It's Coming! The Motorola Zoom [VIDEO]

Something I've been waiting for and I predict will be a game changer for the tablet market: Motorola Zoom.

Watch the video they launched at the Super Bowl:

From BGR: A Facebook mobile phone?

Ooh! A Facebook-branded phone! How cool is that? Will Facebook now enter into the device race? Will they have a separate track on the Android build? Anything seems possible at this point.

I love how HTC knows who to partner with. I'm so happy with my Google Nexus One phone, it was quite disappointing how Google dropped HTC to partner with Samsung for the next gen Nexus S. Having a pure native device is cool because you get all the firmware updates early. I know it's the Apple model also, but I still don't like Apple for its snobbish stance to the open-source community. Yay to Facebook & HTC, boo to Apple.

[UPDATE] Facebook has denied that the phones will be Facebook-branded. See Mashable's report on this: http://mashable.com/2011/01/27/facebook-denies-facebook-phone/

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Facebook to launch two branded smartphones at MWC, report claims

By: Zach Epstein | Jan 26th, 2011 at 01:21PM

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Filed Under: Mobile, Rumors

Facebook will announce two Facebook-branded smartphones at next month’s Mobile World Congress according to a new report from City A.M. The report contradicts Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s earlier claim that the company was not working on branded cell phones, but was instead working to create a better, more comprehensive Facebook experience across existing mobile platforms. HTC will build the new Facebook phones according to the report, and they will feature branding and coloring in line with Facebook’s website. City A.M.goes on to state that the devices will run a modified build of Google’s Android operating system that will display information from a user’s Facebook account on the home screen. Details pertaining to pricing and availability are not yet available.

Read

From Mashable: The Location Implications of Google Buzz

originally by Jennifer Van Grove | from Mashable

We learned earlier this morning that Google Buzz adds a shared social experience — very similar to FriendFeed and Facebook — to your Google contact circle via Gmail. Google also made it very clear that the mobile component, especially around location, is important to the product as a whole.

Location plays a big role in Buzz — we saw this with the introduction of the snap, Google’s answer to the check-in.

That one key feature demonstrates how right we were when we predicted late last year that “everything points towards Google taking big leaps on the location front in 2010,” and that “Google is interested in further assimilating the Latitude and Place Pages products into a more full-fledged location and recommendation service centered around places.”

The assimilation is Google Buzz for Mobile, and the ambitious endeavor is Google’s attempt to catch up to the likes of Foursquare, centralize the location-sharing experience around Place Pages and collect valuable place data. Here we’ll explore Google’s second attempt at getting the location-sharing formula right, and what it means in terms of the bigger picture.

Mobile Feature Run-Down

The mobile experience supports all the following features and functionalities:

Menu: From the Menu page you can search, select Following and Nearby stream options, navigate to My Posts, and view who you’re following as well as who is following you.

Snap to a location: Google Buzz’s version of the place check-in is a snap-to-location feature that lets you associate your physical location in place form with a buzz/status update.

Buzz: The “Share what you’re thinking” buzz box is located atop the My Posts, Following and Nearby tabs, and it’s the quickest possible route to snapping your location.

Once you start typing your buzz update, you’ll notice that a location is automatically associated with that post. If that location is inaccurate, you’ll want to click the light blue box and select the appropriate location from the list of nearby options. At the very bottom, you can also specify if the post is public or private. Once you select a post mode, your buzz is snapped to that location, and shared with Google Buzz users that are following you.

Replies: Right now the autocomplete reply feature supported in Google Buzz via Gmail doesn’t exactly carry over to the Google Buzz for Mobile experience, which means you won’t currently be able to type official replies from your mobile device just yet. You can, however, view replies as they were intended. Also, clicking on the associated user URL will direct you to the mobile version of the user’s Google Profile.

Streams: In the mobile application you have two stream types: Following and Nearby. Both are straightforward stream options.

Buzz Maps: In the Nearby stream, you can click “Buzz map” to view nearby buzz on a map.

Buzz Threads: Any item in your Following or Nearby streams has the potential to become a thread featuring comments and likes. You can moderate comments to your individual Buzz posts. What’s especially interesting about threads is that your check-ins, a.k.a. snaps, can become interactive conversations. That functionality doesn’t exist in location-sharing apps like Foursquare.

Buzz Permalinks: Each individual buzz and its associated conversation has a permalink, which means you can share individual items. If they’re public, anyone can comment on or like shared buzz items.

Place Pages: Every place in Buzz for Mobile is associated with a Google Place Page. Navigating to the Place Pages is a tad complicated at times, but there are a few ways to do it. If you’ve snapped to a location, you can select “Show map” from the specific buzz and click the link for the location. In the Nearby stream view, once you select a location, you can click “More info” to navigate to the Place Page.

Search: You can search all Buzz updates from the people you follow or just those nearby by selecting the search icon.

Is it Foursquare Re-imagined?

The answer to that question is not a simple yes or no, but Google was clearly inspired by the check-in model that Foursquare made popular. Here we will focus on the primary differences between the two approaches.

Snaps are conversations, check-ins are sport: Google’s approach is conversation-oriented. To snap to a location you need to post a buzz, and that buzz becomes the beginning of a potential conversation with friends. There are no points, no leaderboards, no mayorships and no rewards, but that doesn’t mean those elements won’t be added into the mix in the future. Buzz updates snapped to a location will also appear on Place Pages, which will expose them to a much wider audience.

Location-based deals are place-specific, but not tied to snaps: One of Foursquare’s finer features are the official location-based specials and mayor deals offered by businesses to Foursquare users that check in at their locale. While business owners have the ability to create mobile coupons for their Place Pages and promote them, the idea of snapping to a location and discovering nearby deals doesn’t seem to exist.

Place buzz and chatter: Lately we’ve seen Foursquare become a hub of curated content via its media partnerships, which bring in content from respected restaurant review sites (like Zagat), city tourism offices, reality stars, celebrities and fictional characters to serve as a dynamic and pocket-friendly city guide that travels with you. Right now, Google’s not attempting to separate the venue-related chatter from buzz updates that are meant to be recommendations or tips. Buzz for a particular place is mix of all location-shares and could be perceived as lacking the same value as Foursquare tips and to-dos. As a product that aims to reduce noise, this feature doesn’t deliver on that promise yet.

Place Page Significance

One way to look at the location features of Buzz for Mobile is to see as it another way to encourage business owners to claim their Place Pages. Google has been pushing Place Pages since their launch, and Buzz for Mobile extends the value of those pages. Now all Google Mobile and Gmail users are a few clicks away from Place Pages.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Google has finally found a way to support its own system for status updates and to tie those to physical locations in a potentially mainstream way. We’ve already seen that this data is incredibly valuable, especially to businesses and advertisers, and with every snap and its associated buzz, Google is learning more about what we’re doing and where we’re going.

Is Buzz for Mobile Too Ambitious?

While there are advantages to using the location-sharing functionality of Buzz, the mobile application is bloated with features and will be a challenge for the average mobile user to grasp.

The mobile application is certainly a nice complement to the Gmail experience, providing a convenient way to follow along and contribute to conversations. As a location service, however, Buzz for Mobile is overly complex. For those of you who have latched on to the location-sharing trend, the advantages to transitioning your check-ins from more niche apps with built-in rewards to Buzz are nonexistent at present.

From Mashable: Google Buzz

I woke up to find the Web a-buzz about Google Buzz, see below what seems to me like a blow-by-blow recount by Ben Parr of Mashable of the announcement.

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Google Goes Social with Google Buzz

by Ben Parr | from Mashable

It’s official: Google has just announced Google Buzz, its newest push into the social media foray. This confirms earlier reports of Gmail integrating a social status feature.

On stage revealing the new product was Bradley Horowitz, Google’s vice president for product management. While introducing the product, Mr. Horowitz focused on the human penchant for sharing experiences and the social media phenomenon of wanting to share it in real time. These two key themes were core philosophies behind Google Buzz.

“It’s becoming harder and harder to find signal in the noise,” Bradley stated before introducing the product manager for Google Buzz, Todd Jackson.

Google Buzz: The Details

- Mr. Jackson introduced “a new way to communicate within Gmail.” It’s “an entire new world within Gmail.” Then he introduced the five key features that define Google Buzz:

- Key feature #1: Auto-following

- Key feature #2: Rich, fast sharing experience

- Key feature #3: Public and private sharing

- Key feature #4: Inbox integration

- Key feature #5: Just the good stuff

- Google then began the demo. Once you log into Gmail, you’ll be greeted wiht a splash page introducing Google Buzz.

- There is a tab right under the inbox, labeled “Buzz”

- It provides links to websites, content from around the web. Picasa, Twitter, Flickr and other sites are aggregated.

- It shows thumbnails when linked to photos from sites like Picasa and Flickr. Clicking on an image will blow up the images to almost the entire browser, making them easier to see.

- It uses the same keyboard shortcuts as Gmail. This makes sense. Hitting “R” allows you to comment/reply to a buzz post, for example.

- There are public and private settings for different posts. You can post updates to specific contact groups. This is a lot like Facebook friend lists.

- Google wants to make sure you don’t miss comments, so it has a system to send you an e-mail letting you know about updates. However, the e-mail will actually show you the Buzz you’ve created and all of the comments and images associated with it.

- Comments update in real time.

- @replies are supported, just like Twitter. If you @reply someone, it will send a buzz toward an individual’s inbox.

- Google Buzz has a “recommended” feature that will show buzzes from people you don’t follow if your friends are sharing or commenting on that person’s buzz. You can remove it or change this in settings.

- Google is now speaking about using algorithms to help filter conversations, as well as mobile devices related to Buzz.

The Mobile Aspect

- Google buzz will be accessible via mobile in three ways: from Google Mobile’s website, from Buzz.Google.com (iPhone and Android), and from Google Mobile Maps.

- Buzz knows wher you are. It will figure out what building you are and ask you if it’s right.

- Buzz has voice recognition and posts it right onto your buzz in real-time. It also geotags your buzz posts.

- Place pages integrate Buzz.

- In the mobile interface, you can click “nearby” and see what people are saying nearby. NIFTY, if I say so myself.

- You can layer Google Maps with Buzz. You can also associate pictures with buzz within Google Maps.

- Conversation bubbles will appear on your Google Maps. They are geotagged buzz posts, which lets you see what people are saying nearby.

- They just showed off a video for Buzz. We’ll have it up soon.

The Third Act

- Google’s philosophy on social is this: It wants buzz to be the paragon and poster child for creating a social destination in an open environment that adheres to open standards.

- It’s launching at 11:00 a.m. PT in its first wave.

Similar Images: Search Beyond Keywords (From AdAge Digital)

What if you could use Google search to find a crime suspect by using a composite drawing created from witness accounts? What if you can find using Google the artist or photographer of a beautiful picture you got from somewhere? What if you can easily check online on Google if your copywrited photo or logo is being used elsewhere on the Web? 

Today, you can't quite yet. But maybe soon. Google is starting to go beyond keywords to do search. The article below describes Similar Images, a developmental feature of Google search that uses image-recognition technology to refine searches. It doesn't elminate yet the need for the right keywords but it's a good start. Imagine when you didnt need to have a good handle on language (and keywords) to find what you were looking for online. How will search optimization be done when that happens?

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How to Search Without Words

Google's Newest Tool Shows Search Still Evolving

Posted by Hashem Bajwa on 04.22.09 @ 02:46 PM

Hashem Bajwa

Google Labs this week launched a new product called Similar Images, which allows users to search for images using others images instead of words. Until now searching for images with Google meant using text entered into a search bar to describe things, the results of which are only as descriptive as the words entered into the query and the words found on the page where the image is indexed by Google.

Google Similar Images changes that. With this feature, after entering in what one is looking for, the results all have a link below them that will find other images like that one. It uses image recognition technology to read the image and match it to others.

Another example of this is TinEye, a search engine that lets you upload your own image and then it matches it to other images on the web including ones that have been highly distorted or edited.

An important thing about both examples is that search is still evolving and even with Google's dominance there are new innovations to come. It also shows image recognition can be used accurately on a large scale when combined with search.

Here's an example of Google Similar Images at work:

When searching for "paris" one will get results for everything from the Eiffel Tower to Paris Hilton. After clicking the "Similar Images" link underneath one of those image results it will refine the results to just images that match that one specifically. Google Images also has a feature that will then display those photos according to whatever color is chosen.

~~~
Hashem Bajwa is digital strategy director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco. He also writes the Brain Sells Blog.

From AdAge Digital: Google vs. Ad Agencies

Looking at the future of advertising in the digital world, one would start thinking: What will be the role of ad agencies then? Why will advertisers contract the services of the ad agency when Google seems to be providing a lot of these services for free?

Google and leaders of the online space are starting to commoditize marketing communications delivery to consumers: Anyone willing to learn how to use the appropriate service can create marketing communications and serve it up on websites. Anyone can create a Facebook page for a brand and fill it with content. And ideas, more than ever, are not owned by ad agencies especially in this age of co-creation and integrated marketing communication where ideas are passed across consumers, marketers, agencies, and everyone else.

And advertisers are starting to refuse to pay for ideas. They only want to pay for work that they feel they cannot do themselves. Even if they wouldn't have been able to do it themselves, either because they really don't know how to do it well, or they really don't have the time, hands or feet to accomplish it.

But enough on griping about this reality. The onus is for ad agencies to evolve. We need to change business models. We need to challenge what value we bring to our clients' businesses. We need to find our new unique role in this digital world.

I don't have all the answers, but I'm constantly working on finding some answers. Maybe Google has at least some of them, as this interview from AdAge Digital with Jeff Jarvis, author of new book, "What Would Google Do?"

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How Google is Changing Advertising Agencies

Jeff Jarvis Suggests Asking "What Would Google Do?"

By Steve Rubel 

Published: April 02, 2009

In just a little over 10 years, Google has built a business that is impossible not to admire. In fact, its success begs the question -- what would Google do (WWGD)?

Jeff Jarvis

Media pundit and thinker Jeff Jarvis tackles this question head on with a new book by the same title. In "What Would Google Do?," Jarvis breaks down Google's practices into 12 distinct rules and then applies them to aging industries like media and advertising.

I interviewed Jeff by email on Google's model to get his thoughts.

Steve Rubel: Since you titled the book with a provocative question, I will start the same way. If Google were an ad agency, What Would Google Do? How would they run it?

Jeff Jarvis: I'd say we already know: Google is a new form of agency-as-platform.

As Publicis' Rishad Tobaccowala pointed out in my book, Google served an entirely new population of advertisers who didn't have agencies and that enabled it to set new rules. Google sells performance instead of scarcity (a lesson the rest of media must learn in this post-scarcity economy). Because it rewards relevance, it encourages better, more effective advertising.

Through search, Google enables any brand to speak with customers without advertising. Google still does business with the agencies, of course, because they hold the checkbook -- and that is delaying the tectonic change that will come to advertising as it has to music, newspapers, TV, and radio. It's coming.

Mr. Rubel: A book, however, is very un-Google, as you noted in several places throughout. It's ranking well on Amazon. How did you apply the lessons in WWGD to the way you wrote/marketed the book and what can digital marketers learn from your experience?

Mr. Jarvis: As I write this, the book is up in the 500 range (on Amazon) and, of course, I hope this Ad Age coverage gets it back up to at least 100!

I do confess that in seeking this old-media attention and in publishing an old-media book -- instead of just putting it all online, where it would be searchable, linkable, correctable -- I am a hypocrite. I did not eat my own dog food. Why? Because the book industry still works well enough to pay me an advance. Dog's gotta eat, you know.

My publisher, HarperCollins, is trying many new things. They had me produce a 23-minute, sitcom-length video version of the book. We put full text of the book online (in a widget that that Google can't search). I shared 30 days worth of excerpts on my blog. Most important, the book began on my blog a few years before it was published -- as I explored ideas there and got help, even an entire chapter, from my readers -- and the discussion continues there and in Twitter now (I love seeing readers tweet their reviews and quotes).

Mr. Rubel: In the book you stress Google's relentless focus on the consumer. And you wonder whether focusing on the consumer over the client makes more sense. Isn't this what ad agencies already do? And if not, what needs to change?

Mr. Jarvis: In the book, I quote an Australian ad exec saying that agencies should pay attention to clients instead of consumers. Then I quote the ever-quotable Toboccawala saying that agencies should focus instead on their customers' customers. I'd vote for the latter. The real question is whether agencies -- ad or PR -- can truly act as consumers' advocates. If a company has great customer service, do customers need advocates?

Mr. Rubel: Are customer service and peer-to-peer advocacy the new advertising? And if so, how does that change the ad industry?

Mr. Jarvis: Advertising is failure.

If you have a great product or service customers sell for you and a great relationship with those customers, you don't need to advertise.

OK, that's going too far. There is still a need to advertise -- because customers don't know about your product or a change in it or because, in the case of Apple, you want to add a gloss to the product and its customers. But in the book, I suggest that marketers should imagine stopping all advertising and then ask where they would spend their first dollar.

In an age when competition and pricing are opened up online and when your product is your ad, you need to spend your first dollar on the quality of your product or service. If you're Zappos, you spend the next dollar on customer service and call that marketing. If the next dollar goes to advertising, there has to be a reason -- and if the product is good enough, that reason may fade away.

Mr. Rubel: You also talk a lot about transparency. Google, however, isn't the most transparent company. What does the ad industry need to change here?

Mr. Jarvis: Google is not perfect. It expects us all to be transparent -- so we can be found in search, so we can benefit from our Googlejuice. But Google is not sufficiently transparent about its ad splits or its Google News sources. So, as our parents would say, this may be a case of doing what Google says more than what it does.

Online, it only makes sense to be as open as possible, to have answers to every possible customer question online, to join in conversations with customers as people rather than institutions. Transparency leads to trust. Transparency is just good business.

Mr. Rubel: How does WWGD apply to b-to-b marketing?

Mr. Jarvis: Customers are customers, communities are communities. In the mass of niches, there's nothing to stop every community -- moms or plumbers or chemical engineers -- from joining together online and sharing their knowledge and interests. See the success of blogs such as TechCrunch and PaidContent with targeted B-to-B content, advertising, job boards, and events. In the highly specialized world of online media, B-to-B represents a big opportunity.

Mr. Rubel: If Google were a Super Bowl ad, what would it look like?

Mr. Jarvis: It wouldn't. Google does not treat us as a mass. And it has better ways to spend its money.

Mr. Rubel: Can advertising become a platform?

Mr. Jarvis: In a sense, Google is that. It provides the means for anyone to reach anyone, whether through ads or through their own sites and conversation. This, I believe, is Google's greatest lesson for media, advertising, marketers, as well as government: provide a platform for your customers and communities to succeed and you, too, will succeed.

Is that advertising? Well, if we redefine advertising, it might be. Most every company and brand can become platforms for their customers and except for the means to accomplish that, there's nothing new in this. A great company always helps its customers do what they want to do. That's a platform.

Mr. Rubel: What parts of the advertising assembly line (e.g. research, creative, media buying, PR, direct, digital, etc.) has the greatest risk of getting Googled or the greatest opportunity to become Googled -- and why?

Mr. Jarvis: Everything is changed by the Internet, and not just by Google, of course: We have more means to learn more about customers today than focus groups or certainly panels, ratings, and samples ever told us.

Customers make the best creative when and if they recommend and talk about products. Media buying, I believe, will morph into network creation; in a mass of niches, there's opportunity in curating those niches to create critical mass and that work is being done today not so much by agencies but by technology, media, and network companies. PR becomes everyone's business in a company, which must have direct relationships with the public, person-to-person. Direct? The Internet is direct and we're still not done with the argument over whether it is anything more.

Everything in marketing is changed.

Mr. Rubel: Finally, in the book you wrote that "The agency and the advertising need to get out of the way in the relationship between customers and companies." This seems like it's an endorsement for public relations -- if it's done in such a manner. Yet, you are sour on PR and lump its future as questionable with the legal profession. Why? And what needs to change?

Mr. Jarvis: Though they can and certainly do use the Internet to improve their businesses, PR and law can't take on all the attributes of the open age because they serve clients and thus can't be transparent or consistent. The true test of a firm's willingness to prove me wrong would be firing a client that doesn't act Googley. I don't see that happening often.

Having said that, I know what you're fishing for here: If -- in my radical oversimplification -- advertising is failure and relationships are everything, is PR in a better position strategically than advertising?

Well, maybe, but there is this: A company and its employees must cultivate direct relationships with customers and communities without middlemen. So what is the role of the PR agency? It can advise and goad a company to build those relationships. But then, like a good consultant, it needs to get out of the way, to leave. I doubt we'll see that, either. The economics of agencies are built on getting clients to spend more, of course. So the real question is whether new economic models can support both agencies and Googlethink.

From AdAge Digital: Twitter Twits as Google Ads?

Google AdSense mashup with Twitter -- ooh, interesting. Talk about taking contextual text ads to the next level.

Enjoy reading!

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Google Uses Twitter to Sell Ads

Intuit Is First Marketer to Have Its Tweets Streamed Across 

AdSense Network

by Abbey Klaassen 

Published: April 02, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Twitter may still be tweaking its own business model, but Google has found a way to use the popular microblogging service to sell ads.

When a user clicks on an ad from Google, it takes them to TurboTax's Twitter page.

The search giant has started offering marketers ad units that stream their five most recent "tweets" across the Google AdSense network. The first marketer to use the ad units is Intuit, whose TurboTax brand is trying to boost its Twitter followers. Intuit used several of the measures available for any AdSense campaign to target the ads, which are running on sites such as Bebo, Facebook, Hi5, MySpace and Alltop.

"It's syndicating whatever the team that works on the TurboTax Twitter account [@turbotax] posts," said Seth Greenberg, director of marketing at Intuit. When a user clicks on an ad it takes them not to TurboTax.com but to twitter.com/turbotax.

'Conversational vehicle'
The deal with Google also expands the audience for TurboTax's Twitter presence as the ads are syndicated it across the web. After all, while Twitter is growing and had about 7 million unique visitors in February, Nielsen NetView pegs the active digital media universe as 167 million people.

"We could have used this as an acquisition vehicle, but we're looking at it more like a conversational vehicle," Mr. Greenberg said. We're measuring this [in part by] how many followers can we get. Can we get to 100,000 by allowing people to know we're a resource? We're not going to hard sell you on the product, but we want people to know there are lots of people here who can help answer your questions."

The ability to put real-time feeds and data into ad units has existed for years, but one of the technological limitations of this particular execution was that users can't actually click on links that are included in the "tweets," or posts by users. Right now, the feed only pulls from TurboTax's Twitter account, rather than pulling a stream of tweets that mention the brand or tax-related issues. A Google spokesman said it is doing "limited" tests with a "small number of advertisers and publishers."

Not exactly a new concept
The concept of aggregating tweets and syndicating them on web pages isn't new, either, although it's more commonly seen on an individual's blog or other content-based websites than it is within paid-media placements. There are several widgets, blogging tools and independent third-party apps that can be placed on a website or blog to stream tweets organized by user, hashtag or keyword. Earlier this week, Glam Media launched an offering called Tinker.com, which lets advertisers buy ads around events or conversations. For examples, a retailer could buy all Twitter conversations around the Oscars, and those Twitter conversations -- along with the ad -- would show up on sites Glam Publisher Network.

The TurboTax ads are running during the last two weeks of tax season -- crunch time for tax-prep marketers. According to TNS Media Intelligence, Intuit's tax brand spends more than $100 million in 10 weeks. Intuit did not disclose how much it spent on this particular buy or whether the unit was sold at a premium ad rate.

TurboTax spokeswoman Colleen Gatlin mans the Twitter account, along with her public-relations team and Christine Morrison, social-marketing manager at the company. She considers them "enablers" -- they get people's questions to the folks who can provide answers. There are many reasons why the company is on Twitter, she said, but one big reason is that the microblogging site humanizes the brand.

Network effect
"We're raising awareness in the social community that we're here helping consumers," she said. "We make changes based on customer feedback, we're learning about the process."

Mr. Greenberg said he's still trying to work out exactly what a Twitter follower is worth from a marketing point of view, such as whether people have a greater propensity to become a customer when they're following a brand on Twitter or how valuable those customers are. But he's sure one of the advantages to the tool is its network effect.

"We're doing research about people who engage with us but also more interesting are their friends and followers," he said. "People can influence others in their own networks."