Google Now: The New Benchmark in Data Collection

Asking is such a hassle. What if Google could just read your mind instead of waiting for you to form questions? Welcome to Google Now.

How It Works
Google has compiled all things all people want to know all the time (weather, traffic, schedules, birthdays, etc.) and put them into one application. They've also included a few you probably didn't think of, but will undoubtedly make your life easier such as flights, hotel and restaurant reservations, status of package delivery and even measurements of your physical activity.

Consider it your personal dashboard for all things necessary. Through customization it's possible this app could end up making people more dependent on their smartphones than ever before.

What It Means
Faster, easier and with more integration – those are the trends of mobile marketing. Google Now marks the end of waiting for the consumer to come to marketers, and the beginning of the marketer being aligned with the consumer in a continual wavelength. Once intregrated with someone's life, Google will know everything from how fit they are to what they shipped their cousin last Christmas. This will result in a new level of niche advertising that all competitors in mobile will need to aspire to. Let the race for adoption begin.

Amazon Gets Social with Pages, Posts and Analytics

It’s a tech trend to find everything in one place: It’s why Facebook invented Graph Search, Google built out Google+, and now Amazon is helping retailers market products from their e-commerce platform.

Essentially, Amazon’s Pages and Posts work intuitively like you would expect them to, as customizable home bases to publish content and update clientele on business announcements. Brands can choose their own URLs free of charge and Amazon Analytics have been built out to measure and tie social interaction to sales. Widgets have also been added to link to social networks along with a special compatibility with Facebook Posts.

While not revolutionary to tech or e-marketing, this is a great step for Amazon toward offering free, in-depth tools to small businesses that can’t afford the powerhouse data firms of Salesforce or Sysomos Inc. It builds on a familiar service and relationship preexisting customers understand and will no doubt be an easy conduit to channel emerging business unfamiliar with social media and analytics.

Facebook Home: A Small Step Toward Big Profit

Facebook Home, the latest push from Facebook, incorporates goals of both penetrating the mobile market while delivering the same targeted advertising they have been so successful with on desktop.

In short, as of April 12th in the US, the Android HTC First will roll out with Facebook Home pre-installed. Other Android users will also be able to download Home via the Google Play Store and their other accompanying apps.

At the press event summarized by Tech Crunch, Mark Zuckerberg elaborates on emphasis of Home.

“Today we’re going to finally talk about that Facebook Phone, more accurately, we’re gonna talk about how you can turn your phone into a Facebook Phone. After noting we spend more than 20% of our mobile time on social apps, we asked ourselves — if we’re already spending this much time on our phones, how can we make it easier? What if they were designed around people first, and you could also just happen to interact with apps?”

A great example of this already existing concept is Facebook Messenger--an app that combines your texts with your Facebook messages into one application on current Androids. A great idea no doubt, but it's an app I've seen have its fair hare of double-message doozies. Hopefully, with Facebook Home we'll have more luck.

The takeaway? Facebook is making strides toward truly infiltrating mobile. And with the current spreading chasm between Google and Samsung it can only lead to a greater competition between the search and social network giants.

Bing Partners w/ Klout, Search Partners Influence

On March 28th, Bing announced its new partnership with Klout to bring you more information about people when you search. The new partnership is two-fold: Bing will show people's Klout scores in search results (as well as which networks they're active on) and Klout will use Bing's search information to increase the influence ranking of users frequently searched for.

This is good news for Klout as it further legitimizes its heavily criticized method of measuring social influence. By incorporating more organic internet use outside of Klout's select networks, celebrities and thought leaders are represented with a high score even without owning a Facebook or Twitter account.

For Bing, in regard to its rat race with Google, the partnership seems to be a wash. While Bing will be listed as an influential network on Klout, Google+ has been there for quite some time and is doubtful the newly found partnership would be grounds to cut it. Yes, listing someone's Klout score and active networks as quickly as Google lists a Google+ page is an asset, but in the end all Bing can do is show this information--after all, Klout is a middleman, not the actual network--and to harvest user data effectively you must have a network goose that lays the golden eggs [cough] Google+ [cough].

The End of Google Reader and the Continuing Trend of Tech Changes

It is has been decided by the Google gods—Reader no longer has a place at the Google table and will be put down like Old Yeller. While this may come as a shock to many who have learned to depend on the service like the personalized RSS newspaper it is (myself included), it is a great example of how competitive tech companies are remaining competitive—by NOT listening to the public.

Yes, this is typically the quickest way to lose your customers and in turn your competitive edge but to be true leaders in the marketplace (companies such as Google, Facebook and Apple) realize to make their visions happen, they need to make big changes and many of those are going to be at first, very unpopular. They understand they can’t have it all, but to have the most sometimes you need to give up the little parts—and Reader unfortunately has been deemed one of those parts.

So what’s the big picture? Only the big companies know, but instead of petitioning the past, we should be casting chicken bones for the future. It’s an exciting one for users and marketers alike. And lucky for us, there are plenty of small companies to pick up the scraps. Feedly, Pulse, NetVibes, NewsBlur, the list goes on, are all chomping at the bit to take in this new business. Will these companies leave us to develop bigger and better things as well? Of course they will. But first they’ll have to impress us with a better Google Reader.