Google

When Google+ first launched, a good majority of people went crazy when they saw you could not use nicknames on the service. Luckily, Google is about to change that. Google’s Bradley Horowitz made a post on Google+ today, announcing that users will soon be able to add a nickname next to their full name in the coming days. You can see this modeled above with blogger Louis “Luigi” Gray.

The setting will appear under Edit Profile, where you can select your name by clicking on “More options.” It is worth noting that this will change your name across all of your Google Profiles.

For names that Google has deemed unacceptable, you can challenge it for personal use by providing the following information to the review team:

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sHPfc6whaSk]

Each day, Google’s YouTube video sharing service clocks in more than 4 billion views, a blog post over at the official YouTube blog revealed Monday. The figure represents a 25 percent increase in the past eight months as the number of people who visit YouTube soared to 800 million a month. People are now uploading about 60 hours worth of video to the service every minute, a 25 percent increase over the 48 hours of video uploads a minute in May 2011. The video above is a sample of a new interactive collection of “what happens in a YouTube second” available at onehourpersecond.com.

Yet, only 3 billion YouTube videos a week are monetized with various adverts that appear when users click on clips. Google acquired then-young startup YouTube in 2006 for an astounding $1.65 billion. The Mountain View, Calif.-headquartered Internet giant committed considerable resources to making professional content available through the video sharing service to better pursue its broader entertainment strategy centered around Google TV, a software-based project that drives set-top boxes and networked HD TVs from participating partners.

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Google announced last night that it would be discontinuing a number of its services in the coming months because they “replicate other features, haven’t achieved the promise we had hoped for or can’t be properly integrated into the overall Google experience.”

Two things jump out at me regarding these closures:

1. Google is channeling its lab-like smaller products into features of Google Plus.  It almost feels like if it isn’t Android or Search (both recently got heavy + integration), it will soon be part of Google Plus.
2. Larry Page is heeding the advice he got from Steve Jobs: “Figure out what Google wants to be when it grows up. It’s now all over the map,” read the biography of Jobs’ interaction with Page. Later, Jobs came to Page with a sharped-tongue warning that Google was making products, “That are adequate but not great. They’re turning you into Microsoft.”  Page is now striving for greatness by putting “more wood behind fewer arrows”

Most notably for consumers, Picnik, the Cloud photo editing software, will be discontinued in April.

Picnik: We acquired this online photo editor in 2010. We’re retiring the service on April 19, 2012 so the Picnik team can continue creating photo-editing magic across Google products. You can download a zip file of your creations through Picnik Takeout or copy them to Google+. As of now, the premium service is free to everyone. Premium members will receive a full refund in the coming weeks.

We will likely see Picnik’s features reincarnated in Google Plus —where Google wants users to be storing photos anyway.  Google did the same thing to Picasa late last year.

Google also announced that it will close Urchin Web Analytics, the company it bought in 2005 to make Google Analytics cloud service.  Google kept the offline product available, but it will discontinue updates and sales, then subsequently direct customers to the Google product.

Urchin: helps businesses of all sizes measure their websites and online marketing. We’re fully committed to building an industry-leading online analytics product, so we’re saying goodbye to the client-hosted version, known as Urchin Software. New Urchin Software licenses will no longer be available after March 2012.

Google’s Skymap App project, which was started by some Pittsburgh Googlers in their 20 percent time, will now be Open Sourced and run out of nearby Carnegie Mellon.

A number of other services were also slated for termination…

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vOSgfvTC35A]

We’re told this campaign will culminate in a Super Bowl advertisement next month.  It’s always entertaining to see the big boys slug it out.
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A tipster over at the Google Operating System blog pointed out a small —but welcomed— tweak in Google Maps that lets you highlight areas of interest based on upon search queries:

When you search for a city or a county or a ZIP Code, Google Maps now highlights the boundaries of what you searched for. If you are zoomed out, the whole area is shaded pink. If you zoom in a bit, it has just a big pink border with grey shading. Zoom in even more and it’s a dashed boundary with grey shading.

In the above screenshot, I searched for Cupertino, Calif., and Google Maps automatically highlighted the city’s area inside the map view, allowing me to visually grasp the size of Cupertino. Note that the highlighting feature does not work in other Maps views, such as satellite.

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Google just revamped the look of Latitude, its location-aware service akin to Foursquare. According to a post by Google’s community manager for Google Maps, Danial Mabasa, the new Google Latitude interface can be now accessed on desktop browsers at www.google.com/latitude. As you can see from the above screenshot, it is not much different from Google+. However, upon remembering how the old website looked, it is definitely a major makeover that helps achieve consistent user experience across Google’s key properties.

You can now easily access your friends’ list in the left-hand column or click the wrench icon to customize your personal location history and location settings. Whenever you want to manually update your location, just hit the Update button next to your name and approve your browser’s location sharing prompt. Another cool feature lets you playback your location history (should you choose to preserve it) from a select range of dates by pressing the Play button on the bottom left-hand corner of the map.

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Google just announced its record-breaking fourth-quarter earnings and, within minutes of reporting, the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company dropped a whopping 10 percent in early-after hours trading due to missed expectations.

Google missed analyst expectations for earnings per share during Q4 2011 and its stock immediately plummeted. Analysts predicted the company would produce $10.49 in non-GAAP earnings per share, but it only amounted to $9.50 in earnings per share (versus $8.75 in the Q4 2010).

Nevertheless, the earnings’ upswing surpassed the $9.72 billion revenue reported in Q3 2011. Google revenue hit a record $10.58 billion in Q4 2011, before deducting traffic acquisition costs, which is a 25 percent increase from $8.44 billion a year earlier. Profit also grew to $2.71 billion, compared to $2.54 billion in the Q4 2010.

“Google had a really strong quarter ending a great year. Full year revenue was up 29 percent, and our quarterly revenue blew past the $10 billion mark for the first time,” said Larry Page, CEO of Google, in a press release.

Android, Gmail, and Google+ are also growing. The new social network reached 90 million users globally, which is “well over double what I announced just three months ago,” Page explained. The CEO also announced today that Google saw 250 million Android device activations, and over 11 billion apps downloaded from the Android Market.

“I’m very excited about what we can do in 2012 – there are tremendous opportunities to help users and grow our business,” Page said.

Although Google did not meet analysts’ expectations, the company is trumpeting its first $10 billion quarter.

The Q4 2011 financial summary and highlights are detailed below.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Nfgs4EUeTlk]

AnandTech does its typical thorough job of reviewing the Galaxy Nexus and, as you can see above, there is an in-depth analysis of the mobile landscape.  The conclusion was not much different from ours, however.  Spoiler:

As far as Ice Cream Sandwich is concerned, it really is Android perfected. Everything is smoother, faster and nearly all of our issues with the OS have been addressed. ICS brings Android into 2012 and gives Google a great platform to begin to introduce new features going forward. Android is now very close to UI performance parity with iOS, which eliminates a major tradeoff you had to make in the past. If you were hoping for ICS to be iOS with a Google logo on it, you’ll be sorely disappointed. However if you’re a fan of Android and just wished it were smoother and more polished, Ice Cream Sandwich is what you’ve been waiting for.

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The European Commission set a Feb. 13 deadline to restart its antitrust review and decide whether to approve Google Inc.’s proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc.

According to Reuters, the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company came forward with new documents to support its case, so the EU lifted the temporary suspension in order to make a decision next month.

The commission took a “routine” step and hit the pause button on its Jan. 10 deadline last month to gather more information and documents from Google, but the EU still anticipated the deal to close in 2012. It seems as though the commission’s forecast may be correct, as Motorola shareholders already announced their unanimous approval last November…

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Google CEO Larry Page is on a mission to remodel his company’s organizational structure and preserve startup mentality that helped create the Internet’s most important asset. He has been on it ever since he took over the reigns from Eric Schmidt in April of last year, and just like Steve Jobs did upon his return from exile —Page mercilessly axed many internal projects while doubling down on a few that do matter. He namely focused on Google’s social thing marketed under the Google+ moniker.

We were promised “moonshots” as Page set out to Jobs-ify the company he cofounded with Sergey Brin. Heck, Page’s already been named ‘CEO of the Year’ by Investors Business Daily. Fortune’s Senior Editor-at-Large Adam Lashinsky sat down with Page to discuss life at Google. His exclusive interview with Page revealed that Google is “more realistic about recruiting” and “kinder about tolerating underperformers.”

As of last year, the company began recruiting at such nonpedigreed institutions as Texas A&M and the State University of New York at Buffalo; interview sessions that often involved as many as 12 screenings now average between four and five.

This is in stark contrast to Apple, a company built on secrets and famous for its relentless pursuit of A-players. Lashinsky profiled Apple extensively in his upcoming book called “Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired – and Secretive – Company Really Works,” due for release Jan. 25.

Page said Google’s famous perks, such as free food and gym, are remaining (“I don’t worry about the cost”). He also noted Google is going the extra mile to help employees live a healthy lifestyle, which includes helping them quit smoking…

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While conducting a search on Google+, a user can only comment on an existing post or share a found item, however, the Google+ team announced a new feature today that lets users start a conversation directly from search results.

Until now, options for interacting with a certain phrase or interest was limited to commenting and posting. The newly announced component suddenly turns a search into a conversation and relieves the pressure from users needing original content to partake in discussions…

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Google announced two new features for Google+, including a “What’s Hot” stream that allows users to see the most interesting content shared throughout Google+, and users can now view who has “+1′d” posts —not just the count.

These minor tweaks display Google’s attempts to make Google+ more interactive and attractive. The “What’s Hot” stream on mobile devices could be a response to Twitter’s “Discover” feature that surfaced last month. It is accessible in the Web app by swiping to the right of the Circles stream, and a constant view of trending posts for Google+ will immediately appear. This ensures a flurry of content, even when people within a user’s Circles are silent for the day…

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If you are after an Ice Cream Sandwich tablet you now have exactly two options: the ASUS Transformer Prime which got the update last week, or the Motorola XOOM Wi-Fi that just got ICS, according to Motorola.

Note that only the Wi-Fi version gets ICS.  The 3G/LTE versions are coming shortly —we are assuming— due to radio issues.

It is still impressive of ASUS/embarrassing for Google/MOT that ASUS beat the Android tablet reference design to ICS.  The press release is available below…

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8rSlvS-ZfQ]

Google is renowned for its practice of recognizing important anniversaries and famous people from human history prominently on the main Google homepage. The company calls it Google Doodle —an 11-year-old tradition to educate visitors on historic events and people through the power of search. Clicking a Doodle logo for, say, Nikola Tesla, will simply take one to the search result’s page populated with links to popular articles about the famous inventor.

The first Google Doodle was in recognition of the Burning Man Festival of 1998 and was designed by cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Subsequent Doodles were designed by outside designers, often by Dennis Hwang who created most Doodles to date. Today, the search company’s Vice President of Product Management Marissa Mayer issued an invitation to all K through 12 students to apply for the fifth annual United States Doodle 4 Google contest…

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European regulators are moving early on Google antitrust probe, telling Reuters that a decision on a formal complaint against Google for misuse of its market position will be reached in late March, much sooner than expected. EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told the news gathering organization late on Tuesday:

I will receive comments from the case team towards the end of the first quarter. I do not expect anything sooner. Let us see.

Since November of last year, 10 complainants such as Microsoft, VfT, Foundem, Deal du Jour, 1plusV and the Spanish Association of Daily Newspaper Publishers have filed complaints with the Commission, accusing the search giant of misusing its dominance in search. Google’s problem with EU courts could result in a multi-billion dollar fine, as had been the case with EU antitrust probes into Microsoft and Intel in the past.

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Software maker Oracle estimated that each day’s worth of Android activations makes Google approximately $10 million in annual revenue while also strengthening its Google+ service, German patent blogger Florian Mueller wrote on his FOSS Patents blog today. Oracle made this claim at a German court in regards to its patent infringement claims against the search giant:

While this case awaits trial, more than 700,000 Android-based devices are activated every day, all fundamentally built around the copyrighted Java APIs and the enhanced performance enabled by Oracle’s patents. Each day’s worth of activations likely generates approximately $10 million in annual mobile advertising revenue for Google.

Oracle did not explain its math, however, leading Mueller to suspect that the figure is based “on the assumption of annual advertising revenues of $14 per Android user.” Interestingly, Oracle wrote in court documents “Analysts have predicted that the number of new Android devices will reach 2.5 million per day within twelve months.” However, it is not just about mobile advertising, the success of Android is benefiting Google’s other properties, namely its Google+ social network…

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Google and many other websites went black today to oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate, but now the globally popular search engine has taken the protest one step further.

Pierre Far, a Webmaster trends analyst at Google, announced on Google+ today that the Mountain View, Calif.-based company slowed its web crawlers to continue support against U.S. anti-piracy bills.

More information is available below.

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[ted id=1329 lang=en]

Everyone has their SOPA/PIPA things today (and that is good!).  Here is ours.

My former professor, Clay Shirky, explains what SOPA and PIPA are, what will happen if these are passed and why it is bad.  He’s good at this stuff.

Yes it’s Flash (original version here).
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Google recently enhanced the Gmail offline Chrome app and integrated the webmail service with Google+ filters for circles, auto-sync for contacts and sharing features. Today, new capabilities rolled out to Google Apps for Business, Google Apps for Government and Google Apps for Education editions, managed via the Google Apps control panel. Administrators can now take advantage of improved email compliance footers, approved/blocked sender lists and file attachment policies, the search firm wrote in a blog post.

Previously, users had to resort to Google Message Security to use these capabilities. Google said it improved upon these features and “designed them specifically to meet the needs of our Apps customers.” Last September, Google brought out contacts manager from consumer Gmail to Google Apps.

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