1. How many hours of video were uploaded to YouTube in 2010?
2. What percentage of smartphone owners, use their device while shopping?
3. What Australian state most frequently searches for the weather forecast?
As a planner, I’m always chasing that one research tool to bring them all together, and while Think Insights with Google attempts to do just that, it does fall short in a few areas. It’s missing the core search functionality that is the cornerstone of Google’s business… after all, the nirvana of a planner research tool would provide just that, a simple way to intelligently search and prioritise, facts, stats and behavioural trends based on a simple question, such as: ‘How many Australian’s use their laptop in the kitchen while cooking?’
On the flip side, this is a good resource if you are looking for general information on search and mobile related topics, particularly for Google brand related products. And, it does include over 100 custom reports, so you can certainly pop it on the list of go-to resources for all things digital.
My personal favourite resources on the site are: Our Mobile Planet tool (though the data is a little shady for the emerging markets such as India and China) and the Research Library finder.
Ultimately, Think Insights with Google is the perfect tool for media planners, and a useful resource for digital strategists too. Despite it’s downfalls it is one of the best free resources that I have found.
Today Google and Samsung finally had their Nexus event where they released the next version of the Nexus phone series as well as the announcement of their new iteration of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich.
So let’s start with the phone: Samsung Galaxy Nexus
Obviously it will be running ICS and it will have some very impressive specs:
- a huge 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1280 x 720
- 1.2 Ghz dual-core processor
- 5 Megapixel rear camera with LED flash
- 1.3 Megapixel front facing camera
- 1080p full HD video recording
- 1 GB of RAM
- Wireless N network
- NFC capabilities
- the usual accelerometer, compass, gyro, proximity sensor
- a barometer
and to power it all a big 1750mAh battery
It will be released in November, but so far we haven’t heard any carrier announcement or if it even hit AU shores any time soon. No price yet either.
So what about Ice Cream Sandwich?
Better known as Android 4.0, the update offers a massive redesign to the user interface and adds a lot of new features. Mostly developed to bridge the gap between handsets and tablets it is the first step to fight the Android fragmentation.
Some of the highlights include an NFC-enabled feature called Android Beam, that allows 2 NFC enabled devices to share information by simply touching them together.
Offline search in Gmail, new lock screen features and a fancy unlocking method called "Face Unlock," which uses facial recognition to obviously unlock your phone.
Ice Cream Sandwich also includes enhancements in almost every native app within Android itself. E.g. the camera interface is completely new, it is faster and easier with instant access from the lock screen, no more shutter lag which means photos are taken immediately, new panorama features, touch to focus etc etc.
The gallery app now has “Instagram” like filters and there is an inbuilt photo editor. Sort your shots by location or by person (if you tagged them) and video can now be captured in 1080p. And to really stress your battery you can now create time lapse videos right out of the box.
A Siri competitor or just a newer version of Google Voice?
The SDK is already available for Android 4.0 – here so what are you waiting for, get developing
Googles I/O event is in its second day and personally I was more excited about yesterdays announcements, but Google is not stopping with new and improved ideas.
Today they showed off their Google TV running a new honeycomb UI that will be released later this year.
You will be able to run your apps and widgets on the screen and there will be a much faster way to get back to your live TV.
The Google TV remote app was always a bit too complicated and Google announced today that the source code for it will be made open source (source code here) so anyone can make their own and improve it. The Anymote protocol code is also available (here) which means you can integrate it into phones and tablets.
More things to come as well as soon as Android 3.1 will hit the TVs – mentions of 3D support and Game Controller support for example.
The Android Market was another topic for Google today and they announced improvements on discovering apps – the market has grown to over 200000 apps and it is quite hard to find the good ones. Now there are 5 new features that will help you find the next Angry Birds:
New Top app charts – fresh new look and country specific Editor’s choice section – apps chosen by Google Top Developers section – a special icon next to the name of the developers that fit the criteria improved related apps trending apps – it shows you which apps are growing the fastest
Right now they are only on the web based version of the market, but Google mentioned that it will come soon to the phone and tablet versions of the market.
From June onwards the market will also support larger apps – up to 4GB – and it will give the developers the ability to exclude specific handsets – sorry HTC Magics
So what was left for Google? Chrome OS
The biggest improvements to Googles OS are that it will support Netflix and Hulu (can you please hurry up and establish yourself in Australia) right out of the box.
There will be new hardware – both Samsung and Acer models were shown off and they will include offline versions of Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs. They will probably hit the market in a few month.
Chrome OS laptops will cost you nothing upfront – instead you will pay a monthly subscription that includes regular software and hardware upgrades.
There was also a teaser that Samsung is going to build a desktop version called Chromebox that will run Chrome OS
And who would have guessed, but there will be Angry Birds at the Chrome Web Store – it is build in WebGL, but also has Canvas support so it should run in different browsers to Chrome, however it will get exclusive content like chromebombs.
If you have been left out of the Chrome Web store you will be pleased to know that it is now available worldwide.
Google started as an online search engine that within month make a massive impact and took over the space and we all love googling.
Last night Google had their annual I/O event and the future seems to be all about everything you can imaging. Google will be in your life if you like it or not.
Android has been the big buzz word for a while now and with 200000 apps in the Android market, 400000 daily Android activations and a lot of manufacturers joining the Android hardware bandwagon, this train is not going to stop.
One of the big negative aspects of Android is its fragmantation and Google announced today that the new version of its OS, called Ice Cream Sandwich, will change all that. Hardware manufacturers had to promise that newly released devices will need to be capable of new instances of the Google OS for at least 18 month of the hardware release. The new OS starting with Ice Cream Sandwich will also run on both handsets and tablets and will be smart enough to adjust itself to the actual device capabilities.
It is the step in the right direction, but personally I don’t it will stop people like HTC and Samsung to take forever to release the new OS because they are customizing theirs so heavily.
But Android will not be limited to mobile devices anymore.
Google announced the Android Open Accessory API which is based on Arduino, the universal open source hardware. This means that Android can live in any device you can imagine – fridges, medical equipment, exercise equipment and and and
This API will be available at the end of the year so next year we will be overrun with Android devices.
Google Music was announced today as well and Google is going after Amazon and Apple (even though apple isn’t ready yet) by offering a music locker that seems to be worth using. It is really targeted at hard core music fans that can upload their nicely sorted and curated music collection to the Google cloud and then listen to it on any Android device they own.
Then Google announced something new – Home Automation with Android@Home
Their vision is to have little Droid doing all the work for you – Open source libraries will allow developers to create apps that are Android compliant. This way you can dim the lights from your couch, start the washing machine on your way home from work – all you need is a Android@Home receiver.
Another shot at Apple here too as the new libraries incorporate Google tungsten that will allow you to stream your Google Music collection to any speaker in your house – no more Apple Air play
This was only Day 1 of the I/O and there is more to come in the next 24 hours. We haven’t heard anything about Google TV or Chrome. Does Google have something bigger still to come?
Only time will tell – Let me know your thoughts on Googles announcements in the comments below.
Sony anounced today its new range of Internet TVs that are being powered by GoogleTV
It comes with a keyboard remote that has a querty keypad, a mouse pad and generally reminds me of a Playstation controller.
Engadget was able to go hands-on already so check out the video below:
I believe Internet TVs are the future and this seems to be a great step into the right direction.
Sony is hitting the ground running too as the new TVs will be available in the US from this weekend and will cost from USD399 (24”) to USD1399 (46”) – With the Aussie dollar being strong there might be a bargain in here
Pretty sure Google is trying to revive the Disney series of Gargoyles with news of a new character joining the show named, Gogole? Luckily Google Docs feature built in spell check.
Caffeine overdose? How about this? Google indexing their own search results? At least they rank first…
I heard caffeine only increases attentiveness momentarily before having the reverse effect. Fun times ahead!
The issue: traversing a busy urban street in a 360-degree photographic bubble can be disorienting, especially when searching for a specific address or business
The solution: Microsoft Street Slide, developed by MS Research. Zoom out of your panoramic bubble and the street is presented as a dynamic, multi-perspective "strip" giving you an instant visual summary of the surroundings.
Supposedly Microsoft is already working on taking Street Slide mobile with an iPhone port, and probably a version for the upcoming Windows Phone 7 series.
Unfortunately, don’t expect this to be released anytime soon as the team has only processed about 2400 panoramas so far covering just 4 kilometers of streets.
Having just blogged and tweeted about Pepsi changing it’s name to Pecsi, I was delighted to see that Google’s real-time search (soon to be the most over-used phrase in digital) does exactly what it says on the tin. Here’s the proof:
Here’s the official post from Google’s blog. More discussion to follow.
An article in the Australian reported that Bing and Yahoo are starting to see an increase in market share to take on search giant Google. This is in line with trends in the US too. Lower CPCs generating higher efficiencies are said to be helping the increase.
We’ve also see this across our Search clients, but the article doesn’t touch base on the limitations of low consumer demand on the 2 engines and the challenges faced in optimising to low conversion volumes. We’re hoping to see a greater increase in Bing/Yahoo’s share as more of the US product features are launched locally – creating a real competitor to Google’s dominance.
Yahoo (serving Bing in Australia) has also recently launched a new feature to allow advertisers to see performance on their Premium Network (Bing/Yahoo) and Standard Networks. This will drive efficiency through greater targeting controls.
Full Article here:
Amnesia Razorfish is a digital marketing agency headquartered in Sydney, Australia. It is the Australian arm of Razorfish, one of the largest digital agencies in the world.
We live and breathe digital and provide a range of services from strategy, media, creative, tech, social media, analytics and more.
Pretty sure Google is trying to revive the Disney series of Gargoyles with news of a new character joining the show named, Gogole? Luckily Google Docs feature built in spell check.
An article in the Australian reported that Bing and Yahoo are starting to see an increase in market share to take on search giant Google. This is in line with trends in the US too. Lower CPCs generating higher efficiencies are said to be helping the increase.
