There you go, Google just announced not a new product but a new service that sits right into one its best and most widely used web service - Google Buzz built right into Gmail. Somehow it not only sounds similar to Yahoo! Buzz but the idea for both services is also somehow similar since both are social in nature.
Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting and share updates, photos, videos and more. Buing built right inside Gmail, it basically brings with it a mass userbase that may or may not use it. Unlike Google Wave, which I think is also a social conversational tool, Google Buzz is not going to be in a prolonged beta state since it’s a totally new web service. It’s just more of a new feature of an already existing web service.
Buzz is Google’s latest attempt at coming up with social tool, short of making a social network, which it so eloquently failed at doing with various attempts in the past. Google hopes to take some userbase from Facebook and Twitter and ushers in its entry into the social, real-time, conversational sphere which it was actually hoping to achieve with Google Wave but failed.
By building Google Buzz right inside Gmail, Google is assured that by hook or by crook, people will use it or at least try it out without having to learn something new. And hereby hoping that in time users will grow accustomed to it, and actually make it a part of their daily online social undertaking.
Oh yes, before I forget Google Buzz is connecting to the social world via integration with other social services including Twitter, Picasa, Flickr and Google Reader. And it even has a mobile version which you can check out by pointing your phone’s browser to buzz.google.com.
Will Google succeed in turning Gmail as a social hub through Google Buzz? That will be interesting to find out. In the meantime check out your Gmail account and see if Google Buzz is already activated. You’d know it is if you see the “Buzz” link below “Inbox” on the left side of your Gmail Inbox.
The latest report by comScore on December 2009 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share shows some interesting trend among current top mobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and smartphone OS platforms. The report was based on the share of current mobile subscribers with age ranging from 13 and older. Motorola was the top mobile OEM from September to December 2009. While RIM and Apple top the smartphone platforms in terms of market share during the said period.
Motorola’s market share from September to December slided down from 24.9% to 23.5%. Surprisingly following Motorola were LG and Samsung while Nokia and RIM land on 4th and 5th place. For awhile I thought Nokia is still the leader in terms of mobile OEMs although this is understandble since the data covers the U.S. market only. If other countries were included, I’m pretty sure Nokia would top the list.
Moving on to the market share of smartphone platforms, RIM leads the pack with a commanding 41.6% market in the period ending December 2009. Apple is at second place with 25.3%, Microsoft at third with 18%, Palm with 6.1% and Google with 5.2%.
This is quite surprising since the period does not cover sales of the Google Nexus One which was only released on January 6, 2010. Google’s 2009 market share were probably derived from sales of the Motorola Droid and other Android devices.
Moving on, for January to March data, this will definitely change and if sales of the latest Palm smartphones will not register significant marks, Google will easily dislodge it from the fourth position. Even at a comfortable lead against Google, Microsoft is still in danger of losing its position unless of course the Windows 7 mobile devices should come out sooner.
The Times Online is currently running a piece about Google’s plan of developing software that will run on a new mobile phone capable of translating foreign languages instantly. The said new software will be built on Google’s current technologies in voice recognition which it already employed in the Nexus One and automatic translation. And guess what? Google plans to have this new technology ready within a couple of years. If it will be ready within this year or next, I would have thought that the phone which will carry this feature would be the Nexus Two.
But then again a couple of years will be too long for Google to release a follow up to the Nexus One. So, let’s just consider the new phone which will employ this voice translation feature as the Nexus One’s future iteration.
Now going back to the voice translation capable software project, the report said that if this technology works, it could eventually transform communication among speakers of the world’s 6,000 plus languages. And if Google succeeds, this project will certainly have a huge impact in the whole mobile phone industry.
It may seem impossible, but Google already has the two basic technologies needed to make this happen. It was able to implement voice recognition on Nexus One while its web translation service is being honed by scanning million of multi-lingual websites and documents, so far covering 52 languages already.
So, it is just a matter of combining these two technologies to produce the software that can understand a caller’s voice and translate it into a synthetic equivalent in a foreign language.
What do you think? Will Google be able to pull this project through? If it does, then Google is bringing down the international language barrier soon. And why I do feel like Google may succeed?
TweetDeck as many of you might not be aware of is not only a great iPhone Twitter application but it is also a great social media management tool for your desktop. Actually the TweetDeck iPhone app takes its roots from the TweetDeck desktop client. If you’ve been using TweetDeck on your desktop before, you’ll be glad to know that version 0.33 is now available and promises more great features to help you manage your social media life easier.
First of these new features is the extended API limit to 350 calls per hour. This gives those who configure TweetDeck greater flexibility without having to worry about running out of API calls. In addition, TweetDeck version 0.33 has also introduced an automatic API management option which is an ideal way for you to get the most out of your API allowance.
Next new feature – the Column Navigator which shows a representation of all your TweetDeck columns and lets you navigate through each of the columns quickly by clicking on them. Even more useful is the fact that when you hover over a bar in the navigator, key information about the column content will be displayed including the time remaining before the column refreshes and the current level of API calls remaining.
Another new feature that you might like is YouTube integration. Clicking on YouTube video links will now let you view the video in a TweetDeck preview window. This is also true for Flickr image links.
Other new features of TweetDeck 0.33 include – ability to edit definition of search columns and a brand new help screen.
You may download TweetDeck version 0.33 from here.
You all remember Tapulous right? They are the creators of one of the most downloaded iPhone music games – the Tap Tap Revenge game series. Look what the game developer is up to right now. Another music game called Riddim Ribbon and it’s bringing along the music of one of the hottest music group right now, the Black Eyed Peas.
Riddim Ribbon is a music and racing game rolled into one. The objective of the game is to keep a ball from rolling down a curving ribbon. It uses the accelerometer as you tilt your iPhone to keep your rolling ball in the center of the ribbon it races down the road.
Avoid crashing the ball too much as it will slow down the music and will eventually make a screeching sound. And you also have to watch out for the B.E.P shout “Boom! Boom! as a signal for you make the ball jump through a couple of hoops.
It’s a pretty straightforward and simple ball racing game mixed with great music. Something which Tapulous has been known for. The game is currently available for download at the Apps Store for $2.99. For that price you’d get the full game with three of B.E.P’s music tracks – Boom Boom Pow!, I Gotta Feeling, Meet Me Halfway as well as 8 remix versions of the three songs.
If you get tired of the B.E.P. songs, you can download other tracks from Tiesto, Benny Bennesi and more artists for $0.99 each.
I’ve played the game for a couple of minutes and I would have to say that it’s a pretty good iPhone game. Not as great as Tap Tap Revenge but it certainly delivers some fun. If you’re both a Black Eye Peas and Tap Tap Revenge fan, you’ll definitely love this game.
As rumored awhile ago, Google indeed run their own Super Bowl commercial right after the 3rd quarter of the games. And staying true to what it has grown accustomed to doing, Google’s Super Bowl ad was very simple sans all the fanfare of other Super Bowl ads. Google was not advertising any upcoming product or gadget or anything but rather decided to show the power of its localized search engine. Simple as it is, the ad was able to convey its message well and has probably endeared many who have watched it.
Actually Google’s ad dubbed “Parisian Love” is an old clip. It has been on YouTube for three months now. So, instead of coming up with an explosive ad which could have cost them a lot of money, like the other ads Google was able to save some money as well. Except for the $30 million fee that it has to pay for the highly coveted 30 seconds Super Bowl slot.
In case you’ve missed it during the airing, the Google Super Bowl commercial started with a search for “study abroad in paris france” and ended with “how to make assemble a crib.” Yup, it’s a love story for crying out loud! It shows how Google search can be a part of everyone’s life. Simple, straight forward and extra-ordinary way of telling a love story with the help of a search engine. You’ve got to give it to the Google folks for pulling this one out effectively.
Tonight marks the most important game of the year in all of American sports scene. Super Bowl XLIV kicks off in exactly 11 hours from now. Most if not all of you are probably gearing up to watch it where ever you may be tonight. But tonight is not only the most important sports gig in all of America but also in the advertising industry.
Aside from the game, the Super Bowl ads that will be airing tonight are also highly anticipated. It is perhaps one of the most prestigious advertising spot that every brand have been eyeing for in their entire lives. Even Google is rumored to be airing their own “search stories” ads tonight. That adds some more excitement to the event later.
And while we wonder whether Google is indeed airing a commercial tonight, YouTube on the other hand has also prepared for the event via its AdBlits channel. Co-sponsored by Kia Motors YouTube AdBlitz is your one-stop shop for everything about Super Bowl XLIV.
Later on as the Super Bowl commercials air one by one, YouTube will be posting them on the AdBlitz wall for everyone to rate and vote for their favorites. Voting ends Monday, February 15, and the winner will be announced on Thursday, February 18.
The mobile version of WordPress seems to be having a tour across smartphone platforms right now. Or is it perhaps because of the resounding fact that the future of blogging is mobile? Anyway, after appearing on the Android market for all Android phone users and mobile bloggers to use, WordPress 1.0 is now also available for BlackBerry devices. And like the Android version, the BlackBerry version is equally robust and quite good if not better.
WordPress for BlackBerry has been in beta for quite some time now and after getting subjected to the scrutiny of selected beta testers, Automattic finally decided to take the app out of beta mode and release the final version of WordPress 1.0 for this smartphone.
So, what’s in store for all of you BlackBerry users who blog on your WordPress installation using your smartphone? The app lets you write posts, upload photos and videos, edit pages and manage comments on your blogs. It supports both self-hosted blogs as well as WordPress.com blogs.
Aside from the usual mobile blogging features of other WordPress mobile app, this one for the BlackBerry also features:
overall enhancements to the speed and stability of the app
streamlined UI and functionality relating to comment moderation
support for HD video service VideoPress
ability to record and upload videos from your phone
Since I don’t have a BlackBerry yet, I can’t test how good this app is. I really wish I could compare it with the Android version. Perhaps next week, after I got my BlackBerry Bold 9700. But the app must be so great that Darnell mentioned something like this app putting the iPhone version into shame. Now I’m intrigued.
In case you didn’t know, Facebook is celebrating its 6 years of existence today. So as one way of celebrating this event, the world’s no.1 social networking site is introducing some new navigation features that would help us all quickly find what we are looking for on our individual Facebook home page.
First of these changes is the top menu where you can now find the newest notifications, requests and messages indicated by a red bubble that would appear in the left-hand corner of the home page near the search bar. Clicking on this red bubble will display a pull-down menu showing recent notifications.
Speaking of the search bar, this was also change a bit. Actually more of relocated or pushed to the center of the top menu a bit.
The other update is on the left menu navigation part of the Facebook home page where the links to your different contents are now more organized including your Photos, Events and Friends dashboard.
If you’re fond of chatting with your friends, you’d also notice that the chat icon is now located on the lower left side of the screen from its previous location on the lower right side of your home page. More →
The Symbian Foundation has just announced that the source code of their widely used mobile platform is now completely open source. This makes practically anybody eligible to take, use and modify the code for any purpose, be it for mobile or for other purposes.
For Symbian Foundation, making the mobile phone OS open source would provide the Symbian ecosystem with greater potential for innovation, faster time-to-market and the opportunity to develop on the platform for free. This might also attract mobile phone manufacturers to consider using Symbian in their future mobile phone releases.
And as part of the decision to make their mobile platform open source, Symbian Foundation has committed to share platform roadmap and planned features up to 2011.
So what does this mean for us mobile phone users? Well, if you love mobile phone apps developed on Symbian OS, but does not want to use a Nokia smartphone, soon perhaps this will now be available on other mobile phones. But that is if mobile phone developers and manufacturers will pick it up and make it available on their mobile devices.
The complete source code of the Symbian platform is now available for download at the Symbian developer web site. If you’re an applications developer, you can also download the Symbian Developer Kit and also the Product Development Kit. These kits are supported by the latest Symbian^3 platform.
