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This week Google presented an ambitious vision for its future at I/O, their annual developer conference. Highlights include a new messaging app "Allo," a new personal and home assistant, a new VR platform "Daydream," and more. As Ben Thompson (whose weekly writing at Stratechery is essential reading) notes, these new products rely heavily on Artificial Intelligence - where Google is far ahead of the competition, and play to Google's strength in providing the best service (an area where Apple has struggled of late). Google is counting on these new products to be best in class as open platforms (where they built their success) lose market share to iOS-style closed platforms.
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Cracker Barrel continues to develop their music brand strategy playbook. This time they're partnering with Blake Shelton, today releasing "If I'm Honest," available at all Cracker Barrel Old Time Country Stores and online at Cracker Barrel's website. Furthermore, crackerbarrel.com was the exclusive venue to see the video for the latest single "Savoir's Shadow" in the run up to the release. Don't sleep on Cracker Barrel, they know what they're doing.
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VR is here from a hardware perspective, now the question is what to do with it - or as the New Yorker's Andrew Marantz asks, "Who will be the Orson Welles of VR?" VR's capacity to induce human emotion is orders of magnitude stronger than film or TV, but it is totally undeveloped as a medium. We're begging to get a peek at the potential however, and it's exciting. It's also no surprise that the best and brightest minds are jumping in head first, case in point the new VR storytelling firm Space, started by seasoned vets of DreamWorks Animation.
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Dispatch from an undisclosed location.
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HAPPY FRIDAY!
See ya next week...
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