How Big Are You? In comparison to your neighbour, friend. Now expand that a little bigger. I remember as a child wondering how big the universe is and just possible that we may be nothing more than a grain of sand. 30 years later it appears that they have a little bit more information as these pictures show. You have click on them to get the full picture.
We are not really very big, The effect we have on each other may well be. Something a little different.
Let’s make it absolutely clear that if Google were to offer me a creative directorship in Google Inc. I would make the time to take that opportunity. But that is not the point. I’m sure that the readers who read this blog are aware of Google’s dominance in the world. From their
e-mail program which I am a user of, to the online document storage, Ad sense, Google alerts, websites, Chat, scholar, reader, etc. Google rules the online world in a little over 10 years. They’ve come from a simple search engine to worldwide dominance with revenues in the hundreds of billions of pounds. So, while it is not clear that space aliens might control space, it is clear that Google controls Internet advertising here on earth.
So, what is the point of this blog post. The question that has been concerning me for the last week. Is this, are all the clever people in the world working at ? That is of course preposterous. So why is it then that there is not even a murmur of competition in the water for Google. Yes, there are other search engines, but can you name them. I am sure for the tech savvy of you that you will remember Lycos were that funny little dog, went off and found things that you were looking for, and for the really the early adopters. There is also Alta vista. But where are they now? Well, I know for a fact that they do not hold any dominance in the market and all honesty that has been the case for quite some time. The last time that I used Alta vista, or as it is better known now Ask Jeeves was when 16 MB was considered an awful lot of memory.
So why is it that nobody can come up with a slightly decent product to compete with Google. To put some facts to this question. Currently, Google has 83% of the market share in on-line advertising of billions of webs pages. I would imagine, that it is probably higher. I cannot really imagine anybody using anything else. ‘Go and Google it’ is often considered a solution for researchers to ones off spring. It is well known that working for Google is a very enjoyable experience (see my other blog post) they provide relaxed rooms, think rooms, fireman’s pole, to name but a few of the innovative ideas. So, if you want your company to be innovative and up with the trends. then presumably you may have to take a different approach. In this point I am referring to UK Ltd.
I’m sure there are very many unhappy people at the moment with the current economic climate and less than inspiring job choice. Britain’s innovation and investment in its people is appalling of course it depends who you compare it too Japan or Morocco. One must ask? When will lessons be learnt? Having purely a service based industry with finance at the centre of it has proved to be very costly. It is not inconceivable that some bright spark could have thought of a slightly more innovative business plan and one that is diverse too.
A key ingredient to Google’s success is their philosophy that work and play go together. By engaging the mind in both areas, you create a workforce with enormous potential. Hey, who knows maybe Britain could produce a decent challenge to Google if we think about it.
photo credit: NoiseCollusionOnly Geeks would come up with something like RSS. The really funny thing is that nobody knows what it stands for, really simple, rich site syndication. (http://www.voidstar.com/node.php?id=140) So what does that mean to the average person than? Not a lot as you can imagine. Most people have no idea about RSS and what it can do. So we have hundreds and thousands of Geeks all following what is going on the Internet through RSS feeds. You see if they’d call it something like, really simple sex, it would have got out of that geeky mould. One can use RSS to keep updated with information on your favourite web
sites (BBC, Blogs, Email, etc). Sounds complicated, it is not and of course you can compile it in whatever reader you like to read.
Unlike computers, which are incredible unpredictable that you never know what they are doing. Using RSS is easy. While it may take a long time visiting your favourite sites. Using a reader such as Google, there are a few others. It will make your reading life a lot easier. As a result you will be able to see all the content your heart desires in one browser window.
So what does this icon look like and do? here is a video to show you.
Now that you have got your shiny new reader, and content streaming through. What is it that you may like to reflect upon.
Well some of my reflections from RSS goes something like this.
It seems that good old Gordy (British PM) is getting bushwhacked all over the place. Interestingly, I noticed last night on ‘Have I got news for you ‘(TV program) that Paul Merton was not laughing, maybe he is one of the few Brownites left . I do feel a certain amount of compassion for him but as John Wayne once said “you have got to go, when you have got to go” Which kind of reminds me of an old school friend who did not befriend me on Facebook considering that I have not seen him for 20 years. It was hard to imagine what he could be concerned about. Maybe it was the fact that we use to call him ……. and he considers himself beyond such school humour. One does have to be careful what they write on the Internet as a magistrate found out this week due to twittering he lost his job in the courts. What is the problem he asked? all the information is already in the public domain and published by the record division of the courts.
One can see there is a vast array of information to be gathered through RSS. From your Google e-mail through to your Facebook status. Pretty much everything. For the boys if you think of it as really simple sex and the for the girls as really simple shop. You should find it a lot easier than everything else that you may do on the computer.
You can subscribe to my feed here.
What is it that people do these days? If you are to believe the headlines twitter is all the rage. What defines a good twitter profile? What defines a good online profile? Is it the fact that one may have 2000 followers. Is it the fact they have almost twittered over 10,000 tweets. What characteristics would define someone that you follow?
If you’re a famous off-line celebrity say for example Schwarzenegger or Stephen Fry then without much ado it easy to be successful online. An example of this is Oprah Winfrey who set up an online Twitter profile only three days ago and already has over 10,000 followers. This is all probably very predictable.
What about from a personal point of view those of us who work every day and do not suffer from celebrity status. Is there really any benefit to using twitter. I am amazed at just how many companies and people use twitter try to sell me things most of them don’t understand the first thing about permission marketing. Can one really build a relationship in just 140 characters. It is not easy and like any relationship takes time and mutual interest. To put it in perspective this idea I suggest that you are only as successful on-line as you are offline. Some of my best relationships that I have online also exist in the real world when I go to a restaurant or the cafe. I think that I am just staying in touch. As it is not always possible to see people on a regular basis.
What about the business development and customer care opportunities. Out of experience I will never follow anyone unless I have a particular interest. Ones that use a company name I will not follow. In my experience the company never offers or interacts in the way an individual would. There is always a feeling that they are protecting or selling something. A company that could break this mould could achieve a significant amount of followers and would have a real story to tell to the media. Plus this would certainly gain a lot of extra free publicity. It is conceivable that a company could employ a group of people just to respond to people’s questions on twitter.
If you are going to stay the distance it is about quality. It is better to have 10 followers that are really interested in what you got to say then 10,000 who are not. An example of this is the Velvet Underground whose first record only sold a couple of hundred copies. Their influence though is felt by just about every major rock band that has ever made music. Although comparatively they are still not that well known.
So in summing up if you are genuine and have a genuine interest to interact. Then it is possible to build a quality network a word of warning though when I survey the number of people that follow me 90% are not interested in a two-way conversation and significant less amount are operating highly queastionable/fruadelent activities.