Google

A few weeks ago a report surfaced that Google Plus saw 1269% user growth, due to the social network opening up to the public and earning a nice spot on the Google homepage. Today, however, analytics firm Chitika is reporting that Google Plus’s traffic has dropped 60% — indicated by the graph above.

Are people not digging Google Plus?

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Sad news from the Android camp as both Google and Samsung announce (via Pocket-lint) that the Galaxy Nexus, also known as the Nexus Prime, will not launch at the Mobile Unpacked conference October 12 next Wednesday, as originally expected. The two companies provided no explanation for the delay apart from this official statement:

Samsung and Google decide to postpone the new product announcement at CTIA Fall. We agree that it is just not the right time to announce a new product. New date and venue will be shortly announced.

The CTIA conference runs October 11-13, 2011 at San Diego’s Convention Center. The publication speculates that the delay could be related to avoiding a likely media conflict if Steve Jobs’ funeral were to happen that day. The wording of the official statement, that “it is just not the right time to announce a new product”, supports the thesis.

UPDATE: Ina Fried over at the AllThingsD blog quotes unnamed sources who said Google and Samsung “just felt it was the wrong time to hold a launch event, as the world continues mourning Jobs”. Furthermore:

The decision to postpone things was made late last night at the top levels of both companies, sources said, with Jobs’ death being the reason. There are no delays with the product itself, sources insisted.

Samsung and Google later updated their original press statement, which now reads:

We believe this is not the right time to announce a new product as the world expresses tribute to Steve Jobs’s passing.

Another possibility, albeit much less likely, is an unknown patent issue that might need sorting out. 

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For those of you who haven’t heard, Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs has passed away this evening at the age of 56. Google’s Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, and Sergey Brin have issued the following statements regarding Steve’s death:

I am very, very sad to hear the news about Steve. He was a great man with incredible achievements and amazing brilliance. He always seemed to be able to say in very few words what you actually should have been thinking before you thought it. His focus on the user experience above all else has always been an inspiration to me. He was very kind to reach out to me as I became CEO of Google and spend time offering his advice and knowledge even though he was not at all well. My thoughts and Google’s are with his family and the whole Apple family.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKXPeIeKYd8]

Google announced today a new pilot program called Trusted Stores. Trusted Stores will give shoppers a piece of mind when shopping online, telling them which stores ship on time, have good customer support, etc. Once awarded the Trusted Badge, credited stores can display it on their website (seen after the break).

If a company would like to participate they need to provide Google with information regarding shipping, and Google will also collect information from the store’s customers. Here’s a part we really like: if a customer decides to select free protection from Google, they will receive help from Google if a problem ever arises. Google will also offer a $1,000 lifetime protection package. Expect this to start popping up around the web a lot more.

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Google has just announced that they will be holding their Q3 earnings call on October 13th at 1:30 PST to go over financial results. We’ll be covering the whole thing, but if you’re interested you can listen to the audio here. Press release after the break:

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Confirming previous reports, Conceivably Tech has uncovered a post that Google Chrome will soon be making its way into Android. A post on the Chromium Message Boards tells us that Android’s version of Chrome will have the same features as the desktop version — tabs, Skia 2D graphics library, and maybe a combined search and website bar?

Sadly, there’s no word on when this new browser will hit.  Now we’re not drawing any conclusions, but perhaps this will be announced at Google’s (and Samsung’s) event October 11th? For those of you who haven’t heard, Samsung and Google are rumored to announce the Nexus Prime and Ice Cream Sandwich. While this tour didn’t show it, let’s hope Chrome is bundled into ICS.
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Flickr has had an iOS client on the market since September 20th, but it took a lot of teeth gnashing and cursing from the Android camp before the company would unveil the official Android app. Well, here it is… The Flickr for Android app lets you take photos, enhance them with filters and quickly share on Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and other image sharing services.

It’s nice that you can take advantage of geotagging and built-in mapping to explore activities and places where the photos have been taken. Commenting is also supported and you’ll especially appreciate stunning full screen browsing and slideshows. The app is free and you can grab your copy in Android Market. Now that it’s been finally released, perhaps the program will help tilt Flickr camera and cameraphone usage stats (see below) in favor of Android and away from Apple’s iPhone. Full release notes after the break.

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For those of you who manage a lot of sites, Google’s latest addition to Webmaster is sure to benefit you. Tonight, Google has announced a new Webmaster tool that allows you to see if you’re site is in good standing — to make sure there aren’t any issues. As you can see above it’s pretty simple. Here’s what Google checks for:

1. Have we detected malware on the site?
2. Have any important pages been removed via our URL removal tool?
3. Are any of your important pages blocked from crawling in robots.txt?

 

 

Google has announced on their blog this afternoon that Google Analytics now features real-time data. In the past, Analytics was a great tool for viewing site stats from the past 24 hours, days, weeks, months, etc., but now the ability to see who’s on your site at any given time is an awesome feature.

The stats are pretty detailed showing the top referrals, active pages, and how many people are on your site at any given moment. There is even a graph that lets you know when your site peeked in terms of visitors.

Many other analytic services have had this feature, so it’s nice to see Google finally catch up. The ability to see real-time stats lets you know what content is doing well. Real-time will be rolling out to everyone in the coming weeks.

All major Android backers are now paying royalties to Microsoft for using Android in smartphones, even the likes of Samsung and HTC. Goldman Sachs estimated the Windows maker could rake in a whopping $444 million this year alone from Android patent pacts, easily exceeding Windows Phone licensing revenues. Now that the $199 Kindle Fire tablet has come into full view, the question arises whether Amazon, too, will run to Microsoft’s arms seeking Android patent protection.

The two companies last year had cut a cross-licensing agreement. However, the Seattle Times notes that the 2010 deal covers the existing Kindle e-readers but not Android, which powers the Kindle Fire tablet. TechCrunch’s MG Seigler, who saw early prototypes of the Fire tablet, described  a forked Android version which is at the core of the Kindle Fire experience:

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Amazon yesterday outed its Kindle Fire tablet, the lower-priced $79 Kindle and the new $99 Kindle touch. They also unveiled a brand new browser written exclusively for the Kindle Fire, dubbed Silk. There has been some concern among web developers about the browser’s rendering engine given how numerous web sites are optimized for the open-sourced WebKit rendering engine. According to a post by Mike Mainguy, a software architect with Lemans Corporation, the Silk browser does leverage WebKit as its rendering engine. Moreover, it also employs SPDY, Google’s optimized hypertext transfer protocol introduced in late 2009 as part of the search giant’s “Let’s make the web faster” initiative. It’s currently used in Chrome and now in Amazon’s Silk browser, too. Mainguy explains:

All told this isn’t as big a technological change at the front end and is more of a story about amazon trying to use their infrastructure to make the mobile browsing experience better.  Frankly, this is a scaled up and modernized version of what blackberry did years ago (are they still doing that?).

It appears that Amazon combined SPDY with Amazon Web Services to caches files and offload page rendering to the cloud, depending on workload. According to the Silk team:

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Primetime! Partnering with Google, Samsung will be hosting an event October 11th to talk Android. The Unpacked 2011 event will be taking place during this year’s CTIA, where Samsung will be unveiling a slew of new devices. Could this finally be the unveiling of the rumored Nexus Prime? It only makes sense with the co-branding with Google and the YouTube Android account livestream? We’ll be there covering it, but in the meantime check out what we know so far about the Nexus Prime.

As noted by The Next Web, Google’s VP of Product Bradley Horowitz, told Wired in an interview that Google+ will soon be Google. “Be Google?”, you’re probably thinking. What he means is that Google+ will soon not be its own product, but rather tied into almost every service offered by Google. You may remember when Google+ was sort-of tied into YouTube, but Horowitz says it will go deeper than that.

“Until now, every single Google property acted like a separate company. Due to the way we grew, through various acquisitions and the fierce independence of each division within Google, each product sort of veered off in its own direction.

… But Google+ is Google itself. We’re extending it across all that we do—search, ads, Chrome, Android, Maps, YouTube—so that each of those services contributes to our understanding of who you are.”

Google+ will soon be tied into ads (which has already happened), Chrome, Android, Maps, and more. This will begin to make a definitive Google product, leaving Google+ no longer acting as a separate company. This should make it easier on the non-technical folk, unlike you or me.

The Next Web is reporting that the US Government and Google are in talks over a contract that would license Google Apps to the whole US Government staff. The contract totals up-to $50 million dollars. The US Gov is also considering Microsoft’s productivity suite.

Microsoft’s suite could be considered pretty solid, but also pretty bland. Many corporations, and school districts, are currently using Microsoft’s suite. Some would say it’s in a good spot, but when compared to Google it just not up-to par (in my opinion). Many city governments are already using Google Apps.. so let’s call this a fair fight.

The US Government is currently reviewing the terms, and will soon select which company they’d like to side with. At any rate, both companies are probably opening their arms to $50 million, so it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

This morning word broke that Microsoft and Samsung entered a cross-licensing agreement that would see Samsung paying royalties on their smartphones and tablets running Android. This prompted the following statement from Google:

“This is the same tactic we’ve seen time and again from Microsoft. Failing to succeed in the smartphone market, they are resorting to legal measures to extort profit from others’ achievements and hinder the pace of innovation. We remain focused on building new technology and supporting Android partners.”

After these claims of extortion, Microsoft’s head of communications Fran Shaw took to Twitter (above), to respond. His second Tweet read, “I would encourage the folks in MV in slowly read graf 5 of our blog on the topic today. Here’s the link again: bit.ly/oZbi3X”

The paragraph he’s referring to is below, which clearly shows Microsoft’s intent to continuing pursuing these types of deals with other Android vendors.

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Google continues to dance around China with the news today that it is constructing a US$100 million, 15-hectare (37.07-acre) Data Center in Taiwan.

Google plans to complete the data center in 1-2 years and is expected to create 5-20 full-time jobs and a number of part-time jobs. By locating in Taiwan, Google will be close to the Chinese Mainland without falling under the laws of ‘Communist’ China which could theoretically sieze data if the data center were located within its borders.

Update: Reuters adds that Google will be building out Singapore and Hong Kong data centers as well.

Another Google data center video from this year below:
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Along with the release of Firefox 7 on the desktop, Mozilla has released Firefox 7 for Android. Sadly, the mobile release doesn’t feature as many changes as the desktop, but we’re sure they’ll be more to come. Change log:

1. Improved copy and paste: Copy any site content and paste to other applications, SMS, or text fields
2. Built-in language detection on first run
3. WebSockets API: Powerful tool for Web developers to build responsive Web apps and sites

Hit up the download link after the break: (via Android Central)

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Citing the obligatory “people familiar with the matter”, the Wall Street Journal in a story this morning reports that Google is finalizing contracts for upcoming YouTube channels that will stream premium entertainment content on a regular basis. Google CEO Larry Page apparently wants to give people a good reason to tune into YouTube instead of television. Content owners are being “encouraged” to create schedules of programming much like traditional TV, the paper noted.

YouTube has requested some content for the channels within the next 60 days, according to one of these people, as it considers a launch in early 2012. YouTube, which media companies have long griped is too stingy cutting content deals, is paying from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million to content creators to create and curate videos for a channel, according to these people. Google recoups the original payment through ad revenue, and Google and the partner share ad revenue after that.

This could be viewed as part of Google’s broader push towards providing high-quality Hollywood entertainment on YouTube. The timely strategy ties nicely with the Google TV project, which is also about to be updated with a new software release soon. The Wall Street Journal first reported on Google’s plans to spend a hundred million dollars on premium YouTube content back in April. Google is reportedly in talks with Creative Artists Agency, William Morris Endeavor and International Creative Management over professionally produced programming on broad themes, including arts, fashion and sports.

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Analyst Experian Hitwise has published numbers saying Google Plus’s traffic has spiked 1269% this past week, since the service opened to everyone. Last week, Plus recieved 15 million visits rather than the on average 1 million.

The traffic spike was most likely helped out by Google’s blunt advertising for Plus. Experian Hitwise’s numbers don’t include mobile users (which probably isn’t much) or users from Google’s black bar. To compliment the amount of visitors Paul Allen has also been throwing out their that the social network is now up to 43 million users. (via ReadWriteWeb)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUnp3SjDB7s]

As part of Google’s new focus on premium entertainment, the YouTube team announced in a blog post that the video sharing site will stream the Ultimate Fighting Championship events. Viewers in the United States will be able to access this content on the UFC YouTube channel beginning this Saturday, September 24 at 9pm ET/6pm PT. Google said that all of the main card fights from UFC 135 will be available for live streaming for $44.99. The search company will kickstart the UFC streaming deal with the heavyweight title fight between champion Jon “Bones” Jones and challenger Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. If you’re a fan, don’t forget to tune in. You probably have access to UFC fights as part of your cable deal so YouTube will be yet another platform to watch those fights. Besides it is nice seeing Google take premium entertainment seriously.

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Google isn’t just about indexing new information.  Today, Google announced that they have indexed (and translated) the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Written between the third and first centuries BCE, the Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest known biblical manuscripts in existence. In 68 BCE, they were hidden in 11 caves in the Judean desert on the shores of the Dead Sea to protect them from the approaching Roman armies. They weren’t discovered again until 1947, when a Bedouin shepherd threw a rock in a cave and realized something was inside. Since 1965, the scrolls have been on exhibit at the Shrine of the Book at The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Among other topics, the scrolls offer critical insights into life and religion in ancient Jerusalem, including the birth of Christianity.

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