For internet marketing specialists, Wave created new ways of exchanging images, emails, files, so it could have potentially, been a game changer for email marketing.

As Facebook and Twitter continue to grow Google has struggled to find a solid share of the social networking landscape. They do however continue to push the envelope with groundbreaking technology that in many cases is given away for free. Google’s struggles with Wave serve as a learning experience for the company that can afford to make mistakes with industry trends.

Google continues to hint at the release of a new social networking project, but now details are official.

When scrolling over any image, a preview box pops up with detail about the size, name, and URL link to the image. Having this information only visible when scrolling over the image allows them to be grouped closely together so you can get a much bigger overview of what is available based on your search query.

Doing a test query for the term ‘caribbean‘ will show you an example of how new results are displayed.

Tip for seeing more results: Use the zoom feature on your web browser by hitting Ctrl + – (CMD + – on a MAC) this allows you to zoom out and see more results without scrolling.

For Web designers and content creators, this new release is fantastic for finding images to use on your site, concepts, etc. Copyright laws are still in effect however.

According to Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, the image search technology of Google has not been updated since 2001. Many competitors such as Bing have capitalized on the ability to search for images faster and more conveniently. Google’s new release however has reset the bar on image search.

We will stay tuned for future updates and functionality, but this is a good opportunity to look at the pros and cons of the current free service provided by Google.

An explanation of Google Voice provided by Google.

Pros
-transcribing the voicemail to text gives you a quick glance at what the message is about and how long it is.
-sends you an instant email when you have a new message
-messages can be heard from your phone or personal computer
-allows you to make free calls and text messages to the US and Canada
-one unique phone number can ring your cell phone, home phone, and business phone

Cons
-the voicemails being transcribed to text need a lot of work… there are almost always errors that make reading the message confusing
-reading the transcript does not give you the tone of the voice message
-the email subject line includes the phone number it came from, but nobody memorizes phone numbers so you often don’t know who it is from unless you check your missed calls
-messages are downloaded to your phone before you can play them. They are stored and then sit on there until they are deleted. This gets annoying when they build up over time… (applys to Droid phones)s

Prior to the major release made by Adobe, Apple made a change to their developer agreement (Clause 3.3.1) that only allows applications that are built in Apple’s approved programming languages – Object C and C++. This clause is directly geared toward programs that are developed in Flash and the new technology that Adobe has worked hard to release.

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, has made clear his dislike for Flash which he feels is a ‘buggy’ development platform, “We’ve been there before, and intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.”

This has caused a lot of fire between the two companies and the eager customer base that wants to take advantage of the new software. What is boils down to is that Apple needs Adobe, Adobe doesn’t need Apple. Apple computers have always competed on style, branding, and their friendly interface for graphic and web designers. This has attracted a lot of industry design individuals and companies who use Adobe software and have become loyal to Apple products.

Apple’s market share in operating systems is 11 % compared to Microsoft’s dominating 88% according to StatOwl. If developers start migrating to PCs and Adobe starts to add the same technology for the Android operating system than Apple is at risk of losing market share that they have worked so hard to gain over the past 5 years.

Adobe has not announced any plans for the Android operating system, but the rising popularity of this smart phone is sure to be on their list. Apple needs to embrace Adobe as a valuable asset to their success and adjust to the programming changes that are occurring. Apple’s clause in their developer agreement essentially disapproved the hard work of Adobe to bring users new and easier ways to develop applications. A big slap in the face…

April 19, 2010 – Update - “We will still be shipping the ability to target the iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5. However, we are not currently planning any additional investments in that feature.” according to Mike Chambers, the principal product manager for developer relations for the Flash platform at Adobe.

Monday, January 18, 2010 - UPDATE - the there has now been over 2.1 million text message donations received and over $21 million raised for Haiti Relief Efforts.

Thursday, January 14, 2010 – The Red Cross has now raised over $3 million dollars through their text message campaign to help Haiti. By sending the text “Haiti” to 90999 you can donate $10 which is backed by the United States State Department. The text charge will be applied directly to your monthly cell phone bill.

The mobile fundraising effort was started on January 12, 2010 shortly after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti killing and injuring thousands. The text messaging campaign quickly went viral and the ease of making a donation has shown the true colors of Americans across the country. Massive relief efforts are underway in Haiti and search and rescue teams are pouring in.

According to the American Red Cross, 100% of the funds will go to support the relief efforts in Haiti. Other ways to donate to the Red Cross are by visiting Redcross.org or by calling 1-800-RED-CROSS.

For a list of other ways to donate to the relief efforts in Haiti click here.

This unique technology is part of what Google Maps is developing as a ‘Favorite Places’ feature. Favorite places allows users to mark their favorite locations (whether it be shopping stores, hiking trails, or restaurants) Users can draw shapes to represent areas and lines to represent journeys and then publish your locations for public viewing.

Gartner, a leading market research provider, predicts that by 2013 nearly half of all worldwide mobile phones will be smart phones with the ability to access the internet. From a marketing standpoint this means that marketers will have yet another platform to focus their attention in order to reach a very large audience.

The eMarketer report predicts that advertising spending for US Mobile users will nearly triple in the next 4 years. Marketers need to start preparing for consumers access to information from their pocket. Many companies have already started to improve their mobile presence with the use of applications that allow for reviews, coupons, or directions.

A great webinar that explains how marketers need to start thinking like smartphones.

Try typing “real estate [my zip code]” into a Google Maps search query and see what happens… You will likely see lots of results of real estate listings in your area. Although having these listings on Maps is not new, the way you can find them has become a whole lot easier.

The best part of the real estate listings is that it provides detailed information to the size of the home or apartment, price, pictures and more.

In one CNET review I watched about an LG TV, I learned about Netflix streaming which allows you to connect to your online Netflix account and essentially watch any movie within your que. Only a few years ago, the ability to mail movies back and forth took over the retail movie rentals industry. Now TVs will make it even more convenient for users.

Marketers can start preparing for these advancements and look for opportunities to advertise in the appropriate places. Perhaps building one of these TV widgets that promotes your branding will go a long way. Although the technology is still young and the user community is still small… marketers prepare!

Google today released the beta version of their ground breaking web technology Google Wave to a closed group of 100,000 testers. The final test group will help Google locate the remaining bugs in the product before its highly anticipated release later this year.

Wave has been a highly talked about product ever since its announcement last May at Google I/O 2009. The ground breaking technology combines elements of e-mail, wiki, chat, blogs, and more into one robust communication platform. The Australian brothers who head up the project are the same developers that gave us the highly used Google Maps functionality. Their thought process behind the Wave based around the fact that e-mail was created over 40 years ago and what it would look like if it were recreated with today’s technologies.

The release date is expected later this year. Those who are seeking the early peak at the product will find difficulty unless they had signed up early for the test group.

view the preview of the Google Wave as it was introduced at Google I/O 2009.