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 Libby.
1. Goodbye Google+ (as we know it)
The ghost town that is Google+ is set to become three entities: Photos, Streams and Hangouts. Google Photos will allow users access to the editing tools and backing-up functionality we saw in G+, but without having to actually have a G+ account or profile. Google Streams is going to be what Google+ is now but with the added News and Blogger. Google Hangouts has been a stand alone product for yonks, and is popular for hosting meetings, setting up screen shares, and recording videos straight to YouTube. During his talk at the Mobile World Congress, Sundar Pichai, Senior VP of Products at Google said this of Hangouts:
“…we’re going to put more energy into it. We’re seeing good traction there and so we’ll work hard to get to the next stage.”
G+ may have been a bit of a joke, but three different apps now targeting three different audiences could mean three separate successes.
2. Queues outside Apple Stores due next month
The Apple Watch will be available in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the United States and the UK as of 24th April.
You can go read about the spec and straps on numerous sites and probably balk at some of the prices too…
As well as an empty wallet, other side effects of owning an apple watch include:
- Never, ever looking at your phone
- Paying for stuff with your wrist
- Remembering everything
- Knowing the time
- Trypophobia
Pre-orders will be taken for the Apple Watch, from 10th April.
3. Climb-Online.co.uk is born
Back in December, Joe gave his two pennies’ worth after watching the final of The Apprentice. Well, the new site’s now live; 13 pages of light content, long descriptions, sub-standard navigation and a well weird Hamburger menu. Check the SEOs on the “Organic Climber” page too:
ANYway, should we really be surprised? I think many of us were of the opinion that there may be a fundamental lack of understanding of SEO and PPC here… Zero online presence post-The Apprentice, a pretty sucky holding page and some funky linkbuilding tactics certainly indicates gaps in knowledge. Climb-online don’t seem to have benefitted much from their telly coverage, however other agencies have been commended for their bordering on genius:
Read the article here.
4. The future of your country – there’s an app for that
ComRes interviewed 6,345 18-24 year olds for Newsbeat during February and found that 47% will definitely vote or are “very likely to vote” while 15% said they definitely won’t or are “very unlikely to vote”.
Interestingly, 63% of young voters said they would vote if they could do it online or use an app. John Bercow stated
“There will be a growing appetite for online voting and that it will happen. Now I don’t mean by that that it will necessarily at any stage be compulsory to vote in that way.
But I think that the notion that, if it can be established as secure and reliable people should have the option to vote online, will gain ground more and more and more.”
Could 2020 be the year of the online vote?
5. Honouring #YourMum with Penguin this Mothering Sunday
Another day, another disastrous hashtag. Or so it would seem. It started with Penguin Books UK asking “What are you getting #YourMum?” for Mother’s Day, in order to help its followers choose the perfect literary gift. Twitter quickly took the playground route and the ‘Your Mum’ jokes began…
This is one of the more SFW examples of the hashtag hi-jack. This doozie from the brilliant @Pundamentalism is getting a little more risqué but if you’re looking for megalolz that border on offensive, I suggest you checkout the hashtag for yourself.
Of course, the sceptics claim this was simply another PR stunt and you might agree. After all, the campaign’s seen coverage from the likes of The Independent, The Poke and now Browser Media too – well played, Penguin.
