PardonMyFrench

Revisiting PMF - See More on Google versus The US Government

*******I wrote this post in 2006, I think.....Wow, I was quite the author back then.  I think with Google changing their privacy policy, I think this is an interesting post******

 

I lot of friends, including my wife, have said to me, "why are you so harsh on Google lately?" This kind of surprises me because I don't think I have been. Sure this is the third article I've written on Google as of late and you are probably wondering if I may dump blospot and pop over to Typepad instead.

Let me set the record straight. I love Google and the products that they bring to the marketplace. I also know a lot of people at Google and they are all great. Google also brings a ton of competition to the marketplace and, it didn't hurt that my former employer was part of the IPO group.

However, they are in it to make money, just like everyone else. Have you seen their stock price recently and their marketcap? It is outrageous. You know what else you need to learn about Google? How about their corporate mantra? Read #4 and #6. #4 is titled Democracy on the web works and #6 is You can make money without doing evil. Interesting huh? Let's see how democracy on the web and making money without doing evil has been forgotten or at least thrown out temporarily when it comes to making money.

Democracy on the web
First, Google decides not to help the United States Government in understanding how existing filtering on the web protects children from porn and predators. It IS a primary part of a ruling on the COPA act. Now, they are the only ones from the Big 4 that stood up to the Government. Some people think that Google is standing up to the US to protect individual freedom and who knows, first this data and then they hand over PII information on individual's searches.

Last time I checked, the US Government, the best Democracy on the great blue spot in the Milky Way protects our individual rights and not Google. And, you know who basically asked for the check on the existing filtering technology - The Supreme Court. Now lets look at the other side of the spectrum - China.

China and Google - Perfect Together?

China - the last time I checked was Communist. You remember those people, right? They were pretty popular up until 1989 or so, when Reagan's pressures finally led to the crumbling of the Soviet Empire and only really left Cuba and China as strong Communist nations.

Fast forward to 2006 and everyone loves China now a days because you guessed it - a billion or so people buy a lot of goods; that is when their government allows them to make some money. You know what the Chinese still practice - good old government censorship. 

Freedom of speech in China, the kind like we enjoy in the USA, does NOT exits. Hell, you can't even get a good search result without some form of censorship.

Now, Google decides to help the Chinese Government continue to oppress their people by making it easier to censor search results. No, not the Google. we can make money without doing evil company. Yes that Google; well maybe not the Google that originally wrote those words, but the Google that is now making a ton of money. Read this article from CNN entitled Google to Censor Itself.

I don't know about you, but when the same company decides to stiff the Democratic US Government in the name of freedom and then turns around and helps a Communist China continue their oppression, one has to wonder who we are dealing with. Maybe Google should re-read their Corporate Values Statement again and decide if they really want to make some money the free speech, democratic way which up until now has helped their stock grow from about $90 to $433.

Think I'm the only one that feels this way - check out Bambi's article over at CBS MarketWatch (require free registration) titled Google Shows Its True Colors .  Again, makes you want to move your blog to Typepad.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

 

My NJ Devils and NY Giants Get Social Media

My family just recently became weekend NJ Devils season ticket holders.  We've also been long time NY Giants season ticket holders (I split the tickets with my Uncle).  We are also Yankees fans and hit the occasional Somerset Patriots games.  Plus, my son attends Red Bulls games with his friends and we watch the occasional Manchester United game on TV (yeah we like sports).  One of the marketing strategies I've noticed is which teams and sports get social media and which ones don't.  The Devils and the Giants get social media.

FIRST THE GIANTS

The Giants have a mobile app where they load up behind the scenes videos and articles which I enjoy reading and watching.  They also really push using Twitter at the stadium and make regular in game updates on their Facebook page with pictures.  One little known social outreach was before the Giants season finale versus the Cowboys, star quarterback Eli Manning made 500 calls to season ticket holders.  How do I know this?  My Uncle got one of those calls, picked up the phone, and found  Eli Manning on the other end.  Talk about luck.  Eli was calling 500 fans to make sure everyone was loud at the stadium that weekend (my Uncle gave the tickets to a friend). They have one main problem which I'll talk about below.

THE NJ DEVILS

While the Giants are good at social media, the Devils are better.  They still hand out iPads at the game to "get Social"and regular push Facebook at all of their games.  They also encourage people to post pictures and tweet.  The Devils have done a great job pushing their Facebook page.  I havent found a mobile app (I dont think there is one) which I wish there was one to make it easier to read and share stories, but I know that takes some money to build one or an agreement with a provider.  They have the same problem as the Giants, but one thing I did find annoying is that when you search for their FB page you have to make sure you type in "New Jersey Devils" and not "NJ Devils" to get the official page and to make it just a little more confusing the official page is listed as "Ticket Sales".  I think a call into Facebook should help them fix it.

THE MAIN PROBLEM FOR GIANTS AND DEVILS

I think that both teams struggle to decide where their main information hub is.  For the Giants it seems to be Twitter but that's not the best place; it should be Facebook.  The Devils seem to be torn between their website where a lot of articles, videos, stories, schedule, and stats are stored and Facebook where people "get social".  I find myself going between the two and I think that's suboptimal.  Also, it would be awesome if there was a way for people to check into their seats similar to what's available in Ticketmaster for their games.

If I was advising the Devils, I'd make the leap into social even more.  I bet other local team are taking notice, so they need to keep pushing the envelope.  I don't think beefing up their Facebook page would be revolutionary enough.  I'd recommend (and yes it costs money) a Facebook App similar to the infamous Washington Post app where it would post stories, post updates to the reader's FB page, and even let people check into game events. The Devils social team should also spend a lot of time understanding Facebook's newly released Open Graph to understand the actions they could be publishing.

With that bigger push and a new designed App, the Devils could keep pushing the social media sports envelope open even more and finally make the leap into minimizing the over reliance of their website as the main information hub.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S. A little more advice is to take a look at FB ads especially the Sponsored Stories, Page Post Like and Page Like ad formats to help spread their messaging.