lifeinthetimesofgoogle-blog

[lifeinthetimesofgoogle-blog]

Google brings Twitter back to Egypt

After Egypt went offline two days ago, Google brings Twitter, which has proven in numerous occasions as perfect mass-communication tool, back to life. No Internet connection required!

Google created a simple speak-to-tweet service that transcripts voice mails into tweets, including the hash-tag #Egypt. 

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/31/twitter-by-phone-egypt/

[lifeinthetimesofgoogle-blog]

After Egypt was disconnected from the Internet, Syria follows:

http://tweetbeat.com/events/8156-syria-turns-off-internet-as-well/replay

ilovecharts:

Egypt disappears from the Internet.

[lifeinthetimesofgoogle-blog]

Social Media = Democratic Media

Social Media is changing everything, again. In the last years social media has changed the way we communicate tremendously. What differentiates from traditional forms of media, such as broadcast, TV, or newspapers, is it’s instant nature, speed of circulation, and availability. When you tweet a story it is available in split-seconds, can be read by millions of people, and is available to everyone with an Internet connection. The last weeks again have proven how important social media is in our communication. Why you might ask? Because no one, not even totalitarian regimes can stop it!   Not just in the recent protests in Egypt and Tunisia this form of media has shown it usefulness to mobilize the masses, but also in the Bangkok riots in 2009 and in the protests during the Iranian elections, to just name a few. Especially the social networks Facebook and Twitter have shown their potential, despite the several regimes’ efforts to prevent the free flow of information. Government, of course, can block the main sites, which they also have been doing. What they, however, hardly can control is the use of proxy servers, third-party applications, and mobile phone. For example, Twitter can be fully operated with text messages.   (Picture: Tunisian riots; Reuters (2011)) Traditional media channels can be controlled, and are especially in totalitarian regimes under the strict supervision of the state. The turning away from those traditional channels is the key for the recent development. Most governments have simply underestimated the power of these channels and have too long relied on their power of traditional media. However, social media is the voice of the people in its most open and unfiltered nature.   Social media has definitely the power to destabilize and maybe even to overturn regimes, but it is also greatly used in relatively stable Western nations. The strategic use of social media was shown during President Obama’s campaign, and which reportedly gave him a huge advantage over the stone-age media procedures of his opponent John McCain. Obama’s team cleverly utilized the power of the masses and the power of word-of-mouth, which enabled them to reach a tremendously large group of young voters previously untouched by politics. Just to sum it up, in the end Obama had over 5 million supporters mobilized on Facebook against McCains half million!   What this shows is that even though social media might has it’s downturns in various areas, it is an important tool for the freedom of speech, because it takes away the power of publication from authorities and gives the opportunity to utilize it to every willing individual. This is just a short draft, because the recent events made me really think in-depth of all the positive benefits of social media. And I will come up with an in-depth report shortly. I stumbled across this presentation while I was looking for some interesting facts about the Obama elections and want to share it:

Analysis of Barack Obama Election Campaign by Draftfcbi View more presentations from Alexander Muehr.

[lifeinthetimesofgoogle-blog]

My favorite Google Chrome Apps & Extensions

Last week Google confirmed that it was working on it’s on local voucher service, just a couple of month after the failed merger with Groupon, where Google made a $6 billion bid. After months of negotiations Groupon rejected Google’s offer, that seemed astronomically high at the end of last year. Since we now know that Groupon’s 2010 revenue was $2 billion this seems to make a bit more sense. Adding local advertising to it’s search is quite possibly the next Google revenue channel.   Google could really capitalize on it’s role a major search engine to get advertisers and locals businesses to chose there offering rather than Groupons. According to Techcrunch 42,000 business have already signed up, but they estimate 100,000 to 500,000 sign ups before Google will officially launch this service. After all most people are looking for product on Google and not on Groupon. I even must admit I get quite annoyed by the daily Groupon emails, because it seems to be a 5% chance to get any kind of offering that I would actually buy. There are, however, many very interesting offers on Groupon: Here’s how Google Offers works: Apparently, even thought everyone calls it Groupon clone, it is no group buying service but rather a self-serve local advertising service. The deals don’t require a minimum number of buyers before they become effective, and they also seem to be more conservative, such as the $10 off a gutter cleaning in Michigan. The question is, why did it take Google so long to come up with Offers? Quite obviously they’ve been working on this for quite a while now. So I assume they wanted to acquire Groupon for two obvious reason: engineering power and market domination. Groupon has an excellent team of engineers that would’ve probably boosted Google Offers quite a bit. More importantly, by acquiring Groupon the most important/biggest competitor in this sector would be non-existant. Do those reasons justify a $6 billion investment? Most likely yes, because using another revenue channel alongside AdWords (which currently generates 97% of Google revenue) would allow Google to grow even faster and maybe tap into other markets (maybe a new social network?) faster and more efficiently.

[lifeinthetimesofgoogle-blog]

The State of the Internet in 2010

Finally, the new “State of the Internet” report is out. There have been some surprises (at least for me), that totally astonished me. Let’s just start with my top 3 stats: 3. 825.1 million - is the number of Internet user in Asia, basically, as many as all Internet users of Europe, North America, and Africa combined! 2. 89.1% - is the percentage of spam emails on the total amount of emails sent, which was 107 trillion by the way. This explains a lot, especially why my first task of the day during breakfast is to delete this garbage from my inbox. 1. 7.7 million - is the number of followers of? No, Ashton Kutcher is out of the race in this one, but it is the more or less controversial recording artist Lady Gaga. Totally random, but apparently that’s what many people are interested in. I’m not judging, it’s just interesting. (UPDATE: Since the release of the report the number of followers increased by another 133,000. No big deal, such things happen.) What really struck me by surprise is that Justin Bieber, the most googled person on our planet even before Lady Gaga, is nowhere in this ranking. Come on world, he deserves better.(My source of choice was only used due to convenience rather than personal aspiration. I promise!)

[lifeinthetimesofgoogle-blog]

Eric Schmidt is making way for Larry Page to lead Google into bright future.

Everything has an expiry date - so do CEOs. Tech giant Google announced today that Eric Schmidt is stepping down as CEO. The position will be in the hands of Larry Page, Goole’s co-founder. This change came quiet unexpected (at least to me), but the big question is whether Google will change in the way it is doing business?   The last years have been good years for Google: Even though they landed a variety of major flops, such as Google Buzz, Jaiku, Google Wave, or the Google Audio Ads, the company overall performed very well lately. In Q4 in 2010 left Google with a revenue of $8.44 billion, which is an increase by 26% in comparison to the Q4 2009. Still basically all revenue comes from text based advertising. This, however, could be a subject of change soon since Google announced its supposed to be “Groupon clone” Google offers. Google offers will basically help customers to get in touch with retailers to get great deals - that’s nothing new, but a seemingly working concept! We all remember the failed acquisition of Groupon for $6 billion (yes, $6 billion) last December. Google offers could be the long awaited addition to the Google income stream. Since the popularity of group buying site is steadily increasing this could be a very good move, considering Google’s potential to sky-rocket such a service. Only the next years can really predict where Google is going, however, I think they’re in a good position with a new very promising revenue channel on the horizon, Android becoming the Windows of smart phones, and increasing implementation of social features. I almost feel bad for Larry, because he is probably not likely to spend time on his $45 million yacht in the next month/years.

[lifeinthetimesofgoogle-blog]

10 business models that rocked 2010