International Digital Marketing

Facebook has a lot to prove. The much hyped Facebook IPO turned to be a fiasco, as the company and bankers evaluated the social network to be worth $100 billion while investors did not. Despite the little peak ($45 share) during the launch on May 18^th 2012,  the Facebook share price has dropped from the opening price of $38 to about $28 this morning.

So, what went wrong?

Too high and optimistic expectations

First of all, let’s look at the numbers. There is an impressive quantity of users in Facebook and the social network has been predicted to reach billion users this year. But does it justify that Facebook was being valued at almost 100 times last year’s profits? This is much higher than tech companies Apple and Google, who in fact make much more money.

In addition to above, in February 2012 Facebook admitted that it did “not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue” from mobile even if more than 425 million monthly active users, representing 50% of the total MAUs, were utilizing its mobile products in December 2011. This has serious implications, which probably were not bypassed by the investors.

What comes to the launch itself, there were too many shares in the market. Also it did not help either that Facebook insiders, such as Facebook board member Peter Thiel, increased the amount of shares they wanted to sell. This raised suspicions – what did they know, that normal public did not?

Is it time to make Facebook users pay?

Facebook has launched a test in New Zealand to see whether it would be possible to make profit also with the users. According to CNET, the social media platform has recently tested out a new service that permits users to make their status updates more prominent in exchange for some money. The new service works like the premium ads to businesses. By paying $1.80 New Zealand dollars ($1.42 U.S. dollars), Facebook users can promote their status update and assure it remains in their friend’s news feed.

If this business model would result successful, Facebook could possibly make a nice profit and gain investors’ trust back. As the user’s friend base, likes, groups, and applications grow, user’s status updates are likely to get lost in the middle of it all. Facebook users also love friends’ “likes” and comments, especially if we are talking about top influencers, and sometimes they have something important to say that is worth highlighting, such as a lost mobile or an item on sale.

On the other hand, the hidden/not seen status updates are mainly caused by Facebook’s own features, issues and sorting algorithm, that sets up the top stories as default and makes everything very cluttered. It highlights stories such as the games people play, music they listen to, apps they use and articles they read – and do not forget to add the brand communications and ads on top. The social media platform has already been pushing its luck, and it is to be seen if this will provoke users to leave the site.

To be honest, I am interested to see how this works out and what users’ reaction will be. How important showing status update is for users? How much are they ready to pay to be “liked”? And if they are ready to pay to be “liked”, are they ready to pay to access the platform in the future? Maybe this is just the first step towards a Facebook membership fee.

With more than 425 million monthly active users utilizing Facebook mobile products in December 2011 only, the social networking platform is finally focusing on mobile and tablets in 2012. Wise decision, since not only Smartphone market is increasing, but according to a research by BI Intelligence global tablet sales will reach 500 million units per year by 2015 – exceeding the number of PCs currently sold per year (~360 million).

Facebook has mentioned that as part of its mobile monetisation strategy it will start using “sponsored stories” in mobile users news feed. But is that really all?

Facebook – more than a simple platform

Until now Facebook has been focusing on normal web strategy and constant updates that seem to make its users’ life more difficult. But hate Facebook or not, the social network is becoming much more than just a platform. Facebook is on its way to become its own Internet portal by using Facebook IDs as an online passport to various products and services hosted on its own developer platform.

Facebook’s inter-connected business model has worked well and the company has created its own successful ecosystem. The social network has made great progress especially with social gaming, and its close relationship with Zynga (FarmVille, Mafia Wars) has been very beneficial for both.  F-commerce is also blooming with companies trying to get more touchable return on their social media investment and Facebook has even launched its own online virtual currency called Facebook credits. They allow Facebook developers to offer in-app purchases with Facebook cutting 30% of the revenue. A similar model Apple uses in its App store.

Facebook mobile monetisation strategy

Now there is the problem. Facebook needs to establish a proper mobile monetisation strategy, yet the native app store model is very restrictive. For example, Apple takes off 30% revenue of the apps sold, and insists on maintaining control of the iOS payments process. This means that Facebook cannot take advantage of ‘in-apps payments’: a revenue generated by its current ecosystem.

What comes to f-commerce, according to a study by Shopatron, most of the tablet owners find shopping with the tablet engaging, and the conversion rate from tablets is much higher than conversion rate from mobiles or even PCs. If Facebook wants to expand its F-commerce business, it needs to offer companies a way to create a tablet optimized social shopping experience, and lure them away from iPad apps.

Will Facebook abandon App store?

Probably not. The social network is not likely to ditch the existing native apps, because they already have a large user base and work well with the different OS. However, Facebook has a team (so called Project Spartan) playing with HTML5 technology, which is a coding language that allows companies to develop one mobile / tablet app that is suitable for any device or operating system. According to a research firm Strategy Analytics, 1 billion HTML5 compatible phones are to be shipped in 2013(up from 336 million in 2011), which brings interesting possibilities.

If the company starts creating its own apps without registration fees and payment restrictions, it is free to monetise via Facebook Credit and in-apps payments. Quite a significant move, since if Facebook starts developing HTML5 apps many companies and its partners are likely to follow. Which certainly will not make Apple happy.

We will see. There are many other possibilities for Facebook in mobile space, such as augmented reality with facial recognition, and the company also needs to consider very well whether it is worth making another powerful enemy, especially when iPad3 is coming up. If Facebook starts competing with Apple’s App store, their relationship status is likely to become “complicated”.

Ever dreamed of an app that works in all devices and operating systems? Creating a mobile app requires investment and resources, but with increasing number of players in the mobile space, app development has become even more complicated and expensive. Instead of one iPhone app, you need to decide whether you will also develop the same app for other operating systems, such as fragmented Android and emerging Windows OS.

But there is hope. HTML5.

New technology with increasing potential

According to Michael Mullany, VP of marketing and products at Sencha, already 95% of the functionality of native apps is being delivered by HTML5, and the new technology will emerge competitive on just about every level within two years. Meanwhile, research firm Strategy Analytics forecasts 1 billion HTML5 compatible phones to be shipped in 2013 (up from 336 million in 2011), which has provoked interest among big players such as Facebook and Google.

In addition, Financial Times surprised the market last year by withdrawing FT iPhone app completely from App store, and creating its own HTML5 app instead. Within only few months FT managed to migrate 1 million of its mobile users from its native mobile app to the browser-based version. Currently 20% of total page views and 15% of new B2C subscriptions are coming directly from mobile and tablet devices. Quite impressive.

What is an HTML5 app?

HTML5, also called “the flash killer”, means a fifth generation of coding language that is used to create web pages. It gets to bypass phone’s hidden components that in the past have forced developers to create a specific app for each OS. This means that instead of creating various versions of the apps for different OS and devices (iPhone OS, Android, Windows…), by using HTML5 companies are able to develop one mobile / tablet app that is suitable for any device or operating system.

HTML5 app benefits and challenges

Main benefits: cost savings and accessibility. Besides huge savings on mobile / tablet app development costs, you are not restricted by terms and conditions and do not require anyone’s permission to distribute an HTML5 app. It means that there is no 30% cut of app revenue, which happens with apps sold via native platforms. HTML5 apps are also searchable by search engines such as Google, which expands their reach beyond native app stores such as Apple’s App store and Google’s Android market.

Main web and mobile browsers support HTML5 and most of its features are able to run on low-powered devices such as smartphones and tablets. However, even if HTML5 has been improving fast there are still some limitations such as speed, access to certain phone features such as Bluetooth, and inability to handle the intensity of graphics performance for maps and fast-moving games as well as native app. What also is required for HTML5 to really kick off is an effective distribution channel for the HTML5 apps, user feedback system, and simple and secure payment channel. In general, quality of the apps may also not be up to same standard if there is no central quality control.

Should our business invest in native or HTML5 apps?

If the aim is to develop a graphic fast-moving game or location-based app using maps – maybe not. If the aim is to develop an engaging mobile app that does not require necessarily fast internet connection, HTML5 apps can make life less complicated. Instead of a long process of creating, testing and approving many versions of the native app for different operation systems, company can concentrate on one mobile app that is suitable for most of the devices. This allows us to invest more time and resources in something more important, such as building a proper mobile strategy, instead of running around like headless chickens focusing on small details instead of the big picture.

To be honest. If we have a possibility to produce something that most of the people can access while making considerable time and cost savings – shouldn’t we?

It took a while, but Facebook has finally – at least officially – identified mobile as “critical to maintaining user growth and engagement over the long term.” The global social media platform acknowledged that users are moving from PCs towards mobile Facebook access, and admitted that “if we are unable to successfully implement monetisation strategies for our mobile users, our revenue and financial results may be negatively affected.”

 Growing International mobile advertising market

 According to experts, global mobile advertising market is experiencing an annual growth rate of 64% and is expected to reach 17.6 billion US dollars by 2015. This might be the main reason, instead of the user engagement, why the social networking company is so interested in mobile market. In fact, Facebook’s biggest revenue channel is advertising, generating 85% of sales in 2011. To put it in perspective, Facebook’s revenue accounted for 3.71 billion US dollars in 2011.

Surprisingly, Facebook is not currently generating profit directly through the Facebook mobile products and it has not been advertising via mobile. The social media company revealed that this is going to change and that they “may have potential future monetisation opportunities such as the inclusion of sponsored stories in users’ mobile News Feeds.” I am not sure how the Facebook users are going to react, but users’ reaction seems to be one of platform’s smallest concerns, especially taking in account the recent changes, privacy issues and the polemic regarding the timeline.

 Global Facebook mobile usage

 But how many users are currently accessing Facebook via mobile? According to Facebook, more than 425 million monthly active users (MAU) were utilizing its mobile products in December 2011. This has great significance since in total the platform has 845 million monthly active users and it seems unbelievable that the social networking company has not realized until now the potential mobile marketing has.

Company is forecasting the mobile user rate to grow even faster than the MAU, which has been increasing annually 39%. This may very well be possible. According to a recent ComScore study, 55.1 million European mobile users accessed social networks or blogs via mobile devices in September 2011 only, representing 23.5% of the total mobile audience. Not only did the mobile social media usage nearly double, but 47% of the users accessed social networks and blogs daily.

Challenging global mobile market

 Facebook might have a strong position in International online market, yet the global mobile market is full of competitors and challenges. The social networking company admitted that it is dependent on different mobile operating systems they do not control, such as iPhone OS, Windows OS and of course … Google’s Android.

 Until recently we were experiencing Apple smartphone domination, yet things are changing. Industry analysts are predicting that Windows Phone will increase its market share up to 16.7% by 2015, while Apple’s market share will decrease from 18% percent to 16.6% by 2015. Meanwhile Android is expected to grow from 47.4% to 58.1% by 2015.

 There are several reasons for the change. One is Nokia’s powerful partnership with Microsoft, which has resulted for example in a successful Lumia mobile. Other is Android’s massive volume of devices. Even if the Android OS is fragmented and constantly changing, Apple takes its time to launch a new expensive new iPhone / iPad, while hundreds of Android powered mobiles arrive in stores across the globe in a year … and with a cheap price.

Facebook / Apple mobile partnership?

Facebook has a problem. It is planning to step into the mobile game, however its 425 million MAUs have already an existing Facebook app, there are many competitors in location-based services, social networks, games and deals, and the social networking company does not have any control over mobile OS. Apple on the other hand is losing its market share rapidly while Android OS is growing fast.

One interesting possibility the two companies have is augmented reality. According to Juniper, by 2015 global revenues from AR will reach 1.5 billion dollars. ABI Research estimated that even if in 2010 revenue from Augmented reality was only 21 million dollars, amount might very well increase to 3 billion dollars by 2016. But it gets better: AIB claims that revenues related to Augmented reality will increase from 6 million dollars in 2009 to more than 3.5 billion dollars in 2014 – which signifies a yearly growth of 97%.

What this has to do with Apple and Facebook? Apple has acquired recently Polar Rose, a company which has created facial recognition software and other elements that enable the “automatic creation of events based on visual cues in images.” This brings enormous possibilities in social networking area, which should interest Facebook. Apple has the iPhone OS and technology, and Facebook its Facebook Places and large user base perfect for the newly acquired facial recognition. If these two companies join forces they can very well have a chance to compete with Google. Actually these two combined could possibly even be very, very dangerous for Google.

Facebook and Google do not like each other. Apple and Google do not like each other. What would be a better partnership than ganging against a common enemy?

Google+ with user base of over 40 million people and growing has finally opened the doors for businesses. Since the launch there has been a lot of speculation whether Google would keep its promise to create business pages for brands and finally the wait is over. The launch of Google+ pages enables brands to connect with customers and fans while improving their search ranking as well as SEO campaigns.

A couple of brand pages are already available, including +Angry Birds, +Pepsi, +Toyota and +Barcelona Football club (you can create your own Google+ page here). If you already have played with your personal Google+ profile, the features Google+ page offers are familiar. For example, the page works through the Google+ mobile app, your brand can have live video conversations with the customers or fans, and you can place people in different circles – a feature which enables you to target better.

However, there are certain differences: brand page cannot send messages to a user who has not added them yet in their circle and the content on a Google+ page defaults to public (unlike personal profiles). Pages also cannot share with extended circles.

Google+ demographics

But who actually uses Google+? According to a Comscore study, Google+ has currently over 40 million users and 20 million active visitors across the world.

Top Google+ 10 countries:

• US: 5.31 million
• India: 2.85 million
• U.K: 0.87 million
• Canada: 0.86 million
• Germany: 0.71 million
• Brazil: 0.62 million
• Taiwan: 0.52 million
• France: 0.5 million
• Turkey: 0.37 million
• Spain: 0.37 million:

Unique visitors in Google+ are in average between 25-34-years-old. The Google+ audience tends to be more affluent, 54% earning a household income of $30k and over, and 12% earning $150k and up. 72% of the Google+ population is male and 78% of the professions in top 100 list consists of different developers, engineers and designers.

But despite the very interesting user base, is it really worth creating yet another social network page, even if it is Google+?

Google+ page benefits for brands

Besides of being an additional channel for user engagement, Google+ page allows you to have a different conversation with different circles increasing the effectiveness and relevancy of your message. With pages people are as well able to recommend a brand, not only separate sites, articles or ads.

What comes to the SEO,+1 recommendations have a positive effect in search ranking as well as search and display ads increasing their performance. Also, not only does Google include Google+ pages in search results, but it also is experimenting with a feature called Direct Connect. The latter enables user to navigate quickly to a brand Google+ page via typing + and the brand name. For example, if the user searches for +angry birds or +youtube he will be taken directly to the Angry Birds or Youtube Google+ page and he has a possibility to add the page to his circle. To become eligible for Direct Connect, Google suggests linking from your Google+ page to your homepage and vice versa. This also allows Google to determine your site relevancy in normal search, which means your pages are likely to index faster and have a better ranking than competitor pages without Google+.

Google+ replacing Facebook?

Once Google+ was launched I was playing with the possibility of Google+ threatening Facebook. 40 million and growing is still far away from the 800 million Facebook users, however it seems like influencers might be leaving Facebook.

Improved SEO and power influencers? Sounds good to me.

“Our goal with Google+ is to make sharing on the web like sharing in real life, as well as to improve the overall Google experience. Circles let you choose with precision who you are sharing with. Not surprisingly this has been very well received, because in real life, we share different things with different people.”

Larry Page, CEO, Google

Google+, the new social networking service by Google, has already 10 million registrations two weeks after its launch even if it is invite only. Google +1 button itself was available since early June and its adoption rate is leaving Twitter behind. According to a study by BrightEdge, 4.5% of the analyzed sites have adopted the Google +1 plugin while Twitter Share was only adopted by 2.1% and Twitter Instant Follow by 1.3%.

Facebook still has a stronger presence than its competitors. Facebook like button was adopted by 10.8%, Like box 6.1%, Facebook connect 1.9% and Facebook Recommendations 1.2%.

What makes all this even more interesting is that the partnership between Google and Twitter allowing Google to integrate tweets into search results expired and it has not been renewed yet.

How to use Google+?

I discovered a very nice Google+ cheat sheet with small instructions on how to use the platform:

How does Google+ impact marketing and SEO?

Google owns 90% of the global search market and it is very important to appear high in the search results. Logically Google ranks higher the pages that feature +1 recommendations and +1 also appears both in the paid and natural listings. As with Facebook like button, +1 is a social proof the content is worth seeing and sharing, and more recommendations you have more likely users are going to click your page. Adding +1 button across your site will encourage content sharing and improve your ranking in Google. You are able to get the native button code here.

Please note that it only works in search for users who have their Google profile switched on at that moment, yet +1 buttons are visible in websites, logged in or not.

Google+ also has a mobile app for Android, iPhone OS, Nokia/Symbian, Blackberry and Windows Mobile. What surprises me is that +1 button does not appear in mobile search or websites accessed through mobile even if Google owns 98% of the global mobile search market and currently Google’s gross revenue from mobile advertising is over 1 billion dollars per year. Facebook like button and tweet button are visible.

Google +1 measurement

For marketers to measure Google +1 interactions Google has launched two additional tools:

1. Webmaster Tools support

A new set of menus “+1 metrics” within Webmaster tools.

2. Google Analytics social engagement report

The new Google Analytics Beta has a Social Engagement report showing the impact of different social media elements on your site. You are able to see which pages were viewed and which actions were taken. To set the report up, have a look at Google’s instructions. It shows how Google Analytics has setup interfaces for both Twitter and Facebook so for example Facebook Likes and Tweets can be recorded and viewed within Google Analytics.

Can Google+ take over Twitter and Facebook?

It is still very early to say what impact Google+ has over Facebook and Twitter. The launch has been very successful, but it is to be seen how many active users stay after the novelty value has been worn off. Right now Facebook is starting to get out of fashion among young people since parents, aunties and grandparents are joining the platform, yet I am not sure if Google+ will be used by the young generation or if it will be used more professionally. This is why I would love to see some Google+ demographics.

Anyhow, Google+ is an active network, which is intuitive and easy to manage. It has a simple and functional design and it is integrated with all the Google tools. Facebook basic functions such as “wall” are intuitive, but to be honest to manage which contacts have access to which content you need to be an expert. Google has created a friend classification system which is much more intuitive than what Twitter and Facebook have and user has a full control who they are sharing their things with.

Yet in the end everything depends on where your friends are, because if there is no one to share content with there is no point using the platform. If the adoption rate remains high and users recommend Google+ to their friends Facebook might become the new MySpace.

“In three to five years, 10 percent to 15 percent of total consumer spending in developed countries may go through sites such as Facebook”

Mike Fauscette, Analyst, IDC Consulting

There has been a lot of debate whether Facebook can be used for pure sales purposes or if brands should only concentrate on increasing brand awareness and engagement.

Dr Paul Marsden, Syzygy’s Social Media specialist, published recently a very interesting white paper ‘F-commerce; Selling on Facebook, The Opportunity for Consumer Brands’. The report is based on an 18-month study tracking the emerging trend of f-commerce and provides an overview of consumer brand f-commerce identifying the key risks and opportunities setting up a shop on Facebook brings.

Interestingly the report does not only focus on ‘social consumer’, but talks about ‘SoLoMo consumer’. A consumer who connects with brands not only through social, but also location-aware and mobile technology. With emerge of these new technologies, the way consumers engage with brands has changed during years. Users want information in real-time, on-demand and on-the-go. Taking advantage of different channels, SoLoMo consumers have built their own trusted networks of friends and experts and are less likely to be influenced by advertising or marketing messages. This is where F-commerce kicks in – it offers brands a way to move away from the pure marketing messages towards building a real brand advocacy.

However, only setting up a large e-commerce store on Facebook would not work. Instead, by focusing on the three key ‘advocacy activators’ ( Experience; Involvement; Incentives), brand can reach SoLoMo consumers and use f-commerce to drive sales and activate brand advocacy.

I would recommend downloading the white paper  – it gives a great insight and information on the f-commerce sales and brand advocacy (and it is free!)

We all want our brand to be attractive, exciting, trendy, sexy and … young. Our society adores youth, we want the young generation to buzz about us, brands and campaigns winning awards are aimed to youth. Facing declining sales, we cannot help hearing that we must rejuvenate, rejuvenate, rejuvenate…

However, many times there is a big conflict between the people we want to buy our brand and the people who actually buy it. Too many times the marketing and communication target is 20-30 years younger than the loyal consumers forming the grand majority of the database.

Cosmetic “brand” surgery?

Some brands tackle this by going through a long process of changing their brand image. More or less successfully. Ford experienced this problem in Spain with its upcoming launch of the new, young, trendy Ford Fiesta. In Spain this particular car model was perceived as a car for 40-50-year-old women, but few years before the launch, Ford Spain started creating a community especially for youth www.maskedummies.com. The booming trendy community changed slowly the image of Ford Fiesta and made the marketing message more believable in 2008. Another example of successful change of brand image is of course Old Spice.

But is it really so bad to be a brand for “old” people? What if the sales are declining, not because our brand is getting older and new generation does not buy it, but because we are ignoring the older generation who does?

Aging global population

With the declining fertility and improved health and longevity, the population aging has become the biggest demographic trend globally. In 2009 the global population of +60-year-old people reached 680 million, 11% of the world’s population. It has also been predicted that by 2030, the amount will increase to 20% in 55 countries.

By 2050, Europe will increase its elderly population from 40 million to 219 million, China will experience a growth of 30% from 109 million to 350 million and India will increase the number of elderly from 62 million to 240 million. Japan, with the largest percentage of +60 people, will increase the current amount from 27% to 44%.

While number of youth decreases across the planet and the number of older people increases, does it not make more sense to take advantage of the “older” brand image instead of investing resources and money to desperately rejuvenate the image? Older people are more loyal to the brand than the new multitasking and impatient generation. Besides – they have also more money and time to spend.

Aging Social Media and Blogosfare

Yes, but young people make more noise in the Internet you might say. Not true.

In January 2011, +55-year-olds represented 7% of the global Facebook users, however the amount of 45-54-year-old users reached 12% and the percentage of 35-44-year-old users increased to 18%. What comes to Twitter, +55-year-olds represented 9% of the global Twitter users, while 45-54-year-olds reached 17% and 35-44-year-olds 27%.

Meanwhile, the older generation is also getting more comfortable with blogging: 11% of the over 30-year-old adults blogged in 2010, compared with 7% in 2007. Also, during the last two years blogging by the 34-45 year-old Internet users has increased 6%  (up to 16%), 46-55-year-old bloggers saw an increase of 5%  (up to 11%), and even 65-73-year-olds blogged 2% more (up to 8%).

But how to reach the increasing older generation?

#1 Stay cool, but use more mature marketing message

Older generation wants to remain cool, but also see people and situations they can relate to – people little younger they are, well aging and sophisticated, such as Meryl Streep and George Clooney. What comes to the situations, if you know that 90% of the people in your cruise are +55, do not show images of young people and babies in your advertising – it pushes older generation away. Instead, show older generation having fun, flirting, enjoying life in a cool environment.

#2 Aim advertising for the right target

In advertising we are so youth focused, that we often forget that the hopes and dreams are different in each age group. They change as people get older, handling more relationships, family experiences, health, happy memories and personal fulfilment. If you are too young to know what your target group dreams about, ask them. They are happy to share their opinion.

#3 Listen and influence in consumer forums

Age makes us more wise and careful. Older people do a lot of investigation before spending their time and money. Older generation compares prices, goes to consumer forums and listens what people have to say in social media.

#4 Focus on emotional bond and quality

Older generation is more interested in quality and value for money than latest fashion. They do not like to be rushed into a decision, but have time to compare different options. However, older people are also more loyal and stay with brands they trust. If you success creating an emotional bond with older users, they do not hesitate to promote your brand to their friends and other users across the social media.

Old trends in young generation, new trends in older generation

To stay always ahead of the competition targeting older generation, it might be a good idea to remember that in the end young people are early adopters of the new technologies and communication channels and “old” people are slow to follow. It means that you can observe youth-focused brands while they try to exploit new trends and conquer new channels by trial and error, and once they become “hot” in your target age group you are well prepared to be “trendy”.

According to a study by GroupM Search, 48% of the online buyers use combination of normal and social search during the buying process and the percentage is increasing constantly. Consumers search every day brands their friends know and like, and 30% base their buying decision on their friends’ evaluations, 17% on Facebook and 9% on Twitter.

There has been a lot of discussion of social search threatening traditional search. As people spend more time in social networks, especially Facebook, it is to be seen whether users prefer results based on traffic and SEO or the results based on content voted (liked) by other users and friends.

But what if the battle between traditional and social search is not limited to computers, but takes place in mobile devices?

Increasing Mobile Internet, Search and Social Network usage

The quantity of Smartphones and users accessing Internet through mobile devices is increasing fast around the globe and ITU believes mobile devices will surpass computers as the most popular way to connect Internet within five years. According to Strategy Analytics almost 530 million users used the mobile Web at the end of 2009 and the company estimates the browsing to increase to over 1 billion by 2015.

Meanwhile, according to the Google Mobile, in Q1 2010 mobile search queries from high end phones on Google grew 62% over the previous quarter. Concerning the e-commerce, Google mobile searches on shopping-related keywords have grown 2500% in the past three years. Currently Google’s gross revenue from mobile advertising is over 1 billion dollars per year.

At the same time, social networking is increasing around the globe. EMarketer forecasts that the amount of Western European Internet users who visit social networks at least once a month will increase 16.2% in 2011. The company also estimates that the quantity of regular social networking users in the region will increase to 64.4% (141.9 million people) by 2015.

Social and Mobile Search

The search giant Google used to avoid social results in the past, but now the company is becoming more convinced of the importance of being more “people centric”. Even if Google Social Search was introduced few years ago, the social media related content has had a neglected role in the search results. Yet this is now changing: the recent update integrates information from Twitter, Flickr and Quora all over Google’s search engine.

What is quite funny to notice is that while Facebook is not included in Google Social Search, Facebook does not show web results by Google either, but by Google’s competitor Bing.

However, whatever the situation in computer search might be, currently in mobile search Google is definitely the king. According to Pingdom, Google owns 98% of the global mobile search market.

This is a very interesting detail since while Google is still the underdog in the battle between Android and iPhone, at least most of Steve Job’s iPhone users will be searching on Google. Which means big mobile ad revenues for Google whatever the OS might be. Not bad.

Mobile social search

Google’s current position in mobile search seems unbeatable, however according to a recent study by Ofcom, almost 25% of the consumers in the U.S., Japan, France, and the UK already access social networks through mobile devices. There are also various apps that use geolocation to search, such as Facebook places, and apps that use geolocation and users’ reviews combined with augmented reality.

What is curious to notice is that while the whole world focuses on the competition between Google and Facebook while discussing social search, Bing has already gone a step further and integrated a social search feature to its Bing for iPhone App. The user can use their phone to search through their Facebook and Twitter accounts and see combined status updates from their friends. In case there is an instant answer for the search, the app shows it first before social results.

This is a very interesting idea, since this social feature allows the user to see information from the web together with the opinions from user’s social network. This increases the relevancy of the result and user experience, since the user can see with one quick look if the place is worth visiting or product worth buying without browsing further or visiting social network app or site. Also the information user finds is easy to share in Facebook, Twitter and email, which means users can share and ask their friends opinions in real time.

Could this be dangerous for Google? Yes. Google is not able to do this as long as it does not want anything to do with Facebook, which has more than 500 million users across the globe. Therefore this might be Bing’s opportunity to stand out, since users, who have their main friend base in Facebook, would not like the platform to be left out from the results.

Bringing social dimension to mobile search can be the next big thing if it is user friendly and well promoted. Whether it will affect Google’s current position as a principal mobile search tool, depends on its flexibility to accept that also results “liked” by Facebook users can be relevant. If not, other search engines or Facebook can take advantage of this default and challenge Google  also in mobile search.

While Facebook is threatening Google in search, it seems like Google is starting to focus more on social. There has been a lot of buzzing around the web about Google’s new social media platform launch at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW), but Google firmly denied they will be launching a new social network. At least in SXSW.

After the rumours died, new ones started. People are speculating that Google will launch a new social network in May at their annual developer event. True or not, there is no smoke without a fire.

But if Google was to launch a new social media platform, would it succeed? To be honest, Google has already tried social networking world twice, but somehow it did not go as planned.

First try – Orkut

First time Google went social was by launching Orkut in 2004. In the beginning the social media platform was invitation only and kicked off quite well. First popular in the U.S, the platform was later on conquered by the Brazilians. The most used language becoming Brazilian lead Americans to abandon the platform, but large number of Indians found Orkut very attractive. The platform has currently more than 100 million members and it is one of the most visited websites in India and Brazil. 48% of the Orkut users were from Brazil and other 39,2% from India in April 2010.

But even if 100 million is a nice number, it is still a bit far from Facebook’s more than 500 million users.

Second try – Google Buzz

What can I say: a PR disaster. Only few days after launching the new social tool in 2010, company had to apologize publicly for offending the privacy rights of its 176 million Gmail users.

The idea was good: the tool allowed users to share photos, messages, status, links and videos with their Gmail contacts. Now where things went wrong was that Google implemented the tool directly into Gmail to take advantage of their existing user base. Being pressured by Facebook and Twitter, Google decided to act fast and did not consider that many users did not want to be followed without their permission.

The result was a bunch of very angry users and a lot of negative buzz.

Third time lucky?

“I’ve seen google circles, and it looks awesome. Tip of the iceberg too.”

O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly

According to ReadWriteWeb, Google’s new social media platform (Google Circle?) would allow users to share photos, videos and status messages – but only with the contacts they actually want to share them with. Not with all the Gmail contacts they have…this time.

Google refuses to comment the rumours and did not release the new social media platform in SXSW as highly speculated. However, as we know, Google has a reputation of releasing new products and features before they even are ready – and then improving them by trial and error. It might be that Google has finally learned its lesson third time around and decided to wait until the new social media platform actually works.

If that is the case, we could well be up to something. Google has been concentrating recently in the fast delivery of the half-made products without seeing the big picture. If there is a new Google social media platform, that is well done and strategically planned, things could get interesting. Not to forget the strong members Google has behind the scenes: Chris Messina (BarCamp, hashtags) and Jonathan Sposato (Piknik and Phatbits – Google Gadgets).

Then again, this could also be a publicity stunt to create expectation around the new platform. Or Google really does not want to create a social media platform for the third time, but prefers simply buying a platform such as Twitter with billion tweets per week, highly active Asian user base and 182% increase of mobile users in 2010.

Could Google challenge Facebook in Social?

More than 500 million is a lot. More than 500 million and growing is even worse. Most likely all these people would not change from Facebook to Google Circle, but then again Charlie Sheen got 1 million Twitter followers in one day. Nothing is impossible.

I am hoping for a solution that integrates the search, social, mobile (Android OS), augmented reality and something that makes it highly viral. Or that Google buys Twitter. At least things would surely get interesting in the social media world.