Google introduces new I/O live blogging tool
Just days ahead of the yearly Google I/O event, Google has introduced a rather interesting live blogging tool that taps into Google+ page posts and pulls from the I/O live video feed. — This tool, which you can see below, is currently not event agnostic.
Context & Ripple Effects
The tool lands five days after Google unveiled the I/O 2012 Android app for attendees and remote followers, completing a two-piece kit for this week's San Francisco conference, where some 5,500 developers are converging. Unlike a general-purpose product, it pulls directly from Google+ page posts and the I/O live video feed — and as The Next Web notes, it is not event agnostic.
First-order effects
- Press and bloggers covering I/O get an official embeddable stream that routes keynote commentary through Google+ pages, giving Google direct control of how its own announcements circulate during the event.
Second-order effects
- With Google set to challenge Amazon, Sonos and Apple across product categories on stage this week, every syndicated pickup of the live blog doubles as distribution for Google+ at the exact moment its consumer traction is being tested.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, big-platform keynotes shift from press conferences the media repackage into owned-media events where the vendor supplies the coverage tooling itself — a structure later mirrored by Google's journalist-facing Realtime Content Insights work.
The trend: Platform companies are building first-party event tooling so that conference coverage flows through their own social and video infrastructure rather than third-party channels.