Henry Phish

So after all the hype around Google and Chrome in the last couple of weeks, I got to thinking about Microsoft, and how they were chalking up these days. The funny thing is, they really aren’t that exciting.

A couple weeks ago they bought Bloomberg for a bunch of money just so they could get their hands on Ciao.com, which is essentially one of a thousand sites set up to drive web traffic to other peoples sites…in this case retailers, but why did Microsoft require, what amounts to a billboard on the side of a concrete wall, in order to make their brand more visible? I already know who Microsoft is…in news and media this is just another tiny mark on their earnings board.

The Less is More Philosophy at Large

Microsoft over the years has relied on quantity over quality in regards to their brand. More is better has always been their slogan. It’s a Bill Gates/Steve Ballmer tradition that has worked well for them, but with other companies entering the marketplace, such as Google, Apple, Firefox, and Blackberry; each with better brand identities and a more focused business plan, Microsoft is failing to compete.

The Perfect Example of the Microsoft Strategy…think of this as being applied whole company.

The other day I watched a news program on CNET or CNN, I can’t remember which, advertising the newest version of the Windows Mobile platform. The guy from Microsoft that introduced the product seemed uncomfortable, and honestly the interviewer wasn’t giving him much of a chance to speak, so I really can’t blame him. However, the whole interview just demonstrates the lack of esteem that Microsoft products are held in these days.

In the world of cell phones for example, the products Microsoft presents lack the luster of products such as the Blackberry with it’s proprietary OS, or Apple, with it’s scaled down version of OS X. In the Blackberry, we have a product that is ergonomic and sensible, something that makes people want to pick it up and play with it. In the IPhone, we have something that has a little flair, but is still practical enough to use from the very first moment you pick it up. What I would compare Microsoft’s products too, and honestly their marketing in general, is that hunch back with the lazy eye from Young Frankenstein; you just keep looking at it, but that eye never goes away.

Most of their products are a little ugly. A little too techie maybe. Not organic enough. Not intuitive enough. Just something isn’t right about them. It just screams, stay away from me, I don’t want you. If I saw one on the counter next to one of the other two phones, I dare say it would probably scream at me if I picked it up.

Thinking back to the monopoly lawsuits Microsoft has gone through over the years, their branching across categories and industries, strong arm tactics, guerrilla warfare tactics and the like, their products mirror their corporate philosophy. In fact, it was the simple act of Bill Gates quitting as CEO and moving into a philanthropic organization that really gave Microsoft any sympathy in the media. Let’s face it, Bill Gates is the founder, and the face of Microsoft, and what he does dictates how the company is perceived.

The Current Face Of Microsoft

Microsoft is pretty well cemented in the workplace with products such as Windows Vista and their Office line. Their real world media empire is fairly secure as well. Companies such as Bloomberg help add to this content, but the company as a whole has an image issue, and all the synergy in the world won’t change that unless the leadership at the top takes the necessary steps to kick this company into gear.

Their brand has to change with the times, and become something that people want, not just require. Microsoft has the resources to do it, but it’s going to take a lot of blood sweat and tears to change a company culture that has long been mired in making the market come to them instead of making products for the market. It’s about time they recognized that competition is good for them…it promotes innovation…and they need some.

Windows Kicks off New Advertising Campaign with Star Power

Microsoft Tries to Reclaim Windows Image

An interesting, albeit short, news piece about Googles ten year run to becoming the worlds leading search engine. The piece also covers growing issues such as monopoly concerns with their Yahoo deals, growing competition among rivals and the like.

Like I mentioned last week in The Search For Google Alternatives, with the release of Chrome web browser, as well as the Android mobile operating system, Google has positioned itself as the dominant brand on the internet, well ahead of past contenders such as Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, etc. According to one statistic posted on a Microsoft blog, Google currently makes up 70% of all web searches on the web. With the addition of Yahoo to their advertising stable, this statistic grows considerably. So essencially what the news piece is saying is that Google has become a vertical advertising monopoly.

For more information about the suit check out:
FAQ: Antitrust eyes on Yahoo-Google ad deal

So what does that say about Google?

To be honest, Google doesn’t really control the internet. I can go to any site I want regardless of weather Google wants me there or not. I can pick any advertisers I want on my site including Amazon, Google, and currently Yahoo, and the only stipulation I have is that they provide relevant advertising and hopefully…and I said hopefully…some money. The thing that makes their advertising better than others is brand recognition, since people can advertise through any service they so choose. Technically it’s up to individual sites to choose whom they use as advertising, and if Firefox or Microsoft came up with a better system of advertising then I’d use that. If Cuil.com decides one day to make an advertising program based on onomatopoeia and fuzzy logic, then I’ll use them too. As far as Yahoo plastering their site with Google ads, so be it, they have the authority to do so. The case itself is kind of crazy, and the fact that everyone loves to hear about the Google success story, and the fact they do well enough at matching ads to content, are the only two reasons they don’t have much competition.

Just remember how it works though…if they ever do become evil, there will be ten companies trying to pick up the slack…and six of them will be run by former Google employees, two from Linux Redhat, one from Firefox, and one from some guy in a bar that wrote his idea on a napkin and someone gave him a bunch of money for it. Googles going to be screwed.

For more alternatives to Google AdSense, check out:
Advertising Alternatives for Blogs and Niche Sites

I stumbled on a news piece the other day looking for alternatives to the Google search engine.

A few of the products were quite ingenious, such as a Finding Dulcinea.com, where web editors actually search for the best web sites to visit in order to answer questions and only give you the best twenty results…it sort of reads like an encyclopedia of web browsing.

Another example is Cluuz.com which gives site searches based on symantics…it reads like a dictionary.

Finally, Cuil.com, which says it has access to more sites than Google. That may mean they turned some of the porn filters off, or it may mean that they are developing a site using fuzzy logic search rather than popularity metrics.

According to the site:

Rather than rely on superficial popularity metrics, Cuil searches for and ranks pages based on their content and relevance. When we find a page with your keywords, we stay on that page and analyze the rest of its content, its concepts, their inter-relationships and the page’s coherency.

As it were, I’m just beginning to think that Google is nearing that place in their career where they may just be brushing up against outsider status.

With new companies beginning to find niches and developing ways to do things that are different than the preconceived, it’s only a matter of time before one or two make a break from the pack and try for a spot at the top.

Further, with Google breaking into markets such as Google Android, Google Doc, and Google Chrome, it’s not long to wait before we see an operating system with Googles name on it butting up against Windows and MacOS; vying for global supremacy. They have a few tickets for the big games now, and that’s just why Microsoft offed Netscape ten years ago.

I’m not saying that Google is Microsoft and that they’ve reached some pinnacle and are going to knock down anyone who climbs a bit too high. At this point they are noted for being the nicest kid on the playground, but it’s interesting to think that they might just have matured enough to be the elder statesman in the development community, and it should be fun to see how this progresses.

According to CNET, Bloomberg news outlet mistakenly published an obituary for the still very much alive Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs. After having a bout with cancer nearly a decade ago and having appeared ill at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2008 the notice was most likely at the tip of some editors tongue anyway when they accidentally pushed the publish key. Still, the article made me think about how important Steve Jobs has been to several key industries in his lifetime. Everything from the original Apple computer to the writing of the NextStep operating system, to IPod and ITunes, the IPhone, IMovie and Final Cut Pro, Pixar.

The man might as well have been Alexander Grahm Bell himself for all the influence he’s had on todays culture, especially in the past few years.

Per the obituary:

He “helped make personal computers as easy to use as telephones, changed the way animated films are made, persuaded consumers to tune into digital music, and refashioned the mobile phone.”

The obituary itself made me feel a little sad, but is a good reminder how single individuals can help to shape our culture in profound ways.

Good to hear you’re still alive Steve.

Bloomberg mistakenly publishes Steve Jobs obituary

Here’s a neat ad depicting how Google Earth is expected to look by the year 2020. I have no doubt it will probably look a lot better than this…and will obviously work on my phone with my GPS.

So continuing with the article I wrote the other week on Subways current marketing philosophy, I was thinking I might elaborate on a thought I’ve been having over the summer: viral marketing rules.

What Subway really needs is to get back into peoples psyches again, and viral marketing could be a real groundswell movement.

There’s a real niche with the college and twenties demographic that really responds to viral marketing. With a mature brand such as Subway, people already know your product, what you want to sell them is a lifestyle choice; this type of ad campaign is great for that. Much as McDonalds has done with catchy jingles and their family values ads, Subway could do with hip and trendy online videos, websites, and interactive media.

Check out this ad for cell phone popping popcorn on youtube as a prime example:

The ad itself has been seen by millions of viewers and has garnered a lot of media attention. A good viral marketing campaign could really capture peoples imagination, and bring them back to conscience thought about a brand that has begun to stale…no pun intended.

So what is the cell phone popping popcorn ad selling? Cellular gadgets, and I need one!

While I was surfing the net I came across an article about the differences between Googles search engine and other major search engines such as Yahoo or Microsoft. Nearly everyone is familiar with the Google superiority difference in their searching algorithm, but the take of this blog author was a bit different, that being: Google doesn’t want you.

The basic gist of the article is that while most other major search engines trap you at their site through countless clicks, Google simply takes you to your destination and leaves you.

That being said, sites such as this one and others use Google Adsense and Google Adwords to bring dollars to their site, so Google never really goes very far. If anything, Google has simply given more power to their content providers to drive their advertising for them, and it’s this sense of ownership…and honestly greed…that really gives Google that edge.

Google encourages people to use their service by being the best at what they do, and we in turn use their advertising because we expect like results.

When it comes down to it, Google is just the biggest and best independent publisher of them all, and as much content as Yahoo and Microsoft can create by themselves, it’s the individual content providers that matter more in the big picture; to them, perception is everything.

An old post from the culturetrends website pointed me to the Google Zeitgueist 2007 final year report. It’s an interesting site reflecting the top search trends and obvious online traffic movements from last years Google searches. Yahoo and Ask have also released statistics.

It’s interesting to note that searches for Google are missing from the Google Zeitgueist list. Apparently no one needed one.

Google Fastest Rising (U.S.)
1. iphone
2. webkinz
3. tmz
4. transformers
5. youtube
6. club penguin
7. myspace
8. heroes
9. facebook
10. anna nicole smith

Google Fastest Rising (global)
1. iphone
2. badoo
3. facebook
4. dailymotion
5. webkinz
6. youtube
7. ebuddy
8. second life
9. hi5
10. club penguin

Google News Most Popular Searches

1. american idol
2. youtube
3. britney spears
4. 2007 cricket world cup
5. chris benoit
6. iphone
7. anna nicole smith
8. paris hilton
9. iran
10. vanessa hudgens

Google Most Searched Lawsuits

1. borat lawsuit
2. vonage lawsuit
3. iphone lawsuit
4. facebook lawsuit
5. jamie gold lawsuit
6. pants lawsuit
7. mcdonalds lawsuit
8. paxil lawsuit
9. riaa lawsuit
10. dell lawsuit

Yahoo’s News Stories – top 10 news stories
1. Saddam Hussein
2. Iran
3. Iraq
4. President George W. Bush
5. Oil and Gas prices
6. Barack Obama
7. Hillary Rodham Clinton
8. San Diego Fires
9. Afghanistan
10. Virginia Tech

Ask.com’s Top Real Deal Searches of 2007:
1. MySpace
2. Dictionary
3. Google
4. Themes
5. Area Codes
6. Cars
7. Weather
8. Games
9. Song Lyrics
10. Movies

So now we’ve built a culture that has survived the tech boom and moved into what could only be described as a Utopian Social Trend. People want people, not just machines, not just things, not just cool facades. The general sense I get looking at television, pop-culture, the news, and just the people around me is that people want community.

If you look at current trends in the online world, we see Second Life and MySpace as two of the largest examples of growth in online communities. Here people can gather online and interact. If they so choose they can even meet.

Sit down restaurants and cafes have begun popping up on every street corner from Minneapolis to Timbucktoo. In the last five years I’ve seen several community revitalization projects go up in the Twin Cities area. In each case, dining establishments have been the focal point of the development. Like the kitchen at your friends house party, these establishments are natural points of congregation for people to meet, talk, and socialize. They are also a strong indicator of both economic and social factors currently at play in the United States. People have more money to spend on eating out and are making a bigger point of doing so than ever before.

Further, the media has picked up on this trend as well. Television depicts peoples want for a larger world community in shows such as “Extreme Makeover: Home Addition”, and “the Biggest Loser”. Even Oprahs, “The Big Give” was a failed attempt in the same vein. These shows are an example of peoples need for community, a way to self identify by comparing oneself to others, and a hope to make the world a better place to live.

Even corporations have jumped on the bandwagon. NBC the other day did a whole weeks campaign on keeping things green. Shows such as The Office and 30 Rock depicted the studios efforts to influence peoples ways of thinking on the environment, as well as their own commitment to stewardship. Plus we get to see David Schwimmer dressed up as Greenzo in a power mad rampage to save the environment and a cameo by Al Gore…both are hilarious.

Companies such as Best Buy and Target often have volunteer days for their employees to spend the day cleaning up the community. They sponsor charity classic golf tournaments. They also sponsor community projects such as United Way and Urban Ventures. While it could be argued that these are just tax write offs or less than subtle attempt to win over community approval for their failings, without employees backing these programs and customers demanding these programs, none of it would ever have happened in the first place.

It’s this awareness of the larger world that really drives the economy today. Because people are influenced by the media, are better educated, and have greater social incentives to argue for social change, companies have to be more aware of their customers and employees wants and needs than ever before. Without a greater effort to meet these demands, companies risk failure at the hands of the community as a whole and are deemed socially ineffective.

This song would have been great if Billy Joel had done it.