A blog about the art and the science of marketing research. » google

Skipping the PC

Marty Molloy — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:55:40 +0000

More and more often developers are skipping the PC when designing consumer applications. The latest example is Google’s new Flipboard competitor: Google Currents. Like Flipboard, the application is designed to make a tablet or mobile magazine reading experience better and more interactive. The one interesting wrinkle is that it’s also set up to import your Google reader feeds, taking that content and making it beautiful. It’s good enough that it makes me want to read the content on my phone instead of on my laptop.

Also this week, Twitter released a new version this week. The trick to get the new look and functionality? You had to download it to your Android or iPhone first.

Tagged: google, magazines, media, mobile, reading

Chromebook on the Go

Marty Molloy — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 13:40:27 +0000

Two travel brands are essentially telling you to leave your laptop home this summer. If you use any of the Google services like Gmail you won’t need it. Why? They’re offering free Chromebooks for their passenger and customer use. Starting July 1, Virgin America and the Ace Hotel will provide the devices to their customers. The idea is that all your information is in the cloud so the device will let you go out and grab it. The Ace has even created an app for the device that provides a field guide to New York.

Tagged: ace hotel, chrome, google, internet, technology, travel, virgin airlines

Email in Motion

Marny Rhodes — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:45:50 +0000

Google has recently unveiled a new form of email communication entitled Gmail Motion that may just sweep you off of your feet, literally. This new method of maneuvering through your inbox, writing emails, and updating settings enables you to stand up from your desk and “speak” to your Gmail account using your whole body as a keyboard.

Gmail Motion is still in its beta phase, and I, for one, am curious about the learning curve involved in becoming proficient in this new language. Even if the new system works for some and not all applications, anything that encourages workers to move more during the day is just fine in my book.

To check out a video of how the Gmail Motion email system works, click here.

Tagged: email, google

What Was On Our Minds in 2010?

Marty Molloy — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:12:33 +0000

Google has released its Zeitgeist 2010, highlighting the search trends for the past year. What’s up, what’s down, what do we care about? There’s a lot of information to look at here, but in a year that the United States saw mid-term elections and a host of other contentious issues the fastest rising queries included:

iPad
chatroulette
iPhone4
World Cup
Justin Bieber

You can find additional trends for rising and falling terms across news, image, maps, etc. here.

Tagged: 2010, collective thoughts, cultural trends, google, information, search terms, trends, words

More Stuff for Gmail

Marty Molloy — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:34:35 +0000

Last week Google added phone calling to Gmail, a nifty service that let’s you call phone numbers from Gmail. Today they announced they’re rolling out priority e-mail. For those overwhelmed with the amount of e-mail, the service will sort incoming messages based on priority. The good stuff goes to the top for immediate attention, the rest sinks to the bottom. Instead of reading and reading and reading, you’re able to sift through the junk.

While I’m sure the system won’t be perfect at first, it’s another attempt to curate the massive amount of information thrown at us via the internet.

Tagged: e-mail, gmail, google, information, innovation, prioritization

Call from Gmail

Marty Molloy — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:44:35 +0000

Google has a lot of stuff going on out there and this week they’re rolling out a new feature: phone calls from Gmail. There’s some nice integration with Google Voice which allows you to send your Google Voice number out to caller IDs OR receive phone calls in your Gmail inbox. While it’s not a killer app, it does signal more convergence between your inbox and your phone which may eventually reduce costs for some of the services we all currently use.

The service was just turned on in my inbox this afternoon so I plan to play with it and even try receiving a call using it. Pretty cool stuff.

Tagged: gmail, google, google voice, phone, telephony

Google Goggles

Marty Molloy — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:57:03 +0000

Google was in the news yesterday afternoon as they’ve added real-time search results. So now you get the latest Facebook and Twitter news along with CNN and other sources. While that’s cool, the other part of their announcements yesterday is even cooler. For those of you with Android phones, you can now download Google Goggles. What is it? It’s a means of searching via images. So instead of typing, you take a picture of the object/business/art/brand/business card/etc. and Google returns results based on that. Check out the video from the engineering team:

So far it’s been 75% to 85% correct for me, not bad for the first version of the software. One of the coolest and most useful things I’ve discovered so far is the ability to instantly capture information off of a business card and dump it into my Google Contacts. Very cool stuff and another point of differentiation for Android phones over other smartphones.

Tagged: android phones, google, google goggles, google labs, mobile phone, video, visual search

Baiduizm

Andrew Willard — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:37:16 +0000

I came across an interesting article on Baidu.com, the dominant search engine in the PRC. Focused on their market dominance versus Google, who seem to still be struggling with strategy for growth (and particularly in administration) in China, the article provides some insight into how this company has succeeded, and where their recent past and current focuses lie.

An excerpt: “‘Once Baidu went public, they invested in brand advertising, something that Google has just been arrogant in their reluctance in a growing market to invest in any kind of advertising to increase their brand awareness,’ explained Harrington. ‘Baidu went into all the smaller cities and put up billboards, bus ads, and even commercials.”‘

Internet proliferation and usage differs across the world, and the online experience varies widely based on cultural factors, government and other regulatory decisions, and commercial forces. In the U.S., we see a handful of companies branching out into new technologies and usages umbrella-style, for example, growing from a search-based model to include media technologies, social networking tools, communications functions, and even platform and user interface technologies. We also see companies that were formerly communications (email) based wrap their arms around “Web 2.0″ features and strategies in order to stay relevant. Baidu is doing some of this too, certainly aware of leading trends in the U.S., however they are acting in strategic consideration of limitations related to Chinese government restrictions. The thing to keep in mind is that the Internet evolves in different ways in different parts of the world – our own “user experience” does not necessarily represent that of others.

Check out the article, though. There are some really interesting facts about Internet usage in the PRC.

Tagged: advertising, branding, brands, culture, google, search, social networks

iGoogle Becomes More Social

Marty Molloy — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:51:20 +0000

Slowly but surely, Google has been updating it’s various features to be more and more social. From adding more robust functionality to Google Profiles to adding the Like button to Google Reader, Google is becoming more and more about sharing information with friends and strangers. With Facebook buying Friendfeed this week, Google seems to have decided to fire its next salvo (in addition to boosting its search engine via Caffeine) into the marketplace.

Its not active on all accounts yet, but now you can add social gadgets to your iGoogle page, enabling (for now) you to play games, share todo lists, see what your friends are doing, etc. While in many ways the functionality isn’t all that impressive, it signals yet again that Google is moving away from search being the core of its business. The site is becoming more and more about managing information through one portal and then sharing it with like-minded communities around the world.

What is exciting is how Google is breaking down information and removing the limitations placed on it by form and format. With its advances in communications (via Gmail and the forthcoming Wave), its organizational tools like Reader and Google Docs, and the combination of Maps with content and suggestions (Google City Tours) Google is both presenting us with more information but working toward preventing overload and making it all more useful.

Tagged: applications, community, facebook, google, google caffeine, google wave, igoogle, online, online communities, social network

Battle of the O/Ss

Dang Nguyen — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:01:45 +0000

Google has dabbled into quite a few different areas of technology. They began as a search engine and evolved into so much more. They are currently the most popular place to search for information and gMail could be considered the most popular email system. Outside of those two areas Google has also developed a platform for mobile phones known as Android that has been widely successful since its inception.

They are now ready to take it a step further. Last week, Google announced it will be entering the world of computer operating systems. In a world where two O/S (Windows and Mac O/S) dominate the rest, can Google compete? Those two operating systems have dominated the market for many years, but have never been seriously challenged. Can Google create a platform that will be a true threat to the other two?

When it comes to an operating system, stability is the most important benchmark. Everyone wants it to “just work”. Google is going to have a huge mountain to climb in terms of developing a stable platform. The other two competitors have been in the market for years and have been able to tweak their systems to the best of their ability while Google will be starting from scratch. I think it will be a unique experience to be able to explore an new O/S as this opportunity does not come around too often. Google always has a unique twist that it puts on its products, soon enough we’ll see how that is incorporated into Chrome.

It will be interesting to see how this unfolds as Google has been widely successful in almost everything they have ventured into. It seems as if they have been carrying around the Midas Touch in their back pocket. I guess only time will tell how well the Google “Chrome O/S” will do.

Check the link for the official Google press release. Googleblog

Tagged: chrome, gmail, google, mac, operating system, windows

Google Moves Past Search

Marty Molloy — Fri, 29 May 2009 21:00:04 +0000

So yesterday I wrote about Microsoft’s new venture Bing, in which they’re attempting to scrap past mistakes and push the market leader Google in terms of search. So what does Google do? Today, they announce plans to essentially unify communication on the web in a new product called Google Wave. Why use e-mail when you can have a real time conversation instead? It’s not available to the general public until later this year, but when you consider this and Google Voice, it seems that Google isn’t focused on search, but changing communications and information paradigms.

Instead of just organizing search results like Microsoft and others, Google feels like it’s trying to introduce new ways of creating and using information as well. When you look at the forrays Google is making into the user’s internet experience (from browser to information) and the expectation of nearly 20 Android phones by the end of the year it feels like Google is on the cusp of a change as big as MS-DOS to Windows. Stay tuned, it all looks pretty cool.

Tagged: android, android phone, communications, communications shift, communications technology, google, google voice, google wave, microsoft, mobile phone, technology

New Search Wars Part II

Marty Molloy — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:28:07 +0000

So we just had Wolfram|Alpha and its many interesting easter eggs released, now Microsoft is jumping into the game. Bing, Microsoft’s new “decision engine” is scheduled to deploy next week. Again, the idea is to make sense of the information presented, not just list it. While I’ve heard some buzz and excitement about the launch, it will be interesting to see where this pushes the category.

I wonder if in a year whether we’ll be talking about failed experiments at organizing search results or if the paradigm will actually shift, creating a new class of search and categorization. If so, how will the reach of online advertising and optimization impact the information we see?

On a slightly related note, I also tripped across Topsy, a search engine that is focused on the “conversations” taking place on the web. Essentially, it pulls information from Twitter and its ilk to present what others are talking about.

Tagged: bing, google, microsoft, microsoft bing, online search, search, search engine, topsy, wolfram alpha