Voice search is on its way towards disrupting the search engine industry and how we discover content online. It’s posing challenges for search engine marketers as the nature of search changes from text-based to voice.

What is voice search?

Voice search uses voice recognition technology to enable users to search for content online.

For example, instead of navigating to the default search engine installed on your mobile, and typing in something you want to know, you might say “OK Google. Where is the nearest coffee shop to me with free wifi?” Hopefully, your mobile (or personal assistant) will tell you the answer.

At the moment, voice search is most popular with teenagers. ComScore confidently estimates that, by 2020, 50% of all searches will be made using voice. We are now interacting with machines in a much more human-like way, talking to them as you would a friend, and relying on this technology to accomplish goals.

Voice search appears to herald moving away from screens. Gartner predicts that by 2020, 30% of web browsing will be screenless. This medium is non-visual and poses challenges for businesses that rely heavily on design to communicate their brand, or have a name that is hard to pronounce.

Benefits of search

Voice search integrates more naturally with the demands of the physical world.

Using voice search is much easier than typing when a user’s hands or vision is occupied. For example, when driving, or walking down the street, and it’s important to be looking ahead.

It’s more accessible for users who have a physical disability, and typing on a screen would be too difficult for them, or even impossible.

Using natural speech is easier than trying to search in the language of search engines. In many situations, voice search also generates faster results.

How businesses can adapt to voice search

With no visual cues due to the absence of a screen, businesses have to optimise separately for voice search to stay ahead of the curve and ensure they can be successfully found. Natural language, and a question and answer format, is the key to optimising for voice search.

A company’s website navigation and structure has to make sense with users jumping around using voice commands, perhaps disrupting the typical task flow expected when designing a site.

Viewing users as action-oriented rather than search-oriented will transform the nature of connective technologies. This means developing a greater sensitivity to the context in which technology is being used. Instead of imagining a user sat at a desk typing queries into the search box, imagine them walking down the street or driving a car.

It requires knowing the needs and mindset of customers inside out, understanding how they are moving through their environment, and the kind of tasks they might use voice search for. For example, finding their nearest vegan restaurant, or ordering a taxi.

Voice search is also disrupting current advertising opportunities and organic search results. Instead of being able to serve an advert in the search results, businesses will have to find alternative ways to reach their customers.

The future of search

Accuracy is key to the future of voice search. In order to increase the rate of adoption, it has to be easier and more successful than the traditional way of searching online by typing keywords.

Voice search technologies are fuelled behind the scenes by ‘skills’ (like apps) that provide the relevant information or data to answer user queries. The number of these available skills is growing to accommodate more diverse and complex queries.

The online world is going to become increasingly defined by what delivery agents like Google or Amazon define as legitimate or expected activity. There is a huge question mark over the potential that this technology has to shape the way we interact with the world.

If we already had privacy concerns about our identities and data online, then the potential for one of these companies to be recording our speech or even whole conversations has serious implications.

Relationship to Smart Homes

It’s less about killing traditional search and more about mobile technologies permeating even more areas of our lives. Instead of there being a hard line between the virtual and the physical world, personal assistant products help us control our environment digitally.  

The personal assistant market is one way of capitalising on voice search technology, and currently includes products like Amazon Echo and Google Home devices. Users can talk to their devices and use them in the same way they would a traditional browser.

As more products become ‘smart’, including televisions, thermostats and fridges, they can be linked to your personal assistant, and the possibilities for using voice to manage the home are increasing rapidly.

By developing a smart home ecosystem, businesses are increasing their revenue potential in a new market.

Final remarks

Voice search underlines how digital technologies are evolving towards being increasingly user-focused. Understanding your customer is truly key to succeeding in the future of search.

Recordings of natural speech are becoming a more common data format that platforms will need to make sense of. At the moment, Google Analytics does not make voice search queries available, but Google has hinted that this functionality is coming soon.

As with any new technological development, the industry may panic about “the death existing technology”. The reality is, change is much slower than that, and voice search will grow to complement existing search technologies.

Businesses should embrace the change that is coming, and anticipate that, while creating content is still important, the ultimate consumer of that content might eventually be a virtual assistant mining for data.

It goes without saying that most of us find it hard to imagine life without smartphones and mobile apps. There are apps for just about everything from getting you up in the morning, working productively during the day, socialising in the evening, right through to helping you to get a better night’s sleep.

When it comes to developing mobile apps, there are three main approaches: native applications, mobile web apps, or a hybrid approach. There are different benefits to each approach so it’s important to choose wisely and decide upon the most suitable approach for your situation.

The app marketplace is fiercely competitive and one of the key differentiating factors between apps is user experience (UX) so this should be at the forefront of your mind when making development decisions. In this article, we will look at some of the pros and cons of each option and the factors to take into account.

Native Apps

Native apps are generally faster, more reliable and more responsive than the alternatives because there are fewer layers in between the app code and the device hardware. This also means that they have access to the full range of device capabilities (e.g. camera, microphone, GPS, accelerometer, battery level, and other onboard sensors) and OS-level apps and features (e.g. contacts, calendar, tasks/reminders and health data etc.).

If your app needs to alert users to external events (such as when a friend adds you to their social network), the tightly-integrated nature of native apps allows them to use push notifications to get the message across. These use a dedicated online service that interfaces directly with the device’s operating system. Native apps also have access to device-level data storage, meaning that they can save and retrieve information, even when the device is offline. It’s this level of integration, responsiveness and polish that makes native apps more attractive to end users. As a result, people spend over 3 times as long using native apps than they do browsing the web or using the web.

Native apps have to be designed and coded for their specific platform (e.g. iOS, Android, Windows Phone etc.), taking into account the differing needs of the appropriate range of devices. This requires more effort because each platform has its own software language, development tools, user interface elements and Software Development Kits (SDKs). A native app written for one OS won’t run on any of the others, so if you’re looking to release your app for iOS, Android and Windows Phone, you’ll need to write three separate apps. Each platform also has different approaches, conventions and requirements. For instance, Android devices have physical or “back” buttons, so Android apps don’t need to include a separate UI element for this. iOS devices, such as iPhones and iPads, don’t have this feature, so their apps need to implement “back” buttons as part of the screen design (although, Apple makes this straightforward as part of their standard UI framework).

Another significant factor relating to native apps, particularly those for iOS, is that they are released and distributed via an app store. This makes it easier for users to find and install them, but each platform has its own publication process. This can take anything from a couple of hours (for the Google Play store for Android apps) up to 2-3 days for Apple’s more stringent quality review process for the iOS App Store. While Apple’s thorough checks mean users can be more confident of finding good quality apps, it can be frustrating for developers when they want to release a quick bug fix. For all app stores, updates are also dependent upon users either installing them manually or having their devices set to auto-update apps when new versions become available.

Pros

• Most responsive user experience
• Access to all device-level features and push notifications
• More stable and reliable
• Can be developed to work offline
• Can be marketed to show in app store search results

Cons

• No cross-platform support
• Increased development and maintenance time when developing for multiple platforms
• Approval required for Apple App store

Mobile Web Apps

Mobile web apps are essentially websites or web applications that have been designed to look and work like apps. This enables developers with existing web skills to create mobile apps without the overhead of learning the platform-specific languages or coding techniques required by native apps. Web apps can be written using cross-platform, standard web technologies such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. A web app can be used on any mobile device (iOS, Android, Windows or any other platform) provided that it has a web browser. This means that the app doesn’t have to be written multiple times for each platform. In one sense, this makes them easier to maintain and update when you want to add new features. However, since each of the mobile platforms tends to have subtly different UI conventions, users may find that web apps “jar” a little, since they don’t look and behave in quite the same way as the other native apps on their device.

There’s no need to submit web apps to an app store. Users can access them directly via their URL, just like any other website. To “install” them, the user can add them as a shortcut to their home screen. If you want to release an update or add a new feature, you can simply publish the changes online and all users will instantly have access to the new version. No need to wait 2-3 days for Apple to complete their review (or worse, reject your submission and require you to make corrective changes).

Whilst it’s possible to access some device-level features from a mobile web app, this is generally more limited. Some device properties (such as orientation and accelerometer information) can be used in a similar way to a native app. Other features are more limited. For instance, not all touch gestures are supported, and those that often take a fraction of a second longer to trigger. This doesn’t sound like much, but it’s long enough for users to notice the “lag”. Mobile browsers and web standards are adding more support for device-level API’s all the time, but there are still some features (such as push notifications and full online/offline sync support) that still can’t be accessed from within a web app.

Pros

• Easier to maintain: a single codebase can work across all platforms
• Updates and new features can be released instantly
• Many device-level features can be accessed through JavaScript API’s

Cons

• Interactions are not as snappy and responsive as for native apps
• User Interface design elements can feel inconsistent compared to native apps
• No support for some device-level features such as push notifications
• No app store means less exposure to potential users

Hybrid Apps

As the name suggests, hybrid apps are developed using a combination of native app code and web technologies. At their simplest, they are effectively web apps “wrapped” within a native app “shell” and published via the relevant native app store(s). Apple currently rejects apps that simply re-create the experience of an existing web app, as they claim it adds no value to the end user. So, if you’re thinking of making your website into an app then you’ll need to consider how you can make more of the mobile platform. Some hybrid apps use a “half-and-half” approach by implementing most of the app’s features in native code but using part of the organisation’s mobile website for other parts of the user journey, for example, the shopping cart/checkout flow.

Some developers choose to deliver their web apps as hybrid apps in order to more easily integrate with device-level features such as GPS, the device’s camera or push notifications. Others want the benefit of being listed on the App Store, Google Play or the Windows Store so that users can find their apps in search results. Still, others want the convenience of writing their app with a single, web technology codebase in a way that can be deployed onto multiple platforms.

Whilst a hybrid app delivery model can mitigate some of the downsides of web apps, other aspects will always be an issue unless you fully embrace native app development. If you want a hybrid app to be consistent with the user interface conventions of each of your supported platforms, then you’ll need to write different versions for each one (partly negating the multi-platform benefit of web technologies). Even then, the apps still won’t feel quite as slick and responsive as their native equivalents.

Pros

• Single codebase with cross-platform support
• Faster and cheaper to develop using standard web technologies
• Apps can be found in the relevant app stores

Cons

• Less responsive than a native app
• Platform-consistent UX requires multiple versions to be created and maintained
• Requires submission (and approval for iOS) to relevant App Store(s)

Conclusion

The most appropriate development approach for your app ultimately depends on your priorities. If your budget is tight and you’re just dipping your toe in the mobile app marketplace, a web or hybrid app might be a good option to test the waters. Web development skills tend to be widely available and less expensive than native app skills. You will be able to reach a broad section of the market with a single codebase and, in the case of web apps, you will be able to respond quickly with updates and fixes without needing to re-submit your app for review and/or publication to an app store (where your users may or may not decide to update their app).

However, if your brand experience is key and you are confident that the additional investment will be rewarded, then you should seriously consider developing your app using native technologies. The speed and responsiveness will be superior and you’ll be able to deliver features that web and hybrid apps just can’t match.

Described as “driving innovation inside many, if not most, enterprises” by Vince Kellen in the Cutter IT Journal, social, mobile, analytics, cloud (SMAC) represents a bundle of new technologies that is rapidly replacing basic messaging and communication services, as well as network infrastructures and ERP.

It brings a new dimension to business models by making organisations more collaborative, connective, productive and real-time than ever before. In this SMAC Guide we take a look at what SMAC is and how it can work for your business.

What is SMAC?

SMAC is something of a buzzword in the IT industry. In the past, all business information was generally kept on a centralised database and accessed via a client server model. This meant that employees would have to log in to a SCM, ERP or CRM system. Prior to that, the employee would usually have to undertake a training programme to help them understand all of the complicated workflows, processes and interfaces.

Today, this has been addressed by the arrival of data visualisation tools and customised ISVs that are built with industry specific templates, improving the user’s experience and allowing executives to quickly gain access to the latest business information. Added to this have been the integration of analytics tools and a host of social and collaborative procedures: all of which can be accessed via mobile devices.

This combination of new technologies is known as Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud: or SMAC for short. Social helps people to find their colleagues, who they can then collaborate with; mobile provides access to other data sources and the cloud; the cloud contains the information and the applications that people use; and analytics allows people to make sense of this data. The broad idea of SMAC is that social networks like Facebook and Twitter can be used for brand building and customer engagement; big data analytics can be used to analyse large volumes of data; cloud computing provides a shared pool of resources; and mobile applications provide access to services on the go.

Why SMAC is so important for businesses

In the coming years, it is widely expected that there will be three major trends that emerge and affect not only IT technologies but also the way we do business: all of which will be heavily impacted by SMAC. These include:

• New working styles: Today in business, both employees and customers expect a style of content, collaboration and commerce that offers the same “anytime, anywhere” convenience that they enjoy related to their personal lives with companies such as Facebook and Amazon. It is expected that there will be an increase in the mobile elite workforce; especially as wearable devices such as watches and glasses add to user’s options.In terms of SMAC, business applications will be required to embrace this approach in order to maximise productivity and convenience. It is expected that SMAC architectures will become the new way forward for interaction and the preferred application paradigm. IT departments will need to offer a contextually relevant experience that will support new working styles – seamlessly integrating mobile application management with device management and social platforms.
• Digitisation of processes and business models: With society and nations migrating towards the internet economy, entire business processes are becoming increasingly digitised. Many media and entertainment industries have made the digital switch – such as music and movies – and now it is likely that other industries will see their physical chain become increasingly digitised.In the SMAC era, the role of the CIO will change from an engineer to a pioneer with processes set to be broken down into individual components and redesigned from a digital perspective. Business process analysts will become more like business process scientists needing to combine analytic skills with an understanding of how to make the most of emerging technologies. Hybrid cloud environments will also be needed to support these dynamic services and help create flexible models for these digital services.
• Information overload: According to Cisco, the number of devices that are connected to IP networks will actually be three times higher than the population by 2017. This exponential growth, which will include the emergence of the internet of things, will place new burdens on data centres and existing information infrastructures.As such, within the SMAC area, IT departments will need to supply an infrastructure layer that is capable of dealing with vast amounts of data streaming as well as making informative and intelligent decisions. It has even been predicted by Gartner that 10 per cent of computers will be learning and not processing devices by 2017.

What trends can we expect related to SMAC?

According to NASSCOM, an additional 10 per cent will be spent on IT to deploy mobile solutions before 2020. This mobility market could be worth between $140-150billion on a worldwide basis.

In addition, in-memory databases will be used to speed up analytical processes, which will offer a host of benefits. It will allow analytical processing and transactions to take place within the same in-memory database. Finally, there should be improvements across the voice over internet protocol (VoIP) that will give companies insight into their mobile workforce.

It will be necessary for IT departments to master the deployment and development of SMAC to support the work styles of their customers and employees, to understand how to access new technologies and to address the forthcoming information overload. It will be necessary to focus on intelligent analytics to make informed decisions and ensure smooth processing.

In summary, success will be realised by the organisations that don’t just react to SMAC: but that migrate quickly to it.