Galaxy Tab or iPad?

Last month it was reported that Apple was suing Samsung because they felt that the Galaxy Tab was copying its design of the iPad.

So as the recent proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy Tab, I thought I’d give some thought to the extent to which the two devices are similar.

Well there is one big difference for a start. I bought my Galaxy because I needed a new phone, my old one having been liberated from my car by some scally in Putney. And the Galaxy does function as a phone, albeit with an element of Dom Joly about it! However, a Bluetooth headset solve that reasonably well. Of course you can use the iPad as a phone – but only using VoiP such as Skype: and of course that limits who you can call.

Another big difference is the size and weight. iPads are surprisingly heavy, even the iPad 2 weighs in at 600g, around a third more than the Galaxy Tab. That makes it less comfortable to hold for a long time: important if you are using it to read eBooks or magazines.

The big difference is the size though. iPads, with their 10 inch display are much larger than the Galaxy with only 7 inches. That’s a good thing and a bad thing. OK, the iPad’s screen is great for reading magazines and typing. But the downside is that it is bulky. It certainly doesn’t fit into any of my pockets while the Galaxy Tab slips into a coat pocket very nicely. For me at least, the 7 inch screen is plenty big enough for most things I want to do, and a lot better than a smart phone.

There are plenty of other differences too. With the Tab I can buy extra memory if I need to – a 16 GB memory card is a lot cheaper than upgrading from a 16 GB to a 32 GB iPad. The cameras on the Tab were an important point of difference too – but the new iPad 2 has caught up with that feature.

So is the Tab a rip off of an iPad? Decidedly not. It’s a completely different beast. While it has pros and cons compared with the iPad in terms of the technology behind it, the reasons for buying it will be very different for many people.

The Tab is something to take out with you – a genuinely portable web enabled computer which doubles as a phone.

In contrast the iPad is something to keep at home (or perhaps in your briefcase) – which is perhaps why the majority of iPads sold are not 3G enabled. Bigger screen, admittedly. But far less useful, at least for me.

The future of newspapers

The future of newspapers is an old debate, but the terrible events in Japan throw a spotlight on how the role of newspapers is changing – or perhaps needs to change.
Buying my copy of the Sunday Times yesterday, I was shown pictures and news that I had already seen or heard – on TV, on the radio and of course online.
But as well as the slightly redundant news, there was the analysis and explanation that can be done so much better in newspapers than it can on TV or on the radio.  TV is powerful, but the type of analysis it can deliver is inevitably different and in many ways lighter than the analysis press, with its ability to deliver extensive articles as well as diagrams that can be pored over, can deliver.
Online of course combines the benefits of TV (video) with the benefits of press (long form text) – and adds a few others all of its own (e.g. the ability to manipulate data such as making calculations, buying products or playing games).
The disadvantages of online come down largely to convenience (who wants to lug a laptop around with them instead of a newspaper on the morning commute?) but also to functionality (paper makes a pretty good interface which you can for instance scrawl on or tear off).
Tablet PCs change all that. For example, newspaper iPad apps (and we will inevitably soon be seeing their equivalent for Android devices) can mimic paper’s advantages because they potentially allow the user to annotate pages and to “cut out” pieces of text such as ads or articles. OK, they can’t be folded in quite the same way as a newspaper but the 10 inch screen is still pretty light and convenient.
And that’s the opportunity for newspapers. Tablet PC apps from newspapers that allow updated news (like TV and online), long form text and convenient functionality (like paper), and additional interactive functionality (like the web), combined with trusted brands (i.e. credible analysis from well-known reporters) will be a pretty hard combination to beat.
And not only that, it does increasingly appear that people are much more willing to pay for content on a tablet PC app than they are for content from a website.
So don’t write the press off just yet. Paper may well be (slowly) dying as an interface for news, but the tablet PC revolution may well be the market change that secures the future of newspaper brands.
PS. My tips for must-have mobile app functionality
1. Ability to interact with content
• Write notes on content
• Take clippings, save images etc into a scrapbook
• Zoom in on images, pan across images, swivel images
• Enlarge font
2. Ability to share content and opinions
• Share with other websites e.g. twitter, facebook
• Share via email, chat and IM
• Share opinions on the app via comments pages or polls
3. Appropriate content
• Customisable content
• Constantly updated content
• Extra content compared to web and paper
• Different horizontal and vertical experiences – e.g. horizontal might mimic paper product while vertical has different layout and extra content
4. Good usability
• Navigation: e.g. clickable table of content, thumbnail images, click for previous article/next article
• Text only and images only versions
• Video and audio with appropriate play controls
• Full screen slide show/article view
• Gestures in interface (which should be intuitive) e.g. rapid page turn using gesture
• Search functionality
• Content viewable offline; ability to browse content before a full download; ability to download some but not all content
• Ability to click through to ads or shopping (but while staying within environment of the app)

Valuing Facebook

Reports that Facebook has raised $500m from Goldman Sachs and a Russian investment company, in a deal that values the social networking company at $50 billion, take me back to the good old days of 1999 when Freeserve was valued at around $2 billion.

OK, it’s not quite as bad as that. Freeserve had around 1 million users, which meant that each one was valued at about $2000.

In contrast Facebook has well over 500 million Unique Visitors (according to Google), valuing each one at around $100.

At least Facebook has valid business model in terms of its advertising, even if it doesn’t yet necessarily justify such a robust valuation. According to the Guardian, Facebook is predicted by eMarketer to be heading for $2 billion ad revenues in 2011, making around $4 in ad revenues per user.

Given that it is hard to square $4 with $100, Goldman Sachs presumably feels that there is other value contained within the site. There might well be.

It is possible that the advertising could generate more value. At present the industry undervalues Facebook advertising because (in part at least) click through rates aren’t great. People are generally highly engaged when visiting Facebook and so less likely to escape to advertising.

Engagement doesn’t mean they don’t see the advertising, however. And highly engaged visitors may well be more highly swayed by advertising when they see it than they would be if they were less engaged. Certainly there is evidence to that effect from the world of TV.

And the data they collect means that Facebook can deliver some great ad targeting – by age and gender as well as by keyword association.

So if Facebook were successful in selling their site as a premium branding site rather than a commoditised cpc site, then they might generate a far higher yield from the advertising inventory.

It is hard to see where else they could generate revenue, though. A premium subscription service would surely be a very niche product.

And the data they collect may well be less robust, and less valuable, that they like to think (don’t tell me you have registered your real birthday with them, or that all your Facebook friends are people you engage with socially).

There are of course opportunities to make money out of e-commerce, but beyond that it’s hard to see where real opportunities lie.

So the $100 valuation per user does seem optimistic.

And of course it does assume that Facebook is going to be a leader in the social media space for a good while: remember MySpace, remember GeoCities…

Google Instant

You have probably noticed that Google has changed the way it works by launching Google Instant. Now Google presents you with results instantly as you type in your keywords. This may – or may not – enhance its usability.

The way it works

Google Instant presumably uses the same technology as the “autocomplete” keyword prediction which shows the list of the most popular or related keywords as users start to type their keywords in. However, Google Instant is different from the keyword prediction by updating the whole of the Search Result Page (SRP).

A user starts typing any character, number, or symbol and at the same time Google Instant also starts refreshing the browser to display its search results. When the user types more or edits the previously typed words, Google Instant immediately updates the whole SRP.

This means that, with Google Instant, users don’t need to type all keywords in full or they don’t even need to press “Search” or “Go” button before they start getting search results.

User benefits

Google claims that the new system has the following benefits:

1)      Users get much smarter predictions, increasing their satisfaction with the service

2)      It is quicker to search – the process is up to 5 seconds faster than with normal Google

3)      It’s easier for users because they  get “Instant” search results as they type in their queries

Is Google Instant really more usable?

There are however some potential usability questions and issues.

Is it so smart?

The so-called smarter predictions are not actually that smart. In fact, the predictions from Google Instant appear to be just a sub-set of the predictions from a normal Google search page, albeit presented in a different order.

Perhaps the argument is that the reduction of choice is an improvement. Well, that could have been achieved with the old system. And reducing the number of predictions shown from 10 to 4 doesn’t seem to be a great improvement, even if the options presented are slightly better.

Google with Instant search switched on Google without Instant search

Is it faster?

Well, yes. At least sometimes. If I am searching for “apple” then I’ll see it listed when I type in “a” and I can scroll down and click on the search results for apple without having to type in the whole word.

But hang on. Couldn’t I do that with the old system?

Is it easier?

Do these instant results really make it easier for users? It could be a quicker and more convenient way if a user doesn’t exactly know what to type for his keyword.

However, if the user has an exact keyword in his mind, the repetitive SRP updating could be very distracting.

And of course if your desired keyword is a popular one it may be helpful. So a user searching for “Amazon” will see the suggestion for Amazon and links to the bookstore one typing in the letter “a”.

But the person searching for “Amberlight” needs to endure links to Amazon, Ambien, Amber, Amber lamps and Anberlin before being presented with the link to the Amberlight website. The constant screen updates as most letters are input is off-putting and seems to go against the serenity of the old Google experience!

There are some other bug bears with the new system as well. I think the chief one is the fact that the temptation is to hit “enter” once the word you see appears in the drop down box.

So if I type in “Amberlig” in Google.com I will see the word “Amberlight” at the top of my options and the word “Amberlight” (but with the “ht” greyed out) in the search input box. Naturally at that point I hit “enter” – and get a list of search results related to “amberlig” and not “Amberlight”!

And please don’t get me started on the frustration of switching Google Instant search back on, once you have switched it off!

Is it an improvement?

Is Google Instant an improvement? Well perhaps. Once you get used to it the new system will probably work a little better, at least if you are searching for common things like “Amazon” and “Apple”. And I suppose most people do search for the most common things, by definition!

But if you are searching for less common terms, for the long tail of search terms, then I don’t believe this is an improvement.

Perhaps Google will have improved the experience for most users most of the time while causing many users to have a worse experience quite a lot of the time. It probably works out a bit better on average but it is by no means a clear improvement.

Valuing brands through the customer experience

I was at the CASS business school Global Brand Forum earlier this week and heard a fascinating talk from David Haigh of Brand Finance on brand valuation and the new ISO standard in this area (ISO 10668).

Brand valuation needs financial and legal input of course. And it also needs a whole lot of market research such as market trends and consumer trends.

But, to get it right, it also needs a robust, quantified understanding of how consumers experience a brand.

Understanding the value of the consumer experience will involve measuring a number of “rational” and “emotional” parameters and these could include:

• Benchmarking the utility of products
• Benchmarking the usability of products
• Evaluating emotional responses to brand imagery and language found in advertising, in retailers and on the products (and indeed in other touchpoints such as call centres and bills)
• Measuring how forgiving people are when things go wrong
• Identifying the extent to which consumers are loyal and further, are advocates for the brand
• Identifying the extent to which the brand is enhanced by mimicking the functionality used by other leading brands (for instance does the brand imitate Amazon’s one-click purchasing or Google’s approach to search)
• Identifying how engaged consumers are with the brand and any brand communications (including the website)
• Quantifying the value of social media buzz (for instance are people kinder about your brand than they are about other brands?)

Not all of these are particularly easy to measure in absolute terms (although some are) but all should at least be relatively simple to measure  comparatively against competitor brands.

Companies like Amberlight (www.amber-light.co.uk) who evaluate customer experience are not generally asked to link this to brand valuation. But without this type of expertise the values attributed to brands will surely be flawed.