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COO, Interesante.com. Silicon Valley Entrepreneur


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Allison Mooney wrote a wonderful article on Why Agencies need to think like software companies. Truth is, I was a happy to find her article as it validates what we do at Tangelo, an internet marketing and technology company.  We look at advertising and marketing on the internet as an opportunity to create an integrated and deep web experiences that can help the client establish a long term and more valuable relationship with their audience. It is not only about the CTR on a single day, it is about the relationship you create with your client through social media apps, twitter, facebook, search and mobile.

Actually, it is a competency that I continuously talk about with my team of creative developers.  To successfully market in this new world it is crucial to understand not only the code architecture but business opportunities along the way. Remember that your clients will know exactly what they want the moment you show them something awesome.

Often, internet marketing projects fail because the corporate marketer lacks the understanding of the technology  and the agency buries the developer so deep under the layers of project management that issues are never discussed. For this to change, the developer needs to be able to communicate in plain english with the client. However, with the higher level of sophistication we are dealing with today, developers have the expectation that the marketer will have at least a basic understanding of the code. Believe me. There is no need to make it “so simple that your grandma should understand”. They are not building deep web experiences targeted to valuable audiences. Your grandma’s role is to see the final product and say WOW!

Another great gem in the article is the mention of Agile development practices. I believe that management should embrace parts of Agile into their business practices not only in their software development cycles. Agile processes for developers can be difficult to get used to but they can be trained and they can understand the value rather quickly. There is a big difference between talking Agile and doing Agile. Specially for marketers that are used to heavy duty enterprise level project management, Agile is difficult to adopt as it means a change in culture that they need to drive.

Twitter

Google

You care about the top 10 results more that anything else Google serves. As searcher if there are 100,000 or 1,000,000 results beyond the top 20 it really doesn’t matter. Top 20 is good enough.

A while back  I wrote about Google’s PPC model needs to evolve or slowly deteriorate. Inevitably customers always want and need better services. Advertisers want more. Search at this point is the middle man that either needs to be cut out of the equation or evolve into something better.

Back when I wrote that article, there was nothing tangible yet that could be a threat to Google. The scenery was starting to blend together. It looked like social networks were obviously and without a doubt using AdSense (or competitor’s products) to advertise to their audiences. MySpace and Facebook did not have strong monetization strategies and search was 110% king and queen of the internet neighborhood. Exit strategies for start-ups like JOT or writely were targeted to Google.

Fast forward to today.

Google is slowly losing its relevance to the real time and social web. A web where people manage the information they want to find and that rely on each other to find the best (or silliest depending on purpose) possible content on the web on near real-time. Now, say Twitter together with me.

Arguably, Twitter has been able to quickly build the most active, distributed and addictive set of third party applications via its API. Most importantly, cheaper that Google ever did. Beyond this point, there is a very interesting and potentially troubling trend for Google, taking place in search. Real time, trust worthy recommendations made relevant by time. People by nature trust  recommendations made by people they know or respect. These recommendations factor in making decisions about the biggest purchases and actions in their lives. Think choosing a college, buying a car, shopping for baby clothes and choosing the best school. To solidify my choices I talk to people I know and read people I respect. That is what makes me decide one way or the other. As John Borthwick, CEO of BetaWorks points out in his blog, relevancy is driven mostly by time.

This means that a search engine that syndicates what people are saying about a product in real time is more valuable than  1,000,000 hits in Google, even if I only look at the top ten. I trust people that I know and respect and if these people are praising or bashing a product or service, I am very likely to listen to them rather than to a search engine.  To quote John again, Google.com has suddenly become the source for pages not conversations, not the real time web. You can’t reply to a classic search engine result. You can reply to Twitter search and expect a real time often thoughtful reply in return.

Resources:

Google Next Victim Of Creative Destruction? (GOOG)

Recession is a regenerative cycle that is healthy for innovation. It’s hard and painful but necessary. Our brains needed a reboot badly. When I first came to the Silicon Valley the bubble had just burst. There were ever present news about pets.com and tales of lavish parties long gone. I, not only a foreigner to the Silicon Valley but to the technology scene did not know what the burst of the bubble meant. Truly, it did not bother me knowing that a silly idea like pets.com did not work. I was honestly surprised and worried to hear really smart people thinking that it was actually viable.

After riding the bubble and listening, watching and learning about the general misconceptions about economic models and ill-conceived companies, I am confident that recession procures innovation and that discomfort begets new thinking. Seldom technological breakthroughs happen during the good times. There is no incentive to thinking outside the box when times are [too] good. We just find ourselves thinking in a bigger fancier box.