Things I’ve Learned from Lately #59
“Things I’ve Learned from Lately” is a regular compilation of articles that have made me a smarter marketer. Hopefully, they’ll help you, too.
Google Search Life Expectancy – Quartz’ Christopher Mims writes about Google’s new firm called Calico, which will look at big data to identify how life can be extended. Calico is a perfect manifestation of the power behind Google. It’s much more than advertising and Android. It’s a technology company so diverse that it aims to change life itself.
The Effects of Information Overload - John Ericson writes in Medical Daily about the risks of mental overload. The constant bombardment of information has been shown to negatively affect short-term memory retention. Ericson points out that many marketing touchpoints, including websites over-stimulate brains, making assigning hierarchy difficult for consumers.
The Log-In Data Market - Jack Marshall of Digiday writes about the potential fallout of third-party cookies’ demise and the rise of first-party data. Marshall contends that log-in data may be the best source for that data because of its richness and accuracy. The danger is much of it is in the hands of Google and Facebook, creating a market of haves and have-nots.
The Elements of a Viral Image - MIT Technolgoy Review looks at how images go viral on Google+. The article points out that connectivity is more important than the actual message in terms of how things go viral. In other words, how closely the sharers are connected is more important than what is being shared, at least initially. There is however, a correlation in the emotions triggered by a piece of content and how viral it becomes. The article goes on to explain the work of Marco Guerini and his team as they looked to find out what makes images go viral on Google+. They found that animated images are more likely to be shared, vertical images fare better than horizontal ones, posts with images tend to have fewer than 75 +1s and posts that are text tend to have more +1s, and more.
Don’t Discount Google+ - Verne Kopytoff writes about the potential that still exists for Google+ and what Google needs to do to capitalize on that potential. He points out that Google+ came late to the game, so it has some catching up to do.