire companies in new business areas that it wants to break into. If that fails then they attempt to create a competing product. With regards to US Social Networking, this strategy is a bust.
2003: After the failed takeover bid for one of the original Social Networking companies Friendster, Google sets it eyes to create its own service to compete in the market. Okrut was born, but so far has only performed will in India and Brazil and did not see much success within the US.
2010: Google Buzz was supposed to change the way that people lived and collaborated with each other. The initial announcement of this product made many social networks nervous as it was going to be run out of Gmail accounts and would launch with millions of users worldwide.The beta had some promising features but the overall usability was extremely cumbersome and not intuitive. This is coming from someone who beta tested the product and knew right away that it wasn't going to take off.
One of the main issues with Buzz was that when it was released it was done so to all Gmail account members, without their knowledge and immediately began sharing information. The public outrage at such an outright violation of privacy has put a ten year long SEC privacy audit on Google that could hinder the future performance and creativity of the company.
2011: It is one year later and Google has released individual profile pages for users. Take a look at mine https://profiles.google.com/AEsposito88/about. Could this be the precursor to Googles new, simplified approach at building their own social network?
Googles Facebook Like
Googles +1 and its affect on PPC
This article on the new Google +1 feature almost solidifies my assumption. The +1 feature is going to be the google version of a like/retweet and it will require users to have a Google Profile in order to +1 an advertisement/webpage. Google has stated that the amount of +1 and how many of your Gmail "contacts" that +1 a Google search result will affect its search ranking.
Do i think this will be successful? Yes and no.
Yes, I strongly believe that it will be successful for Big Brands and SEO companies as they would not only get the most value out of this feature, but they would have a large fan base and/or employees to gain +1's from. Some companies could even make it an initiative that all employees create a profile and +1 the webpage/advertisements. (unless this would be against +1 guidelines) The main advantage of this would hopefully be higher search standings and higher CTR for advertisements.
No, i believe it will fail for the individual user and as a type of social network. I have doubts that most people will go out of their way to create a Google profile just to +1 an advertisement or webpage. I hate to say this but we will just have to wait and see what happens. You can bet yourself that i will be keeping an eye on the implementation and success/failure of the Google +1.
Best Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja
Lets take a look at Google's attempts to enter into the US Social Networking industry. Google likes to first attempt and acquire companies in new business areas that it wants to break into. If that fails then they attempt to create a competing product. With regards to US Social Networking, this strategy is a bust.
2003: After the failed takeover bid for one of the original Social Networking companies Friendster, Google sets it eyes to create its own service to compete in the market. Okrut was born, but so far has only performed will in India and Brazil and did not see much success within the US.
2010: Google Buzz was supposed to change the way that people lived and collaborated with each other. The initial announcement of this product made many social networks nervous as it was going to be run out of Gmail accounts and would launch with millions of users worldwide.The beta had some promising features but the overall usability was extremely cumbersome and not intuitive. This is coming from someone who beta tested the product and knew right away that it wasn't going to take off.
One of the main issues with Buzz was that when it was released it was done so to all Gmail account members, without their knowledge and immediately began sharing information. The public outrage at such an outright violation of privacy has put a ten year long SEC privacy audit on Google that could hinder the future performance and creativity of the company.
2011: It is one year later and Google has released individual profile pages for users. Take a look at mine https://profiles.google.com/AEsposito88/about. Could this be the precursor to Googles new, simplified approach at building their own social network?
Googles Facebook Like
Googles +1 and its affect on PPC
This article on the new Google +1 feature almost solidifies my assumption. The +1 feature is going to be the google version of a like/retweet and it will require users to have a Google Profile in order to +1 an advertisement/webpage. Google has stated that the amount of +1 and how many of your Gmail "contacts" that +1 a Google search result will affect its search ranking.
Do i think this will be successful? Yes and no.
Yes, I strongly believe that it will be successful for Big Brands and SEO companies as they would not only get the most value out of this feature, but they would have a large fan base and/or employees to gain +1's from. Some companies could even make it an initiative that all employees create a profile and +1 the webpage/advertisements. (unless this would be against +1 guidelines) The main advantage of this would hopefully be higher search standings and higher CTR for advertisements.
No, i believe it will fail for the individual user and as a type of social network. I have doubts that most people will go out of their way to create a Google profile just to +1 an advertisement or webpage. I hate to say this but we will just have to wait and see what happens. You can bet yourself that i will be keeping an eye on the implementation and success/failure of the Google +1.
Best Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Facebook Deals Lands In Europe!
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/Facebook_deals_launches_in_Europe.php
This is more of a supercharged prong aimed at Foursquare! Sign into Facebook and register using Facebook Places and shaazzzaaaammmm! Supa Deals!
The deals honestly are pretty legitimate and should be fairly successful. 20% off a Mazda MX5! This could go up against some group deal sites (Groupon watch out!). Looks like the recent Foursquare business promotion revamps were badly needed. Will it be enough to compete against the social media powerhouse Facebook.
I will be keeping my eye on this closely.
Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja
This is more of a supercharged prong aimed at Foursquare! Sign into Facebook and register using Facebook Places and shaazzzaaaammmm! Supa Deals!
The deals honestly are pretty legitimate and should be fairly successful. 20% off a Mazda MX5! This could go up against some group deal sites (Groupon watch out!). Looks like the recent Foursquare business promotion revamps were badly needed. Will it be enough to compete against the social media powerhouse Facebook.
I will be keeping my eye on this closely.
Regards,
-The Marketing Ninja
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