WTF is Online

If you haven’t caught the flick, hit up YouTube and check it out:

Once you check out the flick, imagine this.  Social media at 1Gb per second.  Wait, at that point isn’t it just called video phone? Will we even need what is becoming ‘traditional’ social media once our bandwidth is so fast that we can just hop on our computer and have a Minority Report experience (minus the creepy pre-cogs).

At what point will our current social media become just a journal for all to read (a.k.a. a blog)?  When we get there, mobile geo-tracking still makes sense but why would we want to text if we can just click a button to see the person and have a sub-window with directions to where they are?

I’m all for social media, I use it whenever I can but at some point we (or our kids) are going to just go full-circle back to a phone call, their’s may just include video as well.  The marketing potential and opportunities for small companies and large companies are almost endless when we get here because instead of thousands of writers moving above the mess.  Soon thousands of netfomercial ‘celebrities’ will take over the internet airwaves with their latest wares in a more interactive, engaging and entertaining way than ever before.

I use to hear VC presentations in the mid-90′s about this kind of stuff but we’re honestly getting so close I can taste it now.

Google, come to Irvine, CA PLEASE!!!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a G-evangelist through-and-through. I’ve been using G-stuff forever and jump on all the new stuff as soon as it comes out because I want to see how much more they’ve simplified my life. Every time I go into my Google Options I laugh because I’m using about 1/2 of the items listed almost every week, if not daily.

Lately I’ve been tinkering a lot with Latitude, Google Wave and Google Buzz. Google Latitude, I love because it’s my way of seeing where my friends are in real time. I just keep getting more and more impressed with Maps and their layering technology, I think it’s only going to get better and really pose a problem for folks like Garmin and other GPS technology companies.

Now what’s the buzz about Google Buzz?  I’m sure you’ve logged into your Gmail and seen the whole Buzz invite and you probably joined in along with many of your contacts.  I’m not really sold on it yet because I don’t have enough people on it to make it a necessity.  I do look forward to the idea of just logging into Gmail and not having to hop over to Facebook to see what everyone is doing. I’m not sure if I’m a fan of the threading yet but think about the potential of Buzz if they add some more graphical (image) features and all of your friends using it.  No longer will you have to toggle between Facebook and Gmail, you’ll be able to just log into Gmail and stay there all day while getting your Facebook chatter on.  If they can prohibit farms, mafia and other spyware apps from ever being integrated, I’m sold.   The cardinal rule of social media marketing, and social media in general is that you don’t take people from where they are. Everyone is moving to Gmail, if they move to Buzz as well…Facebook may start seeing some shift in usage.  Kids are already starting to tone-down on FB, we may be next.

How many of you are using Wave?  I started out full-bore but have cooled down to a very low simmer these days.  I forced our whole company, almost, into using Wave right after it came out. I used it for document collaboration, blog outreach, partnership development and tried to do some market research with it. It’s impressive, graphical and quite easy to be up and running from login.

Both Google Buzz and Google Wave are impressive and I’m sure in the future will become in integral part of our lives. Right now I’m a wee bit frustrated with them launching Buzz and Wave when they haven’t been completely baked.

I hate to say it but for once Microsoft is doing something somewhat right, they are waiting longer to launch products (Vista aside) and getting them closer to ‘right’ than even Google. Google, I love you but Rapid Application Development doesn’t mean you have to throw all of the stuff out to the public, even in beta, without some of the basics in place.  Microsoft got away with this for years and we accepted it because we had to.

I’m sure Google will end up cleaning things up, potentially eating in to Facebook’s market share and going after some Twitter numbers. They really can dominate by letting all of us just stay where we.

I talk to people all the time about effective social media marketing and the first thing I always bring up is that you can’t pull or push people away from where they are, you must reach them where they are and in a way that won’t turn people off. Google already has us with Gmail, Google Voice and several other applications, let’s see if they can keep us where we are or force us to keep heading to FB and Twitter.

Microsoft, we’re still watching you.

What do all of these have in common?

Not much, other than rumors flying about Google buying T-Mobile in their play to take over the world (a.k.a. Skynet, from the Terminator movies). These things fly around all the time, I think there are more conspiracy theories flurrying around Google than there are around the government. As with any conspiracy theory, there may be some truth to it, so don’t count these reports out. Chances are someone from Google probably did have a conversation with someone from T-Mobile and they probably did mention a buyout, whether they were C-level executives or two customer support reps helping each other hack the planet is up for argument.

T-Mobile may be looking to be purchased or just looking to go IPO and all of these little rumors are just helping that buzz.

I’m sure Google is considering anything and everything when it comes to wireless and mobile but I’m not convinced this is the Google play.  Why would they make such a big deal about Nexus One being the first carrier independent device (kind of…once they carry the phone) if they fully intended to target one carrier in the future.  One would think that a lawyer at T-Mobile, Verizon or Vodafone (all providers or soon to be providers of the Nexus One) would have red-flagged an agreement that let Google compete directly against them after agreeing to take their phone.

In addition, Google has done an incredible job of staying out of the wireless carrier space to date, why would they change that strategy now when they haven’t given the Nexus One a chance to help define their strategy? I would at least give their new toy a chance to bring in some numbers so they can see usage, trends and build an advertising model that hits their number objectives.  Once they see what the phone can do, then it makes sense that they move upstream and start hiring Christian Bale, Arnold and the animators from T1-Judgement Day to at least make cool commercials about Skynet.

Until then, Google can focus on localized pizza, coffee, business and connecting with friends locally through Latitude.

I would love to see Google get into the wireless carrier space, it would be nice to have free or even ad subsidized wireless service but I would rather they see how people use Nexus One and then build localized “ads” that don’t feel like ads but just providing us with what we would be doing anyway.  I could use an e-coupon every time I drive by Randy’s Donuts in LA or Roscoes Chicken & Wffles. Who wouldn’t pull over to a gas station that they’re about to drive past if they knew Arco was knocking a couple of bucks off for a fillup?

Google has proven, so far, to be fairly Spider-Man minded (“with great power comes great responsibility”) and I imagine when they do decide to jump into the carrier fray they will do so with a well thought out, strategic plan that doesn’t make us all hate them or realize how much they already know about us.