Facebook, which popularized the concept of shared content for its social network, is expected to unveil a "Like" button publishers can embed on their Web sites to let users share content with their Facebook friends. 
The New York Times reported that Facebook at its F8 developer's meeting April 21 will introduce a Like button that will allow the company to keep tabs on what a user linked to. Users can click the key to share favorite Websites, which will give Facebook more info on what users are interested in.
Facebook will share that information with Web publishers, which will put in front of visitors links, photos and other content that their friends like from Facebook. If that sounds confusing, imagine of this Like button as one big recommendation engine for the Web.
Facebook fuels the Like button with its social chart on the back end; Website publishers are the vehicles to promote sharing for Facebook's excess of 400 million-plus users.
This effort, which follows up the Facebook Connect tune to let users connect to third-party Websites with their Facebook user names and passwords, is a play to assist Facebook extend its tendrils as the premier social connective tissue for the Web.
One imagines social advertising will play a main role here, but we must wait until F8 Wednesday to find out whether this is so and how Facebook envisions it will work.
Facebook's effort is being preempted by a group of companies goal on not letting Facebook introduce the Web with its members-only approach to the social graph. Meebo April 19 launched XAuth, a platform for automating the method users share content on social networks, with partners Google, MySpace, Microsoft, Yahoo and others. While Facebook is paying attention on helping its users share info within the Facebook social graph, the group supporting XAuth wants to let Website visitors share facts with Facebook and myriad other social sites.
Meebo's effort is also likely a reaction to the now oldish gossip that Facebook is also planning to release a Meebo-like toolbar for Websites to put at the bottom of their Web pages. This toolbar, according to the Times story, will construct on Facebook Connect to help more users log in to participating Websites.
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After the need of Flash support and the “missing” camera, one of the biggest complaints about the iPad is that you can’t print from it, with or without a wire. Google is about to solve this difficulty with cloud-printing, which will send your documents from a mobile device to any web-connected printer.
I tend to view printing as something like the floppy disk, a legacy technology that nobody actually needs anymore. And before you light up the remarks telling me you need to print receipts for your car repair shop customers, I say that’s not the job of an iPad or a cellphone. What you want is a computer. For the odd boarding pass or file I might need on paper, I just email the file to the print shop down the road and pay them 10 cents.
But if you still maintain on dead tree copies, Google hears you. To allow printing from its driver-free Chrome OS and any other mobile device, Google is putting those drivers in the cloud. Apps send produce jobs to Google Cloud Print, whereupon they are processed and sent to net-connected printers. And this isn’t just the printer in your upstairs office, either. It could be on the new side of the world.
Google has today released the code and documents to developers, so its just a matter to come for this to show up in the apps you use. In the meantime, iPad users might like this alternative solution.
Yesterday, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake smack northwest China's Qinghai Province. Hours after the tragedy, criminals spiked 18 of the top 20 search results for linked keywords, serving up Rogue anti-Virus applications.
According to state-run media reports out of China, 589 people are confirmed dead and 10,000 others are wounded. It is being reported that 60 of the lives lost are students, as schools in the area collapsed. After the initial quake, two aftershocks of 5.3 and 5.8 magnitude respectively, laid waste to the area breakup businesses and homes. Two years ago, a 7.9 magnitude quake hit the neighboring Sichuan province, resulting in 90,000 people departed or missing.
Capitalizing on the initial alarm and the need some have to get the most up-to-date information, criminals used Google Trends and related searches to poison the search results related to the quake. The methods used were so valuable that 18 of the top 20 searches were malicious.
The explore term used, “china earthquake 2010”, resulted in the huge poisoning. The next page of that search had nothing but malicious links
Google is bringing in a quantity of help for its YouTube video service with the acquisition of another startup.
The purchase of Episodic script Google's fifth acquisition so far this year. Terms of the contract announced Friday weren't disclosed.
Episodic, based in San Francisco, provides a platform for streaming survive video on the Web. YouTube recently has been screening more live video besides the more than 500 million clips that are continuously available on its site.
Google has said it intends to get at least one company per month this year as part of its effort to develop more products and import more talented engineers. The company is sketch upon its cash hoard of $24.5 billion to pay for the shopping spree.
Google launched a redesign of their in style search engine for some individuals on Sunday by improving the main-page logo and sidebar navigation.
The redesign comes as Google purchased a small company named Episodic to get better Google-owned Youtube video service.
Episodic is a “comprehensive platform for broadcasting live and on-demand video to the web or any web-enabled device,” read a blog post on periodic.
According to TechCrunch, the tune will be folded into YouTube to improve on-demand video and help YouTube become profitable.
“We are excited to announce that Episodic has been acquired by Google. The entire Episodic team is extremely excited about this new partnership and what it means for our consumers and the evolution of online video,” read a statement by Google.
Google has purchased several companies this year including Picnik, DocVerse, reMail, Aardvark and a team others.
The world's largest registrar of internet domain names said Wednesday that it was pulling out of China in the wake of firm new laws that allegedly will increase government surveillance of web sites.
'There appears to be a recent increase in China's surveillance and monitoring of the Internet activities of its citizens,' said Christine Jones, general guidance for Go Daddy, at the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC).
Jones said the new Chinese policies required every website vendor to submit photographs, business information and individually signed forms, as well as their physical address, email address and telephone numbers.
'We didn't want to act as an representative of the Chinese government,' Jones said. 'We can't let them be strong and us be weak all the time. We just have to stop it, and then we'll start offering .CN domain names again.'
GoDaddy.com, which has more than 40 million domain names under management, took the step just two days after Google announced that it was moving its Chinese-language search examination out of mainland China to avoid strict government censorship laws. The move set up a discordant clash with the Chinese government, which has already started to filter search results received from Google's Hong Kong-based Chinese-language servers.
Go Daddy has offered .CN domain names since 2005, and said it would carry on serving its existing websites. However, they, too, are required to submit the latest information or could be shut down by the Chinese government.
'We were advised that domain names of registrants who did not roll as required ... would no longer work,' Jones said.
In the most recent development in an ongoing standoff with China over censorship, Google has redirected its Google.cn assets to Google.hk, its site in Hong Kong. The move follows reports this morning that Google would declare plans to shut down Chinese operations as early as today.
Google first announced that it was considering pulling out of China in January, writing at the time that it would no longer cut search results at the behest of the Chinese government following a set of cyber attacks targeting human rights activists.
Update: Google has posted the following announcement on their company blog
“Earlier at present we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, particularly designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong …
… We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our consideration that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement.”
Google notes that this workaround could rapidly be thwarted by the Chinese government, and has thus setup this webpage which keeps track of which services are currently accessible in the country.
As of today, this year's Google I/O conference has sold out and registration is closed. That means more than 4,000 developers will be joining Google on May 19-20 at Moscone West in San Francisco.
Like years past, I/O will feature over 90 in-depth sessions and the chance to meet and learn from other developers, including those from the more than 160 companies that will demo in the Developer Sandbox. For those not able to attend, video recordings of technical sessions will be available on YouTube following the conference.
From now until May, Google will continue to list new speakers, new sessions, and new Sandbox participants on the Google I/O website.
We've long supposed that personalization makes search more relevant and fun. For nearly five years, we've been tailoring results with modified search. Google has announced a new attribute in search that makes it easier for you to mark and experience again your favorite web content — stars.
With stars, you can merely click the star marker on any search result or map and the next time you perform a search, that item will come into view in a special list right at the top of your results when relevant. That means if you star the official websites for your preferred football teams, you might see those results right at the top of your next search for [nfl]. Here's what the new "Starred results" feature looks like:
The immense thing about stars is that you don't have to keep track of them. You don't even have to keep in mind whether or not you starred something. Simply execute a search and you'll rediscover your starred items right when you need them. Stars sync with your Google Bookmarks and the Google Toolbar, so you can always see your list of starred items in one place and simply organize them. Even beyond the results page, while browsing the web you can rapidly click the star icon in Toolbar to create a bookmark, and those pages will start showing up in the new stars feature.
Stars in search substitute SearchWiki. With stars, Google has created a lightweight and flexible way for people to mark and rediscover web content. For people who like annotations, Google has Sidewiki, a more influential way for people to contribute and discover helpful information next to pages across the Internet.
Stars in search are rolling out in the next couple days and will be accessible globally for all signed-in users.
More than ever before, people are sharing and storing their photos online. But until newly, you had to edit your photos using client software on your computer. Google is excited to announce that Google has acquired Picnik, one of the first sites to start photo editing to the cloud. Using Picnik, you can crop, do touch-ups and add cool effects to your photos, all without parting your web browser.
Google is not announcing any important changes to Picnik now, though it will be working hard on integration and new features. As well, Google likes to continue sustaining all existing Picnik partners so that users will continue to be able to add their photos from other photo sharing sites make edits in the cloud and then save and share to all relevant networks.
A promotion to make Topeka a test site for a new, ultrafast Internet service is gathering speed.
Google Inc. announced plans earlier to build and test new high-speed broadband networks in one or more places around the country. The company says the organization of fiber-optic cables would deliver Internet connections 100 times quicker than most systems now available.
Over the past week, Topeka city officials have announced they're finishing Google's request for information from potential trial communities. The City Council has indicated that it's behind the effort.
And a group called "Think Big Topeka" is campaigning to put together community and government support.
Google has given communities a March 26 deadline to submit the finished requests for information.
Location has become a significant part of the way we search. If you're a foodie looking for restaurant details, food blogs or the closest farmer's market, location can be vital to serving you find the right information. Starting today, we've added the capability to refine your searches with the "Nearby" tool in the Search Options panel. One of the actually helpful things about this tool is that it works geographically — not just with keywords — so you don't have to worry about adding "Minneapolis" to your query and lost webpages that only say "St. Paul" or "Twin Cities." Check it out by doing a search, clicking on "show options" and selecting "Nearby."
You can decide to see results nearby either your default location or a custom location, and you can narrow down to results at the city, region or state level.
Yahoo has joined with Twitter to make its search engine results more "real-time" in an agreement which sees the microblogging service become integrated across its complete product suite.
The partnership is alike to earlier deals Twitter has signed with Google and Microsoft's Bing.
Yahoo's search engine has previously started indexing tweets in a bid to make its service offer faster and more appropriate results - a move made by Google at the end of last year.
However, what is dissimilar to the previous deals is that Yahoo has effectively made itself a Twitter client, as Yahoo users will be able to tweet from multiple platforms across Yahoo's products.
It is unidentified how this will be carried out at this stage. There is an opportunity it could happen via widgets.
The partnership also allows Yahoo users to access their Twitter feed via the company's email service, its homepage and via its satisfied verticals - such as Yahoo Finance.
Google had lastly integrated MySpace updates from public pages into its real-time search feature, which was launched back in December at the Google Search Event in Mountain View, California. Google had initially announced that public updates from both MySpace and Facebook would be integrated into the service. Though up until now, Facebook was nowhere to be seen.
With that said, Google had announced in a tweet [pictured above] that status updates from public Facebook Pages are now part of real-time search results. Most Facebook Pages are for celebrities, events, brands, politicians, etc. and there are only about 3 million of them. That means that Google will not be utilizing public updates from the more than 400 million Facebook users.
Another thing worth mentioning is that Facebook is not charging either Google or Bing for using the position updates from its Facebook users and pages, unlike Twitter, which supposedly is making a little cash from partnerships with all the major search engines.
An example of a screenshot of the updates from Facebook Pages on Google Real-Time Search results below.
Google has announced the “next generation of ad serving technology for online publishers” with its upgrades to the Double-click online advertising system, known merely as DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP).
In essence the upgrade combines the existing DoubleClick display advertising model with enhanced Google-optimised algorithms and analytics which will maximise DoubleClick ad performance online and allow users to track the development of adverts more easily.
To put it basically, the search engine has finally come around to properly integrating DoubleClick into the Google family. Since Google acquired DoubleClick in March 2008, the service has remained basically unchanged – a bolt-on to the seemingly inexhaustible list of Google products; now DoubleClick has been “Googlefied” to mesh the product into the Google brand.
The new features of DFP comprise a brand new interface which has been changed to make it more intuitive, user-friendly and to reduce errors. Customers will have contact to more detailed reporting and analytics as well as future forecasting to measure the efficiency of current online advertising campaigns and to make the most of future campaigns.
Google has upgraded the DoubleClick algorithm to optimise ad performance and application as well as making opening up the API which will permit developers to add their own apps and modifications to the system.
The DFP will come in two separate packages, one for large online publishers and social media networks, and one for increasing publishers and small businesses. The version for small businesses will be free to download, the full DFP will have to be paid for by the superior publishers.
Google Docs is the web-based tool that has become the organizational center of the classrooms. No longer there is lost assignment problems with development of Google Docs.
Docs also teaches directorial skills. Students form folders to keep up with assignments. The most significant folder is the folder students share with the teacher. All graded writing goes into this folder, and it serves as a characters portfolio for the semester. You do not have to hunt student work; it is organized in a student folder. At the end of the day, you can leave with just a laptop, no papers to lug around.
Each student folder is in a group class folder. The class folder contains each student's writing for the semester:
Each student's online writing portfolio folder is also mutual with his or her parents. Parents can even remark on student work and participate in the revision and editing process.
For students, Google Docs is a priceless tool in the writing process. Students do not need a flash drive to bring drafts to and from home. Also, students can share inscription with peer editors. After peer restriction, students move their final draft into their English 9 folder. As the final editor, you can leave comments to assist the student in revising his or her final draft. It is satisfying to browse through the revision history and see that a student is considering each comment as they revise: Yea! They are actually reading what I wrote! Usually, students do not read teacher comments that are hand written on paper, but it seems to work in Google Docs.
Google Voice is about giving you more power over your communications, through dozens of features ranging from call screening to voicemail transcription to the facility to send and receive SMS by email.
Users love the Google’s growing list of features, and they are conscious of the fact that Google Voice can seem overwhelming to people trying it for the first time.
So Google has created a short video that gives an overview of what Google Voice can do.
In addition, Google has created a set of short videos that dive into more detail about ten features of Google Voice:
1) Voicemail transcription
2) One number
3) Personalized greetings
4) International calling
5) SMS to email
6) Share voicemails
7) Block callers
8) Screen callers
9) Mobile app
10) Conference calls
The videos show the reasons for the invention of the feature and basic instructions for getting started. And each video focuses on just one topic so you can learn about the features that matter to you.
Finally, Google has just launched the own YouTube channel at youtube.com/googlevoice. You can view all of the videos mentioned above in a custom video gadget that Google has built for this channel, which will help you keep track of which videos you've already watched.
Imagine being in a foreign country staring at a restaurant menu you can't comprehend, a waiter with annoyance tapping his foot at your tableside. You, a vegetarian, have no suggestion whether you're about to order spaghetti with meatballs or veggie pesto. What would you do? Well, ultimately you might be able to take out your mobile phone, snap a photo with Google Goggles, and instantly view that menu translated into your language.
Yesterday at the Mobile World Congress Google demonstrated a prototype of Google Goggles that has the power to do just that. It's still in a very early stage, this is a demo given by Google to shows just how powerful a smartphone can be when it's connected to the translation technologies. For more information and to watch the demo, check out the brand-new Google Translate blog.
Google has launched a couple of improvements to the way saving works in all of Google Docs. Now it's much simpler to tell, at a glance, when documents need to be saved, when documents are busy saving, and when documents have been saved into the cloud:
A clickable save button means your document has edits which haven't been saved so far and the timestamp lets you know when it was last saved. You can either wait for autosave to kick in after a few seconds, or you can yourself save at any time using the keyboard (ctrl S on PC, cmd S on Macs), save button, or by going to through the file menu.
A disabled button reading “Saving” means your document is at present being saved, and should complete in a second or two.
A disabled button reading “Saved” means that all data in this document is now saved, and the timestamp tells you when the last change happened. You can securely exit the application or continue editing the document.
These changes are now available in presentations and documents and will be coming to spreadsheets soon.
When you need an answer to a very precise question, sometimes the information just isn't online in one straightforward place. For example, let's say you want to know if there's snow on Skyline Boulevard on a given day or the finest time of year to plant beans in the Bay Area. You might find weather reports and planting guides on numerous different sites, but for these kinds of questions, a person with the right proficiency can be a lot more useful than a webpage.
Google is excited to announce that they have acquired Aardvark, a unique technology company that lets you quickly and easily tap into the knowledge and experience of your friends and extended network of contacts. Aardvark analyzes questions to determine what they're about and then matches each question to people with pertinent knowledge and interests to give you an answer quickly.
Google is very impressed with the Aardvark team and the technology they've worked hard to build, and they are looking forward to collaborating to see where we can take it. You can learn more about Aardvark's underlying knowledge and premise by reading this paper recently co-authored by founder Damon Horowitz.
In the meantime, Aardvark is accessible today in Google Labs, so try it out.