Twitter wants to be “the world in your pocket,” according to CEO Dick Costolo — but more than anything, it wants to be the engine of mobile and real-time commerce in your pocket, judging by his comments at the Fortune BrainstormTech conference in Colorado on Tuesday. Read more »
8×8 Virtual Room is designed to appeal to small and medium-sized businesses looking for video conferencing services. At $199 a month, it provides unlimited multi-user chat sessions with up to 20 participants at a time. But can it compete with free offerings like Google+ Hangouts? Read more »
Indie singer Daria Musk explored the boundaries of Goole+ Hangouts this weekend when she played a six-hour live concert on Google’s new video group chat service. Musk’s concert and her experiences with Google+ hint at some big opportunities for the future of live streaming. Read more »
Google revenues were up 32 percent, to a record $9 billion. Android activates 550,000 devices a day. Google+ had 10 million users in less than two weeks of limited availability. But Google can’t ease up on the accelerator. Though Google dominates search, U.S. query volume is flat […] Read more »
Google had a great quarter and finally has a hot social media offering. But it can’t relax on its laurels. Google faces key challenges to the growth of its search and advertising businesses that it could address with better product ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Michael Dell likes Google’s new group video chat service Hangouts so much he wants to use it as a tool for customer service and sales. Dell revealed his thoughts about Hangouts on Google+, the social network that Google launched at the end of last month. Read more »
Google+ has gained 10 million users in the few weeks since its launch, but it has a long way to go to catch up with Facebook. So why is Google CEO Larry Page convinced Google+ will be a major competitor in the social space? Read more »
According to multiple reports, Twitter is close to launching in-stream advertising, including a self-serve platform that will allow companies to inject ads into the network in real time. But how will users react to this intrusion? Forrester Research’s CEO says the move is a big mistake. Read more »
Google released its second-quarter financials on Thursday, hitting its first quarter with more than $9 billion in revenue. But on a call with financial analysts, it gave a whole bunch of nonfinancial metrics for how its various businesses are growing. Read more »
Check out the first interview show we’ve recorded entirely in Google Plus Hangouts: We invited Jamie “Dubs” Wilkinson and Casey Pugh to hang out with us, share some of their favorite YouTube videos and tell us a little bit about their new venture Vhx.tv. Read more »
Its fans say Google+ improves on Facebook in terms of privacy protections, because it allows you to filter people into groups or “Circles.” But is this really a big improvement? Not everyone is convinced it is — some argue that it actually makes things worse. Read more »
Comments from some prominent ex-Googlers seem to show the company still sees social networking as an engineering problem. While it’s nice the web giant is paying attention to social behavior at all, can it ever understand social networks if it just sees them as data-producing engines? Read more »
If you’re curious about the technology behind Google+, you’re in luck. The project’s technical lead, Google engineer Joseph Smarr, is currently hosting an online question and answer session about the service, sharing details about the social platform’s development, technology, and plans for the future. Read more »
Facebook has shut down a service from Open-Xchange that allowed users to export the email addresses of their contacts, which makes the Germany company the latest to run afoul of the social network’s ongoing attempts to maintain control over the information of its users. Read more »
When Google discontinued support for QR codes in its Places product earlier this year, many saw it as an early death knell for the barcode scanning technology. But Google’s latest acquisition is evidence that the company may not be completely abandoning QR technology just yet. Read more »
Deaf and hard of hearing users may soon get more use out of Google’s much-hyped new group video chat service Hangouts, thanks to a field test that looks at ways to add support for American Sign Language. Initial feedback from hearing-impaired users is enthusiastic. Read more »
A lot of the attention on Google+ has focused on whether it’s a “Facebook killer,” but it’s actually more likely to become a competitor for Twitter than Facebook. Is the Google network just benefitting from “shiny new object” syndrome, or could it pose a real threat? Read more »
It’s no surprise that Google is looking to use its new platform, Google+, to add a social layer to the company’s existing services. It seems the company wants to forge ahead with plans to incorporate some of Google+’s social features into its flagship webmail product, Gmail. Read more »
Motorola’s Droid 3 hits the Verizon network and looks to be a worthy addition to the Droid line. Google Talk for Honeycomb tablets are gaining video stabilization while the Google+ app is winner for Android users. A new Labs feature adds downloadable maps on Android smartphones. Read more »
The web may be more social now than ever before, but according to a recent study, there’s still a lot more room to grow. Fewer than half of the world’s top websites link to Facebook or Twitter on their front pages, according to a new research. Read more »
Google+ is already popular, and it isn’t yet showing any signs of slowing down. If you’re already in or if you’re eagerly awaiting an invite, there are a few ways you can improve the experience when accessing Google’s new social network from Mac and iOS devices. Read more »
Leonado DiCaprio, Dexter Morgan and your mom are only some of the people who are using Google’s new and much-hyped video chatting feature Hangouts, if we can believe screenshots taken by users of the service. But of course, the question is: Can we? Read more »
Facebook’s blocking of a Chrome extension that allowed users to export their friends’ email addresses has reignited a debate over who should control that kind of data — should you have the right to export it, or is Facebook right to prevent you from doing so? Read more »
The new Google+ social product includes a group chat application named “Huddle.” At least one company is particularly nonplussed with the app: Huddle, a London-based startup that provides cloud-based communication software. But this is not the first time Google has stepped on Huddle’s brand name turf. Read more »
According to a Google employee, Google+ has an official iOS app currently undergoing the App Store review process at Apple. Other Google apps on iOS have fewer features than their Android counterparts, but here are three things Google can’t leave out of this one. Read more »
Just as Google smartphone sales may have peaked by comparison, the introduction of Google+ could provide a boost to Android’s market share in the long run. While there’s an iOS and HTML5 version of the new social service, the experience is likely best on Android phones. Read more »
Hangouts may be the killer feature of Google Plus, but the ability to join a Hangout could eventually come to third-party apps and services as well. Google has said that it wants to bring interoperability to the service, which could spell further trouble for Skype. Read more »
A Wall Street Journal article argues that the proliferation of “like” buttons, retweets and other online voting encourages conformity in online behavior, and that we don’t reveal our “true selves” online because we are afraid of being voted down by the crowd. But is this true? Read more »
Last week, Google rolled out a largely well-received beta of its new social networking platform, Google+. Having played with Google+ over the last few days, I think that it may find a home in a perhaps unexpected market: the workplace. Read more »
We are the connected generation. As the opportunities to share information have become more ubiquitous, there has been an increasingly hyped-up debate and concern around the topic of privacy. But is privacy really the issue? Read more »
It looks like that “awesome” announcement next week by Facebook won’t be about an iPad app or an HTML5 platform. TechCrunch is reporting that Facebook will announce next week that it will be partnering with Skype to bring video chat to its users. Read more »
This week Google launched their new social offering, Google+, and we’d like to hear your views on it. While many of you haven’t gotten your invites yet, we still think it’s worth asking — invite or not — what you think Google’s chances are. Read more »
Google’s new Hangouts video chat service is one of the most interesting features of its Google+ project. A look behind the tech curtain reveals that Google has big plans for Hangouts, using cutting edge technology to make it run natively on a wide range of devices. Read more »
I’ve been playing with Google+ on my Android handset to get a sense of what it has to offer. The verdict: Google made some thoughtful decisions for mobile users for the Google+ service overall, but Huddle isn’t as intuitive as other group texting platforms. Read more »
This week’s news from Google was the most exciting thing I’ve heard from the company in years. After languishing with social and its utter failures with both Google Wave and Google Buzz, the company is putting an intriguing product to market: a social network. Read more »
Google’s new social network offers a nice collection of features and a great design, but none of these things is enough to create a social network that people want to keep using — that requires a critical mass of users, and Facebook is leading that particular race. Read more »
Google+ has some features that may seem familiar to owners of Apple’s iOS devices, like group messaging, video chat, and automatic photo sharing. But Google’s offerings just add to existing and upcoming iOS features; they don’t threaten to replace or compete with them. Read more »
Google launched its much awaited and highly anticipated social networking platform today. Dubbed Google+, the service may take its cue from social networking giant Facebook, but in reality it is about the harsh reality of Google saving and enhancing its core franchise — Google Search. Read more »
