As confirmed by TechCrunch, Google today announced that they’ve bough Aardvark for $50 million – brilliant move by the Goog. I’ll get to the why after a little background.
Google still dominates the most lucrative percentage of marketing dollars spent on the web:
But recently they seem scared. Google is a one trick pony, with the Adwords serving as their main source of revenue. They’ve tried over and over to replicat it’s success but have failed miserably with Youtube, Dodgeball, Jaiku, Lively, Orkut and Wave. I visited Google’s New York offices in Jan 2007. The most memorable moment (besides the organic salmon burgers in the cafeteria) was when one of the engineers said that Google was the only site in the world, whose goal was to minimize time spent on it. At the time I was blown away – “Give the people what they want.”
Fast forward to today – for most searches related to products, services or experiential recommendations – Google fails:
Purchasing Aardvark is a brilliant (third or fourth) play into the social arena. With Buzz just released, Google now has a captive audience of 176mil (in Gmail) to test, position and improve social search (before it’s too late). People don’t want to be sold to, but will gladly buy products based on recommendations by people they trust. The line between advertising and content is blurring. The key is being able to monitize recommendations (companies would gladly pay 2% of a product’s price for a sale).
What will be interesting to see is if either Facebook, Twitter or Google is able to do it alone (doubtful – but maybe FB), whether some big-time M&A will happen (Goog buys Twitter), or whether they will be forced to open up to each other, each find their respective niches, and continue to compete on the fringe (likely). What do you think, with Buzz + Aardvark will they be able to achieve monetizable, real-time, social search before FB and Twitter?
There’s no doubt that Google Search is a great product, but aside from some cosmetic changes in how results are displayed there hasn’t been any major innovation in search in the last few years (aright, Goggles is pretty awesome):
There are a number of questions which Google fails to answer:
“where’s the best bagel in new york?”
“what’s a cheap, clean, centrally located hotel in bangkok”
“which DSLR camera should I buy?”
In the cases above, you’re most likely to get SEO-optimized aggregator/review site whose primary motivation is affiliate sales. And forget about finding anything usable to:
“what’s everyone up to this weekend?”
“should I get a tattoo?”
“is business school right for me”
Increasingly, I turn to Twitter and Facebook for these types of questions:
Aardvark is another really nice product that tries to answer these experiential/recommendation type of questions. It’s easy to use (via a chat bot) and gets quick and solid responses. The same question got me three responses within 10 min (here’s two):
(From Rakesh R./24/M/Arlington,US, Re: **cameras**
go for canon 50D with a kit lens to start with . Your body is excellent but lens is OK types. u can always improve on ur lens whne u know what u needhttp://vark.com/z/b41bf (Amazon: Canon EOS 50D)
(From Sam A./M/Dubai,UnitedArabEmirates, Re: **cameras**
Well the best bet would be to start looking at the more popular brands:
Canon and Nikon. Some people also swear by Olympus and Leica (the latter
being seriously expensive), and even Sony. I’d stay away from Sony because
cameras is not their real bread and butter (though I have read some good
reviews regarding their Alpha series). Now I wouldn’t recommend sticking to
the popular brands because they’re better or provide the best value for
money, but rather for things beyond that: availability of accessories,
lenses, repair options, etc. I personally just purchased a Canon D7 and it’s
a really great camera. Though a little on the pricey side, it provides great
value for money. Things like high continuous shooting rate, HD video, etc.
This site helps you actually buy one: http://reviews.cnet.com/dslr-buying-guide/
This website will be really helpful in doing some comparisons: http://snapsort.com/
Enjoy!
Imagine if I could aggregate this data, slice and dice according to my tastes (i.e. 2nd degree relationships within NYC who have bought a camera in the last 6 weeks), compare prices and actually buy this thing from a single application? This is a game changer that could be a devastating blow to Google SEM and forever change the way we buy products and services (though Google’s smart and they’re workin’ on it) . Facebook ::nudge nudge wink wink:: I’m lookin’ at you…
My favorite quote from the excellent video by @equalman (posted below) is:
We no longer search for the news, the news finds us…
In the near future we will no longer search for products and services they will find us
Increasingly though, it’s not just individuals who will be turning to social tools to answer tough questions:
There’s a new tool that can help companies predict sales for the coming weeks, or decide whether to increase inventories or put items on sale in certain stores.
Social data from Facebook, Twitter and the like combined with traditional CRMs will allow you to keep track of buzz, transactions and brand loyalty/sentiment, letting you answer questions like:
What are people saying about my product right now?
How has the perception of my brand changed recently and in what direction is it trending?
Geographically where is my biggest, rapidly emerging and diminishing customers?
Who are my biggest evangelists, in what demographic do they fall in, where are they located?
Who are my biggest naysayers, how can I change their perception?
What is the perception of my product vs. my competitors?
What product features do my (potential) customers want?
Where is my next potential biggest growth market?
What are the trending (in both directions) topics in my industry?
Social CRM is totally hot right now and an important trend to watch this year:
Social Media and Web 2.0 is all about the collaborative, bidirectional flow of information. It’s no longer a brand, company or authority figure dictating the rules. As part of the course I’m teaching at NMIMS and ISB, I’m trying to apply the same principals and ask the students to help shape the class. Here are some examples of what we are doin’:
We have a fairly active Google Wave which covers the course goals and meeting notes. Students are free to edit the course outline, ask questions and suggest topics for future classes (please note you must be logged in to Google for this to work… the embed API is also fairly new – i.e. buggy):
We have a few really awesome guest speakers including:
What’s Web 2.0ey about this is that half the speakers are based in the US and will be conducting their sessions via skype/video conferencing.
Rather then a preassigned reading list, the students are being asked to share a few links weekly with each other via Twitter and Wave.
Students can ask questions/make suggestions/provide their own examples (via twitter and wave) during the class.
The students will be partnering with a local NGO to raise awareness or solicit donations for a social cause using social media and an SEM campaign (hopefully Yahoo! and Google will come through and donate some ad credits). These projects will be posted publicly.
Other things I could be/should be doing:
Posting the course outline (as a wave) and inviting everyone whose registered for the ISB course to make their edits/suggestions (for topics or speakers)/questions/modifications prior to the start of the course.
Reaching out to students in these universities ahead of time (via Twitter) to build some hype and make sure the class is filled up.
Anyone else have any ideas on how to make the course better? Let me know…
There’s the old project management saying: good, cheap and fast… pick two.
In the business world I’ve noticed that three characteristics generally determine success: smart, hard working and charismatic. Sure, the definition of success widely varies but for the purposes of this post, I’ll define it as, “the ability to achieve lofty goals.”
If you have one of these characteristics above you can get by fairly well. The smart, lazy, boring gal who manages to muddle away at her corporate job, she’s doin’ alright.
If you’ve got two of the above characteristics you are in the top quartile of successful people. The dogged, friendly sales guy is makin’ it rain but won’t get to CEO.
But the ladies and gents who really crush it, are the ones who are intelligent, relentless and likable. While smarts can’t generally be picked up, the other two can be cultivated. Work harder then everyone else, make sure you genuinely care about the people you work with (never sacrifice relationships for individuals project deliverables) and you’ll get to where you wanna be.
