Handset manufacturers and software providers are all champing at the bit in carving out market share for projected mobile apps sales to reach $17bn by 2012. The global appetite for mobile apps will explode over this decade, but what about mobile SEO?
What for many is glaringly obvious, mobile is set to become the primary access point of the internet in this coming decade. But where do we fit in?
In yet another encounter in the big tech wars, this time it’s Apple that titan Google is taking on. Over the past few months Google’s mobile operating system, Android, has debuted on a host of smartphones, which has riled Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs enough to tell his employees: “Make no mistake, Google wants to kill the iPhone.”
Taking this to heart, Apple this month sued Taiwan’s HTC Corp, the maker of touchscreen smartphones using Google software, accusing it of twenty hardware and software patents infringements related to the iPhone.
As if to make matters worse for Mr Jobs, a recent article in TechCrunch confirmed his fears: “I’ve been using the Nexus One with TMobile since mid-December as my primary mobile phone. This is the best Android-powered phone to date. It’s also the fastest and most elegant smartphone on the market today, solidly beating the iPhone in most ways. In this rapidly evolving market there is sure to be something better just around the corner. But if you are looking to buy a high-end smartphone right now, this is the phone for you.”
But what will come of this in a time some prematurely describe as the Year of Mobile? According to Jason Steinberg of ClickZ: “2010 is the year of mobile…Everyone in advertising and media has been hearing that statement for nearly three years running. And for the last two, it’s been followed up with a less than reassuring ‘and this time, we mean it’.”
To back that assessment up, the BBC reported: “…developer activity for the iPhone has risen 185% in advance of the iPad’s April arrival. Applications for the iPhone can be ported over to the new device. We have definitely seen a shift back to the iPhone with the anticipation of the iPad and a little bit of the disappointment with the Nexus 1 (Google phone), Simon Khalaf, chief executive of Flurry Analystics told business site MarketWatch.com.”
Already, Google’s Android Marketplace has more than 30,000 apps made for smartphones running on its mobile operating system. Chetan Sharma Consulting told the BBC that the charging model which dominates the app ecosystem is changing. “Advertising and the sale of virtual goods has helped expand choices for developers and we will see all of that ramp up in the next couple of years.”
And, of course, the possibilities are enormous, with 270 million mobile subscribers in the US alone and with 29.1 million of them smartphone users. And in addition to the high numbers in the US, the majority of users in the developing world are going online for the first time using a this device.
As David B Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School, told the New York Times: “The new paradigm is mobile computing and mobility…That has the potential to change the economics of the internet business and to redistribute profits yet again.”
Like many in the industry, Google recognises that more and more people are accessing the web via mobile phones rather than the desktop and has openly stated that the Nexus One represents “the next frontier” in the company’s core business.
There can be no doubt that mobile marketing will play an increasingly important role in the overall marketing mix; from searching on the move to social networking, all platforms will become the new staple of internet search.
Although Apple’s recent legal action against HTC may have wider implications for all phone makers that use Google’s Android operating system, Ian Fogg of Forrester Research said that the case against HTC, in which Apple alleges infringement of 20 of its patents, could be the first of many.
But whatever the current legal wrangles, localized content is what search instantly delivers on these devices, so products or services will increasingly need to be related to a geographic area, if they don’t already, and sites should focus on the keyword phrases that identify the geographic scope of the business.
To emphasise this trend, Google Blog comments: “If you’re like us, you’re constantly looking for things in your neighbourhood, whether it’s [restaurants in zurich] or a new [dentist in houston]. If you specify your location in your query, we often show your results on a map…”
All very interesting, but where does all this leave mobile SEO when results from internet search and mobile internet search appear so indistinct at the moment?
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John Sylvester is the media director of V9 Design & Build (http://www.v9designbuild.com) and an expert in search engine optimization and web marketing strategies.
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
Mobiles To Change Economics Of The Internet
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Mobiles To Change Economics Of The Internet
The murky diktats of the market have seen the four titans of technological social interaction resolve their coagulated visions of common sense into a battlefield. It is here that coalition leaders and party magnates pounce on minimalist twists of innovation that only serve to seep down into messy duplication. But, according to Lord Melchett, or perhaps Rorty, one day this could have genuine social utility.
Let’s take a look at recent events in the corporate world of the internet, mobile phones and social media; what I refer it to as corporate twisty-turny things of value. For a start, Google and Microsoft. This time it’s not the Chinese government but the unruly Microsoft that is being accused by the mighty Google of being the “invisible hand” behind the European Commission’s (EC) preliminary anti-trust inquiry into its practices. The US Justice Department and European regulators declared, much to Google’s irritation, that Microsoft’s partnership with Yahoo was fine by them.
Hence, Microsoft Deputy General Counsel Dave Heiner opined on the case: “This is the way that competition law agencies function: They look to competitors [and] the practices of dominant firms and the competitive significance of those practices … Ultimately what’s important is not … whether or not the challenged practices are anti-competitive.” The last bit he surely didn’t mean, did he, when he went on to admit that Microsoft had told the EC that Google’s behaviour “may be harming publishers, advertisers and competition in search and online advertising”, which although may not be “challenged” as anti-competitive practices, were most certainly declared to be so.
Yahoo must be mightily relieved, as it views this partnership as going a long way in its bid to cutting costs and raising its operating margin to 20% within two years from now. So, mysteriously, back in its silicon ranch and in tandem with the Commission’s findings, Microsoft is funding Yahoo’s internet search service as part of this “newly-formed partnership”, with the company commenting that Microsoft is to “reimburse us for the costs of running our algorithmic and paid search services,” with reimbursements in addition to the $150 million the company has already agreed to pay to help fund Yahoo’s transition under the partnership.
So, not only does Google have ongoing issues with the Chinese government and the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership, Yahoo has now entered into an agreement with Twitter. Only six months ago, Carol Bartz, the president and CEO of Yahoo, announced: “We have never been a search company”, which at the time sounded decidedly bizarre as its core business was search. However, as competition in the search and mobile markets ratchets up, Yahoo has now entered into another bout of in-fighting, this time in the social media ring, which will allow tweets to be directly accessed within all Yahoo-related sites. It also comes at a time when the company announced a similar deal with Facebook, who don’t really do search either.
Not to be out-routed by these acts of corporate treachery, Google launched Android, an iPhone lookalike in direct competition with Apple, with its own services, of course. So that’s three of them ganging up on Google now. Further, Google has launched its own Twitter-based service, dubbed Google Buzz, which essentially copied most of Twitter’s social networking features in the hope it will tweet a verb into a buzz.
Twitter, of course, is far more buzzier, and Yahoo has said its search engine results will display tweets in real time with a marginally different approach to its results, announcing that there will be two tweets and displayed alongside related YouTube links. It is here that we can clearly see the culmination of corporate innovation at its zenith of awakening.
It certainly seems congested in those unscaled heights, with so many similar services being placed on competing platforms. Where, for self-reference, I concluded, could I find an rational description of this unromantic pragmatism? I liked Lord Melchett’s quip in the BBC’s Black Adder series, which was abstractly and drunkenly delivered as: “You twist and turn like a … twisty-turny thing”. That helps. A bit.
But if anyone finds no cogent correlation between Lord Melchett and the corporate labyrinthine muddle above, then good. If so, try Rorty. His vision was of an anti-representationlist transformation of common sense, where no real attempt whatsoever should be made to name any concrete instruments that could serve as the means for the realisation of it. Instead, he merely hoped for a lucky turn of history which could one day lead to idiosyncratic mutations that, once in a while, seep down into common sense. This is the realm in which the spin-offs of twisty-turny things hope to turn into genuine social utility.
Let’s hope he’s right, but I doubt it.
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John Sylvester is media director of V9 Design & Build (http://www.v9designbuild.com) and an expert in search engine optimization and web marketing strategies, and all this really doesn’t help his cause.
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple: Corporate twisty-turny things of value
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Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple: Corporate twisty-turny things of value
So you want to develop a Web video campaign to put on your website and add to YouTube and all the other Web video directories. Maybe you even want to create a new video micro site to promote that hot new product or service you’re about to launch. You want it done right, professional, slick, and you want it to be effective. Well of course you do.
You know you need to hire a firm that has the creative staff capable of not just shooting video but professionals who can write, direct, edit, and add all the post production elements you need, including signature music, sound design and on screen text. But are there other things you need to be aware of in order to maximize the return on your investment? You bet there are.
There are lots of production companies that just want to crank out the work at the lowest cost without providing any marketing guidance as to what works and what doesn’t. Perhaps these firms don’t know the difference or perhaps they just don’t care. The company you hire should be willing to provide some advice as to the best way to present your message so that it delivers the best return on your investment. Too many Web videos are technically proficient but lack any marketing impact. The last thing you want is a bland, boring, lifeless presentation that goes in one ear and out the other.
When you’re ready to add video to your marketing and sales tool kit make sure you avoid the following seven deadly video development sins.
Doing It Wrong – 7 Web Video Mistakes To Avoid
1. The need to get it all in.
Everyone wants his or her money’s worth. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that as a general principle, but getting your money’s worth means more than hiring the cheapest bidder or cramming every possible product, service, benefit and feature into a single video.
You’re better off creating a series of shorter videos each about two to three minutes in length, and each focusing on a particular aspect or sales point. Ten minutes is generally the maximum you can hold someone’s attention, but it will be more effective if you break that ten-minute presentation into a series of shorter segments. By creating a presentation that flows from one focused video to the next, you lead your audience logically through a voyage of discovery that is far more interesting and memorable than a single over-stuffed information-onslaught that overwhelms the audience. Each video becomes an opportunity to re-enforce your marketing image and embed your brand personality by consistent use of color, style, format, and message.
2. The desire to appeal to everyone.
Whatever you sell, not everyone is going to buy it. No matter how good your offering is there are people that you are never going to convince. We believe a properly implemented video presentation is the most effective method of delivering a marketing message, but no matter what the evidence, there are some people who just won’t buy into the idea. If you try to appeal to everyone you will end-up appealing to no one and you will waste a lot of time, money and effort in the process. Trying to appeal to everyone merely dilutes your message.
By concentrating on the most appropriate market segments allows you to fine-tune your message. And if you create a series of videos each highlighting a different aspect of your offering as described earlier, people will be able to pick and choose what they are interested in and what they want to watch. In this way your audience won’t get bored or frustrated by listening to things they may already know, or are just not interested in hearing.
3. The fear of commitment.
Marketing is all about creating an identifiable, unique identity, a personality that people will recognize and remember: a brand. It’s what will set you apart from your rivals and give you a competitive edge; if done right, it’s the one thing your competitors can try to copy but will never be able to duplicate.
Success requires a commitment to your brand image and to the marketing strategy from which it flows. Strategy is the big idea that guides everything related to your business, and it should not be confused with tactics. Tactics are the ways you implement strategy. If you confuse strategy and tactics, you will find yourself running in circles never accomplishing anything.
If you commit to and successfully target one market segment, you not only establish and enhance your brand image but you also create a ‘drag effect.’ For example, the success of Apple’s iTunes and iPods dragged their computer sales along with it. Once people became Apple customers for one product they were more likely to buy another; and even though iPod advertising was originally aimed at a youth-oriented market, it’s success dragged both younger and older consumers along for the sales ride.
4. The need to accommodate everybody’s agenda.
As companies grow they hire new people, and wherever there are groups of people there are opposing opinions, and opinions can very easily turn into agendas. Your sales people want lower prices, your accountant wants higher prices, and your advertising people want something new; everyone has an agenda and they all conflict with each other. The result is compromise. And compromise kills brand personality and corporate identity.
Even big companies with deep pockets and access to any and every expert in the world are susceptible to agenda creep. Take the fast food giant McDonald’s for example. Their television advertising is all over the place. They use different themes, different approaches, and even different music in almost every commercial, each aimed at a different market with a different product offering. The only thing that seems to be consistent is the logo and signature jingle that is slapped on to the end of each spot. As individual commercials they my stand up, obviously they have high production qualities but as a marketing message strategy they become mere advertising noise rather than building on each other to form a coherent approach and brand message. What they seem to want to say is that McDonald’s is for everyone no matter what age or food preference, and that kind of approach only leads to a muddled message. McDonald’s may get away with it in the short term because they are McDonald’s and have a long history of effective advertising. Whether McDonald’s simultaneous multiple campaign approach is the result of a desire to accommodate different agendas, or just designed to appeal to everybody doesn’t matter, the result is the same – muddled messaging.
5. The lack of vision.
And speaking of corporate identity, do you have one? Do you have a vision, a point-of-view, an attitude; a perspective on how you can best serve your clients. The idea of a corporate vision is something that is easy to ignore, after all, how much is a corporate vision worth? It’s not like you can go on eBay or Amazon and download one for a few bucks.
I recall seeing a documentary on a very successful clothing manufacturer. The founder of the company was reviewing the company’s latest line of running shoes. He looked at the shoes, looked at the product manager, and said, “Where’s the logo?” to which the product manager answered, “We can add it anywhere.” The company CEO in no uncertain terms told the executive that that wasn’t good enough. The logo represented the company and the company represented a particular lifestyle. The shoe being presented was just another shoe and that was not acceptable. The shoe needed to fit the ideal for which the company stood. The CEO had a vision and everything the company did had to conform to that vision. Developing and presenting a unified corporate vision is how you create a brand and how you build a business.
6. The fear of failure.
No matter how good you are, you are bound to have some failures. These are learning experiences from which you can develop new and improved initiatives. Building a brand identity is a slow and continuous process and it doesn’t always move forward without some bumps in the road. Sometimes what initially appears to be a failure is not a failure at all, but rather the foundation for future more successful efforts. As long as your company has a vision of who it is, what it does, and why your audience should care, and as long as you stick to that vision, you will ultimately find a way to get your message across as long as you keep trying.
Like any kind of advertising program, whether it’s video, print, or anything else, one-shot efforts almost never show results.
7. It’s all about the features.
The insistence on promoting features without tying them to an emotional benefit is one of the most common marketing mistakes made. You may be offering your customers the most features available but unless you also offer them an emotional value proposition, you will never get beyond the whose-the-cheapest kind of sale.
No matter what features you add to your product or service, you know your competitors will follow with something better, and probably at a lower price. It’s a game no smart marketing executive should play. Discovering the emotional value in your product or service is not always easy when viewed from an internal perspective. If you haven’t discovered what that underlying subliminal value is and how to communicate it then your producer needs to help you find it. It’s the most important element in building long-term marketing success.
Conclusion
There you have it, the seven deadly video marketing development sins. No one said this stuff is easy. It would be nice if you could just look at your analytics, and eureka, a marketing solution would appear, but that’s not the way it works. Marketing is a psychological marathon that takes time, commitment, practice, and a good coach you can call on to move you in the right direction.
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design and marketing firm that specializes in Web-video Marketing Campaigns and Video Websites. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.
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Seven Deadly Video Marketing Sins
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Seven Deadly Video Marketing Sins
Steve Jobs, Apple Inc’s visionary CEO, may not be in the same league as Moses, but he has the potential to solve the current media crisis with Apple’s most innovative development: the iPad. But is it a Tablet delivered from on high or a dud?
The almost religious delirium expressed by the self-appointed high priests of the Mac world, devotees that have dubbed the iPad the “Jesus Tablet” (more like Moses in my view), could be the solution to the crises the computer, print, music and telecoms industries.
This tablet-shaped device is, amongst everything else, to be the answer to the recent paywall controversies between Google and News Corp and the revival of sluggish advertising revenues.
In my various blog attacks on Mr Murdoch’s big business aims in transforming the web from a free-for-all to subscription-based, it is tempting to repent. But has Mr Job’s vision been transformative enough to convert this blind Lazarus into a true believer? And, if it ever does take off as the media have hyped it to pass, will it be the answer to the incessant squabbles between sinner and sinned against?
Not only is the iPad a colour eReader, it is also a music/video player and games console. Add to the list Apple’s online stores and this device could prove to be a winner, especially for newspapers, magazines and books.
To date, consumers have been highly reluctant to pay for online content and advertisers have been hamstrung by eReaders that cannot display their ads. In contrast, the iPad now offers this and more and gives multi-industries the opportunity to bring their corporate online strategies into the 21st century.
According to The Economist: “Apple has already attracted some blue-chip media brands…with leading publishers such as Penguin and Simon & Schuster…” and gives users “access to electronic versions of newspapers such as the New York Times.”
But with all the fizz in The Economist this week, Doubting Thomas’s abound. The newspaper, of course, has a vested interest in getting paid-for content into people’s heads, but it seems as if consumers don’t entirely share their optimism.
Within hours of Job’s introducing the “internet-changing” iPad, it was reviewed and instead of beseeching Jobs with praise from on high, they delivered a list of its pitfalls. This permeated the internet community very quickly and the general reaction to it was negative. From a former rise, Apple’s shares dropped over three per cent.
Mike Gartenberg, vice-president of strategy and analysis at research firm Interpret, told BBC News: “Everything they [Apple] have done up until now is in this device — the iPod, iTunes, multi-touch, the applications. And then they added new features like the iBook store and productivity.”
However, on the dark side, Blogger and TechCrunch took a different view: “Is it a must have? The quick and dirty answer is: for many people, right now, no. Unlike the iPhone, which filled an already well-established need, there is no existing need the iPad fills.”
One comment on TechCrunch went even further: “I cringed at the hate being directed its way on sites such as Slashdot and Digg. Even the guys at Penny Arcade, whom I normally agree with, said ‘that iPad presentation had to be the worst thing I’ve even seen on on the Apple stage’ and that Apple had failed to make a case for the device.’ If you believe them, the iPad is going to be a massive flop. Well, the unwashed masses on the internet also predicted that the iPod would be a failure. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.”
So, perplexing and contrasting views on the subject. It all made perfect sense to me as someone who is keen to see resolution in the newspaper and magazine industries. And yet, consumers seem not to agree.
John Sylvester is the media director of V9 Design & Build (http://www.v9designbuild.com) and an expert in search engine optimization and web marketing strategies.
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Can Jobs walk on water or is he the god that failed?
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Can Jobs walk on water or is he the god that failed?
Google’s worst-kept secret phone finally launched yesterday.
Despite the fact that details about the phone have been leaked all over the web for months, the Nexus One was officially revealed at a good old fashioned press conference at Google headquarters in Mountain View.
Referred to by Google staff as a *Super Phone*, the Nexus One is already being touted as an iPhone killer and has been designed specifically for Google’s Open Source Android operating system.
At first glance, the Nexus One does look very much like an iPhone. The major difference between the two is the trackball in the Nexus – reminiscent of the IBM ThinkPad. At 11.5mm, it also features a thinner profile than the iPhone, a 5 megapixel camera, 2 microphones (one for noise cancellation), a 3.7″ OLED touch-screen display and it weighs in at a tiny 130 grams.
Comparisons to the HTC Droid Eris phone leaked last month are no coincidence – Taiwanese firm HTC manufactured the Nexus One. Another gloat-worthy, geek-pleasing feature that the Nexus has over the iPhone is the voice-activated keyboard, which I noticed a few launch attendees testing yesterday on Twitter, with amusing results.
Read on the spot coverage of the launch for more details.
Clearly, Google are throwing a LOT of money at the Nexus project and are very keen to show it off, even installing the world’s largest Nexus One in their foyer. So proud of their new hardware are they that every Google employee was given one of the phones for Xmas, resulting in early buzz via social media.
But don’t be fooled into thinking it’s all about the phone. If you read the official Google blog post, you’ll realize that it’s the launch of Google’s consumer web store that’s the real story. The launch of an online mobile store to sell Nexus One means Google has crossed the threshold from search company to consumer electronics retailer.
Why would they do that? If you look at the global smart phone market, currently Nokia and Research in Motion (makers of the Blackberry) have the dominant share, followed by Apple with the iPhone. In comparison, handsets using Android have a tiny share of the market (source = Gartner) and Google wants to boost that. What better way to achieve this than to launch their own smart phone?
The other big incentive for Google to launch its own hardware is to protect its online advertising business in the mobile computing arena. As more and more people surf the web using their handsets, Google wants to ensure they are the default search engine in those handsets.
However, rumors that Google might offer a pricing structure for their handset partly subsidized by AdWords revenue proved unfounded, disappointing some expectant launch attendees.
In an interview with BBC News following the event, editor of Search Engine Land, Danny Sullivan commented:
“It would have been nice to see them roll out something a bit more unique. Google has speculated in the past that there one day might be phones that are entirely ad-supported and because Google is this huge ad behemoth, this was a natural opportunity to roll out a phone like that.”
US consumers are now able to buy the Nexus One directly from Google’s web store for US$179 with a two-year contract with T-Mobile USA or the unlocked handset for $529, allowing people to use a carrier of their choice. Only available in the US right now, the Nexus One will soon be sold in Europe, Singapore and Hong Kong via Vodafone.
When asked during the launch if the Nexus One was an iPhone killer, Google’s Andy Rubin replied “Choice is a good thing”. Forget Yahoo and Bing, Google is now targeting Apple.
Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running a daily Search Engine Advice Column, Kalena manages Search Engine College – an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and other Search Engine Marketing subjects.
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Forget Yahoo and Bing, Google Now Targeting Apple
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Forget Yahoo and Bing, Google Now Targeting Apple