Google Glass: The First Stage of Something Bigger?

It occurs to me that Google Glass (or any technology) is a lot like a single-celled organism. It might sound like a strange analogy at first, but there is a lot of merit to the comparison. The most complex organisms on the planet are a result of single celled organisms interacting with one another and exchanging code. After a series of interactions and some time, those single celled organisms turned into all the life we see around us.

If Google Glass is considered a single-celled organism, it is in its earliest stage of development. While there is no shortage of neat uses, Google Glass might be the first stage of a much more impressive being.

An opinion piece on Mashable seemed to echo a few of my own thoughts. It opens up acknowledging that the Google Glass is under criticism and in some cases outright discrimination. However, the point is made that many gizmos and gadgets were a laughable concept at their inception. Remember the huge mobile telephone of the 90’s? I think that caught on after a couple of tweaks.

Google Glass might be a laughable concept now because it hasn’t even been given a real opportunity. The inhibitive cost is sure to hurt a lot of would-be Google Glass users as well as the fear of damaging it. Consider the device’s evolution. It is easily foreseeable to incorporate some kind of motion sensing technology akin to the X-box’s Kinect to navigate an interface my tracking hand movements or even eye movements. New methods of transferring messages or sharing video feeds are bound to develop.

Movies and animations have depicted technology that is not all that different from a set of hi-tech glasses. Literally plugging into a computer, collars that send signals to communicate with the brain and other collars, and projecting data in holographic form are all examples of possible paths of development.

People at large have proven that they are committed to constant communication and social media contact with portable computers and intricate cell phones. Google Glass is not so much altering what we do with social devices but is likely the first step in altering how we socialize.

While we scoff at the idea of wearing a phone on our faces, there was a time where it seemed outlandish to send a letter electronically. Bring on the future Google! Let your single cells create digital life!

Facebook Releases “Lookalike Audiences” Feature

Facebook has released its “Lookalike Audiences” feature, a tool which helps advertisers to target Facebook users similar to those in their existing Custom Audience databases. The Lookalike Audiences feature is currently only available to U.S.-based advertisers with access to Power Editor.

To create a Lookalike Audience, advertisers must first upload a list of first-party data, such as email addresses and phone numbers, via the “Audiences” tab in the left-hand menu of Power editor to create a Custom Audience. Having done that, audiences must then click the “Create Similar Audience” button, causing Facebook’s algorithms to analyse the demographics represented by, and the interests within the profiles of, the original Custom Audience, creating a new audience segment based on its findings.

Advertisers are advised to create audiences of no less than 500 people, but they can optimise their search either for reach or for similarity. Optimising for search will create a larger audience, but one that has less in common with the source audience, whereas optimising for similarity will do the opposite. Advertisers must also choose a country within which to search The personal information of the users collated into a Lookalike Audience is not shared with advertisers and cannot be exported to a site outside Facebook.


Facebook advertisers have already seen some success testing the Lookalike Audiences feature: last month Facebook reported to Inside Facebook that an unspecified “online travel site saw 70 percent lower costs per action using Lookalike Audiences, and an online shopping site experienced 56 percent lower CPA and 94 percent lower costs per checkout.”

The Lookalike Audiences feature will be available to all U.S.-based advertisers by the end of the week, with no extra cost, but the creation of such an audience could take up to 48 hours and can only be used for ad campaigns.
What do you think of the “Lookalike Audiences” feature?

Facebook Reportedly Planning On Incorporating Hashtags

Facebook is reportedly developing a way in which hashtags can be incorporated into the social media site.

Most people will be more familiar with hashtags on micro-messaging social site Twitter, where they are used to tag tweets for categorization into certain conversations and topics. For example, the hashtag #SocialMedia is used to denote tweets about, well, social media.

Now, Facebook is working on a similar system to the one on its rival Twitter’s servers, in which hashtags could be used on the site to collate comments and posts about a single topic or topical event, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Facebook’s affiliate Instagram already uses hashtags to sort photos by subject, so it would be no surprise if Facebook itself were to introduce a similar system now that images and videos make up around 50% of the content on the current news feed, hence becoming the focus of the proposed redesign.

Brands also use hashtags to advertise themselves on Twitter, often paying for services such as Promoted Trends. Promoted Trends, which cost around $200,000 a day, feature a certain company’s chosen hashtag or topic at the top of a region’s top trending list for 24 hours.

Presumably, Facebook is hoping that they can utilize hashtags in a similar fashion on the site, giving Facebook marketers a new way to advertise on Facebook and bringing in more advertising revenue.

There is also the possibility that, if Facebook incorporates hashtags into its new Open Graph search engine, they could feasibly nullify Twitter’s biggest advantage over the social media giant: Twitter’s content is all updated in real-time, with trending topics and the tweets of the followed appearing on a user’s page a fraction of the time after they are sent.

Journalists even use Twitter to research for news stories, as it is often the most current forum for knowledge. Facebook could imitate Twitter’s immediacy with hashtags, allowing people to follow conversations around the world in real-time.

According to The Wall Street Journal, those in the know are unsure as to when hashtags will be introduced to Facebook.

Do you think there is a place for hashtags on Facebook?