February 28, 2011

New York Times Says Blogging is Dying. Oh, OK.

So, the New York Times put out a story saying blogging is waning because the youth of America is turning to Facebook and Twitter.

The idea of blogs going the way of the dinosaurs is just as ridiculous as the newspapers starting to make a profit again off print. Sorry, couldn’t resist ; ) In another textbook example of why newspaper companies are losing money, among others,  is because there’s too many times they report on subjects they know nothing about.

If people at the New York Times were really as smart as people think they are, the story should have been titled “Email Wanes as the Young Drift to Facebook.” First of all, Facebook dwarfs Twitter in traffic. Twitter shouldn’t even be part of the discussion next to Facebook. Facebook has close to 150 million users who use the site at least once a month in the US. Twitter has close to 16 million.

The 2nd main part the NY Times is missing is that the youth are using Facebook over email. Not blogging. Teenagers and college age people are not using email as much to communicate because they are on Facebook way more. Not true for people over age 30, but for the under 30’s, yes. The Under 30’s were never using blogs to communicate.  Blogs are for people who want content. Knowledge. Facebook and Twitter can give you a headline or a link but that’s about it. It’s not that complicated to understand.

Facebook and Twitter are used for communication. People go to Facebook to see how their friends are doing. But if they want information on how to do something like get on the 1st page of Google, you’re not going to be able to articulate it in 240-140 characters.

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February 28, 2011

52% of People Stop Using Twitter Because It’s “Pointless”

According to ExactTarget, 52% of people who’ve left Twitter and no longer use it, said they stopped “because it was pointless.” That’s a pretty strong rebuke. Primarily, the problem Twitter has is that everybody is on Facebook and only some people are on Twitter.

Twitter has close to 16 million people in the US who use it at least once a month. Facebook has close to 150 million. Twitter and Facbook are mostly tools to communicate and socialize. If the people who you want to communicate and socialize with aren’t using Twitter, there’s no reason for you to either.

The reason why people started using email is because after a few years, everyone gradually got on it and used it. That’s what makes email important. The number of people who use it.

Twitter will not be universally relevant until their user base increases dramatically.

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February 28, 2011

Bing Says 50% of Restaurant Searches Come From Mobile

Bing says 50% of restaurant searches are from mobile devices. If there’s any restaurant that doesn’t have a mobile-version of their website, they are seriously missing out. Like missing 50% of potential website traffic-missing out.

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February 28, 2011

Netflix Has A Real Big Problem With Amazon

Amazon is starting to get into Netflix’s business of offering online streaming of select TV shows and movies. No big deal, right? Only a matter of time before Netflix would have some serious competition. But actually, Netflix does have a really big problem on it’s hands.

Paid Content is reporting that Netflix outsources a huge portion of its operations to a division of Amazon called Amazon Web Services. AWS became a Netflix vendor in 2009, and has taken on an increasingly larger role in managing the “majority of our computing,” according to the 10-K SEC filing Netflix submitted.

The filing also states, “Given this, along with the fact that we cannot easily switch our AWS operations to another cloud provider, any disruption of or interference with our use of AWS would impact our operations and our business would be adversely impacted.” Doesn’t sound good on Netflix’s end.

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68.2% of U.S. Internet Users Watch Video Online

68.2% or 158.1 million people in the United States will watch online video at least once a month according to Emarketer. It’s another sign that online video is something small business needs to start taking a close look at.

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February 28, 2011

It’s Too Easy To Damage Reputations Online

It’s getting too easy to damage someone’s reputation online. For an example of what i’m talking about, check out this story of a woman scorned serving a cold dish of revenge to her ex.

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2 Screen Cell Phone! Sweet!

Sprint has a brand new “dual-screen” phone coming out called the Echo. It also folds over into a tablet like the ipad. Pretty innovative stuff from Sprint. Here’s hoping other manufacturers follow suit. There’s probably many multi-tasking opportunities to be had!

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Where Small Business Is Marketing Online

The following list is from a survey done by MerchantCircle on where small businesses are spending marketing dollars this year:

Facebook – 70.3%
Google – 66.2%
LinkedIn – 58.2%
Google Places – 51.4%
Yahoo – 49.2%
Yahoo Local – 45%
Twitter – 39.8%
Citysearch – 39.7%
Yellowbook – 39.3%
Superpages.com – 33.3%
Bing – 33.2%
Yelp – 32.2%
Facebook Places – 32.2%
YouTube – 26.8%
YP.com – 25.6%
Ask.com – 19.9%
MySpace – 19.2%
Foursquare – 8.7%
Groupon – 6.6%
LivingSocial – 5%
Gowalla – 3.4%
Bizzy – 2.5%

Google is not surprising, but Facebook and LinkedIn being #1 and #3 is. At least to me. My guess is that entrepreneurs hear about social media and figure “Why not? It’s Free.” From my experience though, most small businesses that have these social profiles set them up and let them sit there, hoping people automatically find it and call them. I hope word gets out that you need to actively use it and engage people for the whole thing to work. Social media marketing is not like the phone book where you stick an ad in and people call.

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Are You Ready For Internet Metering???

Yes, there wasn’t a typo in the subject title. Metering, not marketing. Metering, as in paying for internet based on consumption. Sounds great, right?! : )

As of right now there some muckity mucks in washington, more specifically the FCC, are toying around with the idea of having internet service providers charge based on how much content you download on the internet. Like, under a certain plan, you’d have a 20 GB limit per month. Doesn’t sound too bad until you think of the file size of online video (a high-def movie online can take up to 2-3 GB). So the basic premise is the more online video or music or other files you download or play, the more your internet will cost.

For those reading this, skeptical that something like this would take place, you need to look no further than north of the border. That’s right, this experiment has just been tried in Canada and boy, was it not pretty. The Calgary Herald reports that there have been over 220,000 signatures on a petition to reverse the internet metering. The article mentions a graphic designer who does freelance work professionally having to download large files everyday for his customers, finding his internet bill $34 higher than usual.

In the defense of the service providers, they’re in a scrambling sort of mode right now. Things were fine for them back when watching video online was a rarity, but now that video streaming has gone mainstream, they have a problem with dramatically higher bandwidth costs. And how do you charge more for the higher cost when you have a chunk of people who watch a ton of video versus those who use the internet sparingly. That’s the root of the problem.

Call me captain obvious, but my conclusion is that people loathe bills that have different prices every month for reasons beyond their understanding. I’m hoping that the service providers can take an average and charge a fair, fixed monthly price, without the government getting involved.

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Yes, They’re Going To Shop Around

Now, before i really get going on this post, I’m going preface by saying that i know nothing about cars. I have no clue how to change the oil. I know almost absolutely nothing about science. If you asked me what a proton or neutron was, I’d give you a look similar to a deer in the headlights. So…. I’m not a car guy. I’m not a scientist.

Another bit of information that’s come to my attention is that not all small business owners are salesmen.

The last few months, I’ve been more and more surprised by how some of our clients react to the phone call leads that we’ve been sending them. And the thing it always comes back to is our client’s disdain for the fact that the people we’re marketing to shop around. Mostly, i think this comes because the vast, vast majority of small business’ revenue comes from referrals and “word of mouth”. Or maybe it’s something else. Whatever the case, entrepreneurs need to be prepared to sell when people call. Or at least hire a professional sales rep who can’t handle the calls.

Talking with one of our web designers earlier, he was telling me about his experience looking for locksmiths. He needed to get a couple keys made. The first company he called quoted him $100 for the job and to the web designer, that was surprising, so he said thanks and called the next locksmith he could find hoping that there would be someone else out there with a better price. And sure enough on call #4 he found someone that was willing to do it for $70.

My main point is that if 10 calls come in from people you have no relationship with and they’re interested in your service, there are some companies out there that convert 7 sales out of the 10 calls. For entrepreneurs that are hoping to just get 1 or 2 sales out of 10 calls, maybe it’s time to think about your sales strategy and if there’s anyway you can improve what you or your sales rep is saying to increase sales. The only thing that’s more valuable than receiving more leads is converting more of the leads you already have into sales.

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