4. 4
Facebook is testing in the US a new feature called
“Add A Link”. This feature allows Facebook’s users to
text-search in all links that have already been shared
on the platform. Users can then share the most
relevant result as a link.
Is Facebook competing with Google on WEB search? The data
they build their search engine from are unknown to Google
search engine – because they are internal to Facebook platform.
But if no more Facebook’s user is sharing link from outside
Facebook, this feature is born dead. Which means Facebook
may have think about a more wider WEB search engine to
continue feeding its platform with new content… and this could
become an additional threat to Google’s market share on mobile
search.
6. 6
Google has made possible for some – selected* –
applications to provide features activatable through the
“Ok Google” voice search & actions.
Some of the applications that already took benefit of
this option are Shazam, TripAdvisor, Walmart or Flixster.
This new Android capability is still rather limited, but the
promises are quite interesting. This is for example the
case for in-car applications (Waze, for example?) which
could leverage this Android capability to provide a
smooth experience to end-users. Anyway, it will really get
interesting when it will be more widely open to
developers(*): https://developers.google.com/voice-actions/custom-actions
8. 8
Facebook has launched Instant Article*: a way for publishers to
create articles that open fast and are properly formatted to be
viewed in the Facebook mobile application.
The real underneath purpose is for users to get content without
having to leave Facebook. And they could get original content as
well, they couldn’t find anywhere else, since Facebook let
publisher monetize their articles, either with their own ads or with
ads provided by Facebook.
This new feature looks like a new threat to Google (but not only)
on mobile: along with the search feature presented above,
Facebook is building tools to prevent users from leaving its
network… and therefore diminishing the need to browse Google
looking for information.(*) http://instantarticles.fb.com/