Facebook Number One For Christmas
Posted by Ahmad Barirani in 
Facebook got more traffic than Google for Christmas. I guess this is the best gift they could have dreamed for. This is somehow normal if we take into consideration that 1) Facebook has more than 300 million members, that 2) people keep more in touch with friends and family during Christmas. Of course, this is to be expected for special holidays where people spend more time sending each other good wishes. However, I believe there is more in this news than just something related to special holidays.
First of all, Facebook is not going to lose members. Therefore, the critical mass that is needed to become number one website is there to stay and will only get bigger. Second, certain features of Facebook offer benefits that other conventional means of communication do not offer. Therefore, Facebook is changing the way people keep in touch with each other, gradually supplanting traditional communication channels in the process.
So if Facebook will have more users who will spend more time on the website, then it will soon have more traffic than Google. This was somehow expected as major marketing analysts expect a rise of marketing spending on Facebook and other mainstream social media.
Social Media is Now Stronger Than Ever: It is Part Of Google SERPs
Starting today, Google will redirect users to social media through its new real-time search feature. This means more alignment between SMO and SEO. This is good for Google as it is good for social media websites that will see an increase in their traffic. Well, it is good for businesses that could use this feature to gt some of the traffic for important keywords that would otherwise be difficult to compete for. I’m talking about words like money, cars, flowers, etc. that drive millions of people everyday. While it is hard to get any of the traffic for those keywords through traditional SEO techniques, it might be more simple to get a very small portion of that traffic by optimizing for real-time search. One tweet shown for only a second could get some traffic and if that tweet gets retweeted, then it means more traffic. Isn’t that cool?
Content Adds Value, Therefore it has a Price
Variety.com will start charging fees for some of its content. This comes a little while after Murdoch announced his decision to block Google crawler. If you ask me, these are all signs that the Internet is cannibalizing the information market (uh..da!) in a way that traditional information providers have to move all their resources to that direction and move fast before they become dinosaurs. Since those resources have a certain cost, it is obvious that the output (the articles) will also have a price tag. My best wishes of luck to Variety.
The Disruptive Nature of Chrome OS and What it Means For Windows
Chrome OS is disruptive
A disruptive product would be one that initially under-performs other products on the market even for the simplest needs. Think of all those extensions that Chrome OS will miss, making it a less attractive solution that Windows + Firefox. Gradually, the new product will be enhanced by other components or optimization of those parts that make it under-perform. At a certain point, the new product will offer better performance other products that are at the low-end of the market. For example, lets suppose someone is using Windows + Firefox + Google Toolbar for surfing the Internet and sending/receiving email though Gmail. For this person, as soon as the Google Toolbar is available for Chrome OS, it would be better to use Chrome OS instead of Windows + Firefox because the former is a faster and lighter than the latter.
What it means for Windows
Too Much Innovation Can be Fatal: the Case of Google Chrome
In an attempt to prepare the introduction of it browser-OS, Google introduced a few novelties in its Chrome browser. These novelties all fall inside one category there is no toolbar in Google Chrome. Users are complaining about the fact that Google Chrome doesn’t work with Google Toolbar to the point that Google had to write a support page about using Google Chrome. The page explains how Google Toolbar functions are part of the browser but not in the shape of a toolbar. Taking into account that those using Chrome are early adopters, this seems to be just another case of too much innovation not being well received by the market.
Good timing is the recipe for success
An important factor playing in the success of an innovation is the timing of its market introduction. If a product is too disruptive, people won’t be able to connect with products they already use. Visionaries must therefore take it easy with their creative swing and not forget the today’s consumer. In the case of Google Chrome, things went wrong because people are used to have a very tiny browser that is extended with plugins. They are not yet used to the idea that the browser is going to be the operating system.
People are used to the tiny browser
To better understand this phenomenon, we must take into account that browsers weren’t the most used application in the early days of the Internet. As more web applications answered day-to-day needs, plugins were built on top of the tiny browser to provide a better and more productive user experience. Today, the Browser is the most used application and the Internet has evolved to a point were a browser is all we need. In tomorrow’s Internet, everything is going to be on the cloud. Our desktop will not do anything else that allow us to click on buttons that are on a remote server.
Being the Internet leader, Google is taking the right bet of getting the market rid of the heavy desktop client (Windows) and replacing it with something lighter (Chrome OS). Only the push seems to be a very clumsy one and has to work harder to bring innovation in a more fluid way.