It’s confirmed that Google is doing much more than just dabbling in online apps, they are now entering into the web based apps space with full Google force.  The new tagline says it all:

Search, Ads and Apps

Over the last year, Google has consumed the company’s Writely (creators of a web based word processor app), iRows (web based spreadsheet app), and most recently Tonic (web base slide show app).

Just the other week, a representative from Google said their goal wasn’t to go head to head with Microsoft in the office application world, but based on its new tagline, it appears that this is exactly what Google is doing.

Google will offer the web based office-type apps for free to the regular user and will license use for a fee to companies.  Yay!  That’s one way to cut down on pirated software.  Let’s face it - it’s difficult for the average user to pay the steep price for Microsoft Office. 

Will Google overtake Microsoft?  That remains to be seen.  The downside to web apps is that they are currently much slower than desktop apps – however much more convenient, useful, and now free. 

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Microsoft, the company that has made its fortune selling software, has finally accepted what the rest of the technology world has seen coming for quite some time.  The future of software is SaaS (Software as a Service) – pay as you go use of software as opposed to paying expensive up-front costs for static boxed software.   

Well, sort of.  The company is still clinging to the desktop model, trying to redefine SaaS as “a combination of desktop software and web-based widgetry” and referring to it often as “software plus service.”

Some of today’s most successful players in the world of Software as a Service are progressive companies like SalesForce.com, the CRM giant, and 37 Signals, creators of Basecamp and other shared project management applications. 

Microsoft’s Silverlight technology (the competitor of Adobe Flash) is the first of what they say will be other SaaS-type applications.  Steve Balmer says that Microsoft’s SaaS strategy may include a new round of acquisitions – potentially very large ones.    

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We’ve been doing a lot of integrations for customers with Responsys this year – an extremely powerful and intuitive email marketing software.  Just when we thought we couldn’t be more impressed, Responsys bought the predictive analytics company Loyalty Matrix. 

What is predictive analytics?  To quote Wikipedia:

Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of techniques from statistics and data mining that process current and historical data in order to make “predictions” about future events.

I am intensely looking forward to working with the result of the combination of these two forces.  Responsys was already the most intuitive email marketing software available and I assume that the purchase of Loyalty Matrix will increase that exponentially. 

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In the past there were Google Desktop Gadgets – these are nifty little items that anyone could add to their Google personalized home page.  These gadgets were primarily custom programmed by enthusiasts and companies seeking a way to stay in front of viewers but now anyone can build a gadget.

The new personalized gadgets allow individuals to upload personal information into a web app that others can place on their homepage for a literal “portal” into a friend’s world.  Instead of focusing on mass appeal like the previous gadgets, Google is billing the new gadgets have a more personalized, intimate appeal. 

But can you use the new Google Gadgets for business – you bet!  There are any number of ways that you can personalize these new gadgets to stay in front of the people you want to stay in front of.  Keep in mind that, like everything in the world of social media marketing, you’re gadget has got to be interesting and useful to earn the real estate of you target audience’s homepage. 

Here are some ideas:

Framed photo – Display an image of a featured daily product or service – offer featured products or services at a nice % discount.   

Free Form – Use it to send tips or breaking news of interest to your target audience

Countdown – Display the time left until a featured event or sale

These are ideas for 3 of the 7 new gadgets – how many more can you come up with?

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Real estate is one of the most competitive industries in the search engines.  Maybe it’s time for a different approach?  When people are shopping for real estate, they’re not just looking for a house, they are looking for a lifestyle – and that requires a lot of information from schools, to recreational activities, to average neighborhood incomes, and so much more. 

Want some examples, check out these successful real estate websites that are really bringing in the traffic and generating buzz for their usefulness. 

There are two ways to accomplish this.  You can hire a team of people to research and update information and post it on the site.  Or you can pull the information in dynamically with a custom software application. 

Trulia for example uses custom programming to scrape real estate sites and brings all of the information into one place in a way that is extremely useful.  Almost all of these sites incorporate Google maps in their searches to give users a perspective of where exactly homes are located.  Zillow even offers satellite images of the neighborhood right on the search page.   

While smaller real estate agencies may not be able to, nor have the desire to, compete with these big competitors, adding useful web applications to local real estate sites can certainly help them gain the lead over local competition.

What are your customers really looking for when shopping for a home?  How can you provide it in a way that is informative and fun to use?  If you can imagine it, there is most likely a way to make it happen. 

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