What would a restaurant run according to Googlethink look like—other than being decorated in garish primary colors with a neon sign, big balls for seats, and Fruit Loops and M&Ms on every table?
Imagine instead a restaurant—any restaurant—run on openness and data. Say we pick up the menu and see exactly how many people had ordered each dish. Would that influence our choice? It would help us discover the restaurant’s true specialties (the reason people come here must be the crab cakes) and perhaps make new discoveries (the 400 people who ordered the Hawaiian pizza last month can’t all be wrong.. can they?).
If a restaurateur were true to Googlethink, she would hunger for more data. Why not survey diners at the end of the meal? Th at sounds frightening—what if they hate the calamari?—but there’s little to fear. If the squid is bad and the chef can hear her customers say so, she’ll 86 it off the menu and make something better. Everybody wins. She’ll also impress customers with her eagerness to hear their opinions. This beats wandering around the tables, randomly asking how things are (as a diner, I find it awkward and ungracious to complain; it’s like carping about Grandmother’s cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving). Why not just ask the question and give everyone the means to answer? Your worst diner could be your best friend.
The more layers of data you have, the more you learn, the more useful your advice can be: People who like this also like that. Or here are the popu lar dishes among runners (a proxy for the health-minded) or people who order expensive wines (a proxy for good taste, perhaps).
Networks force specialization. In a linked world, you don’t want to be all things to all people. You want to stand out for what you do best. Th at’s why chef Gordon Ramsey focuses the menus of the restaurants he fixes on his show, Kitchen Nightmares, so they know the business they’re in. Serve your niche instead of the mass. Do what you do best.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Advertising- A word from Google’s sponsors
The agency and advertising need to get out of the way in the relationship between companies and customers. Agencies may help solve problems—teaching companies how to build networks with customers, assisting them with product launches—but once the consultation is done, the good consultant leaves town.
Tobaccowala suggested agencies remake themselves as networks. He quoted University of Chicago economist Ronald Coase in his seminal 1937 essay, “The Nature of the Firm”—which is also quoted in Wikinomics, Here Comes Everybody, and, it would seem, half the business books published lately. Coase reasoned that firms exist and grow when internal friction is less than external friction, when it is easier and cheaper to deal with insiders than with outsiders. “In a networked world, it’s easier for us to work with outside people than inside people,” Tobaccowala said. “Google, even in its grandiosity, still is a company that believes in forms of partnering.” Agencies and other companies, he said, will look more like Hollywood studios, where 80 percent of what goes into a movie comes from outsiders. Google even provides technology to make such collaboration possible. So Google doesn’t change just the essence of advertising. It changes the essence of the company. The network is becoming more efficient than the corporation.
Google is an avalanche and it has only just begun to tumble down the mountain. Media was closest to what Google does and so Google’s impact on media has been profound and permanent—and it’s not over yet. Next in Google’s path is advertising. Even though it, too, is close to Google—they are in the same industry—the rumble is only beginning to be heard. Agencies are about to be buried, and they still don’t see it coming. Th e industries we examine next may think they are safe, far away in the valley, under a bright sun. But the Googlanche will hit them, too.
Tobaccowala suggested agencies remake themselves as networks. He quoted University of Chicago economist Ronald Coase in his seminal 1937 essay, “The Nature of the Firm”—which is also quoted in Wikinomics, Here Comes Everybody, and, it would seem, half the business books published lately. Coase reasoned that firms exist and grow when internal friction is less than external friction, when it is easier and cheaper to deal with insiders than with outsiders. “In a networked world, it’s easier for us to work with outside people than inside people,” Tobaccowala said. “Google, even in its grandiosity, still is a company that believes in forms of partnering.” Agencies and other companies, he said, will look more like Hollywood studios, where 80 percent of what goes into a movie comes from outsiders. Google even provides technology to make such collaboration possible. So Google doesn’t change just the essence of advertising. It changes the essence of the company. The network is becoming more efficient than the corporation.
Google is an avalanche and it has only just begun to tumble down the mountain. Media was closest to what Google does and so Google’s impact on media has been profound and permanent—and it’s not over yet. Next in Google’s path is advertising. Even though it, too, is close to Google—they are in the same industry—the rumble is only beginning to be heard. Agencies are about to be buried, and they still don’t see it coming. Th e industries we examine next may think they are safe, far away in the valley, under a bright sun. But the Googlanche will hit them, too.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Google’s Empowerment Model
Google’s business model makes money when you do. But as I also mentioned, Google makes money even if you don’t. That’s not a situation Google likes, and it tries to help you correct it. Google wants you to succeed.
This reciprocity is built into Google’s advertising services in three ways:
They are democratic. Anyone can get involved, from a first-time entrepreneur with a new Web site to a billion-dollar corporation. As in any great democracy, ingenuity, knowledge, and persistence can compete with, and sometimes triumph over, incumbency and deep pockets.
They are reciprocal. Google’s success is good for you, and your success is good for Google. Google’s consumer users win, too, when you work effectively in Google’s advertising programs. This three-way reciprocity is difficult to establish (and even measure) in traditional media advertising.
They are efficient. And that’s an understatement. Google’s innovations in search advertising strive for an ideal match of advertiser to customer, hinged on a keyword. You pay only for reasonably good matches recognized by your potential customers. Google’s AdSense program, in which participating sites share ad revenue with Google, doesn’t cost the participant a dime — now that’s efficiency.
eBay, the most successful dot-com venture through the collapse of the Internet bubble, was founded on the same three principles: democracy (anybody could get involved), reciprocity (eBay and its users benefited when its participants succeeded), and efficiency (participants controlled their costs and tracked their returns). In time, the advantages of eBay’s system got the attention of midsize brick-and-mortar stores, which now operate eBay outlets as an essential part of their business plan. Much larger corporations routinely use eBay to dispose of inventory. The playing field is level and the economics are equally favorable, whether you are selling computers or a lamp in your attic.
Google’s two prime-time revenue programs, AdWords and AdSense, have followed an adoption curve similar to eBay’s. Fashioned for universal participation, both programs were adopted first by small players — single Webmasters, entrepreneurs, and one-product companies. Word spread, and now both programs are in far-flung use by the Internet’s largest publishers, manufacturers, and e-tailers. As with eBay, small and large participants enjoy the same benefits.
More Related Links:
SEO Wordpress Blog
SEO Resources
SEO Tips Traffic
Daily Blogs on SEO
This reciprocity is built into Google’s advertising services in three ways:
They are democratic. Anyone can get involved, from a first-time entrepreneur with a new Web site to a billion-dollar corporation. As in any great democracy, ingenuity, knowledge, and persistence can compete with, and sometimes triumph over, incumbency and deep pockets.
They are reciprocal. Google’s success is good for you, and your success is good for Google. Google’s consumer users win, too, when you work effectively in Google’s advertising programs. This three-way reciprocity is difficult to establish (and even measure) in traditional media advertising.
They are efficient. And that’s an understatement. Google’s innovations in search advertising strive for an ideal match of advertiser to customer, hinged on a keyword. You pay only for reasonably good matches recognized by your potential customers. Google’s AdSense program, in which participating sites share ad revenue with Google, doesn’t cost the participant a dime — now that’s efficiency.
eBay, the most successful dot-com venture through the collapse of the Internet bubble, was founded on the same three principles: democracy (anybody could get involved), reciprocity (eBay and its users benefited when its participants succeeded), and efficiency (participants controlled their costs and tracked their returns). In time, the advantages of eBay’s system got the attention of midsize brick-and-mortar stores, which now operate eBay outlets as an essential part of their business plan. Much larger corporations routinely use eBay to dispose of inventory. The playing field is level and the economics are equally favorable, whether you are selling computers or a lamp in your attic.
Google’s two prime-time revenue programs, AdWords and AdSense, have followed an adoption curve similar to eBay’s. Fashioned for universal participation, both programs were adopted first by small players — single Webmasters, entrepreneurs, and one-product companies. Word spread, and now both programs are in far-flung use by the Internet’s largest publishers, manufacturers, and e-tailers. As with eBay, small and large participants enjoy the same benefits.
More Related Links:
SEO Wordpress Blog
SEO Resources
SEO Tips Traffic
Daily Blogs on SEO
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