If they don’t innovate – we must! Or: Don’t Be (The) Evil (Giant)

In this week’s SearchInsider post named “Don’t Be (The) Evil (Giant)”, Kaila Colbin discusses Google’s remarkable success, and concluded the giant was not evil but rather the best at serving their markets’ needs.  As much as I enjoyed Kaila’s post, I really did not agree with her opinion, which started a discussion around how Google buys or kills small, but promising new players in the market as a way of “outsourced” innovation.  This is from my comment on Kaila’s post:

“I actually used to work for Eurekster, a true innovator in social search and the first to launch universal search results and a custom search engine anybody could put on their site or blog.

It took Google (and other search providers, to be fair, though they are less impactful) about 6 months to offer similar functionality, and i can’t help but think that their capabilities to innovate reside with the tiny start-ups that have great ideas and bring them to market, but would rarely ever be able to compete with the big players when it comes to market share. Read Charles Knight’s http://www.altsearchengines.com/ for plenty of great search companies out there. (I applaud Twitter for having been able to beat the odds thus far.)”

Kaila’s response entertained this remarkable question:

“…more than one of you suggest that Google doesn’t actually serve the needs of the market better than others — that it’s momentum, not innovation, that is largely responsible for Google’s current success.

So here is my question to you: what evidence do we have that innovation is a market need? That, as you suggest, it’s a greater need than comfort or consistency?

From where I sit, we don’t have any. Precisely the opposite, in fact. The market continues to reward companies that serve its needs, including its need to not have to learn new technologies or re-solve problems it already believes solved.”

I’d say innovation is absolutely a market need, and I’d argue that no company will succeed long-term if it stopped to innovate, as innovation is all about anticipating and addressing the needs of tomorrow’s market. That’s why competition is so important. Only in a monopoly can a market player afford to not innovate and to disregard the changing needs of the market.

For more opinions, please see the Continuous Innovation LinkedIn Group discussion I started on this topic.

Search with Panache!

This post was written for and published first on http://blog.loomia.com/

I took the liberty to borrow the headline from our good friend Bill Sobel, the famous “master-connector” and maker and creator of MIEG breakfast events for anybody who’s anything in online media. We’re actually going to be at next week’s event, so if you happen to be in NY, please let us know.

In his post, Bill mentions Loomia and describes the service as “search with panache”. Despite my obvious bias, I actually picked his headline, as it quite nicely seemed to speak to one of the latest discussions around the future of the publishing industry, namely the role of search.

We still don’t know if search engine traffic makes Google a friend, or if “stealing” revenue opportunities from publishers means they are a foe. One could simply cut the search traffic cord with no-follow tags and the likes, but there’s no obvious alternative to make up for the inevitable traffic loss.

And just today, in his blog post “So long, sections?” Jacob Harris suggests newspapers should consider re-organizing their news (and their departmental structure) by topics and tags, as opposed to the traditional sections, like business or technology. Per Jacob, Google is to newspaper sections what the iTunes store has been to the album. And everything’s searchable.

Or is it?

If you read on to the comments, a very good point is made:

You can only search for what you know exists. Newspapers used to be content aggregators and content producers, allowing you to learn about news, to discover news, as well as to read the articles.

If newspapers can re-invent themselves in that way, and become again the place to learn about news, they will succeed with keeping their audience and maintaining their brand equity. Panache!

Google: “parasites” or “good for journalism”?

This post was written for and first published on http://blog.loomia.com/

With the publishing industry undergoing one of the most challenging transformations in history (think plummeting CPMs, the much documented “slow death” of newspapers, and lack of successful online business models), I’ve noticed a growing number of voices pitching in advising the industry of what to do.

This week, Google’s very own Marissa Mayer appeared to speak at the Senate subcommittee on communications, technology, and the Internet hearing on the future of journalism.  Having come under what seems like daily attacks, even Forbes CEO Jim Spanfeller quoted Google’s “parasitical nature of its business model” as a factor for potentially destroying journalism.

As Mayer pointed out, Google, obviously, drives traffic to news sites.  In fact, she quoted a rate of over a billion clicks per month.   As she was making her case why Google is good for journalism, she provided several concrete suggestions for publishers to better address the changing way in which people consume content (by article, rather than by publication), including this:

“When a reader finishes an article online, it is the publication’s responsibility to answer the reader who asks, “What should I do next?” Click on a related article or advertisement? Post a comment? Read earlier stories on the topic? Much like Amazon.com suggests related products and YouTube makes it easy to play another video, publications should provide obvious and engaging next steps for users. Today, there are still many publications that don’t fully take advantage of the numerous tools that keep their readers engaged and on their site.”

Naturally, being at Loomia, I think she has a really good point here.  Our tag line “delivering the best next click” was actually developed to express this very opportunity for publishers to turn search traffic into loyal readers and monetize them, too.  No more foes.