Photo Credit: Me!

The Harris Poll released its latest Reputation Quotient® Report, and while it contains the expected data about the importance and business benefits of good reputation, I was struck by the diversity of the top ten companies in the study. The list includes several of my favorite companies–both personally as a consumer and professionally as a customer experience analyst–but when I cite these examples, people can be quick to provide reasons why these firms are unlike their own businesses and “have it easy.”

This year’s list demonstrates why that dismissal is an excuse. The heterogeneity of the top ten most respected companies illustrates how easy it is to overlook the hard work of creating a great customer experience, building an ethical and customer-centric corporate culture and leading in a way that resonates with employees and consumers. The top ten firms in the 2016 poll are Amazon, Apple, Google, USAA, The Walt Disney Company, Publix Super Markets, Samsung, Berkshire Hathaway, Johnson & Johnson, and Kellogg Company.

To learn more about why it is an excuse to dismiss the success of USAA, Disney, Amazon and Google and what these firms can teach us about customer experience, loyalty, advocacy and reputation, please continue reading on my Gartner blog.

If you do not think Facebook Graph Search is a big deal, you have not been paying attention to the way data, particularly social data, is changing the world. And if you believe Facebook's move is a threat to Google, you may have no idea how true that is, not in terms of today's search advertising market but Google's strategy for the future.

Facebook's big play here is not merely that it may have a search engine that competes with Google's. Yes, this innovation could shake up the search market and allow Facebook to make a bigger dent in Google's revenue in the online and mobile ad space. That may be good news for Facebook investors who, even if Facebook announces great Q4 results in two weeks, will still be holding Facebook stock at a price-earnings ratio that is somewhere between five and fifteen times higher than mature companies such as Google, Apple and eBay.

Instead of thinking about search in the way we do it today--reactive, slow, relatively difficult and often frustrating--flip search on its head. Think of your device knowing you well enough to furnish you with the information you would want when you want it without asking. This is a vision of "serendipitous search" that Google has been hinting at for years.

Now add the Facebook social layer--all the data it knows about you, your friends and strangers. Today, you may pull out your phone and spend five minutes with a Yelp app to find a clothes store; tomorrow your device could proactively let you know you are walking past one of your friends' favorite boutiques. And who do you trust more--strangers who may be compensated for posting trash reviews or your close friends?

Facebook Graph Search as a reactive feature is interesting but turned into a proactive feature, it can change our world. Imagine walking into a bar and knowing a friend is next door. Or entering a salon and finding out your friend loves a particular stylist. Or visiting a Greek restaurant and discovering your Greek friends love a different place around the corner. Or going to a car dealership and being told your friends were left feeling ripped off at this establishment but loved their experience at the dealership up the street. Want to extend your circle of friends? Change a setting and your device can alert you that a friend of a friend is nearby. Playing a tough golf course? One of your friends shared a tip for beating the ninth hole and posted his video birdying the hole! Listening to a song? A bunch of your friends who loved this tune also recommend a band that is new to you! Having a problem with PowerPoint? Searching for the answer is so last year when your device can recognize you are having a problem and inform you not only that your coworker is a PowerPoint guru but that she is online and available now through Facebook chat!

That is the promise of the "social layer," not simply that it populates our news feeds with inspirational Tumblr images but that it becomes data that makes our lives richer, easier and more social. If the term "social layer" rings a bell, it is because that is the phrase Google and others have been using to describe the search giant's own social strategy. And here we see how Facebook's hegemony in social data really brings it into competition with Google--not because a Facebook search engine may be competitive with Google's search engine, but because the company that has access to and uses our and our friends' data and turns it into something that enriches our lives wins and wins big.

And if that is not a sufficient picture of how Facebook and Google are on a collision course, let's take this one step further. In all of those examples I provided of how proactive or serendipitous data might change our lives, think of how this data arrives to you. Today, your phone buzzes or chirps and you need to stop what you are doing, yank out your device, unlock it and look at the screen. If you're driving, this risks lives. If you're walking--look out for that tree! On a first date? Well, that device better stay in your pocket if you want a second date.

Annoying, right? Okay, then put on a pair of Google Glasses--a new way to present information to you without demanding you drop everything, use your hands and shift your field if vision and entire attention. Suddenly the beauty of proactive, real-time information becomes even more evident. No more "third screens" that demand attention; now your real and virtual worlds can become merged seamlessly. Of course, this depends on how well the software and hardware work together and know what information you find useful and what you do not; still, you can begin to see how today's sleek smartphones could look as outdated as a StarTAC flip phone within five years.

Will Facebook be content to let Google own the wearable tech market and allow its hardware to be the conduit for Facebook's features and value proposition? That seems unlikely, and perhaps this is why those rumors of a Facebook phone have never been realized--the brass ring is not that Facebook becomes yet another player in a field crowded with iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows and soon Tizen and Firefox OS.  Instead, I wonder if Facebook recognizes that its future in furnishing real-time social data depends on finding a way to make that data seamless to users in a way that even today's best smartphones cannot accommodate.

There has been a lot of press in the last two days about what Facebook Graph Search means to Facebook and Google, but I wonder if we are witnessing not another battle for today's eyeballs and ad dollars but the first strategic moves into who owns the way humans merge their virtual and physical worlds in the future.

While the rest of the world is obsessed with Facebook's IPO, I thought I might be a contrarian and focus on Google+. At times, I have felt as if Google and others share G+ data and analysis not to enlighten but to convince. When Vic Gundotra, Google’s vice president for engineering, says that Google+ has 100 million monthly active users (or MAUs) compared to Facebook's 901 million MAUs, I find myself wanting to see the data and dig into methodology, because assertions such as this do not always meet my "gut check."

Google+ data seems to come in one of two flavors--either statistics that support the Google-Plus-is-a-ghost-town argument or figures that lead to headlines such as "Google+ brand pages seeing adoption, engagement growth." The truth is certainly somewhere in between, but I have to say the more sober numbers and analysis seem to have a greater ring of truth.

A recent study of brand pages on G+ furnished optimistic findings such as:

• 64% of the Interbrand Top 100 now have an active Google+ Brand page.
• 22% of the brands now have circler counts over 100,000, up from 13%.
• More brands are posting more frequently: 43% are posting over 3X a week (up from 15% in February).

The folks behind the study offer services to help brands evaluate and improve their Google+ brand presence, which means they have a horse in the race. That does not mean their data is inaccurate, of course--in fact, I am sure the data is factual--but are the analysis and findings complete and thorough?  Do conclusions such as these help marketers and social professionals evaluate the importance of G+, or do they subtly encourage brand adoption of G+ (and, by extension, adoption of the study sponsor's services)?

At a glance, the study seems to imply that brands are beginning to flock to G+, but even without doing any independent research, it seems there is a less glowing way to consider the same data. For example, while 64% of the top 100 brands have an active Google+ page today, 61% of them already had their page one month after G+ launched, so there has been almost no additional adoption in the past six months. And while the number of brands with 100,000 fans is up almost 75% in three months, two-thirds of the top 100 brands in the world have fewer than 5,000 "circlers" on G+. (To put that into perspective, AJ Bombers, a locally owned burger joint in Milwaukee, WI, is connected to more people on Facebook than the vast majority of top 100 worldwide brands are connected to on Google Plus.)

I thought I would do my own small examination of the engagement enjoyed by the top ten brands on Interbrand's list. Here is what I found comparing the Facebook and Google Plus presence and engagement of the ten most valuable brands in the world:

Brand	Facebook Fans	Google+ Circlers		# of FB Posts (4/24 - 30)	# of G+ Posts (4/24 - 30)		Avg # of FB Likes/Post (4/24 - 30)	Avg # of G+ +1s/Post (4/24 - 30)
Coca-Cola FB, G+	41,943,732	523,783		2*	3		5,637	44
Microsoft FB, G+	1,779,336	202		10	0		522	NA
Google FB, G+	9,586,681	594,677		6	17		1890	323
GE FB, G+	313,473	2,004		7	5		148	7
McDonalds  FB, G+	19,680,889	10,198		7	0		4,388	NA
Intel FB, G+	10,165,230	374,339		6	4		7,295	68
IBM FB, G+	119,648	5,745		5	0		138	NA
Apple FB, G+	6,240,280	NA		NA	NA		NA	NA
Disney FB, G+	35,650,607	NA		5	NA		32,404	NA
HP FB, G+	1,804,691	190,109		6	5		238	11

* Coke's Facebook page didn't seem to be working like other Facebook pages when I tested it. I had great difficulties getting older posts to load, so I'm not certain this is an accurate number.

In order to compare the number of fans/circlers and likes/+1s on an apples-to-apples basis, I computed averages based only on the brands that are actively maintaining a presence in both social networks. I have noted the current averages in the chart below.

Brand	Facebook Fans	Google+ Circlers		# of FB Posts (4/24 - 30)	# of G+ Posts (4/24 - 30)		Avg # of FB Likes/Post (4/24 - 30)	Avg # of G+ +1s/Post (4/24 - 30)
Coca-Cola	41,943,732	523,783		2*	3		5,637	44
Google	9,586,681	594,677		6	17		1890	323
GE	313,473	2,004		7	5		148	7
Intel	10,165,230	374,339		6	4		7,295	68
HP	1,804,691	190,109		6	5		238	11
Average	12,762,761	336,982					3,042	91
	+3,687%						+3,257%

Of note is that:

• Fifty percent of the world's top ten brands are absent from Google+, while nine are present on Facebook. Apple is the lone holdout on both platforms.
   
• The activity on G+ brand pages is much less than would be expected, based on Google+'s and Facebook's Monthly Active Users. With Facebook at 901 million MAUs and Google at 100 million MAUs, one would expect brand pages on Facebook to have 800% more activity than on G+; instead, the brands present in both social networks have almost 3700% more fans/circlers and over 3200% more likes/+1s on Facebook than Google Plus. What would cause a brand's social graph and engagement to be much less than expected on Google+ compared to Facebook? The discrepancy is not due to a lack of activity on the part of brands--the number of posts made by brands to both platforms is quite similar. There are three possible explanations, and I suspect all three may be correct to one extent or another: G+ users are significantly less interested in engaging with brands on the social network; those who use G+ are far less active than the folks who use Facebook; and the number of G+ MAUs has been exaggerated. (Much has been written about how Google counts as an active user any Google+ registrant who uses Google services such as YouTube or Search when they're logged in, which would seem to exaggerate the number of active and actual users of Google+.)
   
• Perhaps most telling is this: Google gets substantially greater engagement with its brand page on Facebook than its brand page on its own social network. Despite posting significantly more content to G+, Google's Facebook presence has 1500% more connections to consumers and its posts receive almost 500% more engagement on Facebook than G+.

My own small evaluation of the top ten brands is not the only sign that Google+ is failing to get wind under its wings. In recent weeks:

• An RJMetrics analysis found that the average post on Google Plus receives just 0.77 +1s, 0.54 replies and 0.17 reshares.
   
• The same study found that 30 percent of users who make a public post on G+ never make another. Even after making five public posts, there is still a 15% dropoff before the sixth post.
   
• A Nielsen study found that over 70% of US moms who went online in March visited Facebook. The study also lists percentages for Blogger, Twitter, Wordpress and Tumblr, but the study omits Google+. It is hard to imagine that if moms were visiting G+ in any significant numbers that Nielsen would have excluded Google+ from this study.
   
• Janrain reported that Facebook is approaching 50% penetration among social login services. As recently as 18 months ago, Google held a tremendous advantage as the social login of choice among consumers, but today 45% of consumers use their Facebook accounts to log into third-party sites and only 30% use their Google credentials to do so.
   
• A recent Pew Internet study found that 73% of search users said they would not be okay with a search engine keeping track of their searches and using that information to personalize future search results because they feel it is an invasion of privacy. The idea of search as a social signal is a core tenet of Google's social strategy, but it seems few consumers are comfortable with the concept.
   
• Experian Hitwise recently tweeted that G+ experienced traffic growth of 5% from March to April 2012, which sounds pretty impressive until you consider the same company reported 27% traffic growth from February to March and a 55% month-to-month growth rate in late 2011. It seems G+'s adoption is decelerating rapidly less than a year after its September 2011 launch.

I am not trying to pile on Google Plus, but I would like more transparency from Google and others when it comes to data about G+ usage, engagement and growth. As a social media leader at a Fortune 500 firm, I must evaluate the benefits of dedicating resources to maintain a presence on Google Plus, and I would like to be armed with real data to make the right decision. For now, our choice about Google+ is informed by the fact that our brand has a mere 230 +1s on G+ , 0.1% of our total fan count on Facebook.

Perhaps Google+ will someday succeed at becoming a major social network, social layer, or whatever other social strategy Google chooses to pursue. For now, it seems to remain a niche social network with little engagement and stagnating growth. I am happy to proven wrong, but it is going to take thorough, accurate and transparent G+ data to do so--something in short supply at the current time.

The following is a work of speculative fiction, not a prediction; however, I believe this is one possible outcome of the decisions Google is making today. Do you agree? Read on and please criticize or comment.

Please note: all characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is most likely coincidental. And, as always, this and other posts on my blog are my opinion and do not reflect the opinions of others.

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SXSW 2015 was amazing;  I can't believe another South by Southwest is here and gone so soon.

The hot new startups this year were Splork, Thlong and Yitchy--all wearable hardware concepts that auto-report your bodily functions to social networks. Facebook launched FBClassic, a version of the service based on its 2009 interface, to appease those people chronically unable to adapt to its regular upgrades. Also, Ford showed off the new Focus with a physical Like button built into the dashboard--drivers will be unable to start the car without first "liking" the brand.

Of course, the big buzz was about Google. The mighty and revered internet giant has fallen on hard times as of late. In February 2015, the once unimaginable happened; Google accounted for less than 50% of U.S. search volume for the first time in almost ten years. Google is still very profitable, of course, but the loss of over 3 billion search queries every month has sorely reduced advertising revenue, once Google's core cash cow. The news was merely the latest insult to injury for Google, which saw its ad revenues surpassed by Facebook's in 2013. The company founded on search now earns more from its mobile products than it does online operations.

So, what happened? How did the house that search built lose its firm foundation? Some would say that Google's inability to launch a successful social platform was the problem, and they'd be partially correct. After Orkut, Wave and Buzz crashed to earth, Google shot for the stars with Google+. As it turned out, G+ was more like a child's model rocket than an Atlas V--it had a terrific trajectory after opening to the public, but soon it lost traffic and active users. G+ continues to do well in certain circles (no pun intended), but it has not thrived as Google hoped.

The fact Google never found the right social recipe wasn't the real problem; instead, it was how the company reacted (some now say overreacted) to the fear of a Facebook planet. In early 2011, CEO Larry Page announced that 25% of employees' bonuses would be tied to how the company performed in the social space. With that incentive in place, it was off the races to succeed in social, no matter the cost. Cost it did--in ways Google never expected.

Google's first step was the "+1" button. It seemed a fine idea, but Google's search algorithm was already the gold standard for providing highly valued and trusted search results. When Google decided the "+1" button should affect search engine rankings, it opened Pandora's Box.

SEO experts questioned if +1 could be used to manipulate search results, and their answer seemed to come from an article posted on Forbes.com entitled, “Stick Google Plus Buttons On Your Pages, Or Your Search Traffic Dies.”  After meeting with Google's ad team, author Kashmir Hill came to the conclusion declared in the article's title--sites had better implement "+1" or suffer the Google consequences. Suspicions were aroused when that piece suddenly disappeared from the Forbes web site without explanation.

Fears that Google's "+1" button might spark a new wave of black hat SEO tactics were validated by Stephen Colbert, of all people. The Comedy Central star took a cue from his 2006 Wikipedia stunt and urged fans to click a "+1" button on his fake Web site announcing his candidacy for the 2012 GOP nomination. Within days, the Google search for "GOP 2012" featured Colbert's site in the top position.

Google's search and social problems did not stop with the "+1" button. The launch of Google+ raised more questions about how Google's search results would be affected by activity on Google's social network. Within months, people who signed up but never or rarely used Google+ noticed that their G+ profiles appeared on Google's first page when they searched for their name; people questioned why their lightly-trafficked G+ profiles appeared in front of far more relevant links to their blogs, articles and more active social profiles.

These issues came to a head in 2014 when the DOJ filed an antitrust suit against Google. The blogosphere erupted when a popular tech blogger was called to testify. He often spoke of his close relationships with Google engineers, and he was probed about the information and opinions he posted on G+ and his blog. In one such post he stated, "I hope everyone leaves Google+. Why? ... If everyone left Google+ that would leave the best SEO technology out there to just, well, me. Which means my videos, blogs, and photos would appear higher on search than yours."

Asked if he was aware whether a share on Twitter or a public post on Facebook was less influential in Google's search results than a G+ post, the blogger confirmed that was his understanding. When he was asked if it made sense that Google+ shares counted more than shares on social networks that are substantially larger and more active, the blogger's attorney objected.

That question was never answered, but the damage was done. Between Colbert, the DOJ lawsuit and a host of criticism on social networks, the impervious Google began to look mortal. Bing began to chip away more at Google's search share, and with the 2013 launch of its first true search engine, Facebook's search queries soared. More important than stealing search volume from Google, both Bing and Facebook also stole search ad revenue.

The moral of the story seems clear in retrospect--don't be evil. That old and unofficial Google motto seems more relevant than ever. Attempting to leverage its strength in search to close the considerable lead others had in social wasn't the right thing to do for Google or its many users. It undermined trust in Google--once the most respected brand in the world, Google let its social ambitions get in the way of its commitment to users.

Of course, no one should count Google out. It is still among the largest tech brands in the world, and its OS runs more than 60% of the smartphones in the US. Google's early and somewhat disappointing work in serendipitous search back in 2013 is developing into a truly robust and powerful tool in 2015. A new alpha version of Google Me was demoed at SXSW last week and caused jaws to drop--watch for it on your Android phone before 2016.

Google has an advantage in the serendipitous search space but it also has real competition, even on its own mobile platform. Competitors range from enormous (Microsoft's Sense) to a small but interesting new startup out of Ev Williams and Biz Stone's incubator, Obvious Corp.

I am anxious to see where Google, Microsoft, Facebook and the latest slew of startups find themselves this time next year at SXSW 2016. Maybe by next year, the Google buzz won't be about the decline of search but about its driverless, autonomous vehicles. Rumors were rampant in advance of SXSW that Google would launch their next-generation vehicles as a taxi service at this year's conference. They were a no show in 2015, but SXSW 2016 is just twelve short months away!

As I've observed the hard sell for Google+ among social media professionals, I'm struck with how ill equipped the "experts" may be to evaluate new social media tools and to predict how they will spread into the masses. The problem is that the motivations, needs, wants, goals and experiences of social media pros are vastly different from a typical consumer--your mom, for example. As it turns out, the old adage is correct even in social media: Mother knows best.

To be sure, your mother's adoption of a social media tool is likely a lagging indicator; if you wait for most mothers to use a new social media site before you give it consideration, you'll probably already have missed a trend. However, when evaluating new tools, it's vital to focus on your mother's needs rather than the needs of early-adopting, big-name, influence-exerting, social media evangelists. What matters isn't that I, Jeremiah Owyang, or Chris Brogan love Google+ but whether G+ satisfies fundamental needs that your mom has.

Google+ is here to stay; in fact, I shared with my social media team at USAA that I expect before the end of the year we will be maintaining a presence and monitoring member needs on Google+, just as we do on Twitter and Facebook. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean I believe Google+ is poised to go mainstream as quickly as some are predicting.

Charts like this aren't inaccurate, just wildly misleading.

If you listen to some social media experts, you'd think Facebook and Twitter have one foot in the grave and are as old and tired as newspapers and telegrams. I've been dismayed, for example, that some social media pros are hyping wildly misleading charts that convey how Google+ is growing exponentially faster than Facebook or Twitter. Yes, Google has amassed a lot of users--it is, after all, the most visited site on the Internet--but if registered users are what matters, then MySpace's 180 million members still make it a major force in social media.


It isn't users that matter but usage, and there Google+'s early stats aren't nearly as impressive. Experian Hitwise noted that both traffic and users' average time dropped from one week to the next; a Bloomberg/YouGov study indicated Google+ could sign up fewer people in the next year than it did in its first six weeks;

Experian Hitwise notes that "Colleges & Cafes" are decreasing on G+ while "Kids & Cabernet" are rising.

and Experian Hitwise recently noted Google+ is already dropping among the youthful "Colleges and cafes" cohort, a group considered innovators. Says Experian Hitwise, "It's not uncommon for innovators to trial new services online and in some cases abandon those services when they lose interest." Innovators losing interest doesn't sound like a recipe for rapid mass adoption.

My expectation is that Google+ will be rapidly embraced within certain circles (no G+ pun intended) but it still doesn't meet my "mom test" for mass adoption. While social media pros have been quick to promote the wonders of Google+, I believe they are failing to remove their own biases from their evaluation. Here are five reasons social media professionals may be forgetting their moms in their rush to recommend Google+:

1. Social media professionals love the new; moms do not: Social media pros never meet a new site or tool that they don't love; their race to (and in some cases away from) Wave, Sidewiki, Digg, Izea, Triiibes, Hashable, Instagram, Quora, Flipbook and the like has been dizzying. Your mom is different--she simply isn't as interested in the new. She doesn't want to learn sparks, streams, circles and hangouts, and she doesn't have the time or patience to recreate her social graph in another tool. Facebook is just fine, thank you--it does everything it is supposed to by helping her keep in touch with her kids, high school friends and coworkers. For G+ to pull mom away from Facebook, Google's going to have to offer a lot more than Google+ currently does.
   
   
2. Social media professionals want more influence; moms do not: To social media pros, influence is a currency as real and desired as gold (even at $1,742 per ounce). They track it in Klout, trade it in Empire Avenue, and monitor it on the Ad Age Power 150. The barest hint that a new social tool may catch on is enough to send social media pros racing to establish a presence; heaven forbid someone get there first and amass a larger audience! But your mom has all the influence she needs and couldn't care less about the size of her social graph. She doesn't have any desire to be seen as an early adopter, and unless and until a significant portion of her friends (and not just her crazy early-adopting son or daughter) shifts to G+, your mom won't either.
   
   
3. Social media professionals travel in packs; moms do not: Do you know what it takes for Robert Scoble or Chris Brogan to build a healthy network in a new social network? They show up. These two well-known speakers and bloggers have large networks who want to stay connected, so when Scoble promotes his Google profile on his site and Brogan shuts down his Facebook profile with an "I have moved to G+" message, they can be assured a vibrant community will quickly develop on their new preferred social venue. But what happens when your mom tries to change social networks? Do all her siblings, her high school swim team and the members of her PTA group immediately follow in order to keep in touch? It's a very different (and much lonelier) experience for the average consumer to join a new social network. A mass shift may never occur from Facebook to Google+, but that is what it will take for most moms to change their social media habits.
   
   
4. Social media pros love to share everything with expansive and complex networks; moms do not: One of Google+'s most interesting features is Circles, which permits users to post messages only within specific networks or sub-networks of contacts. Social media professionals have enormous and complex networks containing thousands of people--they have different relationships with different sets of peers, influencers, coworkers, readers, clients, family and friends. And the promise that Google+ could make their Google calendar, email, or search results shareable is enough to cause social media pros to explode with glee. But your mom not only doesn't want to share her calendar, she's deeply suspicious of having her entire life that wired together. And while she certainly has different sets of relationships, your mother has nowhere near the same need to manage those different networks in unique and differentiated ways. It's okay that her high school friends see the pictures of her grandson or that her family sees a book she shares with her book club. Google+'s Circles suit people who care to manage complex networks of contacts, but your mom is just as happy to stick with the simpler if cruder sharing mechanisms of Facebook. (That said, I still expect Facebook to follow Google+'s lead and begin to offer more controls based on Friend lists.)
   
   
5. Social media pros hate Facebook; moms do not: I've never quite understood the level of disdain the people who make their livelihood from social media consulting have for the world's premier social network. The reason most often cited is that Facebook often violates users' privacy, but the list of entities that make money selling customer data is a huge one that encompasses credit card providers (though not USAA), cell phone services, cable TV, online ad networks, GPS device makers, supermarkets and even physicians. There is no doubt that Facebook has a vast image problem that it would be wise to take seriously, but mom simply doesn't share the same animus toward Facebook that is common among libertarian, open-source-loving, terms-and-conditions-reading early adopters. The irony of social media professionals leaping from Facebook to Google+ is that there is no indication Google will be any more open than is Facebook--after all, Google didn't become an $182-billion company by open-sourcing search and mobile platforms. 

Google+ will be important; it will be necessary; and eventually it may even become a true mass social medium; however, that will only happen when moms start making the switch and not just tech and social media professionals. I simply don't foresee that happening any time soon, no matter what some breathless chart of adoption statistics shows.

It is said that good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that could have been avoided if we had listened to our moms. It's time for social media pros to listen a little more to their mothers and a little less to each other.

In late 2009, Google released Wave, a real-time collaboration tool. A number of my social media friends rushed to test the platform, and many declared it amazing; one even announced she was leaving Twitter because tweets were dead and waves were the new hotness. I checked out Google Wave, scratched my head, and returned to Twitter, wondering what I missed and if I was being left behind. A year later, Google suspended Wave. Google+, the new social offering from Google, certainly shows a great deal more promise, but the results of a small survey conducted today suggest smart social media professionals will approach Google+ with more patience than the blogosphere might suggest.

The fact Wave failed to live up to the hype was not Google's fault. The company intended Wave as a collaboration tool and released it first only to developers; it was users who rushed in and rapidly declared it the next big social network. It is easy to see why that happened--social early adopters arrived en masse, immediately connected to one another; and found Wave was akin to an exciting party of like-minded individuals. In hyping Google Wave, early users mixed up cause and effect: they weren't social media pros who found a great social conversation tool; they found a great social conversation tool because they were social media pros.

I think Google+ will have a long life and will make a dent (or more) in Facebook and Twitter, but there is evidence social media addicts may be getting ahead of themselves. The Google+ hype is deafening. In recent days, Computerword's Mike Elgan declared many were replacing Facebook and Twitter with Google+ and Chris Brogan announced that Google+ was "the next big thing." (Perhaps we could close the Federal budget deficit by instituting a special tax on the phrase "next big thing"?)

Google itself added to the hype when CEO Larry Page said that Google+'s 10 million users were sharing 1 billion items every day. I'd love to know more about what is behind that number, because that is five times more sharing than occurs on Twitter with 2,000% more users and the same amount of sharing that occurs on Facebook with 7,500% more users.

To try to find out what the "man (and woman) on the street" are thinking about Google+, I today conducted a survey, promoted via my blog, Twitter and Facebook. While a survey of 137 people is somewhat less than scientific, there is reason to believe the folks who answered my one-question poll are very adept at social media. Google+ has less than 20 million registered users--a fraction of the social media population--but 93% of the survey respondents have already given Google+ a test drive. Here are the results:


What is your experience with Google+ thus far?

• I've not tried it and am not yet interested in doing so.   4%
• I've not tried it and would like to do so.  3%
• I've tried it but do not find myself using or checking it regularly.  57%
• I've tried it and it has become a regular place for me to share and connect.     32%
• I've tried it and it has replaced other social networking on sites like Facebook or Twitter. 4%

I love social media, but I am growing weary of the constant search for "the next big thing." In just the last six months or so, Quora, Hashable, Color, Instagram, Groupme, Daily Booth and Beluga have all been declared hot, new, must-have social tools. And now comes Google+, which some say is a Facebook killer and others claim is the end of Twitter. Stop the merry-go-round, I want to get off!

So much of the hype about new social tools is fueled by "influencers" who are able to influence others to try new things but not to adopt them. And some of these influencers bounce out of new tools as quickly as they enter; for example, Robert Scoble declared Quora the biggest blogging innovation in ten years, then changed his mind a month later. I give credit to anyone willing to declare, "I was totally wrong," but the constant rush to praise every new device, widget, app or site is getting exhausting.

Scoble is now hot on Google+, sharing his opinion of "how boring Twitter has gotten when compared to Google+." In his latest blog post he challenges readers to compare his Twitter account and Google Plus account and determine which is more engaging. To me the answer is easy: Twitter. Robert's Twitter page displays six discrete thoughts/tweets along with his bio above the fold, while his Google+ page has just two discrete thoughts along with one of his friend's comments. I am much more inclined to tweet a reply because I can quickly see, consume and understand more of Robert's content within Twitter than Google+. In fact, Google+'s interface is very similar to FriendFeed, and that site didn't hold my attention either (or anyone else's, for that matter.)

My point isn't to pick a bone with Robert. I've learned a great deal through the years by following him and appreciate people like Robert who can quickly test and share knowledge about new devices and sites. Still, there is more to a successful social tool or site than just a good idea, a set of appealing features and an attractive interface.

Google+ isn't a bold, innovative evolution in social media--it's Facebook with a dash of Twitter and an extra feature or two (and a couple missing).  Google+'s most appealing feature is Circles, which offers something that people have been asking of Facebook--the ability to direct posts to certain people in your network while omitting others. It is one important benefit Google has over Facebook. (It's puzzling Facebook failed to deliver this feature before Google beat them to the punch, and now that competition is heating up, watch for Facebook to expand upon the control it permits users based on friend lists.)

With Circles, Google+ may be a bit more appealing than Facebook, but don't forget Betamax was a great deal more appealing than VHS.  Beta offered better video resolution and lower noise--and it was crushed in the video format wars by VHS. In 1980, Beta owned 100% of the market, but a year later it was down to just 25% of the market. Its better quality couldn't overcome other problems relating to the length of tapes, the ability to view and edit home videos on video cameras, JVC's willingness to license VHS technology to other consumer electronics companies, and even Sony's refusal to permit pornography on Beta systems.

It will take more than just a somewhat better set of features to knock either Facebook or Twitter off their thrones. As I noted in an earlier blog post, we can expect Google+ to amass huge numbers of users, because those using the Google search engine or Gmail will be encouraged to register. But will people register and then neglect Google+, will they replace Facebook or Twitter with Google+, or will they do something in between?

There is room for multiple social networks, of course, and Google+ is likely to enjoy more success than Google's earlier attempts such as Orkut, Buzz and Wave. Still, with Facebookers spending 700 billion minutes per month on the social network and 2.5 million websites having integrated with Facebook (including 10,000 new websites every day), it's going to take more than Circles (or Hangouts and Sparks) for Google+ to yank a great deal of time, attention and engagement away from Facebook.

Like Robert, I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong, and perhaps I'll need to do so in six months or a year, but I predict many folks will give Google+ a test drive and most will remain with Facebook or Twitter as primary sources of social networking. Influencers will like that Google+ has the openness of Twitter with the threading capability of Facebook, so Google+ may become a key tool in the toolbox for social media and tech professionals. But for many others, Google+ won't be a replacement but yet another place to maintain a profile and check for social communications, and that may be one social network more than most people are willing to integrate into their lives.

What do you think?  Have you tried Google+ yet?  If not, are you interested in doing so?  Whether or not you've had a chance to test Google+, I'd love your opinions on a poll I posted:  What is your experience with Google+ thus far? Please click through and complete the one-question poll!

As a Forrester analyst, I used to hate the saying, "Figures lie and liars figure." Data accurately gathered does not lie, but data poorly analyzed or intentionally misrepresented can mislead. This thought has come to mind several times over recent weeks as I've read varying reports and interpretations of social media and business data. In the years to come, we will be awash in ever greater quantities of data and analysis, and it will be increasingly vital that we focus on what is truly important or else we'll lose sight of what matters.

Case in point: I recently saw a presentation that boldly stated that Groupon reached $1 billion faster than any other company in history. An eye-popping accomplishment to be sure, except Groupon's recent prospectus revealed it lost $420 million last year and $117 million in the first quarter of this year. Groupon may grow to achieve meaningful business success in the future, but reaching a billion dollars while losing half a billion isn't nearly as impressive as it first sounded, because revenue is important but net income is more important.

Another example was shared by a peer who saw a presentation by a social media consultant who claimed that "celebrities still dominate social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, while for the most part businesses haven’t been able to drum up much interest."  His evidence? Lady Gaga has 40 million "likes" on Facebook while MetLife only has 7,500. Are "likes" what is truly important, and do Gaga and Metlife have the same goals and audience? From Blendtec ("Will it Blend?") to Dave Carroll ("United Breaks Guitars") to Greenpeace ("Barbie, It's Over"), we've seen enough social media success from smaller players to recognize that there's a big difference between popularity and influence, "friends" and customers, followers and advocates and big fan pages and success. As for Gaga and MetLife, last year Gaga made $62 million while MetLife earned $2.7 billion, so while MetLife has room for improvement in social media, they really don't need to compare themselves to Gaga to evaluate their success.

And then there's Google+, Google's new social media offering. Some of the figures being bounced around are amazing--just weeks after its launch, Google+ is already poised to hit 10 million users and some are predicting it could hit 100 million users faster than any service in history. Google+ is clearly Google's most interesting social offering since it purchased YouTube, but are users the relevant metric for evaluating its success? For example, Google has long claimed its Latitude geolocation tool has more users than Foursquare, but you don't need to be a social media guru to know Foursquare has active and engaged users while Latitude users tend to "set it and forget it."

We can expect Google+ to sign up huge numbers of people; Google will be able to do so because of the incredible user base it has for Gmail, its search engine and other products. But the number of users won't determine Google+'s success; engagement will (because consumer engagement is what will draw marketing dollars). If and when Google+ makes a serious dent in the 1.3 million years consumers spend on Facebook each month, then it can claim success.

Steven Covey said "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." This adage could be applied to the business of social media where the wrong data and analysis can easily distract us from the main thing. Friends, followers, users and revenue are important, but they are not more important than meaningful engagement, customers, advocates and net income.

Note: The saying "Figures lie and liars figure" is a cynical twist on an older saying that has been misattributed to Mark Twain: "Figures don’t lie, but liars figure." You will find a wonderful exploration of the history of this phrase on the Quote Investigator blog.

I know it. You know it. There are people living in caves in remote deserts who know it. Google desperately wants a piece of the social pie. The winner of the Web 1.0 era continues to rock at 1.0 things (like search and advertising), but other than YouTube, Google hasn't been present in significant ways in the Web 2.0 world.

Someday, Google will be a major player in social discovery (watch the growth of the Android platform and keep in mind the idea of "serendipitous search" shared by Google Executive Chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt), but just like Wave, Google's "+1 button" is a step in the wrong direction.

There are many reasons the +1 button will not revolutionize the world. First, we already have widely adopted mechanisms for sharing Web content we like, such as Facebook "Likes," Tweets, and social bookmarking sites like Delicious. When we use these sharing tools, it makes our shares visible to many others, launches them into vibrant communities and creates dialog. What will clicking +1 do?  Less than that (at least into the foreseeable future). Given there are so many popular ways to share Web content that are already being used by the masses, there is no reason to believe Google's new button will be adopted by large numbers of people.

Secondly, until and unless +1 starts being embedded into sites across the Web, Google's +1 process is awkward and difficult. Consider how it would work: Users would see search results in Google's SERP (search engine results page), click something, navigate to a new page, enjoy the content, and then return to Google to click the +1 button next to those search results. How many of you would take the time to return to Google to click a +1 button?

Because that process is kludgey, the future of Google +1 depends not on people clicking buttons on Google's SERPs but on Google convincing site owners to embed +1 buttons throughout the Web. And why would they?  Google +1 will surely begin to appear in the list of options provided by sharing widgets like AddThis (although so far they aren't jumping on the bandwagon), but success for Google's new button absolutely requires it to be front and center, like Twitter and Facebook are on so many Web pages. For that to happen, Web site operators will need to see great benefits to outweigh the loss of screen real estate and cluttering their UI with yet another third-party logo. Unless and until Google can demonstrate mass adoption, web site owners are not likely to implement Google's new button.

Ultimately, my biggest concern is this: Does the +1 button create value for users in Google's fundamental offering--its search product?  After all, as Jeremiah Owyang points out to Google Watch, "Google solved the question of how to find info. Facebook solved the question of how we navigate the world. It's a different question."

The idea of socializing search is appealing to Google and others, but it is like "crossing the streams."  When I'm searching (as opposed to when I'm spending time with Facebook or Twitter), I want Google to surface information that is the most useful, not things other find "pretty cool" (as is stated in the very first sentence on Google's own +1 button page). And Google already has a way to know what you and I find most useful--our actual Web behaviors.

Put another way, what is the difference between the things you find useful and the things you think are "pretty cool"?  And which is more relevant to others when they are searching for specific information?  If someone wants or needs information on the Ford Mustang, Ford's own site is useful--it has specs, pictures and product features--but this movie scene of Steve McQueen chasing bad guys in his '68 Ford Mustang G.T.390 Fastback is cool. You are more likely to click the latter link now, but when searching for information on the Ford Mustang, you'll want the former link to be front and center on the SERP.

I vote -1 for Google's +1 button. It seems a distraction from Google's ultimate goal of serendipitous search. Then again, if I was a Google employee and 25% of my 2011 bonus depended upon the company's success in social media, I might be pretty desperate to deploy any and every social feature I could.

Google's +1 Button Video

Steve McQueen in Bullitt

Ghostbuster Crossing the Streams

Back in November, I wrote a blog post entitled, "Is Twitter Mainstream?" At the time, TechCrunch was speculating that Twitter was having its "hockey stick" moment--a point in time when traffic and popularity make an abrupt change that signifies a move into the mainstream. Five months ago, I felt it was premature to call Twitter mainstream, but now that moment has clearly arrived. The question is, can Twitter survive its own success?

First, let's explore the compelling evidence that Twitter has "made it":

• Oprah: One cannot underestimate the significance of Oprah, the reigning arbiter of all things mainstream. When she reads a book, it becomes a bestseller; when she acknowledges a diet plan, a million people suddenly start detoxing; and now Oprah is tweeting. The superstar made her first Tweet just two days ago and already she has 343,000 followers. According to UPI, more than 70,000 people signed up to Twitter just to see Oprah's first tweet. And if Oprah becomes addicted to Twitter like so many have--if she continues not just tweeting but talking about tweeting--you can bet newbies will continue to multiply.


• Number of Tweets: On AdamStiles.com you can find a graph that shows the growth in the number of tweets per day. (A similar chart can be found on Popacular's Gigatweet.) It took the better part of six months in 2008 for the daily average to rise from around 600k to 1M. Since the beginning of January, the average number of tweets per day has risen from 2M to 5M, and the rate of increase is not showing any sign of slowing yet. Of course, at some point in the future the rate of growth will decline, but by the end of 2009, the traffic on Twitter will likely be 10 to 20 times higher than it was just six months ago.


• Twitter is old: It is popular to think of Social Media participants as being teens and tweens, and some Web 2.0 sites and tools do skew quite youthful. But the demographics on Twitter are very mature (or, one might say, "mainstream.") According to CNET, the same percentage of Twitter users are between 55 and 64 as between 18 and 24. "In fact, the majority of Twitter users are 35 or older."
  

So while there may be no generally understood definition for "mainstream," I think it's apparent Twitter.com's time has arrived. The question is: Is Twitter ready for it? Anyone who uses Twitter is now very accustomed to seeing the "Fail Whale" that greets site visitors when Twitter is over capacity. Although the Fail Whale may have its own fan club, there is no denying the frustration Twitter users are experiencing on a regular and ongoing basis.

The troubling thing is that Twitter has never been all that stable. As Dan York wrote on his blog Disruptive Conversations, "It's getting increasingly hard to remain a Twitter fan." And he wrote that in May 2007!

It's not as if Twitter doesn't have any competition. Other micromedia sites such as Plurk and Identica would love a larger slice of the microblogging pie, but Twitter is swamping them. According to Compete.com, Identica and Twitter have had similar rates of growth in the past year, but Twitter has around 5,000 times more traffic.

Much like the iPhone, which is making headway against its mobile phone competitors thanks to the plethora of third-party apps available on the platform, Twitter's growth is being spurred in part by the third-party tools that use or hook into Twitter's system. I can't even count the number of Twitter apps and clients listed on the Twitter fan wiki, and every one of these applications creates new ways for users to access and create additional demands on Twitter's overtaxed backbone.

All of this popularity comes at a cost for an online service that famously still doesn't have a revenue plan. Some estimates put their burn rate at around $7.5M to $10M per year even before the latest surge of demand and traffic, and while Twitter has had no problem finding additional funds, investors cannot indefinitely bankroll Twitter's growth without an expectation of significant revenue . Even if Twitter is sold and becomes part of a larger publicly-owned entity (perhaps Google, as is rumored), their new owners will be obligated to produce positive cash flow and value for their shareholders.

What happens if Twitter waits too long to develop a revenue model or they fail to come to an agreement to be sold? Some seem to feel that "Twitter will never fail" and that "users will stick with it for better or worse". For them I have two words: SixDegrees and Friendster. Both were darlings of Social Media before the term was even in common usage.

SixDegrees.com was well ahead of it's time, operating from 1997 to 2001. It offered a service not unlike LinkedIn, permitting people to see how may degrees of separation they were from each other. At it's height, the service had one million registered members.

Friendster was launched in 2002. It, too, was ahead of it's time; MySpace wouldn't convert into a Social Network until 2004 and Facebook didn't open up to the non-student public until 2006. While Friendster is still kicking, it is but a shadow of its much larger siblings; Facebook receives around 7,000% more traffic than Friendster at the current time.

So the idea that Twitter has become too big to fail is ridiculous. (Twitter isn't BOA and won't get any TARP funds!) While we can only speculate at the scenarios that could cause Twitter to be added to the same dustbin of history as SixDegrees.com (or once soaring online businesses such as Pets.com, Webvan, or Flooz), possibilities include an eventual failure to find capital or a buyer.

A complete financial failure seems unlikely (and would certainly be more than a year or two off), but here's a more plausible, imminent, and disastrous scenario: Frustrated by constant latency and downtime, turned off by the arrival of a wave of Oprah newbies, and dubious of the mainstream popularity that has vaulted celebs such as Ryan Seacrest and John Mayer over tech and Social Media leaders, a couple key early adopters announce a shift to a different platform. What happens if the likes of Pete Cashmore, Michael Arrington, and Tim O'Reilly decide to endorse a more scalable and reliable platform to their 250,000+ followers? A scenario such as this would precipitate the kind of shift that MySpace--which just a year ago had twice as much traffic as Facebook and today has 40% less--would recognize.

Don't get me wrong--I very much hope Twitter succeeds--but I also lived through the dot-com bubble and subsequent crash, and the "growth is more important than revenue" mantra is one that causes me to flinch uncontrollably. A decade ago, some people argued that the Internet had somehow rewritten the rules of business and value creation. Those people lost a lot of other people's money; $5 trillion in market value evaporated from March 2000 to October 2002 as investor learned the hard way that the digital economy still required old-fashioned revenue and profit.

As a modestly early adopter of Twitter and a student and professional of Social Media, I am pleased to see the service grow into the mainstream. I just hope as 5M tweets a day becomes 10M or 20M that my one of my favorite communication tools doesn't rest on the mistaken belief that people are handcuffed to Twitter by their existing networks and will have infinite patience for cute Fail Whale images.

Few companies fail focusing on the needs of users and the user experience, but plenty have failed believing they can grow themselves to success!

I was quite disappointed to read about the report issued by Citi analyst Mark Mahaney suggesting Google exploit the "opportunity" to monetize site traffic by pushing display advertising on every page they serve on certain properties.

I am not a high-priced financial analyst, but I do know that Google has succeeded in historic proportions by doing exactly the opposite of what Mahaney recommends. While other search engines and sites pasted blinking display ads wherever they could, Google instead put itself into the position of being the preeminent provider of search services to consumers and search advertising to marketers by providing a clean, user-focused interface. Perhaps Mahaney would be well advised to look at how Yahoo and MSN, with their pages of display ads, are performing compared to Google.

Mahaney's calculations provide some interesting insight into how miserably display advertising is performing on the Internet. To calculate how much incremental revenue Google might earn with display advertising, he started by computing the estimated CPM (Cost per Thousand) of advertising on MySpace. His calculations show that display ads are commanding just $1.13 CPM. That strikes me less as a financial figure than an indictment of display ad value and effectiveness. The impact of display ads are so minuscule, and consumers are so immune to them, that each view of a banner ad is worth just one-tenth of one penny.

Mahaney forecasts that plastering display ads on YouTube, Google Maps, Google Images, and other Google properties could add $1 billion of additional revenue in 2009. That sounds like a lot, but Google's revenues were almost $17 billion last year.

Google won't turn up its nose at a possible revenue increase of 6%, but I'm sure they are assessing Mahaney's suggestion with great caution. I don't have access to Citi's report, but according to the info posted to TechCrunch, it appears that Mahaney did not consider the potential negative ramifications that could come if Google includes display ads on every YouTube, Map, and Images page:

• Will users abandon Google? On this blog, I've frequently mentioned how fickle Internet audiences can be. MySpace ruled the social media roost just a couple years ago, but once consumers perceived it was becoming too commercial they began an exodus to Facebook (which many feel is now becoming too commercial, as well).
  
  While today it's hard to imagine consumers abandoning YouTube or other Google properties, it isn't out of the question. Nor would it take a mass exodus to eviscerate Mahaney's proposed display ad strategy--if consumers begin to leave Google for other sites, Google could damage the commanding advantage it has in search advertising. Google shouldn't be too quick to kill the goose that laid the $16.6B golden egg in search of a mere $1B more. I question if Mahaney has fully investigated the potential risk of his proposed display ad strategy.
  

• What is the impact of so much advertising inventory entering the market? As noted, the CPMs for online ads are already quite a bit lower than they were in past years. What would be the impact of having Internet traffic giant Google enter the display ad market with an additional 1 trillion ad pages annually (725 billion for YouTube, 235 billion for Google Images, and 14 billion for Google maps)?
  
  According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, in 2007 display advertising revenues totaled $7.1 Billion. Mahaney is suggesting that new display ad opportunities could add $1 billion to Google's top line. So, it seems he is suggesting an expansion of total industry-wide display ad revenue of 14% in one year, and we can surmise this also means display ad supply will increase somewhere in the range of 14%. An increase this substantial in the supply of display ad inventory would exert even more downward pressure on CPMs, thus decreasing Google's potential gain.
  

I'd be disappointed to see Google significantly increase its display advertising in the coming year. I believe the company has greater and more profitable avenues to explore by offering consumers ever better tools and sites and advertisers more targeted ad opportunities. Google may find far more revenue than Mahaney is proposing by continuing to explore how it might revolutionize traditional ad media in the same way it has online advertising. And Google sees more opportunities for revenue and profit in the burgeoning mobile space.

More importantly, it seems to me Mahaney is neglecting to consider Google's brand. The company has always been respectful of its Web visitors and aware of how little value banner ads provide to either advertisers or to consumers. The sudden appearance of animated banner ads on a trillion Google pages doesn't strike me as congruent with Google's brand or their world vision.

Just a couple weeks ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt shared his view of how online advertising will work in the future. He said, "The advertising has to be more entertaining, more interesting, more immersive compared to what we have today." Citi's Mahaney is suggesting Google offer more of "what we have today" while Schmidt sees more experiential and welcome ways to market to consumers.

I predict Google will not embrace the Citi report's suggestion that they step backwards by pushing at consumers some of the least successful and least welcome online ad media; instead, I believe Google will find innovative ways, both online and off, to provide value to consumers and advertisers.

Here are some interesting XM and online marketing news items and links for your perusal:

• In a victory for Web companies that publish user-generated content, a federal appeals court ruled Friday that online classified service Craigslist isn't liable for discriminatory housing ads placed by users. The 7th Circuit held that the federal Communications Decency Act doesn't permit people to "sue the messenger just because the message reveals a third party's plan to engage in unlawful discrimination." This ruling could have a larger, positive impact on social media sites, which may be protected from legal damages stemming from the posts made by users.
  
  
• Mountain Dew continues to impress me with some bold and experimental moves online. A few months ago, the company jumped into the casual gaming waters with "Dewmocracy," which allowed players to create a new flavor of the soft drink. Now they're testing the "brandertainment" waters with an original Web series with a twist. The serialized action-adventure production from film writer-directors Shawn Papazian and Art Brown will allow viewers to alter the storyline by selecting from a menu of options after each episode that take the series in different creative directions. Of particular interest is that the brand says this will cost them less than a typical 30-second ad for Pepsi!
  
  
• Sports Illustrated is going to give sports buffs a gift: The magazine will unveil SI Vault, a new section within SI.com that will feature digitized archives of the magazine’s complete collection of content throughout its 54-year history. At launch, the online archive will feature 150,000 articles, 500,000 images and 2,800 covers--creating a site that is three times as large as SI.com, said officials. In addition, users will be able to “flip” through back issues of the magazine from 1954 - 1995 in their entirety, including all articles and ads as they originally appeared--using their mouse.
  
  
• Google's famous motto is "Don't be evil." That probably sounded great when the company was a couple of grad students starting the company at Standford, but what does that motto mean in a complex world of differing international standards? Guess we'll find out, because China has put Google in a tough spot. The Chinese government has blocked access to YouTube in that country after scores of clips showing violence between police and protesters were posted to the site. CNET asks, "What happens if China wants Google to begin self censoring videos or wants to know the names of the people who posted the clips of the Tibet violence?" Will Google do what it takes to succeed in the largest market in the world, or will it live its motto? (And if it "does evil," what happens to its brand in the US?) Stay tuned.
  

Silicon Valley Insider Henry Blodget produced an interesting evaluation of the 2007 ad revenues for 17 media companies. It demonstrates just how commanding Google has become in the ad business; not just the online ad business but the entire ad business.

According to Henry, online ad revenues increased $4B in 2007 compared to an increase in offline advertising of just $1B (among the major media companies he surveyed). Of note was that $2.7B of the online growth came from Google, which means that Google saw more than twice the ad growth of all of the offline media companies in the evaluation. That's a pretty impressive fact, considering his list of offline companies included Viacom, Time Warner, News Corp, New York Times, Gannett, Time, CBS, and Clear Channel.

These figures certainly confirm the marketing headlines we've seen lately about how dollars continue to shift from traditional media into online media. It is also no surprise to see Google domineering the online space; in fact, if there's a surprise about Google it is that they didn't command an even larger share of the online pie. As of December 2007, Google was receiving 58% of search volume but the ad revenue evaluation shows they are getting just 49% of ad revenue.

Some bloggers are noting that Google may continue it's amazing growth with the launch of the iPhone killer, the free phone operating system called Android. Personally, I'm not so convinced. For Google to continue to justify its $428 share price and 33 P/E ratio, it's going to need to find new ways to monetize search volume and site traffic.

I know better than to count Google out, but I do see some potential problems. First of all, there was a recent report that clicks on ads on Google were no longer growing, which may be due to any combination of reasons including Google's efforts to improve ad quality, the economy, or folks ignoring those ads and concentrating on organic search results.

Secondly, a large chunk of Google's revenue comes from their ad network, Adsense, which includes some high-quality sites but also seems to be increasingly filled with spam sites. This partnership with spammers could really bite Google in the ass if they don't act quickly. Advertisers won't pay to have their brands associated with spam, consumers will learn to ignore Google ads if they're associated with poor quality sites, and with concern growing among PPC (Pay Per Click) advertisers about click fraud, more attention will be paid in 2008 to the validity and quality of click traffic from Google's AdSense contextual program.

Lastly, while it's dangerous to doubt the geniuses at Google, they're claiming much of their revenue growth this year will come from monetizing YouTube. There's no doubt YouTube is a traffic monster, but there are legitimate questions if Web surfers will accept Google's plan to run ads in the corners of videos. This may work, or YouTube may find the famously fickle Internet audience turning to other video sites with less (or less obvious) advertising.

I'm not predicting doom and gloom for Google, but with so much money flowing out of TV and print advertising and into online advertising, advertisers are going to be demanding ever more original ways to grab attention, convey emotion, and communicate important brand attributes. Text ads such as those offered by Google have been the engine of online revenue growth for years, but with the bids on these ads topping out, money will be shifting to other forms of online advertising. Perhaps this money will go to YouTube or other Google ad vehicles, or perhaps the cash will go elsewhere.

What do you think? Will Google continue to grow and dominate the online ad business, or will social networks, virtual worlds, or some as-yet-unknown Internet trend unseat Google in the next few years?