That being said I do have a beef with the iPad, one that is keeping me from the inevitable acquisition: Google Apps does not work on iPad. Given that I am a writer who hopes to use iPad as a productivity tool while on the road, my hopes were with Google Apps. I envisioned writing in the cloud and having instant access when I returned to my desk. I’m guessing (hoping) this will change. It is a web application after all.

Books are seldom an impulse buy. That’s because it’s difficult to make a buying decision by browsing through a store or Amazon. You generally buy a book because of a recommendation, especially with fiction, or a need for information.

However, the advent of digital readers like Kindle (soon to die) and the, to date, imaginary Apple tablet (likely to conquer) changes things. A Times article today notes that publishers are giving away authors’ earlier work in e-book format to spur sales of their new books and it’s working. The publishing industry is gnashing its teeth over the pricing- they still seem to think that they are in the business of printing ink on paper and having warehouses and trucks full of those things. Have they not watched the music business? Bought a CD lately? The stupidity of this is mind boggling.

There is a significant upside to this, and as an author, I think it is great. People can now buy a book anywhere, via wireless, and have it instantly. The prices have dropped to the point ($10) where an impulse buy is no big deal. And they can carry their entire library anywhere they go- meaning more reading time.

Several years ago my brother Richard and I wrote a book on kitchen design (he is a kitchen designer). The book still sells and I recently received word that the publisher is a doing an ‘electronic’ version (the fact that there is nothing ‘electronic’ about it is revealing). When I queried them about it they informed me that they were going to sell a .pdf file of the book on their web site and pay us a small royalty. I pointed out that this was an antiquated way to do things and that Amazon recently raised the publisher/author share to 70% on e-books. Even with the reduced price our royalty would be at least twice what we currently receive. They have not replied.

My response was this: Why shouldn’t we write another kitchen book and publish it ourselves in digital format? We have the expertise and content and the new formats will support video, links to resources and instant updates. With a tablet, the kitchen planning couple could walk into a home center, access the book and get feedback on products for their new kitchen. And even if it sold for ten bucks we’d make $6-7 for each sale.

The publisher might argue that they have a better ability to promote the book. I don’t think so. At seven dollars a pop I have sufficient motivation to promote the hell out of the book, especially since online marketing is what I do!

The point here is that the publishing industry is on the verge of a major opportunity and they are going to blow it. Apple and Amazon are going to do what they did to the music business- take out the distribution and democratize it. As an author, I’m excited. I might actually make some money from writing.

A few months ago I was working on a book proposal in Google Docs. I went to Save and got a dialog box that said Unable to Save Due to Network Errors. I freaked out. There was a URL in the dialog box for More Information. When I clicked it I got another Dialog box warning that I was leaving an unsaved document! A frantic Copy and Paste to a Word doc ensued. And I had been using Google Docs because of crashes in Word. Again, no way to report this whatsoever.

Don’t Buy A Nexus Phone From Google

Now Google is selling a $600 smart phone called the Nexus, online. You can activate it with your favorite carrier as long as that carrier is T-Mobile. However if your phone has issues you cannot reach anything resembling standard customer support at Google- no phone number and email queries take 3-4 days to get a reply. The T-mobile folks can’t really help you.

Poor customer service on free things like Docs and Gmail is one thing. It’s called ‘you get what you pay for’. Except that Google’s business model depends on widespread acceptance of free cloud services, particularly for critical things like email or document storage. No customer service for costly hardware products that could provide life or death protections, like a phone, is simply unacceptable.

You Can’t Automate Customer Support

The problem is spelled out in Googled, The End of the World As We Know It by Ken Auletta, the New Yorker media writer (a must read, IMHO, if you’re interested in this stuff). This book, which covers the history of Google, describes how their engineer-driven culture believes that everything can be automated via algorithms in software. Apparently they have not bothered to figure out an algorithm for customer support, a function that has to deal with all the serendipitous behaviors of non-engineering humans. Like ‘what do I do if I dropped my phone into the toilet?’, a common problem that might never occur to most engineer types who are likely to say ‘why would you do that?’.

I think Google has made a misstep here, a big one. If they want the big customers, like enterprise IT departments, to endorse their services and products, they are going to have to provide live customer support and things like Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that guarantee a certain level of reliability. You can’t automate everything.

Some stats on Facebook usage

Facebook, according to Wikipedia, had around 350 million members worldwide as of December 2009. A recent study of college student use of Facebook found that students were spending more time on Facebook than Google and that fully 50% of those users visited the site at least once a day. The Wikipedia entry breaks down users by country and, notably, China and Viet Nam are not included because they block the site. As of April 2009 it was estimated that 1.6 billion people globally have Internet access.

So what does this mean? First Facebook’s penetration is staggering. If these numbers are even close to accurate Facebook has captured 20% of all users on the web. And they are active- half visit the site daily. Factor in the fact that China, with a population of 1.3 billion and Viet Nam with 75 million, are not included and we can conclude that their penetration to users outside these countries is at an even higher percentage.

I don’t have stats for time on site for Facebook but I’m willing to bet they are high because of the nature of the Facebook stream, the social graph and the entertainment value. In comparison Google only captures our extended attention when we’re in an app like Gmail and there is little evidence that Gmail generates any significant portion of Google’s ad revenues. When we search, if Google does its job, we’re out of there as fast as possible because we found what we were looking for. When we go to Facebook we are at the place we want to be- it is a destination whereas Google is a signpost.

Revenue models are changing because of personal networks

Let’s look at the implications of these stats on Facebook as an ad platform. I’ve been playing with Facebook Ads and it is fascinating. While they operate in a very similar way to Google’s Adwords including auction-style bidding for clicks, their targeting works at an entirely different level. With Adwords you target by keywords and a few demographics like geo-location. With Facebook you target by keywords and demographics that include user information like gender, relationship status, interests, job titles- anything that a Facebook user includes in their public Profile. This is a huge difference from the faceless targeting of Google.

I’m not denigrating Google- the search giant has a big advantage in that they understand intent. And Facebook users are not there for information…yet. That is going to change however. People are starting to actively utilize their personal networks to acquire information used to make buying decisions and to find resources. This is trust-based search: If my friends like the VW Golf I’m going to consider it seriously. Same for restaurants, plumbers, etc.

Facebook will become the default destination in 2010

While I hate making predictions, I’m fairly confident that Facebook will surpass Google as a primary destination on the web in 2010. It may already have. Google, over the past 11 years, has provided us with universal free access to information. Facebook is providing us with universal access to free global communication. When we start using Facebook for both information access and communication it becomes the default destination to start our online (including mobile) activity. Monetize that!

I’ve been looking for a start-up to get involved with in 2010. I’ve also been working on a book proposal. It dawned on me that the book proposal is my start-up. The proposal is a business plan. The literary agent is a business development person. The publisher is both an investor and the distributor. I am the founder, developer and chief marketing officer.

The book is called The Experience Architects: How Social Media Visionaries Are Redesigning the Way We Do Business. It is about people and companies that understand the positive potential of social media and are using that potential to completely revamp the way their businesses operate- on all levels. It is not about companies stumbling into social media because of some PR catastrophe nor is it about self-described social media gurus who have never actually changed a company with their knowledge.

Because the book is about entrepreneurs, it made sense to me to treat it and its related ‘products and services’ as a business. Once this concept clarified in my mind it made putting the proposal together a much more intuitive process. It also made me realize that my marketing plan consisted of a simple concept: Drink The Koolaid. In other words, use the Experience Architecture concept to build buzz about the book, to research resources and people to talk to, and to virally get others excited. So you’ll be seeing a lot of social media activity around this subject.

In addition to the proposal (business plan) I have written a social media ‘blueprint’ consisting of a set of 30 action items that will build a fully integrated social engagement for the ‘business’. I’ll be sharing that plan, open source style, here over the next month.

If you know someone who has redesigned their business (any size, any type, any location) because of social media please connect with me via MartinEdic.com.

YOU:
Live and breathe the Interwebs (but won’t spend 6 hours a day surfing it)

Have Twitter, Facebook, MySpace (which you never use), Linked In, Delicious and Stumble accounts

Can write real good

Learn fast, really fast

Are bothered when there are unread posts in your Google Reader

Are incredibly curious, always on top of the next new thing, especially when it comes to technology

Are detail-oriented and organized…because the rest of the Marketing Department isn’t

You not only read blogs but post comments as well…mostly without profanity

Have an innate ability to simultaneously write web copy, talk to the Marketing Director and email the latest PPC leads to the sales team

Hate to be micromanaged.

If this sounds like you, read on.

We’re looking for a Creative Marketing Coordinator to join our team. We are a strategic technology firm based in Rochester, NY. We plan, design, develop, deploy and maintain technology solutions for over 400 clients in 5 countries. Our core capabilities include IT + interactive strategy and planning; application, web, mobile, and software development; web, mail and application hosting; and technology integration.

Your days will largely be spent doing the following (as well as a hundred other things):

Assisting in the development and implementation of marketing and brand strategy

Managing creative marketing projects from idea to completion

Acting as the company’s online voice by managing, sourcing, and writing articles/posts for the brand blog and company newsletters.

Establishing and maintaining pages/accounts on social media networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Angies List, Craigslist, YouTube, Linked In, Yelp, Digg, etc

Maintaining consistency of message across multiple networks and media and working with the Director of Marketing to ensure proper messaging

Drafting, editing, writing and proofreading copy for the web, blogs, brochures, email, etc.

Using social media to drive traffic to the company’s websites

Working with creative agencies, marketing firms and other vendors

Monitoring all web analytics (e.g., page views, Twitter followers, ) and providing reports

Coordinating internal projects such as events, branding initiatives and other communications

Manage the development of sales tools and initiatives

Make sure all communications adhere to the Brand Guidelines

Helping brainstorm and develop creative campaigns

What you’ll need to bring to the table:
•    Undying, passionate, over-the-top love affair with all things web
•    A sense of humor
•    Absolutely, positively outstanding writing skills
•    Ability to prioritize based on deadlines
•    3 years marketing or advertising experience
•    Bachelor’s degree in something

What we’ll bring to the table:
•    Competitive compensation
•    Handy benefits package
•    401(k) investment plan with matching contributions
•    Unlimited foosball
•    Employee gym with a Wii Fit for the not-so-athletic
•    Big time opportunities to grow

So, do you have what it takes to be creative and results-oriented all day, every day? Can you handle the crushing responsibilities of having to be ‘smart’ and ‘interesting’? If so, you really ought to let us know as we’re holding your place in the foosball tournament.

The really bad news for broadcast is that I’m not alone. I’m a boomer and we represent the vast majority of buying power on the planet. Virtually none of my friends watch TV (excepting sports which, being live, are an exception) at all. When my girlfriend is around and I have something on (usually local news because our local paper’s web site is dreadful) she insists that I mute the ads because they are so idiotically stupid and repetitive. Guys standing in car dealer parking lots yelling, lawyers trying to ’scare’ up customers, submarine sandwich chains bragging about the size of their portions, etc. There is no relevancy whatsoever and relevancy is what marketing these days is all about.

It’s been well documented that the under 30 generation gets their news in real time via texting, SMS, Twitter and the web. Broadcast ads are totally invisible to them in any media. The only marketing medium that is effective is opinion. Read that again marketers: Opinion is what you are seeking to influence and conventional marketing won’t do the job.

Google has been making noise about real time search similar to Twitter and this looks like their answer. And it looks like a good one, especially as they already have millions of registered users (Gmail account owners).

Something is going to become the default communications screen across all devices. This looks like a pretty good candidate.

I’ve spent the last five or six years in various senior marketing and management roles for start-ups (software) and an agency. With all the job losses in the past year, including mine, I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone is, in essence, self-employed. With little or no real job security, we have to treat the work part of our lives in a very different way.

Job security no longer exists

Why do I say there’s no job security? Well, if you’re about to graduate from college it is estimated that you will have had 15 jobs by age 35. By my count that’s a lot of job changes. Even us 40+ people are now experiencing career changes that were unthinkable to many only a few years ago. There are many who are shell-shocked by the loss of the ‘only’ job they’ve had for many years. In a meeting of the recently unemployed I attended as part of my benefits it was apparent that fear was the dominant emotion being expressed.

Skills replace job security

I’m fortunate in that I never believed in job security unless you were doing something indispensable and I can’t think of any examples of that. I have a lot of skills and I’ve kept up with the constantly evolving trends in my discipline (online marketing and communications). I also have a mindset that tends to move forward rather than hold onto cherished beliefs. In my change message here I’m going to assert that this is not only a desireable way to look at things, it is an inevitable one.

How do you accomplish this flexibility? First look at your skills, not the amorphous ones, the real ones. Building a successful web site is a skill, managing a meeting is not. In these times you need tactical skills as opposed to strategic skills. That’s because tactics deliver sooner and recession business management is first and foremost survival management. What can you make? What can you deliver? What specifically can you do to help people now? If you cannot answer that with measurable outcomes (numbers, not concepts), you need to develop some skills pronto.

Connecting is more important than networking

You also need connections. As the founder of two very successful networking groups, I’m not going to slam networking but…you’re wasting your time networking with other out of work people with one exception. The exception is if you are looking for ad hoc project partners. Successful networking means going where the people who can use your skills are. One of my groups has evolved into primarily unemployed folks seeking ‘connections’. It fits all the conventional requirements for networking. I no longer participate because these people are not able to help me move forward- it’s not personal.

Connecting is sharing value mutually

The other group is a group of area CEOs of small to mid-sized businesses. It is totally private and job seekers and vendors are not invited. This is important because this is a peer group. We started it because of a shared interest in the economic development of our region. I’m an organizer and a former senior management person so I sort of qualify, sort of. I wouldn’t miss these meetings for the world because the discussion level is very interesting.

Connections are not people you exchange business cards with. They are people with whom you’ve found an engrossing mutual interest, one that will continue beyond your initial meeting. They are people who will return your calls and whose calls you will gladly take. One of the prime skills of thriving during change is understanding what you have to offer, finding those who value it and making a connection that shares value equally.

Recessions have the effect of showing up poorly conceived business models. It’s one the reasons that more long term successful businesses are started during downturns. When the economy is giddy and people are spending, businesses that are providing luxury products or services will thrive as will businesses providing incremental improvements to existing business models. However when things get tough these kinds of businesses are the first to go. So, when you’re planning a new business or a change to an existing one you should ask yourself the question in the title of this post.

Necessity or innovation?

Sustainable business models come in two categories: necessities and innovations. Providing a necessity is what I call a ‘mom and pop’ business model. You can make a living but growth is limited because nearly all necessities are commodities and commodities are, by nature, priced down to the lowest possible profit margin. Gas stations, grocery stores, liquor stores, housing, Windows laptops- these things are priced by the market not by the business owner.

Are you adding value?

Game-changers or innovation-oriented business models are a completely different animal. At the risk of being unoriginal, I’m going to look at mobile phones as an example. Motorola owned the market several years ago with its stylish Razr phones. Because phones are a commodity it was easy for others to catch up to them and the profit margins became nearly non-existent. If Motorola had continually innovated they might have been able to maintain their dominance in phone sales. What they failed to understand is that the ubiquity of cell phones represented an opportunity to to change the nature of how we use technology. First RIM added email to the phone then Apple entered with its game-changing eco-system device, the iPhone.

Apple is a perfect example of how innovation can thrive in a recession landscape. Given tight choices in how we spend our money, we are going to choose the highest value service or product available. If I am going to carry a device with me I want to carry one that enables a higher value experience.

Look at what your business offers. Are you measurably improving the experience of your customers in ways that provide high value? That is the model for developing a growth business in a down economy.

Wondering about your business model? We should talk. MartinEdic.com