The next big thing with computers and smartphones is gesture control, but how will that impact upon search marketing? Perhaps, thinks the clickmate team, a thumbs-up to signify a successful search?
Gesture control is in its infancy, but agencies are now telling their clients to embrace it with some love.
The excitement over gesture control, which is based on motion technology, comes from the fact that if offers a greater chance of customer engagement. The theory goes that if you are actively communicating with a brand through gestures, as you can do currently with touchable screens on your various devices, then you are engaging on a far deeper and far personal level. And that creates a bond between consumer and brand.
All well and good we might say, but some digital marketing experts are not entirely convinced.
They think that companies’ efforts to manipulate the human-computer interface are premature and although they are technically possible, it will take longer for people to accept them and readily embrace their widespread use.
Hardware manufacturers, including HP and Apple, are planning to introduce technologies which fully exploit gesture control, and brands like Heineken are always happy to take-on new ways of reaching out to their customers.
What makes digital marketeers cautious is the potential social awkwardness which comes from waving your hands around in front of a device. It is this that might slow the uptake of such new- wave products such as gesture control.
Work is being done to better the interfaces, but as the brave new dawn breaks, hardware manufacturers, software developers and search marketing executives are all waiting to see what happens over the coming year.
We live in exciting times!