Archive for the ‘Google’ Category

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Social Media Blog: Facebook Vs Google, the battle lines are drawn.

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

Well, if you have a Facebook account, you know how much time you spend on Facebook and you also know how much time others are spending, right? Now we have statistics that show that Facebook is the 2nd most popular site from a total number of visitors perspective.

Compete Inc, (a company which publishes research data on these kinds of interesting web & other stuff) published results that showed that Facebook's 134 million unique visitors in January bypassed Yahoo's 132 million unique but was just short of the 147 million unique visitors on Google.

Another statistic reported by Compete was that users spent 11.6% of their web time on Facebook which is more than double the time they spent individually on Yahoo or Google.

I think that Facebook's popularity is largely due to the connectivity it offers which no other site currently offers. Even Google Buzz just doesn't have the same "connectivity" and interactivity which I feel Facebook offers.
 
Will Facebook bypass Google in traffic sometime soon? Well, given the January 2010 numbers reported by Compete Inc (shown above), I think that that could happen sooner rather than later. It's not just the sheer volume of users interested in networking with family and friends that will make Facebook the number one site. I think it's also because Facebook offers personal and business interactions; what with the fan page and group participation opportunities that no other site offers. LinkedIn and Google's Buzz have a few features that may grow over time but I feel that they have a while to go before they catch up with Facebook. 
 

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Social Media Marketing Blog: Google Buzz

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Google's Got Buzz! 

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A whole new networking site from Google for it's Gmail users who can share updates, photos and videos.

You know why Google needed to launch the BUZZ……it needs to hold its own against Facebook & Twitter.
Gmail has over 176 million users according to a market research study conducted by comScore. So that's a ready audience. Buzz provides a "built-in circle of friends" which is basically a group that Google selects based on who you communicate with most frequently using Gmail and Gchat.

Meanwhile as I was writing this blog; Twitter was aflutter with both positive and negative comments about Buzz.

So will Buzz give Facebook a run for its money? Lets wait and watch…..

 

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Social Media Blog: Google’s New Social Media Team

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Fed up with its lack of success and progress in the Social Media space, Google recently hired social media evangelists such as Chris Messina, Will Norris, and former Plaxo executive Joseph Smarr to lead a new "Social Web Team".

Is Google unsuccessful in the Social landscape because the giant itself doesn't have it's own social media strategy?

Google's social web products like Orkut, Google Friend Connect, OpenSocial, Google Profiles, and even Google Wave haven't had much acceptance on the social front. None of these products have resonated with the public or the developers that architect the social-networking technologies. Coupled with the shutting down of acquisitions DodgeBall and Jaiku due to budget cuts, Google suffered another social-media blow when its attempt to acquire Yelp failed.

Google's biggest and probably only success in social networking is YouTube. However, the core of it as well as its initial base of mainstream popularity preceded the Google buyout.

Other than that, what exactly has Google contributed to social networking?
 
So what will the big dogs Messina, Norris and Smarr do for Google? Hopefully a focus, new product ideas, and a way to take on Facebook???
 

Posted in Google, Social Media Marketing | 3 Comments »

Social Media Marketing Blog: Google going interactive with YouTube Annotations

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Google wants to obtain a patent for a technology that can let its online video portal YouTube become an interactive gaming portal as well. They applied for the patent earlier in 2009.
 
The description of the patent is “Web-based System for Generation of Interactive Games Based on Digital Videos”. This patent details a system where the procedure of creating video annotations can be used for game like mechanics and video behavior change. The system can alter the appearance and even behavior of on-line videos. The system also provides for authentication based control over the annotation abilities that a user can acquire.

Now you may already be familiar with the YouTube video annotations as they are today. However they are fairly simple when you compare them to the patent they are applying for.  The new technology that Google wants to patent will allow users to create a game that can switch between different videos based on specific conditions such as different user responses etc. And users will also have the ability to control playback.

So if they win the patent, can you imagine what that will do to Google’s Youtube usage, not to mention advertisement revenue? And if they even charge a small subscription fee of $1 per application (like the one Apple charges for many of its ITouch apps), the sky’s the limit given the huge video game-loving audience out there.

 

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