Tag Archives: google Blog

NFC On the Move?

We’ve been hearing about NFC (Near Field Communications) for a while now. The technology, expected to empower a new era of mobile commerce, should shortly be upon us. With appropriate chipsets, mobile phones will be able to make payments at the point of sale terminals, similar to how we use credit cards today. Considering the interactivity of web-enabled phones, this is likely to create a host of new opportunities for retail and mobile commerce.

Today, Google is ready to start testing NFC in select retail locations in NY and SFO. The following article provides insights into how we might use the technology. NFC is one to watch.

Read full article: Report: Google to Test NFC Mobile Payment Service in NY, San Francisco:http://bit.ly/gHARoF

Google’s Tweak Should Mean Better Search Results

Google has tweaked its search algorithm, which should be good news for websites with legitimate content. They are finally going after the “article farms” that create keyword-rich articles to rise to the top of popular searches.

Manipulating search engines is something that no one wants, but everybody does. The goal of being “#1 on Google” is the typical request of people who want their websites to rank high in search results. But to get there requires meaningful, helpful content that others connect to via links — in other words, content that’s good enough to share. And that’s an excellent approach for deciding who gets top rankings on search results pages. After all, highly relevant results are what we want when we search, right?

That is unless your site could also be returned for that search term. Then you want Google to rank your site on top, whether the content is the best or not. Getting your site to #1 is the art (myth?) of SEO (search engine optimization), an industry called everything from miraculous to snake oil. And sorting out pages with genuinely useful content from pages that are merely “optimized” is the dilemma that search engines must deal with every day.

Suppose you’ve gone to great lengths to create valuable, meaningful content that helps people make decisions. In that case, you’ll be happy with Google’s new tweaks, which penalize sites with content designed simply to manipulate the search engines and manufacture rankings. If you’re an “optimizer,” you’ll be less than thrilled. However, the happiest people of all should be search engine users. Remember them? They’re looking for helpful, relevant information, and if that’s what you deliver, you shouldn’t have to “optimize” to see your pages valued by Google.

Read full article: Google Tweaks Algorithm to Push Down Low-Quality Sites

Why Facebook Can’t Be Google

Facebook’s recent privacy policy woes stem from a fundamental flaw in understanding its own platform, as an excellent post by blogger Adam Fields points out. Though phenomenally popular, FB needs a business model. Their hope, like Google’s, is to leverage the data they accumulate from their huge base of users to make money selling advertising. However, these users expect they can trust FB to keep their data private — or at least to use it only in ways they approve. Additionally, users want control over the data they provide, and they want those controls to be easy to use and stable in the sense that the privacy policy doesn’t change every few months.

The fact that FB wants to make users’ data more publicly available, and therefore more valuable to advertisers, forms the basis of the conflict they’ve created with their users. The crux is that FB’s data is social while Google’s is public, and public data is more useful when more people know about it. Social data, however, inherently has much less reach because its purpose is not for widespread consumption but to serve a limited social circle.

From Fields’ post:

“Social sharing isn’t the same as public sharing. When I write something in a public forum, I want as many people as possible to read it. In that kind of forum, Google can make more money if more people see it, as can Facebook (which is why Facebook is trying to turn its entire platform into a more public one). This is at odds with what the users want for social, which is controlled sharing among a very small group. There is certainly an aspect of making new friends and extending one’s social circle outwards, but the object here is generally to share only inside that circle. People tend to resist being forced or coerced by the platform to share more widely.”

Hijacking user data appears to be a bad strategy for FB unless it can persuade users to give up their current ideas about privacy. And just as FB can never be Google, Google will find it difficult to become a social platform like FB because the nature of the data at the heart of each platform is different.

Read full article: http://bit.ly/bOnk5t

Why Is Facebook Important?

The Facebook phenomenon continues. According to a recent ClickZ.com report, FB’s unique visitors in January 2010, at a total of 133.6MM, was second only to the mighty Google. Indeed, throughout 2009 FB’s unique visitors climbed at a record pace through June, then leveled somewhat, but rose nonetheless through the remainder of the year to surpass Yahoo (132MM unique visitors in Jan 2010) and pull up snugly behind Google (147.8MM). (ref: http://www.clickz.com/3636533)

Why is this important? The numbers above represent people who are using FB every day. These are not merely people who signed up and have dormant accounts. What’s even more interesting is the amount of time these active users spend on the site. “Data from Nielsen says that U.S. Facebook users now spend an average of seven hours per month on the site. In January, the time spent on Facebook grew by nearly 10 percent in one month. Meanwhile, the average time spent on Google (GOOG) dropped 17 percent to around an hour and a half.” (ref: http://bit.ly/aETMUK)

What are people spending all that time on Facebook doing? They build their networks, connect with friends and family, keep in touch, etc. But much more importantly, they use the site to do things that they formerly did on several other sites or with the software on their desktop computers, including chat, commerce, posting photos and videos, and even email. Why go to other sites when almost everything you need, and all the people you want to share things with, are on FB?

Which brings up the final point: With upwards of 300MM people registered, FB is reaching a tipping point. Odds are more likely than ever that if you want to find/connect/communicate with someone, you’ll find them on Facebook. And where the people are is where the markets are.

Markets are moving online. Now that people are readily available on Facebook, businesses will be moving with them. But “going on Facebook” requires learning the values, rules, behavior, and mores first. Businesses that successfully do this will find they have the best advertising possible — the only advertising that will succeed in the not-too-distant future — word of mouth ( “word of mouse?”). With everyone connected, we’ll see our customers become our sales forces since they’ll be swift to tell others the story about how well we’re serving them.