After months of speculation, Google has officially acquired Songza, the music streaming service that uses information about the user to connect them with curated playlists. It’s a bold move by Google, one that puts them squarely into not only the music space, but the data space; Sonza collects mountains of data about what types of music people listen to based on the time of day so that they can accurately serve them the right playlists at the right time. For a company like Google, whose stated purpose is to seamlessly integrate technology into people’s lives, Songza makes perfect sense as an acquisition, and it’s not unreasonable to foresee playlist integration into Google Now – for instance, “I see your flight is delayed, let me pull up a playlist to calm you down.” – and across Google’s many platforms more broadly.
Tag: google
Nest Finally Integrates IFTTT
When Google acquired Nest, many were skeptical about its future. Initially, lots of users wondered if there was an effective way to integrate IFTTT, the simple IoT command suite, into the product to customize the controls. Now, even after Google’s purchase, Nest has listened, and has integrated IFTTT into its platform. It means that you’ll be able to control your thermostat with the ease of a text message, email, or phone call, if you wanted to get that granular. If the Internet of Things actually becomes as easy and reliable as people have wanted, perhaps the technology will finally take off to the extent that the industry has been predicting.
Google Glass Banned From UK Movie Theaters
Although Google Glass went on sale in the UK last week, the “Glass-hole” phenomenon appears to have spread globally, and now the Cinema Exhibitors’ Association in the UK has banned the glasses from all movie theaters, whether there is a movie on or not. It’s a move that makes sense, even though technically speaking it’d be hard to record a film properly through the glasses. It will be interesting to see how Google can make the all-in-one wearable palatable to a public that, it seems, isn’t quite ready to accept them yet.
Google Will Close Android Wear Ecosystem
Last week’s Google I/O was an immense week for developers and followers of the Google brand alike; indeed, for those immersed in the world of wearables it was an especially big week, as several different types of watches and partnerships were announced at the conference. However, one announcement flew particularly under the radar: Google will not allow for third parties to create custom skins or smartwatch interfaces on the Android Wear ecosystem. This means that, essentially, what you see is what you get as far as interfaces ad layouts go. So far, the responses to this realization have been mixed, but it means that the smartwatch experience will be universalized across the Android platform; everyone will have the same, consistent user experience from the wrist to the television.
Facebook Home Is Officially Dead
One year ago, Facebook wanted to take over the home screen of the smartphone with a platform known as Facebook Home – it would display Facebook photos on lock screens and provide seamless access to messages, status updates, and the rest of the network. Nevertheless, many users baulked at the total takeover by Facebook; many saw it as an attempt to usurp control, while others still simply preferred the native phone interface. Either way, it didn’t catch on, and now the team has disbanded at the Facebook headquarters. It points to the fact that users want to have control over customization on their screens; social networks trying to impose themselves over the mobile experience can’t claim the space just yet.
Google Cardboard Mobile Virtual Reality
With a plethora of smart devices, we often ignore the power of our phones. Google proved this point, releasing Cardboard, an easily assembled Virtual Reality headset constructed from…cardboard and an Android device. The result is an immersive VR experience through a number of different applications like Earth and YouTube within the Cardboard app.
Car As Media Channel: Google Announces Android Auto
Car innovation does not keep up with the rapidity we expect from mobile or PC developments. What has largely been plaguing the auto space has been a lack of cooperation as each car manufacturer creates their proprietary technology, not to mention their 3+ year development cycles. Take Ford Sync for example, which has a custom app platform where developers can only create apps for new Ford vehicles. If that developer tries to iterate for another manufacturer, they have to start over. For real innovation to take place, their needs to be a standard operating system in the car.
Enter Android Auto, announced this week at Googe I/O which looks to power the infotainment systems across 40 car manufacturers including Honda, Hyundai, Volvo and more. Similar to Apple’s Carplay it works by plugging your phone into the car console which then displays it on the center display. Interestingly enough, the apps are all voice-controlled and glanceable to address safety concerns. The result brings more media into the car and improves utility like better navigation, location recommendations and more. The mobile component makes Android Auto current as app updates will be reflected in the car.
Google Rolls Out App Indexing To All
Google Play is now letting developers appropriately index the content within apps so they can be integrated into Google Search. Google can now search within apps, including deep links to the content within the application. For instance, a search for a recipe might yield results to a cooking site as well as a deep link to a recipe within the Epicurious app. Expect this to increase discoverability and have search lead to deeper app engagement.
According to Google: “App Indexing helps you drive usage of your app through Google. Deep links to your app appear in Google Search results on Android so users can get to your native mobile experience quickly and easily.”
Google Announces Android TV
Google unsuccessfully launched Google TV in 2010 but their announcement of Android TV at Google io yesterday looks more promising. Content will be paramount with access to the Google Play store as well as Netflix, Hulu and more. It will also have “Chromecast-like” functionality to cast other devices to your TV as well as some gaming from Google Play Games network similar to Amazon’s Fire TV.
In an increasingly cluttered space, Google’s point of differentiation may be their search which leverages their Knowledge Graph to offer recommendations and aid discovery. With such a breadth of content across multiple providers, an intuitive interface and easy search will be key in the battle for the living room.
Report: Search Driving Smaller Proportion Of Site Traffic
According to new research by sharing platform Shareaholic, search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing are driving a dwindling share of total site traffic across the Internet. Over the last six months, all top five search engines in the US drove a smaller share of overall traffic to sites that Shareaholic tracks. Conversely, there has been a spike in social referrals, suggesting that social traffic is far more valuable to websites looking to generate traffic than search engines, at the current juncture.
