June 19 2009
I recently read Dana Blankenhorn’s great article about the future of eBooks. Dana argues that eBooks in their current form are not taking advantage of being a digital product because they fail to leverage the power of hyperlinks. I would completely agree. Furthermore, it has been proven time and time again that repurposing old ideas from the offline world doesn’t translate into success in the online world. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples, banner ads and SecondLife.
Banner ads on a website are conceptually easy to understand for marketers who are used to working in an offline world. Essentially banner ads are digital equivalents of newspaper or magazine ads. These types of ads fail to tap in to what makes the web a powerful tool. In this case, the ability to dynamically change based on user behavior and the ability for business owners to easily create their own ad content.
In contrast, text based ads such as Google AdWords harness the unique powers of the web by changing based on what a user searches for on Google. Other benefits include the marketplace Google has created around the purchasing of AdWords and the fact that any small business owner can easily create their own. This DYI aspect of AdWords are another uniquely digital idea that empowers end users to create their own content without expert intervention. Text based ads such as AdWords consistently outperform banner ads because they are based on digital ideas that succeed in the digital environment.
The ways which companies flocked to the virtual world SecondLife provides another example of how old ideas repurposed for the virtual-world fail. In the article “How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life“, Frank Rose describes how companies are spending millions of dollars to set up a virtual presence in SecondLife. The problem is these virtual corporate headquarters sit empty, generating little or no ROI. So why are companies wasting millions on this? Rose points out that these companies are falling into the trap of repurposing old real-world ideas for the online world. To them, it makes sense to have a virtual company headquarters because they have a real-world company headquarters. SecondLife itself makes these bad ideas even more attractive because it looks like the real world—virtual people walking around virtual environments.
I feel that if eBooks never offer anything more than being a digital copy of a real-world product they will never be widely adopted. Ideas and products that are uniquely digital are the ones that will find the most success online. Currently eBooks aren’t there yet.
Tags: AdWords, Google, Innovation, SecondLife, Web 2.0
May 11 2009
The buzz surrounding ‘answer-engine’ Wolfram Alpha continues to grow leading up to its late May release date. How is Wolfram Alpha different from Google search? In order to answer questions using Google’s search you would type in your topic and drill down into the documents or web pages on the results page that might contain the answer. On the other hand, Wolfram Alpha allows you to ask a question directly and serves up the answer right on the results page. For example, searching on “the population of Finland” would result in demographics information gathered by Wolfram Alpha from various data sources and aggregated together on the results page.
Even if Wolfram Alpha ends up failing it’s sure to have an influence on the future of search. Google has definitely taken note although I’m sure they’re not worried about Wolfram Alpha having a negative impact on their business. Rather than a Google killer, Wolfram Alpha is a different kind of search and may find a nice niche in academia.
For more information read ZDNet’s article entitled “Deep inside Wolfram Alpha”
Tags: Google, Wolfram Alpha
March 13 2009
With the announcement of Google Voice, Google has created a consumer targeted unified communication (UC) system. UC allows an individual to send or receive a message on one medium and review it on another. For example, UC allows you to read voice messages in an email inbox. UC has been getting a lot of attention from business over the past few years but the consumer segment seems to have been largely ignored. Google Voice will include features such as voicemail transcriptions and free long distance calling within the US for American users. With no special hardware to buy this will be an attractive option for customers who have avoided VOIP products in the past.
For more information check out “Google’s Free Phone Manager Could Threaten a Variety of Services” NY Times
Tags: Google, Unified Communications
February 25 2009
How did Google come to accurately track flu activity more quickly than the CDC (Center for Disease Control)? Well Google found that when people get sick with the flu they tend to use the internet to conduct flu related research. Google then aggregated this search activity to estimate flu activity around the United Sates. Not only did the numbers prove to be quite accurate, they were available two weeks sooner than those published in CDC reports.
So why would an internet search company be interested in tracking flu activity. Well, they probably aren’t. But what they are interested in is creating an environment of innovation at the company. Google Flu Trends is just one of many products created by Google employees during their “20% Time”. “20% Time” means that each Google employee is allowed to devote 20% of their working time towards a project of their choice. Google understands that although many of the products developed during this “20% Time” will not directly create any revenue, what is learnt during the process will eventually provide an excellent ROI.
Tags: Google, Innovation
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