NFC On the Move?

We’ve been hearing about NFC (Near Field Communications) for a while now. The technology, which will empower a new era of mobile commerce, seems to be upon us. With appropriate chip sets, mobile phones will be able to make payments at point of sale terminals similar to the way we use credit cards today. Considering the interactivity that goes with web-enabled phones, this is likely to create a host of new opportunities for retail and mobile commerce.

The news today is that Google apparently is ready to start testing NFC in select retail locations in NY and SFO. The following article provides details along with some insights about how the technology might be used. This is one to watch.

Read full article: Report: Google to Test NFC Mobile Payment Service in NY, San Francisco:http://bit.ly/gHARoF

Google’s Tweak Should Mean Better Search Results

Google has tweaked its search algorithm and that should be good news for websites with legitimate content. They are finally going after the “article farms” that create keyword-rich articles in order to rise to the top of popular searches.

Manipulating search engines is something that no one wants but everybody does. The goal of being “#1 on Google” is the typical request of people who want their websites to rank high in search results. But to get there requires meaningful, useful content that others connect to via links — in other words, content that’s good enough to share. And that’s a very good approach for deciding who should get top rankings on search results pages. After all, highly relevant results are what we want when we search, right?

That is, unless your site is one that could also be returned for those same search terms. Then you want your site returned and given priority, whether the content is the best or not. Getting your site to #1 is the art (myth?) of SEO (search engine optimization), an industry that’s been called everything from miraculous to snake oil. And sorting out pages  with genuinely useful content from pages that are merely “optimized” is the dilemma that search engines must deal with every day.

If you’ve gone to great lengths to create useful, meaningful content that helps people make decisions you’ll be happy with Google’s new tweaks, which penalizes sites with content designed simply to manipulate the search engines and manufacture rankings. If you’re an “optimizer,” you won’t be very happy. However, the happiest people of all should be search engine users — remember them? It is useful, relevant information they’re looking for, and if you can deliver the goods you shouldn’t  have to “optimize”  to see your pages valued by Google.

Read full article: Google Tweaks Algorithm to Push Down Low-Quality Sites

Why Facebook Can’t Be Google

Facebook’s recent privacy policy woes stem from a fundamental flaw in understanding their own platform. So an excellent post by blogger Adam Fields appears to point out. Though phenomenally popular, FB is in dire need of a business model. Their hope, like Google’s, is to leverage the huge amount of data they accumulate from their 400MM+ users to make money selling advertising. However, these users are trusting FB to keep their data private — or at least only be used in ways they approve. Additionally, users want control over the data they provide, and they want those controls to be easy to use and stable, in the sense that the privacy policy doesn’t change every few months.

The fact that FB wants to make users’ data more publicly available, and therefore useful to advertisers, forms the basis of the conflict they’ve created with their users. The crux is that FB data is social in nature as opposed to Google’s which is public. Public data is more useful when more people know about it. Social data, however, has inherently much less reach because it’s purpose is not widespread consumption, but the limited social circle for which it’s published.

From Fields’ post: “social sharing isn’t the same as public sharing. When I write something in a public forum, I want as many people as possible to read it. In that kind of  forum, Google can make more money if more people see it, as can Facebook (which is why Facebook is trying to turn their entire platform into a more public one). This is at odds with what the users want for social, which is controlled sharing among a very small group. There is certainly an aspect of making new friends and extending one’s social circle outwards, but the object here is generally to share only inside that circle, and people tend to resist being forced or coerced by the platform to share more widely.”

Hijacking user data appears to be a bad strategy for FB, unless it can persuade users to give up their current ideas about privacy. And just as FB can never be Google, Google will find it difficult to become a social platform like FB because the nature of the data at the heart of each is just different.

Read full article: http://bit.ly/bOnk5t

Why Is Facebook Important?

The Facebook phenomenon continues. According to a recent ClickZ.com report, FB’s unique visitors in January 2010, at a total of 133.6MM, was second only to the mighty Google. Indeed, throughout 2009 FB’s unique visitors climbed at a record pace through June, then leveled somewhat, but rose nonetheless through the remainder of the year to surpass Yahoo (132MM unique visitors in Jan 2010) and pull up snugly behind Google (147.8MM). (ref: http://www.clickz.com/3636533)

Why is this important? The numbers above represent people who are using FB every day. These are not people who merely signed up, or have accounts that lie dormant. What’s even more interesting is the amount of time these active users are spending on the site. “Data from Nielsen says that U.S. Facebook users now spend an average of seven hours per month on the site. The time spent on Facebook in January grew by nearly 10 percent in a one-month period. Meanwhile, the average time spent on Google (GOOG) dropped 17 percent to around an hour and a half.” (ref: http://bit.ly/aETMUK)

Why are people spending so much time on Facebook? They are building their networks, connecting with friends and family, keeping in touch, etc. But much more importantly, they are using the site to do things that they used to do on several other sites or with software on their desktop computers. This includes chat, commerce, posting photos and videos, and even email. Why go to other sites when almost everything you need, and all the people you want to share things with, are right here?

Which brings up the final point: With upwards of 300MM registered users (depending on whose numbers you believe) almost everyone is now at least part of the site. Odds are more likely than ever that if you want to find/connect/communicate with someone you’ll find them on Facebook. And where there are people, there are markets.

Clearly, in the Internet age markets are moving online. Now that people are so readily available and active on Facebook businesses must move with them. But “going on Facebook” requires learning the values, rules, behavior and mores first. Businesses that successfully do this will find they have the best advertising possible — in fact, the only advertising that will succeed in the not-too-distant future, and that’s word of mouth (or more accurately, “word of mouse”). With everyone connected we’re all going to need our customers to be our sales force, because they’ll be very quick to tell others the story about how well we’re serving them.