What do you still Google for?

Here’s one thing everyone knows:  Google’s success lies in managing abundance, delivering you relevant results.

Here’s one thing that apparently is not related to this:  a report on how Facebook could kill Google, based on analysis from Ross Sandler. (Just so that you know, the article doesn’t  say how Facebook could kill Google, it just compares the size and growth rate of the two giants.)

Here’s one thing worth thinking about: how Facebook could damage Google. Not as a social network in itself (in a way Google is a social network), not as a competitive ad destination (there’s still plenty of money to flow towards online advertising), but as an alternative search engine. Here’s why.

 

Google is great at simplifying complexity. But it’s a universal search engine, and there’s only so much it can do.  So it inevitably loses some ground to its competitors. And they’re not Yahoo or Msn.

 

When I want to know something, I search Wikipedia. Because I’m sure that there I can find the one, most relevant result. (Even Google acknowledges that, by usually ranking Wikipedia results first). And from there, I can move on to related information.

When I want to buy something, I search Amazon. Well, I don’t,  because I’m old fashioned, but plenty of people do.

When I want to watch something, I search Youtube. And that’s what killed Google Video; and why Google bought it.

 

When I want to find out what’s going on right now about a certain event, I search Twitter. Twitter gives me real time results. Not only Google doesn’t. Google is designed not to, because it privileges older results that have had time to grow relevant for its algorythm, over more recent ones that are relevant for my search.

And when I want to find someone, I search Facebook. Not only is it  a search engine for people; it’s the most relevant search engine for people. (At least in the US and Western Europe). After the first click, I get a list of people with pictures, so that I know at first sight if any of them is the person I’m looking for. After the second click, I can contact them, and in many cases find out a whole lot about them.

 

In general, it seems that internet users are devising new ways to aggregate content around a specific critera, and deliver more relevant results based on human contribution, rather than an algorythm: results provided by Wikipedia are smarter because they are created by a crowd for that specific purpose, and managed by a human intelligence.

To that same extent, every social network becomes an alternative search engine: a specialized, thus more relevant, thus better one. If I want to plan a dinner out, I’m better off running my search in a social network about restaurants/london, then Googling “good restaurant london”, and be flooded by a number of more or less relevant results.

One could argue that Google would redirect me to that social network, and many others, but why waste time with one more unnecessary search, once a preminent, relevant social network emerges?

 

This is true for simple tasks, but even more so for more sophisticated ones. If I have to research a topic I know little or nothing about, for work or study, where should I start from? If I google it, I can’t really tell the relevant results from the less relevant, and above that the most credible results from the BS, because I have no expertise in the subject.

So here’s what I’d do:

First, start from my usual, trusted sources:  Wikipedia and other knowledge social networks. Ask friends and  coworkers, fellow students. Maybe ask someone on Linkedin.

Second, check some general trusted sources. Newspapers and magazines with a good reputation. (And who happen to be desperately looking for a new purpose right now, as brilliantly pointed out by Clay Shirky.)

Thirdly, if I haven’t found enough information through my first two sources, or if I want a little more, I can Google. And hopefully by now the first two kinds of sources will have provided me with enough backround expertise to tell the good from the bad.

 

Does it mean that social networks will kill Google? No. At least not if we look at “Google as an ad platform”.

But I can safely say that  ”Google as a search engine” has been steadily losing share of my time, and will keep losing more.

 

Final Burp: Specialized hubs (of knowledge, goods, relationships) will naturally gain ground over unspecialized hubs. (Until the semantic web shows up for real?)

Facebook Ads: how to do better than Google

 

A couple days ago Facebook introduced its advertising platform, unsurprisingly named Facebook Ads.

There might be parts of it that I still have to grasp, but the whole point is that brands put themselves into the hands of consumers, that are free to pass them along to their connections.

This happens in two ways, as explained by AdAge here, while here are some next-day reactions:

 - brands can have their own Facebook page, and people who visit them can establish a relationship with the brand, becoming “fans” or writing on the brand’s wall

- through the newly introduced Faceboook Beacon users can share their interactions on the brand’s own website, like for instance having their friends take a look at the film they’re renting from Blockbuster.com, or the book they’re rating at Amazon.com, and this is where paid-advertising comes in. Marketers can attach a message related to those user notifications, melting the ad itself with the user recommendation.

The main concern raised by this approach is whether consumers will have any reason to share their purchase behavior, but I think Facebook has many reasons to feel confident about it.

One of the things that social networks are teaching us is that people are very willing to share even the least significant details of their life with unknown strangers from around the world, so they should be even more likely to share their purchases, given how much they mean in our life, in the way we want to see ourselves, and above that in the way we want to be seen.

Up to the point that someone might make a purchase only so that friends might notice it, just like going shopping to be seen with a certain product. (Most obvious example: a sophisticated, admired yet extremely boring book, that you’ld never read but would like everyone to think you do. Or the love film you rent just to show some chick that you’re a sensitive guy.*)

(Ok, maybe all this doesn’t apply to porn.)

What’s most interesting about Facebook Ads is that its it’s better than Google search ads in at least two ways:

1) Google speaks to consumers that already know what they’re looking for, whereas many times we end up buying products that we didn’t even know about, or could have felt the need for. They become appealing only when someone else (ads, PR, friends…) is introducing them to us 

2) Google mostly leads brands to consumers that are ahead in the purchase process, and are looking for functional informations about a product (and that’s always considered its strength), whereas a lot of interest towards a product is built earlier on in the purchase process (when you’re not even necessarily thinking about buying it)

Facebook Ads can create interest towards a product/brand at any time: when you need it and when you don’t, when you’re looking for details about them, and when you’re open to being engaged and entertained. And it can even do so about products and brands that you didn’t even know about, and build a need or desire for them. 

This enables advertised brands to speak to a wider audience, and do so in a less competitive environment, whereas when you’re ahead in the purchase process you’re more likely to compare google-sponsored products with competitors.

Finally, this is very consistent with what I see as the two strategic assetts of the time to come: reputation and relationships.

Firstly, users will visit Facebook’s brands pages and share purchase behavior only if those brands have a relevant/appealing/significant reputation.

Secondly, what Facebook is offering brands is a network of unique relationships that will be up to the brands to mantain and leverage.

Final Burp: Facebook Ads leverages on existing users’ relationships and brands’ reputation. But the source of a brand’s reputation is still most likely to come from outside. 

* The sensitive guy. Doesn’t necessarily pay off.