Facebook and Its Hall of the Slain
May 7, 2012
I am no psychologist. I am not a brilliant MBA. I am not much more than an addled goose in Harrod’s Creek. However, I do know that when I read the New York Magazine’s article about Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook had arrived. (To read the story, I had to endure a number of annoying pop ups. You may be spared these intrusions, but “real” journalistic endeavors have to do their annoying thing.)
“The Maturation of the Billionaire Boy-Man.” Zowie. I can anticipate the joy among the Facebook faithful. I can only imagine how the story will be greeted among the Googlers. Here’s the first paragraph:
If all goes as planned, Facebook will finally pull the trigger later this month on its long-salivated-over IPO. The deal could value the company in the neighborhood of $100 billion, making founder and CEO Mark Elliot Zuckerberg’s own unusually large stake worth $25 billion. It is a huge sum, even in context. Zuckerberg’s impending fortune is more money than Wal-Mart’s 10,000-plus stores made last year. It’s more than Wall Street paid in bonuses to New Yorkers last year. And it has been amassed in only eight years by a 27-year-old who not long ago passed out business cards reading “I’m CEO, bitch.”
I urge you to read the full article. It is important for three reasons:
- From my point of view, Facebook is the new focal point of what one can do with technical skill, a good idea, and lots of money.
- Facebook is a business school case study of “managing better”—certainly better than most of the Silicon Valley start ups outfits. The praise for Shryl Sandberg’s contributions is put in terms of increasing revenue from $150 million to $4 billion. One cannot forget the “our dream is to save lives” notion.
- Google is history in the eyes of some. The difference is the impossible dream of “all the world’s information” to the “social mission.” Both are grandiose, but the Facebook angle is backed up with 900 million “members”, not users.
So what hurts more? Google is in pain. Facebook is feeling good. Pivot point in the mythology of running an Internet company? You bet. Will it last? Nah, but for now, the Googlers have to cope with Zuckerberg as the company that marginalized Google as the management and technical Valhalla. Is there a Hall of the Slain in Mountain View for victims of public relations?
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2012
Sponsored by Polyspot
OptimalKeyword and the Science of Keyword Optimization on Facebook
March 1, 2012
Keyword fanatics take heed: optimalKeyword has the tools you need to maximize results from Facebook’s advertising system (registration required.) The ad management platform promises to maximize your audience with “rich reach and gender estimates”; teach you which keywords to avoid in order to bypass certain groups; profile your competition; and even design the perfect ad to attract your desired customers.
The site’s FAQ page explains:
“optimalKeyword is an audience expansion and research tool powered by SocialPredict. SocialPredict is optim.al‘s proprietary machine learning interest/affinity matching engine that is built on an edge graph of over 2.4 billion modeled connections between various interests. optimalKeyword.com helps you build better keyword targets based on Facebook social media data, and tells you more about the brands, interests and passions that connect us.”
You can perform searches with potential keyword combos for free all day long, but to see more than three out of 100 results, you’ll have to pay.
The platform was created by XA.net, which creates this and other robust data analysis for marketers from their San Francisco offices.
Cynthia Murrell, March 1, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Facebook in Brazil
February 4, 2012
It is no secret that Facebook is the world’s leading social networking site. But it is not every day that you see it leave competitors in the dust. Read Write Web recently reported on the social networking giant in the article “It Only took One Year for Facebook to Beat Orkut in Brazil.”
According to the article, after being launched in 2004, Orkut quickly became the top social networking site in Brazil and it remained dominant until a few months ago. However, a recent ComScore report showed Facebook steadily increase and eventually beat out Orkut with 36.1 million visitors in December 2011.
Alex Banks, ComScore’s managing director in Brazil said:
Brazil has always been a particularly social market and currently owns the fifth largest social networking population in the world. But despite the cultural affinity for social media, Facebook adoption had traditionally lagged in the market.
What changed? maybe globalization has proven to be stronger than Brazilian nationalism?
Jasmine Ashton, February 4, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Facebook, Google, and Evil: Standard Operating Procedure?
January 23, 2012
One of the most over-used and little-understood words attached to online is “evil.” Long before Google, I was in a meeting at which ABI/INFORM announced per online type pricing. I think the person who described the decision to charge $0.25 per online type for Format 5 on Dialog was Martha Williams, one of the stalwarts of the online industry and a respected figure at the University of Illinois science and engineering libraries.
A tip of the trident to http://reinventingtheeventhorizon.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/midnight-in-the-garden-of-good-and-evil%E2%80%94mafia-style/
Evil, according to Dictionary.com–which is tough to use because of the ads for Zoho, InetSoft, and RingCentral–iterates through 10 definitions:
- morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life.
- harmful; injurious: evil laws.
- characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering;unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days.
- due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation.
- marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known for his evil disposition.
- that which is evil; evil quality, intention, or conduct: to choose the lesser of two evils.
- the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin.
- the wicked or immoral part of someone or something: The evil in his nature has destroyed the good.
- harm; mischief; misfortune: to wish one evil.
- anything causing injury or harm: Tobacco is considered by some to be an evil.
Like many words in every day use, evil can denote or connote different shades of meaning.
I thought about these 10 definitions after I read “Facebook to Google: Don’t Be Evil, Focus on the User.” The write up presents a respected real journalist’s report about information exchanged in a meeting. The main point of the write up describes a way to make Google work the way it did before the social bonus program kicked in and the Google Plus avalanche rumbled down the roof of the Googleplex.
Google Plus Desperation Marketing
January 12, 2012
The reaction to Google Plus makes clear the lack of understanding that exists about pervasive online products and services. I am cranking away on my Enterprise Technology Management column, a for fee task, but I had to take a moment to offer some observations on the hurricane of hoo-hah which is raging.
Navigate to “Google Likely to Face FTC Complaint over ‘Search Plus Your World‘”. The story does a good job of explaining the new servicer in a way that appears to make sense to a person who uses online but does not understand its imperatives; to wit:
Google calls the new feature rolling out to users of its English-language search engine “Search Plus Your World.” It blends information such as photos, comments and news posted on its Google+ social network into users’ search results. It mostly affects the one in four people who log into Google or Google+ while searching the Web. Those users will have the option of seeing search results that are customized to their interests and connections, say, a photo of the family dog or a friend’s recommendation for a restaurant. Google has been working for years to create a personal search engine that knows its users so well it delivers results tailored to them. It’s also trying to catch up to social networking giant Facebook, which, with more than 800 million users, knows its users far better than Google does. But critics contend Google, a laggard in social networking, is using its dominance in Internet search to favor its own products and take on its chief competitor.
Like many of the other posts from “experts” and pundits, a number of assumptions operate to characterize Google’s actions are controversial, limiting, or designed to have quite specific consequences for users, competitors, and stakeholders.
My view is based on the research I conducted from 2001 to 2008, the period in which the bulk of my Google work took place. If you are curious about my monographs, there are descriptions of these publications at this Infonortics’ link for the Google Trilogy.
First, once a company captures a “place” in online, the successful service acts like a magnet. An unsuccessful service in the same space pulls marginal users at first and then “pumps” those users into the primary place. Google was an early entrant in social with Orkut. For reasons which I am not at liberty to discuss, that service did not capture a “place”. MySpace did but failed to respond to the Facebook approach. As users flowed to Facebook, the Orkut, MySpace, and other social services began to amplify the Facebook service. The result was the steady expansion of the service despite its flaws. As those who have watched a service benefit from the competitors’ amplification of the dominant service, there is little which can be done to halt the growth. Facebook, like Yahoo in directory services and Google in traditional Web search demonstrated, the new service surges and then has its own life cycle. Not even shooting oneself in the foot or regulation can stop the expanding service from becoming a monopoly. Facebook has achieved that position and it will eventually decline. For now, Facebook, like it or not, is the social focal point. Google has limited choices. One of its options is the walled garden and taking tactical actions that will get Google back into a growth position in the disputed “space.”
Second, when a competitor tries to capture the number one position in a new space, the work we have done over the last 30 years suggests:
- The maximum market share which the tactical actions can yield will be about 60 percent of the leader’s market share. Usually, the share is much less. Facebook, therefore, is not likely to be significantly affected in the short and mid term by Google’s or any other competitors’ action. Facebook is at greater risk of making errors in judgment related to management, money, and technology than what Google or any other competitor does. So Google is under pressure and Facebook is cruising.
- The dominant service benefits from the added visibility to high profile tactical moves create. It would not surprise me if Facebook benefits from Google’s actions related to expanding its walled garden, getting into he said, she said arguments with services like Twitter, and its senior management making statements which throw dry logs on a raging digital marketing fire. In short, Google is helping out Facebook if our research is on the money.
Imagine how difficult it must be for Google to be largely excluded from social services. Now consider that the focus of Google is upon capturing a space which may be unobtainable. Do you expect Google’s thinkers to find a checkmate type of solution from the company’s recent tactical actions? I don’t. I think Google is trying to find a solution, not implementing a solution.
Finally, Google is now in a precarious positions. As I write this, the search services from Yandex.ru and Yandex.com are often more relevant than those delivered by Google’s service. The Yandex technology like Baidu’s and Jike’s shares some characteristics with Google’s. The shift in precision and recall at Google is a direct result of manual and automatic adjustments to the advertising imperative that keeps Google in revenue growth mode. Services which focus on precision and recall deliver results which our research indicates are more relevant when measured by traditional information retrieval yardsticks. Google, therefore, is now at increased risk of a thrust at its core business by capable, technically adept competitors. Little wonder why some have reported that Google is sending mixed signals or that Google’s management is engaged in healthy discussion about what to do a situation which simply did not exist when Google grew due to the inattention of its competitors in 1998 to 2004 and in 2006 to 2007 when there was zero significant awareness of the “legacy” of the Google method. Now the “legacy” is part of Facebook’s and other competitors’ equipment for living. Google is in an unfamiliar position. As I have learned in my own online work, the unfamiliar translates to an increased likelihood for acting with a certain blindness. One can get hit by a very loud, very large, and very slow moving bus when one is blind.
Net net: Google is at a turning point. The evidence is the discussion about Google Plus and its walled garden approach, the spectrum of commentary about what is a quite predictable, if ill considered innovation from Google, and from the comments made by Google’s competitors.
Because online services, if they grow to more than 65 percent of a particular market, naturally become monopolies. Management will take credit for this success, but it is often inevitable, not the result of a brilliant executive decision. Online monopolies chug along and then—boom—arrive and get noticed. A recent example is the Apple iTunes, iPhone, iPad situation.
I want to see how the power flows from centroid to centroid in dataspace. The physics of information permit behaviors which are difficult to predict and have unforeseen consequences. One consequence: desperation marketing. She has swept in with Google Plus I submit.
Stephen E Arnold, January 12, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
A Harbinger for 2012: Facebook on Top?
January 3, 2012
Experian Hitwise, a subset of Experian Marketing Services, reported on a recent analysis of the top 1,000 search terms for 2011 in article “Facebook was the Top Search Term for Third Straight Year.”
According to the article, Facebook was the top search term and the most visited website in the U.S and accounted for 3.10 percent of all searches, a 46 percent increase from 2010. Social networking-related terms dominated the results, accounting for 4.18 percent of the top 50 searches. This is an increase of 12 percent compared with 2010.
Simon Bradstock, general manager of Experian Hitwise, said:
Marketers need to be particularly brand-savvy when managing their search optimization campaigns because of this behavior, which is a result of predictive search functionality across major search engines. Other top 2011 searches reflect ongoing fascination with celebrities online, and many of the top fast-moving searches centered on natural disasters or notable personalities passing away.
It seems that social media is here to stay and business leaders ought to stay abreast of these trends and utilize them to their advantage.
Jasmine Ashton, January 3, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Facebook Beats Google Plus on Android
December 23, 2011
Google is still hurting in the social media race, and this time it is even on its own mobile device.
Facebook has become the most popular app on Android, seeing a higher active reach than every single one of Google’s first-party apps.
ZDNet’s article, “Facebook is Now the Most Popular Android App”
The latest data comes from Nielsen, which ranked mobile apps by active reach: the percentage of Android owners who used the app within the past 30 days. The metrics research firm analyzed usage data from its proprietary device meters put on the smartphones belonging to thousands of participating consumers. As you can see in the chart [in the article], Nielsen broke down users by age group. Facebook had an 80 percent active reach for 18-24 year-olds, 81 percent for 25-34 year-olds, and 77 percent for 35-44 year-olds.
If accurate, very interesting. Facebook released its most recent app for Android last week, so as a twenty-something avid Facebook user, I am not surprised with this finding. I am, however, surprised with Google’s initial predictions that Google Plus would be strong competition for Facebook. The Google Plus Android App didn’t even rank on Nielsen’s top fifteen active reach rankings. What is going on, Google?
Andrea Hayden, December 23, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Facebook Still Tops Google Plus
November 23, 2011
Tech Crunch reported on social media news this week in the article “Report: 61 Percent of Top Brands Have Created Google+ Pages, But No One is Following.”
It appears that in the competition between Facebook and Google+, Facebook is staying in the lead. The SEO firm BrightEdge found that since the release of Google+ pages last week 61 percent of the world’s top 100 brands have signed up for pages, however, few people seem to be following them.
Despite the fact that Google+ pages on average appeared in the top 12 Google search results for the corresponding brand, while the brand’s Facebook pages on average appeared in the top 13 or 14 listed results, the article states:
Ninety four percent of the Top 100 brands have a presence on Facebook. BrightEdge says that only 12 percent of the brands that created these pages displayed a link to them on their home page. About 53 percent of the Top 100 brands display a link on their home page to their Facebook page. And brands appear to be having mixed success at building social networks around their Google+ presence. In fact, Google had the largest fan contingent of any brand on Google+, having attracted more than 65,000 fans.
If Google+ doesn’t gain a significant following soon, and Google+ becomes the “new” Google, we can most likely expect a big shift coming in usage patterns. Maybe the “old” Google should not have been thrown under the bus.
Jasmine Ashton, November 23, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Is Microsoft SharePoint a Facebook Service?
November 2, 2011
Gain Power, Lose Control? A Search Variant
October 20, 2011
The future of technology, like always, is fascinating: personal virtual assistants, customized search results, and big changes to information appliances. However, the new future Silicon Valley giants like Apple, Google and Facebook will be creating a mix of changes that will bring both unique benefits and some bad results.
It seems that the more advanced and powerful technology becomes, the more control users lose. We learn more in Datamation’s article, “How Apple, Google and Facebook Will Take Away Your Control,” which tells us:
“The more advanced this technology becomes, the bigger the decisions we’ll rely on them to make for us. Choices we now make will be “outsourced” to an unseen algorithm. We’ll voluntarily place ourselves at the mercy of thousands of software developers, and also blind chance. We will gain convenience, power and reliability. But we will lose control.”
Personal computers will no longer need to be maintained or customized. Personal assistants, like the iPhone 4s’ Siri, will place our words in context and learn what we “want.” Search algorithms will continue to customize to user attributes and actions.
Is the gain of convenience and reliability that we get from these shiny new toys worth it? Or is the shine just a distraction from the fact that we lose all control in search and technological decision making? I am not so sure the good will be outweighing the bad in this scenario, but I fear that we may be stuck in the cycle.
Andrea Hayden, October 20, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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