How Google’s Recent Moves Matter to Business
Monday, August 13th, 2012
We have seen a lot of coverage of the Olympics and now, some tech stories have recently received a lot of coverage as well. The Apple versus Samsung court fight, the Mars rover, and breaking info about the iPhone 5 seemed to have dominated, but one player has been making some headlines that are rather significant.
That would be Google.
A Domain Fight in 2012?
Google has had some recent significant news, minus one setback.
In a story reported by TheNextWeb, Google managed to lose a dispute over Christopher Neuman’s 13-year old domain, Oogle. Even with some doubts in mind, the panel in charge, as DomainNameWire writes, decided that, “Neuman can keep the domain for now.” That’s not to say Google won’t attempt to take down, or take control of, this domain in other ways.
Google Fiber is fast. Very fast.
Google pushed into the Internet and television provider market as it announced the beginning of Google Fiber. The plan had been in the works for quite some time, but now Google is ready to get to work. Google themselves wrote:
“Google Fiber is 100 times faster than today’s average broadband. No more buffering. No more loading. No more waiting.”
The service will become available in Kansas City, MO and Kansas City, KS, and pre-registration has already begun.
Google+ and Blogger
At the beginning of this month, Google made a move further integrating their social media platform, Google+, with another service, Blogger. This cross-platform integration basically makes managing and sharing blog posts with social media much easier.
This means individuals, and especially businesses, have a much easier tool to create, manage, or improve their web presence; this is something that is becoming increasingly more important.
Google Takes on Social Media with Wildfire Purchase
Keeping the same pattern of beefing up their social media capabilities, Google purchased a start-up company around the same time they announced the Google+ and Blogger integration. Businessweek reported that Google paid “$250 million plus performance incentives for … Wildfire.”
So what? Wildfire is a platform that specializes in allowing brands to manage all of their online content (Twitter, videos, apps, ads, promotions, social pages and more) from one spot. Google already has impressive analytical tools. When you combine that with Wildfire’s ease-of-use, you get an ideal way to manage your business’ online presence.
Google Opens its Wallet
Google just recently announced improvements to its Google Wallet service. Google Wallet has moved to the cloud. This means anyone with a smart phone can use any credit or debit card to use their phone to make purchases online, or in the real world. Google has even managed to make the service more secure by using their cloud service and, as CNet reported, users “should be able to remotely disable their mobile wallet apps using an online portal.”
What Google’s Moves Mean
Google has taken some vital steps in securing its future. The move into providing physical content like Internet access and cable television with Google Fiber is a solid example of the company expanding its market. Its actions also show where Google believes the future of the Internet lies. It lies with social media.
As a business owner, one should be delighted with the changes. It’s going to be increasingly easier to create, manage, and implement an online strategy for your business.
The purchase of Wildfire and integration of Blogger and Google+ are strong examples of this. Even the expansion of Google Wallet means that consumers will have an easier way to purchase anything. And that means more business for you.
Of course, Google is setting itself up to be a business’ sole tool to access the online market. Google also wants to be the primary tool that consumers use as well. They have to continue to provide innovations and changes like this to conquer Facebook’s 900+ million users.
This certainly demonstrates they know where their company is headed, and they are willing to make the moves to make it happen. What Google has done recently is likely to continue.
Are you as a business ready to make the changes necessary to move or expand onto the online battlefield? Google is ready for you.
Courtesy: Small Biz Trends
