Google+ for Business is Coming

Google recommends businesses hold off creating Google+ accounts now, as a business-focused version is coming.

Why Google Circles Will Succeed

Google's Google+ might succeed, in part, for reasons that have nothing to do with features. Google has created the opportunity for people to get a social network "do over."

Where on Facebook a user has to "de-friend" a contact, something people might be reluctant to do, Google+ handles such actions gracefully.

Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn, or most other social networks, there's no such thing as a "friend request," in one sense.  


Users can create groups of friends, called Circles, including both other Google+ users and nonusers who receive status updates by e-mail rather than from the site. But that's not the key feature.



As a Google+ user, you never are in the awkward situation of receiving a friend request from someone you don't really want to be Google+ friends with.

Nor will you have to face the awkward decision of whether or not to de-friend a former contact. Just remove them from your circles, which are never revealed to other users. Other than that, Google+ looks and behaves a lot like Facebook.

Read more.

Mobile Execs Move to Banks

Omar Khan, head of strategy and product management, is joining Citigroup. Khan, who was the head of products and technology for Samsung's U.S. mobile division, will help develop Citigroup's global mobile services.

In 2010, Dan Schulman, who previously ran Virgin Mobile, moved to run American Express' mobile business. If you wanted more evidence that the mobile business and banking are "converging" at an important level, both moves are illustrative data points.

Samsung loses key mobile executive to Citigroup

Why Tech Companies Don't Want to be Called "Media" Companies

Advertisers and other publishers have pointed out for years now that assembling audiences, and selling advertising against them, makes some significant "technology" companies media businesses. Google, for example, constantly says it is a technology company, not a media company, despite the fact that its revenue stream is overwhelmingly based on advertising revenue.

Some might suggest that hesitance to embrace the "media" appellation is more than a cultural issue. One might argue that engineers and software developers just prefer to think of themselves as technologists, not publishers. It might be more simple than that.

Valuations of media companies are not as rich as those of technology companies. That alone would be reason to emphasize "technology leadership," rather than media operations.

Why Silicon Valley Can't Sell | Adweek

Smart Phone Sensor Apps Will be Key for Marketing

Mobile phones are sensors. Today that is true mostly for location apps. In the future, there will be other ways to use the sensor functions, Forrester Research believes.

"When a phone knows where you are, what you're doing, your identity and history, and even potentially your attitudes, based on what you've done in the past year and the past five minutes, it can help predict and deliver what you want right now," says Josh Bernoff, Forrester Research analyst.  "This is the context that makes mobile devices more intimate and completely different from traditional Web experiences."

Google Launching Huge Data Exchange to Target Ads?

Google might be just weeks away from unveiling an advertising data exchange that would create a liquid market for the data used to target display advertising, Ad Age reports. Executives familiar with Google's plans have described the initiative as one of the most ambitious in Google's march to become a brand advertising giant.

Under the plan, publishers and third-party providers would be able to feed their data into the market and advertisers could dip in and buy audience segments, such as people shopping for refrigerators, planning a trip, or demographic or psychographic segments.

The scale of the initiative, and the fact that it will contain Google's own data, plus online and offline data from third parties will provide both unprecedented richness of targeting data and represent a competitive threat to other would-be providers of such services.

Online publishers using Google's DoubleClick would be able to sell data on their audiences in the exchange as easily as they might sell ad space.

Google might have chosen some other path, if it had more display inventory to sell. But, faced with a limited ability to sell avails on its own properties, Google apparently has decided it would fare better as a provider of targeting data.

One debate internally has been over whether to charge a percentage to use the service, as it does with Invite Media (which charges advertisers for services) and DoubleClick (which charges publishers), or make it free to use so Google would reap the benefits of more effective ad campaigns, and presumably, more spending.

Read more here.

NFC Apps for Google+ on Androids

Google+ apparently supports use of near field communications, and it appears that some applications using the feature are under development. "Google Check-ins" is a feature of the "Stream" feature of Google+, for example.

Users then might  be able to "check in" using NFC, creating an automatic post directly to their stream on Google+, also limiting its visibility by Circle category (groups). A user might want "friends" to see the check in, but not business associates or other family members or more-casual acquaintances. Read more here.

Business pages, the Google equivalent to Facebook Pages, have also been promised in Google Plus, says Mike Blumenthal, Google VP of Local and Commerce. It also might make sense to use NFC support for Business pages as well, essentially replacing the function of a quick response code, for example. Retailers will have to think about this, though.

It means putting NFC access points at the entrances to stores, or at other locations. The check in function could be handled at an NFC point of sale terminal as the customer leaves, but that doesn't create value while the customer is in the store, still shopping.

There are at least two different ways to look at NFC-supported social apps, from a retailer point of view. There is the indirect value of a check in as well as the direct value of stimulating incremental purchases while the customer is on the premises. There also is the possible value of an NFC-based payment capability, though even there, many of us would argue that the greater upside is the marketing platform created by NFC, not the actual payment.

How Google+ Affected Social Sharing

After analyzing data from the "Technorati Top 100" websites and their RSS feeds, plus the 20 most-recent blog posts (both before and after Google+ was announced), it appears market share has changed.

Across the board, more of the top sites are using Google +1 buttons (similar to the Facebook "Like" button).

The amount of shared content on Facebook has fallen, since Google+ was launched, the analysis suggests. There also is less use of Facebook sources after Google+ launched. One might suggest the data shows people are sharing on Google+ and using Google +1 more than they did before the Google+ launch.

How Google Affected Social Shares and +1 Adoption Rates

Mobile Broadband Will be Dominant by 2015

More people will getting access to the Internet using mobile devices than desktop devices by 2014 or 2015. And there is a bigger implication than simply the difference between fixed and mobile or un-tethered access.

The mobile Web user increasingly is using the "social" part of the Web, and social applications, compared to desktop access and applications. Increasingly, mobile will mean "social."

How Many Google+ Users Are There?

Ancestry.com founder and "serial entrepreneur" Paul Allen estimates there are around 4.7 million Google+ users in the United States. That number is up from 1.7 million he calculated earlier in the first week of July 2011.

Google Census: How Many are Really Online? PCWorld

Top Web Site Use of Google +1 Buttons Grows 33% in June 2011

An analysis of the front pages of the Web’s 10,000 largest sites shows a 33 percent spike in placement of the new Google +1 button in just the last few weeks, says BrightEdge.

The report shows that Facebook still enjoys a two-to-one lead in plug-in placement on these large sites over competing social networks. Nevertheless, the majority of brands today are still missing out on the massive traffic and engagement driver Facebook has become, as links to Facebook pages still appear on the front page of less than half of the web’s largest websites.

BrightEdge's new "SocialShare Site Analysis" found overall that Facebook is still the preferred social media platform for larger companies, with more than 47 percent of sites linking to the network.

Following just behind Facebook however, is integration of Twitter into site homepages, which was seen in 42 percent of sites measured. Overall the analysis points to a still much untapped opportunity for social platforms even on sites operated by some of the most sophisticated marketers and executives in the world.

BrightEdge SocialShare Analysis of Top 10,000 Sites

"Payments" Ecosystem is Complicated, and Getting More So

The thing about the "mobile payments" ecosystem is that it represents a "convergence" of formerly-separate industries and businesses. Mobile payments, mobile wallet, mobile location services, promotion, advertising, marketing, commerce and money transfers now are becoming parts of one larger business. Read more.

Consumer Savings Likely will Drive Developed Market Mobile Payments

From a demand-side stand point, emerging markets have a unique characteristic, the ubiquitous use of cash for most everyday transactions, say Alberto Jimenez, IBM mobile payment leader, and Prasanna Vanguri, IBM consultant. Cash has well-documented and understood weaknesses that allow mobile payments providers to offer a compelling value proposition to end-users.

In developed markets and high-income segments in emerging markets, the circumstances for both providers and end-users are completely different. Most end-users already have efficient payments instruments that are widely accepted and appear to present no pain points.

“For developed markets, we believe that the initial adoption drivers will fall into two categories, (1) Direct savings and (2) Improved experiences,” they say. “Furthermore, we believe that only in specific segments will Improved experiences act as a true adoption driver and that the majority of ecosystems will be initially driven by direct savings.”

There is currently a large, unfulfilled role within the developed markets mobile payments and commerce ecosystem: the role of an aggregator. An aggregator would provide a single place where multiple payment instruments can be accessed quickly, simply,
and effectively, and where discounts, deals, and awards appear contextually and automatically.  

Read the study results here.

Starbucks Mobile Payment App Gets 3 Million Users

Less than three months after Starbucks introduced a way for customers to pay for grande lattes using their mobile phones, the Starbucks Card Mobile app has been used by more than 3 million people, the company recently announced.

Starbucks Vice President Brady Brewer later called it 'the nation's largest mobile payment network,' according to a report from Mashable and USA Today. Starbucks rolled out the app on Jan. 19, 2011. It can be used in all of its 6,800 company-owned stores in the United States, plus another 1,000 locations inside Target retail centers.

Starbucks mobile payment app used by 3 million people in 3 months | MNN - Mother Nature Network:

How People Use LinkedIn

No surprises here. LinkedIn is the social network most used for business and professional purposes. Click the image twice to enlarge it.