GOOGLE’S CO-FOUNDERS PLAN TO

SURRENDER MAJORITY CONTROL 

There’s little need to weep for Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the Stanford U whiz kids who turned a dream into one of the world’s great success stories in little more than 11 years. The pair recently announced they plan to give up their majority stock positions in Google over the next five years.  

That doesn’t mean they won’t continue to influence every aspect of the company. With 48% of the voting rights shared between them, they certainly will continue as company powerhouses. 

The plan is to sell what will amount to some $2.75 billion worth of shares, stretched over the five-year period so that there would be no sudden impact on the company and the two men can never be accused of insider trading. 

The two men, both just 36-years-old, deserve great credit for the organization they have built. 

Technorati Profile

BABY BOOMERS ARE DEVOTED MEMBERS

OF SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKS

In its recent report “Boomers and Social Media,” eMarketer states that 47% of online boomers maintain a profile on at least one social network. The report’s author Lisa E. Phillips writes, ”Creating and renewing personal connections online is the biggest draw for these boomers.”

A study by Deloitte several months earlier found that 46% of boomers actively maintain their profiles on the networks. Several analysts report that Facebook is the network of choice for 73% of boomers. Twitter and LinkedIn attract a mere 13% of them. 

With the markets for boomers and seniors expanding exponentially, this is great news for authors who target the older generations with their work. No longer can publishers and authors write off the hundreds of thousands of vibrant oldsters who now make up one of the fastest growing markets in America. I can personally attest to the importance of this market since my last book The Writer Within You initially targeted retirees and boomers who were nearing retirement, and met with a good deal of success.

Technorati Profile

GOOGLE POSTS RECORD PROFITS

ONCE AGAIN THIS YEAR 

Google’s investor relations report once again announced a banner year following the incredible growth in the past two years. Although growth was somewhat slower, not a surprise in this economic climate, the company produced a 9% gain in revenues, reaching $23.7 billion. 

Net profits as a percentage of revenue improved appreciably, reaching 28% or $6.5 billion. Not a bad take-home in this economy, and the reason that you see the company so active in acquisitions in recent months. 

Technorati Profile

AT 4.5 MILLION IN THE LAST 2 MONTHS, AMERICAN SUBSCRIBERS

REPRESENT THE LARGEST GROWTH SEGMENT FOR FACEBOOK 

While the Numero Uno social medium Facebook has grown in countries all around the globe, new subscribers in the United States topped the growth list by far. The only other country included in a report by Inside Facebook to reach seven-figure growth was Indonesia. 

eMarketer states that these increases put the participation of active American users above 100 million. The heaviest increase came from males 18 to 25 and women 26 to 34. Earlier in the year (2009), major growth came from older users, as we reported in a previous edition, but that has slipped somewhat. 

Facebook reports that four out of ten active users are under 25 years of age, with 23% of users falling into the 26 to 34 age range. Total usage for the network is pegged at 350 million. 

Technorati Profile

STUDY FINDS THAT E-MAIL STILL OUTRANKS

ALL OTHER DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES 

StrongMail’s analysis of marketing trends for the forthcoming year indicates increased promotional budgets and heavy use of e-mail.  Of the executives surveyed, 69% chose e-mail as their primary strategy, with social media coming in second at 59%. Digital search was in third place at 42%. All other categories fared rather poorly. 

One approach that has generated new interest is the combination of e-mail and social media. More than 40% of survey respondents selected the combination as a key element of their 2010 marketing plans. Of that group, 18% stated they hoped to combine the two, but were unsure of how best to do it. At least 27% have already implemented the combined effort. 

This is a model that alert authors may want to follow. Many are active subscribers to social media; certainly a majority use e-mail in various ways. By integrating the two with essentially the same message, a much more powerful impact can be made…and that means sales of lots more books. Not a bad plan! 

Technorati Profile

A NEW SURVEY REPORTS THAT COMPUTERS STILL

ARE THE FIRST CHOICE FOR READING E-BOOKS  

Despite all the hoopla over Kindle and its ever-growing number of competitors, the number one choice for reading e-books remains the computer, a new study released by the Book Industry Study Group (BSIG) reports. 

Almost one fifth of the respondents to the survey stated that they have abandoned print books in favor of e-books. On the negative side, the major source of complaints is the fact that the programming of the various readers is not interchangeable. 

Although these early breakthroughs in digital readers has hyped up the e-book industry and attracted substantial growth in readership, I suspect there is still a long way to go before e-books become the dominant format that so many self-styled analysts predict.  

As the industry stabilizes, I think you will find interest slowing. That doesn’t mean that digital books and periodicals won’t represent a respectable chunk of the overall publishing industry. It means simply that the current rush to buy and use a digital reader will slow as the novelty wears down and so will the pace of growth. I know that’s counter to what most of the analysts say, but I think it makes a great deal of sense.

Technorati Profile

STUDY REVEALS THE EGO FACTOR

IN ACTIVE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA 
 

A recent study conducted by Crowd Science reveals the degree of ego that many social network users display. Pointing out that users want to be heard, the report says that 45% of respondents stated they liked it when others noticed them. Others respondents—36%--reported that they believe most people are interested in what they have to say. Perhaps promotions for your book on the social media should respond to those egos. 

The study also found that among users over 30 years of age, 45% of women, significantly more than men, believed that others wanted to hear their thoughts. eMarketer, the company that announced the report findings, added that women were three times more likely than men to say that online social media was their favorite leisure activity. 

The question of credibility was also tested in the survey, with 46% of respondents stating they could easily tell whether or not information on social media was accurate. Only 24% stated that free news was as trustworthy as paid advertising, something to be carefully considered by every author using these media to promote his/her books.

Technorati Profile

FRANCE CONSIDERS INTERESTING WAY

TO SUPPORT ARTISTIC ENTERPRISES 

While the skirmish over pay walls on digital content gains intensity here in the U.S., France has proposed a new approach to harvesting dollars by taxing Internet ad revenues of digital service providers. The proceeds would be used to support existing cultural activities that have been hurt by the shift to digital in the nation andt o spur the launching of others.  

Labeled “The Google Tax” by President Sarkozy who created a study group to find a way to help subsidize cultural efforts, the novel approach is now in the hands of the Culture Ministry. As proposed, it would tax even those companies that are based in other countries, but who advertise to French users. 

Sarkozy argues, “For the time being, these companies are taxed in the country in which they are headquartered, even though they make up a big part of our advertising market.” 

The story on the new proposal was broken by the newspaper Liberation. Could it trigger a possible new direction in the American pay wall battle? 

Technorati Profile

ALL EYES ARE FOCUSED ON TIM ARMSTRONG

AND HIS NEWEST CHALLENGE, RESTRUCTURING AOL 

With AOL’s widely anticipated split from Time Warner, newly appointed CEO Tim Armstrong must use the expertise he exhibited while at Google to develop a platform of content that will intrigue both consumers and advertisers and convince them that the newest incarnation of this much-beleaguered company has finally discovered the path to success. 

That’s a mighty big job when faced with competition from powerhouses like Yahoo and MSN.  

Once a thriving organization that made the slogan “Welcome, you’ve got mail” an iconic phrase worldwide, AOL began its fabled downhill slide with its improbable merger with Time Warner. Now that it’s on its own, Armstrong has to find ways to eradicate the stigma that misjudgment created and convince all that he can turn the company around. 

Despite AOL’s sad history of management changes that consistently failed, Armstrong sees opportunity in the base of 100 million unique visitors every month.  

Not a bad place to begin the process of convincing the world that this incarnation will be the best and hopefully the last for the ailing organization. I have maintained my loyalty through all these lean years, and found the company very supportive and relatively efficient.  

While I have no financial interests in AOL, I urge my readers to support it. The larger the variety of Internet access providers, the better the chance for greater choice and speedier access. 

Technorati Profile

NY TIMES, WAPO AND GOOGLE JOIN HANDS

TO CREATE A NEW EXPERIMENT IN ONLINE NEWS 

While lots and lots of chatter filled the air and moguls like Rupert Murdoch continue to damn Google and threaten to place pay walls on all of his online holdings, high level representatives of the New York Times, Washington Post and Google held lengthy discussions that resulted in a new experimental approach to presenting news online.  

Called “Living Story Page,” it has been designed to make it easier for the average reader to digest all the news about a single incident. The concept is to group stories on a specific topic as they develop over a period of time through continuous updates.  

Calling Living Stories an innovative approach that takes advantage of the uniqueness of online coverage, this is the way Google describes the new program, “They unify coverage on a single, dynamic page with a consistent URL. They organize information by developments in the story. They call your attention to changes in the story since you last viewed it so you can easily find the new material. Through a succinct summary of the whole story and regular updates, they offer a different online approach to balancing the overview with depth and context. 

To launch the program, the Post has chosen the Washington school system, heath reform and the Redskins as its subjects. The Times is starting with global warming, health care, Afghanistan, swine flu and executive compensation. Users can then investigate specific aspects of the category by clicking onto a variety of subsets. 

As one of the additional benefits to the newspapers, the relationship with Google will boost their search engine rankings, making the pages one of the first place surfers head to when looking for information on a subject covered on the Living Story Page. 

Google states that it plans to extend the program to other newspapers, magazines and even web sites if this initial experiment proves successful. You can learn more about the program and see the actual pages at http://livingstories.googlelabs.com.

Technorati Profile