Tag Archives: Google

On pandas, lobsters and apps that rock both.

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If you can get through the panda and lobster analogies for how we interact with Google and Facebook (it took me a little time, but I’m onboard now: pandas are searching, eating machines; lobsters find a trap and get stuck), Adam Rifkin has an interesting post about corporate culture at Google and how the company’s focus on search makes them less suited to building killer social applications.

Rifkin’s got good points and if Buzz was any indication, Google’s probably not the company to build the next super-wow social app. Rifkin’s concerned because of a list of stats about ad traffic on Facebook and Twitter as a growing force in search. It’s true that the online market is more diverse than it was even a couple of years ago. But while Google would be crazy to sit idly by while others slide into the driver’s seat, especially in the search market, I think it’s most critical to understand whether you’re creating for pandas or lobsters and embrace that completely.

I’d be interested to compare traffic across all of Google — especially their API — with Twitter and Facebook. I’m not sure what you’d find, but my experience is that I’m searching on google.com much less but their applications (especially on my Android phone) are so much more a part of my daily life than ever before. So I’m an even more efficient panda thanks to Google’s ability to put leaves right where I need them. I’m also pretty protective of the relationships I’ve made on Facebook and Twitter and very aware that the three don’t often cross very naturally.

My point in this, really, is threefold:

  1. Rifkin assumes that success for Google must include a beatdown of Facebook and/or Twitter. I disagree. Understanding the kind of service you provide and (better yet) knowing the type of audience you’re serving is more important than trying to beat someone else at their own game. Today’s news of Google acquiring semantic search company Metaweb is more exciting to me than yet another social app.
  2. If the Internet has taught me anything, it’s that there’s room enough for more than one big player, especially when each completely rocks their specific niche. The days of “one ring to rule them all” are over. Thanks to Frodo. And networked computers.
  3. The message of “Knowing Thine Audience” is hyper relevant to content strategists as well; it’s what keeps getting newspapers into trouble because it’s so easy to bounce between the first and best sources. General interest is as bland and unattractive as it sounds. Find a niche and rock it.

Hey newspapers, quit worrying about what Google’s buying and serve your customers

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News that Google is considering gobbling up Yelp has everyone twittering about how nothing’s safe from the search-blog-mail-chat-office-data giant. I generally avoid leaping into this kind of fray since I don’t really have a dog in the fight and don’t care to add to the hype.

But when I saw this tweet Friday afternoon, I had to come out swinging:

I think not.

http://twitter.com/pachecod/statuses/6807927866

Newspaper business directories are losers. First off, I speak from experience that newspaper community-based business directories are impossibly unwieldy to manage (you never get everyone included, so you’re not really the authority) and are about 10 laps behind the big-dog search industry that is always innovating ahead of your game.

And tying a directory to a walled community is a non-starter. Think you can compete with the draw and activity of a 350-million-and-growing active community? Come down off your high horse. Now try again.

Actually, newspapers should be concerned if their advertisers aren’t calling them to ask what the news means for their business locally and how they should respond.

For years, newspapers ad reps were the captains of a local business’ strategy to reach customers, for obvious reasons. While the Web disrupted, expanded and democratized the channels, we panicked and threw stuff at both readers and advertisers with the hope that we’d get the water back behind the dam.

Meanwhile, local advertisers were bombarded with SEO snake oil and social media hype and left out in the cold by their long-time allies if they weren’t convinced by confusing print ad pricing or iffy online banner campaigns.

Seth Godin wrote this morning about how effective it is to fight the natural flow of market forces, especially in a disrupted market like newspapers:

Competition and the market are like water. They go where they want.

Google owns search; it’s a habit. Hell, it’s a verb. No local directory is going to touch that kind of reach. Instead, a complete strategy for a local business should include a Google business listing, a Facebook fan page and a branding campaign in the paper and online.

Like the proverbial reed that bends in the breeze but survives the typhoon, the local news organization’s best bet is to be the conduit for that work — the first call an advertiser makes when they hear of a new method to reach customers.

And, because technologies change, merge and shift, our advice and platforms must be flexible enough to adapt. Local business doesn’t need another business directory, they need a partner and a media hub. (I’ve been working on one version. More to come on that soon.)

So if Google buys Yelp, fine. Go out to your restaurant clients and teach them how social media works. Get them into the data stream, help them understand why it’s a good thing that people are talking about them and be available when the landscape changes. Because it will.

But you’ll be there. If you build relationships, that is.

Friday link roundup

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Aussie working the herd

Aussie working the herd. Round em up, pup!

Rescuing The Reporters, shirky.com
This is a great post. Clay Shirky breaks down the hometown paper and asks hard questions of what’s locally produced and puts some of the “newspapers should do x to survive” into context.

The Audacity of Free, chrisbrogan.com
Hey, I like free stuff as much as the next guy. I like getting paid, too.This post makes a great case for charging something for stuff. But the tricky question is how to boost value of the something enough that someone will part with sheckles for it.

NPR lands $3M grant for hyperlocal initiative, lostremote.com
Look out. Take a look at this report about how National Public Radio’s growth has tracked over the past few years, most importantly in how they’re working to create bonds with audiences.

With msnbc’s purchase of everyblock and local tv stations poised to launch local blogs, local is going to get pretty crowded. NPR will be a force to be reckoned with.

Google unveils new local search for mobile, lostremote.com
This is great: star stuff while searching and get an interactive list on your phone. But it skews toward chain stores in my quick tests. Will have to experiment to see if local joints can be preferred.

Is the revolution over?, collegemediainnovation.org
Is it safe to say that the rehash of micropayment proposals or bitching about comments signals a completed technology distribution curve. Game over.

I’m not so sure. In fact, I’m afraid there’s much more pain as advertisers really get a handle on (and more savvy than ever about) what they really want for their dollars spent.

I do think, though, that the pace of change in types of new tools will slow. That means microblogging as a concept will stick around, but self-hosted solutions or outright competitors to twitter, for example, are likely. Mobile as a viable platform is established, but how people interact with it is sure to change. Etc.

That circular talk, though, will continue as long as the old guard is still waking up to the discussion and cycles through the phases of how to “save journalism.”

Someone ought to make a primer! “So you think you can save journalism: A primer on what’s already been talked about so wired journalists at the bar don’t roll their eyes when you walk away.”

Happier, getrichslowly.org
There’s a whole blog post wrapped into the concepts that come to mind with this post. Until then, chew on this:

The shift from being a rat racer to pursuing happiness is not about working less or with less fervor but about working as hard or harder at the right activities — those that are a source of both present and future benefit.

Make new friends, but keep the old…

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Note: This post started as a reply to a post by WeMediaGuru, but it just got too long for that format and turned into its own animal.

Today, Jason at wemediaguru notes words from Mike Blinder of the consulting firm The Blinder Group, which works with media companies to maximize revenue:

The mafia (yellow pages) comes to town every year and steals 18 to 20 percent of the revenue that newspapers should be getting in their local market. Google is doing a great job at killing yellow pages. The enemy of my enemy is my friend today.

Jason’s wondering if incorporating Google is a wise strategy for media companies, especially those who are considering local search, but aren’t entirely sold on the idea.

Building a Web strategy without Google is like trying to start a business in town 30 years ago without placing a newspaper ad.

The fact is that many people (though admittedly less all the time) think the Internet IS Google. Take Steve Krug’s example of people typing whole urls into Yahoo or AOL. The big problem Google has, though, is in rooting out relevant local information. But it’s getting better and we (local media) aren’t part of the solution.

Take my wife and me. We like local restaurants, quaint hotels and out-of-the-way sightseeing. Up until a couple of years ago, a pre-roadtrip Google search brought such local gems as Super 8 Motel and Pizza Hut.

That’s changing, in part because others are starting to realize that while Google might be the shotgun approach, once a source of good local information earns their trust, they’re the go-to for future information.

Take a Google search for restaurants in our current town.

There are three things to note here:

  1. Our newspaper isn’t among the top ten sites for information on the topic.
  2. The top two sites contain reader reviews and do, in fact, highlight some pretty cool local eateries.
  3. The search has brought up a couple of local restaurants who have done at least a passable job at SEO. Without an ally in the local media company, locals are taking the Web into their own hands.

There are some obvious lessons in all three. But where to go from here?

Why not become the local expert in getting local businesses in front of Googlers? Could we start consulting those who already have a Web presence in SEO (for a fee) and a link?

Obviously, reader reviews are a big part of Web 2.0 trust-building. Businesses don’t often want to take the bad with the good (and years of pandering local business coverage have taught them bad habits about dealing with us).

Why not sell ad space, for example, next to reader reviews of that business? Then maximize Google’s ability to access that information?

Am I out of my mind here?