Google’s Most Searched For Keywords in the UK (last 90 days)

The most searched for keywords on Google in the UK in the last three months. Make of it what you will but the BBC looks to be the only UK based company in the top ten with Facebook way ahead of the rest:

And then there are the top 10 rising searches in the last 90 days. Google Street View is a massive winner and the next few are a who’s who of social media. ‘Youtube‘,  ’Facebook‘ & ‘Twitter‘ (Twitter searched for more than Facebook). It’s obviously exam time with the BBC’s revision site ‘Bitesize‘ ranking at sixth. ‘Lottery results’ and ‘AA Route Planner‘ are the outside inclusions:

All info taken from Google Insights

Bing Ad vs Google Chrome Ad

Ok so one’s a ‘decision engine’ and the other’s a browser but it’s interesting to see how the two digitally oligopolistic giants approach their ads.

Bing (traditional people based ad)

Google Chrome (Fun, stop motion type stuff)

So basically

Microsoft = Run of the mill
Google = Innovative

Google and Social Media.

Warning: This is a rambling mess of a blog entry. More of a way of collecting my thoughts than a coherent article but interesting I think none the less.

Four of Googles last five business acquisitions have been relating to social media. These being:

Zingku Social network service
Jaiku Micro-blogging
Omnisio Online video
TNC Weblog software

Does this signal their intentions to move further towards the social media foray? They recently introduced Google Wiki which allowed i-Google users to rate and re-order search results according to personal preference. This doesn’t seem to have been well accepted by the new media community and largely ignored by the general public.

Do Google need to enter the social media market? total 2008 revenue was cited at $21.796 Billion. Which by any account is a lot of money.

They are the masters of the search universe. They have a market leading algorithm which no competitors can touch and a whole industry built around their core product – Search.

But Google don’t seem as cool and relevant as they were. Sergey and Larry are older and not so down with the kids. Facebook and more recently, Twitter are becoming more useful as methods of locating information and contacts. For example, if I want to find out what general opinion is about the new Skittles website I could type in Skittles to Google. This will provide me with a link to the website but it won’t let me know how people feel about it. This I presume is Tim Berner-Lees semantic web. Dynamic by nature and constantly evolving, sites like Twitter, Friend Feed, Facebook can provide the concise sentiment that the internet currently lacks.

This is a long and round about way of getting to my question…when will Google enter the Social Media industry successfully? They could have bought Twitter 2-3 years ago but didn’t. They could have bought shares on Facebook but didn’t. They have recently purchased Zingku, Jaiku and Omnisio which are all concerned with micro social media channels. Googles Orkut is their only entrance into the social networking industry so far and although huge in Brazil, does not really register in the UK and only has 67,000,000 worldwide (compared to Facebook’s 175,000,000)

So my bet is on Jaiku being the next big social network IF it can bring something different to the game. Oh and it should also change its name, Jaiku is a rubbish name it doesn’t mean anything to me. It is currently in invitation only, beta testing so watch this space (thats the tiny space in between Facebook, Bebo, Myspace and Twitter. You can see it if you squint really hard.)

More here:
Unofficial Google (Google Operating System)

Techcrunch

Scobleizer’s Jaiku vs Twitter

social media blog

Has Barack Obama Slipped Myspace or Google A Few $$ ?

For years and years (well since 2006 so a year and a year really), I have been trying to figure out how to get one’s Myspace page to the top of the Google rankings. Think about it. If I could get my band’s page to appear when ever anyone types in the search query ‘myspace’ i’d get hundreds of page views a day.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that Lilly Allen came up particularly high in the Google rankings when ‘Myspace‘ was typed in. This I can understand as she was made famous by Myspace (so the legend goes) and so her large following, length of time on the social networking site, blog history etc etc all count towards a raised ranking.

Imagine my surprise then, when I type in ‘Myspace‘ to Google and Barack Obama, 46, appears as number two in the list. How has this happened? What did he do? In my humble and admittedly slightly bitter opinion this is a travesty. Social networking is about the people. It’s about us small people, connecting to make something bigger. Facebook groups protesting against oil prices, Myspace fans building up bands to catch the attention of record companies.

This is why I was so annoyed to see the future president (perhaps) of the USA have his name appear on my screen when I all I wanted was to listen to a local band.

Barack, I’m sure you’re a nice chap and you have some fine policies but please don’t appear on my screen with your below the line, subliminal advertising.

thank you

Experiment: Google Image Search

I have an experiment…it occured to me that when searching Google Images for a photo or picture, I then click through to the site from which the image originates. The way I decide which picture to click on if there are several options is by choosing the one with the best pixel size.

So, if I put lots of high resolution photo’s in this blog entry, I should see a rise in visitor numbers. Hopefully they (you if this has worked) will find this interesting.

Here goes: (P.s don’t hate me, blogging purists its just an experiment!)

How below the line is digital?

Before I worked in digital, I never realised the extent to which we are influenced whilst browsing the internet. I always understood that whilst watching TV or listening to tinpot local radio there are adverts but in an obvious way (above the line). Then this whole slightly seditious world was opened up.

So I want to get a good deal on a nice little cottage in Devon for a week. Here is how often I am advertised at online:

1) Obviously go straight to Google which presents me with 242,000 search results. Here I class this as 2 different ads (paid search and organic) but will only include the piad search ones so +11 ads

2) Click through on the top organic listing and website loads. 9 Google Content ads. 1x banner ad and 1 skyscraper.

3) Click on a cottage that looks nice. 4 further Google content network ads and 1x banner

So there we have it. I was advertised at 27 times in 3 clicks and 5 minutes.
Sorry maybe a pointless blog and yes I know advertising is neccesary to sustain many sites…

Online brand management reputational risk blah blah

Currently working on a project to create an application to monitor social media for positive and negative comments regarding a certain well known brand in the UK.

This has become more and more complicated we delve deeper and deeper in to the squelchy quagmire that is social media. A major problem is that many of the bookmarking sites have a strong bias towards American blogs/bookmarks/sites and so are less relevant to us Brits.

As a result of my research I found a great article which breaks down the differing types (and reasons for doing) online brand awareness. Read it here