With so much doom hanging over the economy, who would you expect to be doing well?

No surprises then that Google has posted outstanding third quarter figures, with revenues up 31% to a dizzying £3.2bn (though dwarfed by bank handouts from you and I) and profits up 26%.

And everyone’s favourite search engine is now providing 63% of online searches in the USA (August figures), which is double that of its closest competition.

Which somewhat supports Jeff Jarvis’ notion on Buzz Machine that the “Google economy is just different”.

Jarvis says that Google typifies the “small-is-the-new-big” economy in which the myriad of advertisers of all sizes using its services now adds up to a critical mass. This mirrors the inter-relationship between Google and online communities, whereby Google recognises the critical mass of activity generated by social media, including blog posts, user-generated comments, content sharing and bookmarking sites such as Digg, etc.

If people you need to reach are using the Internet to research before they buy or make decisions about something, the equation is this:

a) The majority of people are using Google to search the Internet.

b) Google’s techno wizardry ranks quality online destinations according to their level of activity and interactivity.

c)  Therefore, you might need to include some form of social media activity as part of your communications.

To paraphrase the old Clinton campaign slogan, it’s the Google economy, stupid!

2001 doesn’t seem so long ago does it?  Well, not to me, but it does when you take a little trip back in time with Google.  To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the mother of all search engines, Google has re released the oldest index that it still has; the January 2001 version.      

It’s not often we get this kind of opportunity to roll back the years.  Looking for Facebook gives you just 1,810 results.  Not too surprising as it had only just been created and was available exclusively to a handful of Ivy League colleges.  Most of the links are now dead but you can get an idea of what Facebook looked like in the early days through the links to the Internet archive.  If you want an idea of how it looked at the time click here for the Harvard Currier House version.  Trust me, you’ll feel a lot happier about the latest redesign.    

Try looking for the iPod and you will only find 1,300 sites and none of them referring to the Apple music playing device because in January 2001 no one has an iPod.  There is a revolutionary new immersive entertainment device called the VRex iPod but you have to climb inside it to be entertained.  Searching for Flickr gives just 34 results and these are all spelling mistakes.  Searching for Youtube gives a great big fat zero.   Imagine a world without Youtube.     

Having had my fill of early new media, I wondered about the most popular searches of 2008 and how they might they compare.  How did ‘Britney Spears’ fare compared with the 87 million results we get now.  Well there were nearly a million results even in 2001 but what innocent times; ”Britney Spears is like many 17 year old girls. She loves shopping at the mall, romance novels, and long strolls along the beach.”  Want to really experience how things were back in the day?  One click will do it.

Google has launched probably its most ambitious project to date. As part of the Project 10 to the 100th, the search engine company (which is rapidly changing into a company that defies definition) is calling on everyone to submit ideas to change the world. Throwing in $10million to bring these ideas to life, Google is clearly putting other CRS campaigns to shame as only they could and living by their motto of ‘Don’t Be Evil’.

There are no rules aside from the fact that ideas must fall into one of the stipulated categories: Community, Opportunity, Energy, Environment, Health, Education, Shelter and Everything Else because ’sometimes the best ideas don’t fit into a category at all’.

As a PR, I’ve lost count the number of times truly great ideas from either a campaign or social responsibilty perspective have been rejected by senior figures and clients due to budget restrictions. Taking the over-used buzz of ‘blue sky thinking’ rarely comes without caveats that further down the line, the idea will be ’streamlined’ or just dropped.

So this is a call to all those marketeers out there who spend their days dreaming on behalf of their clients. You have a new client with a $10million budget and you can do anything you want, so long as it changes the world for the better. Now that’s what I call a brief!

This - in my humble opinion - is genuinely terrifying.

Apparently Google algorithms picked up a story about US airline, United Airlines, filing for bankruptcy. Result? The word spread like a bush fire through online news sites and the airline’s share price plummeted before someone at NASDAQ realised something was wrong.

In fact the story was an old one, from 2002, when the airline did have issues. But nobody had checked the story’s date before posting the story, causing millions of shares to be sold.

Google hasn’t merely been adopted as a verb in our language, it’s also become the de facto route for fact checking. But the United Airlines example shows what happens when computer goes bonkers.

Jeffrey Stibel at Harvard Business Review compares it to the panic that gripped American when Orson Welles did his famous Martian landing radio broadcasts. But with the Internet, the speed and reach of information changing hands is counted in seconds - and the effects speak for themselves.

Before you say “get him and his Ivy league education”, my dealings with Harvard amount to its weekly 10-minute podcast, which doesn’t really qualify me as an alumni.

However, the latest edition of the Harvard Business Ideacast (sign up through iTunes)  - concerning the internet, the brain and the future of business - is an interesting take on brain/internet similarities. Without boring you with neurons, the most practical element is how the best content online acts like our most enriching memories: they keep coming up time and time again. Hence, creating web-based material that really stands you apart from competitors in your field - tends to get recognised more often by search engine algorithms, particularly Google. 

Brainy stuff, huh?

Cuil, pronounced ’cool’, was launched yesterday as a new challenger to Google.  The credentials were good, big money backing and a number of ex-Google staffers on the team.  Despite, or perhaps because of the barrage of publicity, the launch has been widely regarded as a flop.  Why? Because the volume of coverage generated such a volume of traffic that the site couldn’t cope.  It ran slowly and some of the search results were surprising.   

I tried an acid test.  I searched for ‘Cuil’ in Google.  A news story on the launch appeared at number 1 and the site itself was at number two.  I then searched for ‘Cuil’ in Cuil; no such luck.  Towns and villages in Sligo, French cuisine, Lochaber, scenic sights in Scotland and even some Gaelic results but no search engine came up and it was definitely lacking in ‘Cuil’.   

Have a look at another search engine called Scour.  It launched very recently with far less of a fanfare but it’s interesting because it aggregates searches from other engines; Google, Yahoo and MSN.  It is also the first social media search engine because it allows users to rate searches which should improve its functionality over time.  Now search for  ’Scour’ in Cuil and it comes in at number one!  What’s more is Scour actually pays registered users for every search they carry out.  Now my money’s on that. 

Last night we attended a highly informative presentation by Blake Chandlee, commercial director of Facebook hosted by TBWA\Manchester. The presentation to prospective clients, media and account handlers gave an insight into the company that can only be described as a social media success story.

He addressed some interesting issues including recent media claims that ‘Facebook fatigue’ has kicked in and active user numbers are dwindling. Blake claims quite the opposite citing the rise in users following the recent launch of the social utility across other European countries. He explained the ambitious system of translating the huge network into different languages with the support of the community through the ‘Translation’ application. What astonished me more than anything was the speed with which the translations took place within the community- just 8 hours for one of the languages!

He covered numerous topics including polls (”Don’t ever pay for one”), Beacon (”Didn’t go down well”), Apps (”Some work but a lot fail”),  taking on HSBC and even Mark Zuckerberg (”He looks about 12!”). The most interesting aspect was Facebook’s perception of itself as an altruistic company, seeing themselves as a social utility rather than a network - a tool to connect people and extend relationships rather than a social space. There’s conversation at the moment about the sharing of information and applications across multiple user spaces as encouraged by Google Open Social. Blake explained that Facebook is excited about this development and has no goal to keep users locked into using the site.

All this relates to the user experience. Something that Facebook are trying to make as enjoyable as possible. In relation to marketing, this means you’re likely to see the flashy side bar ads disappear in the near future and clients investing more in social advertising. Currently appearing in the newsfeed section of the site, these are likely to develop although Blake did note that personal information would always be kept secure and never given out to third party advertisers despite the adverts becoming more personalised.

As for the continual barrage of app spam we receive every day from so-called friends? Well Facebook has banned ‘force invites’ in apps - something I wasn’t aware but probably only because it was publicised to the developer community. As Blake commented, if an app is forcing you to invite friends, just report them and they’ll be kicked out.

He did also comment afterwards that their business plan is constantly changing so who knows what we can really expect from Facebook in the future? Only Mark Zuckerberg really knows and so let’s hope he really is one of those rare individuals who “think different“.