Larry Page & Mark Zuckerberg. (Image originally atlanticwire.com)

Every time you go online you are entering a war zone. It might not feel like it, but there is an almighty battle taking place between two superpowers and you are caught in the crossfire.

Welcome to the war for web supremacy. The super powers, if you haven’t already guessed, are the search behemoth Google and social heavyweight champion Facebook. The prize is you and your data.

Sure, there are other combatants in this war; Twitter, Apple, Bing, LinkedIn…even Yahoo!, but they are merely involved in skirmishes and are open to being co-opted into alliances with the main players. Amazon currently appears to be Switzerland (more about them another time).

The nature of systems like the web is that monopolies emerge. We have a dominant search engine in Google, a dominant online encyclopedia in Wikipedia, a dominant retailer in Amazon, a dominant auction site in eBay, and now we have a dominant social network in Facebook. That’s normal and has been happening in business for centuries.

But what happens when two different monopolies decide to battle for a middle ground? That’s where it gets interesting, and that whats happening now. Facebook and Google share common goals but differing philosophies.

Facebook is trying to create its own version of the Web, where you never really have to go anywhere else. They want everything to happen and stay on Facebook.

Google want to control the flow of information of the Web and how you access that information. They don’t mind as much that you might go elsewhere, just that you get there via one of their properties (and read their ads along the way).

Google has been the dominant force on the Web over the last decade. Search was the Web’s number one function and Google were (and still are) the King’s of search. But then Facebook exploded across the globe as the popularity of social networks grew. Now Facebook is closing in on 1 billion members and presents a serious threat to Google’s existence.

This is why we have seen Google+ launched. Its the search engine giant’s response to Facebook. Its an attempt to merge search and social in a way that will keep Google relevant and massively profitable. Many of the ideas in Google+ are good ones and designed to address some of the frustrations Facebook members express.

Google+ is already closing in on 100 million users after around 7 months of existence and is tipped to reach 400 million users within a year. Its the fastest growing social network in history. Many will argue that this is being driven by the way Google are forcing sign-up through their massive Gmail service, and the number of active users are much lower. Many are also expressing their resentment of such tactics, but all is fair in love and war and when the stakes are this high a little bit of grumbling is a small price to pay.

The latest development for Google+ is to lift the 18+ age restriction and allow teenagers to join, just like Facebook. Except the Google army are promising a “safer” experience for teens than they’ve experienced on other social networks. This move should see further growth of G+.

Google is also now blending social network data into search results. First they had an arrangement with Twitter that was heading in the right direction, but that alliance faltered last year (I suspect they will kiss and make up eventually). Now there is the hamfisted Google+ Your World which blends G+ information into search results, but as many complain, is hardly a reflection of our social “world” at this stage.

A great response to Google+ Your World was the rapid deployment of “Don’t Be Evil” by a handful of Facebook and Twitter engineers which clearly demonstrates how disingenuous Google have been.

Mind you Facebook is fighting just as hard. We have seen plenty of changes to Facebook over the last year or so including the new Ticker / Timeline. Every time Facebook makes major changes or introduces new Terms and Conditions there are groups threatening to boycott it. But we stay and we accept it and move on, and Facebook know this.

Don’t expect Facebook to take the Google+ assault laying down. I almost guarantee that they are busily building their own version of search to fire back at Google. It won’t be just another search engine, it will be a totally new take on search. That will be interesting to see unfold.

The biggest danger is a serious threat to the open and interoperable web we currently enjoy. Facebook see themselves as a platform. Google are heading steadily in the same direction. (Of course Apple has always wanted this and Amazon have been stealthily working towards this…but that’s for another post). The result could require us to move between platforms rather than a seamless web.

So who should you trust? Which side should you back in this war? Its hard to say. Most wars end with winners and losers, or in the business world, leaders and second place. With two giants fighting for the same turf despite vastly differing backgrounds its an unprecedented battle. Ideally, its best if there is no major loser here. The best outcome would be that the major players decide to accept that there’s room for all and work out how to work together. Utopian? Maybe, but its the best chance of us maintaining an open web.

One thing is certain; the future of the web will be shaped by this fight and the strategies the combatants use to win. Search and social now touch on nearly every aspect of the web and in an interconnected modern society we cannot avoid them. Putting all personal preferences and philosophical arguments aside I’d suggest its probably necessary to have a bet each way and make sure you are properly set up with both sides. Its hard to write off either Google or Facebook at the moment. They’ll both be likely to serve you well for quite a while, and if one finally crumbles (which won’t be a sudden thing), you won’t be playing catch up with the winner.

Expect to see plenty more changes and new features from Facebook and Google over the coming year. Some will be good, some will be bad, but all will be another shot in the war for web supremacy.

originally uploaded by http://www.intersectionofonlineandoffline.com

Ok, I’ll admit it….I’m a little bit addicted to social networks. Using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ is an important part of my work, but it probably fair to say that over the course of a day I am exceeding what is needed to effectively get the job done. When you add the many different blogs and websites I check daily for great content and industry news, I am beginning to consume an amazing amount of media.

And then it becomes a default habit, something that can easily fill the day and lead you down endless clickable rabbit holes.

I’m sure I’m not alone. These days we’re consuming more media than anytime in history. Its accessible 24/7 and sometimes it seems that we are too. The lines between work and play have become so blurred that we tend to suffer an inevitable burnout.

This year I am totally rethinking how I consume media with the aim to improve my productivity and put some more space between work and play. The approach I am adopting is based on dedicated devices and apps for different functions:

My laptop (which is also my workstation plugged into larger monitor) is now only to be used for client work, “productive work” and emails.

Client work is usually run through Basecamp and Highrise. Internally, my team and I use Yammer to communicate, share and collaborate. All 3 of these applications can also be accessed on iPhone or iPad if we’re on the move.

“Productive work” is predominantly writing; reports, posts for various websites, analytics and business proposals. I use WordPress, Joomla, Google Docs for writing. I only check work emails at work.

I also use the laptop to share material from our various websites to social networks via Su.Pr or Hootsuite as they have great analytics, but I am not opening my social networks on the computer.

I have decided to switch to my iPhone for social networking. Because it is a totally different device don’t find myself checking in aimlessly as much. Whereas I previously flitted between multiple tabs on my browser, I now tend to finish whatever task I am using the computer for first then, walk away and take a break from my desk when I decide to check my favourite networks. The result so far is less chatter, more concise communications and far fewer interruptions.

I have used Google Reader for years to help sort my RSS subscriptions and it has served me well, but now I have removed RSS feeds from my laptop as they also tended to distract me each day as new posts piled up in Reader demanding to be viewed. Instead, I have my most valuable feeds coming into Flipboard on my iPhone or iPad.

While I’ve been using Flipboard on the iPad since it launched, the release of the iPhone app has made it even better. Once again, it allows me to walk away from my workstation for a break or to check during idle time. The way Flipboard presents feeds and social media links is brilliant and best of all I can share to my social networks or bookmark for later at the click of a button.

Lets face it…chatting online can be fun, but its the information and links we share that is of most value and Flipboard is an excellent way to filter this. I find that I am actually discovering more information from a wider range of sources this way than going to my default lists and searches. This in turn broadens my actual engagement with my network.

Away from the office I am using my iPhone for posting my usual (non work related) Twitter, Facebook, G+, Instagram updates and chats.

So far the new arrangements seem to be for the better. I’ve been able to batch my real work, force myself to walk away for breaks (rather than be anchored to my desk all day) and differentiate more between social for work and social for play. I already feel slightly less addicted and a little more in control. (It has nothing to do with my recent decrease in caffeine consumption …really).

Are you rethinking your media consumption too? How are you going about it?

US market research firm AYTM have just published an excellent infographic, Branding and how it works in the social media age, which has some handy statistics for modern marketers.

I have paraphrased a few of the best stats here or you can look through the entire infographic by clicking on “read rest of this entry”.

1. 85% of internet users have Facebook accounts; 49% are on Twitter

2. 74% of internet users use Facebook daily; 35% use Twitter daily

Source: AYTM Market Research

The rise of the web has led to a fundamental change in the way we research, share information and shop. Search engine optimisation, blogging and social media have combined to create a new form of marketing around attracting potential customers rather than interrupting them. It’s called inbound marketing.

This excellent infographic from Voltier Digital – Inbound Marketing Rising, the dawn of marketing you won’t hate – demonstrates the differences between Inbound Marketing and the traditional Outbound Marketing. In light of recent studies revealing that Australasian marketers are lagging in tech and social media expertise these are some statistics that need to be shared:

1. 200 million Americans have registered their phone numbers on the FTC’s “Do Not Call” list. Tweet this stat

2. 91% of email users have unsubscribed from a company email they previously opted into. Tweet this stat

A new global study of Chief Marketing Officers by IBM has revealed that Australian and New Zealand marketers are lagging behind their international counterparts when it comes to technology savviness and social media expertise.

From Stretched to Strengthened – Insights from the Global Chief Marketing Officer Study, was presented to a round-table of marketers yesterday in Sydney and some of the findings were concerning in this age of global competition.

The major insight appears to be that Australian and New Zealand marketers still rely heavily on traditional forms of promotion and research and are yet to embrace the more modern techniques of their global counterparts.

Especially concerning was the belief that Aussie and Kiwi CMOs rated technology savviness, social media expertise and finance skills as low priority capabilities crucial to their success in the next 3 to 5 years. in fact, IBM revealed that our ranking of 12% for social media expertise was HALF that of the global average.

This is despite CMOs acknowledging that ROI will become the primary measure of success.

Australian and New Zealand CMOs feel less prepared to deal with issues such as Growth in Channel and Device Choices and Customer Collaboration and Influence, a direct correlation to their lack of tech savviness and social media expertise.

Finally, our CMOs are still relying more on old research and focus groups than they are on real-time customer feedback. Once again this reflects a lack of understanding of the potential for social media and technology to inform businesses. The study made it clear that Australian and New Zealand CMOs need to source customer insights that reflect present trends, not what was captured 6 months ago.

Time to cross the digital divide

The IBM study highlighted what many marketers working around web and social media probably appreciate; how much more education and information is required for CMOs around sophisticated, measurable online marketing and customer engagement. When pressed for examples of Australian businesses doing this well the round table group struggled to identify many.

It also highlights a significant disconnect between consumers and the businesses that are marketing to them. Australia leads the world in time spent online, on mobile devices and on social networks yet our leading businesses are rarely engaging with consumers effectively in these spaces.

To compete more effectively in a global economy it seems clear that marketers must join consumers on the other side of the digital divide.

Lets face it, influence is the main currency of the web.

Google realised it early on when they created an algorithm to rank the influence and relative power of websites based on inbound links and the relative authority or popularity of those doing the linking. Google called this PageRank, and whilst not being the perfect system of website influence it has been the standard measure of this currency for a long time now.

The advent of social networks created an informal market for peddling influence. As networks have grown certain people, celebrities and groups have become powerful influencers of their wider audience.

A mention, tweet or link by the likes of Robert Scoble can be extremely beneficial (or detrimental) for a tech company. A link in Seth Godin’s blog (which is usually shared in social networks thousands of times a day) can generate incredible traffic for the recipient. And believe it or not, having Kim Kardashian tweet her love for your brand can provide a powerful marketing boost. In fact, she now charges companies tens of thousands of dollars to access her Twitter influence.

Why? Because these people have credibility and influence within their respective audiences and communities.

That’s the premise behind a new influence metric called Kred. Created by the team at PeopleBrowsr, Kred trawls Twitter around the clock to measure levels of influence for different topics and people. They currently score 100 million Twitter users for 200 different groups (subjects).

I was at the Australian preview of Kred last night and was very impressed with the level of data and potential uses of the Kred system.

While it is easy to sneer at influence metrics such as Kred, Klout and Peer Index as ego driven vanity scores, that is missing the real point. Looking beyond your own score you can discover groups who are influential in certain topics and even gauge whether they are “spammy” or not.

To me, Kred seems to be the next step on from Klout in measuring social media influence. Jodee Rich, the founder of PeopleBrowsr, is the first to admit that influence metrics such as Kred will continually evolve and improve, but you have to start somewhere. He says that Kred’s granularity will continue to evolve as they measure influence in each country, then cities.

This can be a valuable resource for marketers, PR companies, political operatives, lobbyists and entertainment companies. Driving back from the launch I came up with many ideas about how I could use Kred as a marketer, for both my business and for my clients.

I’ve long believed that building your ‘digital resume’ is crucial for future employment and company pitches. Now we are coming to an era where many employers will use metrics such as Kred (and others) to help identify or compare potential recruits. If you are perceived to be influential in that area of expertise (relative to other candidates) then that might be enough to get you the job.

Kred launches this week. Check it out and tell me what you think.

I’ve been pretty interested in the launch of Google+. Not because I’m a social network nut but because in my opinion G+ sends a very clear signal about how social media and search are inevitably blending.

Last week in my regular iStrategy blog I explained where I thought this was all heading and why you need to make sure you are part of it.

Now it seems every second day Google’s big plan seems to be revealed a little more.

The latest news is that Google+ profile images are appearing besides search listings, although seemingly only when you are logged in to your Google account.

This is a significant change to search. Having an image turn up in the search results attracts your attention and could definitely lead to improved click-through-rates even if the listing is not at top of page 1. Combine that with the +1 results showing up in your search and you start to see a very different vision of where search is going.

Search and social media and merging folks and those who understand this will have a big advantage.

Google Plus is two weeks old now and early indications are that the Google team finally have a social media winner. In fact, I’m prepared to bet that Plus will be huge and I wasn’t remotely interested in their previous social efforts.

(By the way, feel free to chat with me on Google Plus)

Currently everyone is trying to work out the best ways to use Google Plus, or asking what the “rules” are? The thing is…its new, its evolving and there is not right or wrong. In the end its the community who tend to set the rules of engagement. I doubt the guys at Twitter had no idea that it would look like it does now, or be used the way it is now when they launched a dicky little SMS based service back in 2006.

So far the early adopters are the usual suspects from the IT and social media industries and community. Early stats from the first million users show that 73% are male, over 70% work in IT / computing fields with “engineer” being the number one career, 49% live in the USA, the leading city is San Francisco and there are 16,500 men “looking for love”.

Yes Google Plus is almost entirely inhabited by geeks.

But that will change, and fast. Its is estimated to hit 10 million users this week and be the fastest social network to 100 million users.

I intend to look at the benefits of Google Plus soon, but in the meantime the most obvious one is the use of “Circles” to sort or categorise the  people you are following.

The Circles are a great way to both filter and share information. My original circles were like “Family”, “Sticky” (Ie my office), “Friends”, “Acquaintances”, “Following” etc. In other words, degrees of separation from my own world.

Since then I have added geographic circles radiating out from my own world again: Newcastle, Australia, North America, Europe etc.

And finally I have created some subject or industry circles: Media, Tech Media, Industry Leaders, Advertising etc.

Most people I follow end up in a few circles. Ie. Friends + Newcastle + Australia, or  Acquaintances + Industry Leaders + USA.

The reasoning is that some information or discussions are only relevant to some groups. So, if I am discussing the New Lunaticks events or Newcastle innovation I can keep it in local Circles. Switching to “Australia” instantly broadens my Circle. If I wish to chat with or follow conversation by Industry Leaders I can filter out the other noise.

Jason Berek-Lewis tells me his circles are all based on themes but he’s not sure if that will be sustainable. Time will tell.

Like I said, its only been two weeks and there’s no right or wrong because we’re all trying to work it out. What I do know is that Google Plus is going to be big and how we use it will be important.

How are you using the Circles on Google Plus? Any good suggestions?

The Power of Real-Time Social Media Marketing: How to Attract and Retain Customers and Grow the Bottom Line in the Globally Connected World (See all Marketing Books)

Increasingly marketers are having to accept that social media is here to stay and that they will need to learn how to adapt and thrive to the era of social media marketing. There have been a few very good books published in the last year or so that successfully introduce and explain how modern marketers can compete in an increasingly social world. Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s 2010 best-selling Trust Agents is one and now a new book has arrived that is equally worth reading: The Power of Real-Time Social Media Marketing.

Written by experience US marketers Beverly Macy and Teri Thompson, The Power of Real-Time Social Media Marketing explains how to take advantage of today’s fluid business environment and develop innovative way to meet market demands.

Best of all, the book uses a series of case studies to illustrate how various organizations are harnessing the power of social media. this has been something previously lacking from social media marketing books and is particularly instructive.

Case studies include The American Red Cross, Direct TV, USA Today, Wahoo’s Fish Tacos, Mazda and The Roxy Theatre so there is plenty of variety.

Finally the book touches on the area we’d all like to nail, social media analytics and measurement. It provides a shopping list of desired measurements but is a little lite on the tools to gather them, although Australia’s Jodee Rich gets a plug for his PeopleBrowser business.

This is a good book for the marketing manager looking for greater understanding.

social media monetization

There seems to be a lot of action this year around finally monetizing the communities and traffic that have grown around major social media networks. From day one, many have wondered where the revenue would come from amongst all the wonderful free services and networks we enjoy online. In 2011 it appears we’ll find out.

The biggest social platform of all, Facebook, has never been in a rush to monetize, preferring to build the base, grow the connections and steadily accumulate data on its members. Sure, over the last few years they have steadily added advertising which is increasingly targeted due to your Facebook “Likes” and activity. Now Facebook have announced that they are jumping on the group buying bandwagon with Facebook Deals. We heard at Social Media Club Sydney this week that Facebook Deals will be launching in Australia in the 2nd quarter of 2011. I believe you’ll start to see a lot more revenue streams appearing on Facebook soon.

Twitter has long been a mystery for many who have wondered how they will generate revenue beyond selling access to their fire-hose of data. But last year “Promoted Tweets” launched and now we are beginning to see evidence of their revenue strategies creep into the platform design as was abundantly clear in their recently bungled iOS upgrade and the infamous “Dickbar” that show trending tweets / hashtags above your tweetstream.

While Twitter’s move towards increased revenue through “paid tweets” is meeting some resistance from the purists, it is inevitable. Brian Solis has demonstrated how Sponsored Tweets can be incredibly successful in his study of the Charlie Sheen Twitter phenomenon. Like it or not, its an indication of what is to come. I suspect that after an initial burst of rather obvious campaigns like this, we will begin to witnessed more subtle and nuanced campaigns that merge social and advertising.

Hubspot in Boston have long been advocates of more nuanced marketing. They are North America’s leading inbound marketing firm and have built a solid business around SEO, social media and lead generation for small to medium business. The Hubspot platform is targeted towards business and organic search rather than paid advertising and is a possible pointer to the future of marketing. Obviously some big players agree because they have just closed a round of funding that raised USD$32 million from Google Ventures, Salesforce.com and Sequoia Capital. To me this is proof that many believe that there is a big future is inbound marketing. Expect to see serious growth around this sector.

Finally, at a much smaller level, this year we are seeing leading bloggers cashing in on their audience and “web fame” with paid newsletter offerings and various other sidelines. They’re pursuing a freemium model of attracting large audience through their blogs and then selling a percentage of that audience on more premium services such as consulting, speaking and newsletters. Chris Brogan is a perfect example of this and you will see much more of it in the future.

Monetization of the social media universe in inevitable. Those who rail against it must realise that these services can’t exist for free forever. However what we can hope for is that the revenue models that are created are more nuanced, relevant and interruptive than those we’ve seen in the past.