Entrepreneur Peter Yared: Social is “so over”
– Connie Loizos is a contributor to PE Hub, a Thomson Reuters publication. This story originally appeared here. –
Entrepreneur Peter Yared doesn’t mince words. In April, after TechCrunch misreported some of the circumstances around a Facebook employee’s termination, Yared wrote a widely read post titled “Why TechCrunch is Over” in which he called its founder, Michael Arrington, “insane,” adding that it “must be hard to live amidst a rapidly declining site.”
In more recent posts, Yared has called Twitter “primarily a broadcasting platform with very few active users” and unusable for “normal people.” He has also suggested that if he were to start a company today with either entrepreneurs Mark Pincus, Evan Williams, or Mark Zuckerberg, he’d go with Pincus “given what we now know” about Williams and Zuckerberg. (Both have been accused of elbowing their early co-founders out of the picture.)
It’s no surprise then that Yared — who has founded and sold four companies, including to Sun Microsystems, VMWare, and Webtrends — is very fun to chat up. I caught up with Yared recently. Our conversation has been edited for length.
You recently wrote at length about how Twitter could improve the customer experience, as well as make money. The company seemed to only half-kiddingly offer you a job afterward.
(Laughs.) Yeah, they were (very nice to me) for a while there.
Your advice was fairly comprehensive. What did you leave out, if anything?
Google service helps small businesses
Web-challenged small business owners, take note. Google unfurled the latest in its long line of freebie services last week, this time offering a so-called “dashboard” aimed squarely at local businesses suffering from a weak online presence and lack of web know-how.
The new service gives business owners a simple, if limited, way to track information about their customers. Drawing on its map and search data, Google produces metrics such as what zip code your customers are coming from and what words they’re searching for to find your business. Owners can use such information to help them make business decisions on, say, where to open up a second store or how to fine-tune the products or services they offer.
Google will likely use the information provided by small business owners to try to sell ads to them, but, still, the service is a novel idea that’s bound to appeal to many small companies, particularly those looking to expand locally.
Signing up for the service at Google’s “Local Business Center” also allows any business with a brick-and-mortar store or office to customize how their company is listed on Google’s search and map services. For example, a mom-and-pop eatery can beef up their listing to include a menu, hours of operation and pictures and video of what’s on offer. A business can also try to attract new customers by hawking printable promotional coupons on their listing.
Of course, for those small businesses looking to grow their online presence in a big way there’s no substitute for having a bona fide website. But for those just coming to grips with the marketing possibilities of the web, Google’s new service could just be the fast, cheap and easy introduction they need.
Google is not the only option. Small businesses willing to shell out a few dollars might try Wordtracker, a service that helps companies identify popular keywords and phrases that can help drive people to their website or listing through internet searches.
For those firms looking for a wider array of data, Webtrends could be the granddaddy of them all (note: Reuters is a client), especially if your company already has a website. The service allows you to track everything from what referrals you are getting from search engines to navigational trends between pages on your site and advertising results.
I own a small business in childcare due to all the job losses there’s no relief that I see coming. My capacity was 42 children and now it’s down to 13 children I can barely keep the doors open. I’m on my computer everyday trying to find assistance, but therefore ther’s none forthe child care providers.
Google is building cars and a number of other things. However, they are also making a strong attempt to enter the social space…and aside from the rather poor launch of the Google+ I really think they’ve got their concept nailed this time. If this turns out to be true, they have a strong chance at being the next big social media company.
To get the details read this article http://bit.ly/lTJS3l