Google+ CRUCIAL INFO
Steven Levy: ‘Inside Google+’
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/inside-google-plus-social/all/1
‘We needed a code name that captured the fact that either there was a great opportunity to sail to new horizons and new things, or that we were going to drown by this wave.’ — Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of social for Google
(via Instapaper)
Talk about burying the lead. I have been banging this drum for six months. I told you Google was going to have to change and unsurprisingly they knew it and have bet the company on it.
Pour over this brilliant Steve Levy behind the scenes expose. The bombshell has NOTHING (and everything) to do with Google+
I'll have my report available on Friday. I'm preparing to utter the G word.....
Ed
Sent from my iPad
I suppose I owe you an explanation about my Apple obsession.
As a 14-year-old boy, living in country Victoria, technology was scarse. I only new about computers from what I read in magazines, I’d never seen one, I knew they were awesome. Since I saw Star Wars in 1977 I knew techniology was gong to be my thing. Then it happend…
In December of 1984, at the Albury Wondonga Wool Trade Fair, I saw my first Macintosh.
Until I was kicked off, I was entranced by the incredible, for me at the time, Mac Paint. The mouse was a revelation.
It was like a shoebox of alien technology had been transported and placed here in Albury to tease me. I was living in a trailer park at the time, so Mac ownership was way out of the question!
An unrequited love affair had started (the first of many in my teens sadly!).
Thanks to the modern miracle that was austudy, a soul crushing job at Coles supermarket and the wonder that was the Mac education discount – I was able to get a refurbished SE/20.
I loved that machine hard.
I did forsake Apple in the dark Steveless years.
As I’ve often said, if a better piece of technology came along allowing me to do my job better, easier, faster, I would jump on it in a second.
Fast forward to today and I’m sitting here writing this article at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference.
I believe the iOS platform is the future.
I’m betting my reputation on it.
So far, the numbers look pretty darn good.
25 million iPads, 220 million credit cards ready to spend with the click of a button… these are exactly the kind of numbers that make my marketers are seen!
As much as Apple products allow me to do my job so much better and more efficiently, with a style and panache I could only dream of four years ago.
And as much I would love to talk to you about why I admire Apple as a company.
It’s important for me today to talk to you about the ramifications of the WWDC keynote in your online business.
I believe this keynote by Steve Jobs and team was the single most important Apple Keynote since the introduction of the iPhone.
Yes, even more important than the iPad announcement, and you remember how excited I was about that!
All the cloud computer stuff can be summed up by one simple statement.
You never have to worry about a file again. They are on every device you have, they are always saved, and most importantly, you never have to think about where a file is.
This is huge.
But sadly, not so relevant to you right now! :–)
Let’s talk about specifics for online buisness
The crucial part of this announcement which allows you to get all of your magazine subscriptions in one place, is this.
Background downloads.
Put simply, all your subscriptions will be automatically downloaded to your device without you even having to think about it.
This is a huge win for publishers of information.
Compare with what happens now…
If I decide I want to read the New Yorker, I have to first think, I want to read the New Yorker, and then I have to open up the app.
Then I have to download the App and worst of all WAIT!!!! minutes while the new issue downloads. This is a disaster for publishers. Most people won’t bother and will go and do something else – the moments lost…
With background downloading, as soon as I hit the New Yorker button, the latest issue will be there waiting for me.
So why should you be excited about this?
This functionality will be available to all of us. It is a public API (an API is a fancy way of saying it’s a function of software everyone has access to. Don’t worry about it, just understand it’s cool.)
I can’t wait to create information products utilising this background downloading. Bundle this up with one click to purchase and you have an extraordinary package.
I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Twitter has flat lined in terms of growth for the past year or so.
I was worried it might become roadkill in the epic battle with Facebook.
To me, Twitter is still incredibly useful. Not in a community setting, like a Facebook page, but in a news sense.
For me, at least, the first place I check whenever I hear a news story that blows up, is Twitter.
Its real-time nature and complete accessibility makes it perfect for gauging reaction on live events.
But once the massive surge after Oprah introduced Twitter to the mainstream died down. Twitter stalled.
On Monday, Apple announced it was building Twitter into every level of the operating system.
This was a massive win for Twitter, and catapulted twitter into relevance for us as marketers.
Its simple for apps to include Twitter into their applications (it only takes a couple of lines of code). Twitter has found itself a potential 200 million plus active users!
When I think of Twitter, I think of its usefulness as a checkmove. A post to your followers is making a large amount of checkmoves with a simple 140 character statement.
Now of course, if no one sees the tweet, you have to question its effectiveness. I totally get that.
If it was just Twitter being announced, well it would be interesting, but not much more. Tie it in with the new notifications system and all the sudden you are cooking with gas!
Dan and I have been playing with the new notifications system in iOS 5. Notificiations will make a big difference (Yes Android fan boys, apart from extra design panache, the Apple system is not disimilar to what you’ve had for ages.)
Put simply, notifications are going to be the most powerful checkmove of the 21st-century.
Sidebar – Checkmoves are actions where you are in direct communication with your market. You’ll be seeing me write much more of this in the future.
The beautiful and elegant nature in the way iOS deals with these notifications, makes you excited to get them.
With your tribe members permission, you’ll have direct access, to deliver awesome information directly to them at the most intimate and personal level.
(Hopefully not US congressmen personal level…)
The mobile phone is the most imtiment device we have – Notifications, done well, has the potential to be more effective than email – down the road…
The app phenom is not even three years old. Imagine you knew just how big the Internet would become back in 1997. After a week traveling in the USA and seeing whats coming down the line I’m more convinced than ever App’s are going to be a crucial part of our onling buisness.
Ed
Sent from my iPad
