This is my baby…Facebook!

Here’s a trivia question to pull out at your next cocktail party, “Which website generates the most traffic?”  Unless you’re chatting with a social media fiend, your friend will most likely guess Google.  Wrong.  Facebook not only generates more traffic than Google, but accounts for 50% of the mobile internet traffic in the UK.  If you’re unsure of the effect social media has on your business, Erik Qualman will convince you with his mind-blowing video.  Of all the astounding facts Qualman shares in the video and on his website these are our favorites:

• If Facebook was a country it would be the 3^rd largest nation in the World.  Hmm wonder what the national anthem would be?
• How long have you been reading this blog, 1 minute?  Well, in the past 1 minute 60 people joined LinkedIn.
• There must be a lot of smart shoppers out there because Groupon will reach $1 billion in sales in less time than any company before it.
• Don’t even try to read everything on Wikipedia.  If Wikipedia was a book it would take you 123 years to read the whole thing.
• Looking for baby names?  In Egypt newborns have been named “Facebook.”
• If you’re not worried about monitoring what social media users say about your business, you might be in big trouble.  90% of people trust their peers for recommendations (compared to 14% of people who trust paid advertising.)
• You may have seen in commercials that 1 out of 5 relationships begins online, but Facebook is blamed for 1 out of 5 divorces.

If you haven’t jumped on the social media bandwagon yet, it’s past time to join the 93% of marketers using it.  Qualman will convince you that social media is a tool that can make or break your business.  So update that Facebook page, tweet at your followers, and maybe be the first to name your child LinkedIn!

Mind the Gap: What to learn from Gap’s logo fiasco

Today, your consumers can react instantly to the decisions you make as a company. Social media is the real watch dog media. There doesn’t seem to be a formula for having a successful Internet presence. Why did Old Spice guy work? Why did Gap fail?

Gap has announced on its Facebook Page that it is scrapping its new logo design efforts, acquiescing to a torrent of criticism coming primarily from Facebook and Twitter users.

Last week, Gap unveiled a new logo, one it called “a more contemporary, modern expression.” The retailer’s customers were not so thrilled about the change, and Gap decided to ask users for their logo design ideas instead. However, that course of action has now been reversed, as well.

The backlash against Gap’s new (and now defunct) logo was intense. Beyond the thousands of tweets and Facebook status updates deriding its design, people found other creative ways to protest the new logo. A fake Twitter account has gathered thousands of followers, and Gap logo generators have quickly gone viral.

While social media wasn’t the only reason that Gap felt compelled to revert to the old logo, it definitely was a major factor. Social media mobilized and spread the word about the logo change. In this case, the company listened to its customers and avoided a consumer backlash of Tropicana proportions.

This is proof that the way business is done has changed drastically. The new logo was probably in development for a long time, went through several different versions, and hit several checkpoints before approval. So, what went wrong?

Perhaps people don’t like change. Maybe the logo is too simple, or to different, or just plain bad. Whatever the reason, social media ultimately swayed Gap’s decision to drop its logo. Now, more than ever, the Internet can be used to reach out to customers. Try not to alienate them.

Google vs. China Returns

For the past three months, Google has been redirecting Chinese searches to its uncensored Hong Kong search engine. The Chinese government claimed that this was unacceptable. China is now seeking to revoke Google’s license to operate in the country.

When Google moved all its China servers to Hong Kong, it complied with Chinese law. Now, China is in charge of blocking the search results rather than Google.

Google has offered a new approach. Now, anyone trying to attempt a Google search is taken to a “landing page”. By clicking anywhere on the page, they are once again redirected to the Hong Kong site. While that might seem no different, Google hopes that, because users are actively pursuing the Hong Kong site, China will concede.

Google’s license is up for renewal on Wednesday. The submission for renewal is based on this change. Once again, this boils down to an argument of ideology. Google refuses to self-censor; China does not want its population accessing information.

Needless to say, this is not the last we’ve heard from the Google/China debate.

A day in the life of Microsoft

Microsoft has been busy. Just off finding out Apple beat them as the top computer company, Microsoft releases Office 2010. Unfortunately, people seem to be too distracted pre-ordering their iPhone 4 to take notice of the product.

Microsoft intends to spend $80 million on marketing Office 2010. They have quite a mountain to climb. Google Docs is free, and Microsoft offers a free web version of Office. Will $80 million convince people to buy a $280 software product? Or, will they go order an iPhone instead?

Also, Microsoft is drawing attention away from itself with Kinect.

Kinect is Microsoft’s competition with Nintendo’s Wii. It allows you to play a game on your Xbox 360 without controllers. It’s a system that allows for full body play. A gamer stands in front of their Kinect and uses their hands, legs, arms, what have you, to control that action on the screen. Games are a sparse right now, but, with the promise of more to come, Kinect may open up a world that gamers thought only the Wii could offer.

Disney sells tickets

Disney has launched a campaign to sell tickets to Toy Story 3 using Facebook. Someone downloading the application on Facebook will be able to purchase tickets without leaving the social network site.

The purpose of turning out an application is that once you buy a ticket, all your friends are informed and given the option of purchasing their own tickets. Early results show that tickets are being purchased by groups as large as 80.

If Disney’s social network experiment works, it could change part of the movie industry. The application functions on a “No Friend Left Behind” idea. Disney will see where this goes in order to determine if they will try other applications for different movies.

Pakistan blocks Facebook

The Pakistan government has blocked Facebook until May 31st due to a Facebook group.

The group is called “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”, scheduled for tomorrow. Devout Muslims consider it offensive to depict Mohammed. The group is still up, no word on whether or not Facebook intends to respond.

It’s not really a place for religious discourse as the comments are summed up in a few choice four letter words. The original intent of the group was to support the South Park creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who said Comedy Central censored their attempts to depict Mohammed in South Park.

Comedy Central claimed they were attempting to protect the writers as a website, RevolutionMuslim, started talking about Stone and Parker. RevolutionMuslim posted a picture of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh fatal stabbing, asking Parker and Stone if they remembered what happened to Van Gogh.

What is Facebook to do? Well, once May 20th passes, perhaps the group will go away. Or, maybe Facebook will have to ask Google what to do about a suppressing government.

Census

Ah, the Census. Every ten years, the United States does a head count. The US Census Bureau sends agents out to canvass neighborhoods and build an address list to mail the forms to. Why don’t they just use Google Street View?

(If you see a car like this, do something funny. It will live forever on the internet.)

This year, the Census Bureau reports that they did not deliver forms to PO Boxes and rural areas. If you’re still waiting for a census form, that may be why. Mail-in forms are due Tuesday, April 13th, so if you haven’t received your form yet, good luck.

Starting May 1st, the government will show up at your door to gather the information by hand.

What information do they ask for? Click here to see an interactive census form.

The first census took place in 1790, shortly after George Washington took office. The first result of the census raised the number of House Representatives from 65 to 105. The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 capped the number of Representatives at 435, but the 2010 census could change the focus of where those Representatives come from.

The Social Network War

Facebook is, perhaps, the most popular social networking site in the US. There are over 400 million users, with 50% logging on at least once a day.

What started out as a social experiment has blossomed into an empire. And, the idea was stolen.

Mark Zuckerberg developed The Facebook while he was a student at Harvard, but Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss claim that the idea was theirs.

The Winklevoss twins developed their own social networking site while studying at Harvard. They were developing a site called ConnectU alongside their classmate, Zuckerberg. They thought they were working together.

Until Zuckerberg launched Facebook.

In 2008, the Winklevoss’s sued Facebook. The case has settled with the Winklevoss’s receiving shares of Facebook, but there is a continuing despite as to the value of those shares.

More importantly, the question of intellectual property i s thrust into the spotlight. Did the Winklevoss’s deserve their settlement? If someone has an idea, but lacks the know-how to develop it, there must be some agreement as to where the work really begins. With the internet, it seems as though intellectual property is losing its protection.

While the Winklevoss twins may have had the idea for Facebook, the site is not what it once was. Originally, Facebook was only available to college students and had only a few features. Now, Facebook has applications, games, status updates that mimic Twitter posts, and is open to anyone with an e-mail address.

Is that everything the Winklevoss’s imagined?

Cold War A-brewing

Google has done it. They announced they are no longer censoring search results in China. China’s next move will be to block all of Google’s efforts from the country.

Google is assured their actions are legal. Google believes removing the censors was in its best interest.

Google is the number one search engine in the world, but is second in the Chinese market to Baidu.com. (Author’s note: I looked up that statistic on Google while using Google Chrome).

You can read more about Google’s fight with China here or there.

Let me know what you think.

The Future of Reading

On Thursday morning, Steve Riggio stepped down as CEO of Barnes & Noble Booksellers. Replacing him is William Lynch, a veteran of HSN.com and other internet adventures. It appears as though Barnes & Noble sees the future in a different light.

Barnes & Noble’s nook was released in November of 2009. It became the gadget of the season. The nook is an e-reader, competing with Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s eReader. With Lynch taking the helm of the booksellers, Barnes & Noble promises more development in ebooks, rather than real books. Of course, real books won’t go away. But, are you shooting yourself in the foot by driving off your customers?

It doesn’t look like Lynch envisions Barnes & Noble as an ereader kiosk in a mall, but the technology has advanced too quickly for publishers.  The low prices of ebooks has been called into question by publishers and not just the little guys.

HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Hatchette are all delaying the e-release of major titles appearing over the course of the year. These are three of the main publishers in the book industry. Compare this to Disney, Warner Brothers, and 20th Century Fox delaying the release of their DVDs to Netflix.com. What are you going to watch? What are you going to read?

The publishing companies are delaying for one reason: money. Ebooks do not generate the kind of profit the companies demand. They cost less to make, but when an ebook is sold for less than 50% of the hardcover list price, they don’t make up the cost as quickly.

Delay in buying an ereader for as long as possible. Books aren’t going away any time soon. Consumers will be caught in the battle between booksellers and book publishers.