Last week, rumors circulated that Google and Verizon were working to announce a joint partnership, signalling what Gizmodo prophesized as the death of net neutrality. While net neutrality can still plan to live another day, both companies just announced a “Joint Policy Proposal for an Open Internet,” effectively confirming what everyone was expecting – in the future, we’re going to see a tiered internet system.
Granted, the internet we use on a primary basis will remain as-is. Think of your current landline connections you’re used to – cable/DSL/wifi/etc. - as the “open” internet, while mobile connections – EDGE/3G/4G/whatever-else-comes-out-next-G – as the “private” internet.
Verizon’s Ivan Seidenberg offered a few examples of what kind of content we could expect to see on the private web, such as the Metropolitan Opera airing their archives in 3-D over Verizon’s FiOS service, or perhaps Verizon could develop a high-speed health care database service.
Currently, the best analog to what you could eventually see in the future is on ESPN’s website. Here at Apex we went a little world cup crazy, if you weren’t aware. ESPN3.com‘s streaming of the games was a fantastic way for us to keep up to date with the scores – until we switched ISPs in the middle of the series (ironically, we were using Verizon for our internet). ESPN currently has streaming deals in place with specific ISPs, and our new provider wasn’t on that list. We were out of luck.
Now, broaden that to a whole range of sites that will pay Verizon (or whichever mobile provider in question) for service, and there’s a chance you might not be able to access some of your favorite services via mobile devices.
This is all speculation, of course - the wording on Google’s proposal still leaves a lot of room for debate, and seeing a huge player such as Verizon agree to remain neutral on broadband internet is a massive coup for Google and the entire net neutrality community. However, as usage of newer mobile-enabled devices such as the Kindle, iPad, and smartphones increases, we’re left wondering if the “open internet” could quickly become the “abandoned internet.”
In addition to reading Google’s proposal, check out what some of the top tech blogs are saying:
NY Times, as well as their live-blog of Google and Verizon’s conference call earlier today.
As reported around the internet, Google is again tackling the social networks. Not much more has come out other than the fact that Google is indeed working on building their own social network. It makes sense. The future of search is social networks. More importantly, the future of ads around search lie in social networks. The nature of the organic spread of content isn’t through search engines the way it is through peer recommendations.
As users search for products, services and information, social networks have the ability to filter search rankings according to the relevancy to the individual user. The more information available for a site like Facebook to sort through, the more accurate and thus, the more valuable the search tool becomes.Recommendations from friends and family is still the most trusted form of advertising and the biggest purchase influencer. Users port more and more of their lives into Facebook every day from pages they like to music and movie preferences to events in daily life.
Google knows this. The problem is, Google hasn’t had much luck so far with social networks (Orkut, Buzz, etc). As they flounder along in the space, Facebook keeps strengthening their position. If I were Google, this is what I would do:
Buy Twitter – Twitter as a standalone product already has a large but quickly growing audience. 20% of online adults are using it on some level. It’s not a cemented position though. If Facebook can figure out their privacy issues and get people to start posting public status updates, Twitter is done. Who would use Twitter if Facebook has the same basic functionality but with pics, videos and a larger character limit? If Twitter is gone, Google loses real time search. Bing will quickly capitalize and grow their market share. If Google buys Twitter and integrates into their other products, they can address issues such as multimedia, character limits, etc. They’ll have a base to build a social network people are already using.
Strike at Facebook’s Weak Points – This is basic ‘Art of War’ type strategy. Don’t take the beast head on. Aim for the chinks in the armor. In this case, Facebook users are very sensitive right now to privacy concerns. A Google Twitter combination has the ability to sail around this issue. The user experience on Twitter is already open to the world. Keep aspects such as status updates open to the world. Keep DMs private. Make the lines between public and private posts extremely clear.
Pick a Different Audience – A subset of the above, aim to penetrate a part of the market not covered well by Facebook. This is how Facebook toppled MySpace. Aim at a community that isn’t yet on Facebook ubiquitously – 13-17 year olds. As they get older, they’ll stick with the Google social network.
Tie In YouTube – Let’s not forget that YouTube operates as a social network – a big one too. By integrating Twitter and other Google Social Network tools into YouTube, it solidifies Google’s ownership of content. At the end of the day, it’s not about content, it’s about people sharing content.
Keep Things Decentralized – Google’s strongest position is the fact that Google is everywhere. Google isn’t run from Google.com. There’s no walls. Keep it like that. Make the Google social network an experience and a way to interact with friends and share content across the internet. If Google is the most effective way to do that and acts more like a utility than a website destination, it can’t lose.
We work a lot in the music space and as such, with many music editorial websites – AOL, Rollingstone.com, etc, etc. This space is fairly unique because there is so much content. There is way more content than anybody ever cares to check out or listen to. In the grand scale of exciting editorial content, music is not the top of the food chain. The new iPad is way more interesting and whatever TechCrunch is posting is way more interesting than anything Coldplay or some artist you’ve never heard of is doing.
As such, there are two ways to bring in organic traffic. In the first, a website picks an audience to cater to and posts content relevant to that audience. They build the audience overtime by giving them content that their readers are genuinely interested in and share with their buddies thus bringing in more traffic. In this scenario, the individual post isn’t as important. The average user reads more posts and subscribes to the lifestyle the website is selling. Pitchfork followed this model. This is why they’re able to break bands. Their readership is generally interested in what Pitchfork posts and trusts the site to filter content on the web to post content relevant to them.
One of Google’s new announcements has to do with personalized search results. As Google continues to gather more and more information on its users through its various products, it’s going to start returning search results based on your previous internet activities.
This is really interesting and where Google and Facebook become competitors more so than Facebook and MySpace. The direction Facebook is heading is that of an information hub for everything your social graph does and thinks. This includes solving the same problems people have traditionally used search engines for.
Shopping online? Why search through Google when you can mine your social graph through Facebook. Google can personalize your search results based on your previous activities but that only goes so far. Facebook represents word of mouth, the most powerful and influential part of the decision making process. The real value in search is based on the information gathered not only about your own habits, but the habits and opinions of your friends – those people that impact your decision making offline as well. Google can certainly get this information but Facebook can do it so much better.
Radiohead, who have proved they are the masters of “awesome shit you didn’t know was even possible” have managed to yet again collectively blow minds with the video for “House of Cards” off of last year’s In Rainbows.
Basically, they shot a whole ton of lasers at Thom Yorke, collected the data returned, which you can now play with. So, in addition to a swanky music video, they also have made creepiest web toy ever. Feel like watching Thom Yorke sing while you are inside his face? Well now you can.
Check it out here, thanks to the masterminds at Google.
As if you haven’t heard yet, but Mr. West has gone and launched his own freakin’ search engine. It’s called SearchWithKanyeWest.com and powered by Google. So instead of looking at absolutely nothing while searching google.com, you can stare at Kanye’s mug.
The cool part about Kanye’s search engine though, is that every time you do a search you make digital $$ (aka Swag Bucks) which you can then exchange for Kanye merch like autographed CD’s, gift cards, or even an iPhone (which will cost you a whopping $4000 swag bucks, but still, it’s free people). So go on, get out there and Kanye google the hell out of the internet!
And just for giggles, here is Zack Galifianakis’ video for Can’t Tell Me Nothing. It’s an office favorite!
