In case you haven’t heard, Google is currently hosting a nation wide competition to give a few lucky communities around the country super-fast fiber optic broadband networks – and Memphis is vying for one of those spots. This is an incredibly competitive initiative. Don’t believe us? Just check out what some cities are doing to get Google’s attention.
Google Fiber promises Internet speed up to a one gigabit per second – that’s three hundred times faster than typical home broadband service. The real coup of winning a bid for Fiber, though, would be that Google plans to take this service to every home and business in the chosen communities, regardless of the neighborhood’s commercial potential. An investment of that magnitude could transform an entire city.
So where do you come in? If Memphis wants to be a real contender, then Google needs to hear from members of our community. Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton wrote in his blog ways that we, as Memphians, can help the cause. The first step and one of the easiest (but most important) things you can do is to fill out Google’s web questionnaire for community members, stating your support for Memphis, Tennessee.
Filing the questionnaire is simple. If you don’t have a Google account, then just click here to sign up. If you do, then go ahead and Nominate Your Community. When you are finished, press “submit.”
And if you’re looking to get more involved, there are other ways to help. The city is gathering video testimonials, written letters of support, web content and links to Memphis supporters’ Web sites this week only. You can help by making a one to two minute video of you or your friends talking about why you believe Memphis is the best city for Google Fiber. It doesn’t have to be anything over the top or expensive — even a cell phones video stating the case would make a difference.
E-mail the video file once it’s done and it will be posted to the city’s YouTube channel for Google to review.
Let’s not let this opportunity pass us by, Memphis — we want Google Fiber and we can be the ones to help make it happen.
This week Google began rolling out its latest brainchild: real-time search. How cool! I can see Twitter updates about an interstate traffic accident and Facebook posts about ski conditions on a mountain! At least that’s what their tutorial video tells me.
And sure, there are plenty of benefits to real-time search. It’s got lots of sparkle and shine to it – the idea that you can search literally everything that’s being said about a given topic on the web right at this instant. It’s a fascinating innovation, but it comes with huge risk factors.
"Annoying Noises Prohibitted (sic)" by BarelyFitz on Flickr
As businesses become aware that their Facebook page – which may only have a hundred or so fans – is being indexed by Google, the temptation will be great to deck out updates with SEO-friendly terms and inundate the stream to grab that coveted top spot in the search. With search results automatically updating in real time, one post a day isn’t going to cut it. If you update about tomato soup in the morning and someone searches for tomato soup in the afternoon, your update likely won’t appear – it will have been pushed down by all the other people who’ve raved about tomato soup since 9 a.m.
Ultimately, while businesses can benefit greatly from being involved in social media, these platforms were not created for businesses. They were created for individual users. Still, very often a business’s presence on Facebook is a good thing for those individual users – as fans, they get benefits like exclusive deals and discounts and they can keep up with events at their favorite local venues. But Google is dangling a pretty tasty looking carrot in front of businesses with real-time search; if they bite, the utilities of social sites for individuals may soon be overshadowed by superfluous, constant updates that are a huge turn-off for most every user.
It’s certainly not surprising that a business would go to great lengths to nab the No. 1 spot in a Google search. Before now, that might have involved expensive SEO consulting and tedious copy writing to try to get in good with the algorithm. Real-time search is like a secret passageway, letting them bypass the algorithm entirely simply by having a social media presence.
But for those of us hanging out on Facebook, and not on the Google results page? As the Grinch himself once said, all the noise, noise, noise, noise, noise! We’re going to see much more of it on Facebook and Twitter. We may soon find businesses posting anything and everything to up their search rankings. But is that ranking more important than genuine fans or followers who are interested in your message or your product/service? If it’s the Google ranking, eventually those fans may go by the wayside, either by removing your page entirely or hiding your updates from their feeds.
There’s a fine line to walk. It would be foolish to ignore the possibilities of real-time search. You shouldn’t completely throw SEO principles out the window. But this does inject one more artificial aspect into the conversation that may push people away if not handled correctly. If it weren’t for the people using these networks, they wouldn’t have any value. If businesses turn up the noise too much those users are going to retreat. The back channel will have truly gone mainstream, and the value for the individual will wane quickly.
As for Google’s motives with this, we can’t help but feel like we’ve run into another snake-oil salesman. Hey, Facebook and Twitter and MySpace! We’ll give your sites lots of search love by listing real-time web updates in our search results. Sound good?
On the surface, it does. But if this results in increased noise, it may eventually be a detriment to these social sites. The habits of traditional marketing are hard to kick, and it won’t take long before businesses start picking up their megaphones. Our word to businesses? Be careful. Be smart and be savvy — you don’t want to get left in the dust — but be careful.
