“We want to continue to create products that rethink industry standards, challenge the status quo and make people’s lives easier — and we know that there are great minds out there with the same goal.”
Follow this link to read the full article
Posted 3 November 2009 in Internet, by
Mark
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Tags: Google, Innovation, Internet, Marketing, web design melbourne.
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Very interesting interview. Well worth taking the time to watch.
Posted 3 November 2009 in Features, Internet marketing, Marketing, by
Mark
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Tags: eric schmidt, Google, Internet, Marketing, Social Networking, Technology, web design melbourne, YouTube.
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This is a great vid that quickly goes through the history of Google. Well worth a couple of minutes of your time.
Posted 27 October 2009 in Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Social Networking, Viral, by
Mark
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Tags: Google, Internet, YouTube.
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UK Prime Minister delivers this inspiring talk at TED. He discusses how we can use today’s interconnectedness to develop our shared global ethic.
Posted 11 August 2009 in Internet, Market Trends, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Gordon Brown, Internet, Social Networking, Technology, TED, TED Conference, Twitter, web design melbourne.
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Google has finally announced the when it will launch it’s public beta of Google Wave. The announcement reads “… this morning we announced that we plan to start extending the Google Wave preview beyond developers on September 30th. This will take place on wave.google.com rather than the separate “sandbox” instance we are currently using, and we plan to involve about 100,000 users,”.
This is great news for us as we have been exploring the developers sandbox and are looking forward to incorporating Wave technology into our projects.
Foe more information about how Google Wave may effect marketers read our article here.
Posted 22 July 2009 in Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, Working Three, by
Mark
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Tags: Communication, Google, Internet, Marketing, Social Networking.
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The 28th of May this year may end up being one of the most influential 24 hours periods in web history. It was on this day that Google launched a new communications platform called Google Wave, and if Wave lives up to it’s promise it may change digital communication forever. But while the web elite are all a-buzz about the impact of this new platform on the way we communicate Google has quietly been releasing a steady stream of new products and further improvements to their core product, the Google search engine and it’s related advertising tools. Google is not going to give us a road-map for what this all means but it is possible to look at the patterns and take a long view.
There has been a lot of talk about the new kids on the search block, Wolfram Alpha, Twitter search and Microsoft’s latest entry, Bing (which is an acronym for “But It’s Not Google”). Some commentators have been speculating that many of the additions to Google search pages, such as the new “options” area where there is real time search among other features, are Google’s answer to real time search on Twitter search, and the decision engine promised by Bing. And while competition has undoubtedly accelerated Google’s release of features it is a pretty safe bet to assume that Google is not simply being reactive.
The fact is the Google owns over 70% of the search market world wide. Wolfram Alpha is designed as a computational engine which, in plain English, means it is an attempt to create a type of artificial intelligence and tease data out of the internet in a different way. Not really a direct threat to Google – in fact it can be seen as a complementary feature. Twitter Search is a real time search engine based on the collective conversations of every Twitter user. Interesting but also not a huge threat to Google search. Bing, combined with Yahoo, is really the only direct threat to Google. And, while Microsoft and Yahoo are spending a lot of money on marketing, they have a long way to go.
Currently Google has something in the vicinity of 200 applications and services available (for a full list go here), most of which are free. New ones seem to be coming out on a weekly basis at the moment. A few weeks back we saw the release of Google Squared, a very interesting research tool with loads of potential. A visual search tool for news, Flipper, is expected shortly.
It is fairly common knowledge that any technology Google develops is directed at increasing the usage of the web as a whole, thereby increasing the value of it’s main revenue stream, AdWords, the advertising medium based on relevance and consumer intent.
Forget E-Bay, AdWords is the world’s biggest auction. Every single search that is performed on Google is automatically analysed so that the most relevant “sponsored link” is displayed on the page and, of course, paid for by the advertiser. When you look at the cost of an individual click the numbers are small. But when you analyse the volume of searches that are performed it really starts to get impressive. Enough to net Google $21 Billion USD in 2008.
The temptation is to draw the line there… “Google is trying to get us all to use the browser even more, so we can do more searches, so they can make more money”. This is true – but there’s more to it.
The big difference between using Google AdWords and say print advertising – apart from the huge difference in volume of data you can extract; is that it levels the playing field. You can be a multi-national corporation with tens of millions to spend but if the copy of your ad is less relevant to searcher’s intent than an ad by a one man shop you won’t get the top spot. It is this fact that has seen online advertising for the SME market skyrocket. Naturally, Google is well aware of this.
The world wide web has become almost as essential as electricity and water in most of the technologically advanced areas of the world. In these societies the middle class are the highest users. But Google has spotted that poorer, less advanced countries present a huge growth opportunity. The current barrier to entry for this demographic is the window into the net: the computer.
Much of the cost of a computer is tied up in the processor power and the disk space. What Google is doing by creating free ’software as a service’ applications (or ‘cloud computing’ as it is otherwise known) is removing much of the technology requirement and cost. If all the processing is done at Google’s end the client’s machine need not be the latest and greatest computer on the market. The dramatic uptake of the NetBook is a great example of this. And the sale on eBay of the first generation of NetBooks for a few bucks presages the opening up of entirely new markets.
This is all about taking everybody towards a ‘thin client model‘. In this case the ‘client’ is the web end point – your window in the web – be it a NetBook, a TV, a phone, or just a screen plugged into the wall. The ‘thin’ part is the technology. Keep it simple and keep it cheap. The idea of the thin client model has been around for a while but Google is doing the most to advance it for the general population.
When the technology gets cheap enough the new target market for search related products will be most of the world . Google knows this and is already investing a lot of time into removing another barrier – language. One of the plug ins showcased when they launched Google Wave was a language translator that works as you type. This enables you to have real time conversations with anyone in the world. Together these innovations will bring information, education, and wealth to the masses in entirely new geographies.
As marketers we shouldn’t underestimate the size of this opportunity. Sure, we will have to learn new technologies and customs but we will also be able to market to entirely new groups of people with a new range of needs and wants – a part of the world that will grow in power and influence.
If you thought the first 20 years of the world wide web brought a lot of change to the way we do things, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Posted 1 July 2009 in Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Communication, future, Google, Internet, Marketing, Social Networking, Technology, Twitter.
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Social networks are changing the way people meet, interact, exchange opinions and find and view entertainment – as well as the ways brands engage with consumers. Now everyone has a voice and a platform to be heard. Sure there is a lot of noise and random chatter out there but it is already clear that ‘the cream rises to the top’ quickly in social networks.
That social networks are useful tools for connecting to friends or people with the same interests is now widely understood. Many people, however, still have trouble understanding how they can be utilised effectively for distributing marketing messages. They see social networks and the Internet in general as “just another media channel”, behind the likes of newspapers and TV. In fact social networks are fundamentally impacting and reshaping the newspaper and TV industries worldwide. In an earlier article, “What the newspaper industry needs to do to survive”, I explained the changing dynamics of the newspaper industry. In this article I look at where TV is headed.
In this article I look at where TV is headed.
For a very long time TV has been the master of the house. If you wanted to watch your favourite program you had to be in front of the TV at the right time. VCRs and later hard disk recorders like Tivo, or Foxtel IQ here in Australia, changed that. Now you can record your programs and skip through the ads. End users love it but advertisers were obviously frustrated with this development. There has even been a movement in the US to make sure the logo can still be seen while fast forwarding ads on a Tivo.
Enter Hulu. If you haven’t heard of Hulu don’t worry. It’s not available outside of the US yet. But I guarantee that it will be. Hulu is a website that is free to join, provided you hand over a bit of background information about yourself. It has video content to an extent never seen before. Almost every show that airs on FOX and NBC is available to watch whenever you feel like it. And when I say every show I mean every show. Every episode of the Simpsons ever produced, feature films, documentaries, dramas – anything you can think of – is searchable and viewable a day or two after it is aired on the network itself. Recently the networks have started to restrict a bit of that content but regardless you don’t have to worry about recording anything again. Hulu stores everything for you. Available “on demand”.
What is really interesting about Hulu is the business aspect of it. Each show still has commercial breaks but each break contains only one ad but a highly targeted one. Using the information you have provided about yourself, advertisers can tailor a message specifically to you, or as a minimum, make sure it advertises a product you are interested in. In fact, advertisers can even put your name in it. It may still be considered interruption marketing, but at least there’s a good chance that you’ll find it relevant and interesting. And who can be bothered fast-forwarding when it’s just one 30 second TVC? Even if you could. We haven’t seen it yet but there is nothing stopping the advertisers making these ads fully interactive as well.
Sit down in front of your TV and watch anything you want, any time you want.
Early adopters have already worked out how to get Hulu onto media centres like Apple TVs or Xboxes and are able to view it on their main entertainment screen. They are not meant to be able to it but it works. Considering how popular this seems to be it can’t be long before there is a “plug and play” version. Just think about it for a minute. Sit down in front of your TV and watch anything you want, any time you want. It could be the ‘total control’ moment we’ve all been waiting for since the birth of the internet.
The social networking interaction is fairly simple at this stage. Topic controlled forums where users can comment and vote on a show allow viewers connect with each other. This information has the ability to be analysed to make the advertising even more targeted. So it is likely that the social media aspects are only going to get further developed over time.
Hulu is doing well and is being backed by a range of big players. This technology is going to get even more interesting when Google, the owners of YouTube, joins in. You can bet your bottom dollar that YouTube is going to provide premium content with targeted advertising in the not too distant future. After all Google is no longer just a search engine; it is the world largest media agency and they know how to spot an opportunity, and they desperately need to find a way to make money out of YouTube.
As with all ‘disruptive’ technology changes there is going to be resistance at first. Large corporations don’t particularly like changing their business models, but you can guarantee this is where the customers will go – so the networks and advertisers will have to follow.
Television content providers need to be preparing for a time where this is common place. It’s what the customer wants and forcing your customers to put up with old models is a good way to lose them. Traditional broadcasting quickly became a platform for advertisers to speak to their customers. This new technology will be a similar platform but the conversation will be one to one. It’s measurable and testable. It’s direct marketing for TV.
Further reading:
How the economic downturn will mature internet marketing.
Hulu is Catching Up With YouTube – Fast
Free, Legal and Online: Why Hulu Is the New Way to Watch TV
Posted 5 May 2009 in Advertising, Design, Direct Marketing, Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Internet, Social Networking, Social Networking Melbourne, Technology, web design melbourne.
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From BNET Blog
“This one has been developing for some time now right before our eyes, but the titanic nature of the faceoff between what are arguably the two most aggressive representatives of Web 2.0 — Facebook and Twitter — has only recently heated up to the boiling point.
As Brad Stone, of The New York Times, observed this weekend, Facebook’s leaders have recently taken the bold step of providing “a set of technology tools that will let other companies create programs that tap into the heart of the social network — the endless stream of photographs, status updates and comments that people post to the service.”
In doing so, Facebook is trying to catch up to Twitter, which already allows outsiders to have their way with its interface and its content.
Stay tuned. This battle promises to be the best since Microsoft and Netscape squared off in the browser wars a decade or more ago.”
Click here to read the whole article
Posted 4 May 2009 in Internet, Internet marketing, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Facebook, Internet, Social Networking, Twitter.
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From the New York Times:
“As Owen Van Natta, the new chief executive of MySpace, starts his second week at the sprawling social network , he faces an acute demographic problem.
While Facebook is adding users, MySpace is losing them. Many user profile pages on MySpace are either cluttered or neglected, resembling a strip mall with pockets of empty storefronts. The users who remain tend to be younger and poorer, putting a drag on advertising revenue from blue-chip clients.”
Click here to read the whole article
Posted 4 May 2009 in Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Facebook, Internet, myspace, Social Networking.
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Just in case anyone was wondering just how big a change the internet, digital marketing and the possibilities it has brought really is.
Posted 28 April 2009 in Advertising, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, by
Mark
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Tags: Communication, Creative Advertising, Internet, Marketing, Social Networking, Technology.
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