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Rude Awakening: Google to Cut Jobs

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Google is cutting 4,000 jobs at MotorolaNow here’s some interesting news: Google is downsizing – the first time it’s ever done so.

More precisely, it’s cutting ~20% of the workforce of its Motorola subsidiary, which it acquired earlier this year. And most of those job cuts are happening in the United States.

While Google is known for being a money machine, the fate of its Motorola subsidiary has been far less stellar. In fact, Motorola hasn’t turned a profit in 14 of its last 16 quarters.

Motorola proves how dicey the world of hardware is compared to the search advertising realm where Google makes more than 90% of its revenues and profits.

The fact is, despite Motorola’s strong lineup of smartphone models like the Droid RAZR and RAZR HD, it’s just very difficult to turn a profit on the hardware side — especially in the entry-level mass market where Motorola has also attempted to compete.

But more to the point: Motorola’s subsidiary is one industry sector where Google isn’t in the driver’s seat. By contrast, it’s easy to be a veritable profit machine when you control 65%+ of the billions that make up the search marketing world.

Recently, it’s clear that Google has been sniffing around to add other products and services and not be so dependent on one silver-bullet business category.

The big question is … what does Motorola’s experience portend for future forays by Google into new segments where the company doesn’t command an overwhelming advantage?  Or, will it spend more of its capital on search-related acquisitions, like the just-announced absorption of Frommer’s travel-related media properties?

Welcome to the real-world competition, Google.

Tablet Computer Adoption: Fast and Furious

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Tablets are growing faster than smartphone adoptionThe tablet computer hasn’t been around long at all.  But it’s making a huge splash in the digital arena … and giving not only laptops but also smartphones a run for their money in the bargain.

Consider these data points as reported on recently by Mark Donovan, a senior vice president at comScore, a leading Internet cyber-analytics firm:

  • Tablet adoption is happening significantly faster than what was experienced with smartphones.
  • The majority of iPad users don’t own an iPhone or some other type of smartphone.
  • Tablet “early adopters” are equally male and female – a departure from the norm which typically finds early adopters of new digital technology being primarily young men.
  • There is very high usage of tablets for shopping, watching video, and other media consumption. That’s also a departure from what was experienced with smartphones, where it took much longer for consumers to become comfortable shopping from their smartphone devices.
  • People use tablets and smartphones differently – and at different times. For example, smartphone usage peaks during the day whereas tablets are used more in the evening.

That tablets are making big gains on laptop computers is no surprise at all, considering their lighter weight, nearly effortless portability, brighter screens, and the ease of using them in environments not conducive to a keyboard-and-mouse (like in bed).

But of the trends noted above, I think the most intriguing one pertains to tablet computer usage versus smartphones – specifically, how tablets are becoming an alternative to smartphones rather than an adjunct.

Indeed, it seems as if some people aren’t making the transition from feature phones to smartphones that everyone expected; they’re opting for tablets instead. We may see the adoption rates for smartphonesbegin to flatten out as a result.

Indeed, Adobe Systems reported in May 2012 that tablet traffic is growing at a rate ten times faster than smartphone traffic.

But if you really think about it, maybe these latest developments aren’t so surprising: Many folks have long complained about the “miniaturization” of display screens that are a necessary evil of mobile phones. Now that the tablet has come along, there’s finally an effective solution to that dilemma – and the market has responded accordingly, blowing away even the most optimistic sales forecasts for tablets.

Goodbye Hotmail … Hello Outlook

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Hotmail becomes OutlookMicrosoft has finally bitten the bullet and acknowledged the catch-up ball it needs to play in the e-mail space.

Last week, Microsoft announced that it’s unveiling a completely revamped version of its Hotmail free online e-mail service.

Dubbed “Outlook” in a bid to transfer some of the goodwill from Microsoft’s popular Office email application to the free e-mail space, the successor product to Hotmail incorporates functionalities designed to make it more directly competitive with Google Gmail, which has been growing by leaps and bounds in recent times.

You may not realize it from the persistent dearth of industry press coverage about Hotmail, but it’s actually held the rank of the world’s largest online mail service, owning more than a third of the world market share (~325 million users), according to June 2012 reporting from cyber-statistics firm comScore.

But Microsoft’s margin over rivals has shrunk considerably, with Gmail hard on its tail at ~31% market share of users and Yahoo holding a similar percentage (~32%).

It may be surprising to learn that in the ever-changing digital space … but prior to this revamp Microsoft hadn’t updated any of the features or functionality of Hotmail in nearly a decade.

“A lot has changed in the last eight years, and we think it’s time for a fresh look at e-mail,” Chris Jones, a Microsoft exec, stated in a blog post that has to be the understatement of the decade.

Here’s some of what’s in store for users when they switch from Hotmail to Outlook:

  • A clean, uncluttered look – just like Gmail.
  • Tasteful, unobtrusive advertisements appearing in the right column of the screen – just like Gmail.
  • Users can link up with all major social media accounts to view the latest updates from their contacts and friends – just like Gmail.

Is this beginning to sound a bit repetitive?

But there is one feature that may give Outlook a bit of a leg up on its free online competitors: The service will automatically detect mass messages like sales notices, daily deals, newsletters and social updates and place them in separate folders. Users can customize this functionality to sort incoming e-mail any way they wish.

I haven’t used Hotmail in the past … although I might be tempted to consider Outlook now that these newest innovations have been added.

But the long-term success of Outlook – and any free e-mail platform – is going to be how effectively they can connect various online assets together to provide “one-stop convenience” for users.

One thing’s certain: There’s no way Microsoft can let another eight years go by before making more enhancements to its free e-mail service offering, considering the always-aggressive posture of Google and its Olympian competitive spirit.

B-to-B e-mail marketing: From sleepy to creepy?

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Unwanted e-mails from businesses and brandsThe amount of information that companies know about the behavior of their customers has been growing, thanks to the “digital footprints” people leave all over the place when interacting with companies and brands via web surfing, e-mail and e-commerce.

Still, up until now, there’s been a polite dance wherein the companies don’t acknowledge the degree of that knowledge. Call it a sort of digital politeness.

But that seems to be changing, as the stakes have grown higher for engaging with customers via online, social and e-mail communications rather than traditional advertising.

Take Pitney Bowes in the B-to-B world, for example. In recent months, its marketing staff has sent out e-mail communiqués to their opt-in customers containing messages like, “We notice it’s been a while since you opened an email from us.”

That creepy little missive is as impertinent as it is likely false. Considering the wide swath of people who use the Microsoft Outlook e-mail platform – and many of those use preview panes and have set their default preferences to block images – in reality Pitney Bowes doesn’t actually know if its customers have been reading its e-mail messages or not.

It’s also unclear whether Pitney Bowes really wants its opt-in recipients to go away rather than just browbeating people into engaging with their e-mails more.

This has manifested itself in e-mail messages sent asking if customers are still interested in receiving e-mails so they can “continue receiving the latest from PB.” But despite this implicit threat to be dropped from Pitney Bowes’ e-mail database, ignoring those e-mails doesn’t seem to result in that actually happening.

Rather, it’s just a continuation of more borderline-creepy e-mails with messages chiding the recipient for potentially missing out on “valuable information about supplies, offers, discounts, new products and thought leadership pieces.”

Thought leadership pieces? The leaders of Pitney Bowes may think quite highly about their company and its “vaunted” position in industry … but self-describing itself as being the fount of industry-leading knowledge is a surefire way to get laughed out of town.

Just like the obnoxious teacher’s pet in school or the crashing bore at a cocktail party, no one enjoys interacting with a know-it-all who just can’t wait to corner you and tell you all about his or her latest feats of accomplishment.

In a world where most businesses are spending more effort than ever trying to collect e-mail addresses for ongoing engagement with customers and prospects, here’s a little reminder to them: Try disseminating content that is actually of value to people … which is what will get them to engage with you.

More often than not, that content won’t be about their products and services.

Social media: All that glitters is … what?

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Fake followers, fans, friends on social mediaChances are, you haven’t heard of Anthony Gemma, and I hadn’t either. 

Unless you live in Rhode Island, that is.  Mr. Gemma is a businessman who’s running for U.S. Congress there. And despite the fact that he has yet to win his own political party’s primary, he has already amassed nearly 1 million Twitter followers.

That’s more followers than presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

According to various social media monitoring services, Gemma’s Twitter account added ~400,000 followers in February 2012 alone.

And how about this stunning statistic: Between January and February of this year, the number of friends on Mr. Gemma’s personal Facebook page jumped some 5,600% to nearly 170,000 people.

How is this possible? For clues, we can start by noting that Mr. Gemma has described himself as a “social media guru.” In addition to owning a regional plumbing business, he’s also headed up a concern called Mediapeel, which bills itself as a providing “media strategy advice” to companies.

And therein lie clues to the sudden surge of “interest” in Mr. Gemma and his Congressional campaign in the social media sphere.  One can only imagine the lengths to which Mr. Gemma and his campaign staff are going in order to show off the candidate’s “obvious” fame and notoriety.

But are Mr. Gemma’s social media followers for real? Or are they of the same ilk of the famed digital “Potemkin Villages” that have sprung up all over the Internet?

Consider a few telltale signs about Anthony Gemma and his fantabulous social media presence:

  • Fewer than 1% of Gemma’s Twitter follows are based in Rhode Island … but nearly 15% are in Canada. You’ll find another 2% from London, England, plus thousands of others from places all over the globe.  I’m not sure how far afield Mr. Gemma takes his regional plumbing business, but this geographic map is intriguing to say the least.
  • Gemma’s Twitter “fans” are an unusually  inactive bunch. On February 24, 2012 – the same day Mr. Gemma’s Twitter account picked up a tidy 87,000 new followers in one fell swoop – he asked his Twitter audience to retweet a photo. A whopping six people chose to do so.
  • Earlier this year, after the progressive organization Rhode Island’s Future questioned the validity of Mr. Gemma’s burgeoning bevy of Facebook friends and noted that the most popular origin of his friends, followers and fans was an unlikely location — Frankfurt, Germany — all of the names referenced in the RIFuture blog post mysteriously disappeared from Gemma’s social sites.  Interestingly, however, the most prevalent place of origin for Gemma’s personal Facebook page’s friends is another foreign city: Moscow.  I guess Mr. Gemma’s international interests range from the Germanic to the Slavic.

Although it’s impossible to know for sure, these signs suggest that there’s precious little “there there” when it comes to the extent of Mr. Gemma’s true social media footprint.

And in fact, just last week the political website Politico made the latest attempt to get to the bottom Anthony Gemma’s questionable social media presence.

Politico took note of this tweet from Mr. Gemma’s account, posted on July 24, 2012:  “Don’t add up your troubles, count your blessings. RETWEET to pass it on!”

Of Gemma’s nearly 1 million “followers”, only 17 did so.

And while one of them actually appears to be a Rhode Islander, the others include followers from Sydney, Calcutta, the Baltic States, Indonesia …

… But none from Potemkin Village.

Coming Attractions: A Newly Sanitized YouTube

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YouTube Cleaning up its ActThe YouTube phenomenon has been one of the biggest success stories of all in cyberspace.

Over the years, YouTube has gone from being a weird corner of the web made up of curious, strange and often forgettable video clips, to a site that attracts millions of viewers every day – some of whom have essentially ditched all other forms of video viewing in favor of mining the vast trove of material YouTube carries on its platform.

In the years since Google acquired YouTube, traffic and usage have exploded, even as the video fare has become more varied (and also more professional).

But there’s one holdover from the early years that continues to bedevil Google: YouTube is a repository of some of the most inflammatory, puerile and downright disgusting commentary that passes for “discourse,” posted by all manner of rabble.

But now, Google is signaling a strategy that has the potential to clean up the crude comments on YouTube – and in a big way.

YouTube is now strongly encouraging users to post their YouTube comments using the name identity associated with their Google+ account.

In fact, if you decline to do so after being prompted, you’ll be asked to state a reason why, underscoring the nudge away from “screen name anonymity” and towards “real-name identity.”

The notion is that people will be less likely to post flaming comments when their “true” web identity is known – that people will exude good behavior in “polite cyber-company,” as it were.

Of course, one needs to possess a Google+ account in order to link his or her identity on YouTube. But that’s for today only; some observers see YouTube’s move as just the first step toward hiding – and eventually eliminating – all comments coming from anonymous accounts.

So the new bargain will be something closer to this: “Open a Google+ account and link your YouTube account to your Google+ account … or else forfeit your ability to post any comments at all on YouTube.”

The likely result will be a much more “sanitized” YouTube – less edgy, but also less red-faced embarrassing. And that’s just what many brands, businesses and advertisers would like to see happen.

Of course, YouTube’s moves may well spur the launch of an alternative site that seeks to preserve the (nearly) anything-goes environment of the YouTube of yore.

Perhaps it could be called “YouCrude,”  But, as it happens, that handle’s already been nabbed — by a fellow WordPress blogger!

QR Codes Go Ghoulish

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QR Code on HeadstoneIt’s no secret that QR (“quick response”) codes, the Japanese communications tech import, have had a difficult time taking off here in the United States. It’s a topic I’ve blogged about before. 

Indeed, it seems that marketing people are more attached to them than anyone else.

And why wouldn’t marketers be excited? It’s yet another way to engage audiences “in the moment” and enable them to head over to a landing page on impulse to take an immediate action … or at least to find out more information.

But a mix of things – lack of complete smartphone penetration, lack of QR-enabling software on mobile devices, ignorance of how QR codes operate, or just plain laziness – have conspired to keep QR engagement levels far below what marketers were hoping.

But hope springs eternal. And now we even see the QR spirit rising in the grave marker business.

That is correct: At least four monument companies in the United States are now offering QR code services as part of the grave markers they’re preparing for families of deceased loved ones.

And the QR codes look just like you’d expect: one of those square splotch-marks, affixed prominently to the headstone. So now gravesite visitors can point their smartphone at the headstone and immediately pull up a biography, pictures, or even videos of the dear, departed soul.

One of the companies offering QR service is Katzman Monument Company, a Minnesota-based company that conducts its business completely online.

“It’s a chance for future generations to make a connection with a loved one,” company head Norm Taple reported to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune newspaper. “There’s no emotional connection when all you can look at is a headstone – probably a dirty headstone at that.”

Part of the fun is the person who maintains the login code for the deceased’s online information. While anyone can access information on the deceased via a smartphone, only that one person can edit the information … and he or she can do so at any time.

Want to beef up Grandpa’s legacy by having him graduating from Harvard as opposed to Haverford? Done in a flash.

Looking to spice up Great Aunt Emma’s early dramatic career by having her being a burlesque showgirl in Chicago? Just a couple keystrokes and it’s now in her official biography.

Kidding aside, it’ll be interesting to see if this latest manifestation of QR code technology is more successful than the other attempts to force-feed them to the public.

My hunch tells me … it’s doubtful.

Tower of Babble: Four billion e-mail addresses and counting.

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Billions of e-mail addressesDavid Baker, a global vice president at marketing technologies firm Acxiom and e-mail expert extraordinaire, wrote recently that when speaking with an employee at one of the major online database aggregators, he was informed that this company had a grand total of 4 billion e-mail addresses on file.

And of these, ~2 billion had names and addresses associated with them.

These numbers are dramatically higher than the worldwide estimate of e-mail addresses published by the Pingdom blog in its Internet 2011 in Numbers report.

Think about this for a moment. Considering that the total population of the United States is a little over 310 million, how many e-mail addresses per person are floating around out there?

Strip away the very young … plus teens and ‘tweens who don’t engage nearly so much in e-mail … and we’re left with the realization that among the core adult audience of Boomers and GenXers, there’s really no such thing as a single e-mail address that can be tied to one individual.

Even if we ourselves don’t maintain multiple e-mail accounts for different purposes, surely we know people who do. One person I know is juggling no fewer than 20 separate e-mail addresses; he claims to be keeping them all straight.

This notion of multiplicity is at cross-purposes with how marketers have traditionally viewed prospecting. We’ve been conditioned to think about an individual as being tied to one physical address and one e-mail address – in the same manner as a discrete mobile phone number or a unique social security number.

In theory, all of these are vehicles of monetization, with e-mail being particularly attractive because of the low cost associated with reaching prospects in that manner.

But in actuality, there’s a great deal of complexity:

  • Which e-mails are associated with opt-in permission?
  • Which e-mail addresses are primary (highly active) versus secondary (relatively inactive)?
  • Which e-mails are valid, but lying dormant?

Because e-mail addresses are “cheap/free,” they’re ephemeral. They aren’t “linear” in the same sense as the data on a residence, a business address or even a mobile phone number can deliver.

Mr. Baker concludes that, far from becoming easier, “the ability to engage a customer through e-mail across a portfolio of communications is becoming more costly and complex.”

With 4 billion e-mail addresses sloshing around in the digital space, there’s no doubt e-mail marketing will continue to be a major force in marketing. Even if half of them are cyber-zombies, digital Potemkin villages or what-have-you.

The challenge is in sorting it all out.

I think the e-mail specialists are going to be at this for a good long time to come.

Employees are ill-prepared for retirement … but how much do they really care?

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People are ill-prepared financially for retirement.If the economic shocks of the past five years haven’t been enough to spur people to focus on their financial futures, one wonders what it would take for them to do so.

You’d think that more people than ever would be taking the time and effort for retirement  planning … but a recent study conducted by CFO Research Services and Koski Research, done on behalf of the Charles Schwab investment firm, belies that notion.

The study, which was completed in April 2012, surveyed ~200 senior finance and HR execs from mid-size and large U.S. companies, along with ~1,000 401(k) plan participants. The research found that despite the efforts by employers to educate their workers on the financial offerings available to them, not only are most employees financially unprepared for retirement, they’re also disengaged from the process.

More specifically, over half of the employers surveyed report that their 401(k) plan participants are not taking full advantage of the investment options, features and other services offered in connection with the these plans.

And it’s not for lack of trying on the part of companies. Among the tools employers are offering their 401(k) plan participants are:

  • Interactive planning tools (~93% offer)
  • In-person meetings or workshops (~81% offer)

Employers are even taking the step of auto-enrolling employees into 410(k) savings plans as a way of spurring interest.

But as the saying goes … you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. In fact, only a minority of employees in the Schwab survey express the desire to manage their own workplace savings programs. They give numerous reasons for this, the more prevalent ones being:

  • Don’t have the time
  • Insufficient knowledge
  • Just not interested

This lack of attention on their plans is illustrated further in this stunning statistic: Three-fourths of the employees surveyed spend fewer than eight hours annually managing their 401(k) account. That’s less than 45 minutes per month, on average.

Considering that for many participants, their 401(k) plan represents the single largest category of savings they have, this is a startling finding to say the least.

People talk a good game, it seems: More than four out of five respondents in the Schwab survey claim they’re interested in receiving professional investment management advice from their employer.

But this hardly translates into action. While many companies are offering such support … only ~10% of employees actually takes advantage of such advice when it is offered.

The final, sobering finding from the survey is this: For those respondents who have attempted to calculate the savings they believe they’ll need for retirement, there is an eight-fold gap between how much they’ve actually saved and how much they calculate they’ll need to have in retirement.

It’s pretty difficult to ignore that oncoming freight train … but not if you close your eyes and cover your ears.

Asian-Americans Set the Pace

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Asian Americans setting the pace in education, income and career success, according to the Pew Research CenterAs an American with Asian relatives in my family, I’ve witnessed first-hand how having a strong work ethic and a dedication to industriousness leads to success here on our shores.

And now a new Pew Research Center study demonstrates that the anecdotal evidence of our family reflects a larger reality.

Bottom-line, Asian Americans are not only the fastest-growing racial group in the USA today, they’re also the best-educated, highest-income segment.

According to the Pew research, Asian-Americans are also more satisfied with their lives compared to the general public … as well as more satisfied with their own personal finances and the overall direction of the country.

Other questions on the Pew survey reveal that Asian-Americans place more value than other Americans in time-tested values like parenting, marriage, hard work and career success.

But they’re also distinctly “21st century” … in that they’re the most likely of any major group in America to live in mixed neighborhoods and to marry across racial or ethnic lines.

The findings of the Pew survey are even more interesting when we realize that the U.S. Asian population remains majority-immigrant – nearly 75%, in fact. Asian-Americans now represent almost 6% of the U.S. population, some ~18 million people. That’s up from less than 1% of the population in 1965.

The Pew study contains interesting income and education demographics that place Asian-Americans above all other groups. But the research also addressed attitudinal measures and found that most Asian-Americans believe the United Sates is better than their country of origin in a variety of quality-of-life factors, including:

  • The opportunity to “get ahead” (~73% in USA versus ~5% in country of origin)
  • The freedom to express political views (~69% vs. ~3%)
  • Treatment of the poor (~64% vs. ~9%)
  • Conditions for raising children (~62% vs. ~13%)
  • The freedom to practice religion (~52% vs. ~7%)

Opinion is mixed in one attribute: “the moral values of society.” In this case, ~34% of Asian-American respondents believe that the United States does better, compared to ~28% who give the edge to their country of origin.

And in one big measure – “the strength of family ties” – the U.S. falls way behind: Only ~14% perceive the U.S. does better in this attribute, while a whopping ~56% give the nod to their country of origin.

The Pew report provides a fascinating snapshot of the current situation characterizing the Asian-American experience.  More details from the Pew Research report can be found here.