Google Wallet is coming to Glass soon. According to a source close to the company, Google is currently testing a way for Glass users to send money to their friends through Wallet by simply using their voices to ask Glass to “send money.” The company is testing this service internally right now, but chances are it will launch to all Glass users in the near future.
To install the Wallet service on their devices, Glass users currently have to be signed in to a computer on Google’s corporate network. From there, they can install the Wallet glassware, and after setting the service up from there, they are ready to send money from Glass.
Given that Google has also rolled out a similar feature for Gmail users, it’s not a huge surprise that the company would also want to bring the ability to send money from Glass. The use cases, after all, are pretty much identical. Imagine you’re at a restaurant and you want to send your share of the bill to a friend. You simply ask Glass to “send money,” swipe through the interface a few times and you’re done (that’s assuming your friends let you wear your Glass while having dinner with you, of course).
By default, Google takes a 2.9 percent fee for these Wallet transactions or 30 cents — whichever is higher.
Jerry Daykin: global digital director at Aegis Dentsu Network and former European social marketing manager at Mondelez
Brands that promote content people don't want to see will provoke a negative response, writes former Mondelez Europe social marketing manager Jerry Daykin.
More content is posted to social networks than anyone could ever consume. Facebook applies its "Edgerank" algorithm to try to "surface" relevant content; while unfiltered platforms like Twitter effectively use "Timerank", showing only the most recent. On some you compete on engagement, on others on timeliness, but nowhere will all your followers see everything you post.
It’s easy to criticise Facebook for cunningly decreasing the organic reach of Pages and asking brands to pay more, but it’s no coincidence this decline was matched by a steady increase in the amount being published. The more content there is, the less people see of any one piece, whether limited by an algorithm or simply hidden by newer updates.
Worrying what percentage of followers we reach has become an industry obsession, alongside rumours that those fans may be fake, and that all the young people have moved to something new. Never mind that most brands don’t truly have a business-significant number of fans in the first place, or that they aren’t close to reaching all the youth that definitely is still present.
Social is no longer about a few thousand fans, it can reach tens of millions in a rich, engaging way. For businesses that work at scale, this means, at last, that it deserves meaningful investment.
More fundamentally, though, this focus on fans stands at odds with the penetration objectives of much major marketing investment. This is especially true for big FMCG brands needing to reach millions of disloyal consumers. While paying to reach an already "earned" audience may feel unfair, the introduction of promoted posts to go far beyond this actually represents a quiet revolution in the value that mass marketers can get from social platforms.
Previously, we built competition tabs to persuade people to follow us, so we might then communicate our messages to them. Now we can put our content in front of a carefully targeted, and potentially vast, audience whenever we need to. Social is no longer about a few thousand fans, it can reach tens of millions in a rich, engaging way. For businesses that work at scale, this means, at last, that it deserves meaningful investment.
This newfound scalability has driven business results comparable to TV for Mondelez. It’s no surprise, then, that it coincides with the announcements of its global social partnership with Facebook, adding to an existing one with Twitter as well as innovative trials of Google’s +Post format.
There is, of course, a rich creative challenge in producing content that can engage millions of consumers when they do see it, and that’s at the heart of Mondelez’s "Storytelling at Scale" approach. With great scale comes great responsibility, and brands that promote content people don’t want to see will only get an even bigger negative response to it.
Twitter has rolled out its new-look profile pages to all users (you can get yours here), and with the update comes a resize of header photos and avatars, which means you’ll likely have to do a little maintenance to get your page looking tip-top.
So, load up your favourite image editor, head on over to your Twitter profile settings page, and let’s get started.
This is the main image across the top of the screen. Twitter recommends 1500×500 pixels but the header photo will always blow-up to be screen-wide, which means a 1500×500 image can look pretty lousy on a 27-inch monitor unless it’s saved at a very high resolution. Otherwise, it pixelates.
So, either upload a 3000×1000 photo or save your 1500×500 image at the highest possible dots per inch (DPI) you can you manage to squeeze it under the 5 megapixel limit.
(And if you’re looking for ideas, Twitter has a nice gallery of the new-size header photos here.)
Twitter recommends a 400×400 minimum here, and the image should be a square (although you can crop during the upload). Again, I recommend saving to as high a DPI as you can – I believe the maximum file size is 2MB although this is no longer specified by Twitter.
The profile photo scales down to 200×200 on your profile page, gets even smaller in timelines, and blows up to full size when somebody clicks on it, so make sure your image looks clear at all scales.
Background Image (no longer needed)
Twitter has essentially phased out background images with this update. While they still show up in certain places as you’re navigating Twitter (at least for now) this is something only you will see, and they’re not visible on your actual profile page by other users.
Really, there’s no point wasting time creating an amazing background image that nobody is going to see. So, head over to your profile design settings and set a solid background colour instead.
