July 25th, 2011
Local Search: Small is the new BIG
It seems Seth Godin’s popular marketing mantra “small is the new big” applies to local search as well. We all know local search is one of the big sources to fuel the search engines. I’d like to think that it also gave the rise to location-based platforms like Foursquare and Gowalla. Most importantly, if there’s local search, there’s always marketing involved – location marketing.
Early this month, Google has launched Google Offers to big cities such as New York and San Francisco. Google has improved its Android app called Shopper in order to support Google Offers. Along with Google Wallet and Google Places, Google Offers is set to engulf Groupon and Foursquare’s turfs.
Some people are asking why are “big” cities the only ones being offered with Google Offers? In a recent study from online ad network Chitika, the company sampled from 10 million search queries that brought traffic to its US sites during the first week of July. Smaller cities like Tulsa and Chattanooga were among those who have high local search percentage. On the other hand, big cities like New York and San Francisco have the least local search percentage.
So what does this suggest? Searches from small cities matter more because a brand’s “physical presence” like a store or an outlet is more visible in big cities. With the big Google+ integration lurking around, it’s a no-brainer if Google Offers lands on every city to bring daily deals.
July 12th, 2011
Google+ Reaches 10 Million…and counting!
A week after Google’s new social networking platform ran abuzz over the Internet, Google+ has just reached 10 million users and counting. Such growth is more than significant even for search giant Google. But again, the question still lingers: Can Google+ users can sustain its growth?
According to Paul Allen of Ancestry.com, he came up with a practical method to calculate the number of Google+ members. Allen sampled a number of surnames from the U.S. Census Bureau data in order to make a comparison with the surnames of Google+ users. Surname popularity and the number of users on Google+ with each surname is all he used to “guesstimate” the percentage of the U.S. population that signed up and became 1st generation Google+ users. After that, Allen calculated the ratio of U.S. to non-U.S. users to come up with an estimated number of Google+ users on the planet. Of course, the findings are from a third-party source, but it’s worth a look. This is Allen’s findings so far:
Google+ has approximately 9.5 million users worldwide, with 2.2 million joining in the past 32 to 34 hours, according to Allen’s estimates.
Meanwhile, Google Offers has been launched in New York and San Francisco. Offers will be integrated to Google’s other product, Google Wallet, as a convenient means for mobile payments and ties up with deals sent to your email. A few months ago, pundits say that Google Wallet can replace PayPal if it’s properly integrated with Google’s other products
Furthermore, Google Offers is being integrated with Google Places as well, from the looks of it, Google wants to overwhelm Groupon and Foursquare with one smooth stroke. Foursquare has already tapped Groupon and Gilt among others to enhance their daily deals. And with Google+ gaining momentum everyday and an integration at hand, it looks like the search giant will finally catch up in the race for social media supremacy.
