Facebook vs. Google+: User Focused vs. Brand Focused

FROM: http://blog.involver.com/2012/01/20/facebook-vs-google-user-vs-brand-focused/

It’s no secret for anyone that Google has wanted to create a social network to compete with Facebook’s huge popularity for quite some time. That’s why Google+ was created. Now after almost 7 months after its launch, Google+ is considered by many the biggest rival of Facebook for supremacy in social media.

Google+’s growth is amazing, at around 10 million users a month, so the question asked is whether it will overcome Facebook as the number one social media network worldwide. No one knows the answer yet, but the most probable scenario is that they both coexist (as much as it is now, but with Google+ possibly gaining a bit more attention gradually). However, in what way they will coexist?

A big possibility is that Facebook will continue to be a tool for users to get in touch with old college friends, to share a music video to people they like or to show their photos of last month’s ski trip. Google+, on the other hand, is a way to find out more about your favorite brand of clothing’s new collection or how others feel about that Italian restaurant across the street from work, as it is much more brand oriented with Circles.

 

Social Networking for Users

For users, Facebook is still usually the number one option for social networks, as it already has a base of 800 million users around the world, of which approximately 50% log in on a daily basis, uploading about 250 million pictures a day. But it is more than that: “Facebook me” is now a pretty well consolidated verb especially among young people, and the whole Facebook culture is a part of almost everyone’s life, which includes a movie and a dozen books about Mark Zuckerberg and so on.

For the moment, Google+ has around 65 million users and doesn’t yet have the popularity of Facebook. However, the fact that it is a product from one of the world’s biggest and most respected companies helps create quite a buzz. The social network itself has many of the same features as Facebook, but it currently does not share some of the most popular Facebook’s features, such as the ticker and the newly released Timeline.

 

Social Networking for Brands

From a brand’s perspective, Google+ can also be a great tool to get in touch with your customers. In its recently launched Google+ fan pages, the internet giant company has added some very interesting features, which should create an intense competition in the business field against Facebook. It is true that Facebook allows companies to create several tabs, with contests, coupons, Twitter feeds and Flickr, just to name a few, while Google+ currently allows companies to have one front page with posts, a tab with information and standard tabs for photos and videos. We are interested to see what other attributes are added to brand pages in the future.

Sony's page on Facebook, including several different tabs

At first sight, this would mean that Facebook has an advantage over Google+. But if we take some time to analyze Google+’s tools for brands, the story changes and we find that both platforms offer unique business solutions. Below are some of the features offered by Google+:

• Segmentation: Google+ Circles allow companies to segment their followers into many different categories, as the company can add each person to a different circle, according to their category (or even to more than one category). Whether it is by age, location or product preferences, the company can target a specific audience and share content with just a part of its followers, taking into consideration that only a part of them will be interested in a given subject. For example: a shoe company can create two different circles: one for men and one for women, and share content for new shoes for men only in one circle, allowing them to target the message to that specific audience.

• Google+ Direct Connect: users can find Google+ brand pages by searching “+” followed by the name of the company on Google;

• Integration with Google search: if your friends on Google+ recommend a brand or company through the “+1” button featured on the top left corner, the chances are that it will appear earlier on a Google search.

• Integration with Google AdWords: users will be able to “+1” (or recommend) companies’ ads on Google, and the chances that a friend will see this ad on Google search will grow as the number of recommendations increases. On Facebook, a similar feature is available, with the new “featured ads”, which are ads placed on the users’ news feed, according to the users’ friend’s likes. But this Facebook search feature is only visible on Facebook itself, not on Google, which is the biggest search website on the internet.

• Hangouts: Google+ allows companies to interact with its customers via video conversation with up to 9 users at a time, which means faster feedback, better interactions and a bigger opportunity to know the customers better. Allowing brands to help them with any doubts or problems or to demonstrate some new product or features to potential buyers.

Sony's page on Google+, including the "+1" button for recommendations

Needless to say that while Google+ is still expanding and growing in popularity, it can be a powerful tool for companies and brands, in the near future for social media marketing, in addition to Facebook. Some brands have already realized the value behind Google+. From the 100 top global brands, 77 now have a Google+ page, while 93 have a Facebook page.

Hopes are High for 'Workplace Facebook'

FROM: http://abcnews.go.com/International/hopes-high-workplace-facebook/story?id=15401212&singlePage=true

By Christopher Cottrell in Berlin, SPIEGEL

Jan. 21, 2012

With more than a million downloads of its first app and a big investment from Skype's co-founder, 6Wunderkinder is already a significant player in the Berlin start-up scene. It now wants to establish itself as a major European company with the soon-to-be-released Wunderkit, a "Facebook for the workplace."

Thirteen years ago, a young boy with a knack for technology holed himself up in his parents' attic in a small town near Berlin to tinker with his mother's new computer. That was back in the days of QBasic and Delphi Pascal, programming languages whose zenith coincided with the rise of Microsoft DOS.

"I was the only one who used the computer, and I think I destroyed it every week," says Christian Reber, co-founder and CEO of 6Wunderkinder. "Each time, a guy from the IT department had to come by and repair it, but after a while I understood how everything worked and I could do it myself."

It wouldn't take long for a teenage Reber to outshine most of his high school computing class. He improved his geek cred by studying math and computer science at Berlin's Technical University. Fast forward to today and Reber finds himself at the helm of 6Wunderkinder, a fast-rising start-up based in the German capital where antiquated programming languages have been replaced by iPads, iPhones and cloud computing.

No Place Like Home

Tucked away in a quiet corner of Berlin's central Mitte district, 6Wunderkinder earns its bread and butter developing smartphone and web-based productivity software. With the November 2010 release of "Wunderlist," a souped-up to-do list for smartphones and desktops, the company was quickly established as one of the better-known up-and-coming Berlin start-up firms. Reber claims the company broke the one-million user mark nearly twice as fast as geo-location app Foursquare and three times as fast a Twitter. Its next product, Wunderkit, is coming soon.

The name of the company is a nod to its six co-founders, including Reber, who are friends and all have roots in the region. Reber hails from Brandenburg an der Havel, a small town about an hour west of Berlin.

But 6Wunderkinder is no Brandenburg garage start-up. It is as international as the city around it. The 28 "wunderkids," as employees here are dubbed, hail from 12 different countries on four continents -- a diversity that Reber attributes to the city's soaring popularity worldwide. The office language is English, which is not unusual for the Berlin start-up scene.

"I think the big difference between all the other tech cities is that Berlin is really a city where people want to live," he says.

Reber attributes 6Wunderkinder's early success to the fact that, as he claims, it was the first in the world to create a full product with technology from the developing platform Appcelerator Titanium, which streamlines the process of making products compatible with various operating systems -- whether it be Windows, Android or Apple's iOS.

By allowing up to 90 percent of the code from the desktop app to be ported over to other device platforms, 6Wunderkinder was able to launch five new products within four months.

"If you're that fast, getting to a million users isn't that hard," Reber says. "But, honestly, we were surprised too." The app's international popularity has helped attract attention to the company from far outside Germany.

A Major Investment

Initially, Wunderlist was only meant to test the waters. It was intended as a project to help the team determine the best way to develop cross-platform software and learn the ropes of how app stores work.

Wunderlist is relatively simple, allowing users to create lists and share them with friends and colleagues and sync them to the cloud so that they can be retrieved on any smartphone or computer. The influential Lifehacker blog describes it as "simple" and "elegant."

Even though it would eventually grow into a successful product, co-founder and designer Jan Martin says the company deliberately held back in development, saving the best for Wunderkit, which he and colleagues describe as a sort of "Facebook for work" that will enable colleagues from all over the world to exchange information on projects they are working on.

The as yet unreleased app has generated considerable buzz in the Berlin start-up scene, even attracting a round of funding from Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström's London-based venture capital firm Atomico, which announced a €3.1 million investment in 6Wunderkinder late last year.

"6Wunderkinder have developed a fantastic product that can be used around the world," the Swedish Skype co-founder recently told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper. "And they are a team that works together very well."

A Pivotal Year

Other sources of funding include T-Venture, the corporate venture arm of Deutsche Telekom, and the High-Tech Gründerfonds, a mixed private-public initiative of the German government and major companies that invests in young start-up firms.

And 2012 promises to be a pivotal year for the company. After months of development and hard work, Wunderkit was finally released into private beta this week, with a select few being given early access to what is still a work in progress.

The company has described Wunderkit as a "blend of a social network and online working space for the individual," a productivity application which has carried forward the sleek and user-friendly characteristics of Wunderlist. It allows users to create workspaces for different collaborative projects -- work-related, perhaps, or maybe for a sports team or a planned trip -- which can be shared with friends and family, and kept private or made public.

Within the workspaces, there are dashboards, notes and tasks, to keep track of what you need to do. It has many of the functions you would find in a social network or a to-do list application, and 6Wunderkinder is hoping it will prove even more popular than its older brother. It is due to go into open beta on February 1.

"It's a little bit Facebook, a little bit Twitter and a totally new way to do productivity and to work," Reber says. "If Wunderlist was the iPod, then Wunderkit will be the iPhone." And when it comes to Apple analogies, Reber is anything but modest. "We really want to create the next Apple," he says.

Social search is finally here - so how should you respond?

FROM: http://www.mycustomer.com/topic/marketing/social-search-finally-here-so-how-should-you-respond/135884

Posted by Andreas Pouros in Marketing, Social CRM on Mon, 16/01/2012 - 01:10

Andreas Pouros explains the impact of Google's imminent integration of Google+ into its search results - and why brands shouldn't ignore it.

Google has revealed it will imminently be integrating Google+ into its search results, to deliver search results that better reflect user preferences and also incorporate content shared by people in their respective Google+ Circles. This is a major change to how Google’s search results are assembled and something brands and business with an online presence cannot afford to ignore. Moreover, with soon to be released research from Greenlight indicating Facebook could potentially capture 22% of the global search market were it to launch its own search engine tomorrow, this move by Google has not come a minute too soon.

This is perhaps the biggest change to Google in the last five years and, as such, must not be overlooked by online players. It is a huge opportunity for them to increase their rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPS) and also extend their search presence into the realms of customer relationship management (CRM), public relations (PR) and more.

So, what will actually be changing?

It is important to stress the fundamentals are not changing; they are just being supplemented by social elements. Natural search results will remain and will be determined in the same way as they are now (relevant content + links + engagement signals). Paid Search ads will still operate within the same model. That said, the changes are significant and breathe life into something we could call ‘Social Search’, something we at Greenlight have been expecting for a while and are incredibly excited about.

The key changes in a nutshell:

 

1. Google+ content to be integrated into the SERPs

For businesses with a Google+ Brand page, any content posted will appear within the organic search results of the user that has the respective firm in their circles, assuming it is deemed relevant to the users’ search. This can be beneficial (Google+ content produced by the business gets wide exposure) or a threat (a negative review of the firm posted by someone with an extensive Circle membership will get increased exposure). The opportunity here is that great viral content created by the business could then be shared by lots of people and therefore appear in the results for lots of people.

2. Relevant Google+ Brand pages to be showcased in the SERPs

Google will be suggesting relevant Google+ profiles to follow in the search results when searches are made. For instance, if you searched for ‘music’, Google would display options for you to add the Brand pages of ‘Britney Spears’, ‘Snoop Dog’, etc. to your circles. If you then did that, their content would appear regularly in your search results. This could be beneficial as this promotion of Google+ Brand pages to the populace will grow the number of people who add the respective brand to their Circles, giving brands a captive audience to market to and consolidate their presence in their future search results. There are a number of threats here too though – if brands do not have a Google+ page right now, they potentially leave themselves open to their branded search results being hijacked by people pretending to be their brand. In addition, the respective brand will not be amassing people who have added it to their Circles, whilst the brand’s competitors might be. This will obviously result in reduced visibility and mindshare over time.

 

How to respond

Businesses and brands wanting to take advantage of these changes (or not fall victim to them) would need to undertake several activities:

 

1. Create a Google+ Brand page immediately

This would need to be carefully put together to ensure that it appears official, useful and worthy of people adding to their Circles. It should also be optimised to ensure it ranks for relevant brand search terms.

2. Put a Google+ content strategy in place

Once a Google+ company/brand page has been constructed, there will need to be a content strategy designed to deliver high quality, engaging content, consistently to that audience (i.e. daily!). Content that not only begs to be shared, but also which uses search terms and themes the target audience might be searching for, therefore increasing and broadening rankings. For instance, if you are a company that sells computer games, you would want to have regular Google+ content showing the top 10 most purchased games (or anything else we know people are searching for in Google). If consumers have you in their Circles, they will see this content in their search results when they conduct relevant searches. It will also encourage others to add you to their Circles too. Content essentially needs to be used to increase the company/brand exposure to those consumers that already have them in their Circle and also compel others to add them for the first time because there is an incentive to do so. This should be aligned to the list of search terms the brand/company already targets in natural and paid search.

3. Benchmark your activity against the competition

As with most things, it is important to ensure close tabs are kept on how well competitors are doing – particularly in terms of the number of people that have added them to their Circles over time.

Andreas Pouros is chief operating officer at Greenlight. He has been involved in search marketing for over twelve years, working for some of the biggest and most prestigious global blue chip companies.

Google Turns Their Maps Into a 3D Maze Game To Promote Google+

FROM: http://gizmodo.com/5876145/google-turns-their-maps-into-a-3d-maze-game-to-promote-google%252B

Social gaming was a big part of Facebook's success, so in a continued effort to get more people using Google+, the search giant has created a promo video for an upcoming game that turns their maps into a playable labyrinth.

I actually adore these types of maze games, and they're particularly fun on motion sensitive devices like the iPhone. But they usually have you directing a small ball towards an ultimate goal. The only objective I can see here is fulfilling Google's desire to boost Google+'s user-base. So in the end the only real winner is Google itself as it attempts to play catchup to Facebook. That still sounds fun right? [Google Maps via Mashable]

How Larry Page Plans To Change Google Forever In 2012 (GOOG)

FROM: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/01/13/businessinsiderhow-larry-page-plans.DTL

Matt Rosoff, provided by

Business Insider January 13, 2012 04:00 AM

Friday, January 13, 2012

For a long time, Google was boring.

It bought companies and buried them. It released new products, like Buzz and Wave, that nobody cared about.

Larry Page started to change that when he reclaimed control of the company last spring.

He cut a bunch of failures, put new leaders in charge, launched the company's first ever successful social product, Google+, and dropped more than $12 billion on a phone manufacturer, Motorola.

Some of these ideas might turn out to be stupid or not work out the way he expected. But at least they're not boring.

Page says Google is no longer a "search company." He says its model is: invent wild thing that will help humanity, get them adopted by users, profit, and then use the corporate structure to keep inventing new things.

So what does Larry have up his sleeve this year?

An Android tablet that doesn't suck

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt tipped this one last month, telling an Italian newspaper that Google will "market a tablet of the highest quality" in the next six months.

So far, most Android tablets have flopped (except for Amazon's Kindle Fire, which is only Android way deep down and has no connections to Google services), and the platform is infuriatingly buggy and unreliable.

That has to change. So Google will probably to take an approach like it has with the Nexus Android phones, working closely with one hardware partner to create the ideal Android tablet.

A pay TV service

This one has been rumored since last fall.

Google is moving all the pieces into place -- Motorola can provide the set top boxes, Google TV is the software, and the fiber optic network in Kansas City provides the pipe. It's even got a great original content channel in YouTube.

Now all it needs are some big content deals like the cable TV providers have.

Billions to spend on video content

Last year, Google was close to dropping $4 billion to buy Hulu, but couldn't quite reach terms -- Google wanted to be sure it could extend Hulu's content deals for longer than Hulu's owners were willing to offer them.

So why not license the content directly from media companies just like Comcast and every cable company does today? Sure, it would cost billions, but Google would be able to bolster a lot of its newer products, from Android tablets to Google TV, and would have a whole new advertising business to mine.

 

A cutting edge Android phone that sells for next to nothing

Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider

Back when Google hatched the idea for Android, the company envisioned giving away phones for free then making it up on ad sales. But the carriers and handset makers had other plans, and Google was reduced to their demands to get distribution.

But Android is established now -- consumers know the brand and there are hundreds of thousands of apps for it. Once Google owns Motorola, it could take another shot at this dream by building a cutting-edge handset, reserving all the best new Android features and Google services (like video) for it, and subsidizing the heck out of it to undercut the iPhone and every other competitive Android phone on the market.

Google's Android partners would hate it, but the carriers might not mind -- as long as it would get even more people consuming huge amounts of data.

 

Retail stores

Coming someday?

Last year, Google opened its first retail outlet in London. It was just a small "store within a store," but that's exactly how Microsoft started its own retail push a couple years ago.

What would they sell? Android phones and tablets, Google TVs, and maybe even Chromebooks -- if anybody wanted to buy them.

 

Google+ everywhere

Google +

Google got some flak this week for starting to feature Google+ pages more prominently in search results, but that's not going to stop the company from putting Google+ anywhere and everywhere.

By the end of 2012, look for Google+ to be in Google TV (imagine Hangouts on a big screen), Gmail (it's a no-brainer to make it easy to add contacts to Circles and vice-versa), and Google advertising products (allowing advertisers to target ads more accurately based on Google+ profiles, connections, and interests).

There may even be a special version of Google+ for the enterprise, allowing employees to communicate with coworkers the same way they interact with their friends.

 

A real enterprise push

AP

Yesterday, Google named a woman with serious enterprise chops to its board of directors -- Diane Greene, who cofounded VMware.

This could be the year that Google finally puts serious development resources behind Google Docs to turn it into a real competitor, rather than a mere annoyance, to Microsoft's core business. It could also surprise by acquiring some of the new crop of cloud-based enterprise startups like Box, Yammer, Huddle, or the like.

Free Chromebooks

via Frostwire on Flickr

Chromebooks are a flop in the consumer market -- they've only sold 30,000 units this year, according to some reports.

But last year at Google I/O, Google presented a plan for Chromebooks that almost makes sense: sell them to cost-conscious enterprises, like schools and government agencies. They're easy to use, have low zero support costs, and Google guarantees hardware upgrades.

If Google really wants to get serious about taking business away from Microsoft, it could give the Chromebooks away for free as an incentive to switch to Apps.

 

Self-driving cars -- really

DoNotLick via Flickr

Google's self-driving cars have a team of at least 50 working on them, and the company is starting to talk to major car manufacturers.

In 2012, we might actually see these cars -- or at least hear Google explain when and how we can get a ride in one. Will we have to buy them? Rent them? Use them like a taxi service?

 

More ad campaigns

YouTube

Remember when Google never advertised? That started to change last year with billboards for Chrome, and especially toward the end of the year with a couple of TV ads for Google+, like this one featuring the Muppets.

Look for the advertising to pick up in 2012 as Google completes the Motorola deal and looks to push its own hardware.

Cadbury opts for for new product launch on Google+

FROM: http://www.equimedia.co.uk/index.php?id=98&article=801264366

Posted on: 13/01/2012

Chocolate maker Cadbury gave a fillip to Google bosses by turning to the search giant's new social network to launch its latest product.

The firm unveiled its new Dairy Milk Bubbly bar on Google+ to under 3,000 fans before revealing it to the thousands more followers it has on Facebook or Twitter.

It was launched with just a photo of the bar accompanied by this post: "Remember this moment: the first time Cadbury revealed a new product on Google+.

"The delicious new Dairy Milk Bubbly, available with milk or white bubbles, will be the first of many we hope."

Cadbury later revealed that the wrapper features augmented reality technology Blippar that allows smartphone users to access additional content online.

In 2011, the chocolate firm teamed up with Blippar to create a game that people could play on their mobile devices simply by pointing the camera at the wrapper of a Spots v Stripes bar.

That used the kind of image recognition technology that other brands, including Tesco, have previously utilised to improve engagement with smartphone owners by delivering extra content.
© Adfero Ltd

Google ties up with O-Zone to provide free Wi Fi

FROM: http://www.mediamughals.com/News/1/4/Article/8928/Google_ties_up_with_O-Zone_to_provide_free_Wi_Fi.htm

January 13, 2012

Source: Media Mughals

By: Anthony Mawrie

Google has announced a a unique marketing initiative with public Wi-Fi provider O-Zone Networks.

The initiative has been taken to encourage mobile internet usage and enabling users to access Google+ and YouTube on their portable devices away from work and home.

Users will now have unlimited access to Google+ on the Wi-Fi network at all O-Zone hotspots across the country. Users will also be enabled to surf and watch videos on for 10 minutes each week free of charge.

The offer will be launched this weekend and will be available for three months across India at all O-Zone Wi-Fi hotspots. O-Zone is also in talks with Google to make the initiative a long term one rather than only for the stipulated three months.

The offer is available for users at outlets like Café Coffee Day, McDonalds, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Costa Coffee, Subway and OM Bookshop among others.

Google Tablet: A True Competitor Against the iPad and Kindle Fire?

FROM: http://news.dice.com/2012/01/06/google-tablet/

BY Andrei C.


Google is preparing to enter in the tablet market with their its own device, Eric Schmidt said recently, though he gave no other details. He said the tablet will continue the “brutal competition between Apple and Google Android” in the mobile market. So it must be big.

Yesterday, we learned from Digitimes that Google is actually working to release a tablet that will compete with Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

The sources believe that Google will launch the own-brand tablet PC in March-April, featuring a 7-inch panel and Android 4.0 with a price less than US$199 to compete against Amazon.

If we focus on this we end up with a big question: Is Google releasing a cheap tablet or an expensive one? Amazon loses money on every Kindle Fire it sells since the manufacturing costs + components exceed the tablet’s price by almost $10. The method behind the madness: Amazon says it’s selling over 1 million units each week–which means 1 million more people each week have a handy device to download books to.

If Google IS planning to release a tablet, it has have two obvious rivals: iPad and Kindle Fire. But how will they do it? Should they release a cheap tablet or an expensive one? Or maybe they will adopt their own idea and release a tablet with specs close to the iPad and price close to the Kindle Fire. That could be great, since Google could afford to lose money on a device. But I doubt this will be their choice.

In any case, I wonder if Google plans to release its tablet at Google I/O 2012 conference, scheduled for June 27-29.

Google, Google+ and search: Maybe it's all an SEO play

FROM: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57358022-92/google-google-and-search-maybe-its-all-an-seo-play/

by Larry Dignan January 12, 2012 10:36 AM PST

The flap over Google's playing up Google+ in its search results continues. Now Harvard professor and security expert Ben Edelman has weighed in on the debate. His argument: By embedding Google+ into search, Google is essentially prodding people to join its social network out of SEO fear.

Edelman has been noting Google's potential favoring of results before. He argues that Google favors its own properties. That debate has gone off the charts on Techmeme.

He sets up his argument against Google's tying of Google+ by comparing it to other services.

I've found more than a dozen Google services receiving favored placement in Google search results. Consider Google Blog Search, Google Book Search, Google Checkout, Google Health, Google Images, Google Maps, Google News, Google Realtime, Google Shopping, and Google Video. Some have developed into solid products with loyal users. Others are far weaker. But each enjoys a level of favored placement in Google search results that other services can only dream of.

Google uses premium placements and traffic guarantees to address the "chicken and egg" problem that undermines the launch of many online businesses. For example, many retailers might be pleased to be listed (and even be willing to pay to be listed) in a review site or product search site that has many readers. But finding those readers cost-effectively requires algorithmic search traffic, which a new site cannot guarantee--hindering the site's efforts to attract advertisers. So too for books, local search, movies, travel, and myriad other sectors. Ordinary sites struggle to overcome these challenges--for example, buying expensive pay-per-click advertising to drive traffic to their sites, or beginning with a period in which they have undesirably few participants. In contrast, anyone assessing the prospects of a new Google service knows that Google can grant its services ample free traffic, on demand and substantially guaranteed. Thus, the success of a new Google service is much more predictable--reducing Google's barriers to expansion into new sectors. Indeed, if partners recognize that Google can send such traffic whenever it chooses to do so, merchants are encouraged to join before Google turns on the spigot.

But then Edelman's argument gets more nuanced. There's also a bit of a confessional that is worth noting as you examine Google's search power. Edelman said:

I joined Google Plus not because I wanted to participate, not to take a look around, but because I perceived that Google would grant my site preferred placement--more algorithmic traffic--if I linked my Google Plus account to my web site and online publications. It's hard to figure out whether I was right. But SEO forums are full of users who had the same idea. So Google can force users to join Google Plus to avoid receiving, or expecting to receive, lower algorithmic search ranking. Certainly myriad sites added Google +1 buttons (giving Google both data and real estate) not because they genuinely wanted Google buttons on their sites, but because they feared others would overtake them in search results if they failed to employ Google's newest service.

In other words, you join Google+ not because you want to, but you have to.

Whether this holds up in court would be an interesting experiment. The argument revolving around Google's power deals with some gray areas.

This item first appeared on ZDNet's Between the Lines blog under the headline "Harvard's Edelman on Google+ and search: I joined Google+ for SEO."

Google’s New Social Results – Just a Google+ Booster, or the Future of Search?

FROM: http://techcocktail.com/googles-new-social-results-just-a-google-booster-or-the-future-of-search-2012-01

BY Kira Newman

Google began rolling out its social search on Tuesday, called “Search, plus Your World.” Now, Google results will pull in content and profiles from Google+.

“We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships,” wrote Google fellow Amit Singhal.

For example, a search for “vacation” will display posts from you and your friends about your recent trips, including photos. On the right hand side, you’ll also see high-profile Google+ users who post often about that topic. Or, you can search specific names to find the profiles of your friends and other famous people on Google+, whom you can add to your circles directly from the results page.

These features extend Google’s experiment with social search, but make results more prominent and highlight Google+ pages.

I’m not too happy with this, but I won’t complain until I’ve tried it. When I’m doing research for an essay or looking up a medical condition, I don’t really care what my layman friends think about the topic. Luckily, you can change your search settings to make “unpersonalized” search the default, although a little icon in the top right corner lets you turn it on when appropriate. You can also sign out of your Google account.

Despite these reservations, the ability to effectively search social content – definitely lacking on Facebook – is a plus (pun intended). In fact, it adds to the value and allure of Google+.

Personal search isn’t enabled for me yet; does it work for you? What do you think?

 

Is Google+ Less Interesting than MySpace? New Data From Users Says Yes

FROM: http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-stats/is-google-less-interesting-than-myspace-new-data-from-users-says-yes/

Jim Tobin January 12, 2012

An interesting nugget or two about Google+, how many people are using it and how long they stick around was hidden in a recent eMarketer newsletter on niche social networks growing in popularity. While most of the data was around fastest growing social networks and which networks worldwide were attracting the most time spent, another chart grabbed my attention.

 

Google Plus’ 15m Users Spend Only 5 Minutes Per Month

While some are claiming that Google+ has skyrocketed to 150 million users (up from 50 million a few months ago), well-regarded comScore Media Metrix found only 15.2 million unique visitors in November 11. That’s about 9% of Facebook’s 166 million unique visitors. Not a bad start, to be sure, but a little less dramatic than the other reports.

But what struck me most is how little time users spends on Google+ when they go. Google+ users spend only 5 minutes per month on the site. That compares to:

• 12 minutes on MySpace (ouch);
• 16 minutes on LinkedIn,
• 24 minutes on Twitter;
• 88 minutes on Pinterest;
• 142 minutes on Tumblr; and
• 394 minutes on Facebook.

So a decent number of users are coming to Google+ (about the same number as Tumblr, but not as many as MySpace), but they’re not seeing much reason to stick around.

 

Don’t Count Out Google+ Just Yet

While these numbers aren’t exactly encouraging (the near term future looks brighter for Pinterest, whose users are clearly loving it), don’t count out Google+ just yet. With the changes they are making to integrate Google+ into search, they are a major player making a major move.

Plus, I remember how slowly other very successful networks started. I was on LinkedIn for about 4 years before I saw much activity from my friends. And I first saw friends using Pinterest about a year or so ago. Suddenly that is what everyone is talking about. So between improvements to the site and the natural growth pattern of social networks, Google+ remains one to watch.

Having said that, if I were working on this network at Google, I’d spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make folks stick around longer.

Google Attempts to Take Down Facebook With ‘Search Plus Your World’ Feature

FROM: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/12/google-attempts-to-take-down-facebook-with-search-plus-your-world-feature.html

Jan 12, 2012 12:05 PM EST

Google risks antitrust claims by tying Google+ social network to its market-leading search engine. But the risk might be worth it to gain access to Facebook’s data, writes Dan Lyons.

 

Google this week made a brazen move when it rolled out a new search feature called “Search Plus Your World,” which brings up results based not only on what’s out there on the Web but also on what you and your friends are doing on the Google+ social network.

The idea, Google claims, is to deliver results that are more personalized and therefore more relevant. Critics say, however, that Google is simply pursuing the same strategy that once got Microsoft into hot water—using a dominant position in one market to gain ground in another.

Microsoft’s problems arose when it tied its Internet Explorer browser to its Windows operating system, a move that helped put browser maker Netscape out of business and made Microsoft the target of a lengthy and damaging antitrust lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice.

Now Google could be facing the same kind of trouble, since it appears to be using its market-leader search engine (which delivers roughly two thirds of all searches in the United States) to prop up its fledgling social network, Google+, which has 40 million members and is trying to compete against Facebook, which has 800 million members.

The howling began almost as soon as Google introduced the new feature earlier this week, from bloggers, pundits, and privacy groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a watchdog group that says it is considering filing a complaint with the FTC.

Screen shot, provided by Google, of a personal results page

Even louder complaints came in from Twitter, whose executives claim Google is unfairly pushing them down in its search rankings, in favor of Google+. Google and Twitter used to have a “partnership,” meaning Google paid Twitter to get access to its data so that it could include Twitter data in search results. But that partnership fell apart last year—although Google says Twitter can renew the deal if it would like to.

But what about Facebook? Strangely enough, so far it has said nothing. And its silence speaks volumes about what Google might really be up to with this “Search Plus Your World” gambit.

Google needs to crack that fence around Facebook—for its own survival.

My theory goes like this: Facebook is sitting on a gold mine, a trove of personal data from 800 million people. Think of that data as a precious ore that lies deep under the ground, stuff that can be mined, processed, and turned into money.

And so far, Facebook has only begun to extract value. In 2011, the company might have done $4 billion in revenue. But that’s just the beginning—many more billions could be extracted from this data.

Better yet, unlike a gold mine with a fixed size, Facebook’s “claim,” or potential revenue from this data, keeps growing as more people join the service. The data Facebook is sitting on represents the biggest and most valuable mountain of data ever amassed.

Google wants to get at that claim. Leave aside the “don’t be evil” rhetoric for a second and just think of it this way: there’s a big pile of money sitting out there, and money is what corporations are all about, and Google is a corporation.

But there’s another angle: Facebook, right now, represents the biggest threat to Google’s existence that has ever come along. For example, Facebook won’t let Google search through its data. The site is walled off. (Think of it as Facebook putting a big fence around its mining claim.) So Facebook could be, in effect, attempting to build its own private Internet—and one that Google has no access to.

This could be devastating to Google. Because its business model is built on the notion of an open Web where everything is available to everyone, and where Google’s little bots can crawl over everything, extracting value from the data.

Google, in other words, needs to crack that fence around Facebook—for its own survival.

If Google can’t get at that mountain of data that Facebook is building, and if the mountain keeps getting bigger, and if other companies start building other walled-off mountains, then eventually Google starts to dwindle away.

This explains almost everything Google does outside of search. It’s all about preventing people from creating little mini-Internets that Google can’t search.

The Android mobile operating system exists almost solely because Google couldn’t risk having Apple, Microsoft, and others create mobile ecosystems where Google search wasn’t used.

Google doesn’t make money on Android—at least not directly. Instead, it gives Android to handset makers at no cost, just to make sure that hundreds of millions, and it hopes someday billions, of people are using devices that have Google search on them.

Google argues that everyone in the world would be better off if all data is available to everyone. No more walled gardens. No more private mini-Internet.

But Facebook is not persuaded by Google’s argument, and for good reason.

Look at what happened to media companies. Newspapers and magazines fell for Google’s line and made all their content available to Google. In part they felt threatened: the fear was that if they didn’t let Google crawl and index their content, they would become essentially invisible on the Internet. Nobody would find their content.

So they played along. In theory this was supposed to be a win-win, since Google would be sending them traffic and they could make money on that traffic. In the end, however, the payoff was a bit lopsided. Media companies went broke chasing digital dimes instead of analog dollars. Google became a company with $30 billion in revenues—and with obscene (nearly 30 percent) net profit margins.

The people running Facebook aren’t as easily gulled as newspaper companies—if only because some of them, such as COO Sheryl Sandberg, were the ones running Google when it ran roughshod over the newspapers.

Sandberg and her colleagues know what Google did to media companies, and they do not intend to suffer the same fate. They’ve told Google: thanks very much, but we’ll keep our precious data to ourselves and do with it as we please.

Who can blame them? Facebook put in years of hard work and spent huge amounts of money building the world’s biggest network of people. Why should Google be allowed to just walk in and start digging through that data?

Facebook does let some companies gain access to its data, but apparently demands ridiculously high prices, so much so that in 2010 Apple walked away from a potential partnership after Facebook demanded what Steve Jobs called “onerous terms.”

Microsoft has made a deal with Facebook that lets Microsoft draw on Facebook data when people do searches on its Bing search engine. Terms are private, but Microsoft is probably paying through the nose. The software giant has lots of money and is desperate for any way to get an edge on Google and catch up in the search market.

Google and Facebook reportedly explored a deal in 2009, but could not agree on terms.

Faced with a roadblock, Google last year came up with a workaround. It launched Google+, a great-looking social network that was in some ways better than Facebook. The site now has 40 million members (some estimates have that number even higher, as much as 62 million) after six months on the market.

Now Google aims to use Google+ to gain leverage with Facebook. Here’s how it might work: Facebook whines to the government that Google is engaging in anticompetitive activity, and Google counters by asking for access to Facebook’s data, and says it will gladly include Facebook results alongside results from Google+.

Basically, Google is trying to use a 40 million-member network as leverage to gain access to an 800 million-member network.

And if Facebook refuses, how can the government tell Google not to crawl its own stuff just because a competitor refuses to share?

An antitrust hearing might be just what Google wants. As Eric Eldon on TechCrunch puts it, Google might even argue that Facebook has been engaging in anticompetitive behavior by building a monopoly in social networking and then striking a deal with Microsoft but refusing to strike a deal with Google—thereby abusing its monopoly power.

If this is the case, Facebook can put up or shut up. Facebook can let Google dig through its data, or keep the fence up and hope that Google+ doesn’t become so big and attractive that people start abandoning Facebook and using Google+ instead.

Google has already presented a similar line of reasoning to Twitter, after that company began whining about Google’s new move. In an official statement, Google commented that it was “a bit surprised by Twitter’s comments about Search plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer.” Since then, Google says, it has “observed … instructions” from Twitter not to crawl its data.

In other words: put up or shut up. Let us crawl your site, preferably at no cost, or go build your own search engine and stop complaining about what we do with ours.

This is Google playing hardball, in a market with tens of billions of dollars at stake. This is a battle over the future of the Internet, and who will rule it. This is Google flirting with an antitrust investigation and betting that it can come out the winner.

The days of peace and love and “don’t be evil” are over.

Online Marketing News: Google+ Who?, Know Thy Customer, Social Media Law, TopRank Team News

FROM: http://www.toprankblog.com/2012/01/online-marketing-news-jan62011/

Ashley Zeckman on Jan 6th, 2012

Who’s Using Google+?

The launch of Google+ in 2011 has put Google in the social networking boxing ring. When it comes to user statistics some of them may surprise you. This infographic by Flowtown shares some interesting information about the increasingly popular social media site.

• 63% of users are male
• Only 17% of users are considered active
• 61% of top 100 brands have a page on Google+

Be sure to connect with TopRank on our Google+ page.

Online Marketing Tips & Tricks

“10 Brand-Building Steps For Beginners” For many companies 2012 marks the year that they will begin implementing a social media strategy. This article provides 10 easy steps for those who have not yet many the plunge into social marketing. Via Fast Company.

“5 Tricks from a LinkedIn Jedi” According to David Gowel many entrepreneurs are not using LinkedIn as well as they could. Gowel also shares 5 key takeaways on marketing using LinkedIn for both newbies and Jedi’s in training. Via Inc.

How Well Do You Know Your Audience?

What Comes Before The Landing Page – The Crucial Role Of Psychology-Driven SEO” While landing page design is important, it is not the most important factor in attracting the right audience. Knowing your prospects, understanding their pain, and speaking their language are all key components of creating a successful landing page. Via Search Engine Land.

“How to know what your audience really wants” Chances are your audience isn’t interested in your sales message, your company news, or hearing from you in general. What they are interested in are answers to their questions and solutions for their problems. How can you stand out from the pack? Answer their questions and let them know why your unique solutions will help solve their problems. Via Chris G.

Internet News Hot Dish

“Daily Report: A Legal Battle Over a Twitter User’s Identity” We find Twitter in the middle of yet another legal battle. This time the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts is attempting to attain information regarding a Twitter account used to share information about the “occupy” protests. What do you think? Should this information be shared? Via New York Times.

“5 Predictions for Social Media Law in 2012” In 2011 there were numerous court battles caused by information shared via social networks. As more and more companies begin utilizing social media as a sales and marketing tool we can except to see even more court battles, and laws being passed. This article shares 5 predictions for changes to the law in 2012. Via Mashable.

“Social marketing gems: Tools to make sense of chaos” A social media strategy is only effective if you can measure it’s success. Christopher Hosford shares four tools that can help measure, promote, and respond to your social media activity. Via BtoB.

“Google Announces “Megasitelinks,” Image Search Improvements & Better Byline Dates” Starting in November 2011 Google began releasing a monthly overview of site changes to the public. The release for December included over 30 changes! This article provides a peak into some of the changes you may not be aware of. Via Search Engine Land.

The TopRank Report = News from Our Team

Ken Horst – Branded Content Advertising Spend At All Time High
Branded content advertising hit an all time high in 2011. In addition, 16% of companies surveyed said they would be aggressively shifting from traditional marketing to branded content in 2012. Via MediaPost.

Top 3 reasons companies listed for using branded content;
1. Educate customers
2. Customer retention
3. Brand loyalty

Brian Larson – Google+ Sees Massive Membership Growth
I think this is a fascinating story detailing the resurgence of Google+. With the use of the social network flattening out in October, this new growth (largely the result of Google+ Business Pages) makes the social network that much more relevant to our audience. Via Mashable.

Alexis Hall – NSTIC, Google & SEO
This interesting story features a video discussing the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) and the Identity Ecosystem, and what it means that sites like Google, PayPal and Equifax are now credentialed providers. The article discusses the impact of credentialed providers on online privacy, data collection and why any of it matters for SEO. Via Search Engine Watch.

Emily Conley – The 5 Things Yahoo’s New CEO Scott Thompson Should Do Right Away
This article outlines 5 things that newly appointed Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson (former president of PayPal) should do immediately to leave his mark on the Yahoo brand:

• Move on the buyout position – China-based web firm Alibaba (40% Yahoo owned) has expressed interest in purchasing Yahoo
• Fix the board – The board’s June 2010 failure to oust CEO Carol Bartz rubbed shareholders the wrong way
• Follow Google and choose a direction – Yahoo has positioned itself as an innovative tech company, but should hone in on what they currently do well and focus efforts there
• Fix the brand – Yahoo’s old brand image could use an innovative, technology-savvy update
• Build a strategy to compete with Facebook – Yahoo needs to stake a claim in the social media realm

It will be interesting to see how 2012 unfolds for Yahoo. As one of the most visited sites on the web, Yahoo’s next steps could have a big impact on the world of SEO. This is a story worth following! Via Fast Company.

Today marks the end of the first full work week in 2012. I’m curious to know if you’ve kept your personal and professional resolutions so far?. If so, what were they? Have a great weekend!

Internet new marketing roundup, January 6

FROM: http://www.brafton.com/news-roundups/internet-new-marketing-roundup-january-6

As 2012 began, Google suffered slightly after a marketing mishap, including Paid Links to the Google Chrome homepage circulating the web, led the company to punish itself.

With the close of the 2011 holiday shopping season and the onset of 2012, marketers are shifting their focus to strategic planning for the coming year. This week’s biggest internet marketing headlines suggest that Google will (no surprise) be key to search marketing this year, but they also indicate the search giant could grow to dominate social marketing.

Before looking ahead to 2012, this week’s news gives digital marketers reason to take a minute to celebrate their success during November and December. Brafton reported on Wednesday that 2011 saw a 15 percent increase in ecommerce sales compared to 2010, with more than $36 billion in goods and services sold. Social marketing and search initiatives played a large role in effective holiday marketing.

Based on marketing trends already developing for 2012, search efforts continue to be a large part of brand efforts, including SEO initiatives aimed at gaining visibility on Google SERPs. However, the company itself took a hit as the New Year kicked off after one of its marketing campaigns resulted in paid links directed at the Google Chrome homepage.

As such, the company punished itself for 60 days – dropping Chrome’s homepage page down its SERPs. (Currently, Chrome is the third most popular web browser, behind Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox. In 2011, however, Chrome quickly gained substantial market share and was set to pass Firefox relatively quickly in 2012.) This should serve as a reminder to marketers that they need to make a New Year’s resolution of best-practice link building strategies via content marketing; Google will certainly punish other sites if it punishes itself.

The week’s news wasn’t all bad for Google, though, as Brafton reported on Tuesday that Google+ enjoyed its best month ever in December. Since launching in late June, it’s been difficult for Google+ to sustain much traffic, as Facebook continues to dominate. However, Google’s unofficial statician Paul Allen announced via his Google+ page that the network has surpassed 62 million users, and its current growth rate points to membership of more than 400 million people by the end of the year.

Additionally, traffic increased 55 percent in December, and more than one-quarter of the 62 million people using Google+ created their accounts last month.

Businesses using social media marketing have wondered if investing time and resources into Google+ would result in any major gains for their business. The launch of Google+ Pages in early November has given marketers the opportunity to test the waters with Google+, and now, consistent traffic to the website suggests it can become a major social marketing platform in 2012.

But whether or not businesses invest heavily in sharing content on Google+, they should remember to maintain accounts on other networks: Building an expansive social presence can provide an impetus for prospects to make purchases from a company. Brafton reported on Wednesday that social content results in a 30 percent greater purchase intent.

The study from BzzAgent found that prior to engaging with a brand online, 30 percent of consumers intended to buy from a business. Following exposure to and interaction with the same company on Facebook, Twitter or any other social network, purchase intent jumped to more than 60 percent. As social users continued to engage with the business, this intent remained fairly high with approximately 60 percent saying they were likely to purchase from the company even after a year of becoming a fan or follower.

For some businesses, though, social media marketing has not fully taken off due to struggles integrating the platforms into their operations. Brafton reported on Tuesday that just 16 percent of businesses using social consider the channel fully integrated into their marketing efforts. As such, businesses using it often struggle to see the optimum benefits of having a presence on Twitter or Facebook. In 2012, companies are likely to shift their strategies to target better integration of social throughout marketing operations.

Sixty-four percent of businesses said that they have at least one employee assigned to managing their social media marketing efforts, according to the study from InSites Consulting. This person must understand the behavior of his or her company’s target audience for 2012 and focus aggressively on delivering content with social appeal across channels. Even search marketing campaigns should consider social as social signals are increasingly playing into search rankings for logged in users.

Another component of search that businesses must consider this year is mobile, which is becoming increasingly popular as more people use smartphones and tablets. ComScore’s most recent MobiLens report stated that mobile web access increased 2.3 percent between September and November 2011, and the trend is expected to continue.

As such, mobile should be factored into search and social campaigns in 2012. Brafton reported that mobile search techniques are especially favorable for businesses focused on attracting local shoppers and clients, as their physical locations are is factored heavily into SERPs. Similarly, on-the-go social access is rising, and Brafton reported that local business’ social media marketing budgets will hit $8 billion in 2016.

With the rise of mobile internet access in mind, it seems local SEO will continue to become a priority for brands. Another keyword-specific shift for 2012 may be the reliance on long tail terms, which Conductor defined as any term comprised of at least three words.

Long tail terms are of a lower search volume, which often leads marketers to avoid including them in their campaigns. However, they is less competition for ranking well on these terms. Additionally, Conductor’s study said that prospects searching for long tail terms are often farther along in the conversion process. Web visitors referred by long tail search phrases are more than twice as likely to convert as those who land on a site through head terms.

With so much attention paid to Google in terms of SEO, many forget that Yahoo is still trying to reclaim some of the position it has lost in the last decade. The company took what could be a major step this week when it announced the appointment of Scott Thompson as its new CEO, months after the ousting of former chief executive Carol Bartz. Thompson’s extensive experience with payment solutions has led some to speculate that Yahoo may be planning a shift toward ecommerce in 2012. While no announcements have been made about the company’s plans, it will have to work fast to make 2012 a strong year.

With 51 weeks remaining in 2012, the hot news week sets the stage for marketers to gear themselves up for major web developments this year. Social and SEO will play a big role in where everyone stands, and businesses are already working tirelessly to implement their new strategies and plans. Success will come for those who do it wel and keep up with the evolving web marketing industry.For more updates to stay ahead of the curve, tune in next week; we expect to be covering more on the rise (or fall) of Google+, new insights on search trends and more on the future of Yahoo under its new leadership.

Google Obtains IBM Technology for Assessing Social Users' Interests

FROM: http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2012/01/google-obtains-ibm-technology.php

By Scott M. Fulton, III / January 5, 2012 6:30 PM / 2 Comments

Among a handful of patents transferred last December 31 from IBM's portfolio to that of Google, as first discovered by Bill Slawski of SEO By the Sea, is a system for processing text compiled by users of social networks, and ascertaining their common interests. We've already seen the rise of tools such as Radian6 for ascertaining social net users' individual interests; this new technology, which received a U.S. patent only one year ago, would judge what concepts they share with one another.

The goal of this technology, as IBM originally stated, is to literally to filter out irrelevant links to articles that may not pertain to users' search intentions. What we don't know yet is whether Google intends to use this technology, or simply keep others from using it first.

"Many Internet users make frequent searches for information, such as product reviews, hotels and travel destinations, and the like, as well as for on-line services such as shopping sites. Such Internet users are typically inundated with meaningless results for each on-line search," states the Background paragraph for U.S. Patent #7,865,592, entitled, "Using Semantic Networks to Develop a Social Network." "Search engines have made searching easier, but a user often needs to sort through irrelevant results and irrelevant Web pages before finding a desired piece of information or a desired shopping site. Thus, even with all of the access to information that an Internet user has at his/her disposal today, many users elect to asking for advice from a friend or acquaintance before beginning a search. However, an Internet user might not know who to turn to for information about a specific subject."

To understand the patent, you have to think of a "social network" not in terms of a site or a service or a company, like Google+ or Facebook, but rather as a mathematical construct that's on the same order of a "semantic network." It's through semantic networks that Google assesses the context to which search terms belong. An article may appear to relate to the search criteria because it contains multiple instances of the search terms. But a semantic network analyzes the common context of terms in the criteria and the documents being searched, to see if there's a more solid bond of relationship than mere pattern matching.

The "social network" that IBM engineers were working toward is also a mathematical construct - specifically, an arrangement of related people whose posts to social networks include concepts that may belong to the same semantic network. The flowcharts excerpted here from the IBM patent (now Google's) present a rough order of events in which social links are established between users whose semantic networks have assessed similarities.

Although the patent doesn't say so as directly as the intentions outlined in its Background paragraph, the idea here is to do a kind of "StackOverflow.com-like" operation in advance, if you will: Find a user within a social scenario who may have already answered the question, rate that answer according to its assessed relevance, and present it as a solution to the search.

Google has already stated that it is leveraging data from Google+ users to present potentially more relevant search results for Google+ users than it would for Google search users not logged into Google+. If Google were to put this former IBM patent to use, it could convert the search process for Google+ users into a more conversational system - into a kind of dialog where people's existing answers respond to questions that come up in the future.