Facebook Will Soon Rule

Facebook has announced that it will be slowly phasing in a new type of inbox and messaging system in the next few months. The new system will enhance the message box that many people now have. It will serve as a way to chat with friends, kind of like the way you do now, but better apparently. But, more importantly, they will provide a way for you to integrate your pre-existing email account to your facebook message inbox.

This is very neat in my opinion. I know a lot of people in the professional world use email, as do I, but facebook is a great way to keep in touch with people that you may not have email addresses for. For instance, I have many contacts from undergrad or church, etc. that I may not have email accounts for. This is a perfect way to contact them instead of searching for their emails. If you can send and receive facebook messages similarly to the way you do emails, then the transition will be seamless.

This is just another way that technology will provide an easier way to communicate. The consolidation and centralization of using just one communication hub will make things easier for users as well.

Windows of Opportunity

So as I went to bed the other night, I heard a commercial discussing different options and/or features of the new Windows phone. While I admit, I was not paying that much attention to it (I'm pretty happy with the iPhone), what did catch my attention was the fact that it is now compatible with Mac computers. I couldn't help but think this was unnecessary and perhaps maybe a little dumb.

If I were to buy a windows phone, it would most likely be for the sole reason of having an operating system similar to that of the one on my computer. If that differs, then the windows phone doesn't really provide that many useful features to me.

I got to thinking though that I bought an iphone when I had a pc (I now have a Mac), but I still felt that the two were not as different as the windows phone being used on a mac. The iPhone, from my point of view, is almost an autonomous device. While an apple product, it can be used as its own phone and personal assistant-type device and also an ipod. While it was not designed necessarily for pc's, the transition into that realm doesn't seem too crazy to me.

But in terms of expanding from pc's to mac's when thinking about a window's phone, it seems that they are trying to be too centralized and condense too many things when they should just stick with the operating system the phone was created for in the first place. While I'll admit that I have not done much research, or even played with the Windows phone, it still seems that having a phone based on one operating system that is compatible with another system that one may not have on another computer, would be unnecessary and perhaps problematic.

Google Can Predict The Future

Google has announced they can predict election results by using search results inputted into their search engines. They looked at the most popular searches in the month of October and the issues that were searched about and compared that to the stances that the politicians represented in their campaign.

Common phrases were unemployment, recession, immigration, etc. The margin of error between these predictions was very small. This is a very interesting fact because search results could probably predict many other things about a person as well. It is interesting to see how technology can track a person’s preferences and trends and gather data based on what they do. This is very important when used from a company’s perspective. If a company can get results on what people search, they can tailor their approach to what each customer is wanting.

Gathering and analyzing data from these searches is very crucial to firms’ success.

Google said the most-searched items for the upcoming elections was concerning marijuana in the California elections and immigration in the Arizona elections.