The ever-growing SXSW is about to kick-off for another year, and if you're planning to attend, you'll be wanting to check out this new Google+ integrated app, put together by Cox Media Group, Austin American-Statesman and Janrain for the +Austin360 site.Today announced the launch of the Austin360 app providing residents and visitors with a comprehensive and customizable resource for the area’s best events, venues, restaurants and nightlife. I chatted with +Brad Cohen, Director of Marketing Communications at +Janrain, about the fresh app's features. You might remember my interview with Janrain when their reporting showed a significant fourth quarter Google+ login increase. Brad was happy to talk about the new app and the plans for growing beyond SXSW:
Why was Google+ Sign-In included with the other social networking services?
There’s a few reasons. Google+ gives access to some pieces of information for users that are specifically helpful for what this app does. The one thing that you can do with Google+ is that you can know what somebody has done on YouTube to an extent. You can know if they subscribe to certain things or watch certain videos. So the plan in the future is be able to better recommend music based on music interests from YouTube. It’s also just the Google+ return of the basic demographic information to help people find things that they might be interested in much like Facebook does. There are multiple login options, but Twitter, for example, might not return as much info about a user and it would be less ideal.
How popular do you expect the new Google+ login feature on the app to be?I think it'll actually be pretty popular especially on the Android side. It could follow Janrain’s fourth quarter Google+ usage increase. I would expect logins to roughly follow those trends. That’s what they'll look after it’s been going for a bit. Are the trends different from what we would've expected from across the industry data and what does that tell us what we should do differently? It’s important to note that we’re just interpreting data from Janrain customers and we're unable to predict exactly what will happen. In terms of how Google+ will gather, I would assume that it'll be somewhat in line with the Q4 trends.
Are there any plans for further Google+ integration in the future?
Cox Media Group sees the value in providing multiple options of logins. If you go around different Cox Media properties, I'm almost certain Google+ is available for all of them. The goal is to make things as easy for the users as possible and as long as a solid percentage of users are choosing to go with Google+, I'm sure they'll continue to offer it.
Are there any bands in SXSW providing exclusive content for the app?The goal isn't for this app to win SXSW. It’s really an app for Austin and over time it’s definitely going to be used more by locals than anyone else. When the Austin American-Statesman planned this, they designed it for Austin and for the people who live there. Obviously it'll be a great resource for visitors as well, but it’s not a grand "take over the SXSW" scheme. It’s more like: If you've got an app for the city of Austin and you've got a bunch of early adopters coming to town, wouldn't you want to get that in front of them? A lot of people are going to leave Austin and not use this app again for twelve months. But if you have a chance to get a group of early adopters to get on and give you data about the first version of your app, isn't that a great thing to get?
What sort of events and nightlife will be included in the app?
It’s all of the standards, but it allows you to create events too. So in that sense, you can create any event at a venue and invite people to it. It’s only limited by what people want to do with it. It’s going to cover all the things Austin360 (the site) manages. Including restaurants, nightlife, and concerts.
How will Google+ Sign-In and any other social logins be used to improve the app experience for users? Will it be personalized based on their demographic information, previous use, etc.?
Like anything else, version one that launches will continue to evolve. I don't think there’s going to be a lot of robust personalization on the launch version. The goal is to start to make the app help you more and more over time. The point is that the infrastructure is established for it to evolve. The goal is that it'll be a great app to use now and an even better one over time.
Will the app allow for users to engage with those in their Google+ circles through the app?It won't be at launch but it might be a kind of thing that would make sense associated with events to pull in social grasp with whatever you've connected with. I can't tell you whether that’s specifically in the roadmap. The focus has really been to get a solid app out the door with the core features and then looking to build on that.
The interesting thing to think about here is that we're trying to make this app better by knowing the user. For Cox Media Group and the Austin American-Statesman, it’s about how can we serve you as a part of this community. By knowing who you are when you're at Austin360 with the app on the website, the idea is to make the overall experience better. This is done by taking advantage of all the value that Google+ or other options provide.
The app hasn't been released at the time this was written, so keep tabs on the latest updates here and read the entire press here. You can also easily add your own Google+ sign-in feature with our guide.
How likely would you use an app like this for your city? What special features would you like to see? Drop us a comment below!
Austin360/Jainrain logo image: Source