Five things worth sharing from the last week or so, brought to you by a different member of the Browser Media team every Friday.
This week’s My Five is by Lisa.
1. Pinstagram Buy Buttons
This week saw two of our favourite image-focused social apps – Pinterest and Instagram – launching ‘Buy’ buttons in attempts to take on the mobile commerce market.
Online scrapbook, Pinterest has launched ‘buyable pins’, transforming users’ virtual wish lists into a purchased reality. People using the platform for inspiration, such as accessorising a vintage kitchen can now buy their favourite pinned products at the tap of a button, without even leaving the app. Users can also filter through buyable pins to find items in the right colour or price range, creating a speedy shopping experience, completely tailored to fit their own unique tastes.
In a similar move, Instagram is rolling out a ‘Buy’ button for its advertisers, to spur viewers to tap through and buy from their ecommerce site. This technology will automatically target users through their interests and demographics such as age, gender and location. Other call-to-action buttons are also being added, including ‘download now’ and ‘sign up now’, to help a whole host of businesses to market their brands and services through the app.
Whilst Pinterest’s button seems like a logical link between image and purchase, by targeting those who are possibly already considering buying something; I am unsure how Instagram’s offering will fit in with with users’ needs. In reality, they are just looking to catch up with friend’s photos, rather than buy into something – the consumer transition here seems slightly more tenuous.
2. Google Photos
Google wants to get to know us that little bit more, by encouraging users to sign up to the newly launched Google Photos app (separate to Google+), and reinvent the way we store, share, organise and edit our photos.
Users can snap happy thanks to unlimited storage space using cloud technology, and then easily find a particular picture with the super-smart photo-recognition technology by simply tapping in a clue about its content, without actually having to tag or label anything beforehand.
You might want to stay share-aware with this app though, as the current privacy policy for Google Photos suggests that this platform may well become another source of digital-spying technology, used to feed the targeted ad mechanisms, and “other Google services” .
3. Smart Jeans
As if the search-engine giant isn’t getting enough insight into your personal life already, Google now wants to get into your pants!
In a collaboration with American denim label, Levi’s, we’ll soon see a new concept revolutionise the wearable technology craze. Smart jeans will incorporate material known as Project Jacquard to enable wearers to interact with their smart phone and to complete tasks such as silencing a call, or pin a location, from a swipe or tap on the surface of their garment.
4. Calorie counting just got fun
Let’s face it, many of us are incapable of eating a fancy meal without sharing a snap of it all over our favourite social media platforms first. Eating and technology come hand in hand these days, and that is the thinking behind Google’s new ‘Im2Calories’ app. Simply take a picture of your breakfast, lunch, or dinner, add in a magic turn of events involving “sophisticated deep-learning algorithms”, and the app will tell you exactly (well almost exactly) how many calories you’re about to consume…. mmmmmm thanks for that! #FoodPorn.
5. Caitlyn Jenner
This week, Caitlyn Jenner – formally known as Bruce Jenner – smashed the world record for first person on Twitter to reach one million followers. @Caitlyn_Jenner reached the milestone in followers in just four hours, outshining US President Barack Obama’s @POTUS Twitter Handle, which broke the existing record just two weeks ago, with a time of five hours.
– Now, that’s how you really break the internet, Kim Kardashian.
