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/