Why would google do such a thing? analysts have had mix reviews of its effort: Some say its just an attempt to add more users (still lagging behind Live) while others mention its a way add google accounts and maybe G+ users.
I think the answer is more of the latter. Google is becoming more and more integrated, gathering bits and pieces of your preferences including location (maps), interests (search, email), friends and contacts (gmail, G+). Eventually, I think all these bits of data will be used to make its core search business more relevant and drive more advertising revenue.
Check out the campaign here:
2 comments:
I agree with your assessment that this new campaign is a way of finding new Google+ users. The video is particularly interesting in that it seeks to make using Gmail the normative thing to do, and suggests that certain email addresses can actually be embarrassing.
This form of social positioning seems to be a direct target at Facebook. In addition to having the most users, Facebook is currently perceived as the most socially acceptable social network, i.e. "coolest" network. By positioning Gmail as the most socially acceptable email available, Google may have a good shot at aggregating users who will ideally find using Google+ more convenient given the integrative nature of Google products.
Building further on that point, Gmail is currently the cool email platform. This forms the center of their application pool and once you are set on having Gmail for your email, you are very easily able to embrace other Google features such as Google doc, Google reader, Google's photo sharing software Picassa and therefore have you using the Google suite for products for everything. The next step will have you seamlessly integrate into Google+ and therefore entice you into their world. So by Google leveraging their strongest coolest feature in its Gmail, users are locked into the Google family.
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