Category Archives: Google

Why the Next-Generation Google Assistant Could Be a Game Changer for Google

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The business that monetizes the voice ecosystem will lead the voice-first economy. During Google’s I/O developer conference May 7-9, Google previewed a major development in its fight with Amazon to be that leader: the launch of a faster Google Assistant, described as “game changing” by Gartner Research Director Werner Goertz. A Google Assistant that responds more effectively to voice commands is certain to make Google a more appealing utility as people continue to use the voice interface to accomplish everyday tasks. And offering a utility remains Google’s chief strength as a brand. The only question is whether Google will move quickly enough to capitalize on its advantage by making the next-generation Google Assistant widely available.

Google Launches On-Device Speech Recognition

Google announced that Google Assistant, Google’s voice assistant, is getting faster with on-device machine learning. In other words, Google devices using Android will offer a voice interface directly through the device rather than rely on the cloud.

This news might have come as a surprise to people who assume that their conversations with voice assistants are managed on their devices solely. In reality, the software that manages Google Assistant actually resides on the cloud. Similarly, when you use the Apple Siri voice assistant on your iPhone, Apple relies on the cloud. And so does Amazon when you use Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant on an Echo smart speaker. By moving the voice assistant software from the cloud to your phone, Google says Google Assistant will deliver answers to voice requests up to 10 times faster. According to Manuel Bronstein, Google’s vice president of product development, Google Assistant:

Running on-device, the next generation Assistant can process and understand your requests as you make them, and deliver the answers up to 10 times faster. You can multitask across apps—so creating a calendar invite, finding and sharing a photo with your friends, or dictating an email is faster than ever before. And with Continued Conversation, you can make several requests in a row without having to say “Hey Google” each time. 

He also wrote, “This breakthrough enabled us to create a next generation Assistant that processes speech on-device at nearly zero latency, with transcription that happens in real-time, even when you have no network connection.”

The next-generation Google Assistant will become available on Google Pixel phones later in 2019. Google has not yet announced its availability beyond the Pixel. Now that Google has taken the wraps off the improved product, Google needs to act quickly to make Google Assistant more widespread across the Android world while Google has first-mover advantage. 

Why a Faster Google Assistant Matters

Making voice faster and responsive is crucial for Google to be a leader. Years ago, Google became synonymous with the entire search category because the Google search engine offered (and still offers) a utility. Users could type commands and get useful, reasonably accurate answers quickly. Fast-forward to 2019. Google still dominate traditional search. But Google does not lead the voice-first experience as it does traditional search. For example, in the United States, Amazon owns 63 percent of the market for voice-activated smart speakers (although its share is declining). Globally, Amazon and Google are neck and neck in this category. 

Google has a strong motivation to overtake Amazon: the use of voice assistants is expected to triple from 2.5 billion digital voice assistants in use to 8 billion in 2023. With on-device voice:

Google Can Make Voice More Reliable

Google Assistant has been evaluated as being a more reliable assistant than Alexa based on accuracy of responses. By making Google Assistant faster, Google makes its voice technology even more reliable, thus building on its strength. At Google I/O, Google demonstrated vividly just how useful voice technology can be with the faster Google Assistant:

As Andy Boxall noted in Digital Trends, “Speed is everything, because with it comes convenience. Without it, there’s only frustration. You can reply to messages now using dictation, but you have to go through a series of steps first, and Assistant can’t always help. Using voice is faster, provided the software is accurate and responsive enough. Google Assistant 2.0 looks like it will achieve this goal, and using our phones for something more than only basic, often-repeated tasks may be about to become a quicker, less screen-intensive process.”

With speed and reliability comes trust. As consumers see just how useful voice can be, they’re going to move beyond the current state of using voice to do simple things such as check the weather and move on to more doing more complicated tasks such as making purchases — and businesses are eager for that day to come.

Google Can Make Voice a Better Mobile Experience

Google Assistant is available on one billion devices, up from 500 million in May 2018. Why? One big reason: mobile phones powered by Google’s Android operating system use Google Assistant by default. Android has acted as a Trojan horse to make Google Assistant live on mobile phones. As Manuel Bronstein told The Verge “The largest footprint right now is on phones. On Android devices, we have a very, very large footprint.” And here Amazon can’t touch Google, whose real rival is Apple for leadership of voice on mobile phones. 

Now, mobility means more than using our phones, as evidenced by Amazon, Apple, and Google fighting to embed their voice assistants in automobiles. To that end, at I/O, Google also introduced driving mode, which makes any Android-powered phone using Google Assistant more valuable for driving. As Google announced,

In the car, the Assistant offers a hands-free way to get things done while you’re on the road. Earlier this year we brought the Assistant to navigation in Google Maps, and in the next few weeks, you’ll be able to get help with the Assistant using your voice when you’re driving with Waze.

Today we’re previewing the next evolution of our mobile driving experience with the Assistant’s new driving mode. We want to make sure drivers are able to do everything they need with just voice, so we’ve designed a voice-forward dashboard that brings your most relevant activities—like navigation, messaging, calling and media—front and center. It includes suggestions tailored to you, so if you have a dinner reservation on your calendar, you’ll see directions to the restaurant. Or if you started a podcast at home, you can resume right where you left off from your car. If a call comes in, the Assistant will tell you who’s calling and ask if you want to answer, so you can pick up or decline with just your voice. Assistant’s driving mode will launch automatically when your phone is connected to your car’s bluetooth or just say, “Hey Google, let’s drive,” to get started. Driving mode will be available this summer on Android phones with the Google Assistant.

Now, consider how a faster Google Assistant could help you as you’re driving and using your voice as a device for wayfinding, making restaurant reservations, and communicating. It’s easy to see how faster replies matter even more when you’re driving, especially when you drive through an unfamiliar area or cities with complicated routes. 

“Insanely Powerful, But Can’t Be Used”

As noted, the faster Google Assistant will first launch on Google’s new Pixel phones, which are reportedly the fastest-growing smartphones in the United States. So far Google has not yet said when widespread availability beyond the Pixel will happen. But Google will need to make the faster on-device Google Assistant available on any Android-powered device to make a real difference. As Yahoo! News wryly noted in a recent headline, “New Google Assistant is insanely powerful, but can’t be used.”  It’s hard to believe Google would restrict an on-device Google Assistant to Pixel phones. Google cannot afford to do so. The opportunity is too great, and the stakes are too high, for Google to play conservatively.

The Prize

What’s the monetary pay-off for Google making Google Assistant smarter? As I noted earlier this year, being the backbone of voice protects the company’s online advertising business, which accounts for more than 70 percent of Google’s revenue. Google needs to keep giving people reasons to use products such as the Google search engine, Google Maps, and Google Chrome. That’s why in 2018, Google launched Google Duplex, an AI-powered bot that mimics the human voice to book reservations and perform other tasks with businesses. (Google Duplex was launched on Pixel phones and is now available on the web.) By keeping people on Google’s ecosystem, Google can continue to deliver audiences to advertisers and learn from audience behavior.

As Amazon’s own advertising products take flight, and with Amazon stealing consumer search traffic from Google, Google is under tremendous pressure to protect and extend its reach in the home and on the go. As we move toward a voice-first world, is Google moving quickly enough? 

Why Amazon and Google Are Fighting to Lead the Voice-First Economy

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To no one’s surprise, the story of CES 2019 was the battle between Amazon and Google to lead the emerging voice-first world.

CES was awash with announcements about products such as alarm clocks and thermostats powered by Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant and Google Assistant, prompting coverage such as CNET’s “Who Won CES 2019: Amazon or Google?” and USA Today’s “CES 2019: Google vs. Amazon, Who Won?”

In the aftermath of CES, though, one question looms: What exactly do Amazon and Google get out of winning this battle?

Numbers Galore

Both Amazon and Google used CES to state the case for their leadership of voice (Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung, while certainly players, are not the leaders in voice although Apple is a strong challenger). Google announced that Google Assistant is on one billion devices, up from 500 million in May 2018 (a figure boosted by the sale of Android phones that contain Google Assistant by default). Amazon disclosed that it has sold more than 100 million devices that rely on its Alexa virtual assistant. In addition, the number of people who use Alexa every day — and who own more than one Amazon Echo smart speaker — doubled in 2018. 

Meanwhile, during CES, more telling numbers were disclosed. According to research conducted by Edison Research and NPR, 53 million adults in the United States (or two out of 10 Americans) own at least one voice-activated smart speaker. The number of smart speakers in homes has increased 78 percent year over year. And on January 8, Accenture reported that half of online consumers globally use digital voice assistants, up from 42 percent one year ago.

These figures don’t mean that people are actually using their voices to buy things from businesses. In fact, most people use voice assistants to perform everyday tasks such as listening to music and getting weather information. But the usage data is important nevertheless. It shows that even if we’re not exactly living in a voice-first world, we’re getting there – and doing so quickly considering that the Amazon Echo didn’t exist until 2014, and Google Home just two years later. In addition, by 2016, 20 percent of all Google mobile queries were voice searches.  

The rise of voice also helps explains why so many companies continue to launch products fueled by voice at CES, and 2019 was no exception.

Gadgets and Software Integrations

CES unleashed a dizzying array of products powered by voice, usually through Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa. These products typically focus on making it easier for people to use their voices to live in their homes and navigate their cars. For instance:

In the Home

Lenovo announced an alarm clock powered by Google Assistant. KitchenAid and GE rolled out smart displays that rely on Google Assistant to help you get recipes, watch videos, and do anything else to keep you occupied and entertained in the kitchen. Currant’s new smart wall outlet, which can be controlled by Alexa and Google Assistant, monitors energy usage and suggests which products to automatically turn off to conserve power. The Dalkin smart thermostat works with Alexa and Google Assistant to control the climate in your home.

You can learn more about major product announcements here and here. (For those of you keeping score, in November 2018, Recode reported that Google Assistant works with 10,000 smart home devices versus 20,000 for Alexa.)  But the most intriguing products, such as the Currant smart wall outlet, use artificial intelligence to not only act on your voice commands but also give you information and manage your home without your intervention.

On the Go

Both Amazon and Google showed that Alexa and Google Assistant are powering our lives on the go, too. Google formally integrated Google Maps with Google Assistant, which is important because of Google Maps’s popularity for mobile wayfinding. As Mashable noted, “Google envisions users asking it for directions home, or to nearby restaurants and saved locations. You can ask the assistant to search for places along your route (like gas stations) or add a stop — all things that used to require some button pushing.”

Amazon announced a stronger push into voice-powered automobiles. CES was barely under way when Amazon and Telenav, a provider of connected car and location-based services, announced a relationship that makes it possible for drivers to use the Telenav Alexa-powered navigation system to do the same kinds of functional tasks that they can do with Google Maps. And then Amazon formally launched Amazon Echo smart speaker for the car. Google announced a similar product through a relationship with Anker’s Roav automotive accessory, which is essentially a Google Home for the car.

These announcements continued a battle for on-the-go voice experiences that has been going on for some with Google, Apple, and Amazon all rapidly launching products and software designed to be the de facto infotainment systems for different car manufacturers. The irony is that major auto makers have been announcing dips in sales for 2018. But overall, automotive has been a strong industry over the past several years. And now cars are getting smarter.

What Do They Want?

No wonder so many “Google versus Amazon” stories have proliferated throughout January. But the more important question than who “won” CES is what do Amazon and Google get out of all these voice-powered products? The answer is simple:

  The company that owns the ecosystem monetizes the voice-first world.

Owning the ecosystem yields practical benefits, such as revenue gained from the sale of smart speakers. Amazon commands a strong leadership of smart speakers, but Google is catching up. As of 2019, Amazon is capturing 63.3 percent of the smart speaker market, with Google Home accounting for 31 percent. The numbers matter for another reason besides revenue: smart speakers connect people with other smart devices, thus acting as a gateway for product integrations. As Accenture noted in its survey of global smart assistant users, “[n]inety-three percent of consumers globally expect their home device purchases, such as smart TVs or computers, to be based on ease of integration with their standalone smart speaker.”

Google’s Motivation

For Google, being the backbone of voice protects the company’s online advertising business, which accounts for more than 70 percent of Google’s revenue.  Google needs to keep giving people reasons to keep using products such as the Google search engine, Google Maps, and the Google Chrome web browser. As people stay on Google, Google can continue to deliver audiences to advertisers and learn from audience behavior. As people use voice, Google can keep them on Google by incorporating voice into its products, launching new products such as Google Home, and making Google Assistant part of other companies’ products, which is the alarm clocks, thermostats, and cars using Google Assistant come into play. 

But it’s not all about advertising for Google. Google also wants intelligent voice assistants to make Google software and hardware (such as Pixel phones) more useful and popular, a dramatic example being Google’s Duplex software, which can make convincing phone calls on behalf of human beings.  

What Amazon Wants

Amazon has its own motivations. Amazon is already a popular search engine for product searches, with half of online shoppers starting their searches on Amazon. Amazon also needs to incorporate voice to keep those shoppers using Amazon as they become more comfortable using voice – not just because Amazon wants them to buy things from Amazon with their voices, but also because Amazon is building an online advertising business that is already the third largest in the industry, behind Google and Facebook. 

As Amazon creates its own advertising business, it, too, needs to show potential advertisers that it can deliver an audience to them – in the home and on the go, whether they use their voices or text to get what they need. In 2018, it was reported that Amazon was in talks with advertising giants such as Procter & Gamble to permit them to advertise on Amazon Echo speakers. Amazon has denied that it’s going to permit advertising through Alexa. But even if Amazon does not offer ads, per se, it can use voice to mine valuable data about its customers that would be useful to its advertisers, such as Google can.

Amazon is already working with businesses to monetize skills. Through premium content known as in-skill products that reside within Alexa skills, businesses can sell premium content such as in-game currency. For example, Stoked Skill offers free games such as Escape the Room and Escape the Airplane. The games are set up as Alexa skills. Players use Alexa skills to find clues that will help them escape spaces such as jell cells and cars. Customers can pay for optional “hint” packs (in in-skill product) that make it easier for them to escape. 

I could see Amazon also offering branded content and products to Prime customers who use Echo, such as discounts at local restaurants unlocked exclusively through Amazon Echo Auto. Doing so would monetize voice without more intrusive advertising that lack any useful offers.

Finally, Amazon has other plans to monetize voice in the enterprise, such as Alexa for Business to help enterprises use Alexa to improve workforce productivity. As these examples show, companies are using Alexa for Business to book conference rooms, manage the connection status of shared devices, and other workplace tasks. But Amazon has competition in the enterprise most notably from Apple and Microsoft.

What Business Should Do

Brands have a clear mandate: prepare for a voice-first world, and one where Amazon and Google call the shots for now. When consumers start really buying products and services via voice assistants, brands will need to play ball with the companies that control the voice ecosystem. Here is how Recode envisions one way that world will play out:

How it works now: If you ask Amazon’s Alexa or Google Assistant to buy, say, shampoo, they’ll surface what they think you’ll want. Alexa uses several criteria to suggest a purchase option: Your order history, whether a product is eligible for free Prime shipping and whether the product has the “Amazon’s Choice” seal of approval — “highly rated, well-priced products available to ship immediately.”

Google picks products from merchants thatare most relevant to the query. It also considers purchase history and information about user preferences, as well as an item’s availability and proximity.

Both companies say there is no favoring of specific retailers — or their own products.

Brands also can’t pay for visibility — yet. For now, Amazon and Google are trying to build trust among new — few — voice buyers by making their search results as relevant as possible. It doesn’t, however, take much imagination to see a future in which Amazon or Google merchants could pay to have their products suggested by their smart assistants — like sponsored ads that crowd their websites — as a way to generate more ad dollars.

Today, businesses are participating by creating sometimes clever and inventive voice-based brand building experiences, such as HBO’s voice-activated Westworld game, in which people use Alexa to explore the mythical Westworld. Other businesses have created their own branded Alexa skills. With Tide’s Stain Remover skill, you can get stain removal instructions shared with you through Alexa. Campbell’s offers recipes through Campbell’s Kitchen. Presumably, these businesses could offer in-skill products if they wanted to, an example being HBO offering a premium-tier Westworld game for purchase. And businesses are optimizing their content to be found through voice search. 

Amazon and Google are not the only companies doing the heavy lifting, but they are leading the way to a voice-first world. Smart companies are going with them. 

Google Hits a Home Run with Roberto Clemente Google Doodle

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The Google Doodle for October 12, 2018, honors the legacy of Roberto Clemente. Many remember him as a Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder. But his lasting legacy is his passion for doing good. If you were alive on New Year’s Eve 1972, you didn’t need to be a baseball fan to be moved by the news of his death in a plane crash as he was flying to Nicaragua to help earthquake victims there. Fortunately, Google has kept his memory alive for the digital generation in the best way possible, a Google Doodle.

My Roberto Clemente Story

When I was 12, a friend of my dad’s invited me to spend a week with his family in Puerto Rico. So my mom dropped me off at O’Hare Airport one spring morning, and I flew down to San Juan by myself with in-flight music (mostly tunes culled from the Eagles Greatest Hits) to keep me company.

For a week, I lived in the San Juan area and got a feel for how residents lived as opposed to how tourists experienced the area. Every night, I fell asleep to the sound of kids playing basketball deep into the evening, and during the day, I wandered around the crowded neighborhood watching people live their days. Roberto Clemente’s presence was everywhere. He had been dead for four years at this point, but he was very much alive in Puerto Rico. Not a day went by without someone bringing up his name, perhaps when kids were playing catch in a park, or old men were drinking coffee in a cafe.

What I remember most: he was talked about, but his likeness was not branded on clothing, as if he were more like a god than a rock star. And no one discussed his achievements on the field. Instead, he was remembered for his compassion — the same compassion that inspired him to help earthquake victims in Nicaragua on New Year’s Eve of 1972.

Well played, Google.

Google Gamifies Google Maps

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On March 14, Google announced a new tool that makes it possible for developers to turn real-world Google Maps locations into fantasy settings via augmented reality. A new API will transform your local coffee shop or noodle hangout into “a medieval fantasy, a bubble gum candy land, or a zombie-infested post-apocalyptic city,” in the words of Clementine Jacoby, product manager, Google Maps APIs, who wrote about the new feature in a blog post announcing the API.

What this announcement means is that Google Maps locations can be transformed into locations for experiences such as scavenger hunts, adventures, and Pokémon GO-style games. As Jacoby wrote, “With Google Maps’ real-time updates and rich location data, developers can find the best places for playing games, no matter where their players are.”

The gamification of Google Maps is more than a cool story – it’s a glimpse at the future. Google Maps will always be an essential utility for wayfinding. But as the wild success of Pokémon GO demonstrated, technologies such as augmented reality are uncovering another use for location-based information: entertainment. Continue reading →

How Google Is Bringing Virtual Reality to Everyone on Every Device

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Google just moved one step closer to its vision of taking virtual reality a mainstream. On February 9, Google announced that its Chrome browser supports VR experiences. As noted on a blog post, “With the latest version of Chrome, we’re bringing VR to the web—making it as easy to step inside Air Force One as it is to access your favorite webpage.”

This announcement means that anyone using Chrome can experience virtual reality on sites that deliver such experiences, such as the interactive documentary Bear 71, which explores the relationship between animals, people, and technology; Within, a collection of VR films; and Matterport’s Library, a collection of celebrity homes, museums, and other notable places.

These sites are best experienced using Google’s Daydream-ready phones and headsets, but even if you lack the equipment, you can have immersive VR-like experiences on them. As noted in Mashable, the Chrome update uses WebVR technology, which makes it possible for websites to provide VR experiences. In addition to Google, tech companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Samsung also support WebVR.

This announcement is another sign that Google intends to deliver on its promise to “bring VR to everyone on every device.” (By contrast, Facebook seeks to turn its own platform into a VR social experience.) At its 2016 I/O event, Google unveiled its vision to democratize VR when the company unveiled its Daydream VR ecosystem, consisting of smart phones, a more affordable headset and controller, and apps designed for VR. Since then, Google has been taking a number of steps to realize that vision, such as:

  • Also in June, Google shared an online demo showing how creatives, using Daydream, can create animation in VR without possessing any specialty skills. This move showed Google’s intent to give designers the tools to use VR easily. As I mentioned at the time, making VR accessible to creatives is important — breakthroughs in any endeavor occur when the tools of production are accessible and democratic. For that reason, bringing VR to Chrome is important. As Mashable indicated, “Adding it to Chrome is a huge step in giving VR creators a larger platform to showcase the experiences they design.”
  • In November, Google released its Daydream VR headset, which, as promised, offers a more affordable quality VR experience.
  • Google also made Tilt Brush more useful. Tilt Brush enables the painting of life-size, three-dimensional images when used with the HTC Vive VR equipment. The Tilt Brush Toolkit makes it possible to create VR concepts in Tilt Brush and then import them into Unity engine, which developers use to design games and 3D software. As Fast Company noted, with the Tilt Brush Toolkit, “Google is quietly turning VR into a real creative tool.”

At its 2016 I/O event, Google CEO Sundar Pichai envisioned a future that consists of everyday Google users relying on VR to do everything from watch concerts on YouTube to navigate Google Maps. If Google has its way, creation of content, not just exploring it, will be a VR experience, with Google being the essential platform. When you consider that Google commands a considerable amount of our attention already, including 3.5 billion searches a day, you begin to grasp the magnitude of Google’s potential impact on VR.

The reality about virtual reality is that VR is not crashing down on us like a tidal wave, even with the support of heavyweights such as Google. VR is trickling into our lives slowly, and experiencing detours along the way. Despite its low cost, the Daydream headset has not exactly taken off, with reasons ranging from a lack of interesting content to lack of available companion phones to give the product critical mass. The future is coming in fits and starts. But it’s coming. Google is creating a VR future through is already-established ecosystem and influence in our lives.

 

 

Google Creates a Virtual Reality Future

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Expeditions

Google wants virtual reality to be everyone’s reality.

During the week of June 27, Google demonstrated its commitment to making VR a mainstream experience. To wit:

  • On June 28, Google shared an online demo showing how creatives, using Google’s forthcoming Daydream VR platform, can create animation in VR without possessing any specialty skills. Daydream, announced at Google’s I/O event in May, will encompass VR-enabled smartphones, a new VR viewer and controller (making Cardboard unnecessary if you can afford the viewer, whose price is unknown), and apps that will unlock VR content ranging from news to games. Daydream will be available on the Android operating system.

In addition, on July 29, roadtovr.com reported that Google is developing a feature for its Chrome browser that will allow you to browse the entire Web in VR when Google rolls out Daydream. Since Google is also rebuilding YouTube, Street View, Play, and Photos with VR modes, a VR-mode for Chrome, when ready, will have a world of VR-content to browse, such as a more immersive Street View experience or VR concert viewing on YouTube. When Daydream is rolled out, we should be able to use the Daydream headset or Cardboard viewer to visit any website in VR, according to Upload VR.

These developments demonstrate just some of the moving parts that will comprise Daydream, and they make Daydream seem like less of an abstraction and more of a tangible reality. Whereas Facebook communicates its vision for VR with good theater and well delivered messages, Google opens the hood to give you a glimpse at the engine.

Designing Animation in VR

The animation demo might seem like inside baseball to anyone who does not design for a living, but making VR accessible to creatives is important. Breakthroughs in any endeavor occur when the tools of production are accessible and democratic. Rock and roll took off because anyone who could get their hands on even a cheap guitar could teach themselves how to play. Basketball exploded in popularity across the United States in the 20th Century because all you needed was a basketball and a court to learn the game. And Google intends to make VR a breakthrough, too.

As Rob Jagnow, software engineer, Google VR, wrote in a June 28 blog post, Google Daydream Labs is reducing the complexity for making VR animation by making it possible for creatives to design scenes by moving objects around in VR, instead of needing complex and costly software to design scenes in 2D. Jagnow indicated that Daydream Labs experimented with VR by allowing users to bring characters to life by moving toys around a screen.

“Instead of animating with graph editors or icons representing location, people could simply reach out, grab a virtual toy, and carry it through the scene,” he wrote. “These simple animations had a handmade charm that conveyed a surprising degree of emotion . . . People were already familiar with how to interact with real toys, so they jumped right in and got started telling their stories. They didn’t need a lengthy tutorial, and they were able to modify their animations and even add new characters without any additional help.”

In a nod to making VR democratic, he added “VR allows us to rethink software and make certain use cases more natural and intuitive. While this kind of animation system won’t replace professional tools, it can allow anyone to tell their own stories.”

Expeditions

The Expeditions experience is more of a crowd pleaser. Google rolled out Expeditions in the fall of 2015 to participating classrooms. As reported in TechCrunch, more than a million students in 11 countries have gone on virtual field trips, and the collection of destinations has grown to more than 200.

The following video testimonial demonstrates how Expeditions can work:

Launching Expeditions in the classroom is a smart long-term strategy. Google is betting that tools such as Expeditions will help make younger generations become more familiar and comfortable with VR. And as they do so, they’ll associate Google with VR. of Google as their preferred platform throughout their lives, which is similar to Apple’s approach of embedding its products in the classroom decades ago.

But Google is thinking short-term by making Expeditions more widely available. Anyone with the tools can now join in the fun. And when the tools improve with Daydream, Google hopes to introduce a whole new meaning of fun. Making Expeditions available for iOS would be a way for Google to entice IOS users to switch to Android — as if to say, “Do you like what you’re experiencing with Expeditions? There’s a lot more fun to be had if you switch to Android.”

As I discussed in a June 11 blog post, Google’s vision is to make VR accessible to all, with Google products being at the center of our everyday VR experience. The way Google sees it, VR will underpin how we search and discover, how we experience content, especially if we use Google’s own Chrome browser on mobile devices. Chrome is now the most popular Web browser, according to Gizmodo. Android has the largest global marketshare of any operating system on a smartphone, according to stastista.com. Google intends to strengthen those leads in an era of VR that Google sees coming.

As the saying goes, the best way to predict the future is to invent it. Google sees a VR future on the horizon and intends for its own products to lead the way. But it’s not like we’re are all going to stop what we’re doing and start using Daydream when the platform becomes available. Even loyal Android users will take some time to adopt VR experiences. iOS users will watch that uptake (and, Google hopes, become envious) while pundits speculate about Apple’s possible move into VR. What’s clear, though, is that Google is priming the pump for a gradual adoption of VR through Daydream. Expanding Expeditions and sharing a demo for creating VR animation are all about getting us comfortable for a long-term change that is coming. And coming soon.

Why Voice Search Is the Future of the On-Demand Economy

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googleassistant

Mobile gave rise to the on-demand economy. But voice search will fuel its future.

Google demonstrated how voice will form the foundation of an on-demand search ecosystem when Google announced the Google Assistant intelligent search tool at the company’s I/O event in May. Then Apple, at its Worldwide Developers Conference June 13, showcased a smarter and more ubiquitous Siri voice-activated intelligent agent for using our voices to do everything from order an Uber ride to make restaurant reservations. Both developments underscore how voice is rapidly shaping the way we research and buy in the moment.

On-Demand Everywhere

In a June 7 blog post, I discussed how mobile triggered an uptake in on-demand living by making it easier for consumers to use their phones to quickly find things to buy and places to visit. Google calls these moments of rapid decision making “micro-moments.” Uber sensed the popularity of micro-moments by launching its now wildly popular service through which we use mobile devices to get rides when we want them. Amid Uber’s ascendance, businesses ranging from Amazon to Walmart have embraced various models of on-demand commerce.

Continue reading →

How Facebook and Google Are Bringing Virtual Reality to the Masses

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GoogleZuck

When a hot startup launches a virtual reality product, influencers and investors notice. When Facebook and Google bet on virtual reality, the whole world notices. Recently these two market makers unveiled their VR visions and plans at their own bellwether events, Facebook F8 and Google I/O. Both their plans are important because Facebook and Google possess the resources and reach to make VR more mainstream to everyday consumers faster than any startup ever could. Both their visions are intriguing. I believe Google’s is more compelling and far-reaching.

Facebook’s Vision

At F8, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg articulated a simple, clear vision for VR: social VR, or connecting two or more people in the virtual world. Social VR is intuitively easy to grasp even if you don’t know how we’ll get there. Facebook users (wearing Facebook’s Oculus Rift headsets, naturally) can explore virtual worlds together, ranging from virtual Ping-Pong matches to virtual excursions to Bali, which makes posting information on each other’s wall seem quaint by comparison.

Zuck

During his F8 keynote, Zuckerberg said, “VR has the potential to be the most social platform because you have the ability to be right there with another person.” But Facebook doesn’t just talk vision — the world’s largest social network shows it. Accordingly, Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer, wearing an Oculus Rift headset and using controllers, demonstrated a shared VR experience with Michael Booth of Facebook’s Social VR team, who was 30 miles away and also using Oculus Rift. Together, they visited London through VR — or at least their avatars did, projected on a giant screen. The F8 attendees oohed and aahed as their floating avatars checked out Piccadilly Circus and took a selfie together in front of Big Ben.

Oculus

The moment was a brilliant bit of theater that instantly injected excitement into the Facebook brand and gave us a glimpse at what social VR can look like. Afterward, Lance Ulanof of Mashable spoke for many pundits watching when he wrote, “Bravo, Facebook. Social VR is now officially something I want in Facebook. You made me want it, damn you.”

Continue reading →

The Case for Remixing Your Logo

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RukmiDevi

For most brands, corporate logos are protected and revered. A business such as Disney invests substantial energy and budget into making its logotype a consistent expression of its brand essence, and for good reason: especially in the age of Instagram and Snapchat, a logotype is like a totem that instantly tells a story about your brand through repetition across the online and offline worlds. But Google is not like most brands. On a major occasion such as St. Patrick’s Day, you can always count on Google to remix its logo. And Google delivers through its Google Doodles, which re-imagine the Google logo on the brand’s website. On St. Patrick’s Day 2016, the multi-colored Google logo transformed into a dancing shamrock and turned green.

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GoogleDoodle

By remixing its logo, Google makes its brand culturally relevant.

Businesses can make themselves culturally relevant in many ways. One of Google’s most well known approaches is to remix its logo to celebrate cultural diversity around the world. As the Google Doodle archive demonstrates, Google creates different Doodles in different country markets befitting the interests and customs of those countries. On February 29, Google published a Doodle in India that honored classical dancer and choreographer Rukmini Devi on what would have been her 112th birthday. Google refashioned its logo as a flowing ribbon in a nod to Bharata Natyam, a traditional Indian dance form popularized by Devi.

RukmiDevi

By contrast, the Rolling Stones remix their famous “rolling tongue” logo to immerse themselves in different cultures in a playful, even provocative way. To promote the band’s recent tour of South America and Mexico, the Stones have cleverly recast their logo in context of striking designs that pay homage to the countries where they are playing, as this example shows:

Stones

Sometimes brands make themselves culturally relevant by making a statement about topical issues. For instance, the Honey Nut Cheerios cereal brand has temporarily dropped its bee mascot from boxes in Canada to draw attention to the declining numbers of bees and other pollinators worldwide.

HoneyNutCheerios

And of course many businesses practice cultural relevancy through their actions. But especially for large brands with high profiles, a logo remix is a powerful way to achieve instant cultural relevance.

If you are going to make your brand culturally relevant, it’s important to do your homework. There is a fine line between celebrating multi-culturalism and exploiting different cultures. And it’s not too difficult to find examples of businesses whose attempts to acknowledge different cultures have backfired miserably. Google gets it right through its logo mixes, which invariably strike the correct tone, being playful or reverent depending on the occasion. By making the Google Doodle a recurring practice, Google also makes its logo remixes feel less gimmicky. Google is and secure in its position as the world’s most valuable company. By remixing its logo, Google sends a message: we are part of the world, not the center of it.

Google Shows Corporations How to Honor History

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The 2013 Martin Luther King Day Google Doodle shows how a corporation can honor history without exploiting it. The Doodle, which went live shortly after midnight EST on January 21, incorporates an image of MLK into the Google name, punctuated by a vibrant color scheme of yellow, aqua, purple, black, and white. Clicking on the Doodle takes you to a series of educational articles about one of the most influential men of the 20th Century. The Doodle is a model for other corporations.

We’ve all seen crass examples of businesses taking advantage of history to make a buck — usually in the form of retailer breathlessly offering a sale to honor the memory of someone’s passing with the real motive being to honor the tradition of American capitalism. (These examples show you what I mean, and so do these courtesy of Buzzfeed. The Google Doodle could have just as easily veered into poor taste by reducing an iconic figure to a Continue reading →