It’s all about the money, well digital wallet actually
It is amazing to think that my son will have as hazy memories of cash as I do of ‘old money’, if the latest research from Paypal proves to be true. In the same way I can only really remember sixpences from the tooth fairy, by 2016 there will be no need for cash, credit cards or cheques on the high street. Paypal estimates that £2.5bn will go through as mobile retail payments in the UK that year and that will be just the beginning.
What is not quite so clear is whose digital wallet I will have in my pocket. Visa is the latest brand to come out punching with V.me – love the name – being launched a fortnight ago. Also out there fighting are other big financial players like American Express with Serve, MasterCard with its multiple collaborations strategy, the ‘disrupters’ such as Google (‘Google Wallet’), PayPal and Carphone Warehouse (Mobile Money Network) plus others perhaps yet to show their full hand (Amazon or Apple anyone?). There are also some interesting innovating start ups in the US to keep an eye out for: Square and Dwolla to name just two.
The individual mobile operators are trialling showcase projects with RIM/Telefonica announcing just last week a test project in Spain. But perhaps the more interesting news is that back in June major UK operators – Everything Everywhere, O2 and Vodafone – announced a joint venture (JV) to ‘bring together expertise and technology ’. The JV already needs to fight off an anti-trust complaint from 3. If this takes off, and means common standards, then this is good news all round. But if the intention is to deliver another rival system, we have a serious contender to add to the mêlée.
Whichever way this one goes, there is a titanic battle ahead. One thing you will quite quickly see is more partnerships as the above and more jostle for position. Who wins the fight for your virtual wallet will partly be based on relationships with retail (retailers simply can’t support them all) and partly on who wins the hearts and minds of the lovely digital generations. Making the service easy and perhaps more importantly, given the intention is for them all to be easy, delivering excellent digital customer service is going to be vital. Not something the finance industries are traditionally noted for.
At this stage there is all to play for. Watch this space.
Google+ for Business: Exploring the opportunities
Google+ now offers a social networking service for brands prompting thousands of businesses to set up profiles. However, to optimise brand exposure, businesses need to understand what differentiates Google+ from its competitors and tap into its full potential.
Although it looks quite similar to Facebook, there are some features which really set Google+ apart. One of the greatest advantages of the new social networking service is its integration with Google Search. Google Search provides brands with exposure to a search base allowing access to reportedly 50% of global websites. Furthermore Google+ enables brands to streamline social media content easily across multiple platforms including Android, Google Chrome and YouTube. This could offer exciting opportunities to businesses to improve audience engagement and explore innovative ways to create and distribute marketing content.
To make its service more appealing to brands, Google+ launched its Direct Connect feature, which makes it simple for users to find and follow brands on Google+ by just typing a “+” sign in front of the name of the brand on Google Search. Another step towards strengthening the integration with Google’s search engine is the brand verification procedure at the initial registration stage. As Google+ permits the registration of multiple users with one brand name, it allows organisations to appear at the top of the search results by verifying their brand identity and linking their profiles to the company website.
As Google+ is looking to further integrate with the rest of Google’s products, the appearance of the website and its features are going to change. At the CrushIQ conference this week, Google’s spokespeople announced that they were planning to integrate Google+ with AdWords and enable multiple administrators to handle the brand pages on the website.
A further integration with products like Google Shopping and Places could open exciting opportunities for brands and advertisers to deliver micro targeted campaigns based on users’ interests, location and shopping habits. This has huge potential for brands. Furthermore they will be able to tap into Google+ features such as Circles and Hangouts to segment their Google+ followers and create targeted campaigns for engagement.
However, as social networking websites emerge almost on daily basis, a question is beckoning of how many social media profiles users can tolerate? With 40 million users worldwide Google+ is still far behind Facebook and Twitter in terms of popularity among brands and consumers.
To expand its reach, Google+ have to differentiate itself from its competitors and get the most of its integration with Google’s products to create an innovative, intelligent and pervasive social media product.
Do you eat your own cooking?
The old adage that you should ‘never trust a chef that doesn’t eat his own cooking’, or in fact a ‘skinny chef’, is due an update in my opinion. With the rise of celebrity chefs, a nation obsessed with obesity and the dubious contents of the McDonalds secret sauce – it just doesn’t make sense in the 21st Century.
So what would be today’s equivalent? Based on the recent news surrounding Google+ the phrase ‘never join a social network where even the management aren’t even members’ could catch on.
Last week, 3 months after its launch, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has finally gotten the message and joined Google+. I understand he’s an extremely busy man, he’s running one of the biggest companies in the world and retweeting Ivanka Trump’s promotion of “Snow Flower & The Secret Fan”, but surely someone might have mentioned it?
However, the fact is that most of Google’s management team aren’t much better. Only 3 of the 12 people listed on Management Team page have ever posted on Google+ since launch, with a total of just 29 posts ever and only 6 in September.
With a recent press release from the company stating the social network has over 40 million users, perhaps the company doesn’t believe a few rogue management users will make much difference, and yet a rogue software engineer could.
Steve Yegge, a Google Software Engineer, recently hit the headlines after describing the site as “a knee-jerk reaction” and “a pathetic afterthought.” Only certain members were meant to be able to view the post, using Google+’s Circles feature, but it instead ended up going out for the whole world to read, showing even employees are struggling to figure out how to use the service.
With recent research showing that activity levels are on a continued downward trend, the newest social network contender needs all the help it can get as it continues to force its way on the agenda.
The Importance of Evolution in Social Media
Last week the news agenda was dominated by the announcements from Facebook’s F8 conference – changes for the social network were coming. True to the rumours, Facebook played along with the script and showcased a number of big changes to the site (here), all designed to give more functionality to the user.
These changes are aesthetic – more options with pictures and video, or functional like the integration of Spotify – the background to these changes is a little more crucial to the longevity of Facebook. The tech world doesn’t stand still and if you’re a brand or service that rests on your laurels then you’ll be left on the tech scrapheap a la MySpace (remember that?).
These changes are much more important to Facebook than just making it look pretty. It needed to deliver additional functionality in a space where content and engagement is critical. The launch of Google+ earlier this year shows that users are willing to try something different. While Google+ is an unknown quantity for the moment, as consumers and brands try to work out how to use its tools for the best benefit, the huge numbers of users flocking to the site (over 43 million users at the last count) must have been a worry to Facebook. Now that it’s a free to join, rather than invite-only, must concern Mr Zuckerberg furthermore.
Facebook’s answer is to evolve. It needs to provide users with what they currently want right now – a highly usable and function social media platform, but also deliver the features they will utilise and use increasing more in the future (integration of music, new apps etc). Twitter is also set to play a big part in the way the social media landscape will settle, but for the moment is watching on as the other two big guns slog it out. It’s going to be an interesting battle, where the ultimate winner is going to be the consumer as the platforms fight it out for their digital loyalty.
Is Twitter just Reuters of the Digital Age?
An interesting article appeared in Gigaom a couple of weeks ago on how Twitter is developing compared to other social network sites. They argue it’s hard to have a conversation on Twitter – therefore it’s not a social media network but more of a news communications tool – I tend to agree. Whether it’s news being shared between particular communities all with something in common or a big news story breaker – it provides latest information in a sound bite way. If you try to hold a conversation on Twitter, you quickly give up as the number of characters simply doesn’t allow for it. So it’s not really a conversation tool, Twitter’s more about sharing points and latest info. It allows users to send information quickly to a large group of followers whether those followers are looking for personal updates or details about a news event like the earthquake in Japan.
Quite rightly Gigaom asks is Twitter in reality the Thomson Reuters of the digital age providing an information service that advertisers and knowledge workers are willing to pay substantial sums for. I think it’s more interesting than that, but we shall see.
