Rand Fishkin
Wizard of Moz

What is the first thing you do when you come to the office in the morning?

Email! I’m a huge email addict and I am constantly striving to get to inbox 0.

Do you switch off your mobile phone at night?

I plug it in in another room, but I actually never have the ringer on. I really dislike phone calls, and rarely ever answer my phone 🙂

On which social media channel are you most active? Why this channel?

Twitter – I love the immediacy, the accessibility, the 140 character limitation, and the power to follow and connect with anyone.

Do you still shop offline?

I do. I still rarely buy any clothing or books online, and I’ve never bought furniture or artwork that way. Even most physical gifts I buy are in person somewhere, still.

Will you share your favourite app and your favourite blog with us?

Favorite app – lately, it’s been Fitbit. The tracking of health stats has been powerful for me.

Favorite blog – well, if we rule out Geraldine’s, it’s probably Maptia.

Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google – in 10 years from now, which will be the most important company?

I’d put my bets on Amazon and Google right now. I don’t think Apple has as many barriers and tie-ins to data, and a superior hardware maker is possible to imagine. With social networks, likewise, it feels possible that someone else could supplant Facebook/Instagram. Every generation seems to want their own unique service, and unless all the emerging social networks are willing to sell to Facebook, I could see a competitor taking big market share from them. But Amazon and Google don’t seem to have these potential threat vectors.

Star Wars or Star Trek?

I love both! If I had to choose, maybe I’d take Star Trek. It’s a little more cereberal and nerdy, kinda like me 🙂

When will we all have a robot at home?

2028. Not sure why I picked that date, but it feels right 🙂

Do you think the Google monopoly will shake or consolidate?

I think Google is going to get into a lot of different businesses with Alphabet, and I think many will be successful. It’s a little scary, but feels almost inevitable.

Will AMP change the mobile world as we know it or will AMP remain without any greater impact?

I think it’ll be more of a subtle change, similar to how the mobile-friendliness update made us all a little more conscious of that aspect of SEO, but ended up being a very small shakeup in the search results overall.

In 10 years from now – will there still be appliances that are not connected to the internet?

I haven’t followed the Internet of Things movement enough to say with any confidence, but my sense is that a lot of devices don’t need connectivity because their functions aren’t enhanced that greatly by being connected. My toaster works fine. I don’t need to see the done-ness of my bread slices on my phone app or to turn it on or off remotely from another room. My stovetop coffeepot and my clothes iron and our hairdryer… are fine. I hope some of them just get left alone 🙂

Which mobile site did make your daily live easier?

I’ve been loving Nuzzel – I connect it to my social accounts and it shows me what’s being shared by my connections and their connections, which is incredibly useful to catch up on any news or links of importance I may have missed.

What can attendees expect from you keynote and your session?

For the keynote, I really want to dig into what it means to have Google leveraging learning algorithms in search and how that might change our behavior as marketers. For my session, I’m going to try and make it short, sweet, and actionable, with a number of tips and examples of how you can leverage the power of re-publishing across platforms and on your own platform to get outsized benefits.