Does Google ‘get’ gaming?
There has been quite a buzz about Google’s new augmented reality game “Ingress” [Google Play] which incidentally is a spin-off of the Android app “Field Trip” [Google Play] which are both from the Niantic Labs group over at Google.
If you’re not familiar with Field Trip, it’s essentially a location aware discovery app that utilizes your phone’s GPS and notifies you of nearby points of interest that are based on preferences you set within the app and populates those categories from different feeds.
Google doesn’t have a history of releasing successful games nor has anyone thought of the search giant as a game publisher. They however have a successful history with location based applications such as Google Maps and Google Local.
So does Google ‘get’ gaming or is it really that they get gamification?
Based on the available information about Ingress, the fact that it was spawned from Niantic Labs and a recent update to the Field Trip app that allows you to add a feed from the “Niantic Data Repository” under the Outdoor Art category.
(Screen capture from my Galaxy Nexus of the Outdoor Art category in Field Trip featuring the new feed from the Niantic Data Repository.)
I’m of the opinion that Google may have discovered a way to create a data collecting horde of users whom will not only go forth and populate a database with location based information, but will actually compete in doing so.
Personally, I think this is a brilliant idea both from a user standpoint but from a business standpoint as well. Not only will it cause people to get outside and exploring but it will also provide points of interest for Field Trip users that may have otherwise have never appeared on any POI map.
From the business standpoint, Google doesn’t have to try and give people monetary incentives to take photos and provide geographical locations as they once tried back in 2007 to have users take photos inside of businesses and gather additional business info such as operating hours and the ilk.
As of this writing, I have not received an invite to Ingress yet so I can’t comment on the actual game play itself, but as a Geocacher this type of game would be right up my alley. Let’s just hope after all the attention and viral buzz that Ingress can live up to the hype.
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Marketing and Design: Let’s Get on the Same Page.
Imagine if you’re definition of a plane or a tree or even a coffee mug was entirely different than someone else who speaks your native language and the confusion that ensues when you ask for a mug of coffee and instead receive a sneaker full of coffee.
I know I’m being very dramatic in my example but I’m trying to make a point how people who work in related industries should be using the same terms and correcting themselves even if they’ve been “calling it that for years” - that doesn’t make it correct or acceptable.
Over the past few years, I’ve noticed and up-tick in the number of professionals who work in the design, marketing, SEO and related fields using a number of terms incorrectly and often times interchangeably.
It’s often forgivable when a client does it since they either worked with an individual or agency in the past who was misinformed, or more likely they did some research on the internet which was either incorrect or they simply didn’t fully understand. Even Wikipedia has an incorrect definition of what a homepage actually is.
What’s most disturbing about this trend is when an “agency” that claims to specialize in Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and related analytics start using terms interchangeably or downright incorrectly.
I had the “pleasure” of working with such an agency whom would refer to the homepage as a landing page because they had several ad-word campaigns running that were all pointing to the homepage with the same exact content, which in itself was spider food and not written for human consumption.
I’ll save my rant about what a complete failure and terrible waste of money it was for another post.
To get to my point, I want to define these terms for the edification of all whom have been using them incorrectly or are working with agencies who really shouldn’t be providing services of which they clearly don’t understand. I’m not going to get into a deep definition and explain variants of these pages, but enough to clearly define the difference.
Here’s the biggest offenders I’ve found being used interchangeably -
Landing page
A single web page that appears in response to clicking on an advertisement. The landing page will usually display directed sales copy that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link. The general goal of a landing page is to convert site visitors into sales leads. By analyzing activity generated by the linked URL, marketers can use click-through rates and Conversion rate to determine the success of an advertisement.
Home page
The index or default webpage that loads when you arrive at the root url of a website. The home page (or homepage as it’s sometimes written) will generally contain content explaining the site if it is an informational website or perhaps display products for sale if it’s an eCommerce website. A website that contains more than one page will have navigational elements to lead you to other pages of the website.
Splash page
An introductory, beginning page on a website that generally uses Flash or another type of heavy graphics that usually has little value in SEO and can easily have no value to search engines but aesthetic value to human visitors. Often times these pages will lack navigation and will direct you to “Click here to enter” the website.
Start page
The default page your browser loads when it’s initially launched or when you hit the Home button on your browser. That fact alone lends itself to the confusion of the difference between a ‘home page’ and ‘start page’, especially since your start page is usually set to open to the homepage of a website.
If you’re designing, developing or marketing anything on or for the web, you should not be referring to the homepage of a website as the start page. Period. I implore you, please. As professionals, let’s better educate ourselves and each other.
About the author
Peter Yagmin is currently working as the Senior Web Developer for a Advertising and Design Agency North of Boston, Massachusetts. Pete has over 12 years experience as an IT professional working in every capacity from developing desktop and web based applications to designing for print and web in additon to related consulting services including Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing and is a Hubspot Certified Inbound Marketing Professional.
Google Voice Search Goes Apple
Google made an announcement today that reveals the search engine may be getting back to its roots and focusing more on its core business of search. It should be no surprise since Google’s primary revenue stream is derived from search.
Personally, I’m glad to see that Google is reigning itself in and refocusing its efforts. I’ve become increasingly concerned about the search giant since the Motorola mobility acquisition that they would become more like Microsoft and have a plethora of half-baked products they can barely support rather than focusing on a handful of core products.
The announcement came with a bit of a twist - Google Voice Search is coming to more mobile devices, but it’s not what you might think.
No, Google isn’t retro fitting the Voice Search app for devices not running Jellybean; in fact it’s moving it outside of Android and making a stand alone app for iOS.
Obviously this makes sense from Google’s point of view, putting their search into the hands of as many mobile users as possible, but at what cost? Many loyal Android users are no doubt going to have a range of emotions spanning from confusion to rage. My personal reaction to this was “Are you kidding me?!”
I’m trying to look at this objectively from Google’s point of view, but I think its important they not alienate their core user base as Android has recently taken a commanding lead in the smartphone market at a whopping 68%
How do you feel about Google’s bold move to bring it’s own voice assistant to the rival platform? Sound off in the comments below and tell me how you really feel!
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Verizon: Apathetic or just plain pathetic?
If you follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ you’ve likely seen me squawking about the Samsung Galaxy Nexus not receiving this fabled Android 4.1 update named Jellybean.” I say fabled not because I don’t believe it exists, but rather because waiting for the update to hit my phone seems like some sort of hellish fairy-tale written by the Brothers Grimm.”
The Galaxy Nexus phone and its operating system were developed collaboratively by engineers from both Google and Samsung and was released with the Android operating system, version 4.0, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich. The device made its debut in the United States on December 15, 2011 as the new flagship device from Google and is one of the few phones recommended by the Android Open Source Project for building Android from source.
As a flagship device, one would fully expect the Galaxy Nexus to be the first to receive the latest updates from Google much like the Motorola Xoom, which it fully does if you have a Google controlled device- and therein lies the rub. While I might own a Galaxy Nexus, it’s up to Verizon or your respective carrier to actually push the Over The Air (OTA) updates to the device.
Lost sales by design
I encountered the epitome of poor product package design today while browsing the electronics department of a big box store today. I overheard a man talking with his wife about a USB thumb drive and that he thought it was ‘for Mac only’ so I intervened to say that these types of devices are (or should be) operating system agnostic and if for any reason it did not read properly in his PC that he could format it by selecting the drive under ‘My Computer’ and selecting ‘format drive’.
I’m not sure if his looking me over was to determine if I worked there or looked like enough of a geek to know what I was talking about and I’m not sure if he actually bought the device, but after I looked at the product packaging, it was clear how he could have made the assumption that it was Mac only.
The package itself (seen below) is white and features a generic looking laptop, though it resembles a Mac book and no where on the package was there and indication or reassurance that this hardware was in fact PC or Mac compatible.
Of course I take this sort of thing for granted given my line of work and how long I’ve been exposed to computers and hardware and obviously so does someone along the process from the designer to the creative director.
There’s a fine line between making the customer feel stupid and giving them enough information for them to make an informed decision; they clearly missed the mark on this one as was witnessed first hand today. From as simple as putting 3 logos on the package (Apple, Windows and Android) or spelling it out, they could easily increase their revenue with a little reassurance.
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Is 2012 Year of the Android?
Android has long been treated as the red headed step-child of the mobile device world.
Those of us who have been using Android from the very beginning are used to having to wait for some new app that was just released for iOS, sometimes waiting months only to receive a half-baked, sometimes half-assed attempt at an Android app and be completely frustrated and disappointed over developers treating Android as an after thought.
This may be in part that iOS has enjoyed a massive lead in market share up until recently and developers looking to monetize are obviously going to focus efforts on the largest user base.
According to Gartner, Android’s share of the worldwide smartphone market is more than double what it was a year ago and it seems developers are finally starting to take note.
New data from independent research firm Ovum indicates that Android looks set to replace Apple’s iOS in terms of importance to developers within the next 12 months.
Does this mean as Android users we’ll finally get first crack at new apps before iOS? At the very least we can hope that major brands will make an effort to release an app on both platforms simultaneously and that independent developers who maybe can’t afford to take such a risk will see the benefit and will follow suit.
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One ROM to Rule Them All
Leading up to the release of Android 4 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich) there was a lot of talk about fragmentation and how ICS would unify the platform.
Personally I’ve never developed a strictly native Android app so I don’t know what kind of hurdles a developer might face, but there has not been many apps that I could only run on my Droid 2 Global (which incidentally is still on Android 2.2 or Froyo if you will) but not on my Honeycomb tablet.
The reverse isn’t true of course since I have an Acer Iconia A500 with the Tegra 2 processor, so obviously the difference is with the available hardware; not the operating system.
My time with ICS has been limited to playing with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus here and there that belongs to a fellow Android enthusiast I work with.
I’ll admit, I have phone envy. It’s a beautiful piece of hardware and Ice Cream Sandwich is smooth as butter. That being said, I’m not sure I want a tablet running ICS. Not in it’s current form at least.
Maybe I’m alone on this but, I like having a different version of Android on my phone than on my tablet for a very simple reason; my phone and my tablet have completely different purposes.
The fact that the iPhone and iPad have the same exact OS is absolutely revolting to me. With the release of Google’s new developers style guide, unifying the OS and defining what apps should look like, it feels more and more like we’re moving towards iOS.
The custom ROM community may be our only saving grace.
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This article was originally written for and published on Free Your Android. Read the original post at: http://www.freeyourandroid.com/inthenews/one-rom-to-rule-them-all
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Hybrid HTML5 Apps Are Less Costly to Develop Than Native
It seems like a fairly straightforward question: As a developer, business and enterprise, do I develop Web apps, native apps or some combination thereof? Answers to that question are anything but simple. Who is your target audience? What is the purpose of the app? There are a series of diverse questions that must be answered before jumping right into development.
Research firm Forrester, as is its wont to do, attempts to answer the question. Forrester’s answer? It’s complicated. The firm’s answer to Web v. Native has evolved since the middle of 2011 though. Last year, Forrester said to do both native and Web-based apps. At the beginning of 2012, the firm has changed its tune.
How to Earn Trust and Reputation in Social Media [VIDEO]
![How to Earn Trust and Reputation in Social Media [VIDEO]](http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/125,chris-brogan.jpg)
The tools may change but the goals are still the same. Chris Brogan, the best selling author of the books Trust Agents and Google+ for Business, reminds us that social business always has been and always will be about people. Digital technology is just a tool.
Android or iOS
Why can’t we agree to disagree?
While I’m sure there are detractors in both corners, I’ve always found that Apple fan boys are far more eager to tout how the i [ Fill in the blank ] already has/had/does something that Android doesn’t.
It reminds me of something I once heard regarding tattooed people vs non-tattooed people, in this case Android owners being the tattooed people. “Tattooed people don’t care if you don’t have a tattoo, but not vice versa.”
A majority of the people who like Android don’t care if your phone or tablet already had some feature or in your opinion does something better; we’re just happy that the system we’ve chosen to use does have a feature now or that an app is finally available that’s been on the iFruit for months.
If you use Apple products, then you’ve chosen to share the Jobs vision of having a certain experience; Android users are truly the ones who “think different”.
I can certainly appreciate the design aesthetic of Apple products and no one can deny that Steve Jobs was a brilliant man; I just don’t care for the Apple OS.
Gina Trapani recently tweeted “I use iOS and Android every single day, and there’s much to love and hate about both of them. #whateverworksforyou”
I completely agree. Use what you love and stop hating on the other platform. It’s great that we have our passions, but our love of technology should be a unifying thread, not a source for venomous remarks.
This article was originally written for and published on Free Your Android.
Read the original post at: http://www.freeyourandroid.com/inthenews/android-or-ios
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