Messaging app Emu has been bought by Google, and its current service will be closed on August 25th.
Emu is a relatively new messaging service, and it has some interesting features that make it obviously attractive to Google. Emu’s technology ‘monitors’ your chats to give you useful information and tools.
It will bring up your calendar if you’re discussing making a lunch date, for example, or show you Yelp links to restaurants you mention. Emu aimed to be a personal assistant for your chats with friends, not surprising considering it was created by an ex-Apple employee who was involved in the Siri iOS personal assistant project.
These features could obviously fit into Google’s own Hangouts communication app, and the monitoring technology could be easily adapted to serve its advertising model. Perhaps as well as seeing Emu’s personal assistant features come to Hangouts, could we get ads as well? If Emu can recommend nearby restaurants or bars, it could also highlight those which have paid to be advertised on the service. All of this is just theory so far, as neither Emu nor Google have commented on their plans for the future.
You can still try the Emu app until August 25th. It’s available for Android and iOS.
Related Stories
WhatsApp Android beta features voice replies on Android Wear
Twitter tries showing you tweets from people your friends follow
Facebook Messenger for iOS now faster
Follow Jonathan on Twitter: @jonathanriggall
