Despite Google’s accelerating dominance in the search space (according to comScore they accounted for 47.3% of all web searches last month), I tend to be a big believer that their time as “king,” is short lived. The US internet space has already seen two generations of kings, with Google as the latest and the greatest, and I think it is likely that a third winner will soon rise to power in the space (of course Google will continue to grow, and it’s not going anywhere).
Over on Micro Persuasion Steve Rubel has a great post on Wikipedia’s rapid growth and relevance, and their potential to be “next Google,” for lack of a better term (he means in terms of web traffic dominance):
For starters, the Google search engine feeds on Wikipedia to supply much of its most relevant results. It even hosts Wikipedia pages. Meanwhile, Wikipedia is gearing up to challenge Google with its own search engine. And, with the launch today of Wikiseek, it becomes quite clear that you can indeed build a high quality search engine off the collaborative encyclopedia.
I have to say ever since I discovered delicious as a fantastic place to search for all things internet and nerd related, I’ve been a huge believer in the power of social search. I remember hearing Larry Page say during a presentation (I think on google video somewhere) at some point in the past that he did not believe human editing would ever be able to provide as much relevant results as google bots can. I disagree with this. Delicious, which allows people to bookmark sites of interest and then allows anyone to see those bookmarks, consistently provides better search results on items that their core users are interested in (early adopters). Whenever I’m looking for tips on how to hack my motorola q, find a good blog, find good wordpress plugins, delicious always gives me the best results. It only gives me items that have been hand selected by humans, thus not too much junk is mixed in there (although it’s coming).
I believe wikipedia can provide the same sort of relevancy, on obviously a much greatwe scale, and it appears they are pursuing this. I believe the future of search is a mix of human and bot results. The human results are the hardest to build, and wikipedia has a 6 year headstart. Interesting..
For a good break down of Apple’s earnings numbers release Wednesday, take a look here. The quarter was simply amazing and Apple continues to experience explosive growth. Some of the highlights (in my opinion):
- the amazing ipod…Apple shipped 21.1 million ipods in Q1 resulting in an astonishing $3.43 billion in revenues or half the company’s total revenue for the quarter
- 1.6 million mac computers sold, up 28% over last year’s number (compare that to nearly flat growth in pc sales)
- Apple’s share of the PC market in the US grew to 4.7% up from 3.6% a year ago
I think Apple is simply an amazing company to have stock in right now, and they are simply on a tear. I remember telling a friend a few years ago that the iPod was simply a “trojan horse,” into the the PC world. By introducing a somewhat revolutionary, yet incredibly simple to use universal device to the world they were able to show the PC users just how great Apple’s products work. The change is occurring with more and more PC users choosing macs as their next computer. This is even more true the younger, and younger you are with the majority of people I know under 21 telling me their next computer with be a Mac. Just imagine when this group enters the workforce.
A final thought comes from a comment on Barrons about the recent quarter and the stock price:
I had the chance to finally listen to a fantastic interview with Perry Marshall (google adwords expert) and John Carlton (a very successful copywriter) on successful copywriting techniques. For those of you that know me, you know I love internet advertising for many reasons. I love the instant feedback, the power of tweaks (sometimes changing two words can improve conversions dramatically), and the nearly instant sales generating ability. I believe that my few years in doing it, mainly as an affiliate, has taught me more about marketing and advertising than my 4 years at the excellent Fisher School of Business at THE Ohio State University ever did. Anyway, a few takeaways from the teleseminar:
Fast Returns:
1.)To take any venture from zero to success fast you need to focus “100 times more time,” on smart marketing than on product development. That is, a smart marketing campaign on a mediocre product will sell better than a poor marketing campaign on a fantastic product. (my thoughts below)
2.) Don’t sell something. Most marketers make the mistake of thinking they must sell. Wrong, no one wants to be sold. Find what people are looking for, then show it to them.
3.)Direct response/internet advertising is your best bang for your buck (internet, mail, magazine)
4.)Ask for ACTION. Tell the customers want you want them to do, and how they can do it now!
5.)Record a successful sales pitch. If you can, find a successful salesman already selling the product/your product. Record a few of his sales meetings (with permission of course) and note both what he says and ESPECIALLY questions being asked by customers. These questions are the key to a good copywritten ad. Take the questions asked, and answer them in bold in your campaign. Use the powerful human storytelling in your pitch for great returns.
6.)Appeal to the passionates. Write an ad that turly appeals to the passionate potential customers in that space for great returns.
7.)Personalization – A personalized campaign (Dear John Smith) will outperform a generic campaign by upwards of 30%
8.)Eliminate doubt - Take away all the reasons someone wouldn’t want it, so all they are left with is “I want this.” Then show them how to go out and get it.
He also talked about doing an advertising campaign to gauge interest before spending big bucks on a major campaign or EVEN before building the product. I think this truly could be a model for internet business creation going forward. With $1000 or even $500 someone could create a simple, yet effective landing page with a brief product description and an email sign up and drive traffic through google adwords or adbrite. If you get a certain number of sign ups, you’ll not only know there is interest in your product but you’ll also have a list of your first customers. If it doesn’t work you’re only out $500-$1000 and some time, instead of all your time and potentially lots of money.
Ad copy is a fascinating study of people. It’s really amazing to see what pulls our strings of interest, and what doesn’t. And even more amazing that most of the same sales principles of the last 100 years, still remain in tact today. Ultimately it remains one of the more powerful techniques if mastered.
Sign up for perry marshall’s email list if interested, he has lots of stuff like this.
This is supposedly a search engine geared towards Baby Boomers…While I think it’s an interesting idea and probably fills a need, I think it comes up short in terms of delivery.
cRANKyâ¢
This is supposedly a search engine geared towards Baby Boomers…While I think it’s an interesting idea and probably fills a need, I think it comes up short in terms of delivery.
cRANKy™
“What’s my mantra?” As I reflected on this question, I came to realize that, yes, I do have a mantra… and, yes, I’ve been acting on it for the past 30 or more years. My mantra is: “Look for the Second Right Answer.” Not sure what mine is.
‘What’s Your Mantra?’ | MarketingProfs.com
More business and weather.The Weather Channel and BusinessWeek are partnering for a new program segment that will provide viewers with the latest news about weather’s impact on the business world
BusinessWeek to Partner With The Weather Channel
Interesting idea…Employee benefit recommendations from your social network. You listening Linkedin?
New employee orientation « Jon Udell
Interesting idea…Employee benefit recommendations from your social network. You listening Linkedin?
New employee orientation « Jon Udell
This cool tool, let’s you see where your friends are based on the gps location of their phone. I can see this getting pretty popular, starting with earlier adopters and exploding outwards.
loopt - Live In It
YoY earnings growth for Q1, and after one of the largest “beats” in its
history (an 80% upside surprise), and having guided for 30% YoY growth
for Q2, it is hard to see how AAPL can possibly grow earnings less than
40% YoY for FY07 now.
Isn’t it insane that it currently bakes in just 20-25%?
Massive
earnings upgrades ahead IMO. And they’ll have to be massive just in
order to accommodate the Q1 results, let alone any bullishness for the
rest of the fiscal year!
This stock should be trading at $120
right now. Its forward PE of 27 is laughably low given growth of 40%
ahead. If you took the almost-$12B in cash out of that, then its
trading with a forward PE of about 22. That’s 22, with YoY growth of
40%. Can you scream “disconnect?”
Once the earnings estimates
upgrades for FY07 start coming out, the stock will finally climb to its
justly-deserved destination, but it might take the end of options
expirations for that to happen, not to mention the SEC rubbish finally
put to rest.
A huge driver for Mac sales near-term is going
to be the imminent arrival of Adobe CS3. Once that comes out, Mac Pro
sales are going to soar, adding, IMO, about 200-300k unit sales in a
single quarter to desktops and a ton of revenue on these high-cost,
high margin products.
I don’t believe the Street has begun to
work out the true impact of this, and it - combined with the iTV, new
iPods, updated Macs, new software, should provide considerable upside
to earnings estimates for the next two quarters.
Apple said
they will be including estimates for iPhone sales in their guidance for
the June quarter, so we can pretty much guarantee that Q3 guidance from
the Q2 report is going to be fantastic. And then there’s the
educational buying season of course, not to mention MacBook updates.
I
see nothing but massive upside for the company going into the remainder
of this fiscal year. I see a market fast asleep at the wheel and with
no clue whatsoever about the true earnings potential of Apple.
40% YoY growth on the cards. Buy this dip.