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Statistically speaking most people in business have an iPhone, however if you are in business you will find that the apps you need most are from Google. Here is a must have list for any person who is serious about their online (and offline) business. But before I give you the list, think very carefully about your next iPhone purchase as business wise you are limiting yourself. Consider a Google Phone next time around and everything you need for your business will be within a swipe all synced nicely to your Google Account. My choice? Google LG Nexus 4 Phone ($299 Outright) but the Samsung Galaxy S4 ($699 Outright) is the power users choice and arguably eclipses the iPhone in features and technology!

Google Search: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-search/id284815942
Google Maps: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id585027354
Google+: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google+/id447119634
YouTube: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/youtube/id544007664
Gmail: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gmail/id422689480
Google Drive: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-drive/id507874739?mt=8
Google+ Local: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-places/id406513617
Google Voice: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-voice/id318698524 (USA Only)
Google Translate: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-translate/id414706506

A little firestorm has been developing since Ken Krogue a contributor at Forbes Magazine recently penned an article titles “The Death Of SEO: The Rise of Social, PR, And Real Content” and followed up with another excellent article on feedback with some additional thoughts.

In these articles he spoke about a lunch date with an SEO consultant named Adam Torkildson who told him that “Google is in the process of making the SEO industry obsolete, SEO will be dead in 2 years.” The feedback to Ken was immediate and rather vitriolic. I am sure no one in the SEO industry wants to hear this, but let’s be honest. if you are outside of the SEO industry, Google’s move makes complete sense. After all, wouldn’t each of us be better off without link farms and companies touting nonsense SEO claims, wouldn’t it be better for everyone if when searching Google the results were based off matching content, rather than little tricks?

“We hardly do any of the old SEO stuff. It still brings results, but not like it used to. Google is pulling the rug out to provide better search for their audience. They are routing out the counterfeiters. Now it must be real, valuable, content, and lots of community value and interaction” – Adam Torkildson

In the good old Google days, it was important to get links from as many sources as possible, the bigger the site that linked to you, the better your rankings became. The more links the better, it was all about volume first and quality second. Then followed SEO link farms and all the nonsense that came with these sites and today every man and his dog talks about the importance of SEO. I am in no way saying having good SEO foundations is not important, but hiring companies to enhance this – well, I always thought it was just a waste of money.

In recent years Google has been continually updating its algorithms to look for relevant content within websites to match natural search strings. Users of the search engines are also getting better and better at inputting better search queries, so it makes sense to everyone!

The article highlights the important not only of unique targeted localized content, but with the additional of social media links, likes, shares etc. Google also has the power to enhance the strength of its +1 likes, shares etc and because Google Plus is an open platform it obviously makes sense as a business to be all over Google+.

You can make the claim that Facebook is more powerful, but this depends on how many followers you have and if you have less than 1000 then you are pushing waste uphill.

I will go further to say that Google+ will – within a few short years become much more relevant and powerful for businesses, considering its deep business ties to solutions most of us use such as Gmail, Google Plus, Google Places, Google Maps, Google Webmaster Tools and Analytics.

So how will this effect you? Even if this linked article is only partially correct, if you are using software to enhance your SEO, then I would wean yourself off this over the coming months (at the very most a year). If you currently rely on a sound Google Standards based system for your content and continually write your own unique targeted articles then just keep doing what you are doing. You may however think to hire a Social Media Expert who can manage your social media sites or at the very least train someone in-house to do the same.

The final part of the article was about PR, I am not sure on this, as it is outside my area of expertise. So do yourself a favor and read the article and the comments, it is quite enjoyable.

Part One
Part Two

Comment from Adam Torkildson

Thanks for the followup article Peter. When Ken and I had lunch, it was back in March, just about 30 days prior to Penguin. My prediction was based on lots of different things, among them being the fact that google is trying to personalize, localize, and mobilize (not sure if that’s a word..) their search results and properties. Google is definitely pretty far away from being able to personalize everything, and make their search results 100% accurate. But they are working on it very hard, and by invoking Moore’s Law in their behalf, if their algorithm today doubles in effectiveness 2 years from now, most SEO’s will be out of a job just because of that fact. Add to that fact that doing SEO today is really more like doing Online PR and Content Marketing, and you find that the phrase ‘SEO’ will simply fall out of common use and will be called what it essentially is: Online PR and Content Marketing. I’m giving a keynote address to the New York chapter of the PRSA in November about this, if anyone wants to hear more.

You have something to say and can’t wait to get it out in the blogosphere. Raka and Bitly have got together and done some data crunching to showcase just what is the best time of day to send those Tweets, and add to your Facebook, Google+ profiles for maximum results. It is worth a look and possibly a change of pushing practice!

Yes the message and content is still of the utmost importance but so is timing. Just like with sending out email campaigns, timing is of the essence. You do not want a mailing campaign going out before anyone gets to work. They are more than likely to arrive and open their email with 20 or 30 messages, and you do not want to be a part of that group. Always post fresh news articles after 8.30am and preferably between 9am and 2pm.

From Raka: There are few resources better than URL shortener bitly for monitoring click-through rates for content shared on Facebook and Twitter. So when bitly released a report last month telling us all the best time to tweet or post to Facebook for click-throughs, we listened. And then we created an infographic.

This handy infographic highlights bitly’s data on the best times to share content on Twitter or Facebook if you’re looking to drive traffic to your site (or any site). Bitly found the best times to tweet for click-throughs are early afternoon Monday – Thursday, while Facebook content posted Wednesday at 3 p.m. generates the highest click-through rates, according to bitly’s data.

But why read words when you can look at pictures? Here’s the best-time-to-tweet-or-post-to-Facebook infographic created by digital agency Raka with data provided by bitly:

During the past week Google has been hosting their annual Google I/O event. Apple Events attract diehards from all over the world and in the past we have seen almost evangelical like scenes at these events. The annual Apple events always feature new products or updates to current offerings. Google I/O in the past have mainly focussed on what’s coming and some of that has never actually appeared.

There has been quite a few new innovations at this years conference, however the one I think will have the most impact for business is Google+ Events. There is no API for this yet, but once there is, I can see a world of possibilities.

Creating an Event in Google+
You simply login to your Google+ Profile and you will notice a New Events Tab on left side. Once you click on this you can create an Event. The first thing you will notice is to pick a theme (could be a property photo) or you can choose from a set of themes!

Events automatically added to Google Calendar
All events created by you will appear in your Google Calendar and you can also add photography to these events. Not only can you add photos in realtime (from an Android Phone), but others can too (that you invite to event) either in real time or after the event.

Google+ Circles Importance
If Google+ Circles were not important before, well they are now. You can build your list now and add circles for separate types of customers, current, potential, industry, friends, family etc. Google+ Circles are going to become increasingly important.

Google Events API
Once the API hits the market I am sure you will also be able to add events shortcode to your websites or develop systems for events to automatically appear with blog posts.

Google Hangouts
This is the sleeping giant and if you are not using Hangouts – you should. You can have discussions, experts and reviews right from a Hangout with up to 10 people. You can now even stream them live via Youtube and your own website via an embed code. With Google Events you can also schedule Hangouts right from the Google+ Event creation tool!

http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/events/

Did you know that Facebook allows you to convert your profile into a company page? This is great for people who started on Facebook as a profile but also allowed people they do not know to follow them and their product or service? Since the early days Facebook added pages as a way for businesses to promote their goods and service. This however has left many people with a very public personal profile page, some would like all of their current followers moved across to the their business page, but this can be a slow proces as you have to plead with people to like your page, and really this never works.

Facebook actually has a solution to this. When you convert your profile (timeline) to a Facebook Page, they transfer your profile pictures and add all of your friends and subscribers as people who like your page – very simply. Here is a link on how to do this, but remember to follow the backup plan!

This does leave you with the problem of having to update the remaining profile page, however this will not be much of an issue. Here is some information from Facebook, be sure to follow their instructions to a fault!

To avoid losing important content, we recommend taking these steps before you convert your profile (timeline):
Download your profile (timeline) information. You can download a file that contains all of your sent and received messages and all of the photos and videos you’ve uploaded to Facebook.
Appoint a new group admin or a new Facebook Page admin to any groups or pages that you manage. The account you’re converting will lose these admin rights during the conversion process.

Since the death of one Steve Jobs and release of the Steve Jobs book by Walter Isaacson rumors have been spreading like wildfire about a new television to be released by Apple sometime in 2012.

In this book, Isaacson quotes Steve Jobs: ‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he told Isaacson. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’

So what will this be?
Personally I think you only have to look at the iPad or iPhone to understand where this may go and I think I might have some ideas on this. If you look at televisions today they are the slave to the incumbent lazy broadcasters and cable providers, basically every TV has a receiver that scans for channels and if you have cable it works a little the same albeit with a set top box. Nothing has changed for decades and TV manufacturers are stuck in loop of releasing the same tired systems and upgrading them with silly things like hacked on 3D (does anyone seriously think the whole family wearing 3D glasses would catch on?)

I think when Apple releases the new television it will revolutionize the industry and force TV networks, cable suppliers and television manufacturers to change the way we receive our channels, much like music producers were forced kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

Channels as Apps
I think it will work like this, you buy the Apple television and it comes with all the free to air TV apps (think channels as Apps), you download an app (channel) and that is included in your lineup, each app (ABC as an example) has a list of shows that are regularly updated that you can subscribe to and add to your list of shows to watch when you want to watch them. You simply ignore the ones you do not want and they do not appear in your lineup. Newly released (upcoming) shows are showcased on your TV Dashboard.

Accounts
A family may have multiple accounts for different family members (restrictions included) and each login displays a different lineup on the TV Dashboard. This will allow owners to filter access for different users within their family.

Subscription Style Apps
Just like you pay for subscriptions to your favorite magazine and now some apps, you pay for subscriptions for TV/cable style channels, as an example Fox Sports may cost $4.95 per month and you will receive notifications of any Pay per View events from that channel.

iTunes
I think everything will be in iTunes and you will be able to sync watch this across multiple devices such as your iPad, iPhone, iMac, Laptop etc.

The Cloud
Everything will be stored in the cloud, so you take your TV with you on the road or in your hotel, by having everything stored in the cloud access is just a few clicks away.

Location Based Advertising
I have written about this multiple times in the past, but location based advertising is the only thing that will save free to air TV networks and will be a worldwide trillion dollar industry. This will mean if you live in Queens/New York you will not only see national chains advertising on your channels, but also local pizza stores, cafeterias, nightlife and local tourism operators, finally giving the networks access to small business again (watch TV now and advertising is almost entirely from the big boys).

Advertisers
Advertisers will be able to login and see what space is available to advertise their products and services in there own area or areas, they will be able to create ads using web based systems and ad templates and book spots, pay for commercials by credit card and Apple takes a chunk and distributes the rest back to the networks. It would almost make an ad agency/ buying group cry.

Open
I also think this will create a wave of new Tv shows, basically anyone can create a channel and obviously the success of these will depend on subscribers and social word of mouth, but how exciting would this be? Local realtors could create a channel on their local market, local tourism operators could create channels on local areas and attract their own advertisers, you create a channel that becomes popular and advertisers will follow.

Summary
I know this is fairly well departed from anything I have seen written on the web, but I truly think that this model would work if it had the power of Apple, then perhaps Google as a competitor behind it. Current free to air TV networks would get a lifeline – even though I think they are the last ones to deserve this and it would open up a world of opportunities for the little guys.

Then the only thing left for Apple to conquer would be the car stereo and you would easily see how they could change this tomorrow.

Your thoughts?