Never bet against Google in 2014

Over the last dozen years Google has grown to be one of the most dominant online players, perhaps the biggest. Its current market value is about $350bn and all signs are that it can continue ruling the online space, despite several factors, including:

1.  More and more people using mobile devices for their daily searching and browsing activity
2.  Increased competition from Microsoft’s Bing.com search engine (which has blatantly tried to copy Google’s model and put a lot of money behind it’s promotion)
3. A list of discontinued products that have surprised on-lookers and left some users high & dry (e.g. Google Apps: closed in early 2012 and Google Reader: a feed-based news aggregator which was dropped in July 2013)

However despite Google’s mantra of “Don’t be evil”, which tries to set it apart from the more traditional software and IT services companies... it’s sheer size and might means it can’t help but disrupt any market or segment it decides to move into. From mobile phone operating systems & devices, to the Chrome operating system and a web-based email service (that became the top provider about a year ago) Google continues an upward trajectory. The consequence of this is that it is probably the only company able to challenge Apple in some areas of consumer electronics and communications.

What this means is that betting against Google in anything it decides to do is an unwise move. So if it targets any market or products that your company is in over the next year or so… my advice is, get out.

H2H - the real social networks

By now you all should know what Social Media is.

“Why Hayden, it’s Facebook and Twitter of course, right?”.... Wrong!

Social Media is the use of technology (and specifically the Internet) to connect people with people. This creates new and exciting ways for them to meet, interact and engage with each other.
Note: Yes, this does include revolutions!

Specific social networks facilitate this connectivity

• Facebook : personal
• Linkedin: business
• Twitter: short (& trivial)

These networks no longer make it about the technology; they make it about the people, their relationships and their behaviour.

That's why the advertising revenue of Facebook is growing so quickly, is because that's where people are these day.. hanging out, chatting with friends, throwing sheep (BTW: does anyone still do that?), etc. And one reason Facebook is valued so highly (currently $50 billion) is because of that ad revenue.

So next time someone claims that social networks are worth so much is because they have so much great functionality or because brands are there... my suggestion is to tell them its because that's where the humans are. And humans engaging with other humans is what social networks are really about.