Apps for Android hit Ten Billion

This week downloads of apps for Android surpassed the ten billion mark. To celebrate, Google are making some of the more popular apps for Android available at a knockdown fee of just 10 American cents. The figure highlights the increased growth of the android platform, as it took just one month to go from nine billion downloads to ten billion apps for Android downloaded, whereas it had previously taken twenty two months for the first billion apps for Android to be downloaded.

This increase in growth has lead analysts to believe that downloaded apps for Android will surpass the number of app downloads Apple has registered in the next year. Apple reached the 10 billion mark in July, however apps for Android are now being downloaded at a faster rate. Android phones account for 52% of the smartphone market, however until now iOS apps had still proved more popular with developers as owners of Apple smartphones and tablets tended to download more. However this now looks set to change, and should developers see more potential revenue from developing apps for Android then Google’s smartphone platform may establish a position of dominance in the market.

However the achievement has been accompanied by controversy this month as it has been found that many Android phones and some iPhone contain software called Carrier IQ. This software can record a users use of apps for Android, their location, and basically all keystrokes input to the phone, and can then send the data back to the phones network. So far it has only been found on phones in the US with all British networks denying its use. While Carrier IQ claims good intentions in providing diagnostics to improve service, many have taken issue with a program that monitors their actions being installed on their phone without their consent.

Apps for Facebook

The value of apps for Facebook was highlighted this month as Farmville creator Zynga filed for an initial public offering of stock (IPO). Zynga’s most famous and profitable offering is Farmville, one of the most popular apps for Facebook. The game is free to play, however virtual crops and other items can be purchased by users, which along with sponsorship deals generate revenue for the company. The IPO is set to be worth $10 billion dollars, making Zynga the second most valuable games company in the world.

The world’s most valuable games company is Activision Blizzard, most famous for the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft series of games. Both of these titles require years of development and sell for a premium price. Zynga’s model of offering games as apps for Facebook shows how profitable the medium can be. The only other comparable company to Zynga is Rovio, who produced the phenomenally successful smartphone game ‘Angry Birds’. Rovio was the subject of a takeover bid from Zynga earlier in the year but rejected it on the basis of the potential that it can see in the social games industry.

Of course not all apps for Facebook are games. There are over 500,000 apps for Facebook available. Many will be using apps for Facebook to promote their businesses and products this Christmas. Many will use their legions of Facebook fans to spread awareness of their products and services through apps for Facebook. These apps not only help companies spread awareness, but also allow the users to interact with the company in a variety of ways. Whether these companies can use apps for Facebook to sell their physical products with obvious tangible benefits as well as Zynga can sell virtual crops remains to be seen.

Marketing on Google continues to grow

Many analysts have wished to pronounce the death of Google +prematurely, however the online search giant will always have the asset of marketing on Google to promote its new online products and services which will in turn increase revenue from marketing on Google. This year Google managed to attract 1 billion unique users, a first for the internet, emphasising the monstrous power of marketing on Google.

Google + has reportedly hit around 40 million users, however the problem for the site is that users do not engage with it as they do with Facebook, sharing a lot less publicly and spending less time on it. This makes it less attractive to advertisers. However marketing on Google has proven to be effective over the last few years and Google has taken steps to integrate the social networking site with its other products.

This month’s redesign of Youtube shows a greater emphasis on channels which Google have spent $100 million developing recently. A channel encourages a user to watch for longer than an individual video, which in turn is good for marketing on Google as advertisements can be more effective. Retaining the users interest for longer also encourages more interaction with the Youtube community, and this is where social integration has been ramped up to encourage more users to use their Google + account.

Further methods of integration are also in evidence. Google + accounts can be easily set up from the popular Gmail service. Gmail then also ties in with Google talk and all are now available from the Google homepage which 90% of all searches are conducted from, and which is the main source of marketing on Google revenue. Furthermore, the Android mobile platform which now has a 52% majority in the smartphone market also acts as a vehicle to drive users to marketing on Google. The user account to download apps on Android is a Gmail account, the same as can be used for Google +. Of course, Google also provides 160 million users with the Chrome browser to also further enhance marketing on Google. With such popular services driving traffic to Google +, and more integration to come, it will not fail to gain users. Whether it retains their attention to further enhance marketing on Google is questionable.

Search Engine Optimisation to Change as Search Evolves?

There are few bigger monopolies in the world than the one that exists in the search engine market. Google has dominated since its inception and is believed to have a share greater than 90% for the worldwide market, making it essential for search engine optimisation. It’s once great rival Yahoo’s value has halved in four years, while other competitors like Ask or AOL are considered irrelevant.Search engine optimisation companies barely have to bother with these search engines now.

Of course Microsoft launched Bing to compete, but there is little reason to switch other than the convenience of having Bing as the default search in Internet Explorer browsers, though this is enough to be considered important in search engine optimisation. Even the IE browser is challenged by Google though, as they have caught up on IE with their Google Chrome internet browser facilitating more Google searches and making Google even more relevant for search engine optimisation.

However Googles dominance does not appear to put off other smaller challengers. Bitly, who provide shortened links that prove useful for microblogging sites such as Twitter, want to challenge Google by providing a search engine which searches based on what is relevant and trending now, allowing it to make use of the data it receives from users shortening their links on their site. This promises to give a more relevant search with links from the previous 3 days given priority. However a different algorithm for search means a different approach to search engine optimisation.

Siri on iPhone 4S is another that may disrupt the search engine’s status quo and methods of search engine optimisation. Currently if Siri can find the answers it takes the user to the site avoiding Google’s ads, and using voice and searching databases provides a new way to find answers via the internet. Should new methods of search become popular, it will also mean changes and challenges for search engine optimisationand online marketing.

Marketing by Goals

It is important when looking to achieve success in business that you outline targets and have a strategy to meet these targets. Marketing is one of the most crucial aspects of success in business and marketing by goals is a good way to achieve business success.

The first step is to identify the goals. What do you want to achieve? Marketing by goals strategies can have a variety of measures of marketing success. Do you want to simply increase revenue or do you want to increase market share? Will you do this by spreading product awareness and focusing on lead generation, or by targeting existing customers with a new range of products? Of course you can have many goals, or one larger goal such as lead generation can have many sub goals to achieve the overall aim.

Once the goals are identified a suitable strategy must be used to achieve them. Will you be using marketing online? Will it be an expensive targeted campaign, a wider reaching approach or a cheaper social media method? There are also many factors in the marketing environment, both internally and externally to consider. A thorough environmental scan is important even when marketing online as websites audiences will vary significantly in terms of location and demographics.

Once a strategy is built the next step is to measure whether or not marketing by goals has achieved the objectives set as this will help you to learn how to make a more effective strategy next time. This requires a feedback loop of some kind where you can measure how effective the marketing has been. When marketing online this can be from using website analytics to measure click rates or web traffic or in a store it could be an increase in footfall. Marketing by goals strategies are dynamic, and should the measurement not indicate your target is being met, then the strategy should be adapted to be more effective.

Social Media the key to Online Marketing Engagement

In a world before online marketing, advertising was based on predictions of interest due to likely demographics of the target audience. Television adverts were targeted in the sense that the advert was run between programs which were watched by a targeted demographic of the population, for instance beer commercials during sports matches, as both sport and beer’s best customers are predominantly male, and in the age range of 18-35.

With early online marketing a similar approach was taken, banner advertisements would be placed on sites relevant to the advert. However evidence suggests that this is not overly effective, with only 0.09% of visitors clicking on the adverts. Other forms of online marketing have proved intrusive, with pop ups often prompting a negative reaction.

Google provided one of the first effective methods of online marketing through the adverts that support its search engine in the sponsored results. The online marketing was targeted to the user as it responds to what the user searched for and displayed results which may be of interest. Social media has taken this one step further, with adverts based on the information a user has communicated about themselves. Furthermore, the way brands interact with users on sites such as Facebook is very similar to how users interact with each other, making it seem less like online marketing, and instead treating the user as more of a fan of the brand, which helps develop loyalty. Stores such as Wallmart now even provide applications to help Facebook users buy gifts for their friends, disguising online marketing as a helpful tool.

The internet also allows more interactive media, with games and contests available to facilitate online marketing and give the user more involvement in the advert. Yet this is not the pinnacle of social media, the growth of location as an element of social media has great potential for facilitating geo marketing as does the migration to smartphones for mobile marketing. Online marketing will only continue to grow with new innovations in the social marketing field.

Facebook to fund new smartphone through mobile marketing revenues

Rumours have grown stronger in the last month that Facebook is set to enter the smartphone market currently dominated by Apple and Google by producing an operating system of it’s own.

The new Facebook phone project, supposedly codenamed ‘Buffy’ will develop a Facebook customised user interface based upon the Android system, to run on an HTC device. Other wilder rumours have suggested Facebook may even sell the phone for free, and this may not prove bad business sense due to its mobile marketing potential.

Google currently gives away its Android operating system to handset manufacturers for free, with the revenues coming from online marketing on Google’s online services which are integrated with the operating system. Facebook could increase its revenues from online marketing in a similar fashion by increasing web traffic to Facebook through integration with the phones operating system. There are further opportunities inmobile marketing and even geo marketing for a potential Facebook phone as the social networking site makes location more of an important factor in sharing.

Google and Apple have built many high end phones, so Facebook’s strategy may well be to target the lower end of the market knowing they can make a return from online marketing. The Amazon Kindle Fire has a similar low end strategy, undercutting the iPad on price and features, but through mobile marketing the revenues can be recouped from the sales of ebooks for the device, and also from online marketing advertisements subsidising the lowest priced Kindle.

While Apple may produce all aspects of their product in house and receive the largest share of profits in the smartphone industry, its rivals have shown that the value of online marketing as they generate profits through technology by using devices as tools for mobile marketing and online marketing in their primary businesses.