One of my favourite things about Google is it’s Doodles. For those of you who have been living in caves up until now, these are variations of the Google logo that appear on the Google home page to commemorate special occasions, such as an artist’s birthday, or a major sporting event. In honour of the recent Jules Verne themed logo, I have decided to list my top seven favourite logos to date.
There are so many things on the internet that require you to enter your email address, and personally, whenever I do this I wonder how much more junk mail I am going to see in my inbox. I don’t just mean from the site I have given my address to, but even from people I have never heard from. I mean, how often do you look in your inbox and wonder, “Where on earth did they get my email address from?”
So I was going through people’s status updates on Facebook this morning, as people normally do… (legal spying)… and I came across a status update that I thought was worth sharing. In my mind it represents a shift in the way people are using the internet and the power of sites like Facebook.
Traditionally, if people are looking for something they would go to Google search and then sift through the search result for an answer to their question. Now this is where the shift is taking place…
People are now starting to ask the same questions they did of Google, but now on Facebook. Case in point: “I am looking at getting ADSL, who should I choose?”
Google will tell you who they think is best based on how well a website has been optimised, how many links they have to their website, how much traffic they get each day, and a host of other massively complex algorithms.
However, Facebook does not suggest anything… they are silent on who gives the best ADSL service in South Africa. Rather, it is your “friends” on Facebook that would provide you with the relevant answers.
Now it begs asking the question, whose opinion do you value more? Silicon Valley Cyber Geeks or your mates?
Facebook allows for a personal answer to your question, it removes all the “Marketing BS” that comes with asking this type question and it cuts right to the point… customer service, speed, cost, etc. Not only have you got a platform that answers your questions, it allows you engage with your friends even further and ask more questions, until you are truly satisfied.
Will Google become obsolete?… No. However, Google’s days of garnering the lion’s share of all search queries are definitely over, and that is why Google needs to be scared. The strength of our human connections will always be stronger than some clever search algorithm.
Does Google Adwords work? Well, by looking at the amount of money that is being spent by some of the big brands, then one would have to argue that, yes, it does.
The big question asked by many people is, “How much are brands spending on Google Adwords?”. Google, as you would imagine, has not been forthcoming with that information, but recently AdAge claimed to be in possession of a document which outlines how much some of the major brands spent in the month of June 2010.
According to this document, which by the way Google has not yet commented on, some interesting numbers are revealed. AT&T mobile spent… wait for it… $8.08m on Google Adwords in June! And yes, that figure is just for June. Other heavy hitters included, Phoenix-operator Apollo Group, who spent $6.67m, Expedia who forked out $5.85m, Amazon who spent $5.85m and eBay who parted ways with $4.25m. Again, these amounts were spent just in the month of June.
Possibly, one of the more intriguing big spenders is a particular oil company, maybe you have heard of them? BP, who spent $3.59m in the month of June. What makes this so interesting, is that BP usually only spends around the 5 figure mark on their Google Adwords account.
If you need to get a message out and you need it to go out fast, the internet and search engines are a good bet. However, you can’t read too much into it, as I would imagine that BP threw a lot of money into a variety of PR channels.
The question begs to be asked, are there many other companies spending this kind of money? The report would suggest not. Out of the entire list of companies, only 47 spent over $1m in the month of June, whereas 347 companies spent in the region of $100,000 – $500,000. Some of the more familiar brands, Kodak, BMW, and Walt Disney for example spent less than $500,000 in June.
So back to my question: does Google Adwords work? The amount of money being spent on a monthly basis by these companies would suggest that it does, and with more consumers being found on the internet, these budgets are a drop in the ocean for some of these brands. The likelihood is that they will be spending more in time to come.
It has long been said that if you want to get the latest, most current news on any topic, Twitter is the place to go.
Don’t bother waiting for news on natural disasters that have just taken place to come out on the news TV channels, don’t wait for it in tomorrow morning’s paper. Just hop onto Twitter & you’ll find it there. These days, news hits social media sites faster than any journalist can write or speak.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the two founders of Google fist began creating the program that would eventually become known to the world as Google in 1996. Since then, this one company has for many people almost become synonymous with the internet. In fact, the word “google” is one of the few names to be entered into a dictionary as a word in its own right. Here are a few fun facts about Google, that I found while googling other things.
