Hack Blogspot

About to take on Facebook?: Google co-founders Sergey Brin, left, and Larry Page. Photo: AP Google, perhaps the only company with the clout and users to take on the seemingly unassailable Facebook, is reportedly working secretly on "Google Me", a product that would go head-to-head with the social networking giant. The founder of popular link-sharing site Digg, Kevin Rose, kicked off a round of feverish speculation this week by tweeting that he had heard a "huge rumour" from a "very credible source" that Google was going to launch a Facebook competitor "very soon". Rose has since removed the tweet, saying he was asked to do so. Adam D'Angelo, former CTO of Facebook and now co-founder of social Q&A site Quora, added fuel to the fire by declaring "This is not a rumour. This is a real project". He claimed to have received information from "reliable sources".

Google dirumorkan akan meluncurkan layanan pembunuh Facebook. Rumor itu didapat dari update singkat Twitter pendiri Digg, Kevin Rose. Menurut Rose, layanan baru ini akan disebut "Google Me," dan dalam beberapa hal akan menawarkan fungsi sosial yang bisa menyaingi Facebook. Jika benar, ini bukan pertama kali Google meluncurkan layanan profil tinggi Web 2.0. Sebelumnya perusahan itu memiliki Google Buzz. Masih belum jelas seberapa banyak tanda Buzz telah dibuat menyangkut jumlah penggunanya, namun menurut ReadWriteWeb, 90 persen semua konten yang diterbitkan di Buzz hanya pengulangan otomatis dari yang ada di akun Twitter atau RSS feed. Jadi apa, akankah rancagan Google Me akan berhasil? Sejauh ini rincian hanyalah spekulasi semata. Namun demikian, tampak Google Me bisa berjalan sebagai upgrade ke layanan Google Profil, yang hampir seperti sebuah halaman profil biografi mini.

PIC or Electronic Privacy Information Center is reported to have filed a complaint against Google stating that its latest social networking related service Google Buzz may have violated the federal wiretap laws. Allegedly, the complaint with FTC claims that Google's real time collaboration tool is engaged in unfair and deceptive practices. When the Google Buzz launched in February, it was instantly criticized for involuntarily sharing the personal data of the Gmail users with others. The complaint filed by EPIC indicates that they are unsatisfied with the changes and they want the service should be deactivated by default. Users who want the service can opt for Google Buzz to be enabled on their account. They also want that user's address book should not be used by the service. They had to bring some changes and make adjustments to Google Buzz to play defensively. And now, with a big can of worms open with Google by EPIC, they seem to be in some trouble now. Though it is sti...

I’ve recently been thinking about how Google Voice , Google Wave and Google Buzz joining the full Google Apps lineup would make it a budget-friendly teleworking platform. Organizations can now literally purchase themselves a “telework in a box” solution — a complete office productivity software, communications and collaboration package — with little or no requirement for support from their own technical staff. Here are some reasons why Google Apps might be your organization’s ideal telework platform: Low operating costs. Google Apps Premier Edition included everything and costs $50 per user per year. It can release you from software licensing costs and free up some of your internal technical staff from having to support telework applications, though you’ll still have to factor in some administrative and support time to provision and maintain remote users. Lower hardware costs. Outfitting teleworkers with hardware can be a major expense, especially if your organization isn’t...

Social networks share a common ingredient in design and intent, the connection of people and the facilitation of conversations, sharing, and discovery. What they do not share however, are culture, behavior, and prevailing demographics . Each network is unique in its genetic and cultural composition and it is for that reason that we benefit by becoming digital anthropologists in addition to new media marketers. Demographics are distributed within all social networks, but only concentrated within a select few. Where specific demographics materialize varies from network to network and as such, the more effective social strategies and tactics are designed to reach target audiences where, when and how they engage . Over the years, I’ve relied on Google Ad Planner to surface the critical demographics in order to construct meaningful and targeted social programming. Pingdom recently examined the data and packaged the results in a visually rich presentation worthy of sharing.

Social-networking star Facebook surpassed Google to become the most visited website in the United States for the first time last week, industry analysts showed. Facebook’s homepage finished the week ending March 13 as the most visited site in the country, according to industry tracker Hitwise. The “important milestone,” as described by Hitwise director of research Heather Dougherty, came as Facebook enjoyed a massive 185 percent increase in visits in the same period, compared to the same week in 2009. By comparison, visits to search engine home Google.com increased only nine percent in the same time — although the tracker does not include Google property sites such as the popular Gmail email service, YouTube and Google Maps.

You can figure yourself that Facebook represents a huge and tremendous source fo traffic. Most of your friends, business partners, potential friends and clients are already there or will be in the nearest future. The social networking is also accessible on mobile devices so it is always there! A Facebook page will not only help you gain more traffic for your website, blog or both but will also gain more credibility for you and the brand you represent. Basically, this social network has more that 400 million users and in average, everyone of them spends 55 per day connected. Also the average user has 130 friends and fans 2 pages per month. Also the Fan Box is becoming more pervasive. If you feel that the page you built to promote something like a product or an idea using this social network doesn’t perform, don’t delete it because there are ways to make it better!

Since Google Buzz was enabled on Gmail accounts last month, I’ve observed quite a bit, and experimented a little on my own, and have been seeking feedback about what Marketers think about Google Buzz .  Thanks to those of you who took time to either comment here, or respond on Twitter or Buzz.  Thinking further last week I did my best to create an illustration of where Google Buzz fits in (graphic designers be forewarned with my web communications, I ran across an interesting Buzz Stream exposing a plagiarist and this week looked at an SEO Consideration of Google Buzz vs. Twitter . This post will round out Buzz talk for a while here as I share a 10 Guidelines of using Google’s latest social service. I think there is potential with Buzz, and it needs to be a part of your social marketing plan, finding the balance can be tricky.  Here are some things I’m considering to make the most of Buzz for marketing purposes.

  GMAIL USERS: You’re welcome to join the discussion over on Mashable’s Google Buzz account . Google Buzz is not a rival to Facebook or Twitter, says Google exec Bradley Horowitz — instead he sees it as a platform for conversation, and hopes other services will be able to flow in and out of Buzz. In an eWeek interview earlier this week, Horowitz, Google’s VP of product management, was asked whether Buzz was intended as a challenger to Twitter and Facebook. He replied:

  It’s been yet another exciting matchup here in our Web Faceoff series , with the newcomer Google Buzz going head to head with Facebook and Twitter for the heady title of Mashable readers’ favorite social network. Last week we saw free beat out premium in our online dating services head-to-head, and this week we wanted to check in on how you good readers were ranking Buzz in its still early days against popular contenders Facebook and Twitter. The results are now in…

Perhaps you, like me, have a friend who is always fond of the obvious. Perhaps that friend doesn't work at Google. Having launched its new Buzz service last week, melding some mimicry of Twitter and Facebook, Google seemed to take a page straight from the latter's Beacon of customer service by creating start-up settings that were anything other than comfortable, anything other than private. This seemed obvious to many. Now, having been buzzed by feedback from annoyed users and commentators, Google announced on its blog Saturday that it will make radical changes to the Buzz start-up experience over the next few days. In a post by Gmail and Google Buzz Product Manager Todd Jackson, Google says that it has been listening "loud and clear."

Let's say you'd constituted a drinking game for the aftermath of Tuesday's unveiling of Google Buzz , the odd new mishmash of status messages, geolocation, and social-media aggregation: Take a drink every time some pundit says Google is trying to "kill" Facebook, Twitter, or any number of the "geo" start-ups out there. You'd have been totally blitzed. The cries of "It's a Facebook killer!" and "It's going to kill Twitter!" are tedious, but completely understandable considering that this is one of the first big pushes from Google, which has never been able to get a good grip on social networking , to make inroads in the space. And Buzz is indeed a product that's reactionary as opposed to trailblazing. It's Google's biggest acknowledgment of the fact that people dig these short real-time messages and social-media sharing . It aims to take the reasons why people use Facebook, why people use Twitter, and w...

Google moved quickly over the weekend to try to contain mounting criticism of Buzz, its social network, apologizing to users for features that were widely seen as endangering privacy and announcing product changes to address those concerns. Todd Jackson, product manager for Gmail and Google Buzz, wrote in a blog post on Saturday that Google had decided to alter one of the most-criticized features in Buzz: the ready-made circle of friends the service provided to new users based on their most frequent e-mail and chat contacts in Gmail. Instead of automatically connecting people, Buzz will in the future merely suggest to new users a group of people they may want to follow or be followed by, he said. Mr. Jackson, who said that the auto-follow feature had been intended to make it easy for people to get started on Buzz, acknowledged the criticism that was heaped on Google in the last few days. “We’re very sorry for the concern we’ve caused and have been working hard ever since to impro...

Raksasa internet Google telah membeli Aardvark, layanan social search yang khusus didesain untuk menjawab pertanyaan dari penggunanya. Aardvark akan meneruskan pertanyaan tersebut ke layanan jejaring sosial dan memilih jawaban yang tepat. "Saya bisa mengkonfirmasi bahwa kami telah menandatangani kesepakatan dengan Google," pendiri dan kepala teknologi Aardvark Damon Horowitz dalam emailnya kepada AFP seperti dilansir Antara. Namun, pihaknya tidak dapat berkomentar lebih jauh soal akuisisi tersebut. Blog teknologi terkemuka TechCrunch memperkirakan harga pembelian itu tak kurang dari 50 juta dollar AS.

Will Google's version give Facebook and Twitter a run for their money? As rumored yesterday, Google launched a new social effort today called Google Buzz. If you're immediate reaction is, "Wait, doesn't Yahoo! already have a product named Buzz?" Then you'd be correct. But Google didn't acquire Yahoo! Buzz. Nor has Yahoo! Buzz gone defunct and Google felt ok about picking it up as a name. The two products are alike in name and the fact that they're social. But that's about it. Google Buzz lets you be social from Gmail. You can update your status there and share photos. (Yahoo! Buzz is more akin to social bookmarking and trending topics.)

When Google announced Google Buzz, its new social sharing feature for Gmail, company representatives admitted Buzz was inspired by a similar product: Google Wave. In fact, some of the features of Buzz and Wave are so similar you might be wondering why there are two different products in the first place? Both services are supposed to help you create conversations and give you a richer experience around Web-based media like videos, images ,and regular text. But while Buzz and Wave have a lot in common, there also some key differences that set each service apart. Wave and Buzz? What the heck are you talking about?

Baru kemarin diluncurkan, Google Buzz sudah menuai protes. Beberapa pengguna internet khawatir Google Buzz tidak dapat mempedulikan masalah privasi pengguna. Dalam isu yang dilontarkan oleh Silicon Alley Insider, Google Buzz diprediksi akan menampilkan seluruh kontak milik pengguna, baik kontak yang ada dalam email maupun layanan instant messaging. Buzz akan secara otomatis mulai mem-follow kontak-kontak yang ada dan akan menampilkan daftar tersebut ke publik. Artinya, orang asing pun dapat melihat alamat kontak yang telah dihubungi oleh pengguna BUzz. "Bayangkan jika ternyata anda bisa menemukan dengan siapa suami anda chatting selama ini. Atau dengan Google Buzz, bisa jadi bos anda akan bisa menemukan alamat email pejabat di perusahaan rival," ujar pihak SAI.

GMAIL USERS: We hope you’ll join the discussion over on Mashable’s Google Buzz account . Earlier today, we posted a buzz asking our followers : “What features would you like to see in Google Buzz ( ) ?” We received just shy of 500 responses over the course of the afternoon, and we saw both big trends and unique ideas. Here are a few of the biggest and best responses. Some are obvious — some not so much. We think they’re all great ideas, though, except maybe the last one! But some 75 million people might disagree with us. Keep reading to find out what we (or rather you) are talking about, and be sure to add your own ideas to the comments here or over on our Google Buzz . The #1 Request: Collapsible Comment Threads Far and away, the most requested feature is the ability to collapse comments. By our count, 197 of the 492 comments that we read before writing this requested this feature. The issue is that posts are sorted on the main interface chronologically by the most recent commen...

Yesterday, we published Jason Calacanis's first reaction to Google Buzz, which was that Facebook is toast .  Below, in a note to his email list, Jason puts some meat on that thesis.  You can sign up for Jason's excellent email here >   My 30 second review of Google Buzz: 1. Google Buzz 1.0 is better than Facebook after six or seven years. 2. Facebook's history is one filled with stealing other people's innovations and doing them better (i.e. Zuckerberg has stolen every idea Evan Williams and the Twitter team have released). How ironic now that Google has out "Facebooked" Facebook. 3. Google has an excellent privacy record and Facebook is a disaster. Most folks do not trust Zuckerberg and Facebook any more because of their privacy record (filled with lawsuits) and because they steal every good idea they see (i.e. Twitter's innovations and FourSquare's checking in).

There is a huge privacy flaw in Google's new Twitter/Facebook competitor, Google Buzz. When you first go into Google Buzz, it automatically sets you up with followers and people to follow. A Google spokesperson tells us these people are chosen based on whom the users emails and chats with most using Gmail. That's fine. The problem is that -- by default -- the people you follow and the people that follow you are made public to anyone who looks at your profile. In other words, before you change any settings in Google Buzz, someone could go into your profile and see the people you email and chat with most. A Google spokesperson asked us to phrase this claim differently. Like this: "In other words, after you create your profile in Buzz, if you don't edit any of the default settings, someone could visit your profile and see the people you email and chat with most (provided you didn't edit this list during profile creation)." (Freaking out already? Here...