Huon Bush Retreat discovers the power of Facebook Offers, not sure they expected that response! (UPDATED)

Posted on by Billy Tucker

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Facebook has launched their Offers product to a limited number of Business Pages, at first glance it looks like Facebook and the current approach may be just too powerful for this small business marketplace. image

Maybe it’s the sharing mechanic, maybe it’s just the fact that Offers are new and attracting curious clicks, either way, I’m not sure Huon Bush Retreat (accommodation for up to 60 guests!) expected 120k new customers! (interesting to see how many actual customers they have gained) – fingers crossed they are not being drowned by calls right now.

No doubting the power of the Facebook fire-hose, hopefully they tame it before the product is released. I am curious to hear from someone at Huon Bush Retreat to hear what they think of the Facebook product.

Facebook offers are described here.

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As an update to the post above, I went back to the Huon Bush Retreat Facebook page to get a sense of the impact the Facebook Offer had, the results are concerning.

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The Good news is that lots of people are talking about Huon Bush retreat, according to Facebook, some 102k people are talking about the business, however, on the downside, you don’t have to look far to see what they are saying…

Sadly, the overwhelming sentiment is negative, through no fault of the Huon Bush Retreat. Their wall has been hijacked by unhappy Facebook members concerned that they are now being spammed by the Retreat.

Here’s a snapshot:

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I hope they make it through this promotion with their reputation intact.

Google still thinking about search, apparently!

Posted on by Billy Tucker
English: The relationship and evolution in Int...
English: The relationship and evolution in Internet Search Business (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was struck by how seldom I hear of Google’s search endeavours when I read about the recent release of their updated Search Algorithm, codenamed Caffeine. Given Paid Search accounts for 96% of G’s revenues you’d think it would be the focus of most of their efforts? It doesn’t look that way. Can Google’s solitary cash cow really be getting too little focus from the Mountain View Mafia?

The Caffeine Algo promises significantly fresher results as well as an adapted architecture etc etc – but it’s primary focus has to be on maintaining revenue momentum when the vast majority of effort seems to be focused elsewhere. More than ever, Google has to defend its position in search, not only is Microsoft is about to land its much vaunted Yahoo! partnership providing the first real chance of competing with Google, but there is the problem of a wholesale shift away from Web Search as the primary navigation tool in favour of Social tools such as Facebook and Twitter.

The cracks are already showing, Google’s Q1 Revenues were $6.77bn, up 23% from last year of which 96% relates to search. Clearly Google’s revenues will be hard to improve on through share gain, given their already dominant position, leaving only the increase in Internet Population, Searches per User and Revenue per Search as the growth levers. Google’s numbers show only a 7% YoY uplift in Cost per Click and a 15% YoY uplift in Paid Clicks, so that leaves only the Growth in Internet Population and the number of searches conducted by each to fuel growth – each under threat for the reasons listed above.

Taking a very long  term perspective, Apple and Microsoft were incorporated 25 and 35 years ago respectively, it looks like Google’s Cash Cow will dry up long before they find an alternative source of revenues and never at the yields offered by Search. The fan boys won’t be pleased.