This is a great time to be a consumer. Companies are battling to release the next greatest advancement in technology -- whether it's NFC, Cloud Storage, Streaming Video or even Social Networking -- and the consumers are ready and waiting. The instant a company releases a new product or service, the competition follows suit.
And that makes today's consumer more connected than ever.
Brand extensions are to blame for much of the competition in technology today. Foursquare brings about Facebook Places. Skype leads to Google Hangouts. Square brings mobile payment to the forefront, with PayPal and Google following closely behind. Facebook (and MySpace before that) brought the rise of the social network; Google is now employing a brand extension with Google+.
A Brand Extension is when a company known for a particular good/service attempts to extend its services to another business category beyond its initial range.
Now, the current landscape:
Social Networking
Facebook vs. Google+
Facebook has been king of the social networking world since it overtook MySpace in 2008. MySpace was recently sold to Specific Media and entertainment artist Justin Timberlake. It's future is still uncertain.
In the limited beta release of Google+, Google goes head to head with Facebook. A similar scenario to its battle with MySpace, only Google+ seems better equipped.
Google+ invites are on the streets as the company seems to be opening up its social network to more users. It's limited beta at first offered only short windows for invites from current users. The service already is reported to have users in the millions, after a little more than one week on the market. Facebook, meanwhile, recently confirmed it has acquired 750 million users.
Mobile Payment
Square vs. Google vs. Paypal
Mobile payments are a hot topic, and the most popular service is likely Square, which hit $1 million in processed payments after less than a year in business. Square was launched by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in May of 2010.
Square allows users -- whether it's for personal or businesses use -- to accept credit card payments using a smartphone and Square's free mobile payment device, through which users swipe their actual plastic cards. (Square does not use NFC technology.)
Google unveiled its Google Wallet offering, a partnership with Citi, MasterCard, First Data, and Sprint. Google Wallet is an Android app that makes your phone your wallet. It accomplishes this by storing virtual versions of your plastic cards on your smartphone.
Using Near-Field Technology (NFC), users will be able to pay via their Google-Wallet equipped smartphones simply by tapping the phone on a checkout reader, available at many merchant locations.
And most recently, PayPal bolstered its mobile offering on July 7 with the $240 million acquisition of mobile-payment service Zong.
Zong partners with hundreds of mobile phone carriers around the world and allows users to enter their mobile phone number to make purchases. The charges are then applied to the user's monthly mobile-phone bill.
Zong was eBay's second mobile acquisition. The first was Fig Card, a Square-like device that allows users to accept payments with credit cards by swiping them through Fig's USB-powered reader.
Check-ins
Foursquare vs. Facebook
Location-based applications allow users to ‘check-in’ via smartphone and share their location with other users of the service or other social networks. Users are able to see who else is checked in at a given location (from all users) or friends in nearby locations. By checking in, users receive points and/or badges and can unlock certain specials determined by the retailer.
The most publicized of these location-based apps is Foursquare. Today, there are a reported 8 million Foursquare users, up from just one million a year ago.
With the introduction of Facebook Places and other location-based services like Whrrl, which was acquired by daily deals service Groupon in mid-April, companies are copying Foursquare’s model. And vice versa, as evidenced by Foursquare’s recent inclusion and emphasis on its Yelp-like service directory Explore. Brand extensions are on display everywhere we look.
Video Inside Social Networking
Google vs. Facebook
With Google+, the company introduced Hangouts, a video-calling service. One week later, Facebook announced a partnership with Skype, allowing users to make video calls over the social network.
Facebook Video Calling will feature one-on-one video calls to your friends, a stripped-down version of Skype from what I understand. (Note: that's not me in the screenshot; it's a Facebook promo screen.)
The biggest advantage with Facebook Video Calling has when compared to Skype is that users don't have to sign-up and login to Skype to chat; they simply do so through Facebook.
Google+ Hangouts allows group video chats with up to 10 participants, a sort of live chat room among your friends.
When Google+ Hangouts feature is launched, you can choose whom to invite in the video chat or simply alert all friends (or any other Circle) that you're hanging out. And then wait for someone, among the Circle you've selected, to respond. (Note: that is me in the screenshot below, chatting with no one.)
As you can see at the bottom of the chat window (above), YouTube is also accessible via Hangouts.
I haven't really discovered how YouTube can be used inside Hangouts. But I did watch Cake's The Distance. I guess if my friends were on there we could have all watched it together...and then checked all of our reactions?
Google+ Hangouts and YouTube might be useful for work-related presentations. This service encroaches on GoToMeeting's territory. Now I've just got to find some people who want to have a meeting about Cake.
Cloud Storage
Amazon vs. Apple
On the Cloud, users can store music, videos, photos, and documents, which are then accessible from any computer or device with an internet connection and access to the cloud.
Amazon starts users off with a free 5GB of storage space. The 5GB of free space is about enough space, Amazon says, to store 1,000 songs. This first tier is free and you’ll never be charged for it. If a user purchases a digital album from Amazon’s mp3 store (amazon.com), it’ll upgrade your 5GB of free storage to 20GB. Other pricing/storage options for the Amazon Cloud range from 20GB to 1,000GB of space.
Apple iCloud operates in the same way as the Amazon Cloud Player, with iTunes integrated into iCloud. Everything purchased on iTunes is automatically accessible on the iCloud, in addition to other apps, photos, books and documents.
Streaming Music
Some companies like Amazon and Apple have tied their digital music services directly to Cloud Storage. Others like Slacker and Pandora are offering a more entertainment-centered approach.
Pandora makes things easy for listeners: subscription free and on nearly every device you own.
Pandora got its start on the computer. But the company is making even bigger leaps away from its traditional home on the PC; Pandora is now available on smartphones, tablets, televisions and a select number of automobiles.
According to a published report from Advertising Age, more than 50 percent of Pandora listening accomplished on devices other than the PC.
Slacker, however, is beginning to outshine Pandora in both integration and subscription options. Slacker offers three ways to listen. The first tier, like Pandora, is free of charge (but with ads) and allows users to create a custom station based on a particular band or song. The second is a paid subscription plan that provides unlimited song skips and is ad-free; Slacker Radio Plus is $3.99 per month.
Slacker also has a partnership with ABC News, with news breaks at the top of each hour for subscribers of either Slacker Plus or Slacker Premium Radio.
Slacker's newest subscription is called Slacker Premium Radio. At $9.99 per month, this service includes everything available in Slacker Radio Plus as well as on-demand music, allowing listeners to search for and play songs on-demand, or songs from a particular artist. Slacker Premium Radio encroaches on MOG's and Rdio's territory -- a brand-extension of sorts -- by offering on-demand music.
It's an exciting time for both consumers and businesses. Each service is experiencing tremendous competition -- which only fuels innovation -- as companies vie for the consumers' time, interest and money.
The customers ultimately decide which products succeed and which ones flop. Therefore the success of these businesses relies much on us, the consumers, and in our experiences with these products and brands and how seamlessly we can integrate them into our lives.
The best technology becomes second-nature, like a brand extension of ourselves.
