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Google Is Trying To Do To Facebook What Facebook Did To Snap—by Aping Some of Its Features
Google recently updated the “Feed” portion of its mobile app, which now looks more like Facebook’s News Feed. The company also rolled out “SOS’ tools” to help users in crisis, as does Facebook’s Safety mode, and now Google is also pushing marketing notifications to users of its desktop Gmail application urging them to try the mobile version of the app. Facebook has done the same to help push its users to Instagram.
Facebook Acquired an AI Startup to Help Messenger Build Out Its Personal Assistant
Facebook has acquired Ozlo, a Palo Alto-based artificial intelligence startup, to help Messenger build out a more elaborate virtual assistant for users.
Ozlo specializes in understanding text-based conversations, and claims it can understand and provide answers to questions that don’t necessarily have simple yes or no answers — what Ozlo calls “probabilistic assertions of truth.”
Amazon Could Make Whole Foods a Place To Play With Alexa Gadgets
Amazon clearly has big plans for Whole Foods once its $13.7 billion purchase of the organic-grocery chain is official. While much of the discussion around the merger has centered on Amazon initiatives like Prime Fresh, Amazon Go, and a possible meal-kit delivery service, the combination of the two companies could offer Amazon other benefits that it lacks in its current delivery-centric shopping model.
Google has dropped Google Instant Search
After launching Google Instant — Google’s method of showing search results as you type them — several years ago, Google has removed the feature from search effective July 26. Google Instant launched in 2010 under the leadership of Marissa Mayer. Mayer called this change a “fundamental shift in search” and the news was covered across all major media when it launched.
Now with the changes in how searchers use mobile — and over 50% of all Google searches being on mobile — Google decided to do away with this feature.
Facebook Makes Messenger Smarter
Facebook is making it easier for brands and businesses to engage with consumers on Facebook Messenger. According to a report on Business Insider, the company has launched several new tools and updates for Messenger. These include a natural language processing (NLP) tool that detects the context of a message before passing it along to a bot, together with additional call-to-action buttons in addition to the current ‘Send Message’ option. Businesses will also be able to create multiple experiences within a single bot.
Rand Fishkin To Leave Moz, The SEO Company He Founded
Rand Fishkin, founder and previous CEO of Moz, is stepping away from Operations and into an Advisory role over the next 6 to 9 months. He will continue to be a passionate speaker and evangelist, and you’ll still see his enthusiastic face in Whiteboard Fridays, on the Moz Blog, and on various conference stages. And of course, he will remain one of the biggest Moz shareholders and Chairman of the Board.
YouTube Video Editor Going Offline On September 20, 2017
Google has decided to kill off the YouTube Video Editor and also the Photo slideshows within YouTube as of September 20, 2017. Google quietly announced this in the YouTube Help Forums and said these tools are being removed because of “limited usage.”
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