Initial public offering

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHtPb1GEzF0]

Google’s CEO Larry Page went on the “Charlie Rose” show via PBS last night to discuss an array of topics, but he also made sure to scold newly-public Facebook in regards to users’ data.

According to Venture Beat, Page well-wished Facebook on its IPO, and then he jumped to, “I think it’s been unfortunate that Facebook has been pretty closed with their data.” He also mentioned Google’s openness, and he subsequently criticized Facebook for lacking the ability to import Google contacts when joining the world-popular social network:

“From a user’s perspective, you say, ‘I’m joining Facebook. I want my contacts.’ In Google, we said, ‘Fine. You can get them from Google.’ And the issue we had is that then Facebook said, ‘No, Google, you can’t do the reverse.’ And so we just said, ‘Well, users don’t understand what they’re doing. They’re putting data in, and they don’t understand they can’t take it out.’ So we said, ‘Well, we’ll only participate with people who have reciprocity. And we’re still waiting.'”

Long story short: Google wants to share its users’ contacts with Facebook—if Facebook does the same with Google.

“You don’t want to be holding your users hostage […] We think it’s important that you as users of Google can take your data, and take it out if you need to, or take it somewhere else,” Page added.

The chief executive also touched upon his excitement with Chrome becoming the No. 1 most popular Web browser, the search engine’s confidence in legal issues concerning Oracle and its Java patents in Android, the persistent European Union antitrust investigation, and his hopes for Google Glasses.

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Google today announced that the Google Plus platform is also a gaming platform.

Today we’re adding games to Google+. With the Google+ project, we want to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to the web. But sharing is about more than just conversations. The experiences we have together are just as important to our relationships. We want to make playing games online just as fun, and just as meaningful, as playing in real life.

That means giving you control over when you see games, how you play them and with whom you share your experiences. Games in Google+ are there when you want them and gone when you don’t.

Facebook stalwart and Google fundee Zynga is already on the list having built an app called Poker.  So are Bejeweled and Angry Birds(below).

As an added bonus, google today announced the Google+ Developer Platform so that other game makers can build their wares into the Plus platform.
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