Friday, July 1, 2011

Facebook,is set to launch a new feature next week, possibly in the mobile or tablet arena, its CEO said.



Chief Executive and founder Mark Zuckerberg told reporters in a visit to Facebook's Seattle office on Wednesday that the company planned to "launch something awesome" next week.

He said the project had been developed at the 40-person Seattle office, Facebook's only major engineering center outside of its Palo Alto, California headquarters.

There has been speculation in technology blogs in recent weeks about various mobile products in development at Facebook, including the release of a long-awaited Facebook app for Apple Inc's iPad and a specialized app for photo-sharing on the iPhone.

Facebook's Seattle office has made a mark on the company's mobile efforts, playing a central role in the development of Facebook's unified mobile site, unveiled in March.

A Facebook spokesman declined to provide further details about Zuckerberg's comments.

Facebook, the world's largest Internet social network with more than 500 million users, is increasingly challenging established online companies like Google Inc and Yahoo Inc for consumers' time online and for advertising dollars. According to the company, people that use Facebook on mobile devices are twice as active on the service than users on PCs.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Skype For Android Now Supports Video Calls, Works Over WiFi And 3G



Thanks to an update of Skype’s Android application, you can now make one-to-one video calls over both WiFi and 3G connections. You can download the Skype app from the Android Market or point your browser to Skype.com/m from your phone.
Note that your smartphone needs to be running Android Version 2.3 (and above) and have a front-facing camera. Supported handsets include the HTC Desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia neo, Sony Ericsson Xperia pro and the Google Nexus S.
This is just the first phase, Skype says, so expect support for more devices soon.
Once installed, you can have video calls from your Android phone with your Skype contacts on iPhone, Mac, Windows PCs and even a number of TVs.
The Skype for Android app has also been given a new lick of paint.
There’s now a new main menu where you can navigate more easily through your contacts, access your Skype profile to change personal details, use the dial pad to make calls and see the balance of your Skype Credit.
A new mood message box at the top of the Skype app menu also enables you to share whatever you’d like to share with your contacts.
Finally, you can now send SMS messages from the Android app.
Neil Stevens, Skype’s vice president and general manager for product and marketing, says approximately 30 million concurrent users log into Skype at any given time and make up to half a million simultaneous video calls (at peak times as of June 2011).

StockTwits Comes To The Android






StockTwits, the finance community currently available on mobile via the iPhone, is taking its experience to the Android today.

Like StockTwits for the iPhone, StockTwits for the Android retains many of the same functionalities as the StockTwits community its, allowing users to access realtime stock quotes, financial news and the ability to bookmark stocks on a “Watchlist” or the ability to access stocks on the go.

StockTwits for Android users can also access a “Trending” view of stocks, highlighting the most discussed stocks in the community. This can be useful, as realtime information is increasingly more crucial to making investments.

StockTwits has $8.6 million in funding and is based out of San Francisco and New York. Those interested can
DownloadHerethe app here.

Difference between Facebook and Google+

Google sorted out the web and made it searchable; can it also create the connections between people that are making it social?
Google's latest attempt -- in development for more than a year -- was unveiled as Google+, and offered to a select group of journalists and analysts who will be able to share photos, links and status updates.
The major difference between Facebook and Google+ is that instead of having a massive friend list, users collect each other into groups, such as family, work and friends, called "circles." This context has been missing from Facebook and has gotten some people in hot water -- for example, those who post their wild weekend party photos that may be seen by family and colleagues. And on Google+, there are no friend requests. People do not need to agree to be friends with one another and can view updates without sharing their own.
While executives declined to say what their are doing with Google+ when it comes to advertising -- for example, will brands be able to create "circles"? -- they did say that +1, an icon launched recently that is now integrated into Google+, is operating with ads. The +1 service allows users to click on the icon, indicating they like that search result. Google+ follows the search company's failed attempts at the social web -- Buzz and Orkut -- and could be a huge deal for Google if people are willing to participate in yet another social network.
But the bigger play here is to harness the data about human connections generated by the social web and apply that to search and even display advertising. The rise of Facebook meant that a lot of this emerging activity was taking place inside a walled garden that was largely invisible to Google.
"Google rose to prominence because the web became open and they made it sourceable and discoverable, so this is a preemptive strike on Google's part," said Steven Rubel, exec VP-global strategy and insights for Edelman, explaining that as people spend more time inside walled gardens such as Facebook and mobile apps, Google loses its power to search and monetize that walled-off content. "Now they have a leg in the game in a world where people spend less and less time on the web."
Mr. Rubel may be right. While Google continues to be one of the most visited sites -- ComScore showed 180 million people visiting a Google property in May -- Facebook is catching up. But Facebook users spent an average of 375 minutes on the site during May -- close to 3 hours more than the 231 minutes they spent on Google.
Google+ will give Google a place for users to create their own content -- the stuff we're used to because of Facebook -- such as user conversations, their photos and the links they share, plus group text messaging and video chat. Since it belongs to Google, it will all be searchable and monetizable -- just the way Google likes it.
While people are not in immediate danger of losing the searchable, open web, the phenomenon can occur slowly over the next decade as mobile and apps become more and more dominant in how users consume information. "It's like a receding hairline," Mr. Rubel said. "You look in the mirror when you're 29 and think, 'Oh, it's not that bad' and wake up at 40 looking like Kojak."
Google executives said that getting social information on their users will improve Google products across the board -- by allowing personalization. Most of Google's most popular products such as search, maps and YouTube do not require a login, which limits what Google knows about its users.
But social has never been Google's bag. "It would take a seismic shift for people to take their social stuff to Google," said Deep Focus CEO and founder Ian Schafer, who said that the real earth-shattering use for Google+ is in mobile, not social networking. "The biggest implication for Google+ is mobile," Mr. Schafer said. "For example, for people to be creating content wherever people are and using that to deliver messages to them and close the loop on sales. The promise of Google+ is closing the loop on social CRM."
For advertisers and brands, the potential is immense. "A connection made with a brand in Google+ can eventually be tracked to a purchase," Mr. Schafer said. "If we can create relevant brand engagements with people and give them an ability to purchase the product at a later date -- whether that's three, six or 18 months later -- this brings us back to social ROI."
Indeed, metrics and analytics is one area where Facebook falls behind Google when it comes to advertising. When asked what she'd like to see from Facebook, Coca-Cola's head of integrated marketing and communications Wendy Clark said she wanted a good way to measure social media succes.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Google Unveils Facebook Competitor Google+

Has Google just launched its most ambitious project yet?
After years of rumors and hints, Google Tuesday launched a trial of its Facebook competitor, a social network called the Google+ project.
And the company clearly isn't shy about it.
In a blog post announcing the launch of the Google+ Project, Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of Engineering for the company, argued that the subtlety of real world interactions are lost online due to the rigidity of today's tools.
"Online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it," Gundotra said. Getting there has been a massive effort, explained Wired.
"Emerald Sea, it is a result of a lengthy and urgent effort involving almost all of the company’s products," wrote Steven Levy. "Hundreds of engineers were involved in the effort. It has been a key focus for new CEO Larry Page."
To set Google+ apart from Facebook, which some recent reports have pegged at 750 million users, Google is claiming to have a better approach to privacy, taking on the hot-button issue that has burned both companies before.