Google isn’t for everyone

For most web-orientated corporations, organizations, and ministries (mine included) Google is a dominant consideration for marketing and web development. It’s certainly the biggest search engine, the gold-standard for finding information on the internet. Yet there’s still Yahoo! and MSN and a few others — and while they aren’t as large or powerful as Google, people are still using them.

I’ve wondered for a while if internet ministry may be giving Google to much focus.  Google may have the largest audience of any web audience, so it’s natural to think about how it can be leveraged for our mission. But if we’re trying to reach everyone… what about the other search engines and portals?

Consider this: Yahoo! may have a larger presence with some key groups we’d want to reach than Google. I came across this post from Hitwise [via TechCrunch] that gives credibility to my thought.

The top left quadrant shows that Yahoo! excels with demographics that weould want to be reaching. In addition, Yahoo! tends to reach a younger audience.

I’m not saying that Google isn’t a major consideration in web ministry. Only that it’s probably not going to reach some audiences we’d like to reach as well as Yahoo! and, perhaps, other web portals.

Convergent Thoughts on Internet Video

I came across an interesting statistic yesterday from Cisco. The web traffic from American video sharing sites for one month currently exceeds all internet traffic in 2000. Some are concerned all this video sharing might further clog the internet. Maybe so, but I think the more important fact here is the sheer popularity and pervasiveness of internet video.

Back in my grad school days, we used to talk a lot about “convergence.” That is, the point where internet and television — and other media formats — combine into one combined platform. That was 10 years ago (ouch). True IPTV (watching TV over your internet connection) is still a ways off and, perhaps, may not be practical using current internet technologies.
Yet the short-format videos associated with sites like YouTube are here to stay — and may, in fact, be much more practical for the end user and distributer alike. It may be a better and more interactive form of “convergence” than could have been imagined a few years ago. Many of the video web sites a-la-YouTube are simply social networks built around shared video experiences. It’s not much different is that then talking about a popular TV show with your friends.

The March ‘07 issue of Wired reported on the explosion of “bite size” content available online — information and entertainment you consume much like a bag of potato chips, one bite at a time (and perhaps with similar “nutritional” value?) In a post-literate, visually involved, attention deficit culture with high-bandwidth always-on connections, the popularity of web video can only continue to increase. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing… or good. But it is reality.

The iPhone’s Web Effect

The Apple iPhone is coming. A lot of people want one. I want one. (Donations are welcome.)

Whether the iPhone proves to be an revolutionary product or so-so smart phone can’t be known until it’s released June 29. But last Monday, Apple (in the person of Steve Jobs) made an announcement about the iPhone that I think will revolutionize the industry. Instead of allowing 3rd-party applications to be installed on the iPhone (like you would with a normal computer) developers are being told to develop sophisticated Web 2.0 applications instead.

Here’s why I think this is important. One of the challenges ahead of us as a ministry is creating and delivering content and tools for cell phones. A major complication in this effort is the technology itself: different cell service providers have different standards. And there are at least three or four different major phone operating systems. This means that if we create an advanced application for one technology combination it might not (and very likely won’t) work on others.

Web 2.0-type applications are nearly universal. You can use them on virtually any internet connected computer with a modern web browser. In this context, I’m defining a Web 2.0 application as one that using AJAX and similar technologies.

Gmail, Google’s innovative Web 2.0 email application, works the same whether you are on a Mac, Windows PC, or Linux and are web browsing with either Internet Explorer, FireFox, or Safari. And technologies are emerging that will allow you to use Web 2.0 applications without a constant internet connection — you just connect and sync up later.

Yet my current Windows-based smart phone doesn’t run a Web 2.0 application very well — the built in web browser does not support the necessary technology (e.g. JavaScript). And I haven’t found any sites that offer such a service either. I can use Gmail on my phone, but it’s certainly a lot different than using it on my laptop.

Apple is a great trend setter. The iPod is the gold standard for how a digital music player should work. The iPhone could very well do the same for smart phone — in fact, I think it already is. The iPhone is going to be the first smart phone to have a full-featured web browser. That’s why it will be able to support advanced Web 2.0 applications whereas other smart phone’s can’t… at least, not yet.

How long will it take for other smart phones to come standard with a full-featured web browser? Others will certainly follow Apple’s lead.

If the iPhone model of using Web 2.0 applications catches on, a whole new world of possibilities will open up. As things stand now, providing compelling ministry content and resources for phones is complex and difficult — both for us and the consumer. But the picture changes dramatically if we can do this with Web 2.0 applications running on a smart phone. Building one versus many versions of a tool saves time and money.

A lot of people are disappointed with Apple’s refusal to open up the iPhone to 3rd-party applications. Yet in choosing the Web 2.0 application route Apple may have inadvertently (but maybe intentionally?) created a whole new paradigm for smart phone applications.

Ambient Mashups

My most interesting souvenir from the ETech conference is a t-shirt from Yahoo! – “mashup or shutup” in says. They’re promoting new development tools they hope people will use to create interesting (and even useful) web applications by “mashing” one set of data with another.

There where several sessions at the conference with “ambient” in the title. It was used in so many ways I had to look it up to make sure I really knew what the word meant – “surrounding; encircling.” I was mostly right. And virtually everything at the conference was, in some way, a mashup or some application of one.

(As a point of reference: a mashup, as I’m currently understanding and defining it, is when you take one or more data sources or tools and “mash” them together to form a new use that may not have been anticipated by the originator). Mashups may be the “next big thing” on the internet… but not something your average user is going to be using — yet. (Microsoft is working on a universal web clipboard that might partially do this.)
The potential is huge. One of the most popular mashups so far is Google maps and Google earth. And now virtually every web 2.0 tool is offering some sort of API.

Mashups are new, but I really think the underlying concepts aren’t. What else is new is the business models (or attempts thereof) for these services offering themselves up for mashing. If I don’t have to come to your site to use your tool… how are you making money? And what about people who mashup a data source or tool that wasn’t intended by it’s author to be mashed up? Yet questions like these certainly aren’t new to the internet world.