Brand: google

Google offers American BlackBerry users the ability to search through Google Maps Mobile using voice commands. How it works is simple. By pressing 0 the map centers around the location of the user. By pressing a special button the user can pronounce the business or the name of the business (for example 'ATM' or 'cash machine'). After releasing, Google gets to work.

Since recently, Google has a new favicon, a small icon that appears in the address bar of the browser, that's shown if you've added Google to your favorites. It seems a little clumsily designed and there's been quite some debating on the web. Now Google has invited people to contribute themselves: design the Google Favicon!

Through a context for East-African students, Google has developed new gadgets, small pieces of software with which users can share things (such as movies, games or information) on their weblog. It's expected that this will lead to locally applicable gadgets that help the community. The first prize is $600 and the 2nd to 6th prize winners get $350 each.

Google starts a trial project giving out free voice mail numbers to the homeless in San Francisco. This voice mail number can be used as a call-back number for job applications, or for doctors and hospitals to keep in touch with their patient. If the project proves to be a success, Google wants to spread this service to other American cities (dc, Dutch). What a great example of socially responsible business. This is the brand coming out in its purest form. In this process the burden between manufacturer and consumer completely disappears, working transparently is second nature, and the brand more or less integrates in society. To operate responsibly, these brands make sure everyone benefits, and they use their core competences to help the weakest people in society. Socially responsible business is not about ‘look how green we are’, and then follow a new trend the next year. That is just responding to a societal (media) trend. No, socially responsible business is about the long term process of change in organizations, which after all is the only survival process. Google gives a great example here.

Google gets better at understanding what you mean if you type in a search word, and has advertisers react to this. Using the so-called Expanded Broad Matching, queries are changed in variations. For example: Chogogo Beach Resort -> Vacation Curacao, Holiday park Netherlands-> Holiday park and Vacation -> Turkey (mf, Dutch).

Brands thus start to better understand what we mean. Now through lose words, but soon they will be placed in a personal context: where are you, what are you doing, and what have you asked earlier? In the end it is all about answering the consumer’s question. After all, the consumer is not interested in the search but more in the answer to a question. The purchase of the query ‘vacation’ by a Turkey specialist might be relevant for the advertiser, but not always for the consumer. The consumer soon will rather go to a vacation specialist, a personal holiday brand, and gets a better answer to his or her question there. Even if it’s just because this type of brands know if you are on vacation right now or have just come back, and where you have been before. For that to happen the technology for smart interpreting of questions has to develop further first, and that is what we see happening here.

Google’s personal homepage, iGoogle, now is also available on mobile phones (dc, Dutch). All brands soon will be found on all possible screens, and they will adapt to size, interactive possibilities, and mobility. Those will soon be the new parameters for media (instead of radio, TV or internet).

Google integrates consumer profiles it earlier made for Google’s social network Orkut, Google’s weblog environment Blogger and Google Groups. YouTube will follow undoubtedly. With their profile, consumers can also place a picture. Then, based on this one profile, they can use all services under the same name. If someone publishes something public, the pseudonym is published instead of the real name (dc, Dutch).

Brands will recognize people, irrespective of product groups. A centrally operated CRM system with a central vision about consumer contact is necessary. New companies, based on IT, can easily make these kinds of changes. For existing companies, this is a little bit harder. In the end all brands will directly recognize us, and connect us to other people. Under our own name, or if we want under a pseudonym. Google takes the lead in this.

People who search in complicated databases at Google, see a branded search animation. Brands extend their visual identity more and more. With logo animations, with logo illustrations and also with this type of animated graphical devices. This animation is typical for Google. In a next step this type of animations will start to show personalities. The two o’s of Google for example could move around each other to show patience, irritation or relaxation. Google is ahead in using new visual characteristics. A lot more examples of other brands are to follow.

American readers now have the possibility to react to items from Google News. For the time being, only people or organizations involved in the article can react. To be able to react, people and organizations need to be registered, and Google checks them through domain name and/or e-mail address (dc, Dutch). Brands make it possible for consumers to react to items, to write reviews, and to rank reviews, and through that involve the consumer. More and more however they will check the consumer’s true identity. This way the value of the reviews gets higher though. The consumer will not be anonymous any more, but can still use a pseudonym. The brand however knows the real person behind the pseudonym. This is a small step in that direction.

Google now lets you search in foreign languages. If you type ‘wine tasting in Bordeaux’, you can search through French web sites, and get the results back in English (gb). Brands start speaking the consumer’s language. They understand the language, the word choices, and place them in their context. Google is still in the lead, but all brands will be able to do this sooner or later.

Google now remembers, besides your last search queries, also what web sites you have visited: the web history. Google uses this information to personalize search results (dc, Dutch). Brands are getting more personal and resume the dialogue where it stopped the last time. Google is pioneering in this. You will be able to ask Google where you have been. First online, and later also in the physical world. Computers are very good in remembering, whereas people tend to forget things every now and then. We like to leave remembering to technology. In the future we will find it normal for brands to remember every brand-consumer interaction, and share that knowledge with us. This is a small step in that direction.