I’ve been in the online marketing world for almost a decade now and find some interesting behaviors with consumers and business alike; they tend to operate out of fear more than they would like to admit.

After Google’s move last Friday that affected almost 12% of the businesses indexed it has become increasingly obvious that Google controls many companies’ fates. They pretty much wiped out JC Penny’s and Overstock.com rankings overnight when these company’s were “found out” to be using black hat tactics (those Google has said it will not tolerate) to get high rankings on Google. Google has also admitted this last month in an attempt to out Bing as a cheater, that it can and has manipulated search results after they had stated publicly before that they would never do such a thing.

Now all you read about is how Facebook is slowly, or not so slowly, taking over in gaining on Google as the next big thing; or bigger thing, depending on what you are reading. So my question is; are people really going over to a social site in order to gain product share or are they just trying to find somewhere else to go so they don’t feel at the mercy of Google power?

Do companies really feel comfortable being at the mercy of any online business that can, at the drop of a hat (no pun intended) change the game? It may be that while Facebook exes tout the demise of the website and Google’s world, there is someone in a garage or warehouse in the world coming up with the next big thing that allows companies to engage their customers and clients directly bypassing both Google and Facebook!

Hey, stranger things have happened. There was a time when no one saw Google or Facebook coming…

For those that haven’t heard, there has been quite a bit of controversy over Google’s decision to “blacklist” some search terms from Google Instant. Basically, these terms won’t show up in Google’s suggestions once you start typing your search terms. You can still  search those terms, however. You just have to hit enter to see the results.

For some, this screams censorship. For others, this is Google helping keep people from material they may want to avoid. From my point of view, it is neither. Instant is a helpful tool, but if certain words don’t generate hints, you can still get results once you press enter. On the other side, people may still run into material they find offensive accidentally. Google’s algorithms aren’t perfect, and likely never will be.

Censorship must be defended against. However, let’s not waste energy on instances where that isn’t the case. As Google has gotten bigger, they have veered somewhat from their “don’t be evil” mantra. It’s important to call them on the carpet when they don’t live up to that standard. Nonetheless, let’s not get too worked up over something that really isn’t a big deal.

Now that I have your attention by using the “groove” word, let’s talk about how to find what works for you and your business when it comes to online marketing. If you were to listen to the latest guru you might think that the best game in town when it comes to marketing your product is on the social networking sites; mainly Facebook and Twitter. However, if you caught the stats from PowerReviews and the e-tailing group this past week you would find out that the social networking sites only account for 5% of a products search starting point. That’s not to say that there are not some great reasons to be associated with the social networks and that one day this just might be the search panacea that is predicted; it’s just not today.

The latest stats show that 57% of the searches for products start with a search engine, 20% actually go directly to the brands website while 18% will research the product at a retailer website. The way they break down the social side is 3% use a social site while 2% will ask a question on The latest stats show that 57% of the searches for products start with a search engine, 20% actually go directly to the brands website while 18% will research the product at a retailer website. The way they break down the social side is 3% use a social site while 2% will ask a question on Twitter. So while everyone is yelling about social, the guys still concentrating on search engines are rocking along getting more eyes on their products. Again, this is now and not next week, next month and certainly not next year. That’s why it’s important to have someone watching what is really happening online and not just listening to the hype. As things turn to the next “big thing”, which may be something totally different than Twitter, Facebook or search, you and your company stand a better chance of being in the right position to take advantage of it, if you are dealing with reality and not hype. That’s the first step to finding your marketing groove online.

Wow. The race went to the swift in this year’s BarCamp Nashville Sessions sign up. I am really excited to see how many people have something worthwhile to say, but DANG! I wish I could have been a little quicker on the draw, in order to be counted among them. Oh well, we’ll be involved, for sure, and from the looks of it, it’s going to be a good year.

There is a dynamic that has developed within the social web over the years which I find disturbing yet pervasive, and about as hard to eradicate as an infestation of cockroaches. But the future of the Social Web depends on a close examination and realignment of thought regarding ingrained user expectations. Facebook is drawing fire from users for recent (some say misinformed, inaccurate?) news about plans to sell user data to market researchers, and I think this illustrates my point beautifully.

After one of my own social startup experiments failed to gain traction with its intended audience, I had some time to reflect on my interactions with social web users, and here is a list of some of the expectations and (often contradictory) attitudes I encountered regularly (I have shared these views at times myself):

• I should be able to sign up and use Social Web apps and services for free.   If you cannot figure out how to monetize the service without bothering me, I will leave.
• Ads bother me. So do requests for donations.
• The publicly available personal information posted on my pages is mine, mine alone, and should not be used in any way I did not intend for it to be used. I don’t care if it’s public, and your commercial use of it is actually anonymous.
• I should not have to look at a lot of on-page advertising in “my” pages. They are mine, and I do not want them cluttered up.
• The free services I use should remain free, remain up, available, and working as expected 99.9% of the time. Service interruptions should be scheduled for the hours I am not online.
• Delays, slowdowns, and interruptions to service are intolerable. Figure out your infrastructure and scalability issues before you bother to launch.
• My features wish list is reasonable, and should be implemented, even though I do not plan on using the features regularly; they should be there because I think the ideas are cool.
• Web apps should not have too many unnecessary features.
• I think there should only be one or two Social Web apps and we should ignore all the others, so that it is easier for me to manage my digital life and connect with the world in the context of my favorite social app.
• There should be a mobile version that does exactly what the full web version does, and works in exactly the same way. Screen size, operating systems, phone model and carrier contracts be damned. Make it work. Now.
• Once my favorite app gets so big and successful as to a be an obvious target of criticism, I will openly blast them for their successes and work to destroy any attempt they make to monetize the service or use my anonymous data.
• When a dumb service I loved at first, then wanted to change, then criticized for changing, doesn’t succeed in meeting all my above expectations, I will place them in the deadpool, and tell the world I knew they wouldn’t make it all along.

There is another side to the user experience; it’s the side of the brave people who dream up and actualize cool Social Web technologies. This is the environment in which they have been asked to launch, develop and prove commercially viable their free services. Perhaps we need to tame down certain unrealistic expectations, mmm? How else will the Social Web find its path to sustainability?

So far, I am having a hard time coming up with any reasons to NOT like this update. The Flash uploader still doesn’t work with Flash 10, though.

Also look for new WordPress tutorials to cover the layout changes and new features soon.

Google is calling it Chrome, and I’m sure this is seen as a shot across the bow for IE6 and Firefox (my personal favorite), although they do tip their hats in Mozilla’s direction, acknowledging that some of their horsepower found its way under the hood. Who the heck knows what this might do to smaller projects like Opera or Flock.

Personally, I drink the Google Kool-Aid. They have proven that, while they’ll never win any fashion awards, power, ubiquity and forward thinking are always front and center on their runway. Quietly, Google has for some time been acquiring startups with promise (something everybody else does, too) and assembling talent and ideas. Google likes the long play, so not every company it has snapped up has been an obvious choice. But the release of the new browser beta, followed by more mentions about its JavaScript engine called V8, they clearly have the next generation web squarely in its crosshairs, and fully intend to be the browser to bring it to us.

Of course I have already downloaded Chrome, and am testing it as I write this post. It is living up to its stripped down, severe aesthetic, but for once, I appreciate it immensely in a browser. The design choice really promotes the web site content, not the window through which it is delivered. Curiously, however, there is a startling lack of the elements that have found their way into nearly every other browser experience; namely the Google Toolbar and the Title Bar. The latter is so entrenched in SEO practices, specifically because of how Google uses and views them, it is a little unnerving not to see it at the top of the window. It makes me wonder if Google has plans to deprecate its importance in upcoming page rank algorithms…Nah…Right???

I think the browser community, and hopefully the open source community, will be taking notes for a long time to come.

Go Google.

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