This is a video I often return to and watch and thought was worth posting on here.

RIP: Steve Jobs is a post by Riaz Kanani You can follow me on Twitter here

Google recently announced it is to close the long running Google Friends newsletter. Launching in 1998, whilst Google was still on Stanford’s servers it has been delivered monthly. That is until now. From next month, the newsletter will cease to exist because subscriber numbers had stalled. But a wider look at Google suggests it doesn’t pay much attention to using email as a channel to communicate with its users.

First, lets take a quick look at the Google Friends newsletter.

Google outgrew this newsletter a long time ago. Each month, the newsletter provided a mix of tips and news across Google’s vast array of products. One month it was Google Toolbar, a Daily puzzle, Google Docs, Earth Day and a power tip for Google Map Maker. Another month it was a power tip on Google Voice and news on Google Places, Youtube, Google Translate and a Doodle for Google contest.

Unless you were interested in everything Google, this newsletter was not for you.

There are perhaps a small niche of people that might like the vast array of news updates across the whole of Google. Given the size of Google, and Larry Page’s new more autonomous business unit approach. Collating and combining these centrally may just have become too expensive versus the benefits. Of course these are their most ardent fans, so ignoring them is an interesting approach.

Overall though, Google’s approach to email is scattered and unorganised at best.

Google pushes out a huge amount of information, highly targeted not just by product but also by country. You can find the full list here, it is truly impressive in scale. You can subscribe to receive this information via Twitter, Facebook, RSS and (of course) Google Buzz! Surprisingly there is no mention of email at all. Given the scale of email (3.1 billion email accounts – click for more stats), its ability to remind users of your products/features and persistently store your message so you can come back to it, not promoting email subscriptions seems like a lost opportunity. Sure, it can be misused but so can all channels.

Relying on Twitter or Facebook for Google updates can easily lead to missed updates as unless I spend all day watching for their updates (not likely!) or proactively remember to visit their profiles on these network, Google is merely hoping I catch their updates in my newsfeeds.  Further you cannot search the Facebook newsfeed at all and searching  Twitter only results in tweets going back a few days.

Subscribing via RSS is an option for me as I am a heavy RSS user, but the usage numbers are low generally especially with a mainstream audience. So low in fact, that the last metric I can find on RSS numbers is from 2005. A rather tiny 275m wordwide.

Finally there is Google Buzz! Is anyone still using Google Buzz?

So where is email? It is there, but to find it you have to click through on some of the blog links where you will sometimes bring up the option of subscribing via email. There is obviously no standardised approach to this. The Blogger buzz blog had it in the right sidebar, the Google Analytics blog doesn’t have it anywhere. It is hit and miss based on the template used.

Email is different.
Different channels offer different benefits. Twitter and Facebook are great for offering casual connections to brands. Brands you really want to hear from? Not so good. For those situations, email is the right tool for the job.

If you are spending all that time creating content, getting in front of as many people who want to read it would seem to be a good thing. People can always unsubscribe. Google even provides that service inside Gmail.

Google continues to ignore email is a post by Riaz Kanani You can follow me on Twitter here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHkPiU9YAQk

Microsoft Windows Phone 7 is cool is a post by Riaz Kanani You can follow me on Twitter here

Social Networks in Germany is a post by Riaz Kanani You can follow me on Twitter here

Solution: disable wp-supercache for now

Normal service should resume going forward

oh dear is a post by Riaz Kanani You can follow me on Twitter here

In case you are wondering why I am even using my posterous blog rather than only posting here – well as I implied – the content posted their is generally sourced and written by others and are items that I liked and want to store for later. Sort of like Google Shares but more publicly available.

apologies is a post by Riaz Kanani You can follow me on Twitter here

1. Priority Inbox – fully rolled out – I havent seen uptake numbers yet – but those blogging online (more tech savvy?) seem to for the most part like it. Those that dont havent given it enough time for “the robots” to learn whats important and what isnt in my view It does mean a lot to email marketers – you can read my posts on this in more detail here or here.

2. The number of devices marketers need to worry about continues to increase – Google has joined the fray with the launch of its version of the iPad, the Galaxy Tab. Looks great, but I think its worth waiting for the proper tablet version of the Google Android operating system. See the review of it here.

3. On the topic of Android, it continues to grow globally, mostly in the US (currently 19% of all smartphones vs iphone’s 24.2%). In the UK smart phones are dominating and set to increase by 30m (from 20m today) by 2015. You can see more about the report here (note the full report requires payment ) Mobile marketing is unsurprisingly set to grow dramatically as a result – from £407m to £1.1bn in 2015. That actually strikes me as low given what is included (mobile content and services, mobile advertising and marketing).

update :) is a post by Riaz Kanani You can follow me on Twitter here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZHSZY8S9mA

State of UK Social Media is a post by Riaz Kanani You can follow me on Twitter here

Source: Visual Economics

The Facebook Economy is a post by Riaz Kanani You can follow me on Twitter here