This morning we talked about how Facebook is racing towards Google and Gmail like a bull on acid. And now, already, we read about how Google are planning to unveil social functionality in Gmail, bringing together status updates and other services like YouTube and Picasa to some sort of more open version of Facebook. It can hardly be a coincidence that these two announcements appear almost simultaneously, do you think? The fight is on!
And what a fight it is! This fight might actually end up in the history books as one of the biggies that really changed things for the users. It’s also interesting to note how Twitter is sort of in between and makes out a little bit with both giants.
In the Mashable post about Google’s new social innovation, Adam Ostrow lists Google’s more open social system as a potential drawback for Google. But on the other hand, openness is a wet dream of Zuckerberg’s, and one he regrets not having implemented in the early stages of Facebook. I’m looking forward to following this one!
Me, I kind of like it. Even though the story is a bit cheesy, the style is perfect for people to remash and make their own versions. I bet we’ll see a ton of these. Simple, yet strategically smart.
Like Danny Sullivan writes on Search Engine Land, “it will be interesting to see what happens how [the view count] changes”. Before Super Bowl the YouTube version had 1.2 million views.
The other day, rumors started surfacing that Facebook are planning a fully fledged Email-product. That’s right, a Facemail with POP/IMAP-support and everything. It will basically replace Facebook’s standard messaging functionality with a beefed combo that does everything Facebook messages AND Gmail combined does today.
[Edit: Today I started typing a name to send a message and happened to type the wrong name. Take a look at this suggestion that came up. "You can type an email adress". Cool.]
The second I saw this headline, it was just so clear – OF COURSE! Facebook is communication centric. It really makes MORE sense for Facebook to have an email product than anybody else. And while Facebook has been growing ever stronger as a way to identify yourself on the web, your email adress has still remained the default standard. For many of us, this means Gmail, at least in matters of private nature, but now, with Facebook launching something like this, it really makes a lot of sense to use Facebook as your default identifier. Facebook is just way more communication-centric and integrated than Google.
Apparently, you will get a new Facemail adress on the form yourvanityurl@facebook.com (gosh I’m happy I have a unique name), and my bet is that we’ll see a lot of those addresses flying around pretty soon. It just makes sense. Not registered your vanity URL yet? Do it now!
[Edit 2: Trying to email to walternaeslund at facebook.com gives me the following though:
Also noting that they are running Microsoft Exchange... hmm...
]
Facebook Professional?
And what’s next? Of course, Google is still way ahead of Facebook in many ways. Search, maps, and a ton of other Google innovations are beyond the scope of Facebook, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if a “Facebook Professional Suite” was in the works somewhere in a Mountainview basement. Facemail would make Facebook the default communications hub, and a professional suite along the lines of Google Apps would really make Facebook a very powerful professional tool. Or actually, they may leave typing and spreadsheeting to Google and just stick with the project management side of things – remember that Facebook is communications centric – and much of what is needed to make Facebook an amazing project management platform is already there.
With Hopes Of A Long And Violent War
I’m a firm believer in the power of the free market. Monopolies, whether state sponsored or spawned by bad mergers and aquisitions, are bad. But I do believe that as long as they are not protected by law, they will eventually be subject to competition if they stand still for too long. The fight Facebook is putting up against Google is really excellent for that reason. These two giants slugging it out and attacking each other’s territories will make for some really interesting developments in the coming decade.
I got the question from a client in a meeting the other day: “How do you define social media?” I haven’t thought about that question for a while now since it’s such an integrated part of my reality, both on and off duty, but now that I got the question it got me thinking.
Imagine talking about the web while leaving out social media – what is then left to talk about? To me, the answer was “bad websites”. Social media was a good and necessary word when the non-social web was still kosher, but now, it seems superfluous.
“There Is No Social Media”
I looked at the client for short while before I got up, walked over to the whiteboard, and drew a nice red big fat X over the words “social media” that were written in the middle of a blue mind map. “There is no such thing as social media” I said. “There are just people and places they are”.
As cliché as this may sound, it’s really true. The digital interface is just another interface for people to interact through, and we really need to stop viewing it as a media channel that we can buy with a separate budget post, that is somehow isolated from other posts like PR or advertising.
Online Is Never More Than An Arms Length Away
Social media is dead. And it’s not dead because Facebook died or Twitter died, but because the term “social media” implies that there is also “un-social media”. But the whole digital realm is now social, unless it’s poorly designed.
Also, with the help of current mobile technology, the online realm is never more than an arms length away from the offline one, making even the offline world social. Unless, of course, it is poorly designed.
Time To Raise The Bar
The world has always been social, but social technology made socializing more efficient and raised the bar for all of us. Online and offline marketing efforts that don’t take social technologies into account are wasting massive amounts of budget. If we make communication that nobody wants to share with their social circle, it’s just not good enough.
Some people understand this, and here I would like to give extra kudos to Forsman & Bodenfors who I think have taken this criticism very well and actually still talk to me. (We even have an occasional beer together). They understand that this is about playing hard out there on the court to make us all better. They also seem to remember that it is a court, and that it is a game. Off the court, we laugh and hug (well, almost).
Anyway, to show my appreciation for F&B’s constructive attitude, I will give away a free idea for fb.se at the end of this post. Stay tuned!
Results from the SEO-Debacle?
And what about the results of discussions like the one around SEO? I think that we are all getting better! At Honesty, we know most people in the SEO-business, and thus hear all about how ad agencies are now running around trying to recruit SEO-experts. This is great for our industry, even though I think most agencies still have a really hard time finding good people to recruit. Nevertheless, it shows that agencies are now starting to take search marketing seriously. I think that people will also starting to question if YouTube-views is really a good measurement of success.
On a side note, I find it funny that those agencies who will not find people to recruit, will have to look for suppliers elsewhere, and when consulting Internet World’s list of Sweden’s most important SEO-companies they will find… Honesty! (Click to enlarge the picture).
So. Back to my promise. Here comes the free idea for Forsman & Bodenfors
Free Idea for Forsman & Bodenfors
Hi F&B!
I don’t know if you realize exactly how good and potentially useful your URL is? Fb.se is extremely short, shorter than most URL shorteners like bit.ly. Why not use that creatively? Start your own URL-shortener service using your URL to promote good content.
A specialized URL-shortener focused on, say, advertising and communication would be a perfect platform for creating a portal for “top-shared-ads-of-sweden” or even “…the world”. (Now, DDB, don’t steal this. It’s a gift for F&B).
So why, you ask, would people use this one instead of j.mp or bit.ly? Well – when using a specialized shortener for ad nerds a lot of quality traffic to the shared links will be generated. Trackbacks and relevant followers to Twitter accounts used would also be a benefit. And like I said, this would not be just any ol’ traffic, but quality traffic from people interested in your specific area of business. It’s win-win.
And how is this good for you? Need I even answer this question?
Your URL is rare. Use it. Happy coding!
1 Latest version Google Apps/Docs with the new file upload feature 1 Google API for uploading files to Apps/Docs 1 HTML5 coder 1 C# OSX/iPhone coder 1 Windows application coder 1New Google App Store
Instructions
Step 1: Use your HTML5 web interface programmer to create a nice Docs/Apps-add on with drag-n-drop-functionality, Google Calendars integration and Google Tasks integration. Until drag-n-drop-functionality is enabled in HTML5, use Gears installed client side.
Step 3: Use your C# programmer to create a native OSX application and an iPhone app for uploading and viewing content to and from Google Docs/Apps. Add a dash of Evernote inspiration. In fact, use the whole bottle.
Step 4: Repeat step 3 for Windows. To make your dish a bit more spicy, add 1 Android app.
Step 5: Mix well and let bake for several minutes on Twitter. Let out the aroma of your freshly baked creation in the blogosphere and enjoy your results!
Money is important to us. Control over our life situation is too. But then, how can we possibly accept Internet banks as they are today. How can we possibly think that it’s okay to, say, not be able to get a visual overview analysis of our expenses and incomes? How can we possibly put up with the long and complicated OCR-numbers or basic search functionality? And how is it possible that we have such user hostile login procedures?
I can’t present all my ideas for my perfect Internet banking experience in just one post, but I can show you three examples of what Internet banking would look like if I had my say, and also what I think it will look like in just a couple of years. Here we go!
Facebook Secure Connect
Logging in to your Internet bank today is more or less of a hassle depending on your particular bank, but it’s nevertheless a hassle. Banks have been lagging behind the times here, focusing on security, but not on usability. The market forces will inevitably push us closer to an optimal trade off between security and usability. We see people leaving their bank today, simply because the login security solution is too complex (using USB-hardware for example).
To creatively solve this problem outside identification providers will step in. On of those will be Facebook. Our online identity is contained in our Facebook accounts, our Google Profiles, Twitter accounts and other services that we haven’t even learned the names of yet. We have come to trust them for logging in to other services now, and since more advanced transactions are taking place using this login by the minute (buying major chunks of advertising for example), a need for more secure identification procedures will arise. A second version of Facebook Connect called Facebook Secure Connect will be launched using secure authorization technology and will eventually be adopted by the banks. One bank will lead this evolution and the others will be both inspired and forced to follow.
Facebook will lead the way in this development, but Google will be quick to follow. To compete with Facebook, Google will go on a marketing rampage for secure OpenID and couple with Google Budget Analytics:
Google Budget Analytics
The amount of control you have over your budget and cash flow today at your ordinary Internet bank is really a joke. You get a list of your transactions and not much else. Besides that, it’s also really messy to go back and check out your history. My own bank has recently made it possible to export to Excel XLS-format, but give me a break – XLS? In 2010?
Instead, when you log in to your bank using secure OpenID all transactions will automatically be indexed, fully searchable and categorized. You will be able to analyze your economy at all levels from the very basic (cigarettes, food, rent) to the very advanced with cluster analysis, seasonal trends, forecasts and goal tracking.
In step two, Google will also launch Google Budget Analytics For Business where you can do your books and account distributions more or less automatically. This will kick ass for small businesses.
Facebook’s reply to this will be to enable sharing services where you can share selected transactions and events in your feed, much like what Blippy does today. Come to think of it, Facebook will probably buy Blippy.
Open Banking API
Finally, banks will realize that they are best at doing what banks do, and will hand over interface design and function to the experts. Banks will release secure API-sets to allow third party specialized internet bank companies to connect to their systems. This will in turn open up the market for hardcore competition. Google will be way ahead already and will release Google Bank which will be an big expansion of Google Budget Analytics. Here, they will also have tight integration with Google Spreadsheets, and will also allow for seamless integration with Google Chat, Google Voice and Gmail for interacting with your bank’s customer service.
And what about Apple – the self proclaimed customer experience rulers of the universe? They won’t remain on the sidelines for long.
Man, I wish I had the cash to go into this one myself. Call me if you know any investors who would like to change the world with me on this one.
It’s sunday, and perhaps you have 21 minutes to spare to experience one of the best talks I’ve heard? Well then – I give you the mother of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling.
And why is this speech so good? From beginning to end J.K. takes you on an emotional roller coaster. She begins very formally but suddenly goes into a sharp turn into the intimacy of humor and informality pulling scores of laughter. She then moves through extremely horrible topics of torture and death and emerges in happiness and hope, while again making people smile and laugh. She uses a dramatic build up and structure that is just sheer brilliance. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised – she is after all the author of Harry Potter.
[Edit: Today I started typing a name to send a message and happened to type the wrong name. Take a look at this suggestion that came up. "You can type an email adress". Cool.]
(Click to enlarge the picture).
