Last week was the Facebook F8 developer conference. There have been more than enough write ups of the event, including from the IPG Lab. Here’s the bullet point summary of what you need to know:
- bots – Facebook’s platform for messenger bots is now available. Remember, UM has had great success already in this space with Goosebump’s Slappy
- 10 year vision – Facebook’s 10 year roadmap was published (useful for also framing client innovation discussions). The 10 year vision is AI, VR and connectivity.
- video – Facebook LiveStream and 360 video. This topic didn’t get the hyped up media coverage of other topics, but it’s the one to watch. Facebook are keen to own overtake YouTube, Periscope and twitch. Also introduced was a dedicated camera for LiveStream
- VR – the concept of social VR was introduced. This is being led by a new team within FB. Think shared social experiences within VR. This has interesting potential across entertainment and commerce.
Videos of all of the keynotes are available here.
Just because Facebook was having a conference doesn’t mean the rest of the industry stopped. What got lost in the news cycle was an interesting Apple rumor. According to Bloomberg, Apple is considering a paid search offering within the App Store. If true, this will have direct impact on app-install campaigns, as well as how brands think about App Store Optimization (ASO). If this plays out, expect Google, Facebook and twitter to respond with new products to help with app discovery and the need to redirect some of your existing search budgets to Apple..
GroupLens (part of the University of Minnesota), published an interesting report on Emoji (summary here). If you use Emoji characters in marketing (or life), it’s a worth knowing that an Emoji character can look radically different (and have different meaning) across operating systems and devices.
A picture might tell a thousand words, but as you can see above – the “same” Emoji above can convey everything from happiness to a grimace depending on the device it is viewed on. The detailed 10 page report (PDF link) is also available.
Have a great week.
Joshua