google buzz

How do Startups Avoid the Fickle Factor?

By Mark Evans in Search Engines, Social Media 3 Comments Tags: , , ,

FickleThere was an article in the New York Times yesterday about how Blekko is hoping to establish a foothold in the ultra-competitive search engine market by taking a different approach that involves technology and people.

To be honest, I hadn’t given Blekko much thought since its launch last October. For all the good intentions to try new and different kind of services, it didn’t take long before I went back to using Google. One of the truths is I didn’t give Blekko much of a chance to unseat Google. Before long, Google had become top-of-mind again, while Blekko blurred into the startup background.

For many startups, this scenario is a harsh reality. While consumers like variety and the idea of shiny new things coming at them on a regular basis, there seems to be a limited ability to truly embrace new services. I suspect most users have a small group of services that meets most of their needs, and that it’s rare that a new service can join the club.

For a new service to resonate, it needs to do the following:

1. Have a powerful, yet, simple value proposition. It needs to fill a need or a perceived need in such a way that a potential users says “Yes, I need that”. Freshbooks is a good example by making invoicing easy.

2. The new service and the value it delivers has to be crystal clear and blatantly obvious. Most consumers are lazy; if they don’t understand a service right away, they’ll move on even if the service is something that meets an obvious need.

3. The process from registering, using and paying (if it’s a premium service) has to be user-friendly and grit-free. If, at any point, you force the consumer to do something that’s difficult or they’re reluctant to do (e.g. provide lots of personal information), they’ll back off. A good example of a grit-free process of NoteLeaf.com’s signup process, which is simple, clean and fast.

4. There should be regular communications (perhaps monthly) with the user that is friendly, helpful but not a hard sell. Let’s face it, people are busy so a friendly reminder from a service can often be enough to catch someone’s attention. This is particularly relevant if the service has a strong value proposition.

5. Encourage other people to spread the word by making it easy and/or giving them incentives. A great example is DropBox, which rewards its users with 500MB of storage if you share a file with someone, and then open a DropBox account.

How Much Social Media Should Be Monitored?

By Mark Evans in Social Media 4 Comments Tags: , , , , ,

For good reasons, social media monitoring and measurement is all the rage as companies look to get information and intelligence about all the conversations taking place.

To offer comprehensive coverage, companies such as Sysomos (a client) monitoring blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Wikis and forums, as well as traditional media. It’s all about getting as good a handle as possible on what’s happening and who’s driving the conversations.

One of the realities for anyone doing social media monitoring is how many social media platforms should be monitored – a challenge given the fact there are hundreds, if not thousands, of social media services being used to one degree or another.

For example, should Google Buzz be monitored now given it has nine million users? Some social media monitoring services such as Sysomos are already doing it because each Google Buzz user has an RSS feed that can be indexed.

What about Foursquare, which is the new shiny toy for social media enthusiasts? Does it make sense to monitor Foursquare right now when the only thing users doing is broadcasting their locations. Is that valuable or relevant social media activity that should be taken into account?

What about Ning, the do-it-yourself social networking service that has millions of users? Or Google sidewiki?

In other words, where should you draw the line? How popular or interesting does a social media service need to be before it needs to be indexed and monitored?

What do you think?

Google Buzz: Why, Why, Why?

By Mark Evans in Google No Comments Tags: , , ,

Google Buzz’s launch earlier this week has attracted as much attention about the “why” as the “what”. Among the leading “why” questions:

1. Why did Google launch Buzz?

Is it merely to establish a better foothold in the social media universe given Google has a low presence? Does Google see a problem that it can tackle such as filtering the amount of social media “noise”? Or, as Steve Rubel suggests, is Google Buzz an attempt by Google to protect GMail from Facebook’s bigger plans for the e-mail market.

2. Why has Google spent the past few days upgrading, fixing and re-loading on Buzz, highlighted today by a “new start-up experience”? It’s difficult not to get the impression that Buzz was rushed out the door before it was fully baked. I mean, Google has an army of product development people who could have easily picked off some of complaints before Buzz went prime-time. Instead, Buzz has been abuzz with fixes fueled by a flurry of feedback.

3. Why isn’t Buzz’s value proposition more compelling? Sure, it has some interesting bells and whistles such as the ability to write updates longer than 140 characters and integration to other services but Buzz doesn’t a compelling raison d’etre that would convince people to give up Facebook or Twitter.

There’s no doubt Buzz will likely attract a group of enthusiastic users but right now it doesn’t appear to be Killer anything; instead Buzz looks like a nice, niche service. After using it for a few days, it’s one of those services that you check a few times before moving on.

Any thoughts about these questions?

Google Here, Google Everywhere

By Mark Evans in Google No Comments Tags: , , ,

I started using Google Chrome recently. Although it’s an extension-free version, it’s very good – fast and with a cool search feature that also doubles as the place where URL addresses appear. It’s yet another Google tool with my digital toolbox, along with search (regular, blog and image), GMail, Google Reader, Google Maps and YouTube.

As much as you may want to resist, it’s difficult to not be part of the ever-expanding Google empire. Most of their services work really well, and they’re free. Before you know it, your digital world is dominated by Google.

One of the questions it raises is whether there’s a limit to the size of Google’s empire, and whether are any markets that it is not prepared to enter. This week, for example, Google’s strategic “diary” included:

- The launch of Google Buzz, an attempt to establish a foothold in the fast-growing social media universe
- The purchase Aardvark, an online Q&A service, for $50-million.
- An ambitious plan to build a high-speed fiber network.

Whether it’s new services, acquisitions and major projects, Google is the Roman Empire of the 21st Century. Its reach, dominance and portfolio of services is amazing and, at the same time, somewhat troubling. At the end of the day, the question is whether is Google is good for the Internet? Does its dominance and strategic ambitious allow for a vibrant and innovative Internet that features a healthy ecosystem with a variety of players in each marketplace?

Maybe it’s not a question that can be answered right now but it’s a subject worth spending more time on. As much as Google’s products and services are great, there’s a price to be paid even though they’re free.

Google Buzz’s Biggest Challenge: Digital Turf

By Mark Evans in Google, Social Media 2 Comments Tags: , , , ,

I haven’t been able to try Google Buzz yet but here are some more thoughts from the outside looking in.

The decision to use GMail as the platform to establish a foothold within social media is smart – probably the second best thing Google could have done aside from buying Twitter. The idea of creating a service within something that 175 million people use each month makes total sense.

Google Buzz also scores points with a nice suite of features so it can be used to provide links to other social media platforms – something will expand down the road. Being able to create mini-Web sites from each update is also interesting.

That said, Google Buzz faces some major challenges. Perhaps the biggest is how willing people will be embrace yet another social media service when many people are already using Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Ning, etc.

Once someone has their social media “tool box”, it can be difficult to squeeze in another tool – even if it has some utility. It’s the reason, for example, that I have resisted multiple invitations to join Plaxo. While I’ve heard good things about Plaxo, I don’t have the appetite or interest in using it because it would just be yet another tool.

Google Buzz could face the same challenge trying to establish a foothold beyond bleeding-edge users. Its adoption could come down to whether it proves itself to be more useful and user-friendly so it starts to replace other tools – Facebook, Twitter, etc. in digital tool boxes.

Google Has Buzz But Little Social Media Success

By Mark Evans in Social Media 3 Comments Tags: , , ,

I haven’t had an opportunity yet to really dig deep into Google Buzz but for all the talk about how Buzz is all about addressing the noise/signal problem within social media, one thing that Buzz does highlight is Google’s mediocre record when it comes to social media – something highlighted by Fortune Magazine’s Jessi Hempel.

Sure, Blogger is one of the leading blogging platforms but you could argue that Google has done much with it over the years. Orkut is a raging success in Brazil but it’s an ugly sister compared with Facebook and MySpace.

When Google co-founder Sergey Brin was asked today about Google’s lack of social media success, he danced around and suggested that Google has had “a lot of success”, adding that Buzz has potential to bring social communications and productivity closer together.

“I think a lot of past services have focused on just friends and entertainment,” he said during a press conference today.

I guess Brin doesn’t see Twitter as a productivity tool even though it has become a great way to discover new services and content, as well conduct R&D, generate feedback and handle customer service.

What are your thoughts about Buzz? Are you buzzed about Buzz? If so, why?

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