Posts Tagged ‘google’
Written by Will Hawkins on 08 March 2010
Are all big companies bad for business and consumers?
It would appear that most people know about the indiscretions of Tiger Woods, recently. It was splashed all over the news, both online and offline. The story about his extra-marital affairs became the most searched for articles on the web for a time. Some news organisations saw large numbers of new visitors to their websites looking for the latest gossip and insights into why the most famous golfer in the world had crashed his car just outside his own house. Woods’ troubles were good for business for news sites, helping them to reinforce why advertisers should continue to pay them their fees.
The image of Tiger Woods had been one of sportsmanship, achievement, dedication and integrity. But, some sponsors have started to drop him because they believe it was negatively affecting their own brands to be associated with him. Tiger Woods was, and probably still is, the biggest thing in golf, helping to boost TV ratings which no other golfers achieve.
But, like all things which become big, they often creak at the seams or they become unaware of their surroundings so much so that they damage others. You can see this with the BBC, which has announced that it is planning to pare down its organisation by dropping some stations and web pages. Google has now become so big that organisations feel that it is too dominant and they want to shackle the search organisation so that others can compete with it.
The challenge for other companies competing with them is that Google is just so good at what it does. It is competing with other massive companies, like Microsoft, by providing many free services (e.g. Google Docs) for which their competitors charge. Its competitors feel stifled in their search rankings when Google has a competitive product.
But, people do have a choice when it comes to search. Microsoft’s Bing search engine will soon be joining with Yahoo!’s search engine. Bing is pretty good. But, people choose not to use Bing and Yahoo! as much because they are not yet quite as good as Google yet.
Google will soon be bringing out its own operating system to rival Microsoft Windows. I, personally, can’t wait because if it is as good as their web browsing software, Google Chrome, then I am all for Google being big so that they can invest in technology which will actually give a real choice in which operating system we use in our computers.
So, it seems counter-intuitive for the European Union (EU) to being trying to legislate against Google when it is actually this organisation which is providing choice to consumers. After all, Microsoft has been the target of the EU’s wrath for the last decade for not providing choice. Now that a competitor to Microsoft is providing choice in the market, the EU is attempting to stifle them.
Tags: BBC, Bing, business, extra marital affairs, google, microsoft, tiger woods, Yahoo
Posted in business, google | No Comments »
Written by Will Hawkins on 09 February 2010
The next time you are standing at a bus stop, or you are waiting for a train, take a look around at anything that interests you and take a photograph of it with the camera on your internet enabled phone. For instance, that poster advertising a film that you have heard good reviews about, or perhaps the advertisement for a chocolate bar. Chances are that you will just have photograph of an advertisement on your phone and a pretty shaky one at that unless you are a professional photograph specialising in photos taken through phones.
But wouldn’t it be useful if that photograph led to you finding out where you could see that film in the cinema nearest to you, at what time and buy tickets for it then and there? Or by photographing the chocolate bar on the poster you received a digital voucher which you could redeem in your local corner shop on one of those chocolate bars? Another useful application of your mobile phone could be when you are driving around an area looking for houses you might be interested in buying.
Currently, you have to get the details from an estate agent or an online service about houses and then plan a tour around the area to see which ones you want to view. But, if you see a house on your tour for which you had not printed off the details you would have to mess about calling the agent or logging onto the web to get the details. It’s frustrating and the speed at which you find details on the internet at home or at work makes it all the more so because you cannot find them so quickly when you are away from the web. It would very useful if you could take a snap of the outside of the house on your phone and see details about it immediately to see whether it is in your budget.
Well, this capability is now available through your Nokia mobile via their ‘Point and Find’ service. It allows you to find information like this now. All you need is the ‘Point and Find’ software on your internet enabled phone to get instant information. The service is quick and easy to use. For marketers, it gets around a major hurdle with mobile marketing which is the fact that people don’t like having to tap out more than basic messages on their phones. The three keys activities carried out on mobiles are search, social networking and photography. But search is limited by people’s reluctance to type on their keypads so Google is developing a voice driven mobile version of their search engine.
With services like ‘Point and Find‘ or ‘Amazon Remembers‘ you just need to photograph what you are interested in to get the information you want about the product or service you have seen. The possibilities are endless. And they both meet the ‘Want It Now!’ feeling that we all experience now. Consumers hate having to wait.
Marketers will be able to understand which of their off-line marketing collateral is most effective and which locations are most productive. Marketing investment can be targeted more effectively and efficiently. Mobile marketing will become more mainstream with the reality of instant gratification as the database of products and services are increased in these services.
Posted via email from digi-business.net
Tags: amazon, BBC, business, digital, google, internet, marketing, media, mobile, networking, Nokia, photography, Point & Find, print, radio
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Written by Will Hawkins on 07 October 2009
So much for the sceptics. Here’s the reality. Google draws attention and buyers to obscure books – The Boston Globe http://ow.ly/t6z4
Tags: backlist, books, google
Posted in business, publishing | No Comments »
Written by Will Hawkins on 16 September 2009
Everyday there are steps made towards people paying for content online which they might have expected to get for free in the past. This is a good thing so that we keep the ability to read well researched articles and information.
The Daily Telegraph is also moving towards paid-for online content through its ‘e-paper‘ program.
Google launches Fast Flip news website – Telegraph http://ow.ly/pzyP
Tags: content, e-paper, fastflip, google, publishing, telegraph
Posted in business, publishing | 1 Comment »
Written by Will Hawkins on 09 September 2009
Kettle calling the pot black?
When Microsoft comes out with a statement that Google is being monopolistic with its digital book initiative, you know that something big is afoot. Microsoft has been in the courts for many years battling against law suits to limit its power in the world of operating systems and web browsers. But more recently, Google has started to become a threat that Microsoft has taken seriously and this would appear to be sour grapes from them towards the search giant.
Publishers are up in arms at the prospect of Google scanning books to them searchable, available and commercial again. It would appear that the amount that Google has to pay publishers for the rights to some of those books is quite small in relation to the number of titles available.
On the other hand, the publishers may well be getting an income from books which were deemed uncommercial before Google became interested in them. Either way, this has to be a good thing for making books more widely available according to how customers want to buy and read them.
Microsoft brands Google settlement ‘wrong’ | theBookseller.com http://ow.ly/oDfw
Tags: books, digital, ebooks, google, microsoft, publisher, publishers
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Written by Will Hawkins on 13 August 2009
Get your online conversations in sync
I was reminded of Google’s new communications tool today by the article below in the Telegraph.
Google demonstrated this some time ago and it looked like it was a very good tool indeed for keeping your online conversations in sync. The challenge with when you chat online is that your conversations with a friend can become disjointed.
For instance, while you are answering your friends last question they ask you another one. You hit the return button and your answer looks as though it is answering the current question. See what I mean? It can become confusing.
Google Wave synchronises email and instant messaging. You need to see it working to see how good it is and to understand it.
Google Wave: Why we’ll soon be waving at each other – Telegraph http://ow.ly/jVdr
Tags: communications, google, instant messaging, telegraph, wave
Posted in business, communication skills | No Comments »
Written by Will Hawkins on 09 July 2009
How does your business feel?
A few businesses appear as though they are instant winners. Some take a while to build themselves up to success. Some start with a great idea but burn out quickly as the idea does not translate itself into a commercially viable product or service (I remember meeting someone in a pub in the late ’90’s who was setting up dotcom company which was delivering a clean shirt, pants, socks, a razor and toothbrush to a customer’s office after a night on the town).
I spent some time with a business this evening which had got the ingredients right on its product. One of the keys for this business to get right was how it felt when you walked in through the front door. It felt right. It felt relaxed, welcoming, warm but not hot. It smelt right and you felt as though you were completely welcome. The business is a spa, The Grange Spa, in Lincolnshire.
It is an oasis in this very rural county. The nearest competition is about an hour away. The couple that own it, Matt & Emma Craven, are warm and welcoming. Behind their friendly exteriors are sharp marketing minds that know exactly who they are aiming at as ideal customers. Matt told me precise socio-demographic characteristics of each segment of the population they are targeting.
They started in April 2009 and “footfall” is starting to increase through their doors, finally. It’s tough but it is starting to work. Clients were walking in as we spoke having treatments, using the gym and swimming in their gorgeous pool. Matt uses Twitter and Facebook to help him reach out to potential clients.
But, these social media tools are not necessarily being used by some of their ideal customers. Nevertheless, many of their prospective customers network socially albeit not through the internet but at book clubs. Women with children in their mid to late thirties.
So, Matt and I got chatting about the possibility of combining their spa with women’s book clubs. The spa has beautiful furniture and private areas where a women’s book club could meet to talk about this month’s book, chat and then spend an hour using the spa. We then talked about the joy of using Google Chrome which is when Emma seemed to switch off for some reason.
But more, importantly, take a look at The Grange Spa’s web site and see for yourself at what this oasis offers and how it feels. If you get a chance, swing by and say hello to Matt, Emma or any of their friendly staff to sense for yourself just how good their business feels. If you have your own business, then ask yourself how it feels. Does it feel right? If not, make some changes. It’s important for your customers.
Tags: business, change, competition, google, internet, marketing, media, Social Media, strategy, The Grange Spa, Twitter
Posted in business, marketing | 2 Comments »
Written by Will Hawkins on 06 July 2009
Social Media is brutal but worth its weight in gold
If you ever wanted to understand the importance of social media but were too afraid to ask, then watching this program – The Hotel Inspector on the UK’s fifth channel, ‘Five’ would have been a fine lesson in its power.
The Hotel Inspector is one ‘Alex Polizzi’ who is described as “no nonsense” although she’s no Gordon Ramsey in her type of frankness despite the odd ‘F word’. Alex Polizzi’s first task in the series was dealing with a ‘The Crown Inn’ in Lewes, Sussex. I had a certain nostalgia for the place because I used to go to school in the town up to the age of sixteen and ‘The Crown’ was where I occasionally went with friends when we were trying to persuade the barman that we were eighteen and we did have enough money for a pint.
Getting back to the point, the hotel was simply filthy, slovenly and uncared for by the owner. It was losing guests at the same speed as it was growing bugs in the bathrooms and it lost its ‘three star status’ with the local tourist board (On a side point, I think the tourist board needs to rethink it’s star system. If The Crown dropped from three to two stars, God help anyone whose establishment has two stars).
The key point of the programme was that guests were leaving their comments about the hotel not with the owners but on ‘TripAdvisor‘, the web based hotel review site. The owner of the hotel, Karen Lloyd, was dismissive about people who left their reviews on it – “Haven’t they got better things to do with their time?“. But the fact remained that the negative reviews were the truth about her business and reviews from previous customers are taken seriously by would-be guests.
As I write, the reviews about The Crown show the following results:
Out of twenty-two reviews, fourteen of them were couples.
- Four say it is excellent
- Three say it is very good
- None say it is average
- Two say it is poor
- Thirteen say it is terrible
The reality of the web and social media is that whatever you do in business nowadays, if you don’t get it right, there is nowhere to hide. The feedback you receive as a business owner today is immediate, honest if not brutal, and worth it’s weight in gold. Whether your business is large or small, you will soon know if you are doing a good job of it or not.
In the past, you would be asked to fill in feedback by the hotel owner on a piece of paper with no way of knowing if the hotel cared a jot about your feedback. Good hotels and businesses would follow up your feedback. Most would not. That’s history and now the reticent British public has a way to vent their frustration, disappointment and delight with ease.
To be fair, the owner did turn the hotel around and regained her third star which is much to her credit. The morale of the story, nevertheless, is that social media and the web are now driving up the quality in the market of many products and services. If you don’t take the feedback seriously then your competition and prospective customers will do.
Tags: business, competition, Five, google, hotels, inspector, ipad, marketing, media, Social Media, travel, TV
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Written by Will Hawkins on 21 May 2009
Publishers fail to give readers good experiences
Publishers fear that people will not pay for content online. People are so used to reading newspapers online for free, for example, that the expectation is that they will never pay for anything that is published online. The Wall Street Journal is a major exception to the rule.
But, listening to Ben Edwards from Economist.com at the ‘ePublishing Innovation Forum 2009‘ in London this week, he thinks that is not the case. His view is that people will pay for content content online and that “publishers have failed to build experiences which people willing to pay for”. Fair point.
The New York Times has recently launched a desktop version of its online newspaper which is accessed through a free download. You get the front page news for free. Any news you want to see beyond the front page have to be paid for through a weekly subscription. Their revenues from digital business has grown every year as a percentage of their business from 4% in 2004 to 12% in 2008.
Julian Shambles of The Telegraph Group, recently explained at the ePublishing Innovation Forum in London, that simply transferring headlines that work on a printed newspaper simply don’t work for online versions. The infamous anti-Europe headline from ‘The Sun’ “Up Yours, Delors!” has no meaning on the web.
Why is that? It’s because people find news on the web differently. They use a search engine to find news and when they look for ‘euro-sceptic’ related news, they probably use that phrase in their search, and not the headline which grabs people’s attention to the newspaper on a stand.
Shambles went on to say their recent success in growing their audience and viewers online was part of a whole mix of digital re-thinking which included ensuring that their journalists were trained and familiarised with ’search engine optimisation’ so that they wrote their articles with the thought on how to make them as friendly and searchable to Google as possible. Furthermore, news has started to be published online first rather than how it used to be with their web version being an after thought.
The emerging model in the world of digital publishing which appears to be gaining some success takes advantage of the fact that an online or digital version of a publication costs very little to produce compared to the paper version of it. So, publishers can afford to give away a lot of access for free with a small minority paying for richer versions of the publication upon which the publisher can make a profit. This is called ‘freemium‘. (I did hear one comment at the Forum say “..there is a bit too much ‘free’ in my experience, and not enough ‘mium’ in it“.
So, the fact is that people will pay for content online as long as they feel as though it is a good experience. We are overloaded with information from every imaginable source now, but there is precious little knowledge available. We are not prepared to pay for magazines or publications which are little more than advertising hoardings for recruitment companies with a few pages of poorly written articles. We will pay for knowledge, experience and insight. But has that not always been the case?
Tags: #epubs09, business, content, digital, freemium, google, lists, marketing, meaning, Newspapers, print, publisher, publishers, publishing, recruitment, telegraph
Posted in Web 3.0, business, publishing | 4 Comments »
Written by Will Hawkins on 21 May 2009
Web 3.0 is about meaning
Who would be Gordon Brown after the last few days in British politics? He might be thinking about how he would like to be making decisions which will have a dramatic and positive impact upon the electorate’s lives rather than worrying about the less than spotless behaviour of some of his MP’s and their expenses.
It would be interesting to have dinner with him this weekend. You would doubt that he would be in a position to be very cheerful. Except that he has invited Tim Berners-Lee to dinner this weekend at Chequers, where it is likely that he is going to be talking about the future of the world wide web.
What is the future of the web? Many people may know about what is called ‘web 2.0′ which has seen the web moving from a one-way conversation in its early days to a two-way conversation which enabled us to contribute to the web. Web 2.0 has seen the massive growth of services like Facebook and Twitter where we can self-publish.
Despite the amazing ability for everyone to publish their thoughts, to find information through Google or to publish their videos for the world to see, we are starting to stretch the current web structure to its limits. For instance, searching on Google limits your query to the search engine finding words which you typed into the search box which will bring up relevant web sites which have those words in them.
But the words (or keywords) which Google found in the web site might not actually bring up a web page which is useful to you. The words in it might not be related to your query and, therefore, your search results are meaningless because the search engine looks for words and not for the meaning of the words. e.g. If you type in the sentence “The sky has the colour blue” Google will look for web sites with those words in them but it may not connect the words together to seek the meaning of that sentence.
This is one the most important aspects of where the web will go in the next few months and years. Web 3.0 is about meaning. When you type a question into a search engine such as “Why is my left foot larger than my right foot?” search engines will be able to understand the question and not just search for the words in a web page. The search results will bring up web sites which answer the question and which also make suggestions on what you can do about it if it is a problem, rather than bringing up a load of web pages just about feet.
This is called the ’semantic web’. And this is what Tim Berners-Lee, Dame Wendy Hall and their colleagues have been developing for a long time. The UK Government will soon require that all of their published information to be described with something called ‘RDF’ (Resource Description Framework) so that all their data and information will be linked and so we will be able to find meaningful information more easily than we can today.
So, cheer up, Gordon Brown. The freedom of information which has opened up a few weeks of trouble for you will seem insignificant to what you and Tim will be discussing this weekend. You will be making the first steps to making the web that we know now, which is about masses of information, into a connected world of knowledge and meaning.
Tags: google, meaning, Politics, publishing, RDF, Semantic web, technology, Tim Berners-Lee, Twitter, video, Web 3.0, web sites, Wendy Hall
Posted in Social Media, Web 3.0, business | No Comments »
