TechCrunch
Google Launches Google+ Photos App For Chromebook Pixel, Coming Soon To Other Chrome OS Devices
Google has launched a Google+ photos app for the Chromebook Pixel, something it actually previewed way back at the Pixel launch, and screens showed up in February, but it has taken until now to get the Google+ to wide release. The app plugs into your Google+ account, and will automatically upload photos on any SD card plugged into the device back to your Drive account, in either full resolution (with a limited cap) or Google’s standard 2048px wide format (unlimited) depending on what the user chooses.
The app offers a very nice browsing experience, augmented by the Pixel’s super high resolution display, and touchscreen interface for paging through images. The image viewer shows you a preview, with rotation controls, easy access to sharing and album creation features, and metadata along the right including maps, tags, dimensions and camera data. Offline mode allows for viewing recently uploaded photos, which are automatically cached, and you can add photos from Google Drive, your local downloads folder or attached media storage, and it’ll get the new automagical Google+ photo enhancement treatment if you have that enabled.
The Chromebook Pixel app is available via the Chromebook Pixel owner’s portal, and for now you definitely need to own that fanciest of Chrome OS notebooks to play. But Google’s AJ Asver said in a Google+ update that the app will definitely be rolling out to other Chromebooks as well, though he doesn’t specify a timeline for that happening.
Google+ may not be my social network of choice (I’m not exactly a model citizen of any of them) but the photos experience is pretty great, especially given Google’s recent updates to the same. The G+ Photos app for Chromebook is a good way to help satisfy would-be Chromebook owners who are also photography enthusiasts, too, in the absence of more advanced tools like Lightroom, though it still won’t please any pro photographers. It’ll be much more useful once it hits other Chromebooks, which need something just like this to satisfy users who have grown used to tools like iPhoto.
Microsoft Partners With Deem To Expand Its Ad Inventory With More Local Offers And Deals
Microsoft and e-commerce platform Deem, which is still better known under its previous name of Rearden Commerce, have inked a partnership that will allow Microsoft to distribute Deem’s large inventory of local deals on its properties.
While you probably haven’t heard of Deem or Rearden, the company is currently valued at $1 billion and has received over $340 million in VC capital and investments since it was founded 13 years ago. Microsoft will feature Deem deals and offers from its network of more than 1.2 million merchants on properties like Bing, Outlook.com and MSN, as well as in Windows Phone and Windows 8 apps.
As Deem’s founder and CEO Patrick Grady told me, his company takes a very different approach to offers and deals than Groupon, Livingsocial and similar companies in this space. Deem sees itself more as being in the business of “syndicated commerce” and puts an emphasis on hyper-local deals, though it’s also working with airlines, car-rental companies and other national brands to offer campaigns for them, too.
While similar services have huge sales forces, Grady sees Deem as a company that’s driven by tech (and the merchant side is almost completely self-serve). Deem, he says, enables its publishing partners to provide a more relevant experience to their users and provides merchants with an outlet for their offers. It’s targeting engine allows it to find the right offers for the right users, which is clearly also what attracted Microsoft to this deal.
Erik Jorgensen, Microsoft’s general manager of Local Advertising, told me that Microsoft was looking to find better-performing ads for its properties and wanted to bring in local offers to augment its standard text and display ads. Microsoft, he said, wants to “take advantage of the great quality content that [Deem] is able to generate from its merchant pool.” This partnership, Jorgensen said, allows Microsoft to “bring in a type of ad that’s more appealing to consumers” and that’s “seen as more personalized and valuable.”
Microsoft will also index these deals in Bing Offers — its recently rebranded version of Bing Deals. The company will feature these deals across its brands, with the exception of the Xbox console. For users, these deals will largely look like regular ads in, for example, the Outlook.com sidebar. Clicking on an offer takes you to a details page and then on to Deem to make the final purchase.
Here is what Deem’s offers will look like in Outlook.com:
No comments:
Post a Comment