iPhone's Siri Threatens Google

Answering questions posed by the U.S. Senate antitrust subcommittee, Google chairman Eric Schmidt called the personal voice assistant in the iPhone 4S, named Siri, a "significant development" in the search market. Schmidt went so far as to say that Siri represents a threat to Google's search business, which is the company's bread and butter.

He could be right. Here's why.

I've been using Google's voice-assisted search tool for years on iPhones and Android smartphones. It's a great tool when you don't want to (or can't) take the time to peck out search queries on a touchscreen. It's not 100% accurate, but it works well enough most of the time that I prefer it to any other search method.

That is, until Siri came along.

With the iPhone 4S, I pose all questions to Siri (when it's working). Is Siri a better search tool? Does it provide better results? Is it faster? Not necessarily, but it's a hell of a lot more entertaining. And if Siri doesn't succeed on the first try, you have the pleasure of awaiting its sassy response. This is clearly a case where personality actually counts for something.

[Looking for some new apps that take advantage of Apple's updated mobile operating system? Check out 10 Innovative iOS 5 Apps.]

"Even in the few weeks since the [previous] hearing, Apple has launched an entirely new approach to search technology with Siri, its voice-activated search and task-completion service built into the iPhone 4S," he wrote, reports AppleInsider.

Of course, Schmidt's motivation for calling Siri a competitive threat isn't because he's actually scared of Siri's impact on Google's search business. No, he's trying to allay the Senate's concerns that Google is a monopolistic entity that needs to be regulated. Schmidt is going to call up every competitor he can think of to shore up Google's defense.

"Google has many strong competitors and we sometimes fail to anticipate the competitive threat posed by new methods of accessing information," Schmidt noted. "Apple's Siri is a significant development--a voice-activated means of accessing answers through iPhones that demonstrates the innovations in search."

Innovative? Yes. Competitive? Yes. A real, immediate threat to Google's core business? Well...

Siri will not impact Google's position in the search market anytime soon. Despite the entertainment value in Siri's search powers, it's not going to dislodge Google's dominant position in the search market, at least, not for a while. While iPhone 4S users may skip Google search on their iPhones, that's one very small segment of users and doesn't account for Google's desktop search business, which is huge.

Google owns 65% of the U.S. search market, 94% of the European search market, and 97% of the smartphone search market (thanks in no small part to the raging success of its Android smartphone platform).

Siri might have an impact eventually, if Apple brings it out of beta and expands it to more than a single device. For the time being, however, Schmidt's statements ring a bit false.

The Enterprise Connect "Phone, Tablets, Smartphones--Who Gets What In Your Enterprise?" virtual event will help you sort through the choices that are out there today. It happens Nov. 16. Sign up now. (Free with registration.)

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Posted in: Google,iPhone

Google Says It Rejected Sun’s $100 Million Java-Android Deal

Google Inc. rejected an offer by Sun Microsystems Inc to pay $100 million in royalties to use Java in its development of the Android operating system before Sun was acquired by Oracle Corp. (ORCL), a Google lawyer said.

Robert Van Nest, Google’s attorney, said yesterday at a hearing in federal court in San Francisco that the proposed $100 million three-year “all-in” deal in 2006 was for a technology partnership to jointly build Android, rather than for just a patent license.

Separately, Oracle won permission yesterday to question Google Chief Executive Officer Larry Page in a deposition about his knowledge of the search-engine company’s alleged infringement of patents that Oracle got when it acquired Sun.

Oracle, based in Redwood City, California, is seeking as much as $6.1 billion in damages from Google in a lawsuit that claims Android software uses technology that infringes Oracle’s patents. Google denies infringing and asked U.S. District Judge William Alsup at yesterday’s hearing to throw out Oracle’s damage estimate.

Alsup said it appeared that Google “has a product out there that is in direct violation of these patents,” and pressed Van Nest to explain why the Mountain View, California- based company discussed a license with Sun.

“There wasn’t any specific discussion of patents,” Van Nest said. While a few lines of code in Android are “identical” to Java, that code probably came from a third party, he said. “We are investigating that,” Van Nest said.

Programming Language

Android uses a Java programming language that is open to anyone for free, said Van Nest.

Alsup cited a document to a Google executive from Google’s Android project leader that said, “‘We conclude that we need to negotiate a license for Java.”

“Don’t you think a good lawyer will convince a jury that it’s a license for patents?” Alsup said.

While Oracle’s damages may be in the millions or billions of dollars, Alsup said it was “crazy” for Oracle to equate its damages to the entire market value of Android.

Michael Jacobs, Oracle’s attorney, told the judge that Google adopted “the entire architecture” of Java into Android.

“Our position is that there is no infringement, there is no willful infringement,” Van Nest said.

Oracle sought to depose Page about negotiations from 2005 to 2010 between Sun and Google over a Java license for Android and Page’s decision to acquire Android due to its strategic value, according to today’s court filing.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu ruled that Oracle may depose Page for two hours “soley on topics relevant to the willfulness of defendant’s alleged patent infringement, and the value of Android” to Google, according to the order.

The case is Oracle America Inc. v. Google Inc. (GOOG), 10-03561, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco)

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Posted in: Android,Google

Google+ Pulls In 20 Million in 3 Weeks

When Google Inc. launched its Google+ social-networking site three weeks ago, executives handed out sailor hats to the hundreds of employees working on the project, symbolizing their year-long journey to that point.

So far, the sailing has been mostly smooth. On Wednesday, Web-traffic watcher comScore Inc. estimated Google+ has had 20 million unique visitors since its launch, including five million visitors from the U.S. A Google spokeswoman declined comment.

Google's rapid growth spurt on Google+ suggests that people are hungry for more social network options, WSJ's Jen Valentino-DeVries reports.

ComScore, whose estimates are based on a "global measurement panel" of two million Internet users, similar to the approach Nielsen uses to measure television ratings,doesn't have data on the number of minutes people spent on Google+.

Still, the growth of Google+ has impressed observers because access to it is by invitation only, meaning people can join only if a current member invites them. And the company hasn't yet marketed the service to the more than one billion monthly visitors who use its search engine, Gmail and other services.

Journal Community

Google+ lets people share comments, articles, photos and videos with various "circles" of friends or contacts, or they can share content publicly with any userwho wants to view their posts. Eventually, Google plans to incorporate features of Google+ in its other services, such as its YouTube video site.

"I've never seen anything grow this quickly," said Andrew Lipsman, vice president of industry analysis at comScore. The only other site that has accumulated as many new visitors in a short period of time is Twitter in 2009, he said, "but that happened over several months."

The new data follow comments by Google CEO Larry Page last week that Google+ had more than 10 million users.Mr. Page said Google+'s traction was evidence that there are "more opportunities for Google today than ever before."

Of course, Google has a long way to go to reach the scale of Facebook Inc., which has more than 750 million users, and Twitter Inc., which has more than 200 million registered accounts.

With Google+, Google is aiming to match rivals like Facebook, which used personal information posted by its members to create a multibillion-dollar advertising business that lets marketers target specific demographic groups or people with certain interests. Google also hopes the service can become a home for brands and celebrities.

The data Google obtains about people's interests could also help it change the way its Web-search engine works. Sites in its search results could potentially be ranked based on what users and their friends like or find useful, Google engineers have said.

View Full Image

In addition to adding numerous features over time, Google will eventually allow software developers to create "social" games and other applications that would run on top of Google+, similar to Facebook's successful "platform" for applications, people familiar with the matter have said.

Google+ also has unique technology, such as a "hangouts" feature, that lets people do "video chats" using their computer webcams, speaking to numerous friends simultaneously. The company plans to include Google+ in its suite of online software for businesses.

In an email to investors Tuesday, Barclays Capital equity researchers said that "given positive initial traction from users we believe Google is now better positioned to compete and integrate social cues across its products than before, which could drive increased relevancy in search going forward."

Even some privacy advocates who lambasted Buzz, Google's prior social-networking effort, have lauded Google+. "The product has been designed to make it easier to share with one group of your friends while retaining some measure of privacy with respect to your family, coworkers or other groups of friends," said Peter Eckersley, a senior technologist at privacy-advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, in an email.

But Mr. Eckersley added: "Google+ won't be as good for protecting your privacy against Google or against governments or lawyers with the power to compel Google to turn over your information."

Ben Hopper, a 29-year-old photographer in London who joined Google+ just after it launched, said "it feels a little empty right now" compared with Facebook, where he has more than 4,000 "friends." But he said that he "needs to be everywhere to show my photography," and if Google+ becomes integrated with Gmail, Google's email service, "for me it will have the upper hand."

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904233404576460394032418286.html#ixzz1SwALVkCo

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Posted in: Google

Oracle can question Google's Larry Page in patent dispute

Oracle will get its shot at questioning Google CEO Larry Page in the high-stakes -- and already very testy -- patent litigation that has pitted the two tech giants against each other.

Oracle sued Google last year in federal court, claiming its Android mobile device software infringes on Oracle's Java patents, which it picked up in 2010 when it bought Sun Microsystems. Oracle is seeking billions of dollars in damages.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu issued an order late Thursday giving Oracle permission to depose Page for two hours about his knowledge of any alleged infringement of the patents. Google denies it infringed on the patents.

"Oracle may depose Mr. Page for a maximum of two hours, excluding breaks, solely on topics relevant to the willfulness of Defendant's alleged patent infringement, and the value of Android to the Defendant," the judge ruled.

Google had fought the request to have Oracle depose the Google co-founder, who took over as chief executive in April. But intellectual property analyst Florian Mueller predicted Oracle had a good chance of getting the request granted.

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Posted in: Google

Google + Nicole's 10 favorite Android apps (CNET 100)

Google+

Call me an early adopter if you must, but count me in with the millions of people who have fully embraced Google+, Google's latest attempt at a social network. I am really digging the Circles paradigm, where you're invited to group up your friends and colleagues into separate circles, so you can fine tune who you choose to keep in touch with. I also find the interface clean and intuitive, and I have to give props to Google+ for being much more privacy-aware than a certain other competitor.

One of the best things about Google+ is its Android app. Just download it from the Android Market, and within a couple of taps, you're ready to go. The mobile app is well designed, and you can switch Circle views by just swiping left to right. It's also easy to check notifications, and posting photos couldn't be simpler. Even better is the Huddle feature, which is only accessible on mobile handsets. This brings group messaging to a whole other level--you can send one text to a designated Circle, for example, and all members of that Circle will get that message. This is a great tool for organizing parties. Even though Google has just released the iOS version of Google+, the Android app still wins out with a key feature: the ability to customize the main stream with your own chosen circles.

Source :http://reviews.cnet.com/2300-19736_7-10008683.html

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Posted in: Android,Google

This week in Docs and Sites: A spreadsheets shortcuts menu, PPTX support and more

This week, we’re introducing a number of enhancements to Google Docs and Sites: a spreadsheets shortcuts menu, support for PPTX conversion, a new RSS gadget, and improved mobile rendering for Sites.

Spreadsheets shortcuts
Although shortcuts have long been available in your Google spreadsheets, we've added a shortcuts menu to spreadsheets to make them easier to find -- saving you even more time. Hit Ctrl+/ (or Cmd+/ on a Mac) to pull up the list of shortcuts and learn new ways to sharpen your spreadsheet skills. Remember that shortcuts can vary depend on the operating system and browser you're using -- the example below is the menu you’d see if you were using a Chrome browser on a Mac.


Support for conversion of PPTX files to Google presentations
Starting today, you can convert PPTX files to Google presentations by either uploading the file from your desktop or converting the file from your documents list. Just follow the same simple steps as you normally would when converting files to Google Docs formats.

Better customization for your RSS Gadget in Sites
We’ve also added a new RSS gadget for Google Sites to our “Featured” gallery.


The new RSS gadget gives you complete control over the appearance of the gadget: You can customize any aspect of the feed, including font, color, size, number of items to display, and post length.

To set your gadget, go to Insert > More Gadgets > Featured, and look for RSS Feed.


Improved mobile rendering
After we released our initial version of Google Sites automatic mobile rendering, you enabled the option for over 50,000 sites, making it clear that you’re looking for a better way to easily publish content for mobile devices.

Based on what you’ve told us, we’re adding the additional behaviors to make automatic mobile rendering on Google Sites even better, including:

• Images and header logos automatically scale in mobile mode
• Gadgets and text boxes have widths that fit mobile devices
• Pages with multi-column layouts stack columns vertically on mobile

Before

After

Thanks for continuing to let us know what you think about our products -- these changes wouldn’t be possible without you.

Source : http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2011/07/this-week-in-docs-and-sites.html

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Posted in: Google

Facebook challenge, Google+ opportunity: Unhappy users

Facebook garnered the lowest satisfaction score of any Web site measured in an annual e-business survey, according to data released today.

In fact, Facebook ranks in the bottom 6% of the entire American Customer Satisfaction Index -- categories that also include airlines, cable companies and newspapers.

"Only 14 other sites of the 226 private-sector companies measured by the ACSI have scores that tie or fall below Facebook's," the ACSI report concludes.

If there's any good news for Facebook, it's that it boosted its satisfaction score from last year's 64 to 66. However, that's still below the 70 aggregate for all social media sites (chart below) and far less than leaders Wikipedia (78) and Google's YouTube (74).

No, this doesn't assure that challenger Google+ will supplant Facebook. But those who assume Facebook is immune to competition due to its massive user base may want to re-examine that idea.

Large market share is an asset, but it's not a synonym for invulnerable. Minicomputers once had large market share. Palm was once one of several companies that dominated the smartphone market. And MySpace used to be a major social media network, but doesn't even appear in this year's survey because there weren't enough responses.

Twitter.com data isn't broken out in the ACSI survey, because so many people tweet via third-party clients and not the Web site, so I can't see how it stacks up with would-be competitors. And, the survey took place several weeks before Google+ was launched, so it's too early to know how it measures in user satisfaction in the social media space. Google+ will likely be included next year, said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results, a sponsor of the e-commerce ACSI surveys.

Google did score extremely well in the search engine/portal category. Google's search engine satisfaction score rose from 80 last year to 83 this year, making it the category leader. Potential bad news for Google? Bing increased from 77 to 82, the report notes:

Last year, Google's customer satisfaction score was three points higher than Bing's. This year, that gap has narrowed to an insignificant 1-point difference (chart below).

This has been a year of hyper growth for Bing, which had the largest year-over-year gains in search activity among the measured search engines, according to ComScore. In February 2011, Bing surpassed Yahoo in market share for the first time ever, and in March 2011, Bing-powered searches totaled 30% of all U.S. searches. Google-powered searches fell by 3% in 2010, yet Google remains the major player with approximately 70% of search engine market.

When Microsoft launched Bing.com two years ago, did you expect it would be serving up 30% of all U.S. search-engine requests by now? And that's against a competitor with much higher satisfaction levels than Facebook has.

Of course, it's a lot easier to switch search engines than social networks. And I'm not quite as enamored with Google+ in this early iteration as some other enthusiasts. For instance, posts appearing in my stream can be too lengthy for scanning -- and that simply won't scale if I want to follow hundreds of people as I do on Facebook or Twitter.

But it shows promise, and I'm open to the possibility of another social network -- especially if Google keeps working to improve the Plus interface -- in large part because I'm not especially happy with my Facebook experience. My enjoyment comes from family and friends who share content with me, not from the platform itself, which for me generally ranges from competent to annoying. Three major issues were cited by less-than-satisfied Facebook users, Freed said:

• Security and privacy concerns
• Overcommercialization
• Unexpected changes to the user experience

He predicts Google+ will be a competitor to Facebook, but also believes that competition will "cause Facebook to step up. ... Competition is always great for consumers."

The challenge for Google is to break what is in effect a "near monopoly situation," as Freed described it: If you want to connect with a wide range of people -- young and old, tech-savvy to tech-averse -- Facebook has become the default place online. Ten million is a lot of users for Google+ to have amassed in just a few weeks; but that still means most of the people I connect with elsewhere aren't there yet. Can Google+ build its user base beyond early tech adopters fast enough -- leveraging its own base of other Google users -- in order to reach a critical mass?

The issue for Facebook as I see it is whether it will start seriously improving the user experience for consumers of its service, not only its advertisers (where Facebook has a great deal of competition). Near monopolies can breed corporate cultures that stop focusing on innovations, until unexpected competition rises up -- something many local newspapers discovered in the Internet era. Newspapers had the lowest satisfaction score of all ACSI categories in its May information survey, and perhaps it's no coincidence that sector is no longer much of a growth industry. We'll see in the coming year if Facebook can respond more nimbly.

Sharon Machlis is online managing editor at Computerworld. Her e-mail address is smachlis@computerworld.com. You can follow her on Twitter @sharon000, on Facebook, on Google+ or by subscribing to her RSS feeds:
articles | blogs .

Social media consumer satisfaction scores

Site	2010	2011	% change
Wikipedia	77	78	1.3%
YouTube (Google)	73	74	1.4%
All Others	72	67	-6.9%
Facebook	64	66	3.1%
All Social Media	70	70	0.0%

Source: ACSI survey

---

Search engine consumer satisfaction scores

Site	2010	2011	% change
Google.com	80	83	3.8%
Bing.com	77	82	6.5%
All Others	82	81	-1.2%
Ask.com	73	80	9.6%
Yahoo.com	76	79	3.9%
MSN.com	75	78	4.0%
AOL.com	74	75	1.4%
All Portals & Search Engines	77	80	3.9%

Source: ACSI survey

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Posted in: Google

LinkedIn CEO says Google+ vs Facebook is a deathmatch

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner sees no way Facebook and Google+ can both exist, and says it's likely Google+ will come out on the losing end of the battle.

Weiner obviously has a slanted view on the social networking market because in his mind, no matter what the other players are, LinkedIn will always be relevant, which certainly can be disputed.

But, on a meta level, he had a pretty salient observation of social network functions in a recent Business Insider article.

There are three main, distinct purposes for a social network: "microcasting" all the latest goings-on in your life (Twitter), managing your professional life (LinkedIn), and connecting with friends and family.

The latter category is currently being taken care of quite well by Facebook. So where's the need for a new social network? There isn't one, says Weiner.

"You introduce Google+, where am I going to spend that next minute or hour of my discretionary time? I have no more time," he said.

"Unlike social platforms and TV, which can coexist, you don’t see people using Twitter while they’re using Facebook, or using Facebook while they’re using LinkedIn."

However, Weiner is neglecting the face that monopolies, even ones like Facebook, can be broken. In a recent customer satisfaction survey from ForeSee Results, Facebook ranked last among all website in the Social Media category, which included other sites like Youtube, Wikipedia, Twitter, and Myspace.

Facebook scored a 66 out of a possible 100, which isn't terrible but it certainly leaves room for someone to swoop in and bring some healthy competition to the table.

And, Foresee CEO Larry Freed surmised, "Facebook is clearly king right now, but if anyone can knock it off its throne, it would be Google."

Source :http://www.tgdaily.com/software-brief/57320-linkedin-ceo-says-google-vs-facebook-is-a-deathmatch

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Posted in: Facebook,Google

Big bonuses coming for Google Apps users

Still debating whether to sign on with Office 365 or jump ship for the slimmer, cheaper, and less feature-laden (or encumbered) Google Apps?

Google's trying to sweeten the pot and make your decision easier.

No doubt you've noticed the facelift going on across Google's pages. As Google's blog describes, the official rollout started three weeks ago. I'm convinced we're looking at more than a facelift for the aging Google dowager design. Behind those nips and tucks there's a makeover in the way the pieces of Google hang together -- the way you engage with Google itself -- and a uniformity in appearance that's starting to tie things together.

The Google marketing machine lumps the changes into three general categories. Focus improvements make it easier for you to find and use common actions and de-emphasize things you don't want to do as frequently. Improved elasticity aims to make the user interface more uniform whether you're on a full size PC, a tablet, or a smartphone. Effortlessness changes the plumbing behind the scenes to do more, while requiring you to do less.

At least, that's what Google would have you believe.

Next up? Gmail's in for a redesign. The new appearance, which bears more than a little homage to the Outlook Web App, is strictly opt-in at the moment. You can take it for a test drive; inside Gmail, click on the gear icon/Options button in the upper right corner, choose Mail Settings, move over to the Themes tab, and choose either the Preview or Preview Dense theme. ("Dense" refers to the graphic quality; it's not a value judgment.)

As of yesterday, Google started making small tweaks to the standard Gmail interface -- the Spam button looks a little different, for example. The company promises to roll out more changes this year. Slowly.

Ultimately, as you can see in the Preview Dense theme, Gmail's going to start looking more like a corporate email app and less like a really cool pastiche cooked up by a bunch of geniuses with too much time on their hands. By changing the appearance and functionality in slow increments, the designers hope to accomplish the change with a minimal bump on the learning curve.

The biggest impact on corporate users: Google+.

You may think that Google+ won't have any effect on your company, but you're only fooling yourself. Dan Tynan pointed out in his article 10 hard truths IT must learn to accept that Facebook and Twitter are already being used at 96 percent of organizations. Google+ seems destined to take on both. Google+ can handle Facebook-style open blog posts, Twitter-style directed tweets (only longer), individually addressed emails, and targeted group interactions similar to Google Groups.

With 10 million acknowledged users as of last Thursday -- I'd be willing to bet it's closer to 20 million by now -- Google+ is going to change the corporate landscape.

Currently Google+ membership is limited to @gmail.com addresses. Soon, we're promised, Google will open up Google+ to any domain hosted by Google Apps. That's going to give your users a lot of capability, including a big slice of Lync functionality, although it isn't at all clear if Google+ working with Google Apps accounts will have any of Lync's central control.

We're also promised integration between Gmail and Google+ in the near term. That's going to be interesting as well.

If you're actively defending your organization against Facebook and Twitter, you have a new G+ bogeyman to shut out. But if you're toying with the idea of embracing social networking, Google+ offers a lot of advantages to your users and to your company. For example, an employee can set up a circle called Co-workers (or Management Committe or The Cafeteria or HR) and direct posts to that limited group. It isn't iron-clad security on a par with Lync, but it's a big step forward from post-it-to-the-world Facebook.

If you're thinking about moving to Google Apps, in the past few weeks the folks at Google have given you a whole lot more to think about.

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Posted in: Google

ZIP and RAR support now available in the Google Docs Viewer

Downloading files that you only need to preview can create unnecessary clutter on your computer. While you can already use the Google Docs Viewer to view over 15 different file types without downloading them, today we’ve added support for archive file types ZIP and RAR. Now, if someone sends you a ZIP or RAR file in Gmail, you’ll be able to view its contents from within your browser by clicking on View.


This will bring up a view that includes all of the files in the archive, the file types, and the size of those files.


When you hover over the list you can activate a menu by clicking Actions. You’ll be able to View items supported by Google Docs Viewer and Print (PDF) those that we offer PDF support. Save to Google Docs and Download appear for all files.


ZIP and RAR archives that are embedded inside other archives also work. For example, if you have a RAR file inside a ZIP file (like in our example above) you can just click on that file to access the embedded archive.

Go ahead and try the feature by viewing a ZIP file.

This feature extends to Google Docs for mobile, too. For each viewable file (including embedded ZIP or RAR archives) there is a link to view.



We hope this removes the need to download full archives when you only need to work on select items. We’re always adding more file types to the Google Docs Viewer -- let us know what file types you’d like to see support for next in the forums.

Source :http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2011/07/zip-and-rar-support-now-available-in.html

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Posted in: Google

Readers vs. Gamers, 'Google News Badges' Could Revolutionize Both

Google's latest concoction 'Google News Badges' could be making strides toward a revolutionary way of reading, gaming, and social networking. By connecting Google News with Google+ through the user profile, the tech giant has turned reading news into a gaming experience.

The 'gamification' of transforming everyday practices into a competitive activity could be Google's innovative way of stepping into the games market. It was clear that with the launch of Google+, Google will need to find a way to compete with Facebook's lineup of Zynga games. Though this new idea may not be a video game, it is an interesting approach for encouraging gaming within readers.

Educators have long been trying to embrace games and integrating them with reading. With more games being developed for mobile devices, reading has became secondary for many tablet users compared to gaming usage.

According to a survey of 1,400 tablet users conducted by Admob, 84% of them use the tablet to play games. That surpassed the 61% of owners who use their tablet to read news and 46% who read eBooks. It also found that 59% of tablet owners spend more time on their tablet than reading a book or newspaper.

Some would consider gamers and readers as two separate groups. Google may have launched something that could tie both together and potentially boost higher percentages for online reading. Google awards its 500 badges to avid readers and allows them to proudly display their digital icons to other users online. The badge level starts from bronze and readers can level up to silver, gold, and ultimate based on how many articles are read on a certain topic of interest.

"The more you read, the higher level badge you'll receive, starting with Bronze, then moving up the ladder to Silver, Gold, Platinum and finally, Ultimate...Tell them about your news interests, display your expertise, start a conversation, or just plain brag about how well-read you are...You can also add custom sections by hovering on a badge and clicking 'add section' to read more about your favorite topics," wrote Google on its official blog post.

Google set the badges feature on private by default so that users can choose to share or not to share what they've read publicly. Those who choose to share can proudly showcase the volume of articles that were read online. Fun could also be had by building up rankings in competing with friends or just keeping track of personal reading achievements. No confirmations yet on what else readers can earn other than badges for upgrading their reading levels.

The impact of Google's new badges on reading and gaming could offer positive results in all areas. Higher encouragement of reading based on a reward system and innovation of integrating games with daily activities could counter recent news regarding Google's negative effects on human memory. Scientists performed studies that showed the human brain increasing reliance on search engines such as Google. The result has decreased our ability to know where information could be found since more attention is now on knowing the information itself. Could Google's reading and gaming concept be sustained in their latest badges feature?

Source:http://sanfrancisco.ibtimes.com/articles/182147/20110718/readers-vs-gamers-google-news-badges-google-plus.htm

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Posted in: Google

Hashtag creator brings his idea to Google+

By adding a single character to Twitter's vocabulary nearly four years ago -- # -- Chris Messina unlocked a wealth of useful information in Twitter.

Now he wants to bring the same creation, called a hashtag, to Google+.

Hashtags are terms beginning with the pound sign, also called a hash, for easy identification as a recognizable label. Examples include #wwc hashtag for women's World Cup soccer or the ever-popular #fail hashtag for complaining when things go wrong. By following a particular hashtag, it can be easier to concentrate on content you might be interested in.

Messina sees hashtags as, ideally, a way that people can sift their Google+ "stream"--the collection of posts from all people a Google+ user follows.

"Lots of people have requested the ability to target content [to] their followers based on topic (i.e. only share content to people who are following me AND interested in, say, comics). Since the product doesn't support that kind of targeting, I'm just making something up, like I did with hashtags back in 2007," Messina said in a Google+ post last week. But so far it's a manual process: "So, if you see 3 to 4 topic hashtags at the beginning of my posts (like subject lines but for topics), they're there so people can choose to ignore my post if they're uninterested."

The move is a bit surprising--not that Messina and others would want hashtags, but that Google, a company obsessed with organizing information and making it accessible, didn't do so itself.

Just because Google didn't build the feature into Google+ on day one doesn't mean the company has rejected it, of course. Google is particularly fond of releasing projects as early as possible then updating them as rapidly as possible. Public feedback on Google+ can help steer priorities for the company.

One possibility would be to augment Google+ with tagging abilities that parallel the service's linked names. By typing "+username" into Google+, the service inserts a live link to that user's posts. A "#" operator could similarly link to a live search of Google+ posts using the hashtag, though Google might need to work on presentation to balance how relevant and recent a post is and to show private posts shared with the person doing the searching. People also could follow a particular hashtag the way they can watch a particular circle's comments in the stream.

While Messina brough hashtags to Twitter, tags themselves long predate it. The Flickr photo-sharing service and Delicious bookmarking service use tags extensively, for example.

And Google itself has shown some appreciation for tags. Gmail labels, for example, are tags that can be applied to any message, and Google Docs collections work the same way.

Not everyone is enamored of Messina's idea.

"There's some major cognitive dissonance going on here, seeing Twitter hashtags on Google+," Web developer Adrian Holovaty said in a blog post, complaining that the answer to Twitter's constraints isn't the right answer for Google's social network. "It feels like G+ should have something much more sophisticated and user-friendly," he said.

Messina responded that he's open to new approaches. "I take your point and haven't concluded (personally) that hashtags are right for the medium of G+. But I do think that they serve a purpose, and came out of a transitional medium which still serves a purpose," he said.

Google certainly is paying attention to the hashtag issue. When asked on Q&A site AnyAsq about whether Google+ will support hashtags, Google+ engineer and technical lead Joseph Smarr had this sympathetic response: "Personally, I want this too (and I know Chris Messina agrees, heh), but we don't have anything official to say about this (or pretty much any other specific future features or timelines)."

Google did not immediately return CNET's request for additional comment.

Messina reiterated his opinion last night, pointing out that the original reasons for using hashtags apply to Google+ as well.

"If you read my original proposal for hashtags (or 'tag channels'), you can see that I was looking to address a lot of the same issues being discussed today on G+," Messina said in a Google+ post. "So, I suppose the question is, can we come up with a better spec for G+ to implement and adopt today?"

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20080274-264/hashtag-creator-brings-his-idea-to-google/#ixzz1STRJzFVD

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Posted in: Google

Google+ Euphoria: When Will Circles Finally Score a Plus Point?

NEW DELHI: It’s an illogical and unreasonable parallel no doubt, but the circles in Google Plus have drawn my attention to the Indian epic, the Mahabharata. In the epic battle between the righteous Pandavas and the evil Kauravas, it is said, when nothing seemed to work, Dronacharya, the supreme commander for the Kauravas, conceived of the “chakravyuh” – a battle strategy comprising concentric circular formations, which could trap and befuddle the opponent and bring victory.

And while the circles in Google Plus do have a marked Indian connection in Vic Gundotra, the parallels, I must admit, emanate from the perceptible euphoria that Google’s youngest child has generated among netizens.

After two false starts, Google seems to have been third time lucky with its social media calculations. While Buzz and Wave sank without a trace, Google Plus is already a visible force that is challenging Facebook and Twitter. Even with a controlled invite-only regime, it should cross 20 million users shortly. It goes without saying that numbers will skyrocket once the invitation bar is lifted.

But talking of Google’s “chakravyuh” strategy once more, if I may call it so, has surely scored a big hit over arch-rival Microsoft. Was it just a coincidence that Microsoft's Tulalip project – supposedly its social media product in the making – got “accidentally” leaked on the internet on socl.com last week?

As reported by VentureBeat.com, much like the blushes that follow an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction on the ramp, Microsoft quickly removed it, with a sheepish alibi, that said: “Socl.com is an internal design project from a team in Microsoft Research which was mistakenly published to the web. We didn’t mean to, honest."

Sure. We believe you, Mr. Ballmer. Just that the timing made us think. More importantly, it makes the entire online community think about a possible late entrant social media product from Microsoft, considering that’s the one space where the Redmond giant is conspicuously absent. So, we don’t know if Microsoft’s Office 360 would now be followed by Tulalip to offer some resistance to Google’s growing supremacy on the internet. Time will tell. One can only keep a watch on socl.com.

Coming back to the Facebook-Google Plus battle, I am as excited an observer as a whole army of geeks, who are wondering if Mark Zuckerburg would now be morbidly scared of a churn. I like Google Plus, but Facebook is still the social media mainstay, while Twitter plays its own role in microblogging.

How many would actually dump Facebook to shift to Google Plus is a million dollar question. Too soon to find answers. One of the reasons a rational prognosis would take time, is because a very high percentage of Google Plus’s content is about itself, which makes it a wonder toy for everyone to fiddle with and get to know the ropes, but still remains under-baked as a buzzing social media platform per se.

As curiosity gives way to comfort and ease, user preferences will evolve and become more evident. It would be difficult to assume a very high percentage of dual usage though. If human instinct is any indicator, users would at best have one primary social media platform, and use the other once in a while.

It may be difficult to dismiss Facebook just yet. But Google’s war is larger than just the tactical battles. With its stranglehold on search and online advertising, a backward integration of Google Plus with the rest of its universe would end up marrying user profiles (and hence demographics and psychographics) to not just search results, but may also contribute heavily to a further sharpening of the algorithms that drive its contextual advertising engines, Adsense and Adwords. Add to it the mobile internet universe, and Google looks virtually invincible.

I don’t think even Google’s detractors grudge their cerebral prowess. But the plethora of litigation and anti-trust investigations that it faces in Europe and America would now dig deeper to probe monopolistic strategies. Microsoft is already a sworn proponent of anti-trust investigations against Google. It is improbable that Facebook would cry foul so soon. But the second battle of Kurukshetra has already been declared on the internet. (Global India Newswire)

source :http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/182009/20110718/google-google-google-plus-netizens-socl-com-gacebook-twitter-microsoft-tulalip-venturebeat-ballmer.htm

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Posted in: Google

Google releases its Android 3.2 Honeycomb SDK

SOFTWARE HOUSE Google has released a software development kit (SDK) for Android 3.2, codenamed Honeycomb, which brings user and developer features.

It's not been long that we've been talking about Google's Android 3.1 Honeycomb operating system and already the SDK is out for the next update in line.

The Android Developers blog said, "Today we are announcing the Android 3.2 platform, an incremental release that adds several new capabilities for users and developers."

In terms of user features there will be a 'compatibility display mode' which allows for pixel-scaling of applications rather than stretching them, for apps not designed for larger screens.

Google is being a bit vague about the improvements but there will be a "variety of refinements across the system ensure a great user experience on a wider range of tablet devices".

Users will also be able to load media files from an SD card, on a tablet that facilitates one, straight to applications that use them.

For developers, extensions to the application programming interface (API) include resource qualifiers and manifest attributes to give greater and more precise control over the way apps are displayed.

A new 'zoom compatibility mode' will render the user interface of a fixed-size app on a smaller screen area, and then scale it up to fill the space available on the display. The new API is rated 13, one higher than version 3.1.

Whilst tablet manufacturers are rolling out Android 3.1 to devices, Huawei said its Mediapad, a 7in tablet, will come pre-loaded with version 3.2 when it tips up in the coming months.

Source : http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2094757/google-releases-android-honeycomb-sdk#ixzz1STMcbKXr

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Posted in: Android,Google

To Pique Interest, Start-Ups Try a Digital Velvet Rope

Demand for Google’s new social networking service, Google+, has been intense since its debut last month in a limited test mode. To get in, you must be invited by someone who is already a member, so Facebook and Twitter are peppered with requests for invitations to the service, and they have even been sold on eBay.

Google’s secret? Knowing that people usually want what they can’t have.

These days it can be hard for a new Web site to attract attention. Dozens of start-ups unveil their lovingly built sites each day, but most people already have their fill of social network profiles to update and friend requests to weigh.

That has led many companies, from small start-ups to giants like Google, to try creating a sense of exclusivity by putting up a digital velvet rope.

Typically companies parcel out the initial sign-up invitations to a select few, asking that they kick the tires and offer feedback on any lingering bugs or flaws in the software. In exchange, the members of that group get the bragging rights associated with being the first ones inside the latest new service. The invitations often go to people who have a sizable following on blogs, Twitter or other social services.

“Invitation-only services create a halo of privilege and exclusivity for those early adopters that gain access,” said Kartik Hosanagar, a professor of information management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. “They get to convey that they were somehow chosen, and that gives them status in their social circles.”

Those who enjoy playing the invitation game liken it to knowing about the next hot D.J. or cool speakeasy before the masses find out.

“It’s almost like having a V.I.P. pass to the Internet,” said Andrew Mager, a Web developer at a start-up called SimpleGeo in San Francisco.

Mr. Mager said that he swapped invitations to sites with others using services like InviteShare. “I’ve run across a lot of people that want an invite just to say they have an invite, even if they could care less what the Web site is,” he said.

On some level the exclusivity approach flies in the face of logic. Wouldn’t a start-up want to sign up as many new users as possible?

But entrepreneurs generally have a bigger goal in mind: winning over the early adopters in the hopes that their glowing reviews will attract more mainstream users.

When Justin Kan was gearing up to release his second start-up, SocialCam, a mobile app that lets people share videos with their friends, his company plotted out a tiered release of invitations. “We started with a core nucleus of users that we thought would spread it to everyone,” he said. Those users could then invite others.

The company attributes its early success — surpassing one million users in four months — to its strategic approach.

“From a buzz perspective, we did exactly what we set out to do,” said Mr. Kan.

Even services that already have some name recognition, like Spotify, the much-promoted music streaming service, look for ways to generate excitement around their products.

When Spotify, a European service, came to the United States last week, it did not immediately fling open its doors. People have to get their hands on an invitation to use the free version of the service, which is supported by advertising. However, they can have immediate access if they sign up for the paid premium version.

Having an early preview phase to smooth out any rough edges is particularly crucial for social networking start-ups, said Susan Etlinger, a consultant at the Altimeter Group who advises companies on how best to use technology. Negative word can spread quickly online, bursting a start-up’s bubble even before it has a chance to get off the ground.

The danger lies in “setting a high expectation that can bite them later,” Ms. Etlinger said.

In Google’s case, the company says limiting access to Google+ is necessary while it works out kinks in the service and tries to keep it from buckling under a crush of new users.

“We came up with mechanics to bring our audiences in in stages, and allow us time to refine it and bake it before it hits the mainstream,” said Bradley Horowitz, a vice president for product at Google who helped orchestrate the introduction of Google+ and other social services at the company.

Google introduced the service in several stages, beginning with an internal test phase called “fish food,” a play on the code name for the product, Emerald Sea. Shortly after, all 24,000 Google employees were granted access for several months.

Then, Mr. Horowitz said, the company decided to begin what it is calling its “limited field trial,” which involved inviting a small group that was selected using a set of criteria that he declined to discuss. Most were journalists and prominent bloggers. Eventually the company opened up windows during which those users were allowed to invite others.

“Invites were on and off at various times,” Mr. Horowitz said. “We were letting people trickle in and throttled the limit based on capacity.”

At this point the service is far from an exclusive club. Larry Page, chief executive of Google, said on Thursday that more than 10 million people had joined and were sharing a billion items a day.

Mr. Horowitz acknowledged that early traction did not guarantee long-term success. What matters, he said, “is to transcend that early adopter crowd and learn how the late adopters will use your system.”

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Posted in: Facebook,Google

Google+ to Challenge Facebook in Business Brand Ads

Though it's early days for Google+, the social network has shown signs of keen user engagement, according to statistics rattled off by none other than Google CEO Larry Page July 14 during the company's second-quarter earnings call.

Google+ has over 10 million users and rising, as the search giant has reopened invites since July 10. Google+ users are sharing over 1 billion items each day. Moreover, users are clicking the +1 recommendation button 2.3 billion times a day.

"We've been really excited about Google+ really improving the overall experience like how you would share in real life," Page said on the earnings call. "And we're getting great reviews on that. And there's a lot of magic built into the product that exposes that."

Business advertisers looking to exploit social media for marketing messaging and ultimately financial gain are angling to seize on that magic Page alluded to. But other than a first mover experiment from Ford Motor Co and a few other select companies, they will have to wait a little longer.

Christian Oestlien, the advertising lead on Google+, has asked businesses, and other organizations not to fashion business brand pages—similar to Facebook Pages—so that Google can optimize the business-user experience.

Oestlien said on his Google+ profile page Google is very excited about boosting the business experience with rich analytics and the ability to connect that identity to Google's major money-making AdWords business.

While Google is actively working on fulfilling business pages demand, it is picking some of thousands of applicant companies to test out business pages on Google+ before the tech giant rolls out on a wide scale.

"We're going to take a small group of brands, businesses and other entities and create profiles for them and see how users interact with them via circles, through the stream and even how they communicate with them through Hangouts [Google+ group video chat]," Ostelien said.

The consensus among most analysts is that Google+ will indeed help the search company make more advertising money, but even it won't capture the social crown from Facebook.

Source :http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Google-to-Challenge-Facebook-in-Business-Brand-Ads-433365/

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Posted in: Facebook,Google

Google+ and the fear of a garden planet

Two weeks into Google+, the search giant's most intensive attack yet on social networking, and the signs are very good.

With over 10 million users in the de-facto beta and many more eager to join, the buzz is positive. Google+ is very good at letting people read each other's messages while giving users the whip hand in deciding who sees what.

Not that there aren't reservations over usability, scaleability and security: the only proper test of a social network is to use it, as its behaviour depends more than any other service on the way humans feel and act. That behaviour will change as more people pile in. All the signs are they will, and in record numbers.

Fortunately for analysts, the most immediately significant aspect of Google+ isn't in the social-networking side of Google+ at all. It's the black bar that now appears at the top of your browser window whenever you're logged in. For a graphic of a few thousand pixels and only 4KB or so in size, it's a work of considerable subtlety and portent.

It looks exactly like an ordinary menu bar, which has been with us since Bill Atkinson put one on Apple's Lisa in 1982. It's the single most familiar user interface component for the vast majority of users: our desktops, our applications and many of our web services use it, and it's so familiar it's effectively invisible. Now, Google has put one on the whole internet and tied it to Google's own approach to what we say, do and read there.

Most of the bar's menu titles are arranged in a seemingly obvious but perfectly tuned cadence of precedence that matches the importance we give our web usage: Gmail, Calendar, Documents, Photos, Reader... Only towards the end does Web appear, and here, of course, you find Google's search interface. Google+ itself has the kingpin position at the extreme left, but it's not there under its own title. In a clever piece of projection, your name is now the label for Google+ and, by implication, at the head of the whole internet.

(Incidentally, the Google+ habit of marking an account name by prefixing it with a + is a marvellous pun on many levels. In the C programming language, a + before a variable is called the pre-increment and means 'add one to the variable before doing anything else with it'. You are promoted before you do anything else, with Google+. And, in the traditions of the Anglican Church, +name is the normal way of writing the name of a bishop: not only are you promoted, you've been ordained into the Apostolic Succession. You don't get that with Facebook.)

With Google+ the layers of social media sit more comfortably on top of the rest of the internet.

The psychology of the design is one thing, but the implications go much deeper. The web itself has been turned into an application that seemingly runs under Google. That's entirely in keeping with the company's philosophy behind Chrome OS, and in tune with its basic business model that if you use the web, you're helping Google.

It's entirely different to the approach of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others, where the contents of the service are shielded from the web (in other words, from Google) and the web itself is something that exists outside the walled garden, to be plundered for content but not inhabited.

Towards a garden planet

With Google+ the layers of social media sit more comfortably on top of the rest of the internet. It's not a place beyond a wall; it's part of the scenery. If Facebook is a walled garden, then Google's environment is a garden planet.

This rebranding of the whole internet is audacious, logical and unassailable. For most of us, these days, the internet means the internet filtered through Google. The company has taken the opportunity to put more branding on top of that accepted perception and added a rather nifty social network in one go. In the process, it's made those innovations seem useful and non-threatening. No other company could do that.

For Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and the other pretenders to the throne, Google+ is a depressing reminder of how potent a competitor the Mountain View giant remains and how it's still able to set the rules. For users, Google is finding new ways to buy our attention through convenience, relevance and utility. As far as bargains with giant corporate entities go, this isn't one of the worst.

As for whether this leads to a stronger, healthier internet or a monoculture where bad things can happen without oversight or recourse: we can still click away — and with Google's Data Liberation policy, we can take our content with us. Faint comfort. The risk with the garden planet model isn't that we're prevented from escaping: it's that there's nowhere else to go.

Source : http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/emerging-tech/2011/07/17/google-and-the-fear-of-a-garden-planet-40093426/

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Posted in: Google

Google launches 'News badges'

Google has made several failed attempts to launch a social networking service in the past, but the initial response to Google+ suggests it will fare much better. Photo: AFP

Regular users of Google News can now earn badges from reading about their favourite topics.

In a similar fashion to Foursquare, the location sharing service, which allows people to earn points and badges for repeat check-ins to different places, Google News users in the US can earn different pins, starting with bronze and moving up to Ultimate.

Badges are private by default but can be turned on to public so that people can talk to others about their interests.

In order to enable the service, US users have to sign up to a Google web account, enable web history and visit this page.

There are more than 500 badges available to suit all types of interest, such as ‘stock market’, ‘Harry Potter’ and US elections.

“In the U.S. edition of Google News, you can see how voracious a news reader you are by earning Google News badges as you read articles about your favourite topics,” wrote Natasha Mohanty, an engineer at Google News, on the company blog.

“The more you read, the higher level badge you’ll receive, starting with Bronze, then moving up the ladder to Silver, Gold, Platinum and finally, Ultimate….

“Your badges are private by default, but if you want, you can share your badges with your friends. Tell them about your news interests, display your expertise, start a conversation or just plain brag about how well-read you are. You can also add custom sections by hovering on a badge and clicking “add section” to read more about your favorite topics.”

There is no date for a UK launch of a similar service yet.

Google launched its social network, Google+ two weeks ago, and is increasingly trying to get people to share content via its network of services, in a similar fashion to Facebook.

Source :http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8641058/Google-launches-News-badges.html

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Posted in: Google

Google+ May Be a Boy's Club, But That's Changing

Google+ attracted a lot more men than women out of the gate—everybody seems to agree about that. The question is, how much of a boy's club is the new social networking service, and is it going to stay more blue than pink?

In a new blog post, Ancestry.com founder and "Google+ unofficial statistician" Paul Allen attempts to debunk what he calls the "totally flawed data" that's being cited in reports from Mashable, Forbes, and others claiming the ratio of males to females on Google+ is as high as 9-to-1.

The trouble, according to Allen, is that people are relying on stats provided by sites like Socialstatistics.com and Findpeopleonplus.com that are based on non-random samplings of Google+ users, like Socialstatistics.com's top 100 leaderboard.

"Socialstatistics.com is a cool site where G+ users can submit their profile to see if they make the top 100 leaderboard," Allen writes. "Shortly after launching, the 87 percent male, 11 percent female, 2 percent 'other' stat started making the rounds. But that data is completely skewed: males tend to compete for leaderboard recognition more than females."

So what's the real ratio of men to women on Google+?

Going by what he calls "surname-based random sampling," Allen claims to have found "a very different number" from the male-centric stats cited elsewhere. As of Thursday, he writes, Google+ was 66.4 percent male and 33.6 percent female, according to his sampling.

What's more, "Google+ is quickly turning pink," he writes. Allen has apparently been conducting his gender breakdowns for a couple of weeks now and published findings that show that the initial male-heavy user base for Google+, which was launched June 28, is rapidly trending towards more equitable gender distribution.

Thus on July 4, Google+ was 77 percent male and 23 percent female, on July 7 it was 68.4 percent male and 31.6 percent female, and as noted, on July 14, it was on the cusp of a 2-to-1 male-to-female ration.

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Posted in: Google

Google Maps Goes Offline for Android

Google has waged a war on paper maps and it looks like it will win it. Google Labs just unveiled the Download map area feature in Google Maps for Android. Now you can use Google Maps even when you’re offline.

The Download map area feature requires Android 2.1 and above and the latest version of Google Maps. You can use the new feature to download a map with a 10 mile radius and navigate even without a data plan or signal.

Previous versions of Google Maps need an active internet connection so that the user can download the map data. This would be helpful when a person is going overseas. It can help the user go around the place even without a roaming data plan, which can be expensive.

To access Google Labs on the Android smartphone, press the menu button in Google Maps and choose More. Then select Labs. On an Android Tablet, you need to click on the menu button at the upper right corner of Maps. Map download will only take a minute or two to complete.

The downloaded map stores only the base map tiles and the landmarks found in the vicinity. You still need an internet connection to see the satellite view and 3D buildings as well as search for Places or get directions.

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Posted in: Google