An update on Google+ for Brands

Below is a draft of an updated POV on Google+ I've drafted for the perspective of brand marketing opportunities.  Thoughts, suggestions or critiques are welcome.

Now that Google+ is nearly two months old, I wanted to provide an update on how Google’s ambitious new social project is doing, what new features + functionality have been added to the product since launch, and how these new elements impact the outlook for brands. Despite entering a competitive landscape, Google+ has received intense attention from Google users, media and brands. In just a few shorts weeks over 25 million people have been estimated to have tried out the network. Google has met the enthusiasm with a barrage of developments that hint to the potential of Google+ moving forward.

A more powerful +1 button for publishers 
When initially launched, Google’s +1 button for publishers had an ambiguous purpose. Consumers clicking the button could potentially improve a site’s search ranking, but there was no direct connection to Google+. Now when users click the +1 button they will not only affect the page-rank of the site, but will also have the opportunity to share the web-page directly to their Google+ stream. Google+ users will also see which of their friends have clicked a +1 button right next to the button on sites. The behavior will be very similar to clicking the Facebook ‘like’ button, both in it’s on-site representation and by displaying a photo and descriptive text snippet in a user’s feed. This will give users much more reason to click +1 buttons on content around the web.

Considering both the SEO and social amplification power of the new +1 button, all brands and publishers should be preparing to include +1 buttons on their sites prominently. There are a few steps website managers need to take to maximize the benefit:

• Update the +1 button code on their sites to display the in-line social graph info 

• Include the proper HTML mark-up on your web-pages to specify which pictures and copy are auto-generated when users share to Google+ from the +1 button on your site
   

Extended reach through massive Gmail community
When Google+ launched many people were surprised to find that it had no connection to Gmail. Now, however, Google has taken the first steps towards integrating with the popular email client by integrating Google+ updates into the new Gmail people widget. When looking at an email in Gmail, your contacts most recent public Google+ post will be visible in the sidebar along with their other profile information. This extends the reach of Google+ status updates way beyond the Google+ user-base out to the millions of people who use Gmail daily, making Google+ content sharing much more attractive to brands.

A more social YouTube experience with Google+ Hangouts
From the beginning, Google+ users have been able to load YouTube videos inside Hangouts (group video chats). Additionally, now when watching a video on YouTube users are invited to launch the video inside a Google+ Hangout to share the viewing experience with up to 10 friends. Like the Gmail integration, this exposure on one of Google’s most popular properties will help boost awareness of Google+. This is also a potentially valuable Call-To-Action for brands to promote on their YouTube channels: not just to watch a brand spot, but to invite friends to watch, enjoy and discuss along with one another.

Increased time spent inside Google+ through games
Google+’s biggest advancement so far may be the launch of Google+ Games. The games platform is very similar to Facebook’s, focusing on casual social games like Bejeweled that challenge friends to beat each other’s high scores and more. Google noticeably kept games alerts from infiltrating the regular Google+ feed; rather it’s information streams are kept on a separate feed users see when playing games. While less integrated, games will still ensure that users spend more time inside Google+ and return to the network more often. They could also be a potential way for brands to offer engaging experiences to users, once the developer platform is opened to all.

But official brand accounts are still missing (for the most part)
The most notable development about Google+ so far, though, may be that Google still hasn’t made any announcements about how brands will exist on the network. Google has actually gone out of their way to remove brand pages that pop up, or work with brands to transition their pages to a representative employee. So far the only hint that brand pages are coming soon, besides Google’s continuous promise, has been the launch of the Ford Motor Company test account. Ford notes that the profile is an early test of Google+ business accounts, and is experimenting with a number of Google+ features like Hangouts. Despite the early access Ford doesn’t appear to have any special features or functionality on their page yet. However, many additions like Google Analytics and advertising integration are expected to come, and may already exist on the back-end. Google will presumably also look at adding other features like brand directories, enterprise level moderation tools, integration with Google Places and more.

One last new Google+ feature that could be related to Google’s plans for businesses is the addition of “verified name” tags. Though the certification process is unclear, Google has begun tagging profiles of some celebrities (such as actress Alyssa Milano) and media personalities with a “verified name” designation. This certification could be used in the future to make sure users know which brand profiles are official, for trust and privacy purposes.

Though Google+ is boasting some big usage numbers so far, it’s important to remember that we are still in the very early days for the fledgling network. As Google continues integrating Google+ into its other properties and release new functionality I expect both Google+ and the other products to benefit from cross-promotion and powerful social functionality. It’s also important to note, however, that the competition is not standing still. Facebook just recently announced new privacy features that replicate Google+ circle functionality, and Twitter is quickly making photo sharing a bigger part of its web product. Social media is evolving faster than ever right now, and brands need to continue to pay attention closely to developments to identify the best ways to provide value and engage with their audiences.

My POV on Google+

This post is my formal POV on Google+.  I encourage feedback, suggestions and comments. This isn't meant to be all of the reasons you should actually like and use Google+ (that's coming soon), or tips / tricks. It's purely a run-down and analysis for agency purposes.

Overview
After months of speculation, Google finally unveiled its secret “social” weapon in the form of Google+, a full fledged, feature-rich social network. The reveal has been anxiously anticipated, mostly due to Google’s prior failures in the social space (e.g. Google Wave, Google Buzz and Google Hotpot) and Facebook’s fearsome globe-dominating success. In just a week of beta-testing it’s become clear not only that Google+ is a serious challenge to the current kings of social media, but also that consumers are starved for a real alternative to the current offerings. Experts have been lauding it, early users have been spending hours engaging and people who weren’t invited are clamoring to get in. What follows is an overview and early analysis of Google+’s most significant features & functionality:

Unique Features
Google+ was designed to answer specific concerns about existing social products, and also to break ground on new forms of interaction. Google has extracted the best of Twitter, Facebook and smaller successes like FriendFeed, but at the same time mixed in a healthy dose of innovation. While there are many significant features included in Google+, these four may be the most significant:

Circles
This is Google’s slick method of creating lists of people to follow and/or share with. Circles allow you to publish content to specific people, and filter your view of the social stream to reduce noise. Like with Twitter, following on Google+ is asynchronous; users can allow anyone to follow them without having to follow someone back or give up control of which content they share to whom. By taking this approach, Google is allowing granular control while also aggressively going after Twitter’s domain of public broadcast and celebrity voyeurism, rather than Facebook’s private relationships. Google+’s asynchronous follow, as well as lesser features like its Spark news integration, ensure that new users can enjoy Google+ and participate regardless of whether they have any friends in the service or plan on sharing any content of their own.

RealTime
Almost everything in Google+ happens in real-time, giving users a continuous feeling of community activity. Replies on content appear immediately without screen refresh. When posts start to receive new comments they pop back to the top of the feed. Also, a persistent top-bar alert notification now sits above Gmail, Google Reader and Google Docs, immediately alerting Google users when someone interacts with their content or a discussion in which they’re involved in. These three features help produce unparalleled levels of engagement by repeatedly drawing users back into the network to participate in threads, rather than allowing content to disappear into the stream. The robust conversation being generated on posts is already leading several technology influencers to announce that they’re transitioning their blogs to a Google+ stream.

Hangouts
Hangouts is essentially a group video chat product that makes Skype look non-social by comparison. Hangouts can be opened to the public and support up to 10 people in a room at once. The screen dynamically focuses on whoever is speaking, and as soon as someone leaves a room a new person can join. In this way Hangouts becomes a killer group social feature and has a lot of potential to be utilized creatively. Also, by launching Hangouts days before Facebook announced a Skype partnership, Google made Facebook look outdated and unimaginative for the first time.

Takeout
Right from the start Google is providing tools for any Google+ users to export all of their personal data. Though a minor functionality, this commitment to personal data ownership sets a stake in the ground for Google’s philosophy as it pertains to a critical aspect of social media as compared to competing social properties. Ideally, Takeout will pressure other social networks to match Google+’s offering by giving their users more control and ownership of their own information.

In contrast to all of Google+’s innovative features, something that’s missing may be its most significant asset of all as it builds its userbase: no syndication tools to and from other services. Whereas many people connect Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin together so one status message can be shared to all networks, Google+ is designed for everyone to only contribute fresh purposeful content to the community. While this might limit some people’s usage, it also ensures that people are not just seeing a duplicate experience to their Facebook or Twitter feed, and thus have more reason to stay and engage with everything that is shared. This is one feature of Google+ that very well may change soon when Google+ gets a public API, but for now it’s having a huge impact on how people use the service.

Importance
Even with its early success, Google+ has a major uphill battle. Facebook recently reached 750 million users and is the number one social platform in most countries world-wide. Twitter has slowly become a communication channel for the masses, playing important roles in national revolutions and government elections alike. Some people are skeptical the world needs another social network, especially considering that much of Facebook’s benefit derives from the network effect of everyone having joined it. However, there are many reasons why Google+’s success is incredibly important for both users and Google alike:

Identity
Though Facebook’s focus on real identities instead of anonymous handles changed the course of Internet history for the better, the way it’s handled identity rights has been questionable. Facebook is trying to aggregate as much user information as possible, but is shaky on what users can do with their data. As Facebook Connect becomes the log-in system for sites across the web, more personal information is consolidated under one roof. There needs to be another major competitor in the personal identity space, if only to keep Facebook honest and push them to think about users.

Search
Prior to Facebook’s ascent, all search engines had access to the public data. Point of differentiation was left to quality of ranking algorithm and ease of use. Facebook’s exclusive deal with Bing for access to much of its data has set off a distressing trend of companies choosing which search engines will have access to their users public data. Now the best search engine might not have access to the most important data, and in the end only consumers lose out. Google+, and the corresponding ‘+1’ buttons, are Google’s chance to secure its own fate as social data and social content becomes more integral to search. But more importantly, Google+ could put pressure on the social players to make their data publicly indexable for the benefit of all.

Product
While Google+ is a product on its own, it will also become a layer on-top of Google’s other offerings. This new social layer will help many of Google+’s legacy products, which have sometimes remained runner-ups despite competitive technology, achieve new standards of success. First up is Picasa, which now has powerful social sharing and people-tagging features that make Facebook’s inferior photo product so addictive to users. Picasa’s superior photo storage and organization will likely force Facebook to improve its own offering, and also could take market share from sites like Flickr. Google+ is likely to drive similar game-changing improvements in products like Google Places (it’s Yelp competitor) and more.

Businesses
Though the first iteration of Google+ is only a consumer offering, it’s likely to create or impact many brand marketing opportunities. Right from the start, clever brands have launched personal profiles and started exploring Google+ with consumers through realtime feeds and Hangout conversations. However, Google is actively deleting personal profiles created by brands, and promises significant business-centric offerings soon.

Google is expected to provide businesses unique profiles that links to other Google business offerings, including robust analytics and advertising opportunities. Limited testing of these offerings will be opened to a few select partners, including MTV and Ford. If early Google+ consumer usage is a sign, brands will need to think hard about how they provide a unique experience in Google+ that will be more conversational and community focused than any other social network before it. Google+’s newsfeed and group video chat capabilities are intentionally optimized for engagement more-so than syndication, and lack of integration with Twitter and Facebook status helps reinforce that brands will want to create original content, rather than just replicate their other hubs.

In addition to presence within Google+, the Google+ social data is likely to improve targeting options for Google’s other ad products, such as Adwords or display media. Google will soon have more information about their users, more registered profiles and more social data to enhance behavior and contextual targeting. It will also give advertisers more opportunities to connect with brands through advertising and content across multiple platforms.

Conclusion
While there’s a lot to be excited about with Google+, it’s important to remember the beta has only been open a few weeks. As more people are let into the service, and as Google makes optimizations and additions to the network, all of this is likely to change. However, Google+ is already proving to be a significant new offering for Google as well as social media users, consumers and brands alike. Whether or not it dethrones the current kings of social, it will absolutely improve many of Google’s products and force competitors like Facebook and Twitter to innovate quickly to bring more value to the consumer. Google+ is ultimately a major win for users of all services, and reminds us that social media as a whole is still in its infantcy. It will be very important for businesses to pay attention to and explore in the coming months.

Without an Obvious Vanity Layer, is Google +1 Doomed?

A few months ago Google kicked off an ambitious project to build a social authority graph that competes with Facebook's powerful web of 'likes'.  The project, called '+1', is essentially a button that would sit next to any web link and allow people to plus-up the value of that content.  That endorsement will appear for your friends in Google search results, and ultimately could help influence Google's search ranking overall.  The project began with +1 buttons appearing next to links on Google's search results, and starting this week the +1 buttons are now rolling out to websites to sit next to the usual collection social sharing buttons.

Google +1 is an enticing offer- your endorsement of websites could directly impact on one of the largest and most influential sites on the web.  Clearly with this potential website owners will desperately want their readers and fans to take action (anything to improve search ranking).  However, as it currently stands I'm actually fairly skeptical that Google +1 will be very popular at all.  It seems to be missing the main driving force for social endorsement- the potential for immediate return satisfaction.

Part of what makes content sharing on Facebook and Twitter so popular is because it can deliver immediate ego gratification.  On Twitter you can get @replies, ReTweets and even click counts (if you use bit.ly).  On Facebook you can get 'likes' and comments.  These all add up to an ego boost that fuels people's interest in sharing better and better content.  Not to say that it's the only reason people share- but it certainly helps fuel it.

If this is immediate gratification is so important, where is the ego boost, or vanity layer for Google +1?  The likelihood that my friends do a Google search that I might have impacted doesn't seem all that common, and even if they do, there isn't an easy way for them to thank me for the help.  And there isn't an easy way for them to see a list of sites I'm endorsing to respond to without visiting my Google Profile (which virtually no one looks at yet).  Without these critical aspects of return value from sharing, Google +1 seems like something content owners will want but content consumers won't care about.  And without that alignment on interests it doesn't seem like to succeed.

So Google, what will you do to improve the fortunes of Google +1?

Delicious, Foursquare, OneTrueFan and the Founders Dilemma

This week two very interrelated tech news stories broke.  The first: Yahoo may be closing Delicious; the second: Former MyBlogLog founder launched the public beta of his new product OneTrueFan.  Why are these related?  Delicious and MyBlogLog were two incredibly popular web 2.0 social products that were acquired by Yahoo! aggressively when their stock was rising.  Both were poorly assimilated, rarely updated and for the most part left to squander to the dismay of their loyal fanbases. Oh and despite it all I've used and enjoyed both of these services almost to the bitter end, so this Yahoo's failure is personal.

While the founders of MyBlogLog and Delicious did very well financially through their acquisitions I imagine they were incredibly pained seeing their vision go mainly unrealized and their dedicated users left unfulfilled.  Now years after web giants like Yahoo swallowed up hot startups we're seeing the founders try for success again with their ideas again.  OneTrueFan is in a way MyBlogLog 2.0 - the founder's attempt to create independently what  couldn't be done within Yahoo.  It's the same story as Foursquare, which was launched by Dennis Crowley years after Google acquired his first company Dodgeball and drove it into the ground.  Now Foursquare is one of the most popular mobile social networks around at the dismay of Google; will OneTrueFan achieve similar success?

I for one am happy to see founders go back and try to make a second run at their idea.  It shows passion and dedication, and proves they really cared about the product, not just the money.  It shows if you care about your product you need to think hard whether it can possibly achieve its potential when you have to play by someone else's rules.  Personally I hope like Dennis Crowley before him Delicious founder Josh Schachter tries for round two with his dream with a new version of social bookmarking; I would be much happier using his product than the one Yahoo! is embarrassingly choking to death.  I think there's a huge amount of potential to build upon Josh's original vision (and I know I'm not the only one).

In the mean time, I hope founders of great companies try to make it on their own, or at least look for better matches in their suiters.  Those of us who come to love and rely on your great work want to see what you're cable of doing with your great idea.

(But then, part of me wonders if it sometimes takes the disappointments early on for success to happen.  In other words, was Dodgeball too early for its time, was it destined to fail either way, and did the manor in which it failed drive Crowley to a new, better idea that he wouldn't have been capable of achieving otherwise?  Or maybe it takes the added flexibility and confidence of having some money under your belt, as this article suggests.)

Facebook & Google Racing to Establish In-Store Mobile Connections

A few months ago Google sent out QR code stickers for local businesses to put in their windows. If a passer-by snaps a picture of the QR code with their phone they're brought directly to the business's Google Places page where they can read reviews and learn more about the store. It would actually make more sense for stores to put the QR codes in other places, like on their delivery menus or on print ads, since when shoppers are at the store window they can just walk right in and experience the business first hand.

Well rather than be left out of the storefront window Facebook has now answered by shipping their own stickers that advertise a store's Facebook URL and the ability to "like" (formerly "fan") the brand's Facebook page via text message. As it lies now, Facebook's value proposition seems more significant. If a consumer is interested in the brand after browsing the physical destination, it's a great time get them to join the business's social network to kick off a lasting relationship. Google's Places page (at least right now) doesn't offer much to someone who's already been to the store.

It actually makes complete sense for Twitter to get in this game as well. I already see stores advertising on their signs to "follow" their Twitter feed, but that actually isn't so quick in a mobile client. Most people don't know you can just text "follow [twitter handle]" to 40404 to follow a profile immediately, but Twitter could definitely help stores advertise this.

Has anyone seen the Google QR or Facebook stickers in a local store? Which brands do you think make the most sense for in-store promotion? What type of offerings would you like to see as a product of the merging of web presence and physical presence through mobile moving forward?

Review: The Android G1 vs. the iPhone 3GS

It’s been a month since I switched to the iPhone 3GS from the Android G1 and it seems worth giving my reflections. When I had the G1 I loved it. The Android operating system is awesome- Google’s effort in opening up the mobile phone is very impressive, and they’ve proven over the last year they’re committed for the long haul. Here’s what it does well: The interface is great, much more like a computer operating system. Simple things like an information bar, which makes it more like Windows, may seem unnecessary to Apple but the reality is status updates like new email & text message alerts are important and often lost on the iPhone. Also, the Google apps integration is fantastic, and for the world outside of work (i.e. Microsoft Exchange) that’s much more exciting. You can sync Gmail and Google Calendar to iPhone, but it’s not native and it kills some of the reasons I joined Gmail in the first place, like threading. Also Android lets 3rd party apps plug in to the OS, which is important for things like taking a picture with the camera and then having your choice of where to upload to, rather than on the iPhone where you have to pre-select which program you are going to use to upload even before you take the picture (or after you exit the camera all together).

Other features of Android like desktop widgets are cool but I don’t really find them necessary. iPhone lets apps do small updates through the icons, and leaving widgets on the G1 had two huge side-effects- it killed the battery life, and slowed the OS significantly. This is also my feeling on multitasking; in most cases, you really don’t need it. If iPhone apps were a little better at holding your place when exiting and re-opening them, and there was a normal info bar for push notification & other message alerts, I can’t see many reasons I’d need multitasking, especially considering the likely trade-off between that and battery life.

So what the iPhone 3GS in the face of this? Well as much as I loved the G1, I really haven’t turned it on since getting the new iPhone. There’s a lot to love about Android, but the 3GS is by far and away a better phone. First a caveat, it would definitely be fairer to compare the new iPhone to a more modern Android phone, but I don’t have that luxury. So after a month of using an phone that is all together faster in every way, from using applications to browsing the web, I can’t imagine having it any other way. Also for all of the suckiness of OS lockdown, it’s amazing how beautifully consistent every experience is on the 3GS. Every time you open an app loads just as quickly, and the usability of many applications is also comforting. What I really miss the most about the G1 is the keyboard, which in all honesty I’d take on the iPhone in exchange for a bit thicker phone. But the iPhone’s typing auto-correction is actually pretty impressive, making onscreen touch-typing much more functional than on Android.

So in the end it comes down to this. From my experience, the iPhone 3GS does the things I care about the most significantly better than the G1. That probably means that Android needs to be installed on a phone that’s worthy of its breadth of functionality, which it looks like the upcoming Verizon Droid will do. If that happens, then Apple needs to take the iPhone OS to the next level to compete. If not, then I’m sad to say I’ll take less functionality for an overall better experience, as much as I didn’t want to come to that realization.

A Huge Day for the Big Web Players

It's been a huge day for the major web companies, news pouring out every hour, so I thought I'd recap and offer some thoughts:

Music

• Facebook users will soon be able to gift each other songs, web-streaming copies for 10 cents or downloadable DRM free files for 90 cents, powered by lala.com (paid thru Facebook credits)
• Google is expected to unveil a music tie-in next week that lets users stream songs and potentially purchase them right from the search engine, powered by i-Like and lala.com
• MySpace will now be housing a full library of music videos from the major music labels, and also providing Artists with deeper analytics of how fans engage with their content

Clearly this all points to one thing - multimedia content is rapidly becoming available everywhere. The entertainment industry is learning the only way they can fight piracy to offer easy access at fair costs. Also, I think the ability to gift Facebook friends songs could be a huge money maker for all parties if it's easy for the user and the music is easily played back as a library. And I want to see if users buy their own songs to house on their own profile for easy listening. Also, its amazing a full mp3 is cheaper than the virtual gifts people can send now. Finally, it's impressive that Lala was able to get themselves into both the Facebook and Google music deals, taking them from relatively no-name to top-tier player in a matter of hours.

Myspace's announcement is them trying to hold onto their claim as the best place for Musicians to set up their home-base website as they watch more and more of the grassroots marketing move to Twitter & Facebook. They're doing a pretty good job as an Entertainment portal, but this helps them with actual artist relations.

Social Search

• Microsoft cut deals with Twitter and Facebook to incorporate their content streams in real-time into their Search index. Microsoft unveiled an early beta of their Twitter search engine at http://www.bing.com/twitter , which not only shows recent updates but popular links being shared around a search term
• Google announced a similar deal with Twitter (no Facebook for now), but hasn't yet incorporated the content fully, with more details expected in a few weeks
• Google announced a separate product called Social Search which will enable users to search their own social graph for content. Google will create a personal index of content for a user based on the social profiles attached to their Google profile, helping users surface content such as friend's Flickr photos and profile info

The social search space, also known as the real-time search space, is heating up big time. The major search engines Google and Bing are realizing that more and more users will start their web searches with their social graph and want the latest information that their social graph is highlighting as valuable. Microsoft's early search site shows how it will try to take on the memetrackers and the real-time search engines at once, a space that's currently being owned by new web start-ups Tweetmeme and OneRiot.

It's clear Google will jump into this space as well, but their personalized social search product is separately very interesting. Helping users to unearth their own personal information from their own individual social graph is potentially even more important than a broad real-time search engine. The key here though is what content Google will be able to index - given that Facebook especially is behind a wall. The great thing about FriendFeed was that you could add RSS feeds to supplement the content that was already being indexed, a way to overcome the Facebook walls. Will Google be able to do this?

Photos

• Flickr announced people tagging on their photos similar to Facebook's features, but with more privacy controls. Users can choose who exactly can tag them in photos.

This is a feature that's made sense for a long time, but I don't think by itself it will matter much. Not enough people have Flickr profiles for it to matter, and because of the upload caps not enough people will ever choose to upload to Flickr. If this was done through Facebook connect it would be totally different (similar to PolarRose's offering). Also I would really like to see some integration with Apple's iPhoto, since they are working on syncing their products already and I've invested the time in tagging my friends on my desktop computer. This would be a good rivalry to the sync'd tagging of Picasa and Picasaweb. Finally, since serious Flickr users have been stockpiling photos for years, Flickr really needs to integrate Facial recognition on the site - both to keep up to par with competitors, and to make tagging less daunting of a task.

The CrunchPad Touch Tablet Web Computer and Dreaming Big

In a few weeks Michael Arrington, leader of TechCrunch, is going to unveil his biggest project ever - the CrunchPad. The CrunchPad is a touch-sensitive tablet computer that loads directly to the web browser. It's low-powered and low on features, but completely optimized for web applications. It's designed to be the computer you keep on your couch to check fantasy sports on, to read email on, to look up IMDB on. It will have a USB drive so you can plug in a keyboard if you need, and it may end up having a web-cam for Skyping, but other than that it's likely everything you see in front of you. In a few weeks Arrington will unveil the CrunchPad at a press event and it is expected to go on sale soon after for less than $300.

Whether the CrunchPad ends up being everything we are hoping and everything we are expecting from the visionary Michael Arrington is really not the story. Arrington went from being a lawyer to a blogger to the leader of a blog & web development empire. But a year ago he decided to set his sights on something bigger; he wrote a call to arms saying he was tired of no one building the perfect and affordable web-optimized tablet. He put a call out to anyone who was interested in helping him achieve the vision, put together a team of partners, and embarked on a journey to build a piece of hardware. One year later he's days away from achieving his lofty goal, testament to his dreams, his work, his cunning, and his work ethic, regardless of his lack of prior experience. This from a lawyer-turned blogger. So despite the product that we see, or whether it succeeds, the fact that he dared to undertake it and see it through is really what's important.

Oh and if it means anything, today's Google announcement is at least a vote of confidence for his vision.

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The Fabled Google OS Arriving Soon to Conquer Windows

Big news from the Google empire this morning! Team Google, never choosing to sit on the sidelines when they see an opportunity to make something better (see: browsers, mobile phones, TV advertising, etc, etc), has announced that they're currently building an operating system offshoot of their lightweight web app optimized browser Chrome- called Chrome OS. The operating system will essentially boot directly to a browser and run applications designed for the web. It will be open source so anyone can build off it and focus on web standards so applications that work on Chrome OS could work in any modern browser (meaning, at least today, most browsers not named - Internet Explorer). It will be clean, safe, and streamlined for optimal use on lower powered machines such as netbooks.

Google is providing no pictures right now, but they are in discussions with partners and the more information will be out soon. And around this time next year we should expect to be able to buy some Google Chrome OS powered netbooks from major manufacturers.

Whatever you think of Google and their quest for world domination, you have to give them this - when they enter a market, they go strong and they go big, and they look at how they can push the boundaries, make it better. Booting directly to a web OS isn't new (I'll write more about it later today), but Google will surely bring a polished idea to the table in a big way leveraging the clout and relationships they already have. This will likely push Microsoft hard to re-think Windows in terms of the new landscape. It remains to be seen how successful Windows 7 can be but if it's not able to maximize the effect of lower powered computer then Microsoft could lose that market by 2010.

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Google Profiles Suck, But You Need One Anyway

Google Profiles have been around for a while, but they never seemed to matter. Think of them as a fairly uninspiring social network profile: they're filled with links to your other social web presences, a single picture feed, an 'about me', and a map of where you live. The profiles are linked to in Google Reader, Google My Maps, and a few other places, but they do a poor job all together of tying together your Google presence.  Why after a year and a half in development do they not promote your recent Google content?  

Look at all of the huge opportunities that aren't leveraged here: They don't publish your Google Maps restaurant reviews (think Yelp), they don't publish your Google Chat status updates (think Facebook or even Twitter), they don't publish your most recent shared Google Reader articles (think Friendfeed), and they don't publish your most recent blog comments (think Disqus).  All together, it seems like Google is sitting on hundreds of things they could do well with Google Profiles to make them actually interesting, but they haven't done any of it.

However, despite all of that, Google Profiles has recently become incredibly important, for one reason - they now show up in Google Search.  Now once someone has activated their Google Profile, they can appear in a special "Profile results" one-box (pictured above) right on the first page of the Google results.  It's really the most direct way you have of influencing your Google search exposure, which in these days is increasingly necessary.  Your web profile is becoming your forward face to the world, and it's most easily accessed through search.  Virtually any time you go for an interview, the employer is probably looking you up in Google.  With Google Profiles (and I would also strongly recommend LinkedIn) you can now direct anyone who is looking for information on you to exactly what information you want them to discover.  You can make your Google Profile a very unexciting but powerful digital resume.

What should you put in your Google Profile?  What should Google do with the Profiles in general?  Will you activate yours?  What do you think of how I've decided to use mine?

10 Things I Want From Google in 2009

In no particular order, here are 10 things I want from Google this year (these mostly come down to consolidation of offerings, standardization of features, and leveraging of data):

1) A seamless interface between Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and iGoogle that lets me transition from one page to the other without having to open new windows and saves work.  Also, it would be nice if there was more interoperability between Google applications.

2) Better management and control of the Google Chat and AIM chat within Gmail; also the ability to chat with AIM contacts on iGoogle.  Also the ability to chat with users in Google Docs, which for some reason is only available in the spreadsheet application, not the word document application.

3) The long awaited consolidation of files hosted by various Google products into a web hard drive.  It's a bit ridiculous that Google Panoramio has 2GB of free photo hosting but Google Picasa only has 1.  If I wanted, I could host 7gb of photos in Gmail, also.  In any case, I can't access files across properties and I can't utilize the web space they're offering how I want to (by redistributing it as I see fit for my various Google-hosted needs).

4) The formalization of the Google Social Network.  So much social content contribution is happening on Google based products but it still doesn't pull together and live in one place.  The Google profile is slowly being built out, but it isn't happening fast enough.  The new iGoogle was supposed to have an information feed that could help pring this to life, but as far as I know that didn't happen.  Everything I do on Google Maps goes into an abyss, why?

5) A more advanced Gmail that integrates some of the features 3rd parties are making a reality.  Xoopit turns Gmail into a social network of sorts and enables easier organization of pictures and other files that are sent to and from friends.  I also really want Xobni's features to make their way to Gmail - the way it connects data with email and Linkedin is great (Linkedin is the most trusted source of personal data), and the analysis of email data is great.

6) More advanced display and use of data in Google Reader.  My biggest interest is seeing which feed items I emailed people, but there is definitely more all together that can be done with these engagement metrics.  Also, there needs to be better recommendation around content.  It's wierd that there's no built in Digg-style feed that you can switch over to view periodically, maybe in a page-layout like Techmeme (think the front page of Google Blogsearch).

7) Some major improvements in Google Chrome.  Mainly, better crash protection - half the time, if my computer crashes or the browser crashes I lose my tabs, whereas this is 100% protected against in Firefox.  Also, the lack of RSS detection in Chrome is ridiculous, the lack of integration with Google products (Google Bookmarks for example) is odd, and the fact that some of your own services don't even work (think Adwords and Doubleclick) on Chrome is embarassing.  It is kind of a joke that Google took this out of beta so fast compared to their other products.

8) Google Desktop has made some huge headway this year but it needs a few more things.  First, there's no Google Reader gadget for Google Desktop.  Also the Google Calendar gadget is really unimpressive considering the polish of the other Google-developed gadgets.  And how come the Photo gadget can't resize properly for pictures that are horizontal or vertical?

9) The ability to collapse the sidebar on iGoogle, similar to how it's done on Google Reader.  Isn't this obvious?

10) Android on Verizon and ATT.  If a good Android phone comes to Verizon, it might just keep me on their horrendous service past May of this year.  Since I don't actually expect Verizon to improve by May '09, I am hoping to see Android on ATT so I can officially move over to ATT and have choice between the iPhone and Android (by the way Google you get a pardon for this, I know it's mostly out of your hands)

Gmail Experimental Features Make Gmail More Interesting

If you haven't noticed yet, Gmail opened up a "labs" page a while back that allows you to turn on experimental features within your gmail interface.  It had gotten little attention until the new beer goggles protection feature that was added two weeks ago.  Well I hadn't really felt the need to turn on any features until this morning, when Google added the ability to integrate Google Calendar and Google Docs directly into Gmail, as well as any additional Google Gadgets (though others are done through a hack and are not yet entirely meant for integration) you like.  At that point I turned on 6 features - Google Calendar, Google Docs, Chat to the right, Labels to the right, drag and drop modules, and pictures in chat.  Now all of the sudden Gmail looks like a much more powerful dashboard, and the only thing I really feel missing right now is a to-do list (which I could really take care of by pumping a remember-the-milk module into the left bar via the gadget hack).  I've grabbed a screenshot of my Gmail as it stands right now - if you want to turn on these features, sign into gmail and go to the settings link, then over to the labs tab.

Or you can click here to go directly to the labs feature page.

Google Unveils it’s own Web Browser: Google Chrome

If you’re web obsessed, this is already old news – since yesterday morning, everyone and anyone interested in the web has weighed in on it, but for everyone else, here’s a heads up:  Today at a press conference, Google will be unveiling Google Chrome, an open source web browser entering the market to compete with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and more. 

The news was leaked when a 40 page comic meant to introduce the browser to techies was leaked a day early -  you can now read it here, but if you aren''t a techie you probably won't care.  The big changes that will effect everyday users:

• Increased Speed - Google is using a combination of rendering engines built by Apple, Mozilla, and their own internal guys, which is meant for one thing: speed up the loading of websites, especially google tools
• Reduced Memory Usage - The browser will turn each tab into an individual applcation, which means it will start with a larger memory requirement, but me more efficient over the day as tabs are open and closed
• Built in Google Tools - Integration of Google tools will be big, right down to page rank and suggested links as you type in URL's or open a new tab - all data they mine will help to make the browser more intelligent
• Desktop Hybrid - Google Gears, their offline anchoring tool, will be installed with the browser, letting websites leverage your PC to speed up their site, provide offline usage, and more
• Privacy Mode - with one touch of a button, you can make a surfing session entirely private, with no trace of history recorded and no cookies dropped (this was going to be a big new feature in IE8)

It’s big news, it’s one more step towards a ubiquitous Google OS, and it’s going to elicit major reactions from companies across the board.  Just a week ago, Google renewed their agreement wit Firefox to be the default search engine and share in the search revenue.  Now Google is going head to head with Firefox in the independent browser market, and hoping to steal even larger share of the browser market from Microsoft Internet Explorer.  One certainty, this is going to push feature development in browsers even farther.  There is also reasonable speculation that this browser is being designed to live without an operating system, to eventually work not just on a computer, but in mobile devices, TV boxes, and more.

For more information, see the hundreds of articles written already on the Google Chrome Browser, and stay tuned for a link to download.

Avoiding the Google Default: Search Isn't Over

This morning a new search engine Cuil opened their doors, and it's getting a lot of press. Part of the reason is it's got several ex-google people at the helm, and it's also making claims that attack at Google's core competencies - scale, index size, efficiency, even simplicity. At the end of the day, most of these things don't mean much to every-day users, so it really comes down to how helpful the results are. Early feedback is that the initial results from Cuil aren't as strong as Google's, but their secondary filtering that shows up via their tabbed recommendations on top and side are proving to be on point and helpful as pre-populated follow-up searches that you probably would have had to type in on Google anyway. The most notable difference is also the fact that results by default show up in 3 columns, and with much more text - almost a paragraph - giving you a full page of responses that seem intended to be more valuable as a composite answer to your query than a list of ranked leads to the answer. I did my usual vanity search for "skobac" on Cuil and it wasn't very on-target; most of the results were for a social bookmarking service that I registered for and never used, and it completely skipped my personal blog, my facebook account, etc, the things I update almost daily. It also didn't reveal anything on my uncle, a notable Orthodox Rabbi, until the second page. More importantly, the Cuil launch draws attention to the explosion of high profile start ups that are trying to move gain mind share and search share through a variety of new angles. Here are a few that might continue to draw attention, influence the search engine mains stays (even Google), and in some way might even help you in your search needs:

Mahalo - brainchild of Jason Calacanis, Mahalo is a wikipedia-like search engine that focuses on expert guides to queries. The Mahalo model presumes that people only really care about the top stuff anyway, so why not make it short and sweet and give it to them. Mahalo guides pull together the final product, but anyone can suggest links for topics, and the user-generated search engine has seen strong growth since opening up. A good example of optimal use is "San Francisco Vacation"; it also pushes editors to develop pages on breaking content in real time. The best part about Mahalo is possibly the firefox extension they built to integrate Mahalo expert recommendations into Google; this way you can search as you usually do on Google, but if Mahalo has a valuable addition to your query, it gets added in on top.

Powerset - now acquired by Microsoft, Powerset is a semantic search engine that is trying to crack the code of "natural language filtering"; in other wrods, it tries to understand what we're really saying in those search quieries, rather than just matching words. It's perhaps the most challenging undertaking with the biggest upside, and numerous search engines are trying to crack natural language filtering, but Powerset gets the attenion because Microsoft just acquired it and the technology will start to influence Live.com search results before the end of the year. It also has a powerful proof-of-concept built out around Wikipedia, which provides a much more robust and powerful search engine for the enormous and popular social encyclopedia. Powerset tries to give you results that actually answer your question, rather than just bringing you places to find the answer, and they provide numerous examples of this in action right on their website, such as "what are the ingredients in beer"?

Searchme - designed under the premise that people take more from visual experiences, Searchme is a lightning-fast search engine that generates results in cover-flow style, as an iTunes for search. You can flip through the results and see full page screenshots, with the search terms highlighted, as well as a summary of the site at the bottom. It also enables you to filter between web, video, and image results, as well as by category. An example search of "Barack Obama" offers you filters by political news,, business news, democratic party, or more. I don't see why it helps much in every day searches, but it's great for image search, and the ability to create custom "stacks" of results makes it a helpful way to create a screenshot collection of best pages for a particular topic to save for viewing later, or to recommend to someone else. Any other time you want a visual preview of the results, it's definitely the fastest and most functional visual search tool ever designed.

At the end of the day, Cuil, Mahalo, Powerset, and Searchme may not show enough of a difference in utility to change your normal search patterns (more often than not we all default to Google), but it does show us that search isn't over, and that there are potentially new, interesting, and hugely impactful innovations in search. If anything, the attention that these new startups draw, and the high-stakes of losing even a percentage point of use to one of them, puts pressure on the Google and the like to keep inovating themselves, keep progressing in usability and value, in order to maintain and grow their own search king status, and that is incredibly important as they start to reach monopoly size market proportions.

The New iGoogle vs. The New Facebook - iGoogle Will Change My Day More

A lot is being made of the new Facebook profile redesign (a sneak preview being opened to the public week of July 14th) - and there are a few reasons for this. First of all, millions more people use Facebook than iGoogle, both in the US and worldwide. Also, Facebook over time has near unusable and unvaluable - the news it gives me is either not very important, or it is about the tens of people I want just as 'contacts' and not as 'friends.' Facebook's new redesign may clean up the profile page, but what I really want is a way to filter out the noise from people I don't care about day-to-day, similar to what Plaxo allows. If that doesn't happen, that I don't expect expect much to change in my Facebook experience when the profile is redesigned.

But could potentially be much more interesting and seems to be getting overlooked is the redesign of the iGoogle homepage, Google's personalized homepage offering. Last week iGoogle started allowing users to opt in to an early test of the new page; the new features that are being built in right now are the tabs moving to the left, chat being integrated similar to the way it is in gMail, full page views of gadgets (canvas style, similar to facebook's expected adjustment), and an activity feed. To me this change has the potential to turn iGoogle into what Facebook wants to be - a platform for the web. As more and more of Google's offerings get integrated together, and enabled to work inline so that I don't need more tabs or page refreshes, the Google web-desktop package becomes more powerful and more to life. If I can check gMail, chat, view my RSS feeds, and browse Facebook/Twitter/Friendfeed via gadgets, all within the comfort of my iGoogle homepage, I don't see myself needing to leave very often. I could do most of this before, but better inline use of gadgets and the addition of gChat means I will less and less have to leave my iGoogle homepage to do anything I want to do.

The new iGoogle definitely has a way to go - chat isn't working for me yet, the canvas pages load poorly, and gMail isn't opening email inline. But the promise of iGoogle seems big, and if they get their act together it significantly change wear I spend my time online on a daily basis. Much more than I'm expecting from Facebook's new profile next week.

Labels vs. Folders in Gmail

Google Blogoscoped has a great interview with Kevin Fox, the former lead designer of Gmail, Google Reader, and Google Calendar, who now works on FriendFeed. Among the interesting topics and decisions he covers, Fox gives the thinking behind why Gmail was designed with labels, rather than the traditional folder concept that people are used to in email. When you hear his answer, it makes complete sense:

Ironically, labels is a great example of when it’s best to not rely on existing design patterns, since in this case that would give the users a false understanding of the feature. Conversations were the most fundamental difference between Gmail and prior email applications. By treating messages in the same conversation as a single entity instead of separate emails, we gave users (especially users on mailing lists and those who get a lot of email) some real power.

The problem is that conversations meant we couldn’t have folders. The logic went like this: If you move a message from the Inbox into a folder and then another message came in on the same conversation, the conversation would pop back in to the Inbox (as it should). Should it
still be in the folder as well? It’s very inefficient to move it back in to the folder each time, frustrated that it keeps popping out. And if it stays in the folder and the inbox, then how do you get it out of the inbox? If you throw it away it would throw away the conversation from everywhere, or maybe it should just throw it away from the Inbox and remain in the folder, in which case if you really wanted to delete something you’d either have to find it in all folders it was ever placed in, or you’d have to have some sort of ’super delete’ which, as it turned out, was a far more troublesome difference to grasp than that of multiple-inclusion folders (which is what labels are).

So instead of deleting from the inbox, or re-moving, you could ’archive’ the conversation (whether or not it was in another folder) and it would just take care of it.

Another way to look at the problem is if you have filters set up to put messages from certain people or with certain keywords in folders, the same conversation could appear in multiple folders because one message put it in ’family’ and another put it in ’vacation’. Then you have the same problem of a single item appearing within multiple containers that people have been trained to understand only hold originals or copies, not aliases, and you run into the same confusion with some users trying to delete out of a folder to keep a conversation in another folder, or expecting it to vanish from everywhere. Either way you’re going to have a huge number of users who either can’t delete or are accidentally deleting, which was a much bigger problem than calling them ’labels’ and teaching them about multiple-inclusion..

And just like that, Google puts Panoramio in the spotlight

Just over a week ago I wrote about the sometimes redundant and unclear strategy of Google in supporting two seemingly similar products, one specifically being the odd placement of geo-tagging site Panoramio in their portfolio, which they never mention but actually provides more free storage (2GB), than Google's primary photo sharing site, Picasa. Well yesterday Google pushed out a very cool, very interesting, very powerful update to Panoramio, just when most of the world had forgotten they had any connection to it: The ability to explore an area by directing yourself to different regions of a photo, which consequently moves you to a different photo that shows a different angle of the area you're looking at. It's very similar to Microsoft Photosynth, which consstructs virtual images by piecing together pictures of the same object from different angles. With Panoramio, you can literally walk around an area - try Red Square, Moscow, and click "look around" below the first image. I was pleasantly surprised by the rest of Panoramio as well - it heavily integrates Google maps, bringing in satelite views of your locations, and generally provides a fun environment for world photo exploration.
I'm still wondering, though, how this will sync with their vision for Picasa - for example, I saw no way to import from Picasa the photos I've already geotagged. I would like to be able to point to Picasaweb or Flickr and import the images that I've already collected in another photo community that isn't necessarily all about the focused purposed of Picasa. This seems an obvious feature need for a nich photo site, but Google really needs to sync their photo vision.
[image from Google Operating System]

Ever wonder what Google's strategy is?

Every time you read that a new product is being released by Google with no seeming reason but to give yous omething for free, http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/
Google Operating Systemever wonder what their strategy is? Google Docs, Google Earth, Picasa, Sketch-up, etc, everything Google releases is a product that gives the consumer something they always wanted for free.

"Google has a long-term strategy for its search engine and for the other services. "Our goal is to develop services that significantly improve the lives of as many people as possible. In pursuing this goal, we may do things that we believe have a positive impact on the world, even if the near term financial returns are not obvious. For example, we make our services as widely available as we can by supporting over 90 languages and by providing most services for free," wrote Google's founders in the IPO letter" [via Google Operating System]

Now sure, eventuallly Google finds a way to make money (Ads are finally coming to Google image search and iGoogle some time in the next few months). And gaining market share by giving something away for free is classic undercutting. And giving us things for free actually gives them significant returns beyond finances (think of the custom maps we've built in Google Maps and the custom architecture developed with Sketchup and the world photos in Panoramio). But sometimes it feels like they're just good guys doing it out of their own good heart, trying to change the world one product at a time because they can afford to do the right thing.

Google Sites revealed, another redundant product

Google finally unveiled Google Sites to the public, the reformatted product that leverages the JotSpot wiki technology they purchased almost two years ago.  My first question is, how is this different than Google Page Creator?  Sure, it's more shareable for open editing, which is the main focal point of a Wiki, but after watching the Google overview video for their new Sites product, it really feels like they're billing this as an easy website design tool, which is basically what Page Creator was.  Now Page Creator has some additional features, such as easy implementation of Google Gadgets, and Sites has some additional features such as shared editing, but for the most part this could have been one product.  Just because Nobody really uses Google Page Creator doesn't mean they should just leave it open and separate and lingering.

More worrisome is the continued developing trend of Google tossing redundant products out into market without a clear focus of how they will grow and become more useful.  This is especially clear in the bookmarking sector, where Google now has Google Notebook, Google Bookmarks, Google Share, and Google Reader Notes.  Now some of these are more social, some of these are more personal, and some of these are more about research, but in the end there is likely a way for Google to combine many of these products, leverage the interesting features from each, and create something more powerful for the user.  Right now this is both confusing and unorganized, as I never know what to share how and when, and whether I'll be able to remember where to find it again.  Yes that's because I haven't set rules for my own use, but I shouldn't have to if they have a clear vision.

Other places Google has redundancy?  YouTube and Google Video come to mind right away.  If Google Video is meant to be exclusively a video search engine, then they should migrate our uploaded videos from Google Video to YouTube and let us have our files in one place, with the added features that Google is rolling out for YouTube such as viewer statistics.  Not only do these features not exist on Google Video, but in some fashion they did in the beginning, only Google has let Video linger and many features don't work anymore.  That's almost a joke for them.

Thoughts?

Panoramio is another confusing Google product that makes us wonder where GDrive is

In all of the discussions that come up around Google's missing long-rumored G-Drive, no one ever mentions Panoramio.

Google's storage strategy has always been confusing - at this point we have free about 6GB on Gmail, 1GB on Picasa, 200MB on Google Page Creator, as well as some storage on Google Docs (I can't remember how much off the top of my head). The product that never seems to get mentioned, though, is Panoramio - a location-based photo sharing site that Google owns now for around a year (purchased June 1 '07) and has integrated into Google Maps and Google Earth heavily (you can view geo-tagged photos from Panoramio on both of those products). I was surprised to find that Panoramio allows for 2GB of storage, more than Picasa, Google's main photo sharing site. One of the few things that keeps me from using Picasa more often is that lack of storage, and I would certainly be happy with the extra gig or two.

More importantly, there is still the main question of how come we can't share the nearly 10GB of storage Google is offering in its many products as we see fit? And how come we can't see all of our files across all of Google's owned and operated properties in one "storage" location? AOL and Microsoft both have products that offer 5GB of free storage of any sort - I am not sure exactly how integrated the storage is into the rest of their products, but it doesn't matter much - I don't really use them. With Google, I have some content spread across almost everything they operate, and I'd like to keep track of it, share it, manage it, and appropriate it easily and as I see fit.