Google Twitter: The Left Behind Argument
March 4, 2009
I enjoyed the Mad Ave Ad Age article “Twitter: We Can Do What Google Can’t” here. Ad Age said:
It’s because of the potential it sees in search that the Twitter co-founders walked away from a $500 million offer from Facebook — not just the terms of the deal, said Todd Chaffee, an Institutional Venture Partners general partner and a new Twitter backer. He said contrary to some reports, Facebook offered not just stock but substantial cash in the deal.
The point is well taken. Twitter is different and duplicating its services won’t guarantee success.
Stephen Arnold, March 4, 2009
Twitter: For the Poor, the Downtrodden
March 4, 2009
If this post is accurate, Twitter is “the poor” person’s email. I read this and thought of the Statue of Liberty. Not sure why. Twitter may be like the arrival from another land who showed up, worked hard, and defined a category of search; specifically, real time search. The story “Google CEO: Twitter A ‘Poor Man’s Email System’ by Dan Frommer strikes me as accurate an eerily authentic. For me the key segment of the article was:
I think the innovation is great. In Google’s case, we have a very successful instant messaging product, and that’s what most people end up using.
If Mr. Frommer had not labeled this as a statement attribute to chief Googler Eric Schmidt, I would have hooked the statement to a Microsoft executive. Several comments:
- I don’t use Twitter but I use http://search.twitter.com. It is useful and it beats Google to the news punch on certain topics by minutes and many times by hours.
- The demographic of Twitter users strikes me as similar to what Google’s user base was prior to the consumerization of search after the Google IPO. In short, Twitter has to be viewed as an important service, and it is an important service attracting high profile people who talk about the Twitter service.
- The assumption that Twitter users will switch to Google’s system is possible, but I think Twitter has some decent legs. Is Twitter perfect? Nope. Is it important? Yep.
Google is starting to sound like Microsoft. Google, like IBM and Microsoft before it, is showing that it has lost its ability to think and act with the agility it possessed just a few short years ago. Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, March 4, 2009
Shift in Online Behavior May Be Evident
March 4, 2009
Enid Burns, ClickZ, wrote “More Time Spent Online Communicating than Getting Entertained” here. I think the data summarized in her article may be harbingers of a shift for some demographic sectors. You can read her article here. She summarizes a report from Netpop Research, so I don’t want to recycle her analysis. The most important point for me was this statement:
Time spent communicating online went from 27 percent of time online in 2006 to 32 percent in 2008. Communication, in the survey, includes activities such as e-mail, instant messaging, posting to blogs, and photo sharing. “We’re really looking to create personal relationships and communicating with people,” said Josh Crandall, managing director of Media-Screen Crandall.
Three observations:
- The Internet technology is absorbing broader human and communication functions. The pace will accelerate and saturation will occur in the foreseeable future in developed nations. Landlines are goners and the new net-based comm modes will ignite considerable change and innovation
- The demographic push on organizations means that social functions of those connected will move to cyberspace. Implications and consequences are difficult to pinpoint. I think the impact will be significant, leaving some traditional online companies behind quickly unless these outfits adapt.
- These services will want to coalesce into what I call a natural monopoly. This too has significant implications for users, regulators, and organizations competing in this emergent ecosystem.
In short, if these data are accurate, the next revolution is underway. Save the Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo T shirts. These items may become collector items if these firms don’t adapt to the traffic speeding down the information superhighway. Think roadkill.
Stephen Arnold, March 4, 2009
Beyond Keyword Search
March 4, 2009
An interesting tie up between LinkedIn and Twitter caught my attention. The story appeared in Search Engine Journal. Dev Basu’s “LinkedIn Teams Up with Twitter through Company Buzz” reported here that the networking service LinkedIn and the micro blogging service Twitter have teamed to offer an enterprise service. Mr. Basu wrote:
Every second thousands of people are sending out messages about topics and companies through twitter. Company Buzz lets you tap into this information flow to find relevant trends and comments about your company. Install the application and instantly see what people are saying.
This is an interesting development. Confusion about the meaning of the term “search” is commonplace. In a telephone conversation yesterday, two people on the conference call used the word “search” to describe what their organization needed. I asked each to define their understanding of the word “search”. One said, “We need to find specific data in our research reports. Not the whole document. Just the pertinent chunk.” The other said, “We need to know who knows what about a specific topic.”
The word “search” is used without much thought given to what different people mean when they throw the buzzword around.
This deal between LinkedIn and Twitter comes close to what quite a few people in the last couple of months have been describing as “search”. Key word retrieval has a place, but users want more. Will LinkedIn and Twitter dominate this market space? Hard to say. I think the deal is one to watch.
Stephen Arnold, March 4, 2009
Twitter Facebook Analogy
March 3, 2009
Elad Blog’s “Twitter Is to Facebook as Google Was to Yahoo” is an interesting article. You may want to read it here. I think the idea that Facebook represents an older service and Twitter a newer one is interesting. I am not sure that I agree. Facebook is a step above MySpace.com which strikes me as a variant on a personal Web page service. These have been around for a long time. I think Yahoo bought GeoCities about 10 year ago. The progression in my mind is: GeoCities to MySpace.com and then Facebook. The “social phenomenon” that has some azure chip consultants foaming at the mouth is a consequence of more people using these services and incremental tech jumps that allow a Web page to be hooked into alerts, rich media, and various communication functions.
Twitter, on the other hand, started as a text messaging service and was crafted into a broadcast and follow service. At its core, a tweet is small text which can be created and sent at any time. The notions of mobility, brevity, and a single person’s utterance at a point in time are the text version of the old Nextel push to talk function. In my opinion, the sequence is mobile phone to SMS to Twitter.
Mr. King’s analogy (cited in the Elad Blog but no valid link when I checked) may work for an ex-Googler or Xoogler, but it doesn’t work for me. The next part of the analogy breaks down as well. Yahoo was not a search engine. Yahoo was a directory. Yahoo got into search when someone realized that the slowness, the cost, and headaches of the directory could be complemented and later replaced with a search system. Enter Inktomi. Yahoo has never been much of an innovator. The company bought other companies and allowed those companies to operate as separate entities. Yahoo got into the ad business in the way my mother got into hats. She just bought them, wore a hat once, and then put it in a box. Yahoo never integrated ads across its services. Yahoo bought Overture and never enhanced the service. The rest of Yahoo’s history is a loop of these basic business methods. Collect, fail to integrate, put on shelf, and move on to the next thing. Here’s the Yahoo progression in my opinion: Yahoo directory to Inktomi search to portal to acquire separate companies to loosely federated conglomerate. Yahoo is not integrated yet.
Google, on the other hand, focused on search. Skipped the portal craziness. Google bought and borrowed, paying Yahoo about $1 billion to make an Overture related legal matter go away prior to the Google IPO. The Google progress, in my opinion, was search to advertising to application platform to information utility.
As a result, there’s not much similarity between Yahoo and Google other than both have offices near one another and both operate online services. Yahoo is fragmented and Google is more homogeneous. Yahoo will have a tough time becoming Google no matter how many Bain consultants scurry around thinking blue chip thoughts.
Despite my objections, I think the analogy is important for three reasons:
First, the analogy was crafted by a Xoogler, and that tells me some folks close to Google understand that Twitter and Facebook have found traction where Googzilla has not. I have pointed out in this Web log that Google seems unable to act with the resolve it demonstrated in the 2004 to 2006 period. Now the company seems to be morphing into a Microsoft style outfit. I think the GOOG is falling behind in real time search. The splash page at http://blogsearch.google.com is stale compared to what I can find at http://search.twitter.com. I am floating the idea now that this failure to respond to real time search is the
Second, the growth curve for Twitter and Facebook are solid. These services do not as yet directly compete if you accept my point of view. Both are vulnerable to a service that fuses the two functions in a useful, interesting way. Right now I don’t see either Facebook or Twitter able to do much more than try to keep up with here and now opportunities. That makes both outfits vulnerable to some extent.
Third, the analogy shows that what once were separate services are, at their core, probably ripe for fusion. These functions–Yahoo grab bag, Google search, Facebook Web pages, and Twitter micro blogs–can be rolled up into one big digital ball. I think that will probably happen. Furthermore, I don’t think any of the companies I just mentioned will be able to pull this off.
Stephen Arnold, March 2, 2009
Twitter Facebook Round Up
March 1, 2009
Michael J. Wolf, writing for Forbes, did a good job summarizing the Twitter world. He included some useful information about Facebook as well. I saw the story on CTV.ca here. If you are following the real time search sector, you may want to clip this item and tuck it away for reference. He touched on the question of “Will Social Networks on the Web Ever Make Money?” He hedged his answer. I won’t. I think real time search is a hot sector and it has left some of the Big Boys wondering where their mobiles phones are.
Stephen Arnold, March 1, 2009
Twitter in Play
March 1, 2009
Jennifer LeClaire, Newsfactor.com, here wrote “Google Tweets on Twitter Amid Acquisition Rumors” here has an interesting speculation about Google. Her article describes Google’s new interest in Twitter. At the top of the write up, she wrote:
Google may be late to the Twitter party, and its sudden entrance has many speculating about whether it plans to purchase the micro-blogging service that allows 140 characters to tell people what you’re doing. If it’s more search assets Google is after, Twitter would be a prime candidate.
Then she came back to the idea at the foot of the story with a quote from an industry wizard:
“It makes a lot of sense for Google to look at it and think about buying it,” Sterling said. “But what’s it worth and is buying it as a defensive measure sufficient, or does it need to generate revenue commiserate with the purchase price?”
My sources suggested that Google was “conflicted” about Twitter. When I heard this, I considered the notion that Google may have lost some of its agility in recent months. Reorganizing its foundation struck me as a distraction from more important management tasks… like Google’s failure to gain traction in real time search. If Ms. LeClaire is right, then Googzilla may be on the prowl for another high traffic snack. I’m on the fence with this one. I don’t think Google is the same creature it was in its salad days between 2004 and 2006. YAGGs were less frequent, and the company was, well, different. (As a reader named “Alex” knows, a YAGG is yet another Google glitch. You know. Like Gmail becoming Gfail. That sort of “different” in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, March 1, 2009
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
