SoLoMo is not a disease. But that doesn't mean we're not looking for a cure. (Small Business E-commerce Link Digest – July 29, 2011)
As I mentioned yesterday in my “1,000 Thank You’s” post, the SoLoMo web (that’s social, local, mobile web), matters. A lot. Consumers increasingly use the web in ways that are different from what we’ve gotten used to over the last 15 years. And these changes in consumer behavior require marketers and e-commerce folks to re-examine their activities. Every. Single. Day. Here are some good places to start looking:
- Our old friend Linda Bustos at GetElastic returns to the Link Digest with this look at 4 social behaviors invading e-commerce. Good stuff.
- Search Engine Land shows how Google’s overhauled Place Pages incorporate user reviews into the results, giving your customers more information up-front before linking out to your site. That’s a fairly major change. And one we’re going to be learning a lot more about over the coming years. I’ve said for some time that your business needs a Google Place Page, but I would strongly recommend against making a Google Place Page your brand’s only web presence.
- Despite rumors to the contrary (more on that later), social doesn’t kill search. At least not yet. Still social signals significantly influence search. How much? Well, SEOmoz asks the same question and offers some intriguing answers.
- Whether you get people to your site from search, social, local or mobile, you’ve still got to turn them into customers. Fortunately, the fine folks at DIY Themes provides a good look at how to find your top pages (and what to do with them). [Full disclosure: I am a DIYthemes affiliate and use their Thesis theme for the blog—however, this is not an affiliate link].
- Finally, Mitch Joel points to this fascinating video featuring Roger McNamee on the top 10 trends in technology:
Like Mitch, I don’t spend a lot of time talking about the tech underlying marketing. But McNamee’s arguments in this video are so compelling and clear, that it’s well worth your time to give him a listen. I use William Gibson’s“The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed” quote all the time. After watching McNamee’s presentation, you’ll have a whole different view on just how true that quote is.
Enjoy your weekend Big Thinkers. We’ll catch you back here next week.
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McNamee’s arguments sounds convincing – but I have a problem believing that a closed system like apps can win over an open system. How about Android outselling Apple, and it has a more open ecosystem…
– J Michael, ParetoCentral.com – Crowdsourced Confidential Consultations
Hi J, I can’t really defend McNamee’s points in detail, but here’s what I think:
On the mobile phone front, I tend to agree. Android phones are outselling iPhone. But, because of contract lock-in, the parallels between iOS vs Android and MacOS vs Windows from 20 years ago don’t hold up. Anyone who gets an iPhone (generally) will have it for 2-3 years and have a strong incentive to upgrade. I think they’re going to be a player for a long time to come in the phone market, whether they hold a dominant market share or not. And, they remain the best-selling phone (not OS) in the marketplace, increasing share YOY.
In the tablet market, I don’t see that they’ve got a legitimate competitor at this point, period. While an open system in theory should outsell a closed one, I haven’t seen any evidence that’s happening at this point. Though I consider John Gruber to have pro-Apple bias, I think his analysis of “market share” vs. “shipping share” sums up the reality of the tablet space today. I honestly don’t know a single person who owns an Android tablet, while I can name a couple dozen with iPads. That’s not to say the iPad will continue its dominance, but right now it’s really the only game in town.
Thanks for reading and commenting. Thought-provoking stuff. I’d love to continue the dialogue as these numbers continue to move.
[…] numbers like those above and Roger McNamee’s appealing argument for Apple that we looked at last week, Android has a larger audience than Apple. Nielsen reports that Google’s Android now holds a […]
[…] point is, no matter how much I hate the neologism, SoLoMo increasingly encroaches on Google’s core business. Years ago, Google was interested in how […]
[…] Not to be outdone, Search Engine Land shows that the majority of that mobile traffic comes from Apple’s iOS , not Android devices. And Mashable follows up, pointing out that almost all “tablet” traffic is really iPad traffic All the more reason to ensure you’re mobile enough. […]
@ Tim — I largely agree with your analysis of the current space, but I note you keep saying “at this point”. The couple dozen iPad users (and I know them too) were also the couple dozen BlackBerry users 6 years ago. “At that point” for any business user the BlackBerry was “the only game in town”.
The one thing we can count on is game change…. well that, and that business people and early adopters are fantastically capricious and fickle bastards.