TechiePost

Google has recently put a Google+ sharing box on its homepage. Notably, it rarely messes around with its homepage other than the occasional Google Doodles.



This big move has recently shown the tech enthusiasts just how much serious Google is with its social networking site, Google+. Adding the share box on Google homepage means a lot of things.When someone visits Google homepage without logging in, the top right features a sign in button that previously used to be on the top bar. Immediately after signing in, users are redirected to Google homepage with the share box of Google+.

It's time that will tell us how much big steps Google will take in order to publicize its rapidly growing social networking site.

Because numerous products did not have the impact the company hoped for, Google has decided to shut down a number of products and features in the coming months, said a Senior Vice President on Official Google Blog.


The products that will be shut down include Google Friends Connect - to be shut down on March 1, 2012, Google Gears - to be shut down on December 1, 2012, Google Search Timeline, Google Wave (here's our recent post on this matter), Google Knol - moving to WordPress.com and will stop working on April 30, 2012 and Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C) project because there are institutions in better position than Google to take the research to the next level.

While Google did not show a statistics of how many people were using these services, it appears you have to visualize on your mind whether a service -- launched by Google -- has potential to create the impact it hopes for. Because if it doesn't, chances are the search giant will kill it and all your effort may just go in vain (think about Google Friends Connect on non-Blogger sites).

Google has just announced the date of shutting down the user activity of its once much anticipated collaborating service, Google Wave. The company nearly a year ago stated that it would stop developing that project although users would continue to enjoy the service until it's closed down.

Google, in an email to all Wave users, stated that all the existing Wave will be read-only from January 31, 2012. However, people will still be able to export Waves as PDF using its PDF export feature. Google has not strictly said when the service will go completely offline. But from the signs of the message, it's easy to guess that the service may be turned off soon after April 30, 2012.

You will be able to continue exporting individual waves using the existing PDF export feature until the Google Wave service is turned off. We encourage you to export any important data before April 30, 2012.

As an alternative to Google Wave, the email contained two external websites for interested people to try out. Apache Wave and Walkaround are the ones that made it into Google's mass email. Walkaround could be a better choice for people who like to collaborate using service like Google Wave because it has an import from Google Wave feature so you lose nothing if you were into Wave.

It seems that the power of +1 button not only lies in improving the appearance of the content on Google search result page, but it also lets users share content across their Google+ circles, without even opening up a tab for Google+.



Google officially announced this nifty feature coming live in the next week. It lets you simply click the +1 button on any website and instantly share it with your circles. You will see the option to choose which circles you want this to be shared with.

The outlook of all Google products have changed, why keep Gmail behind? Exactly. The folks at Mountain View, California asked this question themselves and have come up with an identical log in page for Gmail.


If you go to Gmail's Login page (without being logged in to your Google account in other tabs), you'll see the old gmail interface with a new link at the bottom to try out the new login page. We've tested it, and we sensed the look of Google+, Google Search and so on right at Gmail login page.

We have started to embrace the redesign. What about you?

We've seen how Google stepped into the mobile market with its physical devices called Nexus One. Because the popularity of the smartphone was less than what Google had anticipated, the production of Nexus devices stopped. This time, Google suddenly announced that the company will acquire Motorola for $12.5 billion.

While the amount can be terrific, it is the first time Google is acquiring a company that actually produces physical devices on the market. However, most of Motorola's latest handsets are already running Google's Android operating system. Therefore, Google literally doesn't have to do much with it.

If you are a social gaming fan and if you have been on Google+, chances are you have already started to miss some games on the site. Lately, the search giant has announced that some popular games are being brought on board with a separate page called 'Games'.

Games like "Angry Birds", "Zynga Poker", "Sudoku" and so on are very popular and well-known in other social networking sites specially Facebook. Google, in a blog post, said that it will bring these games including some other in a separate section inside Google+ called Games. The page, or tab called Games, will be accessible from the top of the page on Google+.

Facebook may have the record of accommodating the largest number of users on board, but Google has already beaten the number 1 network with a new record. Latest data from comScore has shown that Google+ is the fastest growing social network ever, and it leaves Facebook, Twitter and MySpace behind in this record.

According to the study by comScore, the firm that tracks and analyzes web traffic and statistics, Google+ has attracted as many as 20 million users in just 21 days. Added to that, 5.8 million Google+ users are from the United States where 2.8 million users are from India. The new player in social networking world has also attracted people from other countries including the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany.

Although the new study shows all positive sides of Google+, an earlier report said that total traffic to Google+ originating in the US had dropped about 3%. Despite anything that's actually happening to the new social networking platform by the search giant, everyone is in fact looking forward to what Google offers next to keep users interested and attracted to its social network. So far the entrance and beginning of social networking journey for Google has been good and encouraging. Now it's up to Google whether they can maintain the flow or lose users' interest.

Google has recently shut down its dictionary service, which launched years back threatening Dictionary.com's existence and popularity.



When trying to access the site, we have faced Google's notification of the service's unavailability. However, Google is redirecting (not automatically) users to either search for definitions on Google or take advantage of Google Translator.

We have tried several words and phrases in Google Translator and we figured that it works the same way Google Dictionary did. So, we would say that all you need to do is go to a different web address. Since Google Translator works the same way, Google Dictionary won't be missed.

If Gmail is your first Email provider, then you must have noticed the latest changes made in Gmail -- the Priority Inbox, floating buttons, etc. If you embrace changes, then there's a good news for you. Gmail team has created a revamped look of Inbox. Now you can view email's content without actually opening it.



If you ever used Hotmail, or MSN Mail, then you are already familiar with the look. All the emails are shown in the left panel. Clicking on them opens up a little slider, just like in new twitter, that shows the content of the email. You can read the full email, reply, and do all the tasks you usually do with a conversation.

While this is very similar to how Gmail looks on a tablet, we are looking forward to how people take this change. If you want to try this out, go to Gmail Labs and turn this feature on. We expect that Gmail will not permanently add this change to all Gmail users because in the first place I don't like it.

Tell us if you like the changes. (Please click the image above for a wider view of how the redesigned inbox looks like).

To turn on the new layout
Please click on the settings icon from the upper right corner of the screen. A menu will appear. Click Labs. Now, search for "Preview Pane" and click the "Enable" radio button next to it. Make sure you "Save Changes" before leaving.

You should now see the new layout in your inbox. 

Zynga, the developer of the most popular Facebook games Farmville and Cityville has filed a lawsuit against its own shareholder, Google.

In the lawsuit, the company claimed that Google, in its social networking platform called Orkut which is popular in Brazil is hosting a few comes created by Vostu. According to Zynga, the game is a complete ripoff of its own property (game that it developed).

Zynga previously sued Google in California and recently in Brazil. Currently, the Brazilian judge has ordered Google (Vostu) a preliminary injunction in favor of Zynga. According to the judge, Vostu and Orkut both must remove Mega City, Café Mania, Pet Mania and Vostu Poker within 48 hours. Otherwise they will have to pay about $13,000 fine on a daily basis.

However, the most interesting part is that these games are also available in Facebook and Zynga didn't say anything (not even a legal notice to Facebook) to take those games down from the largest social networking platform. These games have plenty of users on Facebook, too. This makes many think that Zynga simply doesn't want Google to be a big player in social networking 'game'.

We have seen how Google is taking over local business by Google Maps and Google Places. Now the search giant -- who is no longer a search giant -- is taking a refreshing approach to the hotels. Thus, Google launched Hotel Finder.

Just like the name suggests, Hotel Finder is a web-based application that lets you find hotels in any city in the United States. You cannot reserve rooms through this service, at least not yet, but you can only find out the hotel that is perfect for you.


Hotel Finder has an impressive look in the first place. You'll be greeted with a few options to choose from. You can simply click on the cities listed, or use the search box to find out a city, or set from various options available under "Price" and "Hotel class & user rating" menus.

Are you a hardcore Gmail user? Did you notice something different on the Gmail login page recently? Some folks from Gmail team have developed a new method for you to invite your friends who are not using Gmail to move out and switch to Gmail immediately.



The new method is called Email Intervention. Although you can still do it the old way -- right from your Gmail, the Gmail team has come up with a brand new address, http://www.emailintervention.com for you to invite your friends and 'save them from outdated emails!'

Despite its 20 million active users, among which many have closed Facebook and moved to Google+, the total traffic to Google+ has dropped a bit as users spend less time on the newly built social circling platform by the search giant Google.

From July 17-23, total traffic to Google+ in the US fell about 3% to 1.79 million hits. The percentage is compared to the previous week's traffic (July 10-16). See details analysis here.

Earlier we heard reports that the network was lacking female users as most of the people on the site were males. Some argue that this is happening because the network isn't open to public yet. The actual popularity will begin to rise or fall when the site is open for anyone to register and enjoy just like Facebook and Twitter.

What do you think of Google Plus? Have you used it? Do you enjoy it? How long do you think you will be using it? Let us know in the comments.

Google has recently removed customer reviews of sites/companies such as Yelp and TripAdvisor from Google Places. Google Places its own company helping people find the best local business at anywhere they go. Yelp and TripAdvisor were two of many other competitors in this field.

Google noted in its official blog that the move was made after the United States antitrust investigation published a disclosure. The Huffington Post Notes:

The federal probe concerns whether Google, which dominates U.S. and global markets for search engine advertising, abuses its market power by favouring its own services over those of rivals in online searches and through other practices.

Earlier Google added this functionality where users could write their own review on other services including Yelp and TripAdvisor. Those reviews have now disappeared.

Google+ is Google's latest and apparently a very serious attempt in conquering the social world on the Internet. Millions of people are enjoying Google+ with positive and negative reactions to it. However, there are complaints that Google+ is deleting some accounts simply because of the name of the accounts.



According to ZDNet, Google deleted a large number of plus accounts because the profiles seemed to be fake. One particular Google+ user that ZDNet noted had lost her plus account because of the profile name which was "Ladyada". Google also asked another user to scan his Photo ID and send it over to Google in order to get his Google+ profile back.