The Ties That Bind

Some sayings work well as beliefs. Take Google’s punchline of belief regarding not doing evil, namely that you can make money without doing evil. It works great as a guiding principal, that is until you start making billions of dollars. Some, like one of our favorites, work best as a means for describing the world. They are descriptive as opposed to prescriptive. Such is the case here. Neither we nor the person we learned the phrase from the one who invented it, but we have used it time again (two times within the past 12 months to be exact) as a way to make sense of the performance marketing industry.

If you have had fajitas, you know all about the Steak and the Sizzle. The steak is what you ordered. It’s the meat, the actual component to the meal. The sizzle, though, is what makes everyone else around wish they had ordered it. When done right, the steak and sizzle go hand in hand. But, they by no means have to. Instead, especially in certain segments of the performance marketing arena where differentiation presents a significant challenge, the steak pays the bill. It’s what those inside the company know but not what gets discussed heavily, if at all, in the sales calls. That’s the sizzle. It draws the attention. It’s the sex appeal. How long they sizzle as opposed to fizzle depends on the quality and continued innovation.

Google the steak made headlines with their announced intent to acquire ITA Software, a long rumored but rarely hyped deal. No consumer would know ITA by name, but they would know the companies that use it – from airlines such as American and Continental to online travel agents such as Hotwire, Kayak, Orbitz, and even Bing. The acquisition, if approved by regulators, will enable Google to bypass one of its largest group of advertisers, although in the press release, the company mentions being able to drive more traffic to them. Presumably, Google could have become a client of ITA instead of outright acquiring, but either way, Google loves to play with data. ITA gives them mountains of new data, with which they can create their own vertical search experience. By controlling the experience, Google feels it “will create a new, easier way for users to find better flight information online,” as well as make “it easier for users to comparison shop for flights.”

The acquisition of ITA is not only big news with ability to influence one of the largest industries; yet, it is so unfortunately straightforward in concept, i.e., Google invests in vertical search, that it can’t match the sizzle news, that of Google’s Facebook killer. Google entering any segment would give pause to the incumbents. In the world of social networking, there is only one true incumbent, Facebook. At just under $20 billion in valuation, they don’t touch Google’s $140 billion (down significantly from its high), but with more traffic and more time spent, it doesn’t take much to see Facebook’s valuation doubling, tripling, and so on.

Google’s rumored Facebook killer (or at least the "philosophy" behind it comes to full light in a presentation for all to see, given by Paul Adams from Google’s UX team. For those who know Andrew Chen, parts of the presentation will feel oddly similar to theories espoused by Andrew three years ago, chiefly that people don’t have one group of friends. People have different groups of friends that are now linked together in the online world even though they wouldn’t be and aren’t in the offline world. As Paul says, “Offline people have multiple groups of friends that form around life stages and shared experiences.” And, “Not only do we not have one group of friends, but the word ‘friends’ itself, is actually pretty unhelpful.” In fact, their research shows, that “85% of the groups of friends did not contain the word ‘friends.’”

Paul’s presentation is fantastic and the type of work you would almost expect from a company known to hire the best and brightest. At 216 slides, don’t try and review if you only have a few minutes. It contains countless insights, and puts into words, pictures and perspective, much of what we know to be true without articulating it as well, e.g., the trouble with the word “friend” and why “follower” works so well for Twitter. It blends in first-hand experiences, new ideas (temporary ties, global profile issues), and social science research (strong ties versus weak ties) in a comprehensible manner that would make Malcom Gladwell envious. The presentation also highlights a presumed cultural difference between Facebook and Google – being methodical. There is so much that can be said about this presentation that it’s easy to lose track of that with which it is associated, building a “Facebook Killer.”

Why challenging Facebook makes sense for Google:

• It’s not about social networking. It’s about…

• The social web – “a web built around people, where their profiles and content are moving with them as they visit different websites.”

• Research – it takes place more and more online. Google has that covered.

• Influence – where to buy and what to buy is not owned by Google but by others. We don’t make decisions alone.

• Time on site – “People are spending much more time interacting with other people, and much less time consuming content from websites.” In other words, decreased search.

• Weak ties – they take up the majority of space but influence commerce and decisions minimally.

• They can do it – plenty of other visionaries have talked about online’s ability to blend social, namely strong ties, and commerce. It takes Facebook’s existing reach or Google’s potential execution to make it happen.

• They do information – the challenge of the social web is one of ranking; updates with those with hundreds if not thousands of connections means a huge chance for algorithms to better rank which we would want to see.

Why it isn’t obvious for Google:

• Where is the opportunity? How will / can they apply these insights without starting from scratch?

• What can Google fix that Facebook can’t? How can they make a difference without becoming a social network?

• The challenges with managing “friends” isn’t new, but is there a better, low friction method?

• People are addicted to Facebook, literally. How can Google avoid an either / or scenario?

• Google talking about trust, privacy, and transparency?

• The company’s Ten Things states, “It’s best to do one thing really, really well.” The first lines of which is, “We do search.”

For the marketer, you need to know nothing more than, “Technologies will come and go, but the fundamental social behavior patterns of people will remain the same.” Online is about many “temporary ties,” those you interact with only once, and for designers, “the biggest thing” they “need to think about when designing for temporary tie interactions is trust. Sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it?