Gauravonomics Blog

Welcome to Gauravonomics Blog! Subscribe to my combined feed in a feed reader or by e-mail and you'll never miss a single post. Thanks for visiting!

Google is inviting innovative ideas that change the world and help the highest number of people. The initiative is called Project 10¹⁰⁰ (10¹⁰⁰ is a way of expressing the number “googol,” a one followed by one hundred zeroes) and Google has committed $10 million to realize the selected ideas —

Here’s how it works. You submit a short description of the idea (and maybe a video) by October 20th, under one of eight categories (community, opportunity, energy, environment, health, education, shelter, and everything else). Google will put up a selection of hundred ideas for public voting and shortlist the twenty most popular ideas. Finally, an advisory board will select up to five final ideas and Google will use an RFP process to identify the organization(s) that are in the best position to implement the selected ideas.

So, Project 10¹⁰⁰ is not a social entrepreneurship venture fund — it is meant for people whose desire to see their idea being brought to life is bigger than their desire to bring it to life themselves. I know how powerful that desire can be — because I feel it (suffer from it?) myself — and I applaud Google for tapping into it.

I’ll be live-blogging all weekend from the TPRC Conference at George Mason University.

The first panel is about to discuss Jonathan Zittrain’s book ‘The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It’.

Jonathan Zittrain’s book is about how the real power of the internet is its open, generative, innovative nature and how closed appliances like iPod, iPhone, TiVo and XBox are threatening to lock it down.

The panel is moderated by Philip Weiser and members of the panel include Gigi Sohn, Scott Hemphill, Maureen Ohlhausen, Pamela Samuelson, Christopher Yoo and Link Hoewing.

The panel is mostly focusing on the regulatory responses to closed application platforms and the possibility of a ‘malware-triggered Internet 9/11 crisis that will inspire an Internet Patriot Act’.

I believe that closed appliance based application platforms are important because they give companies the financial incentives to foster innovation. However, the movement from a closed application platform to a open (source) platform is almost inevitable, as we are seeing in the case of iPhone and Android. So, there’s an innovation curve in play here, with closed application platforms creating new markets followed by open application platforms opening up the market.

Quick Summary: How will Google’s Social Graph API tie up with the earlier released Open Social API to enable social data portability across social networks?

Google’s just released Social Graph API promises to make public information about the social relationships between people on the web easily available and useful.

The API lets developers of social apps discover the social relationship data (”me links” and “friend links”) for their users embedded in links, blogrolls and social profile pages based on the the XFN (XHTML Friends Network) and FOAF (Friend of a Friend) labeling systems.

Watch Google’s Brad Fitzpatrick explain the Social Graph API in the video below –

Given Google’s terrible track record on the Open Social API, it’s probably wise to not go gaga over the Social Graph API, but here are my top of the mind thoughts on it –

Quick Summary: Read about the five levels in the Marketing Chain of Being, and the three laws that govern how brands move between them.

In an earlier post, I had written that, like the Renaissance Chain of Being, there is also a Marketing Chain of Being.

In this post, I’ll explain the five levels in the Marketing Chain of Being, and the three laws that govern how brands move between them.

There are five levels in the Marketing Chain of Being –

1. Commodity Hell, in which brands basically focus on price and channel promotions to sell more (think groceries).
2. Differentiation, in which brands highlight product features and benefits to command a price premium (think automobiles).
3. Engagement, in which brands use service (in both its customer service and conversation meaning) to develop relationships with customers (think Dell).
4. Cultural Currency, in which brands become shared social objects and help customers define their individual and group identities (think Nike+iPod).
5. Meaning, in which brands become the tools that customers use for self-realization or restoration (think Google).

Quick Summary: Read about how engagement is only the middle level in the ‘Marketing Chain of Being’ and how social media and customer service are only tools to create engagement.

The topic of the week in the marketing and public relations blogosphere is whether customer service is the new marketing, so much so that there’s even an upcoming event on the topic.

Most of the posts on the topic have focused on how social media is causing customer service and public relations to merge into each other to form the fabric of a new marketing paradigm.

I’m a brand manager, not a PR practitioner, and I can’t but feel that the above statement is rather simplistic. Yes, customer service is important. Yes, word of mouth is important, and, by association, public relations is important. Yes, good (or bad) customer service is an important factor in creating favorable (or unfavorable) word of mouth. Yes, social media gives customers the tools to amplify word of mouth. Yes, yes, yes and yes. But that’s only part of the story. Let me tell you the real story by going back to my post on the Marketing Chain of Being.

What is OpenSocial?

TechCrunch revealed today that, instead of launching a new social networking platform, Google will launch OpenSocial, a set of three common APIs that application developers can use to create applications that work on any hosts, social networks, that choose to participate. These APIs give developers access to the data needed to build social applications: access to a user’s profile, their friends, and the ability to let their friends know that activities have taken place. The initial lineup of hosts, or participating social networks, include Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle (update: MySpace, Bebo and SixApart have also joined OpenSocial). The initial lineup of developers include Flixster, iLike, RockYou and Slide.

You can also see a press release on the subject posted on John Battelle’s Searchblog.

What is my overall impression of OpenSocial?

In my opinion, Google gets three on three for not calling it Maka-Maka, for not falling into the Orkut vs. Facebook trap -

While a lot of bloggers are looking at ‘Maka-Maka’ in a Orkut vs. Facebook context, I think Google will be short-selling itself if it looked at the opportunity in such a limited way.

Ever since TechCrunch reported on Google’s social networking plans, codenamed ‘Maka-Maka’, the entire blogosphere is going gaga over it.

While a lot of bloggers are looking at ‘Maka-Maka’ in a Orkut vs. Facebook context, I think Google will be short-selling itself if it looked at the opportunity in such a limited way:

The bigger vision is to combine all of Google’s apps and services through Maka-Maka. Google already has so much data on you, depending on how many Google apps you already use. It just needs to bring everything together… in different ways, along with data about you from other social services across the Web, and give developers access to the social layer tying all of these apps together underneath. The real killer app for Google is not to turn Orkut into a Facebook clone. It is to turn every Google app into a social application without you even noticing that you’ve joined yet another social network. (TechCrunch)

By the way, if you are wondering what ‘Maka-Maka’ means, it may refer to a Hawaiian song about friendship, a shop for women’s dresses, a Japanese RPG (role playing game), or a modern, all-color adult manga about two girls who appear to be “friends with benefits” (via Andy Beal).

New York Times has reported that Yahoo is planning to buy Right Media, which owns an online advertising marketplace, for $680 mn -

Google and Yahoo each dominate one segment of the online advertising market. Google is best at selling text ads that appear alongside search results and on other websites. Yahoo, which has lagged Google in search, is a leader in selling graphical ads, mostly on its own sites.

With Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick and Yahoo’s acquisition of Right Media, both Google and Yahoo have moved beyond their traditional strengths and are now pitched squarely against each other in the battle to dominate online advertising.

Compete has just released its online video market share data for Mar ‘07 and it seems that Google-YouTube has lost market share from 55% in Feb ‘07 to 46.9% in Mar ‘07.

If the data is correct, this is a significant development.

I have asked Compete for a clarification, so watch out for an update.

John Battelle, search guru and writer of Search, in conversation with Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, at Web 2.0 Expo (YouTube video).

They talk about why Google Apps is a threat to Microsoft and Apple, why Google’s DoubleClick deal is scary for advertisers, why YouTube is integral to Google’s plans, why net neutrality is essential for web entrepreneurship, how mobile and local search are the future of Google and how Google is committed to user data privacy and portability.

What stayed with me after watching the video, however, was the contrast between John’s in-your-face flamboyance and Eric’s cautious diplomacy.

Also See: John Battelle and Robert Scoble on why Doubleclick went with Google and not Microsoft.