Google Home Adds Unwanted Ad to Daily Agenda - The UpStream

Google Home Adds Unwanted Ad to Daily Agenda

posted Saturday Mar 18, 2017 by Scott Ertz

Google Home Adds Unwanted Ad to Daily Agenda

Over the past few years, the battle over personal digital assistants has really heated up. With Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri and Google Home all vying to help you through your day, there is an important question to be asked: why do any of these companies care?

For Microsoft, Cortana is a way to promote the power of Windows on multiple platforms and the capabilities of Azure. For Amazon, Alexa is a way to make buying products from the company's online store easier. For Apple, Siri was initially a way to set the iPhone apart from Android. But for Google, where does Home fit into the company's plan?

For Google, Home seems to be about encouraging people to use Google's online services, such as Search, Gmail and Calendar, because that is where Google generates the majority of their revenue. But, Google's business model revolves almost entirely around advertising revenue from their web properties. The problem for Google is that Home does not show any of their ads.

This week, Google found a way to introduce the only thing it knows, advertising, into its Google Home product, in the form of information about Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast film that premiered this week. On Thursday, when people asked about their day, they were forced to endure a message about the film,

By the way, Disney's live action Beauty and The Beast opens today. In this version of the story, Belle is the inventor instead of Maurice. That rings truer, if you ask me. For some more movie fun, ask me something about Belle.

After users voiced their complaints Thursday online, the ad mysteriously vanished, with Google issuing two statements claiming that the insert wasn't an ad. There is no explanation how an unsolicited product placement into a daily agenda is different from an ad, and Google has not answered questions about whether or not Disney had paid for the product placement, or if Google was simply testing the idea of product placement.

This could be an indication of things to come for Google's Home products. Based on the reaction from users, however, this move could end similar to the Google Buzz disaster, where people end up boycotting the product over Google's invasion.

If Google begins adding advertisements into Google Home, will it lower your interest in the service? Let us know in the comments.

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