Posts tagged Google
Is Apple better by reputation…or its operating system?
Jul 29th
In June, Android was the most-used mobile operating system, according to Nielsen. The Google-run OS accounted for 39% of the market’s share, while Apple trailed by double digits at 28%. So why is the perception that Apple is the better/more popular smartphone?
What is important to note and continue watching is the distribution of device makers.
Apple manufactures all of its phones; it is still the undisputed king in that department. Whereas Android phones are made by a handful of companies.
However, whether or not a single manufacturer like Apple, with sole control over their product and OS, or a diversified portfolio of manufacturers like HTC, Motorola and Samsung that contract for Google’s Android is more beneficial and competitive, is yet to be seen.
Android’s getting a lot of attention for being forecast as becoming the OS for over half of all smartphones by 2012, but the real story in the report is that Gartner thinks Windows’ Windows Phone 7 will overtake iOS by 2015 and claim the number two spot.
Despite the skeptical reception the Nokia-Microsoft merger received, its long-term payoff will help drive Windows Phone 7 to a 19.5% market share come 2015.
Speculation from the report also hints that Apple won’t be so concerned with holding market share, instead preferring to maintain its own profit margins.
Although, Apple is busy forging partnerships with Twitter to share its iOS5.
The IDC recently forecast that Windows Phone 7 would also become the second most popular mobile OS in the world by 2015 too.
Time will tell…perception stands for a lot though. Don’t you think?
10 things you need to know about Google+
Jul 26th
Will Google+ be the “Facebook killer” that many online gurus are predicting? James Murray, marketing and research analyst at Experian Hitwise UK shares some interesting stats to help you decide.
1. The single biggest day for visits to Google+ to date was 13 July 2011. 1 in every 1700 visits to a social network on that day went to Google+. Interestingly in the US, the biggest days of traffic for Google+ were on 12 and 14 July as my colleague Heather pointed out in her blog.
2. Google+ is currently the 80th most popular social network in the UK, although it was the 62nd most visited social network on 13 July. The website has already broken into the top 1,000 most popular websites in the UK, ranked 982nd in our data for the week ending 16 July 2011.
3. Visits to Google+ rocketed 500-fold between the week ending 9 July and the week ending 16 July.
4. The average visit time to Google+ from UK Internet users is 4 minutes 16 seconds. That is half as long as the average visit to Twitter, one seventh the average visit time to Facebook, but a whole minute longer than the average visit to Yahoo! Answers.
5. ‘google plus’ was the fourth biggest Google-related search term typed into all search engines last week, behind ‘google’, ‘google maps’ and ‘google translate’. 97% of all searches for Google+ came from Google, with the other 3% split among Bing and Yahoo! Search.
6. The biggest source of traffic for Google+ in the last week was Facebook. 16% of all visits coming to Google+ came from Facebook. 15% of visits came from Google UK, 4% came from YouTube and 2.5% from Gmail.
7. Google+ depends on social networks for 28% of its traffic. By contrast Facebook receives 6% of its traffic from other social networks whereas YouTube receives 22% from social. Twitter is the most dependent of the big three social networks on traffic from other social sites with 32% coming from this sector.
8. The top search terms typed into a search engine after a visit to Google+ was ‘facebook’. 3.22% of all visits leaving Google+ also went directly to Facebook.
9. 53% of UK visitors to Goolge+ are male vs 47% female. 1 in 4 visits to the website came from the 25-34 age demographic, the most popular age bracket visiting the Google social network.
10. The biggest concentration of Google+ users live in East London, accounting for over 3% of visits to the website. East Londoners are more than twice as likely to visit Google+ than the average UK Internet user. The place where people are least likely to use Google+ in the UK is Blackpool.
Unsatisfied with Facebook or just bored?
Jul 25th
Apparently we are all very unsatisfied with Facebook. But not unsatisfied enough to actually stop visiting the site up to three times a day.
According to a new survey from ForeSee Results and the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), Facebook has an index of 66 – a rating that not only puts the company at the bottom of the rung in the report’s social networking category but also makes it the lowest-scoring site of all measured companies.
What came first then?
User-contributed online encyclopedia Wikipedia takes the top spot in ACSI’s Social Media category with an index of 78. YouTube is second with 74.
And unsurprisingly, Google is king when it comes to the Search Engine and Portals category, jumping up 4% from last year’s rating to 83.
Microsoft’s Bing is not far behind (82) and has made impressive gains in consumer satisfaction, jumping up 7% since 2010.
Are we really unsatisfied with Facebook or do the stats show that we, as a digital and ever changing tech culture, like to try out new things?
It is inevitable that most of us will ‘try out’ Google+. We all ‘tried’ Facebook before we even knew what social networking was.
I think this ‘survey’ is positive for Facebook. It doesn’t mean we’re satisfied, it means we’re bored.
As social networkers, we’re over Farmville and we’re over poking each other so hello Facebook – get into a brainstorming session and concentrate on something other than monetization for a change. Turn the Facebook audience back into a captured one.
The message can be extended to marketers who have become so excited about the prospect of Google+, they’ve stop innovating on Facebook.
There are still 750 million of us on Facebook. Only 18 million on Google+.
The numbers that make Google+ an integration dream
Jul 21st
Google+ is growing at an incredible speed – mainly fast, thanks to a young demographic and lots of traffic from other Google properties. So is G+ just a integration dream?
As of July 16, Google+ is the 42nd most-visited social networking site in the US and the 638th most-visited site in the world.
Google+ is even more popular now – 18 million people as per recent reports – and will gain even more steam when it opens to the public.
According to Hitwise, Google+ had 1.8 million total visits last week, an increase of 283% from the previous week.
In fact, the site has grown by a whopping 821% from the week ending on July 2, when the site officially opened its page.
56% of Google+’s upstream traffic came from other Google properties last week, with 34% of that traffic coming from Google.com. And 37% of its upstream traffic came from search engines, while 21% of its traffic was driven by email.
Google+ is dominated by young adults, its biggest age group for the four weeks ending July 14 was the 25-34 age bracket, which accounted for 38.37% of all visits. The week before, the entire 18-34 age bracket made up just 38.11% of total visitors.
Sounds like a breeding ground for digital marketing – but none of these stats are official and Google+ is still a baby. And bear in mind, Facebook still trumps Google+ in size.
But perhaps not for long…
Is Google+ the search giant last chance to stay relevant?
Jul 14th
If we could say what is on Facebook’s mind right now we probably wouldn’t be able to publish or get through your email filters. In simple terms, Facebook is scared. Google may or may not have come up with a viable rival networking site, but most importantly, it’s already pulled in more than 10 million users, pre-launch!
Facebook took over a year to garner such a sign up. And while it may have more than 50 million across the globe now, some may be ditching the social networking king of kings for a brand that they’ve come to know and love for more than 10 years.
With headlines such as ‘How to move your Facebook photos to Google+’, ‘Google+: It’s a man thing’ and ‘Professors Look at Google+ For Student Learning’, it’s not looking too good for Facebook.
Some media experts have suggested that Facebookers have simply become bored of the site and that Google+ is offering something new to people who are looking to try something new.
So what does this mean for marketers?
Marketers, and Facebook itself actually, have finally figured out how to use the social networking site as a marketing platform. And it’s working!
No pitch is ever pitched to a client without the inclusion of a social media strategy and drafted Facebook Wall posts.
Now those marketers will have to get to know Google+ immediately and probably do twice the work. After all, a tailored approach to each network is usually what a client wants to see.
Google will have to get its social network right pretty quickly if it wants to compete at an elite level and maintain its rapid take up of users – both business and pleasure.
Social media is big business not just for brands but everyone. Facebook made us aware of this and now there are so many sites in which we log on to and divulge the inners of our lives, but not ever network can succeed.
Google has a lead coming into the game already being a digital marketing expert. However, if it fails to live up to expectations, it could very well be the beginning of the end of Google.
If people are leaving Facebook because they are bored, it could only be a matter of time before they bore of Google.
Which has already started with people watching to Bing…mmm, last chance saloon for Google to remain relevant?
Is paid search improving?
Jul 11th
Advertisers spent 20% more on paid search campaigns in Q2 2011 compared to a year-ago, while click through rates rose 12%, according to new research. But is spend really driving the popularity of the medium, or is it something else?
The Paid Search Quarterly Benchmarking Report from Marin Software also reveals an increase in efficiencies from search campaigns.
However, Google advertisers saw a dramatic decline in impressions with the average marketer experiencing a 15% drop, while click volumes rose by 8%. This suggests either search marketers took steps to improve efficiency or Google modified its algorithm for matching ads to queries, according to Marin Software.
So are advertisers getting better at paid search, or are search engines simply becoming smarter?
Gains in efficiency during the past year have been a result – in part – of advertiser efforts to refine match types. The share of paid clicks from exact- and phrase-match keywords rose 10% during the past year at the expense of broad-match clicks.
Exact and phrase keywords have higher click-through rates and lower costs than broad match terms, which not only explains the gains in efficiencies advertisers found during the quarter, but also improvements in quality scores.
In the past year, search marketers have increased their use of exact- and phrase-match keywords, growing click-share of these terms by 7% and 3%, respectively.
Aside from exact- and phrase-match keywords, spend on Yahoo! and Bing rose 52%, compared with the year-ago quarter as advertisers built out their campaigns on the combined platform.
Advertisers also experienced a boost in effectiveness on the Yahoo!-Bing platform, reflected by a 6% rise in CTRs.
Bing is finally starting to pose a serious challenge to Google
Jun 8th
Google and Yahoo! both lost market share in terms of searches in May 2011 as Bing, Ask and other search engines made significant gains.
According to the latest Experian Hitwise figures, Google Sites were still responsible for over 90% of UK internet searches in May, accounting for 0.32% fewer searches than in April.
Year-on-year, Google Sites were also down by 1.40%, with a lower share of the search market than in May 2010.
Yahoo! Sites also lost search market share last month, dropping from 3.15% of all UK Internet searches in April to 3.08% in May.
The dip in performance for both Google and Yahoo! Sites can be attributed to Microsoft Bing’s growth in popularity.
Microsoft Sites, led by Bing, increased their market share of all UK Internet searches by 0.18% last month, taking the company to 4.26% of UK searches.
Microsoft also improved on its performance in the search market year-on-year with a 1.26% increase in searches. Although not as prominent as Bing, Ask Sites saw growth in May improving their market share of searches by 0.10% and the niche search engines included in the Other category also saw growth of 0.10% between April and May 2011.
Robin Goad, research director of Experian Hitwise, said: “Google is still very much in the driving seat when it comes to search, and May’s minor loss in market share does little to dent the 90% share Google has in this field.
“However, the more interesting trends are to look at year-on-year changes in the search market, where Microsoft is taking market share away from Google. The key will be if Microsoft can continue this trend and mount a stronger challenge on Google.”
How technology is giving marketers superpowers
May 31st
There are quite a few headlines around this morning saying ‘are gadgets stealing our humanity?’ Sounds a little sensational if you ask me – but are smartphones really making us less smart?
Some argue that smartphones free up our brain memory for more creative tasks. Noted.
But technology pundits and social researchers ponder whether society’s relentless march towards information overload is stealing rather than augmenting our humanity.
During a talk at the TEDxSydney conference at the weekend in Australia, Professor David Chalmers, director of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University, argued that gadgets, particularly smartphones, had “become part of our minds”.
He said just as we use technology such as prosthetics, canes, cars and bikes to extend our bodies, devices like the iPhone extended our minds.
Chalmers reckons, “In some sense the iPhone is literally becoming part of your mind … the iPhone’s memory is basically my memory.”
Prominent technology writer Nicholas Carr has in the past suggested that it was Google that was “actually making us smarter” and “turning us into superheroes of the mind”.
Chalmers said, “Technology is gradually giving us these super powers, turning us into cognitive super geniuses.”
But while smartphones and other gadgets increasingly become part of our daily life, they are leading us to an age of information overload.
We’ve got to the point where the demands of our devices exceed our ability to always meet them.
And while the internet has enormous benefits in delivering incredible amounts of information at great speed, it’s also distracting us from an interruption-rich environment and discouraging sustained attention and the ability to think deeply and creatively about one topic only.
So while technology and constant connectivity offers us the promise of never being bored again it has given advertisers direct access to our pockets, memory and wallets.
In the future, technology will know who we are, what we like, and what we do. The products and brands that we are normally searching for will find us instead – powered by marketing.
Internet giants say no to regulation. A good deal for marketers?
May 27th
The leaders of Facebook, Google and other technology companies have warned G8 leaders to tread carefully in attempting to police the web. Is this a simple power grab from the most powerful people in marketing?
This year marks the first time the technology sector has been represented at the meeting of the G8 group of leading nations. And our internet giants took full advantage.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg along with Google’s executive founder Eric Schmidt said that mooted rules on copyright or privacy could “stymie innovation” and inhibit the free expression that fuelled the recent Arab uprisings.
The pair joined forces to resist proposed new rules to “civilise” the internet, championed by French president Nicolas Sarkozy, at the Deauville e-G8 summit.
Sarkozy told the executives to support greater rule of law on the web in such a way that innovation would not be harmed.
Earlier in the week he warned of the “anarchy” of the internet in its current form, telling the e-G8 Forum in Paris on Tuesday: “You cannot escape a minimum set of rules.”
The discussion comes as governments in the US and UK consider new schemes to force internet companies to block websites that facilitate online piracy.
But measures to combat perceived pitfalls of the online world, such as illegal downloading of copyrighted material, could have unintended consequences according to Zuckerberg.
He said, “On the one hand you have the internet which is this really powerful force for giving people a voice. Now it’s tempting to say that on security or privacy you can go towards the most extreme option and maintain all the value that we currently recognise. I’m worried personally that’s not true.”
Schmidt added that his main worry is that “premature regulation” could shut off whole new industries, whole new opportunities and whole new innovations.
Could that be true? Sounds like a case of the school yard bullies ganging up on the teacher?
When two of the most influential people in the internet and online business start throwing their weight around to get their own way, alarm bells ring.
Are they legitimate about their concerns…or interested protecting their fortune and databases?
App app and away – how apps are making 2011 the year of mobile
May 4th
Apple, Google and other makers of smartphone operating systems are expecting to rake in $3.8 billion this year in sales from downloadable games, organizational tools and other applications, according to research from IHS ISuppli.
Sales of apps from stores run by Apple, Google, Nokia Oyj and Research In Motion will rise 78% in 2011 from $2.1 billion last year. With those figures in mind, the app market is expected to be worth a total of $8.3 billion by 2014.
Content is king, and this is the age of apps. Which in turn, has finally led to our much anticipated year of mobile.
So what does this mean for marketers? Marketing in the digital age, and the year of mobile, is all about connectivity. In the short term, the changes affecting how people interact with digital content will ultimately inspire new devices.
And the best devices will be the ones that provide a great platform for all these apps that we are buying – the connected experience.
By the end of this year, total app downloads will reach 18.1 billion, according to ISuppli. That’s up from 9.5 billion last year and 3.1 billion in 2009.
And despite talk of many a device that will challenge Apple, the tech giant has long been dubbed as the pioneer of the app industry and it continues to increase its reign.
The Apple App Store now accounts for more than three-quarters of total app revenue and is expected to bring in $2.91 billion in revenue in 2011, up 63% from last year, spurred by the popularity of the new iPhone 4 and iPad 2.
In comparison, Google’s Android service will almost quadruple to $425.4 million, putting it on pace to be the second-biggest application store.
Furthermore, the surge in application sales is leading companies such as Time Warner, Walt Disney and News Corp to adapt their content for smartphones and tablet computers.
The app market also has spawned successful start-ups, including Rovio Mobile, made famous by its phenomenal smash hit “Angry Birds.”
App app and away indeed.
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