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Facebook to become World #1 brand name

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

Back in August I predicted Facebook will take #1 rank away from Google in traffic before the end of the year. December results are not out yet but there is a high probability I am right. As I was looking for data on the subject – a new question arise.

Is traffic a sign of popularity?

So I went on writing down numbers on a scrapbook. My primary goal was to search brand names and the number of search associated with that brand. To do so I used the Top 100 brand by Millward Brown [PDF].
Surprisingly Facebook, Twitter, iPhone, My Space are not listed by the research institute. Even in a brick and mortar world, Facebook should be in top 5 most known brands.

Below are results found using Google.com [US English page as of December 30, 2009].

Few basic observations: Google and Facebook together are more popular than Web. US takes the lead with over 23 billions search results. USA and War all together are less popular than Yahoo!

Behind those figures I see two conclusions. First, top brands -as described in the study published by Millward Brown- are yet far behind in terms of web image. Their online presence is a failure for 95% of them. This should give hope to all online viral social media jungle marketing agencies out there. The second conclusion is sadder: traffic doesn’t mean revenue. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, MySpace and Hotmail generating over 5.3 billion of search results have an estimated global revenue of $1.3 billion for 2009 representing 0,003% of Wal-Mart’s 2009 revenue.

It brings us back to valuation calculation- should we continue to use online popularity or traffic to rate online businesses?

What do you think?

Tags: analytics, brands, facebook, google, myspace, ranking, seo, Twitter, us, web traffic, windows
Posted in Apple, Content, Economy, Mac, Microsoft, Social Media, TechCrunch, Technology, Twitter, World, google, iPhone | No Comments »

True mess, wrong phone.

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Jeremie Berrebi wanted me to read Getting Real by 37Signals. I highly recommend it to anyone planning to launch a startup. Their caveats, disclaimers, and other preemptive strikes says it all:

“… the ideas in this book won’t apply to every project under
the sun. If you are building a weapons system, a nuclear control
plant, a banking system for millions of customers, or some other
life/ﬁnance-critical system, you’re going to balk at some of our
laissez-faire attitude.
Don’t get huffy if you read some of our advice and it reminds
you of something you read about already on so and so’s weblog
or in some book published 20 years ago. It’s deﬁnitely possible.”

Some precious advice found in the book came back to me after reading Truphone’s blog earlier today. Truphone is a VOIP – Voice Over Internet- provider. Their mission is to offer “free and low-cost international calls”. Every attempt to bring down price of telecommunication is a good one as long as you remember to Keep It Simple Stupid – KISS.

Here is basically what Truphone came up with: get a Truphone account online, buy an iPod Touch, get a contract with a carrier for an always-on portable device (MiFi type), add a 24 months contract, buy a headset with microphone built-in, add funds to your Truphone account and you are good to go for low cost telecommunication of the 21^st century.
This is the most ridiculous telecom offer I’ve ever seem.
Subscribers are ready to pay additional dollars for convenience i.e. they are not ready to sacrifice simplicity to save 2 cts on a telephone call.

“Conventional wisdom says that to beat your competitors you need to one-up them. If they have four features, you need ﬁve (or 15, or 25). If they’re spending x, you need to spend xx. If they have 20, you need 30.
This sort of one-upping Cold War mentality is a dead-end. It’s an expensive, defensive, and paranoid way of building products.
Defensive, paranoid companies can’t think ahead,
they can only think behind. They don’t lead, they follow.
So what to do then? The answer is less. Do less than your
competitors to beat them. Solve the simple problems
and leave the hairy, difficult, nasty problems to
everyone else. Instead of one-upping, try one-downing.
Instead of outdoing, try underdoing.”

There will be 3 kinds of comments after this post, some saying I don’t understand nothing about innovation, some saying I’m an ass for trashing a competitor and certainly a bunch of comments for Viagra and male enhancement. So here comes the natural disclaimer: I have a lot of respect for competition and doers. Truphone does great things and I have used their service several times. They are not a competitor of my core business Global Roaming. Never was. At Global Roaming we do one thing and one only: providing a hassle-free SIM card for travelers.

There is an ongoing temptation to start ‘innovating’ in a wrong way by adding a bunch of useless features just to prove we can do it. Think market adoption, simplicity, sales pitch and PR before you sign off on a R&D project.

“The secret to building half a product instead of a half-ass
product is saying no.
Each time you say yes to a feature, you’re adopting a child. You
have to take your baby through a whole chain of events (e.g.
design, implementation, testing, etc.). And once that feature’s
out there, you’re stuck with it. Just try to take a released feature
away from customers and see how pissed off they get.”

Bottom line Truphone has used heavy dollars to develop a feature that has zero need. What’s next – turn my watch into a Truphone capable device?

Tags: complex, failure, global roaming, ipod, marketing, mifi, simcard, Telecom, truphone, voip
Posted in Apple, Geek, Technology, Telecom, iPhone | 3 Comments »

Is Square a sham or the next big thing?

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Seems everyone is falling for this but me. I had to look at the TechCrunch video presentation of Square few times and I still do not understand what Square is up to.

Is it a clearing house, a merchant provider, payment gateway, a mobile POS – read Point Of Sale , a technology platform or all the above? I don’t have the answer and my guess is Square is exploring all possibilities.

Whatever is shown on that short video presentation is not an easy form of payment process. It took a couple of minutes to pay for a coffee as it takes less than 10 seconds to do the same at any Starbucks. What happens during rush hour when 60 people need to pay for coffee? Expect a 120 minute wait to process payment!

What’s the point of a $200 iPhone PoS (Point of Sale – don’t want any confusion here) when you can process credit/debit payment on a virtual terminal at $0 additional cost?

I read somewhere it’s a huge opportunity for pop and mom kind of business, eBay sellers, Craigslists transactions, farmers and so on.

First I believe they could all accept credit cards today if they wanted to. There is a gazillion solution out there for them.

Second do you think those really want to be exposed to chargeback, fraud, IRS, sales tax and potential liability for identity theft?

Third – credit/debit card sales is not CASH in da pocket. Often I shop at Coconut Grove Organic Farmers Market and let me tell you – they don’t like/want your plastic. Cash allow them to live. They already struggle, take it away from them and they die.

So what am I missing? Should I buy the concept because Jack Dorsey – Twitter co-founder- is behind it? Enlighten me.

Tags: dorsey, iPhone, mobile payment, payment, square, transaction, virtual
Posted in Apple, Economy, Entrepreneur, Geek, Telecom, USA, iPhone | 10 Comments »

Sony eReader vs Amazon Kindle 2.

Friday, October 16th, 2009

Electronic books are not my cup of tea. I resisted as long as I could to move to digital content. Nothing can match the touch of a book, the smell of inked paper, the easy access to any page, sneaking preview of chapters and the legacy you leave to younger generations.

Anyway we have to live with our times and I decided to give ebook a try. My daughter has a Kindle and reads about 2 books per week. She takes it everywhere.

I personally find the Kindle ugly and lacking basic features making any attempt to try the device worthless. Choice was limited to Sony eReader or Kindle. Soon new devices will be released- obviously upcoming readers can only get better.

The #1 difference between Sony and Amazon is accessibility. Kindle is an online device with wireless capabilities (limited to US market and soon to be open to international) as the Sony eReader is an offline device where you need to connect to your desktop/laptop in order to download books.

I do not see the need to download a book wirelessly as a mandatory feature. It’s not a news or weather service. You can download hundreds of books on a Sony and be set for a long long time. The only thing you need to add a book to Sony eReader is a USB cable. You can even use memory cards. Sony supports all memory card formats adding more flexibility and more storage to the ebook.

Being wireless and connected to ONLY Amazon store is an extremely restrictive feature of the Kindle. Wireless doesn’t mean openness. You must buy your books from the 350,000 titles available. It’s a lot -I agree. But Sony eReader gives you access to Google’s library of 1million FREE books and tons of other libraries accessible online in all languages.

One of the top features Sony added is the touch-screen ability. I love flipping pages using my finger. Makes digital content user-friendlier for an old man like me.

At last my choice for the Sony eReader PRS-600 was final after someone showed me Calibre. Calibre is a magic piece of software that turns ANY digital content into a reading material on the Sony eReader. Magazines, word docs, books, tutorials…anything you can see on your computer can be readable on the Sony.

It gives also access to ebooks purchased by a friend who willingly lends you his book. One thing Kindle cannot handle. If you bought a book and your wife wants to read it on HER Kindle – she cannot transfer your purchase. Recently Amazon pulled OUT books that were purchased on the Kindle store directly from users device. This is inadmissible for me. When I buy a book – it’s mine and I can decide to lend it to my kids without violating any copyrights. There is no fear one will come to my place and take it off the shelf.

If books were not going from one hand to another – literature would have died long time ago. I do not encourage anyone to steal but I must admit it’s a killer feature.

Sony has learned from the ATRAC days that open file formats are more preferable than proprietary ones. By supporting the ePub format, Sony’s essentially guaranteeing that your digital library will always have a home. Stick with Kindle’s proprietary format, and you’re forever a slave to Amazon’s device.

Same feature that made iPod so popular. Take an mp3, drag it on iTunes and enjoy the music. No question asked.

Conclusion: my subjective review goes towards Sony eReader. Three good reasons: cheaper, better, richer. For a detailed review of Sony PRS-600 read Ilene Hoffman post on http://www.electronista.com/reviews/sony-prs-600-touch-ereader.html

Tags: amazon, ebook, epub, ereader, kindle, prs-600, Sony
Posted in Apple, Content, Geek, Sony, Technology, google, itunes | 4 Comments »

Google Voice Missed Robbery Attempt

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

Difficult to read online news and not bump into one of those anti-carriers posts regarding the Google Voice vs. AT&T case.

Being involved in Telecom I’m often asked to give my opinion on the matter. After long and boring passionate discussions with friends it became clear no one as a clue of what’s going on. The need for an explanatory post came naturally after a brainstorming session with my friend and partner Pat Phelan.

What is Google Voice?

The service provisions a U.S. phone number, chosen by the user from available numbers in selected area codes, free of charge to each user account. Inbound calls to this number are forwarded to other phone numbers of the subscriber. Outbound calls may be placed to domestic and international destinations from any of a user’s configured telephones, or from a web-based application.Inbound and domestic outbound calls (including calls to Canada) are free of charge, while international calls are billed according to a schedule posted on the Google Voice website. [wikipedia definition].
In simple words, Google Voice is an alternative telecom carrier offering a FREE US number, unlimited free calls within US and Canada and unlimited inbound calls.

Google Voice strong “selling” feature in the Gmail like dashboard offering call logs, SMS history, sync with contact book, visual voicemail.

Ok but how does it work?

Until recently Google Voice was a web application. You needed to go to your web browser in order to place a call. Last summer Google released mobile applications to run on Android, BlackBerry and iPhone.
Simply install the application, pop up the virtual dialer and start making free calls using your mobile carrier a termination point only. Google Voice in an application layer on top of your current service.

iPhone version was removed from App store on july 27, 2009.

If it’s the same as my phone service why would I use Google Voice?

That’s the most interesting question. You still need a host carrier to run Google Voice, minutes you are using on Google Voice are accounted on your plan, so here are benefits:

-       Your Google Voice number is yours for life. No fear to lose your number ever.
-       you can call Canada at no extra cost
-       some carriers plan restrict out-of-state calls. You won’t have this problem with GV.
-       you get advanced voicemail for free (carriers usually charge $5/mo)
-       you get unconditional call forwarding free. You can decide to forward GV calls to your office, country house
-       Advanced call forwarding (simultaneous rings e.g. office, cell and home)
-       Cheap international calls
-       Unlimited free SMS, send and receive
-       Visual Voicemail
-       Call screening, call recording, etc.

Most important is your independence to carrier. You can change operator and never loose a voicemail, or sms or call log. Forget long term commitment to AT&T.

Why did Apple and ATT rejected the iPhone application?

Michael Arrington was prompt to trash Apple thinking they are the bad guys. He even gave his iPhone up and moved to an Android powered device to protest against Cupertino firm [I also dumped iPhone for an HTC Hero but for different motivations].

It was obvious Apple had little to do in the decision to block Google Voice application. It’s a direct order coming from AT&T saying to Google: No, you won’t pimp us!

As much as I hate carrier, their mafia cartels and market domination I disagree with Mike argument that we live in a free world and AT&T should not block Google.

Let’s put it this way – can Mashable post their articles on Techcrunch comments because comments are a backdoor to posting on TechCrunch?

Arrington will be the first one to take those posts out and call for an embargo on Mashable.

Can you publish an ad with a Bing search box on Google sponsored links? I won’t live long enough to see Microsoft trying to do this.

But no you can’t.

You shouldn’t be able to use carriers pipes to steal their traffic, take away their subscribers and build a business just because you can afford to dump prices.

This is the second underlying problem of Google Voice. They are dumping prices. Obviously Google is paying to purchase numbers from CLEC, paying for US and Canada termination, paying for their online management and giving it all for free is unfair trading.

I’m surprised AT&T, Verizon, Sprint didn’t file an antidumping petition under the regulations determined by the United States Department of Commerce, which determines “less than fair value” and the International Trade Commission, which determines “injury”. True dumping is generally used in International Trading. But if Google isn’t international then who is?

I didn’t include TMobile in list of potential plaintiffs against Google as Google and Tmobile are working together on promoting a line of devices, Android OS and other services.

I know the Google Voice team quite well and have lots of respect for Craig Walker co-founder of GrandCentral and Group Product Manager for the Real Time Communications group at Google.

But Google can’t have it both ways. You want to become a Telco carrier then break your piggy bank and invest in infrastructure, build your network, acquire your HLRs and switches, start offering customer support, sign roaming agreements…and play fair competition.

If your offer is good I will be the first customer to sign up.

Tags: Apple, arrington, att, dumping, google, google voice, grandcentral, iPhone, walker
Posted in Apple, Blackberry, Gmail, TechCrunch, Technology, Telecom, google, iPhone | 13 Comments »

Media Player War. Can Apple lose?

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

In the 80’s you had to have a Walkman no matter what. For many of us it was our first gadget. Portable music.
30 years later things look different.
Cassettes have disappeared, music went digital not without difficulties. Although MP3 format started in the 90’s first MP3 player came out in 1997.
In 10 years Apple imposed itself as the sole purveyors of digital music. All attempts from consumer electronic giants to take over this market failed.

What is changing today?

Few factors are weakening Apple leadership on this segment.

#1 factor comes from Cupertino – the iPhone.
The smartphone device has replaced many iPods. Convergence created a competitor inside Apple. Why would you carry an iPhone 32Gb in one hand and an iPod 32Gb in the other?
Apple made it clear in their early iPhone advertising, it’s a phone and an iPod all-in one!
Second factor is the lack of innovation. Ok, now I’m hitting a nerve – let me clarify. Apple is the most innovative consumer electronic manufacturer ever BUT once a product is out they fail to integrate basic features we all want to see ie adding a memory card reader in MacBook (took them 10 years to do so) or to offer Blu-Ray players built-in, to integrate FM player in iPods, move to OLED displays, etc….
New comers are very aggressive on updated technologies and multiple add-ons that are starting to make a difference.
Finally the price of iPods is too high. I guess Apple executives are thinking they should grab the momentum while it lasts.

Who can hurt Apple?

I see 2 big competitors rising: Microsoft and Sony.
Zune was the laughing stock a couple of years ago when Microsoft released the “brick” 1st-gen Zune. A joke went around about Microsoft’s pathetic attempt to enter the “iPod market.” So a year passed, and Zune remained a joke in the consumer electronics world and had to endure the jeers and torment of the Apple crowd. When the 2nd Gen Zunes came out, the Zune brand slowly started to see redemption. The Zune 80gb was deemed the first decent competitor to the iPod, but the brand was still in recovery from its hazing.
It took some time, few billion dollars and lots of consumer reviews for MSFT to come up with new Zune HD.
Amazingly Zune HD is sold out on Amazon, BestBuy and most retailers.
The Zune concentrates on being a Portable Media Player. Not a web browser. Not a game machine. Maybe in the future it will do even better in those areas, but for now it’s a fantastic way to organize and listen to your music and videos, and is without peer in that regard.
Zune Pass subscription service is the favorite feature that will keep buyers to use a Zune until it’s pried from their desperate grasp. For $15 a month you can get 10 DRM-free MP3 songs to keep, and unlimited access to millions of songs. As long as you would have bought at least 10 songs anyways that means you’re paying only $5 for that access. It’s better than Pandora, Slacker, LastFM or other services because you can listen to full CDs, specify playlists and tracks in the exact order you want, and can either stream this music or store it on your Zune to listen to later, even if out of wifi range. Lots of people present subscription services as something you do instead of owning music, but at this cheap a price there’s no reason you can’t use this as a supplement to whatever purchases you make. It’s not either/or, it’s a wonderful “and”, especially if you’re the type who likes to explore and enjoy a broad range of music.
HD radio and HD Video (720p) are killer features. I wonder how long it will take for Apple to move there.

Sony made a bad move when they decided to partner up with Ericsson and use the Walkman brand name on a line of phones. The idea was appealing but the execution was terrible. Perfect example of brand awareness vs. brand association.
Walkman is coming back in the digital music segment with a new line of players. For first time in years Sony outsells iPods in Japan promising a tough fight in the US during the holiday seasons.

Apple has a lot to worry about. Consumers are not married to any brand. They come and go. Personally I moved to an Android powered phone – HTC Hero and ordered a Zune HD.

What will be your next media player?

Tags: Apple, digital, Microsoft, mp3, Music, Sony, walkman, x series, zune
Posted in Apple, Geek, Microsoft, Music, Sony, Technology, itunes | 7 Comments »

Mobile industry : Evolution vs. Revolution

Friday, September 11th, 2009

We must give Apple credit for the mobile application raison d’être. Mobile apps have been around for at least two decades and never seemed to be anything else but a gimmick. Cupertino firm re-invented mobile phone distribution and created a viable content delivery model. For years – manufacturers and carriers tried to increase subscriber’s data usage but ultimately failed to find innovative concepts. Motorola and Nokia were dominating telecom market copying each other on small technology evolutions for more than 20 years. Apple started from scratch with one motivation: offer the best possible customer experience on a win-win-win basis (Apple, carrier, subscriber).

apple

Palm – the missed opportunity

Palm – founded in 1992- was very close to monetize the industry back in 1996 but they thought selling devices was more lucrative. I remember my first Handspring Visor during Comdex 1999. Jeff Hawkins was praising a revolution in mobile devices…we know the story.

Palm wanted a basic handled – in my experience, basic users tend toward basic devices. Palm executives underestimated our capabilities to adapt and kept Treo/Palm a digital agenda.

Realizing that everyone didn’t want to play movies/music on the go was certainly their biggest failure.

It took 10 years for Palm to copycat Apple innovate and launch App Catalog – a marketplace for WebOS mobile applications. So far figures are kept secret and Palm Pre failed to reached its commercial targets. A new device was announced today Palm Pixi with supposedly better capabilities. Let’s hope the hosting carrier will not be Sprint.

Nokia – Double failure

The Finnish phone manufacturer had 3 out of 4 ingredients to make it happen. Firstly they have the audience. Around 1.24 billion phones worldwide. Then they had the carriers – over 700 of them all around the planet. Third they had one of most innovative mobile OS – Symbian. But they had NO vision, NO strategy to sell content.

Symbian was the best thing Nokia did to make their handsets ‘smart’. I must mention Symbian was an independent company backed up by the phone giant. Nokia had the ambition to promote Symbian OS to competitors and make money thru licensing the platform. They believed other device manufacturers would not integrate Symbian if Nokia was the sole owner.

Double mistake – everyone knew Nokia was behind Symbian although Ericsson (15.6%), Sony Ericsson (13.1%), Panasonic (10.5%), and Samsung (4.5%).were partners.

Biggest Nokia’s failure was to understand money was not to be made on the container but on the content.

Unfortunately it took Nokia 10 years to understand their mistakes and decided only last December to acquire Symbian.

Google – The Challenger

I remember when we first heard of a Google Phone most experts were skeptical Google – the service company- could risk it all entering in a hardware world.

Basically Google never manufactured any phone. They made a deal with HTC and Tmobile.

The only reason they worked this way around was to overcome mobile carrier’s cartel. Google executives understood Telco operators would not open their doors easily. This is maybe the major difference between Google and Apple. Apple is first of all a top hardware manufacturer. Google is only a search engine a service technology provider specialized in content delivery.

Android – Google’s OS- is promising not only for mobile but also for tablets and PCs. I was lucky to try the new Archos Internet Media Tablet running Android – true convergence between Mobile and PC. Future laptops, tablets are going to be ‘always connected’.

Admittedly Apple has a serious lead over Google but there is no short time strategy here. I strongly believe Google is the strongest contender in the game today.

BlackBerry – Productivity at best

Research In Motion has been a market leader in many ways. Firstly as a money maker with the best free idea of all times: EMAILS.

Trying to sell a free concept for a fee is definitely a challenge. Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie started in 1984 with Pagers. In 1998 they launched their first Qwerty device launched and only early 2000 did we see the first BlackBerry. [note: BlackBerry website still displays older devices and press releases from their early days.]

RIM business model is simple. Pay to get your emails on the go. They spent 100’s of millions litigating patenting their technology. Today they totally own the market of corporate emails.

3 sources of revenue for BlackBerry:

- The Device

- Email access BlackBerry Internet Service [BIS] or BlackBerry Entreprise Server [BES]

- Revenue sharing with carriers

With over 55 Millions devices sold BlackBerry is now grabbing the Application momentum.

RIM had a closed platform for 15 years and refused to open to mobile applications. This is a big change for the Canadian giant. Creating a friendly development platform on the worse possible OS.

Despite all critics BlackBerry has now an App World store selling highly priced mobile applications. RIM has not yet disclosed figures but I believe

BlackBerry has recently launched a touch-screen device – Storm- and faced huge criticism due to lack of basic features iPhone is offering. We can’t blame users for comparing.

BlackBerry Messenger is the most popular feature among young adults. Another tour-de-force for RIM. Cashing in on a free concept: instant messaging.

I believe BlackBerry is in a hit or miss situation. A lot will depend on their new OS and new devices to be launched. Their current strategy of multiplying similar handsets is certainly not the way to go.

Deliberately I left Motorola out the scope of this post. Despite various rumors of a soon to be announced comeback I think Motorola gave up on R&D and innovation and will exclusively produce Android based handsets. At least for now…

No mention of the already obsolete Windows Mobile OS. The raise and death of WM deserves a post for itself J.

It took Apple one shot to conquer the world with a real smartphone. Best of all – their range of phone is ONE device. They transported the iPod/Music model to the phone, created an industry for mobile applications recycling thousand of jobless developers into entrepreneurs. Telco giants spending billions of dollars in R&D could not achieve it. They can’t even copycat it. We are going to see a vertical renewal of the entire mobile industry. From carriers to phone manufacturers.

But Apple taught us a lesson. No matter how much you spend, how long you have been around and how tricky you are in those carriers contracts– there is no market retention. Customers will go to the best device no matter what.

Tags: android, Apple, Blackberry, google, iPhone, mobile, motorola, nokia, palm, phones, telco, webos, windows
Posted in Apple, Blackberry, Geek, Technology, Telecom, iPhone | No Comments »