Much like Yahoo’s Summly acquisition one month ago, another althrothmic-based, natural-language processing startup that serves short summaries of articles has been snapped up, this time by Google. The Seattle startup Wavii not only fulfills a similar function to Summly, but it also gathers and processes pure online data into summarized bits. The acquisition was confirmed today by Wavii CEO Adrian Aoun. Reports indicate that Google paid more than $30 million for the startup, which will be shutting down to work within Google’s platform, probably very similarly to the way in which Summly now features inside Yahoo.
Tag: google
Google Continues To Integrate G+
Earlier today, Google announced that it would add Google+ profile pictures, one-click chat, and anonymous animals into Drive. In the continued effort to utilize Google+ across its entire platform of cloud software, when you now open up a file in Drive, you will see the Google+ profile pictures of other viewers at the top of the document. Hovering over them pulls up their social network information; Google says this will make it easier to make continued collaborative efforts on documents across networks. Further facilitating this ease of use, Google is making it easier to start group chats in Drive. You can now simply select the new chat button at the top right of the page and start chatting away. In the case of an anonymous user, Google is assigning random animal names to the unknown users.
Foursquare Revamps Business Pages
In a continued effort to rebrand and expand its offerings, Foursquare has been evolving from a friend-finder to an expansive recommendation engine. Yelp is their foremost competitor, and with that in mind, Foursquare is revamping its online pages to keep pace with the high standard that its mobile apps have set. According to the company’s data, 50 million people come to the site every month for recommendations and reviews, and most of these viewers are actually from Google. The new design puts the emphasis on the advantages that Foursquare presents, namely its ability to generate relationships between similar places and judge appeal based on hundreds of check-ins and likes. The service, in its new incarnation, isn’t too different from a Pandora for restaurants and bars. Whether it can compete with Yelp’s already established 100 million monthly visitors remains to be seen, but they’re definitely trying to make a concerted effort at trying.
Google Buys Behavio
In yet another acquisition, Google has purchased the social prediction startup Behavio. The startup built its short-lived independent product on top of Funf, which is a method to collect data from mobile phone sensors. The goal was to analyze parameters like physical location, contacts, and data about personal activity to monitor trends and make behavioral predictions. Google has acknowledged its purchase but hasn’t made a specific announcement about how it will be used just yet. It’s possible that such technology could provide a much-needed boost to apps like Google Now, but really the advertising-facing algorithm could be welcome in many facets of Google’s vast network of products.
More Apps Downloaded On Android In Q1 But Apple Reports Higher Profit
According to data released yesterday, 51% of all apps downloaded during Q1 of 2013 were downloaded from Google Play. But although Google had the majority in terms of numbers, Apple took the cake in terms of revenue, raking in 74% of overall app revenue during the same time period. And at the same time, although the App Store and Google Play remain the major heavyweights as far as app stores go, BlackBerry World and Windows Phone Store are still direct, though admittedly distant, challengers. Perhaps surprisingly, the strongest growth over the first quarter of 2013 came from South Africa and Brazil, where significant increases in downloads were registered, but without the corresponding revenue jump. This means that the downloading capabilities are in place, but that people aren’t quite ready to take out the checkbook just yet, but many think that in the near future, these markets could represent many billions of dollars of growth.
Google Rumored To Purchase WhatsApp
It seems as if WhatsApp rumors won’t die. Last year it was Facebook that was rumored to be purchasing the world-wide messaging powerhouse; this time it’s Google that looks to be moving in for the acquisition. It is said that the continually expanding company is looking to spend close to $1 billion on WhatsApp, which would put it in the same league as Instagram. WhatsApp lets users send messages for free across many smartphone platforms, and is currently the number one app in the App Store in dozens of countries. It has also been downloaded more than 100 million times from Google Play. What’s clear is that WhatsApp is on the rise; whether it gets purchased this time remains to be seen, but could have wide implications for mobile messaging and Google’s social media strategies.
Rumors Suggest Google Fiber Coming To Austin
Google and the City of Austin, Texas have sent out joint invites for a press conference that reports suggest could mean that Google Fiber is coming to the city. According to VentureBeat, several sources say that the announcement will revolve around this service, and not the previously-hinted-at new Google Campus. Austin is a logical expansion point for the service; it tried very hard to be the test city for the service, as it services companies like Texas Instruments, Samsung, IBM, AMD, and many startups just outside the city. In light of the recently-concluded SXSW it could be another big boon for Austin, bring more business, speed, and new companies to the area.
Twilio Partners With Google Cloud
Twilio, arguably the largest voice and messaging API available to developers, today announced its partnership with Google’s Cloud Platform. For the first time, a voice and messaging API solution is integrated with the Google App Engine, which allows developers to integrate voice and messaging services into their web and mobile apps, advertising, or marketing plans with just a few lines of code. Google hopes that this merger will attract developers to their platform instead of competitors like Microsoft’s Azure or Amazon Web Services – with which Twilio was already integrated. In an age when developers are on the lookout for more functionality in their apps, Google is coming to its senses regarding the type of functionality needed for success, and is adding Twilio to accomodate the developer-facing marketing that brings users, new development, and ultimately new products.
Google Launches Full Value Of Mobile Calculator
In what has become a typical Google move, the company today released an emotionally powerful and applicable video showcasing the value of mobile search, and why it’s important for marketers. However, Google also recognizes that there aren’t enough tools for businesses to measure the effectiveness of their mobile campaigns, and so – on the same day that Yelp is releasing an estimate tool to calculate its effects on businesses – Google is releasing its own “Full Value of Mobile” calculator. It includes equations and benchmarks that provide important statistics regarding the effectiveness of a mobile campaign, and puts into context many of Google’s own mobile features that have been built out into the Android system and iOS apps. It will be especially helpful for smaller startups who might not be able to afford the powerful analytics tools that such a calculator may have previously required. It remains to be seen whether this will heavily promote mobile advertising, but at the least it seems as though Google is pushing for more attentiveness to this rapidly expanding advertising platform.
Smartwatch Race Heats Up
Today LG has officially joined Samsung in the race to create a functional, practical smartwatch. Of course Apple has been rumored to be developing their own watch – but they haven’t confirmed anything – and now according to the Financial Times, Google has also begun development on a smartwatch, again unofficially. Sony has already shipped their own, and Kickstarter darling Pebble is already very successful in their own right. The takeaway? In due time, you won’t want for smartwatch choice, if these come to pass. It’s no longer a matter of if; it’s a matter of when, and how prepared you are for the watch market’s coming of age.
