Google’s Q4 UK revenues stay above the $1bn dollar mark

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Another great set of results were unveiled by Google last night. Here are my quick takeaways on the UK element of that:

  • While this looks like the slowest QoQ growth for over a year it’s likely to have been impacted by USD/GBP exchange rates in the period.
  • Overall search traffic growth is being masked by lower CPCs, dropping 8% across all territories (there isn’t any breakout for UK data). This is the second quarter in a row that CPCs have declined. There’s a great article on SearchEngineLand from Andy Atkins Kruger that looks at why this might have happened.
  • The UK held it place as the second largest country for search spend at 10% of total revenues.

Where is Amazon’s gamification strategy?

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Despite the acquisition of troubled Gowalla by Facebook, gamification is alive and well. In fact, Foursquare just announced a tripling of their user base to 15m global users.

Now gamification should be much more than location-based tech, but few pioneering online brands seem to have embraced the concept.

For me, Amazon is the brand that should be adopting gamification as it strives to encourage users to read more ebook and download more music track.

Platforms such as Foursquare, SCVNGR and the Nike+ initiative have demonstrated there is an innate human desire to receive intangible rewards for relatively small achievements.

If Amazon was to acquire GetGlue it would have a great mechanic for encouraging more ebook downloads; how about badges for completing 10, 100 and 1,000 reviews?

I guess that’s going to go on my list of 2012 predictions.

 

Why don’t Google do this with their Google+ app

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Lovely home page widgets!

One of the apparent shortfalls of the Android operating system is that home page widgets can’t be installed for apps stored on the SD card.

Well, the team at Evernote have found a rather simple but ingenious way around this challenge. They’ve created a separate, but much smaller, app to run the home page widget, allowing users to store main, rather chunky, Evernote app on the SD card.

You can download the widget here.

With the Google+ app running at nearly 28MB for me, it would be great if Google could  release something similar.

 

 

Foursquare will make me fat!

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I’m a regular 4sq user on my mobile but today I went back onto the website and noticed something pretty cool. Using a bit of a Google Maps mash-up they’re plotting me and my “friends” as well as a selection of nearby restaurants.

What’s really cool is that these restaurants are based on recommendations from the other venues I’ve been to and which my “friends” have checked in at regularly.

What isn’t cool, is that I’m eating out more and this isn’t helping my waistline!

 

Google+ gets a little more like Facebook, thanks to Cadbury’s

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Today, Cadbury’s launched a rather Facebook-esque campaign on Google+, clearly aimed at garnering advocated and increases shares of their business page.

This is the first time I’ve seen something specifically tempting the Google+ audience and reminded me of the emotion-inspiring posts, regularly placed on the Walt Disney page.

While the tens of comments posted on the Google+ page hardly compares to the thousands on the Facebook, it really feels like the start of something big for Google+

Are you ready to take Google+ seriously yet?

 

An afternoon of search in Manchester – SAScon mini conference

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It was a pleasure to moderate at the SAScon mini conference yesterday and I’m amazed at the attendance we got for an afternoon event. It gives us a good indication that next years full conference should be the biggest yet!

You can find a great round-up of the conference over here and kudos to James Lowery for shoe-honing an obscure pop reference in the SSL encryption panel!

Search Awards…the alternative to regulation?

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The debate about regulation the search industry has been on-going for many years now, and Judith Lewis puts forward a great case, as she did at this years SAScon event. As a representative it something we’ve struggled with for a while due to a multitude of challenges, including:

  • Agreeing suitable best practices
  • Policing SEO activity
  • The cost of administration
  • What powers would a moderating body hold?
Who is that dashing chap?

Who is that dashing chap?

However, this month’s UK Search Awards gave another perspective on how to keep an industry honest. Rather than simply focus on those that operate outside of what everyone would think to be acceptable, why not focus on recognising those that do Search well? By spotlighting good practices it makes it clearer to differentiate from bad practices, and, aside from the intense judging, is much simpler to administer.

Google Wallet in the UK?

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There is still no confirmed launch date for Google Wallet in the UK, but the recent blending of Google Checkout into Google Wallet is a welcome move to simplify Google’s transaction platform.

What’s even more significant is the potential to better track the value of your customers as they purchase both on- and off-line. Think of all the additional analytics data that can be gathered as you identify which customers prefer in-store shopping vs. mobile or desktop?

But how long before PayPal launch their next innovation?

 

Will The Muppets be the catalyst for Google+ growth?

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 This week saw the launch of Pages for Google+, which has been well covered in the industry, and has resulted in a race by companies to set out there, pretty basic, stall on the platform.

What really intrigues me was not just the buzz around companies, such as Intel and Pepsi,  adopting the platform, but celebrities such as The Muppets!

At first it seems like a joke, that the Muppet’s kicked off their Google+ launch with a live hangout. However, Google know that the key to Google+’s success will come from greater consumer adoption as much as advertiser awareness.

This was a pretty cool move.

Who will win the console gaming war?

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This week will see the launch of the latest blockbuster installment of the Call Of Duty series – Modern Warfare 3, and it looks set to break all previous records in the gaming, and for that matter the entertainment, world. A tough ask when its main rival, Battlefield 3, has been launched two weeks in advance of it. Indeed, other big titles, such as Mass Effect 3, have been delayed until 2012.

The headlines would suggest that MW3 will be the biggest seller, but I’ve witnessed mounting support in the gaming computer for the more detailed and online focussed, Battlefield 3, so I did a little research.

Looking at the Facebook profiles of the two big games, it seems BF3 has more support than its big budget rival. So digging deeper we see a similar thing with search volumes.

Could search and social media be predicting an upset?