The 11% that matter (and why companies must get serious about social media)
Adam aggregates data from the Forrester studies on U.S. consumers' use of web 2.0 tools and sites in 2007 and reports:
* 75% of your customers don't read blogs
* 89% of your customers don't write a blog, either
* 71% of your customers don't watch user-generated content
* 75% of your customers don't visit social networking sites (e.g. MySpace, Facebook)
* 82% of your customers don't participate in discussion forums
* 75% of your customers don't read online ratings or reviews
* 89% of your customers don't post online ratings or reviews
* 92% of your customers don't use RSS
The idea is similar to the
'10% creators- 90% consumers' idea about web 2.0.
When you look at these numbers from another angle, you realize that:
* 25% of your customers read blogs * 11% of your customers write a blog * 29% of your customers watch user-generated content * 25% of your customers visit social networking sites (e.g. MySpace, Facebook) * 18% of your customers participate in discussion forums * 25% of your customers read online ratings or reviews * 11% of your customers post online ratings or reviews * 8% of your customers use RSSDo you still want to ignore these people?
Labels: blogs, social media marketing, web 2.0, web strategy
Is Google going Microsoft’s way?
Through two almost successive product announcements, Google has started to convince me that it may be going Microsoft’s way. Microsoft used its dominance in the Desktop OS and Office business to clone existing successful programs with great success in the 90s, destroying many startups in the process.
Google is doing the same things but I suspect Google’s ability to defeat the incumbents with two upcoming services.
First, Google announces a Wikipedia-type system called
“Knol” where people can write encyclopedia type pieces and share ad revenues with Google, benefiting from Google’s easy indexing promise.
About.com, ehow.com, wikihow.com, squidoo.com, hubpages, mahalo.com, howstuffworks.com…these are some of the heavy weights that Google aims to defeat just because it enjoys 70% dominance in the search business.
Earlier Google launched base.google.com to challenge Craigslist, pages.google.com to challenge easy web page creators. What happened to all these?
Then there is the trust thing. Will Google go Yahoo’s way and show links from only its properties as top results. That is easiest way to lose credibility in the market.
Coming on to the second announcement of Google introducing a
redesigned version of the long dead Google Answers, where it will most probably show results from Google search. If this is the case, the new service can be as vague as some Yahoo Answers replies can be. At least the original Google answers had people who gave detailed, researched replies for a fee.
Suggestion for Google: Combine the above two services and create an army of 10000 people (when it died, Google Answers only had 800 people answering questions) who are willing to search on demand and try to create a better service than existing human-powered search services, including chacha.com.Labels: google, knol, Microsoft, search, web 2.0, web strategy, wiki
The Three spheres of Web Strategy
Jeremiah Owyang writes about the
three spheres of web strategy and how all those in the business of the web can find a balance (a point where all three spheres meet) to achieve the desired results.
The three spheres are :
Community (formerly and commonly known as users), Business and Technology.Jeremiah says each sphere demand a specific skills set.
In case of the all-important Community, he says having skills such as usability and empathy is very important.
Interesting and useful.
Labels: web 2.0, web strategy
J. Angelo Racoma of Splashpress Media has asked an important question, something that all new media must be/should be asking themselves right now:
What is our Worth?
I am cross posting the comment I made on that article.
Disclosure: They are promising a prize of $1000 to the best answer to their question but I have decided to take a broad generalist route to answering that and so winning 1000 dollars is why I am reposting it here. On to my answer:
Before we start discussing the worth of Splashpress Media, it is important to remember this:
1. WEB 2.0 IS NOT DEAD.
2. There will be no bloodbath. Most of are all mostly budget-conscious people and we don't hope to be Google one day.
3. The Web 2.0 hype is fed by clueless, out-of-touch VCs and Big Corporations like Microsoft and Google who are paying huge sums for properties just to piss on each other.
4. Steve Rubel started this ‘Web 2.0 is dead’ meme because no one was reading his blog like they did in 2005.
5. Then a VC reported that blue chip investors Kleiner Perkins were not gung ho about Web 2.0, but if you look at their portfolio, you will find they have mostly been blind towards User Generated Content.
Coming back to Splashpress Media, I think we should always remember what Jaff Jarvis said about the future of newspapers:
The message for Splashpress Media and all other New Media is clear:
There is a shiny, big field ahead and so the effort must be not to slip:
1. Keeping Costs down
2. Doing original, often entertaining journalism.
3. That means rising above merely rewriting that many Blog Networks/New Media startups do.
4. Established News houses are taking to blogs in a big way and many of them are indeed better written.
The Bottomline:
if Splashpress Media manages to stand above the crowd and aims for the long term, and conveys this message to investors as well (building media properties takes money, although not in Mass Media amounts), it will indeed be very valuable to its founders and readers alike.
Note:
Splashpress Media, like may other networks has been hit by Google's recent Pagerank Update. i understand their concern but I like to think that New Media startups must not get scared and moreover, we shall not let our plans be dictated by a bunch of overrated analysts. We shall keep doing the good stuff.