Wow - now you can do a Google Hangout On Air (a live video broadcast) for up to 8 hours! That's a huge amount of additional time from the previous 1-hour-maximum you had. And remember: up to 8 hours means just that - you don't have to do 8 whole hours. Oh what possibilities! Here are just 4: A live idea-a-thon to flesh out thinking and ideas for brand engagement via live participation with brand owners, customers and fans on the social web. Live segments over a set period with … [Read more...] about More possibilities with extended-time live video from Google+
Experimenting
Is a (search) picture worth a thousand words?
I've been having some fun this morning with Jelly. Jelly is a new mobile search service announced yesterday that works via apps for Android and iOS. The company was co-founded by Biz Stone, one of the original founders of Twitter. So what is Jelly? In a nutshell, it's an app you use to ask a question about something, such as the one about Starbucks mugs you see in the screenshot, where you show a photo of a mug you take with your phone's camera. You ask the question of those in your … [Read more...] about Is a (search) picture worth a thousand words?
Get used to “Ok Google”
Earlier this year, Google announced a new feature for search - conduct a search with your voice in the Chrome browser. To conduct a conversational search, you'd fire up Google Search; if you saw a little microphone symbol in the search box, you could click on it to activate the function, and then speak your search phrase in conversational English (or any of the other supported languages). When I tried it in May, I thought it was a bold step by Google in making everything easier in how you … [Read more...] about Get used to “Ok Google”
Google Quickoffice just upset the Microsoft Office mobile cart
The news from Google that they have released Quickoffice, their Microsoft Office competitor, for free immediately gave me my headline for this post. […] With Quickoffice, you can edit Microsoft® Office documents across your devices, giving you the freedom to work with anyone no matter what hardware or software they’re using. Quickoffice also integrates seamlessly with Google Drive storage so you can safely access your files from anywhere. Not everyone agrees with my cart metaphor. On … [Read more...] about Google Quickoffice just upset the Microsoft Office mobile cart
Tweets that self-destruct
I guess it's inevitable that everyone reporting on Spirit for Twitter likens its self-destructing tweet service to SnapChat, the mobile app for real-time picture and video messaging that self-destruct after a sender-defined time, up to ten seconds. Spirit is similar in outcome - tweets you send that you mark with a certain hashtag will automatically delete themselves after the set time has passed. You get a lot more time flexibility than just ten seconds though: minutes, hours and … [Read more...] about Tweets that self-destruct
Connecting content and the social conversations
A topic Shel and I discuss in this week's FIR podcast episode 715 is commenting on blogs. More specifically, about the conversation that can happen in response to a post someone writes and publishes on a blog, and where the conversation actually takes place. Increasingly, it's not on the blog itself - it's on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, anywhere across the social web except in the comments section of the blog post that prompted someone to add their two pence-worth. Here's an example: … [Read more...] about Connecting content and the social conversations
Vine comes to Android
With some fanfare in the tech press, hot video app Vine made its debut today on Android devices. Until now, the popular Twitter-owned app has been available only for Apple devices. There's no doubt that Vine has captured imaginations worldwide since it launched in January, just four months ago. In that short time, it's acquired over 13 million users who have published millions of 6-second looping video clips they created on their iPhones and iPads. Among those millions of clips are some … [Read more...] about Vine comes to Android
Google conversational search is a bold leap forward
The first thought that crossed my mind when I tried out Google's new "conversational search" functionality in the latest version of its desktop Chrome browser was Star Trek. You don't have to be a huge fan of the sci-fi TV series (and films) to remember the ways in which Captain Kirk (Picard, Janeway, etc) did search or asked a question. "Computer?" they'd start saying, and then speak. That also reminds me of the rudimentary speech commands with the first-generation Kinect for the Xbox. … [Read more...] about Google conversational search is a bold leap forward