No Click Internet and Talking to Computers
Well, it’s back-to-school time. Actually, here in Germany, that was a few weeks ago. The summer holidays are over. The days are getting shorter and a bit cooler. And I'm excited for the return of hiking weather soon, real soon.
This last month has had me busy trying something new. After a conversation with my very smart brother at the beginning of August, I decided to take up his tip and use voice input more often on my computer. You can read more about that further down in the section "Is voice the future?" Needless to say, it has given me a number of things to think about. Let's get right into it, and I'll tell you where this all has come from.
What have I been reading?
No-Click Internet
Many of you who have been subscribed to this newsletter for quite a while might not have been keeping up with what I have been doing over the last few years. Of course, you read a lot about me and bicycles here in the newsletter, and you might see that on social media if you follow me there. But I took my interest and my knowledge and experience around using the internet to grow businesses for enterprises and turned it into a new focus on doing the same for smaller local businesses. Shorthand for that is "I help local businesses with their internet marketing."
Thumbnail from my recent blog post on this topic (German)
Now, all of you know what internet marketing generally means: Getting found on the internet. That includes:
Having a website
Possibly social media presences
Attending to those tedious items like SEO
For local businesses, it's about showing up in search results, particularly at the top of search results.
As many of you have already seen, the changes that have happened over the summer have created a new reality that I'm not quite sure how it's going to affect us. This is called zero-click or no-click internet. Also, the term “Google Zero” has been passed around. I'm sure most of you have used Google to search for something in the recent months.
At the top of the Google search, you've certainly seen the AI overviews - a summary of what Google has found from the web, often providing you with the answer to the question that you went to Google to search for. Many times, you leave Google with the information you wanted. This is what is meant by the no-click internet. Traditionally, Google provided you with a list of website results that you could click through and then find the information you were looking for. So Google's making it easy for all of us.
AI Overviews from Google search
What does that mean for businesses, local businesses, who want to be found on the Internet? Good question. We're still learning a lot about how to get businesses to show up in these AI overviews on Google. Of course, I'm completely ignoring that many of you might be using ChatGPT or Gemini for your web searches. The clickable web as we know it is changing. You'll see more of this down further in the section on "Voice of the Future."
“Zero‑Click” Phenomenon: How Google’s AI Chatbot Is Reshaping User Behavior
“Zero‑Click Searches: What They Mean for Local Businesses”
“Google Zero is here — now what?”
Alt+Backspace ?
Source: Nano-Banana generated image
Prompt: “I need an image of a man who just learned after 40 years that using Option+Backspace will delete whole words and not single characters.”
Tell me I am the last one to learn this, please. Give it a try. You will need a keyboard for this (mobile keypads don’t have the ALT or Option key). Type something into a text field. With your cursor at the end of the line of text, enter ALT+Backspace.
Geez. Why did that take me till this old age to learn this?
What have I been doing?
I mentioned how I had a conversation with my brother at the beginning of August, and while it wasn't a clear challenge, I came away thinking a lot about using voice more with my computer, but also with applications and the internet.
Last month, I wrote about how I had begun trying an application I put on my Mac called Wispr, and I'm using it right now to write parts of this newsletter (write, speak, transcribe - I'm not sure how to say what I'm doing right now). My brother went into an example of how he uses voice when working with ChatGPT. Now this is something I've never tried, so I thought I should give it a go.
Is Voice the Future?
Continuing on the topic of speaking to ChatGPT, I've had some mixed feelings. Of course, while speaking instead of typing into a text box is way faster, I use far more words. Some of the results were actually quite interesting. What I notice, though, is when I'm typing into ChatGPT (or what other tool I might be using), I'm also taking a pause while formulating what I really want to ask. While typing, I might look up from my keyboard and out the window for a moment, and then go back to continuing my question. While speaking, I find it very unnerving when I stop mid-sentence to think about how I want to end the sentence.
Source: Nano-Banana generated image
Prompt: “I need a photorealistic image of a man sitting at his desk and speaking to his computer instead of typing using the keyboard”
So is voice the future? I don't know. But when I walk around and watch other people using their phones, I see more and more people speaking to their phones rather than typing into them. Heck, even my wife Christine responds to all her texts using voice. I guess when my computer starts speaking to me more, I might be naturally inclined to want to speak back to it.
Entering letters through a keyboard is really not a natural way to express oneself. But then maybe pen and paper weren't either. What do I know? Is voice the future? Don't know. Is it a big help in capturing ideas? You bet it. Nevertheless, thanks to my brother for sharing what he's been doing and giving me the impulse to give it a try myself.
Final Thoughts
I noticed that I've hardly mentioned bicycles in this month's update. It's not that I haven't been on bikes, thinking about bikes, or working on bikes, but I've had a better balance. This summer has been full of updates to applications and programs, and even some new ones are coming around. So expect next month some more experiences shared on crazy bananas and other things.
Summer is coming to an end here in Germany. The days are getting shorter and much cooler. September is typically quite golden, and the leaves will start changing quickly. It's a beautiful time of year. I hope all are doing well. If any of you come across some new ideas on how to take advantage of the Internet for getting things done, drop me a note.
Until next month,
Andrew
