Google Turns Image Search Into Pinterest With New “Collections” Feature

“Watch out, Pinterest, you’ve got new competition. Google has now rolled out a new feature on its search engine that offers users an easy way to save to save images they find to collections they can reference at a later time.”

To do this, users will have to be logged into their google accounts, and Collections will therefore add to the richness of the Google+ social network.  Collections is simpler than Pinterest, and only involves archiving images from Google search rather than fostering a larger online community like Pinterest.  However, this could be more appealing to certain audiences. 

Currently, Collections is only available on mobile devices in the US. 

Click here fore the article.

Not Into The Hearts? Twitter Appears To Be Testing Multi-Emoji Reactions

As Professor Kagan mentioned in class week, Twitter replaced "starring" tweets with "hearting" them recently.  Today, Twitter is letting users experiment with responding to tweets using different emojis, in addition to the heart option.  Does this let users express themselves more, or less?  While emojis probably provide more context than a heart, it may replace writing out meaningful responses to tweets in many cases (which is difficult enough with only 140 characters).  Twitter has publicly stated that it's trying to make the user experience more simple, but do added emojis make it more confusing?  The jury is still out on how this is being received by users, as twitter has not provided commentary on this yet.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/16/not-into-the-hearts-twitter-appears-to-be-testing-multi-emoji-reactions/

Gett, On A Mission To Take Down Uber, Launches “Surge Sucks” Campaign

Gett, a competitor of Uber, is one of many ride-sharing platforms that is trying to undercut Uber on pricing.  However, it's doing so in a very creative way.  In it's new marketing campaign, Gett seeks to highlight a key differentiating factor from Uber- no surge pricing.  In order to get customers' attention, Gett's new "Surge Sucks!" campaign has its own website that enables users to forward their Uber receipts from NYC surge pricing trips, and in exchange receive credit to use on Gett rides equal to the value of the additional price paid for the surge pricing.  I thought that this was a very creative and interesting campaign and that you all might be able to benefit from it!  If you are interested in getting your money back from a surge trip, visit http://surgesucks.com/.  If you're interested in reading more about this, see the TechCrunch article.

How To Win A U.S. Election With Digital Marketing

When we think of marketing, especially digital marketing, we typically think of it in the scope of products and services.  However, digital marketing also has the potential to play a huge role in presidential elections in this day and age.  Ben Carson’s campaign strategy, for example, relies heavily on facebook to draw in voters.  His page has more than four million followers, and he runs scores of facebook ads targeted toward different subsets of votes.  The techcrunch article, “How to Win a U.S. Election with Digital Marketing” outlines an ideal digital marketing strategy that should be implemented to maximize votes.  

First, voters should receive a tailored message, based on demographics and location, potentially all the way down to zip code.  “For example, Steven in New York will receive the message about how important being pro-abortion is to the candidate, and James in Texas will receive the message that the candidate believes that creating jobs is the most important policy they can present.”  

The article goes on to say, “The best place to begin is with basic display (visual) banners or Facebook newsfeed posts, followed by tailored videos, one for each type of voter, state, city, etc.  Have the candidate create a video for each topic that is important to voters or trending in the upcoming election, then create YouTube campaigns to feature the videos before every video on YouTube with a related topic. For example, if the topic is healthcare, a video about how the candidate plans to improve healthcare will show up before every video on YouTube about Obamacare, treating illness, health tips, etc. People who are actively looking to watch videos on those topics will see the candidate’s video.”

 

http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/27/how-to-win-a-u-s-election-with-digital-marketing/

Apple Approves An App That Blocks Ads In Native Apps, Including Apple News

Apple has approved an app called Been Choice, the first app to block advertisements in native apps including Facebook, Pinterest, Pandora and even Apple's own Apple News app.  Apple has yet to comment on whether approving Been Choice was an accident or was a way for the company to publicly commit to defending its customers best interests, even when this might hurt its own bottom line.  

An interesting feature of Been Choice is that users can switch between ad blocking mode and earn mode, in which users volunteer their data to the app and earn money in their paypal accounts in exchange.  

http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/06/apple-approves-an-app-that-blocks-ads-in-native-apps-including-apple-news/

Snapchat Starts Charging $0.99 For 3 Replays, Adds Face Effect “Lenses”

Snapchat is debuting it's first ever in-app purchase, adding a second source of revenue.  Until now, the app's only revenue has come from advertisements.  Users can now purchase extra replays of snaps ($0.99 for 3 replays).  While this is an excellent way to further monetize the popular app, it also sacrifices some of the ephemerality of the app, which could discourage people from using it as often.

Snapchat is also adding a new free feature in an effort to keep the app fresh.  The "lense" feature will detect faces when taking a snap in selfie mode and enable the user to add graphic overlays.  For example, if you lift your eyebrows, the app will automatically turn your eyes into hearts.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/15/snapchat-starts-charging-0-99-for-3-replays-adds-face-effect-lenses/

Facebook’s Messenger And The Challenge To Google’s Search Dominance

The techcrunch article link below expands on our class discussion about the increased capabilities of Facebook Messenger to know where, when and what you are doing in order to tailor its advertisements and services to your desires.  The personal assistant service that Facebook recently announed, M, poses a threat to search engines.  If M is scaled up and refined to predict all of your needs, you will never need to search for links to sites again.

"If you can simply tell a digital assistant to buy you tickets to a movie, order you a pizza, schedule a car repair, or even get you an insurance quote, there’s no longer any need to click a link or navigate to a webpage.  Without a page of links between your intent and the transaction, there’s nowhere for AdWords to show up!  The whole model of search changes forever."

http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/07/facebooks-messenger-and-the-challenge-to-googles-search-dominance/