Google Me – quick thoughts for and against…

June 30, 2010 By 2 Comments

So the rumours are building about the ‘Facebook killer’ being worked on at Google. And whenever there are big rumours, the blogosphere rushes to comment. For example, Mike Arrington argues Google should clone Facebook, Kim-Mai Cutler argues the opposite.

My own thoughts are mixed, but I’ve had a couple of ideas which I don’t seem to have seen elsewhere:

For Google:

  • Android. 5 million activations a month, a focus on mobile first (as said by Eric Schmidt), and working across mobiles and the merging tablet market (in terms of tablets now getting mainstream coverage and adoption post iPad).
  • Data knowledge. They might not have completely aced social search and the social graph yet, but they’re used to working with humungous data sets.
  • Understanding the need for users to own their own data, as shown by the ‘Data Liberation Front’
  • Adsense – allowing users to instantly monetise with a proven model.
  • Does it have to beat Facebook? With Google Me and the rumoured Google Music, perhaps picking up ex-Myspace users is a better first step. If it can pick up people leaving Myspace and Facebook, social networks become a two horse race, with Google in the game.
  • Location – combining social graph with location-based apps and great mapping software.

Against Google:

  • Previous approaches haven’t resulted in great design and usability.
  • Fragmented approach with Google Profiles, Google Buzz, Googlemail, Orkut, etc.
  • Orkut has had success in some territories, but is up against Facebook and a global reach of 500 million +
  • Remember their interest in Jaiku as a Twitter rival?
  • Google Buzz being shoe-horned into Googlemail, and the privacy uproar it created.
  • Mainstream social network users aren’t showing a huge global response to privacy concerns yet.

That’s pretty much a summary so far. When it comes to whether or not Google can create something that will succeed, none of us can possibly tell until we see a product actually launching. But what we can see is that Google has some significant advantages in the market which it has so far failed to utilise for Google Buzz, Orkut or Jaiku, but which could transform any new product.

Filed Under: social networks Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

The importance of experiencing your community

June 28, 2010 By 2 Comments

When talking about community-building or social media, it’s easy to suggest you should be part of it. And that’s not too hard to do if the community in question is something you already identify with.

Pearl Jam performing at Hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park

Pearl Jam performing at Hard Rock Calling

The chance to go and just be a normal fan on Friday when Pearl Jam played Hyde Park reminded me exactly how much I’ve identified with music and bands throughout my life, and how much of a social experience it is, even when you lose your group of friends in your quest to get to the front of the crowd (In my defence, I’ve liked Pearl Jam for almost 20 years, and hadn’t seen them live until now!).

It was just as easy when I worked in motorcycling and cars – I can thank my father for that one, with some of our earliest family outings to car shows and Rallycross. And that was followed by lifts from school on the back of his motorcycle.

But it’s important to occasionally have normal fan experiences, even if it’s a subject you’ve got a close affinity to. Because otherwise you forget the priviledged experienc eyou have as a member of the media, for example.

And it’s even more important if you’re working with communities you’re not familiar with. If you’re working with an unfamiliar subject matter, it’s time to search through friends and family and find some people who might share that interest. And it’s also important to find some members of any existing community to talk with.

It’s not because you can’t find out a lot by using online monitoring tools, research papers, blogs, etc.

It’s because there’s still nothing like seeing the look on someone’s face or their eyes light up when they’re discussing a subject they’re passionate about – and that’ll infect the work you do and give you a far better respect for that subject than anything else you’ll do. And if you don’t love the subject yourself, the best you can hope is to immerse yourself in their love for it.

Filed Under: community, social media marketing, social networks Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Why does the UK budget reward print and punish web?

June 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The new UK Government unveiled their new budget on Tuesday, which is their response to the economic downturn and the increased borrowing which happened as a response.

Most of it is debatable on a more personal level, but there’s one interesting paradox.

Books, magazines and newspapers continue to sold without Value Added Tax (VAT), which is commonly applied to purchases in the UK, and will increase from 17.5% to 20% from 4th January, 2011.

The reason for this is that all of these print materials are valuable sources of information and people should be access them without paying VAT – which I can understand.

But internet access does get VAT charged and will therefore be subject to the increase of 20% in January.

And yet, for a flat monthly fee which I can predict and budget for, I can access the biggest repository of valuable information in the history of the world, which is being added to at an unbelievable daily rate on pretty much every subject imaginable. Even discounting the 99% of content which may be skateboarding dogs on Youtube, that still leaves more valuable information than I will ever have the time to read and access in my lifetime, including the sites run by the UK Government.

Not only that, but access to the internet also allows more people to not only produce content, but also new businesses and business models which can fuel the economy – or to take part in existing job or freelancer markets to get work.

And there are savings for bigger, established businesses and organisations, as they seek to cut back on personal and telephone service and increasingly switch customer interaction to the internet – including a growing range of Governmental departments and services. And that’s in addition to the actual VAT bill itself.

After all, digital was a noticeable part of the election campaign promises for the first time, with a debate over funding a nationwide broadband infrastructure that can support high speed internet access, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the UK Digital Champion appointed by the last Government, Martha Lane Fox, will continue under the new regime with the aim of aiding universal internet access to all as an enabling tool.

So either the money being raised and the challenge of cutting VAT from one part of telephone/TV/cable/broadband deals was too complicated, the money being raised is too important, or it just didn’t come up during the budget planning (I can understand that there may have been other immediate priorities). But surely if the Government is really serious about providing universal access to broadband internet to boost the economy and help business in Britain, lowering the cost of that access for everyone has to be a good starting point.

Filed Under: Charity / Cause, Digital Culture Tagged With: , , , , ,

Could the internet make us all nicer people?

June 22, 2010 By 2 Comments

Social networks, blogs and online identities have given rise to a lot of discussion and concerns on the best way to manage how you’re seen by other people (I’m trying to avoid using the words ‘personal brand’). And you’ll regularly see examples of people failing to realise that what they do online could get them fired, for example.

But is this carrying over to the offline world?

I commute every day on busy trains, and quite often encounter people who, for whatever reason, appear to be rude and inconsiderate, and sometimes selfish or offensive.

And 10 years ago, the only option was to either ignore it or confront them.

But with the rise of mobile phones and mobile computing, I end up hearing some of their conversations, and can end up accidentally catching a glimpse of their details if they’re sat next to me.

Now I’m not alone in this – so I’m wondering how long before we see more people being regularly embarrassed by photos, video and reports being uploaded? And how long before those uploads start being linked back to that individual – not only if they search, but also via friends, family, and employers?

Could this mean we start to see people act a little nicer in their everyday life because they’re conscious any transgression could end up on Facebook/Twitter/Youtube/Flickr, and how will this impact on the way we live our lives? Will it lead to a more pleasant environment, or will it end up like a bad reality show as the pressure of the crowdsourced surveillance becomes too much?

And should it become normal to presume that any public space will put you under the watch of the wider digital world as well as those around you and the existing Governmental cameras?

Filed Under: Digital Culture, Privacy Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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