Marketing.fm – Eric Friedman

Google aired its first ever Superbowl ad using a video that resonated with many folks called Parisian Love.  The video is embedded below.  Search Engine Land has an excellent write up of all the details, including the fact that it had over 1MM views before the event – will be interesting to see how much that grows.

It is also interesting that they took out SEM ads for most of the auto complete searches that came out of the video.  This is the type of SEM drafting you hope to see whenever any messaging is put into a search ad.

Google placing this ad in such a mainstream location is a big move and I wonder if we will see more of it.

As a Company that is so focussed on data driven results – I hope they publish their findings about searches, responses, and results from this placement.

Google introduced the idea of Social Search back in October 2009, but I just recently started seeing instances of it in the wild.  I think this is a social version of backrub and only the beginning.

The way it is shown is at the bottom of search results:

Results from people in your social circle for google social search – BETA – My social circle – My social content

SERPs then show pictures of your connections, how you are connected to them, and hopefully relevant content they have written or linked to.

Digging in further you can start to see how Google sees you and your social graph, and going further to the Google Social Circle area (link should work for you) shows you a “neighborhood” of social connections.

It says the following;

This is the network of connections Google uses to identify relevant social search results. It is based on a combination of the following:

• Direct connections from your Google chat buddies and contacts (28)
• Direct connections from links listed on your Google profile (215) such as Twitter and FriendFeed
• Secondary connections (1667) that are publicly associated with your direct connections

This is the network of connections Google uses to identify relevant social search results. It is based on a combination of the following:
Direct connections from your Google chat buddies and contacts (28)Direct connections from links listed on your Google profile (215) such as Twitter and FriendFeedSecondary connections (1667) that are publicly associated with your direct connections

and looks something like this:

This is interesting for a few reasons.  The first is that it exposes the connections Google believes you have.  The second is that it shows the content it thinks those connections contribute to.  The sources are listed clearly as Twitter, Friendfeed, Chat, and Contacts.  This relationship matching is quite impressive and shows that Google Social search is actually matching my contacts with their content, then searching and matching those results back into my search streams.

Earlier this week I got a chance to hear Clay Shirky speak about a concept that is quite obvious to many looking at the micro social media space, but in a new way.   His thesis was around the fact that the most important person in the universe is YOU and the people with close ties are close to the center of the universe (friends) but not quite at the center.

I cannot express his thoughts in the same eloquent way, but my general takeaway was as follows.  Your general social circle, or neighborhood is only so big.  Your secondary neighborhood is some order of magnitude larger.  Your tertiary neighborhood is probably an order of magnitude larger than the 2nd.  This means that by association, you may have a million or so connections that you are indirectly connected with.  These connections are not real in the “friend” sense, but certainly are real in the “I am influenced by what they are thinking\reading\doing sense” as there is a high probability of correlation between activities.  Some of this is serendipity, but some of it is because of similar social connections and friendships.  He is interested in movie category X, and therefore I have some probability to be interested in the same category X.

How does this translate to being important for Google Social Search?

By looking at the people I interact with Google is building a beachhead on knowing and understanding my neighborhoods.  They know the first tier neighborhood by chat conversations, Twitter messaging, and links.  They know the second tier neighborhood from those friends connections and crawling the content they produce mapping its importance back to me.  Finally, they grasp the third tier (which is perhaps the largest) by connecting tiers 1 + 2, and looking to their outlying friends connections and content.

I believe that Google believes in the thesis that you are located at the center of the universe, and uses these galaxies of connections (or neighborhoods as Clay and sociologists call them) to help you and provide value in search results.

This same information could then be leveraged to provide a better taste menu of content without having to sort through filters, categories, and keywords you are interested in following.  The power of knowing what my friends are reading and gauging my interest is a problem that needs solving.  The constant banter about “too much information” and “information overload” can be quelled by a smarter, yet automatic, filter for content that could be helpful or interesting to you.

The inputs are very clear signal using time, quantity, content, and proximity to influence the taste menu.

If I havn’t spoken to someone in awhile, emailed with them, @replied them, then the connection fades.  On the contrary, if I have chatted with them, emailed, clicked through to their content, and interacted with them that is an indicator that the connection is stronger.  This example does not take sentiment into account, but I think that is fine.  Even if you have constant disagreement with someone – interactions show interest in a category therefore can be signal for the social search content that gets shown back to you.

The other interesting connection, and the reason why I use the phrase galaxies instead of neighborhoods, is the web content Google now knows I am associated with.  In an area called Social Content, Google identifies websites that I am affiliated with.  It is really a natural language association of “back rub” Googles original search thesis of links, but it works.  For example it takes sites I link out to and makes them “connections” simply implying that there is a correlation between the site websites.  Although it misses some of the sites I am a part of, it certainly captures the majority – all using the signal of reciprocal linking and content to make the judgement call.

I think that Social Search is in its nascent stages, and we will continue to see neighborhoods and galaxies of connections uses to create better taste menus.  I think consumer reaction to such a display of connections and friend mapping will be met with initial disdain and privacy concerns, but then people will realize that Google is just providing an organized view of your publicly available interactions.

Everyone has extra stuff to clean out of their closet, but no easy way to donate the bags of clothes. For that reason my friend David Fraga and I organized the New York Clothing Drive, where we come pick up your old items for free in the NY metro area.

It is a simple idea that has grown over the past few weeks since we launched the site, and we are now scheduled to pickup over 100 bags of clothes, and adding more every day.

If you are interested in getting your items picked up please sign up – or if you want to volunteer please get in touch.

When: Saturday February 6th, 2010.

How: Make a donation here to schedule a pick-up.  All proceeds will go to New York Cares.

Help us spread the word!

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Today we finally learn the details about the device known as the Apple Tablet. Is it revolutionary? Evolutionary? A new category? A glorified iTouch? What does this mean for developers and providers? How will this marketplace dovetail with the current app store?

It is great to get details on a device that has received a ton of hype, press, speculation, and discussion – all before concrete details were even known. So is this a big breakthrough? Will this be the next device that defines a movement and rising tide that lifts the usability and product availability in the tablet space? Only time will tell. It reminds me of the commercial in the ’80s from Apple that broke the mold on thoughts of the day of what a computer should be – perhaps that is just the hype surrounding this event. I have not seen as much

Now after brief details have emerged online a few things are clear;

Apple has made major pricing deals with AT&T to get this device to market.

The price point is very low compared to estimates and the different models make it appealing to many.

The primary usage for the device seems to be home usage – but the 3G and data plans make traveling with the unit not a problem.

The business development and partner roll out is extensive and it seems companies have a lot riding on the potential revenue of the iPad.

I have mixed feelings on this device. It is sitting within the intersection of the Kindle, a large iTouch, and a closed mini macbook – but is that enough to create the demand. But in the end it seems like a glorified Apple iTouch with a 3G connection and major controlled partner capabilities.

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Below is a list of technology excuses that plagued people over the last decade. I think we can safely retire most of these in the next 10 years;

1. Lost voicemails
“I left you a voicemail, but you must not have gotten it”

This is no longer acceptable. Smart providers and smarter phones mean that you can no longer get away with telling someone that you didn’t get their call. Voicemails, call logs, and now online records prove your alibi is B.S.

2. Lost emails
You can no longer tell someone that you sent an email and it “didn’t go through”. If it really didn’t go through you now have headers and mailer deamons explaining the problem. Wrong address or spam folders no longer thwart email delivery…only delays them.

3. Printer problems
Do people hand in “papers” anymore? Submitting documents electronically and the ubiquity of printers and connectivity mean that this excuse is extinct.

4. The disk is broken
People do not use disks anymore, so perhaps this can apply to USB keys. Either way, totally not a viable excuse any longer to not have your materials. Besides you should be storing your items in the cloud.

5. I missed the show\movie\live event
The Internet now makes it possible to buy, download, or livestream your missed program. Time shifting and place shifting video events make it possible to watch your favorite program via mobile device (phones, iPods, other video device) without worrying about missing something everyone else has seen.

6. I couldn’t open the document
Open Office, MS Compatibility pack, Google Docs, and Zoho Docs make this excuse a thing of the past. It is no longer acceptable not to be able to open the document.

7. I didn’t have connectivity
Wired, WiFi, Tethering, and 3G cards will see this excuse into the sunset. Buses, trains, and even planes are rolling out ubiquitous wifi making the “no connectivity” problem a thing to tell your kids about.

8. I couldn’t get a signal
Similar to the point above, not having a wireless signal may be around for a little while longer, but not for long. Femtocells and massive infrastructure upgrades across the US by the major carriers are making signal strength better and connectivity stronger. As of today you can have a Verizon call connected through the Lincoln tunnel without losing the call to the other side. Now that is progress!

9. I lost my work because my computer crashed
Cloud document storage means that auto saves happen every few seconds preventing the always heart wrenching draft loss of a document. Granted, until everyone moves off of desktop publishing software this one has a longer lifespan – but it is fading nonetheless.

10. So I only had 9 – What else do you think will no longer be a viable excuse over the next 10 years?

I finally got around to installing Windows 7 in my laptop a few weeks ago (had to reformat – always fun)

After installing it and getting back up and running I have noticed some unnecessary animations in menus and windows. After doing some research for how to turn them off, do you know what they are called? Unnecessary animations. Yes, seriously.

Below is a screen shot:

How can you build a feature and literally call it unnecessary?

By the way the full path to this area is:
Control Panel\Ease of Access\Ease of Access Center\Use the computer without a display

Wow.

This also got me thinking about unnecessary features in products and software in general. The example above is just a sample of what is out there. By way of the “less is more” mantra I try to put things I see through a filter of what the bare essentials are for a service or product.

By having “also have that” features, you can dilute the core values and reason people will use your service.

A lot of folks think that it is necessary to mention that they “have that too” when compared to a competitor or another contender in the same space, when in reality it is more about what people are using vs. what they could be using.

An example of this is with messaging, forums, and discussion software. Feature bloat can quickly become apparent in many of these solutions when in reality people just want one vertical solution. By strapping on additional complexities and features you actually dilute the core value of the product.

When a product does everything it also does nothing.

Pingdom posted some Internet usage stats for 2009 and the numbers are impressive.

I have been using Pingdom for the past year to monitor websites, uptime, and overall problems and I can highly recommend it.

One group of stats that stood out was the usage across the globe:

Here are the actual numbers:
* 1,73 billion – Internet users worldwide (September 2009).
* 18% – Increase in Internet users since the previous year.
* 738,257,230 – Internet users in Asia.
* 418,029,796 – Internet users in Europe.
* 252,908,000 – Internet users in North America.
* 179,031,479 – Internet users in Latin America / Caribbean.
* 67,371,700 – Internet users in Africa.
* 57,425,046 – Internet users in the Middle East.
* 20,970,490 – Internet users in Oceania / Australia.

As these numbers continue to change it will be interesting to see how it affects the timeline of when and how startup companies enter into new markets.

My colleague and friend Andrew Parker did a great visualization mapping startups over Craigslist categories they competes in. You should click through and read his thoughts.

First, it is incredible that around 30 companies are actively attacking these categories, whether directly or indirectly, on Craigslist – more if you dig deeper and include competitors within each set.

Second, some of these companies have been competing in the space for a long time such as Indeed.com (USV portfolio co.), Elance.com, and LegalZoom.com while others are very new such as Listia.com, TeachStreet.com, and AirBnB.com

I think you will continue to see small niche categories getting full blown solutions and entrants to markets that would otherwise not be possible in the past. This is due in large part to lower cost of capital to get started, lower production and development timelines, and the fragmentation of attention as people are willing to go to the best possible solution vs. a one size fits all portal.

The NYTimes recently exposed some data from NetFlix user queues showing the most popular rented items as well as an overlay of where they happened. Lets take a look at the NYC metro area for the #1 most rented movie: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Then to one of the least popular rentals: True Blood Season 1 Disc 1

You can play around with the interactive slider yourself to see what other movies and shows and see a dozen cities worth of data. It is interesting that more of this data is being exposed to the public. It is clearly being used today by companies like NetFlix, Amazon, Google, and others to craft “better” experiences, but at what privacy costs?

From the maps above you can see which pockets and neighborhoods are interested in which shows. This data could further be correlated to out of home advertising and zip code targeted ads to better inform these people. I wonder if any agencies or brands are correlating these data sets for this type of advertising?

In a Utopian future all ads are all targeted to only those who want to see them. What we know in reality is that advertising is an interruption, but exposing some of this data may make those interuptions a little more relevant than they were before.

Over the last few weeks I have been seeing a number of Facebook friend requests from people but wasn’t sure why. Sure enough when I logged in it was clear that Facebook was directing people to “find friends” and told me who else had done so via logging into and scrapping my contact list. In my case using Gmail Facebook was able to go in and find 500 people I am not yet connected with. Obviously that number is absurd and nobody has 500 friends, but the social implications are clear.

This move over the last two weeks represents a move by Facebook to reach back into your social graph (in my case via Gmail) and see who else you can get connected with.

Most uber geeks like me did this years ago, but maybe have not revisited the idea in awhile.

Its a smart move as more people joined up in the last few years, and more people are using personal email accounts.

Finalizing your own social graph on Facebook means more connections which translates to more usage. It also better connects the system, completing the network effects that may be stagnant due to infrequent mass friending.

It is also interesting to think that this move represents a time where most of the people you know, and have emailed with, are now probably members of Facebook. Yes, some are not, but I was amazed at my own list to see who “got on board”.

Having a complete profile means better targeting, better spam filtering, less privacy, and hopefully a better experience. We shall see.