Internet Marketing, Social Media, Business | StuckInTheFunnel

Hands on Review of Google Voice

I was lucky enough to receive an invite to the initial release of Google Voice. Honestly, I was a bit apprehensive to start using the service at first, because Google already stores all of my email and IM conversations. Allowing them to store my voicemails, SMS and recorded calls pretty much surrenders the last of my personal and business life to Google.

I wanted to share my experience with a hands on review of the basic features of the product (which is till having a few kinks ironed out).

Registering a Phone Number With Google Voice:

I live in the Raleigh, Durham, Cary area of North Carolina but was only able to claim a number that was attributed to outskirt cities such as Sandford, Knightdale, Franklinton and similar. I am not sure if this is because there were no numbers available or if it’s because Google Voice only provides numbers for cities that are not densely populated.

The Google Voice Interface:

If you use Gmail, the Google Voice interface should be relatively straightforward. Accessing your stored messages, recordings and SMS is on the left- similar to your email inbox and labels  in Gmail.

Placing a Call With Google Voice:

I was most interested in this feature because of the low long distance rates Google Voice provides. However, as you can see from this screenshot, I was unable to place a call during my initial testing:

More to come on this feature when it is more stable.

Viewing voicemail with Google Voice:

I left myself a voicemail to test the recording and transcribing capabilities of the system.  After recording a voicemail, a playable audio file showed up in my Google Voice inbox almost instantly. The transcribed version was viewable shortly after. The transcribed version was also sent to me via SMS.

I recorded the following message:

“Hey, this is Jason, just testing the transcription capabilities of Google Voice. This is just simply a test to see how well it transcribes. Thank you.”

As you can see from the output below, Google Voice has a little work to do in the transcribing department:

SMS with Google Voice:

Sending SMS messages with Google voice is a snap and the system delivers messages promptly. It could be especially handy when you need to respond to a SMS while working at your PC. SMS messages appear in the same right panel as voicemails.

Recording Phone Calls With Google Voice:

This is by far my favorite feature. In my line of work, a verbal agreement can have a big impact. With Google Voice, I just need to press 4 and the conversation is recorded for future reference. It can also be useful for recording conference calls if you need to take notes on it at a later date.

Overall, I think Google Voice will be a cost effective and useful alternative once all of the bugs are ironed out. It will be interesting to see it’s commercial acceptance in the coming years as well. I would also expect adsense to make it’s way into your inbox – perhaps matched contextually based on your transcribed voicemails.

Proof that Twitter is Good for Your Brand and Your Customers

When educating new or current clients on the benefits of social media I often hear “I don’t get Twitter” or “How can Twitter help our business?” After spending some time on the subject, I get most of the point across, but there are still some suspicions present.

A case study or real world example always helps, so I am going to share an experience I had with a company that has begun to utilize Twitter to reach out to their customers.

I use @Task, a web based project management tool to keep track of client accounts. While viewing a webinar a couple weeks ago, I logged into my @Task account to check on a few things (yes, I multitask). My Gant Chart screen was acting a little flaky so I sent out a Tweet to see if any of my followers were having the same issue:

I did not get much of a response from my followers, which I expected. What I didn’t expect was to have an @Task representative call me within 3 minutes!

Unfortunately, I was not answering my phone due to my webinar participation but I still appreciated the prompt follow up and concern nevertheless.

The issue ended up being my browser’s fault, not @Task’s.

I even received a follow up Tweet from their Twitter account administrator making sure the problem had been rectified:

That was the icing on the cake. The whole experience made me feel like a valued customer, even though the firm I work for is small compared to many of their clients.

There you have it: real world proof that Twitter is good for your brand and your customers.

Internet Marketing Surges as Click Fraud Declines

Research conducted by Click Forensics, a web traffic quality expert, showed reduction in click fraud during the second quarter of 2009.

For the past two years, the average percentage of fraudulent clicks of an advertisers total was around 15%.  The number dropped to about 13.9%  at the beginning of the first quarter.  At the end it had dropped to 12.7%.

Click forensics claims that improved blocking efforts and monitoring have been responsible for the the drop in fraudulent clicks.

However, the fight is till not over as stated by Tom Cuthber, president of traffic monitoring:

“Ad networks should pay close attention to such threats [as publisher collusion fraud] in the coming months,”

If the Internet Marketing industry continues to see improved figures like this, it will only be that much easier to sell the benefits of advertising online. Will the percentage of fraudulent clicks ever be as low as say 3%? Only time will.

Internet Challenges Rupert Murdoch and the Newspaper Industry

It’s no secret that growing popularity of the internet has had a direct impact on the circulation of newspapers in the past 10 years. Sitting down with a cup of coffee with the morning newspaper is gradually being replaced by a cup of Starbucks and a smart phone. According to the Business Insider 105 newspapers have closed as of July 4th and 23 of the 25 top newspapers have shown circulation decreases of 7-20%. It is apparent that the viewing of online content and the effectiveness of internet advertisements has taken it’s toll on what used to be the primary news delivery medium for so many readers worldwide.

On Aug 6th, News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch announced that he would begin charging for online news content by 2010.

“Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting,”

Murdoch already charges for online content on the Wall Street Journal’s website. Now the 79 year old chairman wants to charge for all News Corp’s properties. According to Time Magazine, Murdoch does not even have a cell phone and requires assistance when accessing the internet. That being said, his judgment in the matter may be too biased. As it stands now, the majority of readers polled said they would not pay for the content.

Personally, I have never owned a newspaper subscription. My daily does of news always comes from websites, RSS feeds and of course, Twitter.  I do however, rely on news websites for valuable blogging topics. So what does this mean? If the newspaper industry goes kerplunk, will it affect the amount of content published by blog owners? Will publicists rely more on Mashable and similar blogs for press releases?

It will be an interesting development for sure.

Rumor Control: Apple Planning Social Music Application?

This is only a rumor at this time, but the Boy Genius report claims to have some developing details on Apple’s latest release of Itunes. It is believed that Apple’s latest release of their popular music download and management software will allow you to broadcast your favorite tunes to various social networks, which will not only spread Artist’s music, but the Itunes brand as well.

The informant to the Boy Genius Report claims that the app will do the following:

The social networking integration that we reported iTunes 9 would have seems to be part of a bigger social networking push by Apple. We’ve been informed that Apple has plans to tie iTunes 9 into a “Social” application that they plan to release in the future. It was said that the application (separate from iTunes) will be similar to Yahoo’s OneConnect offering and consolidate all your social networking services. (iPhone application? Desktop app? Wasn’t clarified to us).

The application will allow you to broadcast what music you’re currently listening to, allow you to share your music with people on your network, connect with your friend’s friends (no clue on that one), and update all of your statuses at the same time. ITunes 9 will let you broadcast music statuses as well.

As far as the iTunes application organization feature, we’ve been told it allow you to sort your applications alphabetically, by genre, date added, and of course, custom arrangement.

Apple’s strong foothold in the smart phone market will surely help them in pushing this application to consumers. More details to come as the story develops.

Weird Twitter Error

So, I accessed my Twitter profile tonight to check my follower count and this error was thrown:

This is something I have not seen before. Generally I get a Twitter branded error page when their is an issue.

Any ideas?

Facebook Adds Friend Feed to Their Pocket.

There was a lot of Twitter chatter today about Facebook acquiring Friend Feed. At first it was said to be speculation, but Tech Crunch has just confirmed the deal.

Right now the terms of the deal are vague, but here is what the Facebook news release has to say:

PALO ALTO, CALIF.—August 10, 2009—Facebook today announced that it has agreed to acquire FriendFeed, the innovative service for sharing online. As part of the agreement, all FriendFeed employees will join Facebook and FriendFeed’s four founders will hold senior roles on Facebook’s engineering and product teams.

“Facebook and FriendFeed share a common vision of giving people tools to share and connect with their friends,” said Bret Taylor, a FriendFeed co-founder and, previously, the group product manager who launched Google Maps. “We can’t wait to join the team and bring many of the innovations we’ve developed at FriendFeed to Facebook’s 250 million users around the world.”

“As we spent time with Mark and his leadership team, we were impressed by the open, creative culture they’ve built and their desire to have us contribute to it,” said Paul Buchheit, another FriendFeed co-founder. Buchheit, the Google engineer behind Gmail and the originator of Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto, added, “It was immediately obvious to us how passionate Facebook’s engineers are about creating simple, ground-breaking ways for people to share, and we are extremely excited to join such a like-minded group.”

Taylor and Buchheit founded FriendFeed along with Jim Norris and Sanjeev Singh in October 2007 after all four played key roles at Google for products like Gmail and Google Maps. At FriendFeed, they’ve brought together a world-class team of engineers and designers.

“Since I first tried FriendFeed, I’ve admired their team for creating such a simple and elegant service for people to share information,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. “As this shows, our culture continues to make Facebook a place where the best engineers come to build things quickly that lots of people will use.”

FriendFeed is based in Mountain View, Calif. and has 12 employees. FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being as the teams determine the longer term plans for the product. 

More details to come as they develop.

Update 8/10/09 6:25 PM EST

The cost of the Friend Feed Acquisition was roughly $50 million in cash and stock.

Internet Marketing Day Parting Trends Move Torwards Early Morning

If you are a Pay Per Click manager or Search Engine Marketer, you may have heard that the best time of day to use up more of your ad spend is during lunch hours, as many people browse the internet at that time.

However, according to a recent post by the  NY Times, internet and social media junkies can no longer hold off till lunch time before checking the web for news, friend requests and more:

“This is morning in America in the Internet age. After six to eight hours of network deprivation — also known as sleep — people are increasingly waking up and lunging for cellphones and laptops, sometimes even before swinging their legs to the floor and tending to more biologically urgent activities”

This goes to show what an important role the Internet plays in the daily lives of people around the world. What does this mean for Internet Marketers? - Start displaying those ads early!

Myspace Users Would Rather Communicate Online Than in Person

Myspace just conducted a survey on their British user base. The results concluded that 36 percent of those between 14 and 21 felt more comfortable conversing online v.s. in person.

Nearly three-quarters of the 16,000 young people polled said they felt left out in real life – although 43 percent cited having a good group of friends as the most important factor in their future happiness.

Rebekah Horne of Myspace Europe found the results insightfull and said:

“This study shows us to what extent young people are using online as a way to explore and settle into their burgeoning identities.”

As technology moves forward, I find myself relying more and more on digital communication. I would choose an email over a phone call and a phone call over a face to face meeting any day. However, I think it is important that we hone the social skills of upcoming generations who may be too reliant on technology.

Company Sold Michael Jackson Twitter Followers

The guys over at Mashable got an interesting news tip today. 

Apparently the company uSocial:

1. Sold Twitter followers which is a clear violation of Twitter’s terms of service.
2. Claims to have sold a whopping 25,000 followers to Michael Jackson.
3. Sold votes on Digg.com despite a cease and desist order that was issued to them.

Mashable was shocked to receive such a press release since it is obviously some risky PR. However, I have seen been seeing more and more of these risky press releases lately and they seem to…work. Think of KFC’s new “Unthink KFC” campaign that promotes their new grilled chicken. It obviously attacks their brand, but works at capturing consumer interest.