Kumar's Blog

This is something Google has been wanting to say for a few years now.

Google launched Google+, integrated it with Hangouts, made it mandatory for businesses to have a profile to improve their performance in search, made it mandatory for authors to have a profile in order for them to see their picture next to their articles in search results, made the user interface more elegant than that of Facebook.

But the activity levels simply refuse to come anywhere near that of Facebook.

After all this effort, they might finally be able to get some traction in matching (and then overtaking Facebook). This is by relying on their primary product, which is search. In fact, Facebook has been making in-roads into this space with its own Graph Search. But Google seems to want to invert (so to say) what Facebook does with Graph Search, and this might actually win over the audience.

Through Graph Search, Facebook allows you to find people who have been to certain places, who have lived in certain cities, who have worked at certain companies, who like certain movies, etc. But still, when in trouble, the first place people go to for information is Google.

Google+ are looking to offer the advantages of Graph Search through their search engine. Whenever you search for some information in Google, most results that turn up are articles (which are written by people). When you search for products/services, the websites of companies that sell them turn up.

Google wants to add a social element to this process of searching and show up an option to contact the author of the post (via Google+) that you find interesting after your search query. Also, a section could highlight people in your Google+ circles who are experts in the area related to your search query. This is beneficial both to the author who is probably looking to establish her authority as a subject matter expert, and to the user who needs more information than is available in the article.

Will this be enough to make you say 'Move over Facebook. I now prefer Google+'?

It is quite common to hear people saying that you should follow your passion when you're looking for a job. Many people even end up starting their own ventures doing what they are passionate about. This can be extremely rewarding if you do it. When more than fifty percent of the world's workforce are unhappy with their jobs, it is great if you can make a living out of what you love to do.

I used to be a staunch advocate of this idea. But today, I came across something that made me have second thoughts. There is this person who has taken from idea to execution, a way to improve healthcare in rural areas. He has been involved in all aspects of development of the product. The product does what he envisioned. But, the time has come to change its status from 'pet project' to 'commercial venture'. This is where the problems begin. Making it a successful commercial venture involves doing a lot of things outside of his comfort zone.

A lot of start-ups fail to make it to the market. Not because the idea isn't good enough. Not because the founder isn't passionate enough about the idea. But because the founder loses motivation when she realizes that the activity that she loves doing is only a small part of making her idea a commercial venture.

It has been proven in several studies that external rewards reduce intrinsic motivation. This is why most successful start-ups have founders who showed true grit to get through the rough patches because their motivation was not purely intrinsic.

In order to progress and develop, you ought to spur that side of your brain that craves for the external rewards available at the end of an activity, like promotions, higher pay, etc. At the same time, you ought to spur that side of the brain driven by intrinsic motivation. Striking the right balance between the two is key. This is why companies like Google and 3M are ranked among the top places to work. They allow employees to spend 15-20% of their work-time on pet projects while the rest of their time is dedicated to the company's commercial ventures.

When you're deciding what sort of a job you want to do, the only thing you need to ensure is this balance. The job ought to offer you enough opportunities to grow in terms of your position in the hierarchy, in terms of your pay, etc, while still allowing you enough time to focus on your pet projects that have no consequences on the bottom line of companies or even your own bottom line for that matter.

Advertising has always been about creativity. Advertising agencies have been flourishing because creativity is not in abundance. Nearly all brands end up going to an advertising agency to make their advertisements. Before an advertisement is made though, a key action lies in identifying who the target audience is, what their behaviour is, and where they are most likely to view an advertisement and act on it.

In the last few years, advertising agencies are growing increasingly dependent on the likes of Google and Facebook for answering those questions about the target audience. This growing dependency seems to have scared the likes of Omicon and Publicis.

What is their answer to it? Merge into one entity and combine their data expertise to take on the likes of Google and Facebook. At first look, this looks incredibly stupid. After a little reflection and thought, it still seems quite stupid. What does this advertising giant hope to achieve? Can it know the Facebook users better than Facebook does? Can it know the online behaviour of people better than the makers of the home page of hundreds of millions of people?

Their fear is understandable. Their evaluation of the role digital and Big Data will play in advertising is understandable. But their solution is not something I understand.

This is a situation that will leave anyone in a dilemma. Whether to compete with the ones having rising influence on the industry? Or to embrace the emerging powers and focus on improving the value we offer?
As often is the case, there isn't a right answer. We will just have to see how Publicis Omnicon will fare in the coming years.

The Internet made it possible for people to access large amounts of content that was previously unreachable for them. This spurred hordes of people to create and publish their own content. Then came social networks that made it possible for users to connect and interact with people that they could previously not interact with (not very easily at least).

These have been revolutionary improvements because they brought with them the promise of much greater opportunities, and much greater choice. If you look at the sheer number of (r)e-tailers today, you will realize the choice the consumer has.

But the progress in these areas seems to be towards curtailing choice and allowing algorithms to narrow down and present a shorter list to the users. While Facebook uses algorithms to filter down and decide what posts to show in the user's timeline, it still allows the user to customize her newsfeed by selecting whose posts she wishes to see.

Google is a couple of days away from killing that option entirely. With Google Reader, one could decide what feeds to subscribe to. But no longer. Once it is gone, Google wants you to read only those things that are thrown up by its algorithms on Google+ and News. If not, you will have to make the effort in going to each and every website that you feel might interest you. Or you can create an account on another RSS reader like Feedly or The Old Reader and continue to keep your choice alive.

Import your reader list before it is gone for ever. Take control of what you read.

This is one of the leaked US government slides from project PRISM that has been making headlines from 'NSA Scandal' to 'Apple, Facebook, Google sending personal user data to government'.

PRISM is allegedly a secret US government initiative through which NSA (National Security Agency) collects data about users of major tech and telephone companies like Apple, Google, Facebook and Verizon. The idea behind this is to prevent terror attacks and provide greater security to its citizens. But, obviously this is happening at a cost.

The main concern that many people have is that of privacy invasion. A lot of people feel uneasy knowing that their every single tweet or photo upload or worse still, search query is recorded by the government for future reference. A Verizon spokesperson claimed that even though a lot of people are creating a ruckus about this issue at the moment, there will be no drop in usage of the Verizon network or drop in the number of Google searches or a drop in the iPhone/iPad sales. While I agree that there is a very good possibility of this being true, there will definitely be a change in the behaviour of people on these networks and devices and services.

True, people will understand that surveillance of their every action will lead to a safer place and go about accepting that what NSA is touted to be currently doing is the norm and behave accordingly. Behaving accordingly is the part that I have a problem with. Not the surveillance itself.

If a person knows that her every action is monitored (and recorded), there is a very good chance that she will turn very cautious and fear making any mistake. People only tend to not worry about making mistakes when they are fairly certain that any inadvertent mistake can come back to haunt them. Only when there is room for error will a person even think of going out of the box. And in this era of constant innovation, we need all the more people to fearlessly step out of the box.

Although the intention of the US government seems to be to nip terror plots in the bud, the cost is a steep one. If everyone is cautious about making mistakes, there will be very few mistakes made. Which means there will be very few lessons learnt. Which means there will be little innovation. This points to a 'Brave New World' as written by Aldous Huxley.

So there is good reason to worry about the revelations in the past few days. Not because our privacy might be compromised. But because this can bring a seachange in the attitudes of people for the worse.

Google recently announced a bunch of updates to its products and services. The most interesting were the updates to Maps and Google+. The updates are aimed at better user experience, increasing user base and increasing monetization opportunities. But the changes to Google+ and Maps couldn't be more contrasting.

The new Maps is a lot more personalized, incorporates social features and provides new ways of revenue generation through the application. Until now, irrespective of who searched for places or directions on Google Maps, the results would be the same. The shortest route shown would be the same. But now, the experience on Maps is similar to search. If you search for directions, your previous search history will factor in allowing Maps to build a story around your search. It will show you not just the shortest route to your destination, but things on the way you might like. The idea behind this has been to allow Maps to give the user directions as though a good friend who knew her well would do.

With these changes, Google has stepped into Foursquare and Yelp territory, and has made it extremely difficult for new competitors to enter the maps space. It might even put the likes of Foursquare out of business in time.

While Maps has seen all these introductions that are bound to enhance user experience several times over, the changes to Google+ seem to be purely cosmetic. Of course, the new interface is absolutely brilliant as they have integrated features from Facebook and Pinterest. But, even with a better interface, it is nowhere near convincing Facebook loyals from switching to Google+.

What Google+ needs is not user interface changes, as the utility it provides is minimal. The reason nobody wants to switch from Facebook to Google+ is because of the deep entrenchments in terms of data and connections. Having invested years on Facebook, very few people are willing to start over on Google+ just because it provides a better interface.

Google+ needs to focus on the users who are still beginning their life online. They have to target the early teens and be the preferred choice for that segment. Then, they can take on Facebook in a few years. If they want Facebook users to switch, then they have to focus on providing a way to import the data and connections from Facebook. The user experience is secondary.

Google has found ways to provide more and more value on Maps, but Google+ is lagging far behind on that front.

That's right. Facebook is looking to introduce 15 second video ads on its platform. And it wants to charge brands $1 million a day for being able to show their video ads on the Facebook platform. It hopes to rope in brands for four ad-slots - men over 30, women over 30, men under 30 and women under 30. With one brand in each category, Facebook expects to rake in $4 million a day with the introduction of this feature.

The video ads are expected to roll out in late June or early July according to Adage. How will the ads look and where will they appear? Facebook is either being tight-lipped about it or it has sent out its sales force to sign on brands without finalizing on the specifics yet. While Facebook claims that it can work video ads into the multitude of mobile users, I hope they're not banking on Facebook Home to get this going.

Sheryl Sandberg was saying to journalists "The size of the audience makes this - the phone - a mass medium.  Its as important to a marketer as TV, if not more important!". This, while the whole of the marketing world has been harping on about the capabilities provided by platforms like Facebook for personalised marketing efforts. Has the talk come a full circle?

It is understandable why Sheryl Sandberg seems to be taking Facebook in this direction. While Google continues to grow its revenues from video ads (through Youtube), Facebook wants a piece of the action as well. But will it work out as anticipated for them? Only time will tell.