Many companies are initiating marketing campaigns designed to generate revenue in the “real world” via virtual world marketing through Second Life and other online environments. If you are interested in hearing my thoughts on virtual marketing, you can visit my Intel Trends in Web 2.0 blog.
Monthly Archives: October 2006
Google Just Acquired YouTube for $1.65 Billion
Like everyone else, I heard the rumors, and I was skeptical. Acquisition rumors usually turn out to be exactly that … just rumors with talks falling through at the last minute or casual talks between companies spawning rumors of impending acquisitions; however, in this case, the rumors were accurate.
From the Google Press Release:
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has agreed to acquire YouTube, the consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos through a Web experience, for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction. Following the acquisition, YouTube will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community.
On the one hand, this is a risky move for Google. The copyright issues within YouTube content could escalate now that companies could sue with the hope of making money by tapping into the deeper pockets of Google. On the other hand, Google has never been afraid of a few copyright skirmishes (the book searches and Google news come to mind as a couple of examples), and Google can usually find a creative way to make even very difficult situations work for everyone involved. I will be curious to see what happens.
Google’s Blog Hacked … Google is Not Cancelling Click-to-Call Service
The blogosphere has been speculating about the cancellation of Google’s Click-to-Call Service over the past few days as a result of a Google Blog post stating that Google was cancelling the service. According to Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, “the real story here is that the Google blog has been hacked.”
In reading the original post (which was quickly removed from the blog), this should be obvious. Google is known for hiring brilliant, well-educated people, and this blog entry just does not fit:
Notice that the wording of the post makes little sense combined with spelling errors throughout. This reads more like a spam email than an official Google blog entry.
Update 10/8/06 12:00 PM: Om Malik reported that a Google spokesperson has confirmed that an unauthorized user created the fake post. The Google spokesperson also said that the Click-to-Call service was proceeding on schedule.
Just Arrived: My Flickr MiniCards from Moo
I just received my Flickr MiniCards from Moo. They are very small (hence the mini part), so I’m not quite sure how I will use them, but they are definitely cool.
Searching Inside Books Boosts Sales
Google’s plans to digitize libraries of books has come under fire from publishers eager to protect copyrights; however, publishers 
participating in Google’s Book Search Partner Program are seeing a significant benefit. According to Reuters, publishers participating in Google’s book search and Amazon’s Search Inside programs are benefiting from additional sales:
“Google Book Search has helped us turn searchers into consumers,” said Colleen Scollans, the director of online sales for Oxford University Press.
She declined to provide specific figures, but said that sales growth has been “significant”. Scollans estimated that 1 million customers have viewed 12,000 Oxford titles using the Google program.
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Specialty publisher Springer Science + Business reported sales growth of its backlist catalog using Google Book Search, with 99 percent of the 30,000 titles it has in the program getting viewed, including many published before 1992.
“We suspect that Google really helps us sell more books,” said Kim Zwollo, Springer’s global director of special licensing, declining to provide specific figures because the company is privately owned.
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“Our experience has been that the revenue generated from Google has been pretty modest, whereas the Amazon program has generated more book sales,” Penguin Chief Executive John Makinson told Reuters at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week. (Quotes from Reuters)
These examples highlight the importance of open marketing that lets people see some of the content prior to buying. In many cases, showing some of the book can generate interest in a book that would not have otherwise caught someone’s eye. It also gives people the opportunity to see what they are buying, mirroring the brick and mortar book buying experience of leafing through a book. Hopefully, this trend will continue, thus giving buyers more information about potential purchases leading the way for Google and others to find similar opportunities to add value outside of the book market … who knows what Google might come up with next.
Are MySpace Users Getting Old?
According to the latest comScore report, over half of MySpace users are the in 35 and older age range.
“The most significant shift has occurred among teens 12-17, who accounted for 24.7 percent of the MySpace audience in August 2005, but today represent a much lower 11.9 percent of the site’s total audience. Conversely, Internet users between the ages of 35-54 now account for 40.6 percent of the MySpace visitor base, an 8.2 percentage point increase during the past year.” (Quote from comScore)
According to Liz Gannes at GigaOm, they called “Fox Interactive spokesperson Ann Burkart to ask if comScore is off the deep end on this one, and she said the numbers are actually totally accurate with what MySpace is seeing internally.”
Because the press release only has percentages, it is really hard to tell what drives these numbers. Keep in mind that the report also shows a dramatic decrease in MySpace users in the 12-17 age range making it difficult to tell how fast the over 35 age range is really growing. Increasing as a “percentage” relative to other age ranges can also be caused by dramatic decreases in another group.
Assuming that the over 35 crowd is driven by real growth, I have a number of ideas about what could cause this growth.
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99 year olds: MySpace has a large number of 99 year old participants, which typically fall into a couple of camps: the “too young to be allowed” group and the “old enough not admit a real age group”.
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Parents: With the recent press coverage over the past year focused on the dark side of MySpace (exploitation, sexual predators, etc.), I know quite a few parents of teenagers who use MySpace to better understand it and to keep an eye on their teenagers who use the site. Most parents of teenagers would fit into the 35-54 age range.
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Bloggers, Techies, and Journalists: I am 35, and I have a MySpace page. I created it as a way to better understand social networking for the purpose of blogging and other writing, but I have found that it helps me keep in touch with a few of my younger friends.
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Perverts: I assume there are also a few wackos in the over 35 age group that join for less than honorable reasons.
It would be great if some ambitious social networking researcher could do an in depth study to figure out what exactly is driving this change in the MySpace demographics.
Corporate Blogging 101
More companies are starting to blog every day, so I decided to spend some time providing my perspective on how to write a good corporate blog. If you are interested in corporate blogging, you might want to read the Corporate Blogging 101 post on my Intel Trends in Web 2.0 blog.
Next BarCamp Portland Meetup Scheduled for October 25
Our second informal Portland BarCamp Meetup has been scheduled!
When: Wednesday, October 25
Time: 7:00pm – 9:00 pm
Where: Jive Software Office (317 SW Alder St Ste 500)
Sponsored by: Jive Software
Jive Software is located on Alder near 3rd. Parking is available in a nearby parking garage, and it is short walk from the Max (directions to Jive Software).
If you plan to attend, please RSVP on the Portland BarCamp Meetup wiki (RSVP required):
The meetup on October 25th will be very informal and similar in format to the last meeting. We’ll do a few introductions, talk for a few minutes about organizing the BarCamp, and then see where the discussion goes.
If you would like to receive notifications about any last minute changes, future meetups, and other PortlandBarCamp communications, please join our Google Group to receive email announcements.
Subscribe to BarCampPortland
We have also created a BarCamp Portland Google Calendar for upcoming events. The next event will be held on November 29.
We are also trying to gain support for a real BarCamp event in Portland. We will start the planning process when we get enough people signed up on the Wiki, so please add yourself to the wiki if you want to attend a Portland BarCamp event!
Censoring the Blogosphere: The Right and Wrong Ways to Respond to Criticism
We know that the world of media has been evolving as bloggers become more prevalent, and our methods of interacting with the media must also evolve with these changes. Some blogs (TechCrunch, Engadget, The Huffington Post) have become more popular than many traditional media sources, but many people are struggling to adapt to interacting with the blogosphere.
An example from the Washington Post about how NOT to respond to a blogger caught my eye this morning:
“Memories fade, but the Internet is forever.
Murry N. Gunty found that out the hard way this summer. Well known among Washington financiers, the head of Milestone Capital Management LLC ran afoul of bloggers for an attempt to censor a Web article about a 1992 incident in which he manipulated the election for officers of the Harvard Business School’s Finance Club.
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The Harvard flap seemed like ancient history until Silicon Valley entrepreneur Mark Pincus — no relation to Gunty’s business partner — resurrected it.
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‘I have nothing personal against the guy at all,’ said Pincus, whose original post included numerous disparaging personal remarks about Gunty. ‘I write about ethics all the time. It’s something I’m passionate about. If Murry had responded on my blog, the whole thing would have just ended there.’
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Gunty or someone representing him sent an e-mail to Six Apart Ltd., the company that hosted Pincus’s blog, asking that the article be changed because it was a violation of privacy.
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When a Six Apart staffer asked Pincus to at least remove Gunty’s last name from the posting, Pincus responded by posting the request on his blog — escalating the issue beyond corporate ethics to a matter of free speech.” (Quote from the Washington Post)
Needless to say, cover ups and censorship are not an appropriate response to the blogosphere unless you really want the situation to escalate and spiral out of control.
Blogs require a different approach to criticism. Tim O’Reilly’s lynching in the blogosphere over the web 2.0 trademark controversy provide an excellent example of how something can escalate out of control and still be diffused by the right type of response.
The best way to respond is with an honest and thoughtful (not defensive) comment back to the blogger on her blog along with an entry on your blog providing your side of the story. The response needs to come directly from the person (not someone on his staff). In order for this approach to work, the responder must admit to any mistakes and help people understand what was learned and how the situation evolved. This should be followed by clarifying any errors in the original post and next steps that the person is taking in response.
Approaching bloggers on their own terms through comments and posts on your blog create a conversation where the issues can be discussed and explored in the open.
New Netvibes Update
Netvibes just released a new update (code named Cinnamon) with new features, new modules, and a better user interface.
I have been using Netvibes for a couple of months, and I use it constantly. I tried more RSS readers than I can count, and I hated all of them. Prior to Netvibes, I could not find any RSS readers that worked better than than the RSS functionality built into Firefox. The beauty of Netvibes is that they manage to cram a bunch of feeds on the screen, but organize it in a way that never seems overwhelming or cluttered. I can see all of the posts from more than a dozen blogs without scrolling, mouse-overs give me the first couple of sentences, and I can chose to read any post within the Netvibes interface or natively as a new tab in Firefox. Almost everything is configurable; I can have multiple tabs; and the content is easily organized by dragging and dropping.
Netvibes has also integrated a number of very useful modules. Michael Arrington uses it daily for one stop access to a variety of web services. I can see my unread Gmail messages, my delicious bookmarks (including sort by tags), the front page stories on Digg, the weather and more from a single page.
The best part is that I rarely have to wait on anything. Quick, configurable, intuitive, and easy to use … everything I want in a web app.