Google Social Search Will Change SEO, Again

Not everybody will care, but Google's new "social" and "location" and "personal" approach to search is going to have some implications for the way search engine optimization gets done, not least of all because Google+ entries now apparently become part of the ranking algorithm. Google search gets more social

Instead of trying to figure out how to get sites to appear high up in organic search results, businesses will have to figure out how to attract real people to post information about them on Google. Google Search 

Google Wants to Buy T-Mobile USA?

You can expect to hear lots of rumors about "who wants to buy T-Mobile USA" in the coming months, if only because T-Mobile USA parent Deutsche Telekom really needs a "plan B" that allows it to gracefully exit the U.S. market and redeploy capital elsewhere.

In that vein, SNL Kagan says it has been told both Dish Network and Google have submitted formal offers to buy the firm. One never knows whether, in fact, such bids have been made, or how serious such bids might be.  Rumors of that sort get "leaked" all the time as trial balloons, sometimes in hopes of spurring serious thinking on a transaction.

That Dish Network plans to build a Long Term Evolution fourth generation network is not in doubt, and Dish executives have not shied away from saying they will buy or build as makes sense, financially.

A Google bid would be more complicated, given Google's status as primary backer of an open mobile operating system and owner of Motorola Mobility, a handset manufacturer and retailer. But, these days, it is quite hard to avoid all possible channel conflict.

Most people can think of all sorts of reasons why Google would not want to own T-Mobile USA. Operating a service provider business is a lower-margin business than Google is used to, is a difficult business that might slow the rest of Google down, raise new regulatory concerns and also make many of its other businesses a bit harder to run.

On the other hand, most people could probably think up ways it would benefit Google's other mobile-related businesses if Google had a ready made way to create products, define handsets and then get quick adoption in the market on at least one leading network.

It's the sort of thinking one suspects is happening at Amazon, about why it wants to be a supplier of tablet devices, and might well want to get into the smart phone business as well.

Smart phones and tablets both have become important content consumption platforms, and both Amazon and Google are in the content business, in different ways.

But it's just a rumor, at the moment.

Intuit Launches GoPayment Mobile Payments in Canada

Intuit's "GoPayment" dongle system, now is available in Canada. GoPayment is similar to Square, so if you understand what Square does, you also understand GoPayment.

The basic idea is simple, and elegant. Merchants often want to sell products in locations where a cash register and credit card terminal are not available.

In other cases a merchant cannot justify the cost of owning and operating such equipment. GoPayment turns an Apple iPhone, Android phone or a BlackBerry phone into a terminal that can accept debit cards and credit cards.

Google Social Search

Google search keeps getting more social, adding the ability to integrate web content, profiles, personal results and other content, including local content.

Social Search will include Google+ posts, for example plus user personal photos, making any single user's search results highly personal (and private).

Now, typing just the first few letters of a friend’s name brings up a personalized profile prediction in "autocomplete" mode. A results page for a friend will include information from their Google+ profile and relevant web results that may be related to them.

In addition, you’ll find profile autocomplete predictions for various prominent people from Google+, such as high-quality authors from our authorship pilot program.

Once you select that profile, if you’re a signed-in Google+ user, you’ll also see a button to add them to your circles right on your search results page.

Since some of the information you’ll now find in search results, including Google+ posts and private photos, is already secured by SSL encryption on Google+, Google decided that the results page should also have the same level of security and privacy protection.

"Search plus Your World" will become available in mid-January 2012  to people who are signed in and searching on https://www.google.com in English.

"Next Big Thing" Will be Mobile-Related, But Give it a Couple Years

Hot new mobile devices have been the big reason people have spent money on mobile services over the last several years, you might argue. For starters, it often is impossible to purchase a device without also buying other products, such as mobile data plans.

You can get a tablet and use Wi-Fi for connectivity, but in the U.S. market, for example, it is virtually impossible to buy a smart phone without an accompanying data plan. The caveat: you can buy a full price, "unlocked" smart phone, not from a service provider. But almost nobody does this.

With the Consumer Electronics Show now in full swing, you will not be able to avoid hearing about the "next big thing," or the "lack of the next big thing" coming out of CES. Sometimes the hype matches an eventual trend, and sometimes it does not, so be circumspect.

Among the devices of recent years to have been the "big thing" at CES are netbooks (up and down), 3D TVs (hasn't taken off), tablets (clear winner). But in decades past, there have been entire shows where nothing even that pronounced really has emerged. Some years, the industry itself looks only to refine an existing trend, because there is, in fact, no "hot" new product category.

To the extent you can say there is a "new category," it would be ultrabooks, the new "thin and light" notebook PCs that are supposed to compete with the Macbook Air. If you think about it, you can probably see the problem here. Most people do not buy the Macbook Air, when they buy a PC.

They mostly buy notebooks, it is true. But the Macbook is at the high end of the market, and most people do not buy products at the high end, in any market. So a reasonable person might argue that although ultrabooks are nice hardware, they will not create a big new market.

If pricing stays high, then few will be sold. If pricing drops, as virtually everybody expects, then ultrabooks will simply become the new form factor for many notebook PCs.

The other problem some might note is that with very few exceptions, hardware doesn't drive the market the way it used to. You can say the Apple iPhone did so, and you can argue the tablet does so. But PCs haven't created sizable new markets for some time. I'm not saying they are less useful, but it is an established category.

The other problem is that as most of a consumer's devices, and virtually all the portable devices, become multiple-purpose devices, more of the value has moved to software and communications. Some 48 percent of the respondents to a survey conducted by CTIA-The Wireless Association and conducted by Qualtrics say their mobiles have become their primary ways of using voice communications.

Also, when asked what they thought was the most important function of their mobile devices, 61 percent said the Internet; 42 percent said text messaging or instant messaging and 40 percent said voice. Smart phones are multi-function devices.

"You've got a computer in your pocket, you've got a computer in your briefcase, you've got a computer on your desk — and pretty soon you're going to have a computer in your TV — all running apps — and they're going to do most of what you want to do," says Selburn. "The problem is: How do you wrap up an app and put it under the tree at Christmas?" CES: No killer app?:

Some 48 percent of the respondents to a survey conducted by CTIA-The Wireless Association and conducted by Qualtrics say their mobiles have become their primary ways of using voice communications.

Also, when asked what they thought was the most important function of their mobile devices, 61 percent said the Internet; 42 percent said text messaging or instant messaging and  40 percent said voice.



It would be fair to note, with regard to CES or device trends in general, that we sometimes hit periods when there is no "hot new category." Tablets were the last clear winner. But that doesn't happen every year. Ultrabooks are interesting. But it is reasonable to ask whether they can create a whole new category, or simply change an existing category in some significant way.

Communications Overload?

Communications overload

Communications overload has gotten to be a more-frequent topic in the last decade, as the types of channels and variety of tools has exploded. That has lead to some thinking on the part of enterprises, for example, about how to limit and manage communications overhead.

Recently, French IT service provider ATOS Origin announced its intention to be e-mail free for communication between employees in three years. CEO Thierry Breton cited the move as a response to the data explosion that has managers spending five to 20 hours a week attending to e-mail and 25 percent of time at work searching browsers and social network sites.

A part of their solution is to replacee-mail with more efficient social community platforms that bracket communications and assemble information by communities of interest. Another? Restrict non-work browsing. Should You Dump E-mail?

Some of us probably are skeptical that anything other than "unplugging" or "ignoring" messages will work. The whole movement of communications in recent years has been towards "ubiquity" in terms of ability to reach people anytime, anywhere, using a variety of modes including social networks, instant messaging, blogs, text messages, voice, email, tweets, video messages and more unified communications software.

Mobile communications, which according to some studies already is the preferred mode of voice communications, and rapidly becoming the main messaging platform and Internet access portal as well, is a key contributor.

Device	More this year	More next year
Mobile	33.6%	39.1%
E-mail	38.4%	34.2%
Texting (SMS)	30.7%	32.2%
Social networks	26.5%	26.2%
Desktop video	12.8%	26%
Instant messaging	18.6%	21.3%
VoiP calling	12.1%	21.3%

Source: Skype (December 2010)

48% Say Mobile is "Primary" Voice Channel

Some 48 percent of the respondents to a survey conducted by CTIA-The Wireless Association and conducted by Qualtrics say their mobiles have become their primary ways of using voice communications.

Also, when asked what they thought was the most important function of their mobile devices, 61 percent said the Internet; 42 percent said text messaging or instant messaging and  40 percent said voice.

Not only has mobile become the primary voice tool for nearly half of respondents, Internet access and messaging were deemed more important than voice.

The survey of about 1,000 U.S. female mobile users also shows that substantial percentages of respondents likewise rely on mobiles as their primary way of accessing the Internet.

More than 38 percent of the women said their mobile devices were their main access point to the Internet and almost a third (32 percent) said mobile broadband had replaced their traditional Internet service.

Wireless substitution, one might argue, has reached truly significant levels. The survey does not, in and of itself, suggest how fast users might decide they do not use, and do not need, their fixed network voice lines.

The public results did not suggest that those same percentages of respondents have stopped buying landline voice service, only that, of the two forms--wireless and fixed--nearly half have shifted their primary voice activities to mobiles.