• Android is becoming more prevalent in today’s society. Last year there were 400 million Android users. Now there are a massive 900 million.
• Google are improving their Play Store. It will work like the Game Center from Apple, allowing game saves across device and battles against your mates for the best score. Another cool feature is that you can start playing a game from your mobile phone, stop, and keep playing from another device such a tablet.
• Google officially announced their platform to compete against Spotify: Google Play Music All Access. It will be available for $9.99 a month in US (no UK pricing as of yet).
• Google Maps will experience big changes in terms of design but also in terms of PPC. Now search ads with location extension can appear directly on the map and just below the search box. Search ads without location extension can appear just below the search box.
• Google+ has a new design based on 3 key arenas: Stream, Hangouts and Photos. It looks more like Pinterest with 3 columns showing more information about the users. Also, they added these new Twitter-like functions:
o “Related hashtags”: a feature that allows users to browse through related photos by clicking on the current photo.
o “Intelligent hashtags”: Google analyses the photo and places a hashtag on the post. For instance, if you have a photo with the Big Ben in the background, your post will automatically contain the hashtag “bigben”.
• Google+ will be on an individual app for Android and iPhone. This application keeps all photos and texts that have been shared on a stream and allows having video conversations with a group of friends. Plus (pun intended), it will be the first time that Google brings Google Talk to iPhone devices.
• Google+ will automatically discard blurry and duplicated pictures. Photo enhancements such as removing red eyes or noise in photos will also be implemented.
• A Samsung Galaxy S4 model will be released with a “cleaner” version of the operating system, so without all the extra Samsung’s functions.
• Google Now (Siri’s competitor) is going to be improved. - set reminders, check public transport status and receive updates on TV shows. It will also have a desktop version for Chrome and will be hands-free too.
Finally, at the end of the conference, Larry Page showed up. He gave an amazing speech about the future of the technology, but also making clear that Google is more than just a search engine. He wants to change the world! You can watch Larry Page's speech here
You can watch the full Google I/O Conference here
Written by Marc Calvo Soler, Search Account Executive
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