The Google I/O 2013 Opening Keynote: From Google+ To Search To Maps

Google+ gets a facelift — and new photo organizing tools. Google Hangouts comes to iOS. “OK Google” may be the new way you search by talking to your computer or mobile phone. The Google Knowledge Graph gets stats-smarts, Google Now gains new “cards” and Google Maps gets big, bold and glorious. These were the highlights, as we saw it, coming out of the opening keynote at Google I/O 2013.

Google I/O is Google’s big developer conference, but the opening keynote often has products and announcements that are of relevance to consumers and marketers. That was certainly the case with this year’s talk, which happened today in San Francisco.

Here are our breakout stories from the keynote:

• Google+ Stream Gets Fresh New Look & Automatically-Added Hashtags At Google I/O
• New Google+ Hangouts App Enables Cross-Platform, Multi-Media Conversations
• Up Close With The New Google+ Related Hashtags
• “OK Google” — Hands-Free, Conversational Search Coming From Google
• Google Knowledge Graph Gets More Stats and 4 New Languages
• Exploring The New More Dynamic, More Social Google Maps
• New Google Now Cards Include Voice-Activated Reminders

Missed the keynote? You can watch the recording:

[youtube width=”560″ height=”315″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XclVwJP5GdM[/youtube]

And you can also see our live blogging, below: