In this week's edition of Marketing In The Digital Age, there have been lots of updates and redesigns to Google and Snap which will affect marketing planning. How will your company evolve with the changes?
Snapchat Redesign Under Fire From Consumers
Summary: Snapchat took to a redesign earlier this week, which launched a petition signed by 1.1m+ users and counting to go back to the old look. A complaint highlighted by CEO Evan Spiegel said a user complained that celebrities used to feel like a friend but they don't anymore with the new ways Stories are presented, to which Spiegel responded, "...exactly. They're not your friend."
Opinion: Ouch, Spiegel! Why wouldn't you want a key differentiator from dominant competitors in the space? Even though Snap's earnings were better than expected this week, it still has a ways to go to stay on top of its business and colossal giant Facebook.
Summary: Google rolled out a new ad blocker to help mitigate annoying ads, like ones where sound automatically plays or ads you can't close until a certain amount of time has passed. Google is essentially blacklisting sites that violate the terms and also blocking all ads on the violator's site. With a major source of its revenue coming from Google Ad Network, Google is taking this preemptive measure to keep people from installing more aggressive ad blockers that hurt revenue even more.
Opinion: Although it may be painful to some advertisers with annoying ads in the short run, the move helps advertisers since Google is helping keep the door open for ads to be seen still.
Google Emails to Upate Automatically
Summary: Google unveiled it will roll out a demonstration of dynamically updated emails, which would allow for emails to be continuously updating with information and greater interactivity. An example could be automatically updated flight info in a booking confirmation email. The feature is coming out of Goggle's AMP, Accelerated Mobile Pages, division, which strips out technology to make pages load faster.
Opinion: There have been instances where I have needed original information from an email, and I wonder how these automatic updates will affect the flow of information. Web developer critics are also saying that this gives Google too much say in the way the web operates.
