Google Vs. Facebook And My Address Book

Google’s deploying their now well-known tactic for dealing with threats; assemble a gaggle of doctorates into a room while simultaneously cutting cheques left right and centre. Meanwhile Facebook just rolls out another game…weddingville anyone?

But here’s the issue I see, backed up by three years of research: It’s about the address book. Not games. Not features. It’s my address book with all my connections…added to that is all that really valuable stuff of social networks – videos, messages, photo’s. The stuff that makes up human experiences of social groups. Our “social history” if you will.

Sure, Google’s got lots of people with Gmail accounts. But Google Buzz has failed. Mostly because it completely misses our “social history”…it’s just not easy to share what is easy to share in Facebook – photo’s, videos and the comments added to photo’s that we may go back and look at. Buzz just bombs there. It’s essentially just a hyped up version of Gmail.

In our view, if Google really wants to take on Facebook, they have to figure out how to compellingly make it easy to port over not only ones address book connections, but all those photo’s and the history attached to them.

But perhaps they aren’t bothering with that at all? Perhaps they’re just going to offer a bunch of games to play. That’ll be about as successful as Wave and Buzz.

Google isn’t batting a good average right now. I’m curious to see what they come up with in this latest venture. Somehow I suspect it may not be a social networking app. It’s too bad, since I like what Google does much better than Facebook.

Is Social Media Making People Hyper-Competitive?

You might call it “keeping up with the eJones‘” in a way. Take FourSquare for example…the more you “check in” to a place the greater a chance you can become “Mayor” until someone unseats you. Or LinkedIn with that little blue bar that says you’re “only 75% complete” for your profile…don’t you just want to push that bar to the 100% point? C’mon now, be honest.

Of course this is going to drive all those “lets make a level playing field for kids in school” educators go batty. Because even social media services like Club Penguin have “status” levels and indicators – because it is human nature to be competitive.

The value to almost all social media services (Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn etc.) is eyeballs. So how they keep eyeballs and get more eyeballs is to leverage “game theory” in the primary framework of the service.

And let’s face it, we benchmark ourselves against our social peers. Whether we like to admit it openly or not, it’s true. We look at the car we drive compared to our neighbours or peers, the clothes we wear or of course…whether someone uses a Mac or a Windows machine, Blackberry or iPhone. These things all say something about who we are and where we stand.

We’ve reached the point where socially, people seem to think you’re an odd duck if you aren’t on Facebook and not on LinkedIn if your a white collar professional.

The social media channels that will do best in the coming years will be those who figure out successfully, how to harness game theory and drive our competitive nature. Not all approaches will work with everyone, but they will appeal to certain segments. And that can be just enough to make them large and monetarally valuable to marketers or potential buyers.

So there we are…we’re all just game pieces in a set of complex games finding we now have to keep up with the Jones’ in Cyburbia as well. Funny sometimes how eLife mimics real life isn’t it?

Privacy: Don’t Blame Facebook and Google Alone

What’s really happening with privacy today is that consumers/netizens and business are negotiating a new “social contract.” Sure Facebook and Google among others, have made mistakes in how they deal with privacy. So have netizens who post a comment or statement on a blog open to everyone and then get angry when they are confronted with libel or slander by the offended party – you post it where it’s open to the public, it’s your fault.

So how are we going to deal with this?

The reality is, the general public is figuring this out as much as the companies offering social technology services. Both are to blame for mistakes and wins.

1. Business wants less privacy so they have more data on people and groups to sell to product manufacturers and services providers. They want “marketing data”. A business really does not care about an individual. They don’t have the time or resources. As much as the business world talks about 1 to 1 customer relationships the reality is quite the opposite.

2. Consumers want more privacy to protect personal data from marketers. They also want it so they can better manage their social relationships and the relationships they may form with corporations.

The reality is that no one has all the right answers – how could we? The issues of privacy will be settled over time and with that most powerful of incentives in our world today – money. When consumers are truly frustrated with a company or product, they don’t buy it and they don’t participate. Or citizens push (as is their right) government to develop legislation for regulation.

Despite Facebook’s privacy faux pas, they continue to grow rapidly. Google remains the top search engine. Hundreds of millions still use Gmail and other Google services. Twitter continues to grow.

Privacy issues like we’re addressing today have never before been an issue in society. We have absolutely no precedence to refer to. A form of “social contract” existed before because it was quite easy to control privacy. With the advent of CCTV cameras, low cost of networking these services and then the Web, all of a sudden we face new issues on privacy.

The debates and outcries will continue for some time yet. Eventually I suspect a happy medium will be found. Until then, we have perhaps a few more decades before a new “social contract” on privacy becomes apparent. Until then, as citizens, I think we have a responsibility to learn and develop our terms as much as business is learning. It’s people that run a business and successful businesses are always innovating and part of that is pushing boundaries, to understand what is and isn’t acceptable.

What do you think?

(Author: G. Crouch)

Is Social Media the End of Friend Nostalgia?

Unlike those under 25, I didn’t grow up with Facebook in my face and my head pummeled with tweets and whistles of notification services and microblogs. I played in mud and sand and helped do my part to keep the laundry soap market in business like all kids into the 80′s. I lost friends when I moved, I made new ones. Over time my social circles changed. Like everybody else. I wondered from time to time about my high-school girlfriends and regular mates. It was nice to have a beer with the friends I’d stayed connected with, the two or three of them, and reminisce for a few minutes with a laugh or a groan.

Now, I’ve reconnected with most of them on Facebook or LinkedIn. Now I know all about what happened to them, who went to pot, who fell off the wagon who did amazing things. Kids today start connecting on various social networks at around 5 or 6 years old.

They will likely never know the bittersweet nostalgia of the natural process of losing friends and acquaintances. Sure, finding an old friend can also be wonderful and rewarding.

But before Facebook and Classmates and all these ways of reconnecting, there was a certain part of ones character that developed with these losses. Chances are, that will be less likely (at least in wealthy nations with prevalent Web usage.) What might be the ramifications? It will require a new set of etiquette behaviours for certain.

How do you think it might evolve?

(Author: G. Crouch, Principal)

Sometimes Small is Better in Social Media

Ther’s a ton of content from pundits out there screaming to “get as many followers as you can” or “face the Facebook reality or your business will die.” Getting massive amounts of traffic is well, just sooo 2001. You needed volume then just to convert. Ecommerce sites were but a few years old and well, Twitter and Facebook didn’t exist.

Forget Big. Find The Right Size.

For all the Twitter fans out there, don’t forget there are well over 80 similar services like Twitter. There’s Identi.ca and Plurk and then there’s others. Your target market may not be anywhere near Twitter. So why bother?

Let’s talk Social Networks. While Facebook may be the largest, it is not the only. If your target market is people who own or crew on sail boats, then find one of the several Social Networks for sailors. Nurses? They too have their own social networks.

Increasingly, we are seeing that people may have a Facebook acccount, but will tend to spend more time in an online network where their interests lie. Facebook, Bebo, NetLog…they aren’t good at that. Ning is. So have a peek around Ning, see if that’s where your audience is hanging out. That’s where to engage.

Size does matter. Most importantly it’s the right size. Having a gazillion fans on Facebook or followers on Twitter is pointless if that’s not where your audience is. From finding where they are, listen to what they’re saying, then start developing the strategy.