Google Apps Applauded By Berkeley Lab

Earlier today, Google made known that Google Apps for Government is available, and a representative of Berkeley Lab has now made clear that it should be popular, too.  Dr. Rosio Alvarez, Chief Information Officer at the institution, discussed the migration process in a special blog post this afternoon.

On the Official Google Enterprise Blog, Alvarez explained that Berkeley Lab is in the middle of "the first production rollout of Google Apps in the Department of Energy," and it's apparently going quite well.  Great, even.

On the financial side of things, estimates indicate that as much as $2 million may be saved over the next five years thanks to the switch.  Which is a nice sum of money that taxpayers and politicians will find difficult to ignore.

What's more, the actual people at Berkeley Lab seem to approve of the change.  In reference to Google Sites and Google Docs, Alvarez wrote about helpful features and improved collaboration, and below, you can see results from the Gmail Migration Survey.

Those are some pretty positive findings, and considering the caliber of people who work at Berkeley Lab (11 researchers have won the Nobel Prize), they make for a very strong endorsement of Google Apps.

It should be interesting to see which other government organizations show interest in Google Apps over the next few months.

YouTube Users Already Part of Google's Rumored "Google Me" Social Network?

Over a year ago, Google announced that it would start requiring all people signing up for YouTube usernames to have a Google account. Now they're going to start requiring all users of YouTube that signed up prior to that to connect their accounts to Google accounts as well. 

Here are the reasons Google gives for connecting YouTube accounts to Google accounts:

- Improved account security. The Google Account system is robust and will help reduce spam across the site; users will get a slew of security and safety features that Google has spent the past decade developing.

- A single account system. This may not mean much to anyone outside of the YouTube engineering team, but behind the scenes it’s extremely complicated to support two different account systems. Having all users on the same account system not only simplifies matters, but more important, it makes it much easier to use Google technologies to keep the site running smoothly (over two billion views a day and counting), as well as introduce new functionality.

  There has been a lot of talk about Google working on a new social network (often referred to as "Google Me"). We still don't know exactly what that's going to be all about, but when people assess the success/failure of Google's social media efforts, they often overlook that Google owns YouTube, which is essentially a giant social network (albeit one that revolves around video). Not everyone uses YouTube as a social network, but the more people that have Google accounts, the more people Google will be able to claim as part of its broader "social network".

Google Promotes AdSense In Your City Program

AdSense publishers who live near Boston, Chicago, or New York - or can travel to one of those cities on short notice this summer - should consider filling out an application and maybe packing a bag. Google's looking for people to participate in what it calls the AdSense in Your City program.

A key note before we get much further: if you don't live near one of those cities, but are interested in the initiative, Google still wants to hear from you. Talia Brodecki, a product market manager, asked on the Inside AdSense Blog that people leave comments suggesting what other areas the company should take into account.

As for what's at stake, Brodecki wrote that the AdSense in Your City program involves members of the AdSense team traveling "to hear directly from you, as well as to share best practices, top optimization tips, and new products."

Get-togethers are small - think 60 people - and Google's method of determining who's allowed to attend favors the first people to request an invitation.

Recordings of the sessions are supposed to be made available online at some point, however, so don't worry too much if you can't make a meeting or aren't issued an invitation.

MTV Gets Into Social Gaming

MTV Networks said today it has purchased Social Express, a social gaming development company.

The move by MTV marks its first entry in the social gaming space, the company said it will develop social games based on original IP (intellectual property) as well as shows and characters from Nickelodeon and its other brands, with the first game to launch in the third quarter. MTV will also use Social Express to launch a publishing platform for independent game developers.

"Social gaming is one of the biggest drivers of the explosive growth in social media - it's fun, it's engaging, and it's shareable," said Judy McGrath, Chairman and CEO of MTV Networks.

"Social Express brings us strong experience and know-how in this burgeoning space, which we'll supercharge with the IP and scale of Nickelodeon and other MTV Networks brands to create great new social gaming experiences for our fans and cool tools for independent developers as well."

Social Express will be integrated into Nickelodeon Digital, with Social Express co-founder and CEO Tony Espinoza overseeing social gaming strategy and development as Vice President and General Manager of Social Gaming for MTV Networks' Nickelodeon Kids & Family Group. Neil Souza, co-founder of Social Express and FoulPlay Media, will be Vice President of Technology, Social Games. Both will report to Dave Williams, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Games, Nickelodeon Kids & Family Group. source: www.webpronews.com/topnews/

Borders Rolls Out eBook Store

Borders has launched its own branded eBook store, powered by eReading service Kobo.

The company says its goal is to capture 17 percent of the eBook market by July of 2011. Borders' eBook store launches with more than 1.5 million titles, available in a number of formats, including ePub, mobile and PDF.

"The race to emerge as a retail leader within the digital category is just starting," said Mike Edwards, Chief Executive Officer for Borders, Inc.

"During the past several months, we've been carefully crafting a digital strategy, one that has great content and a device-neutral philosophy backed by the Borders brand as its cornerstones. We believe we are very well positioned to come out strong and to ultimately claim about a 17 percent eBook market share by this time next year."

Borders has also launched eReading applications for BlackBerry and Android, also powered by Kobo. The company says anyone who downloads the free apps from July 9-11 will receive 5 free bestselling books. The titles include "Frankenstein" by Dean Koontz, "One Shot" by Lee Child, "The Alchemyst" by Michael Scott, Julia Child's "Kitchen Wisdom" and "Master your Metabolism" by Jillian Michaels.

Borders entry into the eBook market is somewhat late as rival Amazon launched its eBook store and Kindle eReader in 2007 and Barnes & Noble along with Sony introduced their own stores and devices in 2009. Unlike its rivals, Borders did not get into the eReader device making game, allowing the company to keep its focus on being a bookseller and avoiding the recent price wars between Amazon and Barnes & Noble. source: www.webpronews.com/topnews/

Will Social Media Improve Life In the Future

The social benefits of Internet use will outweigh the negatives over the next decade, according to a new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University.

While most respondents reported the Internet has both positive and negative effects, 85 percent said it has improved their own social relations and will continue to do so through 2020.

Some 85% agreed with the statement:

"In 2020, when I look at the big picture and consider my personal friendships, marriage and other relationships, I see that the Internet has mostly been a positive force on my social world. And this will only grow more true in the future. "

The majority of the people surveyed said the Internet allows people to create and grow bigger social networks than they had been able to have in pre-Internet days. They said they like the advantages offered by the easy sharing of personal details in a one-to-many form that they can control. They said that over the next decade people will continue to invest themselves in building communities via these personal broadcasts.

Some survey participants pointed out that geography is no longer an obstacle and the Internet is also eliminating some or all of the constraints of time and cost when it comes to human connection and sharing.

In addition, some participants said technology will continue to change how we live our lives at home and at work, and that "virtual friends" in more developed social networks will become more common in the future. They said the definitions of "privacy" and "friendship" are changing.

Some 14 percent pointed out the negatives of the connections people are generating online. These included observations that people lose time online that could be spent in face-to-face relationships; social networks can be a distraction; online relationships are not deep and meaningful; the Internet allows people to silo themselves and incite more intolerance.

Here are some responses by those surveyed by Pew:

"The internet has actually helped with human interaction by providing a wider range of ways to communicate such as Twitter and Facebook. These allow some interactions that are better not done face-to-face. And the internet frees up more time for social interaction by making things like shopping faster." William Webb, head of research and development, Ofcom

"Both answers are true. Spending more time online and being more wired to each other via various devices comes at the expense of real-time, deep, meaningful human interaction. But, when you're really busy and don't have enough time to see, call or visit with friends it's nice to use the social networking tools to be better able to keep tabs on or 'give tabs to' people in your social network." -Joshua Freeman, director of interactive services, Columbia University Information Technology source: www.webpronews.com/topnews/

Another Person No One’s Heard Of Tries To Trademark SEO

HuoMah Blog discovered that yet another person is trying to claim a trademark on the term SEO, search engine optimization. Clinton Cimring of a company called “Search Engine Partner” filed a trademark application with United States Patent and Trademark Office on January 5, 2009. The filing claims first use SEO as a trademark was on September 23, 1996 and first use in commerce was on September 24, 1999.

This is the second time in about two years that someone with no general stature, reputation or well-known and documented history has tried to claim a trademark on SEO. In 2008, Jason Gambert gained attention in trying to trademark the term. That resulted in plenty of criticism of his move as well as people asking, “Jason who?”

Who actually coined the term and first used it in commerce? To our knowledge, Bob Heyman has the longest-standing claim. He said he invented the term in 1995 and documented his claim in 1997. Our Who coined the term SEO? article from Heyman covers this more. Unlike the other two people, Heyman has never tried to claim a trademark against for the term.

Postscript: Links to the trademark expire after a certain period time. To find this trademark, search for the serial number 77643198 at tess2.uspto.gov.

Postscript #2: It seems like he is trying to trademark the acronym SEO for Strategically Elevating Optimization and not Search Engine Optimization.

source: http://searchengineland.com

Google Is Now Apple’s Greatest Enemy: Here’s Why

Let’s take a trip back in time. The year is 1994, and two tech giants are going to war over copyright. They are Microsoft and Apple, and they are fighting over a copyright claim by Apple over Microsoft and HP’s use of graphical user interface elements from the Macintosh OS. The resulting court case, Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation, ended with a ruling in Microsoft’s favor, mostly due to a contractual license agreement between the two.

The matter was never fully settled by the case though. Instead, negotiations that took place several years later resulted in the two companies agreeing to make Internet Explorer Mac’s default browser. Microsoft also agreed to keep developing Office for the Mac. Most importantly though, Microsoft invested $150 million into Apple to keep it afloat.

This series of events, which happened while Steve Jobs was being reinstated as the CEO of Apple, set the stage for what is happening today between Microsoft, Apple, and Google (). While Microsoft and Apple are still bitter rivals, several recent events have inadvertently brought them closer together in order to fight their common enemy: Google.

The phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” comes to mind. Let’s explore how we got to this tipping point.

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Android: Google Enters Apple’s Turf

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When Google CEO Eric Schmidt joined Apple’s Board of Directors in 2006, the move made perfect sense. Here’s what Apple said about Eric in its original announcement:

“Eric’s 20 years of experience as an Internet strategist, entrepreneur and technologist give him a well-seasoned perspective which perfectly complements Google’s needs as a young and rapidly growing company with a unique corporate culture.”

At that time, Google wasn’t in mobile, hardware, operating systems, or browsers. Now Google is directly competing with Apple through the Nexus One, Google Chrome, Chrome OS, and even possibly in the tablet computer space.

It all started with Android (), though. Back in August 2007, details began to leak about Google building a mobile OS or even a GPhone. It turned out to be Android, the open-source mobile OS that is now the fastest growing smartphone OS on the market.

At first, Android didn’t pose much of a threat, but as more phones utilized the software, the relationship between Google and Apple became very uncomfortable. Eric Schmidt sat out board meetings discussing the iPhone due to conflict of interest, but the relationship only eroded from there.

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Watershed Moment: Eric Schmidt Resigns from Apple’s Board

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Tensions between the two companies grew worse after Apple rejected Google Voice as an app on the iPhone.

The resulting FCC inquiry, along with an FTC investigation and the announcement of Google Chrome OS were just too much. On August 3rd, 2009, Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple’s Board of Directors.

In retrospect, this was the moment when Apple, Google, and the rest of the world realized that the two companies could no longer be allies. Google’s expanding interest outside of search was pouring over into Apple’s domain on multiple fronts. With the search giant free of its Apple association, it could go all-out on its agenda to bring more people onto the web for longer (read the Google Revenue Equation to learn why).

The culmination of the breaking of the Google-Apple alliance? It was the release of the Nexus One, a direct competitor to Apple’s lucrative iPhone.

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Recent Events: Apple and Microsoft Talk Bing

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Yesterday we learned that Apple and Microsoft are in talks to make Bing () the default search engine for the iPhone. While we’ve heard this rumor before, the talk seems to be heating up. Most of our readers expressed their dismay or shock over the potential deal, some questioning why Apple would ever team up with Microsoft over Google.

Really though, the deal makes perfect sense, given the new competitive landscape. Earlier today, Jim Goldman at CNBC provided some interesting new information on the dynamics of the Apple-Google-Microsoft relationship. According to his source, Steve Jobs hates Eric Schmidt (it wouldn’t surprise us) and Microsoft is offering a bigger cut of iPhone search revenues than Google.

While Microsoft and Apple’s relationship grew cold after the Redmond, WA company bailed Apple Computer out, it never vanished. Moreover, Steve knows that he can work with Microsoft, especially if it helps Microsoft hurt Google.

Android has become the de-facto alternative to the iPhone OS, and the Nexus One is closest thing yet to a smartphone that can stand up to the iPhone’s dominance. While Microsoft and Apple are still in competition over Mac vs. PC, Apple clearly believes that its future isn’t just in computers, but in other Internet devices such as the iPhone and the fabled Apple Tablet. Microsoft poses far less of a threat in these areas than Google does.

It’s time to call it: Google is now Apple’s greatest enemy. Soon Google will be entering its OS turf with Chrome OS. Apple increasingly sees Google as a major competitor over the next few years. While the company Steve built doesn’t particularly like Microsoft, it knows that it has to work with the lesser of two evils in order to succeed.

Say hello to the new dynamic. It’s Apple + Microsoft vs. Google. May the new battle begin. source: http://mashable.com/2010/01/20/apple-microsoft-v-google/

Avast Software Added To Google Pack

At least in certain parts of the world, Google has revised its approach to connecting people with security products. Avast Free Antivirus is now included in eight different versions of the Google Pack bundle of software.

Try to download Google Pack in Czech, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, or Spanish, and you'll see Avast's logo among symbols for Chrome, Google Earth, Picasa, and a handful of other things. This endorsement should help Avast Free Antivirus Version 5 find its way onto more than a few new computers.

Of course, the odd thing is that Spyware Doctor with Anti-Virus, and not Avast's product, is still recommended to anyone who takes a look at Google Pack in English. Whether this is because the change is experimental or Google's been caught mid-rollout is hard to say.

Or perhaps Google's just really trying to split hairs with regards to what security software is most effective in different markets.

It's likely that the adjustment represents some form of payback, though. Alex Chitu, who wrote about it, also noted, "In December, Avast's blog announced that the software will offer users the option to install Google Chrome."

Indian firms may ban Social Networking Sites [Facebook]

Is Facebook or Twitter affecting your productivity? Recent survey from Assocham’s Social Development Foundation opens up deep questions about the effect of Facebook on the productivity at company. India is known for their extensive dedication towards their work, that is how it became the hub for IT Industry. But the social networking sites is turning out to threaten this status. The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry says that workers use Orkut, Facebook, Myspace and Linkedin for “romancing” and other purposes.

Below are some astounding statistics from the survey over 4,000 corporate employees :

Close to 12.5% of productivity of human resource in corporate sector is misappropriated each day in social networking sites during the office hours.

The survey questioned 4,000 employees between the ages of 21 and 60 in Delhi, Bangalore, Madras (Chennai), Cochin, Indore, Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai (Bombay), Pune, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Lucknow and Kanpur.

The survey found that 77% of workers who had Orkut accounts used them during work hours.

Nearly half of office employees accessed Facebook during work time.

Moreover, 4 in every 10 workers built their entire Orkut or Facebook profile at work.

Some 83% saw nothing wrong in surfing at work during office hours.

19% of companies allow use of social networking sites only for business purposes, while 16% allow limited personal use.

Only 40% of the employees interviewed said that their companies allowed staff full access to social networking sites.

84% of respondents in India’s major cities show signs of internet addiction – they do not take breaks at appropriate times, they spend more than a “normal” amount of time online, and can get irritable if they are interrupted while surfing.

The above statistics show some great concern over the use of social networking sites in the workplace. These could only lead to companies banning the sites and preventing any social contact. This could either result in a form of aggression from the workers or it might lead to better productivity.

As the Internet culture is changing, it could be one big experiment from the management side in IT industry to ban the social networking sites. Assocham secretary general DS Rawat said that the growing use of browsing sites can be dangerous for overall productivity. Many IT companies have already installed softwares to restrict sites.

source: http://socialmedia.globalthoughtz.com

Internet Services Resume in China after a Long Haul

Limited Internet services slowly began to return to far western China on Tuesday, almost six months after ethnic rioting led the government to shut down Web and phone links to the outside world. This mass shutdown resulted after China’s worst communal violence in decades.

Residents of the Xinjiang region on Tuesday could access Web sites for the state-run Xinhua News Agency and the People’s Daily, the Communist Party newspaper, and other Internet, text messaging and international calling services will slowly resume, according to a notice on the Web site of the Xinjiang government.

The change comes to “satisfy economic needs and to make daily life more convenient for everyone,” Xinhua said of the notice.

A woman from the press center of Xinjiang government confirmed the statement in Xinhua’s report. Like most Chinese government officials, she refused to give her name.

The Xinjiang government site, however, was unavailable Tuesday afternoon.

The mass shutdown came after rioting July 5 between Xinjiang’s native Uighur minority and the majority Han Chinese. It was China’s worst communal violence in decades. The Chinese government said nearly 200 people, mostly Han, were killed. The government blamed the violence on overseas groups agitating for broader rights for Uighurs in Xinjiang, though the groups denied it.

China has a old history of strictly regulating the Information and Press Freedom in the country. Beijing’s pervasive policing of cyberspace and attempts to block the Internet are already among the world’s most stringent.This incident is a clear indication of how strictly the internet and press is controlled in China.

source: http://socialmedia.globalthoughtz.com/index.php/internet-services-resume-in-china-after-a-long-haul/

Google Nexus One Finally On Board to Ship to Customers

The long awaited Google phone is finally unveiled and launched by the search giant thus stepping into the smartphone market with its new Android platform. The details of the phone were already hovering in the web ever since its news had been leaked with people anxiously waiting to get their hands on the device. So finally all anticipations will be rewarded as Google claims that the device’s high specifications make it the first of a new class of “superphone”.

The very sleek handset built by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC will ship right away and exclusively from Google’s online store for $179 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile USA, or $529 without a service plan. Google Nexus One comes featured with new voice recognition capabilities that will allow the users to write emails, text messages or Internet search queries by speech.

As Google aims to catch on the already existing market leaders like iPhone and RIM, Nexus One is offering its users fully integrated web-browsing, satnav capabilities, music and video playing and a large library of applications that you may choose to install. It boasts of a better camera and higher screen resolution than iPhone, live wallpaper, virtual on screen keyboard and so on, there is lot to explore.

Well Google is really smart to deliver the phones directly to consumers as that will help the company to cut down the retailing price. Will the largest search engine also succeed to win consumer hearts in the smartphone line and be a strong blow at Apple and RIM, its yet to watch. Until then for a complete review of the new Nexus One, check out engadget.

source: http://technology.globalthoughtz.com

Google Friend Connect Heads to Drupal and Joomla

Google announced that Google Friend Connect features are now available for the Drupal and Joomla content management systems. This means that content publishers using these platforms can integrate Google's product, which basically turns your site into a mini social network.

"Now that Friend Connect is integrated with these popular open source CMS platforms, site owners can make registration easier for users and offer them a set of social features -- all without writing a single line of code," says Globant's Mauro Gonzalez on Google's Social Web Blog. "Even site owners without programming experience can add these plugins."

The Google Friend Connect integrations with Drupal and Joomla include features like:

- Interest Polls
- AdSense
- Newsletter Subscriptions
- Featured Content
- Gadgets (like Members, Comments, Recommendations, Activities, Reviews and the Social Bar)

"When a user joins a Friend Connect site, an account is created and automatically associated with his or her external account of choice (Google, Yahoo, or Twitter, for example)," explains Gonzalez. "The social gadgets can be placed anywhere in the site using the standard Drupal and Joomla administration interfaces. Site owners can moderate reviews and comments, create new polls to collect information about community members, and then advertise on the site using that information. The newsletter feature allows site owners to create and manage their newsletters using Friend Connect's interface, and site members can subscribe and unsubscribe as desired using the newsletter gadget."