Buzz Around Google Buzz

Google, following the footsteps of social media giants Facebook and Twitter, introduced its new social media feature, Google Buzz on Feb 9, 2010. It is a fully open and distributed platform for conversations. Much like Twitter and Facebook, Google Buzz allows space for the expression of thought. Twitter, however, places a limit on length, allowing a mere 140 characters at most. And while Facebook is wildly popular among all ages groups, its interface is confusing to many new users. It is a fully open and distributed platform for conversations.

Google Buzz has opened a new door in the realm of public relations possibilities. The most preferred advantage of Google Buzz is its ease of access. Moreover, automatically connecting it to the users gmail contacts is the incomparable way to connect the users to their friends. This eliminates the lack-of-network issue that users encounter when they first sign on to a social networking site.

Google has taken social media a step further and created the perfect blend of the two. Buzz is not a Facebook killer as, the latter offers a complete integrated platform to share updates, pictures, videos, games, maps, etc. with a network built on family and friends.

There are speculations that Buzz will not pose a threat for Twitter too. Twitter is a non-symmetric network used to access and broadcast information, to establish new connections, to chat, and to freely blab about anything. Twitter users listen and tweet to an audience that has a very small overlap, if any, with their Gmail address books. Similarly, this audience is mostly disjoint from their Facebook friends. Thus unless one can convince family members, friends, acquaintances, and professional connections to all move to Gmail, Twitter users will keep using Twitter for its very purpose. That is not even considering how users consume tweets. Buzz has nothing like it, at least for now. And Twitter’s lightweight and open API has created one of the richest and most innovative ecosystem in social networks –the best is still to come.

In an interview with eWeek, Google’s Brad Horowitz stated, that Google’s vision was a place where all social services could come together, a place where people would discuss events, trends and engage in real conversation. “It’s not just status-casting. It’s not just checking in. It’s really meaningful interactions around meaningful topics within Buzz and it’s reaching the right audience and people are engaged. That kind of value proposition is I think unique to Buzz,” Horowitz added.

Buzz will fall somewhere in between Facebook and Twitter as it appeals to Gmail users who are unfamiliar to Twitter and find Facebook way too confusing. That is, of course, if Facebook’s future email service does not pick up any momentum, and if Twitter does not bring innovations to its platform. Then you can guess what will be left of Gmail’s Buzz.

Google Founders Selling Shares

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, will sell off 10 million of their shares in Google.

This trade, revealed in a Google SEC filing, is to take place over the next five years. Brin and Page will be selling approximately 17% of their Google holdings, reducing their voting rights in the company from 59% to 48%. While this does mean that Page and Brin are giving up majority control in the company, in reality, they’re not ceding much. Although they will not have the majority voting rights, barring some bizarre unforeseen circumstance that splits their votes, they maintain enough voting rights to make it nearly impossible to vote against them.

Google, seeking to downplay the significance of this trade plan, stated that this was a regular occurrence among the founders of publicly traded companiesIndeed, Bill Gates has followed a similar procedure with his stake in Microsoft, selling predetermined amounts of shares every year. In an emailed statement, Google said “They are both as committed as ever to Google and are integrally involved in our day-to-day management and product strategy. The majority of their net worth remains with Google.”

The question is, how should Google shareholders read into this divestment by the founders of the company? Is it a lack of confidence in the company’s future? Is it prompted by board politics? Is it simply Brin and Page deciding that they could each use an extra $2.75 billion (to buy matching fleets of yachts?)? It seems that the most correct explanation is the third. They’re still keeping the majority of their money in the company, so a relatively (percentage-wise, not in terms of real dollars) small sale shouldn’t inspire fear in the shareholders.

Source:http://thenextweb.com/us/2010/01/23/google-founders-selling-shares/

Google postpones Android phone launches in China

Google has decided to delay the planned release in China of two smartphones based on its Android platform, a sign the company's handset operations could be affected by its dispute with China over cyber security.

The company made the announcement a day before China Unicom was set to release Android phones from Motorola and Samsung. According to the New York Times, a source close to the situation said that given the uncertainty over Google's operations in China, the company decided the devices should not be released. Additionally, another unnamed source told the Wall Street Journal that it would be "irresponsible" to release the phones, given the current atmosphere.

Last week, Google said it had been the target of cyber security attacks originating in China, and that it would no longer censor the Chinese version of its search engine--even if that led to Google shutting down its operations in China.

Google had worked closely with the handset makers and China Unicom on the design of the devices, which were to come packaged with several Google applications. Google did not provide any further information on the delay.

Read more: http://www.fiercewireless.com/

Upload your files and access them anywhere with Google Docs

Over the next few weeks, we’re rolling out the ability to upload all file types to the cloud through Google Docs, giving you one place where you can upload and access your key files online. Because Google Docs now supports files up to 250 MB in size, which is larger than the attachment limit on most email applications, you’ll be able to backup large graphics files, RAW photos, ZIP archives and much more to the cloud. More importantly, instead of carrying a USB drive, you can now use Google Docs as a more convenient option for accessing your files on different computers.

This feature can also help you work with teams to organize and collaborate on information online. For example, an architect can share large schematic files with her construction firm, while a P.T.A. member can share large graphic files for posters with other members. You can even add these files to the same shared project folder your team has already been using to collaborate on documents and spreadsheets.

In addition to uploading any file into Google Docs, our Google Apps Premier Edition customers will be able to seamlessly upload many files at once and sync them with their desktop in real time using third party applications. You can read more about how the ability to upload any file will help businesses on theGoogle Enterprise blog.

This feature will be enabled for your account over the next couple of weeks — look for the bubble notification when you sign in to Google Docs. For more information, check out our post on the Google Docs blog.

Official Google Blog: Upload your files and access them anywhere with Google Docs

The Meaning Of Open

Last week I sent an email to Googlers about the meaning of "open" as it relates to the Internet, Google, and our users. In the spirit of openness, I thought it would be appropriate to share these thoughts with those outside of Google as well.

At Google we believe that open systems win. They lead to more innovation, value, and freedom of choice for consumers, and a vibrant, profitable, and competitive ecosystem for businesses. Many companies will claim roughly the same thing since they know that declaring themselves to be open is both good for their brand and completely without risk. After all, in our industry there is no clear definition of what open really means. It is a Rashomon-like term: highly subjective and vitally important.

The topic of open seems to be coming up a lot lately at Google. I've been in meetings where we're discussing a product and someone says something to the effect that we should be more open. Then a debate ensues which reveals that even though most everyone in the room believes in open we don't necessarily agree on what it means in practice.

This is happening often enough for me to conclude that we need to lay out our definition of open in clear terms that we can all understand and support. What follows is that definition based on my experiences at Google and the input of several colleagues. We run the company and make our product decisions based on these principles, so I encourage you to carefully read, review, and debate them. Then own them and try to incorporate them into your work. This is a complex subject and if there is debate (and I'm sure there will be) it should be in the open! Please feel free to comment.

There are two components to our definition of open: open technology and open information. Open technology includes open source, meaning we release and actively support code that helps grow the Internet, and open standards, meaning we adhere to accepted standards and, if none exist, work to create standards that improve the entire Internet (and not just benefit Google). Open information means that when we have information about users we use it to provide something that is valuable to them, we are transparent about what information we have about them, and we give them ultimate control over their information. These are the things we should be doing. In many cases we aren't there, but I hope that with this note we can start working to close the gap between reality and aspiration.

By:Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President at Google
Google Public Policy Blog: The meaning of open

Official Google Phone confirmed for early 2010?

Ever since Android was first vaunted, people have been asking for an official Google Phone; however the search giant has always said it was only taking the lead in software, not hardware. Now, according to TechCrunch’s sources, that’s all going to change: they claim that an official, Google branded handset will drop in early 2010, with the company dictating every element of hardware and software to put together their own interpretation of today’s smartphone.

Who’s actually responsible for for hardware construction is still unconfirmed, though despite rumors of HTC involvement TechCrunch are saying it’ll be a Korean firm that produces the Google Phone. They’re leaning toward LG, since rival Samsung produces several of the components in the iPhone, a deal could lead Apple to pressure them not to get involved with the Google handset.

According to the sources, Google had hoped to have their phone on the market by the 2009 holiday period, but that timescale has slipped. However we should expect a “big push” in promotion and advertising in January 2010 in the run-up to launch. No hardware or form-factor specifications are known as yet.

Explore images with Google Image Swirl, now in Labs

Back in 2001, to give people a new, quicker way to find images, we launched Image Search. When you do a search for [eiffel tower] you'll find an array of images of the tower in the daytime, in black and white, at sunset and more. With Similar Images, which recently graduated from Google Labs, you can click "Find similar images" to narrow your search to, say, pictures of the Eiffel Tower lit up at night. Today, we've launched an experimental feature in Labs called Google Image Swirl, which builds on new computer vision research to cluster similar images into representative groups in a fun, exploratory interface.

For example, if you search on Image Swirl for [washington], you'll see 12 image thumbnails including President Washington, the Washington Monument, a map of Washington D.C. and the Capitol Building:




Once you find the group of images you're interested in, you can click on the thumbnail and a cluster of images will "swirl" into view. For example, here's what you'll see if you click the image of the Washington Monument:


You can then further explore additional sub-groups within any cluster. The interface may look familiar to those of you who have tried Google's Wonder Wheel available in the Search Options panel, which enables you to explore related search queries.

Official Google Blog: Explore images with Google Image Swirl, now in Labs

Google welcomes Gizmo5

Today we're pleased to announce we've acquired Gizmo5, a company that provides Internet-based calling software for mobile phones and computers. While we don't have any specific features to announce right now, Gizmo5's engineers will be joining the Google Voice team to continue improving the Google Voice and Gizmo5 experience. Current Gizmo5 users will still be able to use the service, though we will be suspending new signups for the time being, and existing users will no longer be able to sign up for a call-in number.

We've acquired a number of small companies over the past five years, and the people and technology that have come to Google from other places have contributed in many ways, large and small, to all kinds of Google products. Since the GrandCentral team joined Google in 2007, they've done incredible things with Google's technology and resources to launch and improve Google Voice.

We welcome the Gizmo5 team to Google and look forward to working together to bringing more useful features to Google Voice.

Google Voice Blog: Google welcomes Gizmo5

Google Rolling Out Social Search (in Labs)

There are two brass rings in search these days: real time and social. Google (and Bing) have been working on the real time thing with Twitter, and last week Google announced they were working on a Social Search option in Labs—and now it’s out.

With Social Search, Google finds relevant public content from your friends and contacts and highlights it for you at the bottom of your search results. When I do a simple query for [new york], Google Social Search includes my friend’s blog on the results page under the heading “Results from people in your social circle for New York.” I can also filter my results to see only content from my social circle by clicking “Show options” on the results page and clicking “Social.”

All of the info in Social Search is publicly available, but they highlight info based on their (massive data collection) information about you from:

• Google profile contacts


• Gmail contacts, chats and groups


• People you’re following on FriendFeed or Twitter


• Feeds in your Google Reader

Story URL : http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009/10/

Google Docs Batch Export

Now you can export all your documents, spreadsheets, presentations and PDFs from Google Docs in a ZIP archive.

The most difficult part is to select all your files: you need to go to the "All items" section, scroll down to the bottom of the documents list, click on the checkbox button from the toolbar and then on "select all visible". Google Docs uses "infinite scrolling", but it's not smart enough to select all the documents from a view.



After selecting all your files (or only some of them), right-click and choose "export". A dialog lets you choose the download format for each kind of file: Microsoft Office formats, OpenOffice formats, PDF or some other formats.

Source:http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/10/export-google-docs.html

New Google Music Service Launch Imminent

Google will soon launch a music service, we’ve heard from multiple sources, and the company has spent the last several weeks securing content for the launch of the service from the major music labels. One source has referred to the new service as Google Audio.

We’re still gathering details, but our understanding is the service will be very different to the Google China music download service that they launched in 2008. That service, which is only available in China, allows users to search for music and download it for free.



This new service will be available for at least U.S. users, our sources confirm, although it isn’t clear if it’s a download or streaming service, or both. Google already has a decent (if little used) music search engine that can be accessed by simply typing “music:” before a query (example). But songs are not available for streaming or download from those searches.


Source:http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/google-music-service-the-screenshots/

Black is the new Green: Myth or Reality?

Blackle claims that if you are using CRT monitors or LCDs of size 24-inch or more, and use Blackle.com it will save lakhs of Watt hours (Actual figures are displayed on their homepage). Blackle is a website powered by Google Custom Search, which aims at saving electricity by displaying a black background color for search results.

Google, on the other hand, claim that making its home page black will not reduce energy consumption. They also add that on flat-panel monitors, displaying black may actually increase energy usage. However, they do agree with the idea of reducing climate change by saving energy and applaud the spirit of such initiatives. This is an important effort that we all should join in especially in India, since it does not have energy in abundance. India still have a long way to go, but do keep in mind that it is still a developing country but is moving closer to the developed country mark very quickly.

While experts debate if black is the new green or not, here are couple of things you can actually start doing at your end to make a significant contribution to the climate changes:

• Turn off your monitor and computer when you are not using them


• Turn down the brightness on your monitor


• Turn on power management features that mostly all OS provides.


• Look for words "EnergyStar 4.0 Compliant" when you purchase your next monitor.

Introducing Google Building Maker

Some of us here at Google spend almost all of our time thinking about one thing: How do we create a three-dimensional model of every built structure on Earth? How do we make sure it's accurate, that it stays current and that it's useful to everyone who might want to use it?

One of the best ways to get a big project done — and done well — is to open it up to the world. As such, today we're announcing the launch of Google Building Maker, a fun and simple (and crazy addictive, it turns out) tool for creating buildings for Google Earth.

We like to think of Building Maker as a cross between Google Maps and a gigantic bin of building blocks. Basically, you pick a building and construct a model of it using aerial photos and simple 3D shapes – both of which we provide. When you're done, we take a look at your model. If it looks right, and if a better model doesn't already exist, we add it to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth. You can make a whole building in a few minutes.

Our early beta testers insist that Building Maker is more like a game than a tool. Check out this video to see Building Maker in action:




Google LatLong: Introducing Google Building Maker

Google Barcode Logo Celebrates 57 Years of Barcode Patent

Google is celebrating the 57th anniversary of the patenting of the barcode with a Google logo that is literally a barcode.

On October 7, 1952, Joseph Woodland, Bernard Silver, and Jordin Johanson were awarded US Patent 2,612,994, after waiting since 1949 for it to come through.



The barcode could have ended up in the hands of IBM, where Woodland and Johanson moved to in 1951 and “continually tried to interest IBM in developing the system.” IBM commissioned a report which concluded “that it was both feasible and interesting, but that processing the resulting information would require equipment that was some time off in the future.”

In 1952 Philco purchased the patent, and then sold it to RCA the same year.

The common use of barcodes though was more recent. In July 1972 RCA began an eighteen-month test of their system in a Kroger store in Cincinnati. By 1977, there were scanning machines in fewer than 200 grocery stores in the United States. By 1980 the technology was being adopted by 8000 stores per year.

At 34 I’m just old enough to remember shopping at a supermarket where every item had a price tag. During the 80’s old fashioned price tags
disappeared, and today you even see self service checkouts in supermarkets.

Although not yet confirmed by Google, it’s fair guess that the barcode logo on Google.com equates to something along the lines of Google, be it in the numeric form of the word.

Via:http://www.inquisitr.com/41117/google-barcode-logo/

A splash of color to your browser: Artist Themes for Google Chrome

In the most recent stable release of Google Chrome, we looked at ways to make a snappy, simple browser even more customizable, and we're happy to hear that you've enjoyed personalizing Google Chrome's look and feel with a few of our early themes for the browser.

Today, we are introducing Artist Themes for Google Chrome. We invited leading artists, architects, musicians, illustrators, filmmakers and fashion and interior designers from across the globe to create artwork for an unusual canvas: the modern web browser. The result is a vibrant fusion of art and technology, with a hundred Artist Themes that we hope will add a touch of inspiration and delight to your web browsing experience with Google Chrome.

One of our favorite themes comes from Yulia Brodskaya, whose innovative paper art techniques and passion for typography and illustration have brought her into the international spotlight. We were particularly intrigued by Yulia's approach to the design challenge at hand, explained in her own words:

I was really curious to see how the traditional paper craft, which I use for creating my work, can be applied to the Google Chrome browser. I made a quick pencil sketch first, choosing the two main elements for my theme: green jungle leaves for the top and a very colourful parrot to accompany it. Then I followed my usual working pattern and created a physical artwork out of edge glued paper stripes. I used the photographs of the paper leaves and parrot to design my theme layout, and sent the resulting mock-up to Google designers who brought the whole thing to life.

Source:http://chrome.blogspot.com/2009/10/splash-of-color-to-your-browser-artist.html

LotusLive iNotes: Like Gmail, but Without the Outages

As launch dates go, the timing could not be better. Less than a week after Google’s Gmail suffered its fourth service disruption this year, IBM debuted a competing Web mail service intended to undercut it. Called LotusLive iNotes it’s an email, calendaring, and contact management system aimed squarely at the enterprise space Google has been so diligently courting.

Priced at about $36 per user per year, iNotes is cheaper than Google’s (GOOG) Apps Premier Edition offering, which costs about $50 per user per year. And while it might not offer as many bells and whistles (IBM’s 1GB of storage is significantly less than the 25GB that Google provides), IBM (IBM) claims it more than makes up for it in security, reliability and privacy.

“We run the world’s most mission critical systems for banks, telcos and utilities,” said Sean Poulley, IBM’s vice president of online collaboration services. “It’s fair to say we’re pretty trusted….Candidly, Google has shown itself to be weak….There is a world of difference between supporting a consumer-grade service and a business-grade service. We’re bringing business class services and support with mission critical reliability at a price lower than the competition.”

Source:http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20091002/ibm-challenges-gmail-with-lotuslive-inotes/

Translate your website with Google: Expand your audience globally

How long would it take to translate all the world's web content into 50 languages? Even if all of the translators in the world worked around the clock, with the current growth rate of content being created online and the sheer amount of data on the web, it would take hundreds of years to make even a small dent.

Today, we're happy to announce a new website translator gadget powered by Google Translate that enables you to make your site's content available in 51 languages. Now, when people visit your page, if their language (as determined by their browser settings) is different than the language of your page, they'll be prompted to automatically translate the page into their own language. If the visitor's language is the same as the language of your page, no translation banner will appear.



After clicking the Translate button, the automatic translations are shown directly on your page.



It's easy to install — all you have to do is cut and paste a short snippet into your webpage to increase the global reach of your blog or website.

Automatic translation is convenient and helps people get a quick gist of the page. However, it's not a perfect substitute for the art of professional translation. Today happens to be International Translation Day, and we'd like to take the opportunity to celebrate the contributions of translators all over the world. These translators play an essential role in enabling global communication, and with the rapid growth and ease of access to digital content, the need for them is greater than ever. We hope that professional translators, along with translation tools such as Google Translator Toolkit and this Translate gadget, will continue to help make the world's content more accessible to everyone.

Posted by Jeff Chin, Product Manager

Official Google Blog: Translate your website with Google: Expand your audience globally

Google set to roll out Wave to 100,000 early users

Google Inc.'s highly anticipated communication and collaboration tool - Google Wave - is one big step closer to its first customer shipment.

The company is inviting about 100,000 users and developers to preview the new technology, Lars Rasmussen, an engineering manager, and Stephanie Hannon, a group product manager at Google, said in a blog post today. The users and developers will get the invitations tomorrow, they said in the post.

The Google bloggers acknowledged that Google Wave, which was unveiled this past May, still isn't yet ready for prime time. But, they added, the developers are now ready to get some feedback on the current iteration of the tool.

"We'll ask some of these early users to nominate people they know also to receive early invitations -- Google Wave is a lot more useful if your friends, family and colleagues have it too," wrote Rasmussen and Hannon. "This, of course, will just be the beginning. If all goes well we will soon be inviting many more to try out Google Wave."

The Web-based Google Wave application is designed to consolidate features from e-mail, instant messaging, blogging, wikis, multimedia management and document sharing. Using social networking-like interfaces, the tool should enable collaboration and community-building applications.

Source:http://www.computerworld.com/

Read news fast with Google Fast Flip

One problem with reading news online today is that browsing can be really slow. A media-rich page loads dozens of files and can take as much as 10 seconds to load over broadband, which can be frustrating. What we need instead is a way to flip through articles really fast without unnatural delays, just as we can in print. The flow should feel seamless and let you rapidly flip forward to the content you like, without the constant wait for things to load. Imagine taking 10 seconds to turn the page of a print magazine!

Today we're adding a new experiment to Google Labs: Google Fast Flip, accessible at fastflip.googlelabs.com. Fast Flip is a new reading experience that combines the best elements of print and online articles. Like a print magazine, Fast Flip lets you browse sequentially through bundles of recent news, headlines and popular topics, as well as feeds from individual top publishers. As the name suggests, flipping through content is very fast, so you can quickly look through a lot of pages until you find something interesting. At the same time, we provide aggregation and search over many top newspapers and magazines, and the ability to share content with your friends and community. Fast Flip also personalizes the experience for you, by taking cues from selections you make to show you more content from sources, topics and journalists that you seem to like. In short, you get fast browsing, natural magazine-style navigation, recommendations from friends and other members of the community and a selection of content that is serendipitous and personalized.



To build Google Fast Flip, we partnered with three dozen top publishers, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Salon, Fast Company, ProPublica and Newsweek.


Google News Blog: Read news fast with Google Fast Flip

YouTube in negotiations to stream new movies

YouTube, always on the look-out for ways to solidify its leadership in video and increase its revenue has been in negotiations with the major movie studios to start streaming movies on a rental basis. Granted there are already some full length movies available on the service but they are generally lesser known movies or indie films looking for exposure.

This latest move is seen as a way to increase their revenue as well as one of its first moves towards charging for content instead of going with the typical ad supported model. At this point YouTube is in discussions with: Lions Gate, Sony, and Warner Bros. about including their movies in YouTube’s site. Additionally part of the talks include making them available on the same day the the movie’s DVD comes out.

Many of the details involved with the ongoing discussions are still in a state of flux. Included is whether or not at some point users will be able to download the movies. The figure being tossed around for the rental is $3.99 with the possibility of the traditional ad supported model being used for some of the movies. As it is the movie studios already get a 70% share of revenue generated by movies already on the site and the word is that this would be the same for the new movies being streamed.

In addition the studios would be guaranteed a minimum fee of just under $3.00 per title viewed. The thinking behind this is that since it is a flat fee the studios would get regardless it give YouTube some wiggle room to offer special deals.

At this point 10,000 Google employees are set to begin testing the service at some point after September, which was the original date for the internal testing launch; but that has been set back as negotiations drag on.

VIA:http://www.inquisitr.com/35632/youtube-in-negotiations-to-stream-new-movies/