Media used to be a top down thing, you could listen to the radio, watch TV or newspapers and the only time that you could share your voice on such platforms was when the gate keepers allowed you to do so – whether this be a letter to the editor or a radio phone in. Well, with the advent of the internet this has all changed and has significant and far-reaching consequences, consequences which I believe are greater than we currently understand.
Let’s take two contemporary cases:
The Murdoch Empire - Rupert Murdoch, as well all know, is a media mogul who is worth a cool $5billion. In no way, shape or form did anyone ever think that the foundations of this empire would shake and his media business would start to crumble, but it has and to me, this points to one thing… People are fed up of the way things are, with the way things have been and they want to see change. The internet provides a platform to voice these feelings, for good or for bad.
I am not making any startling revelation. We have seen the powerful results of WikiLeaks and we have seen the voice that the internet has become which has aided country-wide political revolutions. In Murdoch’s case the internet does not play any part in the revelation of the information. Nevertheless, people, in their droves hit the internet, tweeting, increasing their Facebook status and discussion on forums their dislike of the whole News of the World situation which resulted in advertisers pulling their marketing budgets, the public boycotting the newspaper and, ultimately, the closing down of the whole operation. A growing disillusion with the way that things are + the power of the internet to spread a message has resulted in the foundations of a worldwide media empire start to crumble = powerful consequences.
Google: The second media company that I want to discuss is Google. Google has traditionally been good at what it does, enabling people to effectively “search” the internet to find information that the need, fast. Google has launched a number of businesses that quite simply didn’t take off. Jaiku, a Twitter equivalent, launched by Google and subsequently failed, is one example. Google have always wanted to get into the social networking space and launched Google Wave, in an attempt to take a chunk out of the power and influence of Facebook.I remember speaking to Google’s PR team when Google Wave was launched and he was championing the impending success of Google Wave and how it was going to be adopted by future generations. Great idea, awesome ambition but the public did not take to it and ultimately it was closed down in August 2010.
Recently, Google went for it again and launched Google+, this time the public adopted the social networking site and within weeks it was announced that there was 10million users on the site. Some of the Google+ features have caused Facebook to panic leading to an announcement of an integration with Skype. The public are really going for Google+ and it has left Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin trying to raise their game.
The point that I am trying to make is that people have power and as people talk, share and engage online it brings about a confidence in others to share what they seek, what they think and what they feel. The News of the World ‘phone hacking case could only be held off for so long, people talk.
I believe that this is only the start. People are getting restless and fed up with the unacceptable behavior and now, more than ever they have a powerful method to share their views. Murdoch’s empire is only one foundation that is shaking, many more businesses will shake. However, at the same time, when the public get behind something, like Google+ they will do.
People are talking, about good and bad and the consequences of both are set to be significant.
I would love to hear your thoughts.
I was added to Google+ this week by a Pasa Mustafa, a good friend and a media guru in his own right. So, naturally I headed over to this brand spanking new social network in order to see what the fuss was all about!
To be honest, initially, I thought it was a bit rubbish. When you start creating your own profile it seems a bit basic, however, in hindsight I suppose I am used to the Facebook layout and, of course, it’s a case of building and populating your Facebook profile. When I first got on to google+ I did not really have much time to play around so I logged of wondering what the fuss was all about. But, and this is a huge but, today I had a few hours to play around on the site and, to be honest, I am addicted. Here are some top level thoughts:
1) Google+’s biggest user will be…
I am pretty confident that, in the same way that Twitter is dominated by techies, geeks and media practitioner’s, Google+ will be the same. In my opinion it actually sits in the Twitter/LinkedIn market space so it will be interesting to see how much of a chunk Google+ take’s out of these other social networks. In order to start using Google+ you have to be invited on to the platform which means early adopters, techies, geeks, entrepreneurs are using it which, in my opinion results in the fact that this group of people will become the dominant users.
2) Google+ ‘s killer features
There are some cool killer features on Google +. Firstly, you place your contacts into circles i.e friends, family, acquaintances and whatever other circles you wish to create. This is highly specific and targeted which means you can decide who and what you share. I appreciate that Facebook has it’s groups feature, however, this was an added functionality, something that Google+ has added as a core feature. I do have to say that I had made a mistake in discovering, a bit late on, that Google+ would initially be used by entrepreneurs and so most of my contacts fit into this specific circle!
Secondly, the other big feature, for me, is that of the video software. This is a highly refined video conferencing feature which enables you to have a conference call with 10 people at once, which is a great little tool. It will be interesting to see the impact that this also has on Skype.
It is also important to add here how Google’s +1 now makes a heck of a lot more sense. When you +1 it comes up in your Google+ stream. Clever.
3) Google+ and the future.
I am intrigued to know what is in store for for Google+ and, indeed, for other social networks as a result. In my opinion it is difficult to be on and manage everything: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc so will one loose out? Is it possible to use one social network in order to cover all bases (friends, family, business etc) or does this all start to become a little too much to manage. Since the birth of Twitter I use Facebook less and less and, indeed, I use Facebook to stay in touch with my friends and Twitter for business, entrepreneur, media. So, what impact with Google+ have, we will soon find out!
4) Google+ for businesses.
I am interested to know what will happen here. Facebook obviously has Facebook pages, in the same way, will businesses start to adopt Google+, it will be interesting to find out. I wonder if businesses will use it and people will start to develop business circles or circles for different types of businesses: local, national, online etc.
At the launch of Tribewanted.com, my focus was crowd-sourcing, gaining the wisdom and skills of people online in order to make something happen offline. What really intrigues me now is that the floodgates are now open and I am seeing a move away from crowd-sourcing and the wisdom of friends to crowd sharing, we are sharing information that we pick up. The crowd sourcing model meals that we input our wisdom whilst the crowd sharing model seem to have a much more humble approach, we read, we get inspired, we share and we learn. Now, people collaborating in this way, through the likes of Google+ could lead to incredible new inventions, businesses, charities and changes. Quire exciting, really.
If you are on Google + please add me to your circle:
After launching Some Start ups fail. Get over it! Yesterday I have been having interesting conversations on twitter. Once such conversation centered around the fact that even big companies like Google launch start up’s that they put millions of pounds into launching and even they fail. After this discussion, I thought that I would research a bit further have discovered 4 Google failures:
1) Google Wave – Launched in 2009 Google Wave was a collaboration tool that was set to bring together all forms of social communication and putting them in one place enabling users to talk, discuss, interact, start a conversation, join a conversation, share docs etc. I remember sitting with a friend of mine who works at Google PR, as he was e-mailing me an invite to Google Wave, he was telling me how Google Wave was going to be huge and how people of our age (30′s) will not ‘get it’ but the younger one’s will. However, despite it’s hype Google Wave was failed and closed down.
2) Google Nexus One – Google Nexus One was launched in order to get a feel for Android application and to see what user uptake would be. Google decided not to continue with the project.
3) Jaiku is a service along the same lines of Twitter, it didnt take off. It is still in existence but Google have decided not to continue developing the project.
4) Google Answers - similar to Yahoo Answers. Basically, just did not work out.
Many entrepreneurs give themselves a hard time over their own start ups that just don’t work out. Nevertheless, it just goes to show that the might, power, number of users and finances of Google does not always result in success.
I am sure that there are many more BIG businesses that have launched projects that have failed. If you know of any, post a comment and let me know!
If you are an entrepreneur who has had a failed start up do check out www.somestartupsfail.com