For a giant company such as Google which tried to give mobile phone retailing a new spin, its a great feat for Google  to admit that it has failed in the endeavor. A couple of months after selling its Nexus One phone through its own web store, Google will soon stop doing so and use the current site for the web store for showcasing other Android phones available worldwide. In short, Google is shutting down its web store and will start selling Nexus One via the usual retailing process.

According to Google, when their web store was launched, its main objective was to innovate in mobile phone distribution as well as give people a quicker and easier way of buying an Android phone.  But obviously, selling the Nexus One exclusively through the Google web store didn’t quite took off. Although Google would not release official data on how many units of Nexus One have been sold, we can pretty much assume that it was not quite many.

And Google decided that it would be best for them to start selling the Nexus One by adopting the same model adopted for its European distribution of the Nexus One where it partnered with Vodafone retail channel.

Will this move bring more positive effect to Nexus One?  It might or might not. One thing is for sure, mobile phone consumers are not so solved into the idea of buying a mobile phone without trying or seeing them in the flesh first. Well, unless of course if its an Apple product like the iPad which was able to sold out for around 1 million units, majority of which were done through online pre ordering.

Aside from this, U.S. consumers are still not quite open with the idea of buying a mobile phone without a corresponding  data plan.

What does Google need to do now?  Seek out more mobile carriers and team up for distribution agreement of the Nexus One.

YouTube is a great site for hosting your videos, no doubt about that. But the problem with it is that when you upload a personal video that you just want to share with a few people, you can do so but then that video is searchable by any video who visits YouTube and chanced upon your video. In short, the videos you upload can be found by the whole world. There was no privacy setting that will let you restrict access to the video you uploaded in YouTube to only the people that you want to share your video with, not until now.

YouTube has just rolled out a new video upload option that will enable you to “unlist” the video you upload from being found by other people. Once you’ve unlisted a video after you uploaded it to you YouTube, only the people who have the link to the video will be able to watch it. It will never be displayed in any of YouTube’s public pages. Not in search results, on your personal channel or on the browse page.  Only you and the people you share the video link with will be able to watch it. Well, of course other people can find it if the link is shared by the people whom you shared the link with.

YouTube unlisted video is a private video. And what’s good about this is that the person you share the link with does not need a YouTube account to view your video. All they need is the link to it.

You’ll get the link to your unlisted video after you the upload process is finished.  Once you’ve unlisted a video and share it with someone else, that person will know that the video is unlisted by the “annotation” just below it when they’ve visited the video link you shared.

So, will you be uploading your personal video to YouTube now? Will you be using YouTube as a personal video storage from now on?

When HTC EVO 4G mobile device graced the CTIA 2010, it has received many accolades and endorsements. It even go the Best of Show Award from EWeek during the said event. So, when it was announced that this first ever 4G phone is about to hit the U.S. many have crossed their fingers and patiently waited for this to happen.

Boom! Suddenly, Sprint and HTC announced the official release date of the HTC EVO 4G – June 4, 2010. That’s about less than a month from now. And by virtue of it being the first ever 4G phone to hit the U.S., the whole mobile phone industry was rocked and stirred.

So why everybody is so agog about the HTC EVO and the its 4G connectivity via Sprint? How about this? – download speeds of up to 10 times faster than 3G. If you think that Sprint’s 3G network is fast enough, wait till you get a taste of Sprint 4G – which shall make the HTC EVO 4 the fastest data speeds of any U.S. wireless device.

In addition, Sprint and HTC are also rolling out voice and data capability either through WiFi or 4G networks.  Biggest announcement of all, the HTC EVO 4G will support two-way video chat. Now that’s what I call – awesome!

Sprint currently offers 4G networks in 32 U.S. markets, so you’re pretty much covered in those areas. To find out if your area is one of those covered by Sprint 4G, check this out.

And how much would a blazing fast mobile internet on the new HTC EVO 4G phone cost you?  Surprisingly, it’s only $199.99 with a two-year Sprint service contact. If you want to be one of the early adopters, you may register for reservation at  www.sprint.com/evo.

And so LinkedIn continues to improve on its site features and functionality. The popular business-oriented social networking sites has just improved on one of its most useful network-building feature called “People You May Know,” a powerful way of finding long lost business contacts as well as for building your professional identity. LinkedIn has combined this feature with another great feature called “faceted search.”

With these two useful LinkedIn features integrated, it is now easier to sort through the list of people your may know by companies and schools. You will now be able to easily page through all of your suggestions on the landing page and quickly sort through them by company or school as well as find out which connections you have in common with other LinkedIn members.

From the landing page of the filtered “People You May Know” suggestions, you can filter the results further by various ways to help you find the business contacts that you may have been looking for or possibly chanced upon somebody which you didn’t think you can reconnect to again.

To see the list of people on LinkedIn that you may know, simply click on the “See More” link on the People You May Know box on your LinkedIn profile page. From there you can start scouring through the list and hopefully gets to find contacts and continue building your LinkedIn network.

I don’t really know how many people are using Windows Mobile Phone, especially with the popularity being gained by iPhone, BlackBerry and Android phones. In case you’re using a Windows phone, you might want to check out Bing.com on your mobile phone right now. Microsoft has just updated its Bing app for Windows phone to bring in two new features – a redesigned home page and turn-by-turn navigation.

The new Bing mobile home page features better navigation to give you faster access to common Bing search verticals including Movies and Traffic.

While for turn-by-turn navigation, the new feature is being powered by Bing Maps and is being implemented through Microsoft TellMe voice applications technology. The result, according to the official Bing blog is an amazingly lifelike voice experience for the turn-by-turn feature. This feature works on Windows 6.x mobile phones only and you must have a data account with Sprint, T-Mobile or AT&T to use the voice guided navigation feature.

This navigation feature also calculates your route when giving driving directions and guide you to the fastest way possible that will get you to the place you want to go to on time if not earlier.

Here’s the complete list of Windows Mobile Phone that supports the turn-by-turn navigation. If your phone is one of them, you might want to check out this new feature – HTC Fuze, HTC Pure, HTC HD2, HTC Tilt 2, HTC Touch Diamond 2, HTC Touch HD, HTC Touch Pro, HTC Touch Pro 2, Motorola Q9c, Samsung Jack, Samsung Omnia II, Samsung Propel, T-Mobile Dash 3G.

Are we now looking at the future of credit card payment solution? I mean, does the Square credit card app which is now available for iPhone, iPad and Android devices the future of mobile commerce?  It could possibly be, depending on the success of Square’s credit card payment system which just got out into the open, ready to offer an alternative payment solution not just for small entrepreneurs but big businesses as well.

How Does Square Work?

First, how does Square work really? What do you need to start accepting credit card payments using your iPhone and iPod Touches, iPad or Android devices. Of course you need any of those devices. Then you also need Square’s credit card swiper which you attach to your device’s headphone jack. The credit card swiper is free and even comes with an online dashboard to let you keep track of what you’ve sold.

Once connected to the device, you can now swipe the credit card, and the application will process the transaction.  After swiping you let the customer sign the transaction using a finger. Customers can opt to add a tip before entering their phone number or email address. Transaction receipts are delivered via SMS or email on the customer’s mobile device.

“With Square the goal is to get people in immediately, and make the transaction as smooth and simple as possible,” says Jack Dorsey, the brains behind Square and the cofounder and chairman of Twitter.

Will  It Take Off?

Right now, there are around 1,000 users who are testing the Square card swipers. Dorsey hopes to distribute it to millions more in three months. Some people are actually using the system now out of the pilot program.

The band Spoon for instance is using the Square app for selling their merchandise while on the road. Tipping Point is currently using 25 iPod Touches for taking donations at fundraising events.

Democratic congressional candidate  for New York, Reshma Saujani has been using Square to accept donations for her campaign.

Surely, Square’s credit card app is taking off. But it’s success will still depend on customer acceptance. It’s going to be a change of mindset which is pretty hard to achieve.

Again, Apple has launched a successful product with the iPad, agree? Ok, whether you accept it or not, the fact still remains. Apple iPad is selling like hotcakes, stocks are depleted and would be owners are eagerly awaiting for Apple to deliver their iPad. Apple could very well be on its way to earning $1 Billion in revenue by this end of this quarter alone from iPad sales.

But aside from that, Apple is not only earning so much from unit sales of the iPad alone but also from the sale of its iWork apps for the iPad. In case you’re not aware, upon release of the iPad, Apple has also released the iPad version of its popular Mac Office Suite – iWork for iPad consisting of Pages (word processing), Keynotes (presentation) and Numbers (spreadsheets).

According to Business Insider, the iWork apps are on track to potentially generate more than $40 million in annual sales after earning more than $3 million in sales in April. Essentially, Apple has not only successfully launch a new product device but also made itself as the most successful iPad developer, in terms of revenue.

Wait, how did Business Insider came up with estimate $40 million iWork revenue for Apple? Here’s the explanation:

Based on discussions with top-ten iPad app developers, we estimate that the top paid iPad app does about 7,500 unit sales on a Saturday or Sunday, and about 2,500 unit sales on a weekday.

Apple’s apps have consistently been in the top ten for paid apps since the iPad was released. Pages has been no. 1 for much of the time. All three have led the top-grossing listings as well.

So, we did some back-of-the-envelope math:

• In a typical week… 7,500 downloads per app x 2 weekend days, and 2,500 downloads per app x 5 weekdays, = about 27,500 weekly unit downloads per app.
• We multiplied that by the number of apps — three — and the $10 per app Apple charges, and get about $825,000 per week. (We are assuming that the three apps are roughly selling the same number of units, even though surely the top-ranked app of the three is selling more units than the third-ranked app.)

I’ll leave the analysis to you as I’m not so much into this kind of stuff.

But the important thing to note here is that with the success of the iWork, Apple is proving that the iPad is not only a content consumption device like what others may previously believed. Certainly, this is not what Apple want people to perceive the iPad is. That’s why the availability of these three iWork apps from the very beginning. Apple wants the iPad to be a content creation and productivity tool as well.

It may not be very obvious, but Apple certainly carving in the niche for the iPad which could in the long run replace the netbook market.

According to NPD’s wireless market research for Q1 2010, the Android OS is now the no. 2 most selling smartphone in the U.S. next to RIM’s BlackBerry devices. But what’s more interesting than this is the fact that Google’s smartphone OS has slipped past Apple’s iPhone OS. The report was based on unit sales to consumers from January to March 2010.

Alright here are the exact figures – RIM unit sales is at 36%, Android at 28% and iPhone at 21%. While this maybe a great news for Google, it is not surprising to me at all. Why? Because the iPhone has alrady saturated its target market. Apple has achieved what it wants to achieve in terms of sales and distribution of the iPhone 3G and 3GS and is probably now well on its way to introducing a new version of the iPhone OS (version 4.0, anyone?).  And consumers know this. That’s why new users who are planning to get a new smartphones are probably waiting for a new iPhone or at least a new OS to be released.

Compare that with the Android phones, wherein one new model is being introduced after another. According to the NPD report, strong sales of the Droid and Droid Eris catapulted the Android’s sales to where it is right now. But those are just two of the most popular Android devices. Certainly there are more. And their sales figures, no matter how small contribute to the Android’s overall sales performance.

Another reason is carrier support. AT&T solely carries the iPhone while other mobile carriers in the U.S. are one way or the other helping boost the Android’s sales.

Will Android slipped past the BlackBerry as well? I don’t think so. When it comes to smartphones RIM has owned the market. And with the impending release of the BlackBerry OS 6.0, I expect RIM to continue this dominance.

via BGR

How does web page loading speed of 2700 frames-per-second sound to you? If you don’t think its fast enough, I don’t know what else is.  That’s actually the speed that  the new Google Chrome Beta Release promises to give. And while the Google Chrome folks are still busy preparing the results of their speed test you might want to start downloading the new release now, either for your Linux, Windows or Mac machines.

And to encourage you some more, the Official Chrome blog tells us:

Today’s new beta release incorporates one of Chrome’s most significant speed and performance increases to date, with 30% and 35% improvement on the V8 and SunSpiderbenchmarks over the previous beta channel release. In fact, looking back in time, Chrome’s performance has improved by as much as 213% and 305% on these two benchmarks since our very first beta.

If browser speed is not really a big thing for you, Google Chrome Beta’s new features might entice you to get the browser. This new release offers not only bookmark synching capability also browser preferences such as themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings and language. This means that you don’t have to do all those stuff again in all your installation of Google Chrome on various machines.

For current Chrome users, if you loved Chrome extensions and Incognito mode, well you can now use extensions while in the said browser mode.

Other new features of the new Google Chrome Beta release include geolocation APIs, App Cache, web sockets and file drag-and-drop capabilities.  Chrome also welcomes Adobe Flash Player plug-in into the fold – allowing you to browse rich, dynamic websites.

If you haven’t switched to Google Chrome yet or if you’re still using IE, now is the best time to join the world. Grab the new Chrome Beta Release now.

While Facebook is busy preparing its own virtual currency, Facebook Credits, Offerpal Media went ahead and rolled out its own virtual currency system complete with its own website – Gamepoints.com.

Basically, what Gamepoints lets you do is to  accumulate Gamepoints credit as much as you want to. You can then exchange these gamepoints for  virtual currency which you can spend on Facebook games.

To earn game points, you can do the following  activities:

• Watch a short video
• Buy music MP3s from iTunes or tickets to popular movies in theaters today
• Shop online at your favorite stores, including great deals with discount coupons
• Trade-in used electronics or unused gift cards
• Complete a survey
• Subscribe to magazines

After earning enough game points, you can then use them on Facebook games as virtual currency  on various social networking sites such as – FarmVille, Zynga Poker, Mafia Wars, Cafe Worl and more.

If you don’t have the time to do the ways by which you can earn game points, Gamepoints.com also lets you directly buy those game points so that you can use them immediately on your favorite social networking site which support virtual currencies.

The list of social games where you can use GamePoints include Zynga’s FarmVille, YoVille, Zynga Poker, Mafia Wars, Café World, PetVille, FishVille, Vampire Wars and others; Playdom’s Mobsters, Sorority Life, Social City, Tiki Resort and others; Digital Chocolate’s MMA Pro Fighter; HitGrab’s Mousehunt; TheBroth’s Barn Buddy; Tall Tree Game’s Fish World; K-Factor Media’s Castle Age; Tree Room’s My Town; Apps-O-Rama’s Car Madness; Offbeat Creations’ Be a Tycoon; BitRhymes’ The Warlords; Five Minutes’ Happy Farm; and many others.