Message From Michael 
January 19, 2011
SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND BOYS
THE GARGANTUAN GOOGLE GODZILLA
FACEBOOK’S MEMOLOGY
JUSTIN BIEBER VERSUS BARACK OBAMA
SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND: But be careful. You may not like what you find. A new website provides a new wrinkle in the personalization versus privacy debate online. Spokeo.com is a search engine specifically designed to gather information on people using public records, marketing surveys you foolishly filled out, social networking sites and what the site calls the “deepnet.” As the site itself says and does, it provides “vast quantities” of information. It’s everything from age, marital status, income, hobbies, social networking connections, friends and scariest of all – lifestyle. Even scarier, it also compares your profile to the ‘average’ in the area. So, I found out I am poorer than I thought. Whoo-hoo! Plus you can search under name and location, or under email address, or under telephone number. And it does it blindingly fast. But not entirely blindingly accurate, as I and some of my students, who told me about the site, have learned. One student “found out” his mother was making $400,000 a year – which was a surprise to him, and I suspect, his mother. But others told of finding information that was way, way too accurate. You can do an initial search which acts as a tease to buy the full search report and, in the interest of open-ness – no, I didn’t subscribe or intend to subscribe. Ostensibly it was originally started by a
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND BOYS: You know the line. Somehow it comes to mind after reviewing the various gadgets unveiled at the annual Consumer Electronics Show. The primary product on display were tablets – 18 of them were shown off, with the Motorola Xoom winning not only best product in the tablet category but best product of the entire show, according to the awards presented by CNet. The People’s Choice Award went to the new handheld gaming device or PC, the Razer Switchblade. As always, the show was a tour de force of gadgetry, although it is doubtful it lived up to the line from the Consumer Electronics Association’s news release: “More than 2,700 technology companies across global industries dazzled attendees at the 2011 International CES, with the ground breaking event energizing the technology world.” It has all the subtlety of a Taser, although it has to be admitted that by all accounts the show had some stunning moments. It probably says something that Ford unveiled its first electric car, the Ford Focus Electric, at CES before the
As a side note, several of the writers and reporters at the electronics show noted, or complained, that getting a signal on their various mobile devices was extremely difficult at times – which may be indicative of the number of geeks at the show, but also may be a portent, as many pointed out, of the future.
THE GARGANTUAN GOOGLE GODZILLA: Okay, the headline is a stretch and probably a questionable stretch, but the fact is that in 2010 the used-to-be-just-a-search-giant-but-is-much-more-now Google either acquired other web and Internet operations, partnered with other businesses, invested in other businesses or start-ups, introduced new products and services, and released new updated features more than 350 different times or ways. Writer Chris Crum with WebProNews listed the most notable ‘happenings’ involving Google over the past year – a list so huge that he had to break it out by quarter, and even then he didn’t include everything involving Google. The list raises the ominous specter of the Blinkx Video: Epic 2015 which outlines a scenario in which Google not only dominates the media landscape, eclipsing traditional fourth estate news media, but buries the fourth estate a la Nikita Khrushchev. Okay, I know that line is a little OTT; but considering that one of the dominant stories of 2010 was Google versus
By my count, Google either bought outright or controlling investments in 30 businesses in 2010. I can’t be sure I got them all, but here’s my list: Aardvark, On2 Technologies, reMail, PicNik, DocVerse, Episodic, Plink, Agnilux, Labpixies, Bumptop, ITA Software, Zynga, Metaweb, Trada, Blind type, Phonetic Arts, Widevine Technologies, Simplify Media, AdMob, Invite Media, Instantations, Slide, Jambool, Ngmoco, Like.com, Angstro, Social Deck, Quiksee and Plannr. And that was only for one year. And the number of business acquired doesn’t include partnerships or deals Google made with various other businesses, such as the one with France’s biggest publisher, Hachett Livre, to digitize and sell its books, or its partnerships with Ford, GM and the Dish Network just to name a few. And this doesn’t include its ‘acquisition’ of people from various competing or related business. And another ‘And’, Google’s vice president for corporate development says they plan on more and even bigger acquisitions in 2011. And yet another ‘And’… WebProNews writer Doug Caverly notes that with $33.4 Billion in either cash, cash equivalents or marketable securities, Google has more money sitting in the bank than the Gross Domestic Product of more than 100 countries. (Kind of makes you wonder what these businesses have in common and whether you could build a business that Google would want to buy, doesn’t it?)
FACEBOOK’S MEMOLOGY: Just when you finally learned what IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) and BTW (By The Way), there is another acronym that you are supposed to be using online if you’re “cool.” HMU (Hit Me Up). According to the official Facebook blog site, HMU was the surprise trend of 2010 with people using it in rapidly increasing numbers on their status updates. The blog site says it just means you are ready to meet your friends and even the online slang dictionary (yes, there is such a site), says it simply means “call me.” As long as you are being cool, you are no doubt talking about “airplanes” when you do status updates – and, no, we don’t mean those boxes of tins flying through the air. It is the title of an “international hit song” by American rapper B.o.B. whose lyric “can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars” apparently resonated with millions. Other things to make Facebook’s top trend list of 2010 were the Haitian earthquake, the World Soccer Up, the Chilean Miners, Games – especially the phrase “barn raising” from Farmville – the iPad and iPhone, and what else? Of course – Justin Bieber. The trending report also noted an upsurge in movie interest with people posting their opinions about everything from Toy Story 3 to Inception. Humorously, as a side note, the trend report noted the difference in timing between people who posted on their mobile and people who posted from their computers. Apparently it takes an average of half an hour to get home from a movie. As another side note, there are two Facebook blog sites –the official one, blog.facebook.com, and the unofficial one, facebook.blog.com.
JUSTIN BIEBER VERSUS BARACK OBAMA: Yes, there’s more about him. According to an analysis of social media by a relatively new online research site called Klout.com, the mop-haired teenage singer is more influential than the president of the most powerful country in the world. According to their analysis, Bieber was second in terms of influence behind Obama in the area of influential people, but was, not surprisingly, far and away the most dominant influencer in the music category, well ahead of Lady Gaga. The President can take consolation in the fact that he was the most dominant influence in the category of politicians, ahead of Sarah Palin. The website founders have had to back track on their initial news release. Yes, it is true that Bieber’s big followers are 14 year old girls while Obama can theoretically order drone attacks in far off lands, but when the two of them tweeted about their latest video release, Justin Beiber’s alert generated more than ten times the number of video views of Obama’s alert. Their point is that when it comes to social media, Bieber is definitively more effective – how else could you explain that in less than a year he has gone from virtual unknown to a worldwide phenomenon. Other than that, there aren’t many surprises. The top companies in terms of influence are Coca Cola, New York Times and Starbucks. The top tech companies in terms of influence are Twitter, Facebook and Google. The top products are iPhone, iPad, and Android. The top TV shows are Lost, American Idol and Red Eye. Oh, wait, finally, a surprise. Red Eye? Never heard of it. It is a satirical news show airing on Fox News Channel with a former editor of Maxim.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael. But if you would like to get your own copy, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line. If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
No comments:
Post a Comment