Buffy the Facebook Phone will Fail?

Nobody can predict the future, but a combination of common sense, reality, and historical precedent point to the probability that a phone that focuses so acutely on Facebook will fail miserably.

Here’s why:

Niche phones are niche

The 2nd biggest reason (with the biggest reason being price) that hyped gadgets fail is that they tighten their niche too much. Items like the Zune, HP Touchpad, and Playstation phone put too much emphasis on what they represented to the consumer to be successful. Microsoft has learned this on many occasions and is finally branching out with the Windows Phone to a broader market with realistic expectations and proper pricing. Even then, they are far from being considered a success.

Mobile devices have come to represent a portion of our personality. People get Apple products because they believe what they’re buying is superior and they enjoy how the brand represents them. People buy Google products for similar reasons. They won’t buy a Facebook-branded product thinking that it will be superior and they won’t buy a Facebook product because they think it will make them cool.


Facebook is already on your phone

It will take some magical integration and marketing to convince people that they need a phone that’s built for Facebook. It’s already one of the most popular apps of all time on every platform that supports it. Most of the apps have the functionality they want. What will a Facebook phone offer that the apps do not?

Mobile integration is important in any social network and Facebook has achieved it for the most part. Adding a device into the mix is unnecessary.


It's too late

In 2010 when the rumors of Facebook building a phone firsts got started, they actually had a chance to make a difference. The smartphone market was hitting a tipping point and there were still tons of people who had never purchased one.

Familiarity breeds trust and people know Facebook. When making their first choice for a smartphone, it’s possible that Facebook could have garnered some buzz and built a community around the phone itself.

It’s too late. Most who will be buying a smartphone in the future will be buying their second, third, or tenth one. They will already be pros at using smartphones by the time Facebook releases its entrant. They won’t go for a Facebook phone just because it has an “F” on it. They’ll go for what they know or what they’ve already heard about – normal Android phones, iPhones, or Windows 8 Phones. Having a Facebook shell over Android OS won’t be compelling.

Is Google+ Essential For SEO & SEM

The fact remains that Google gives businesses and sites plenty of tools and resources where you can actually use Google’s own search results to your gain.

One example of this would be Google Places. It’s simply a great tool for consumers to find local businesses. How often do you use the phone book these days?

Another example would be YouTube. It may be hard to get your site to rank for certain keywords, but Google loves to put video results on page one when relevant, and Google just so happens to own the world’s biggest video site. Even if this means they’re technically ranking their own stuff for visibility, you can benefit from this by using YouTube and videos to promote your business.

I’m not going to go through all of these examples, but suffice it to say, you should be trying to be found in Google’s various other search engines, besides straight up Google Web Search. These can in turn get you found in results from regular searches via universal search.

Google+ has introduced a whole new realm of SEO possibilities based on getting found via Google’s own properties.


The +1 button obviously helps your search visibility cause. Google made it clear from the beginning that this would be a search signal. If enough people like your content enough to give it a +1, it must be good right? Why not bump it up in the rankings.

Google likes “freshness” now. Stuff that is recent can appear higher in rankings these days. Google+ updates tend to be recent, and can be very rich in content, depending on how much you put into them. They can also spark conversations and sharing, which should all help your cause.

Google+ is also what Google wants to replace Twitter with in realtime search. You can bet that this will come back sooner or later. Google is failing its mission in search without it.

One thing you will do well to keep in mind is that “Google+ is Google.” This is a mentality that Google has expressed on more than one occasion. If you’re ignoring Google+, you’re ignoring Google. Remember, if you want Google to RESPECT you (give you more search visibility), you should probably respect Google and the means you’re given. Google+ is only going to get more integrated with every aspect of Google.

Google Introduces Verbatim Searching

In response to user requests, Google has added a tool that explicitly searches for exactly and only your search term. This verbatim search removes personalized, corrected, suggested, related, and non-inclusive results.
The Verbatim Tool

After conducting any standard search, users can navigate to the left menu on the SERP and choose "More search options" > "Verbatim." This will direct the user to a new search results page that eliminates several types of results.

On the verbatim page, users will see only results that:
Include all their search terms.
Match their exact spelling.
Use the same tense (e.g., "is" and "was" will be seen as distinct).
Use the same verb form (e.g., "swimming" and "swim" will be seen as distinct).
Use the same plural vs singular form (e.g., "hat" and "hats" will be seen as distinct).

This means that pages that would normally be included simply won't appear. Some pages set for omission in this case would be those that: use alternate forms or tenses; use synonyms; auto-correct spelling; or are personalized based on the history and social connections of the user.

Verbatim search will replace the "+" functionality in search queries. While putting a phrase in quotes (e.g., "this is my query") will still pull a search for sites that use the exact phrase and spelling, the verbatim search – as noted above – strips down the results to a far greater degree.

Google also noted that they are "applying similar ideas directly to [their] algorithms, such as tuning the accuracy of when our query broadening search improvements trigger." This likely means that as users choose to use verbatim searches, Google will gain a better understanding of when their suggestions and corrections are effective and times when they should have been avoided.