Google is working on Gmail and Google+ integration

Google is working on Gmail and Google+ integration. But before implementing their own ideas, they would like to do some brainstorming with other Google+ / gmail users.


Mark Striebeck – Engineering Manager for Gmail frontend has posted the following on Google+.

As you can imagine, we are working on several Gmail / Google+ integrations. But similar to some of my Google colleagues, I want to use the creativity and momentum here for some larger brainstorming in a Hangout on Tuesday, July 12 at 3pm (PDT).

I’m pretty sure that all of you use some email client – many probably Gmail. But regardless of the client:
- What email features would make it easier to interact with Google+?
- How could we integrate Google+ features into Gmail?
- How can we integrate social concepts in Gmail to make the email experience itself better?

Normally a hangout is limited to maximum 10 participants. Most of the time hangouts by Google fill up in fraction of seconds. Not sure how much people they are going to take for this hangout, no matter what it’s going to fill out fast. Since this is an Google+ hangout, it’s going to be limited to Google+ users.

Top 50 U.S. Web Sites for June 2011

comScore Top 50 Properties (U.S.) June 2011
Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix

Rank - Property - Unique Visitors(000)
1 - Google Sites - 182,537
2 - Yahoo! Sites - 178,383
3 - Microsoft Sites - 173,562
4 - Facebook.com - 160,879
5 - AOL, Inc. - 110,447
6 - Amazon Sites - 95,771
7 - Turner Digital - 93,382
8 - Glam Media - 85,987
9 - Ask Network - 84,810
10 - Viacom Digital - 81,645
11 - CBS Interactive - 73,981
12 - Apple Inc. - 73,188
13 - Wikimedia Foundation Sites - 71,804
14 - VEVO - 66,396
15 - eBay - 65,474
16 - New York Times Digital - 62,883
17 - Demand Media - 60,037
18 - craigslist, inc. - 53,472
19 - Comcast Corporation - 53,262
20 - Fox Interactive Media - 47,987
21 - Answers.com Sites - 41,691
22 - Federated Media Publishing - 41,515
23 - Gannett Sites - 40,706
24 - Weather Channel, - The 40,118
25 - NetShelter Technology Media - 36,536
26 - Technorati Media - 36,281
27 - ESPN - 36,204
28 - Wal-Mart - 35,807
29 - LinkedIn.com - 33,904
30 - Tribune Interactive - 33,556
31 - Adobe Sites - 33,214
32 - Disney Online - 32,553
33 - AT&T Interactive Network - 32,178
34 - Yelp.com - 31,276
35 - iVillage.com: The Womens Network - 30,869
36 - Superpages.com Network - 30,767
37 - Twitter.com - 30,649
38 - WordPress - 28,892
39 - Expedia Inc - 28,150
40 - Netflix.com - 27,751
41 - NBC Universal - 27,676
42 - Break Media - 27,504
43 - WeatherBug Property - 26,811
44 - Everyday Health - 26,797
45 - WebMD Health - 24,762
46 - Bank of America - 24,705
47 - Verizon Communications Corporation - 23,979
48 - Target Corporation - 23,810
49 - IGN Entertainment - 23,613
50 - Cox Enterprises Inc. - 23,482

How long Google+, Twitter, Facebook Took to Reach 20 Million Users

How long Social Networking sites Google+, Twitter, Facebook took to reach 20 million users

20 million people Joining Google's New Social Networking Site Google+ in 24 days currently being an invite-only service.

Google+ may still have some way to go to equal Facebook’s 700 million users and Twitter’s 200 million, but 20 million unique visitors to the new social networking site in the space of just three weeks isn’t a bad way to start. Of the 20 million, five million were inside the US. The Google+ iPhone app released on Tuesday is sure to boost numbers further.

The new service allows members to create a variety of groups, called “circles,” enabling them to share information and content with only the people they choose. One circle could be made up of co-workers, while another might consist entirely of family members.

The statistics, reported by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, come from web analytics company comScore, who based its results on a “global measurement panel” of two million Internet users.

Speaking about the findings, vice president of industry analysis at comScore, Andrew Lipsman, commented: “I’ve never seen anything grow this quickly. The only other site that has accumulated as many new visitors in a short period of time is Twitter in 2009, but that happened over several months.”

What makes the figures all the more remarkable is that the new social networking service is currently open only to those who receive invites. “Right now, we’re testing with a small number of people,” the Google+ homepage says, “but it won’t be long before the Google+ project is ready for everyone.” We can safely assume that the line on the graph will go through the roof when the doors open to all.

The long-term plan for Google+ is to integrate it with other Google services such as YouTube and Gmail. When that happens, it’ll become a service to be reckoned with and will likely begin to make big gains on competitors such as Facebook and Twitter.

Google+ Vs Facebook : New Technology Battle

Google+ Vs Facebook : New Technology Battle - Facebook wall Comment can now embed videos, photos, and even preview links, an improvement on rival Google social network Google+.
Facebook made the announcement within its Facebook Photos page.

"Today we are launching a commenting feature that allows you to embed videos, photos, or web sites in comments just by including a URL," the site said. "Your comment will include a video player, a thumbnail of a photo, or a brief overview of the web site being linked to. If you prefer your comment without the preview, you can remove the preview with one click."

Users who take Facebook up on the new feature can embed a small video preview, a photo preview, or a summary of the Web page in their comments. Somewhat surprisingly, in the hundreds of comments attached to the post, no one took advantage of the new capability - or, more likely, it just didn't work.

At the present, users can embed videos, pictures or links in Google+, which which launched at the end of June. Users can only attach text comments to other posts, however. Google's reach with Google+ is small - just in the millions of users, compared to over 750 million for Facebook. But the two social networks are seen as direct competitors.

Alexander Calder's 113th birthday‎ : Google Doodles

Google Doodle on Friday, Jul 22 was featured to celebrate the 113th Birthday of American artist and sculptor Alexander Calder.

Alexander Calder is famous for inventing the mobile, a type of kinetic sculpture constructed to take advantage of the principle of equilibrium. Google featured a hanging mobile as the new doodle on its search engine home page. Visitors can rotate the mobile using the mouse. More over unlike any other interactive doodles, doodle for Alexander Calder shows its shadow below the search column.

According to Wikipedia, Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton, Pennsylvania, on Jul 22, 1898. His father, Alexander Stirling Calder, was a well-known sculptor who created many public installations, a majority of them in Philadelphia.

The sculptor Alexander Calder is well known for his mobiles. Calder invented the mobile in 1931. Marcel Duchamp suggested the name "mobile". Mobiles are also popular in the nursery, where they hang over cribs to give infants something to entertain them and give them external visual stimulation.

Google Doodle : Gregor Mendel's 189th Birthday

Google logo is Google's tribute to Austrian botanist and monk George Mendel on his 189th birth anniversary.

Born on July 20, 1822 in Heinzendorf, Austria (now in the Czech Pepublic) as Johann Mendel he was given the name Gregor when he joined a monastery as a novitiate of the Augustinian order.

He studied physics and mathematics at Vienna and more importantly studied the anatomy and physiology of plants under botanist Franz Unger.

Mendel began his experiments with plant hybridization at a monastery in Brunn. His choice for his experiments was the pea plant (the reason behind the peas in the Google doodle). His experiments led him to formulate the Law of Segregation and the Law of Independent Assortment, which later became known as Mendel's Laws of Inheritance.

After his experiment with peas, he turned to honeybees. Mendel did not make much efforts to publicise his works and his contemporaries remained sceptical about his research. He was also consumed with administrative responsibilities of his monastic order to be able to devote much time to his scientific pursuits.

Mendel died at the age of 61 on January 6, 1884. It was only after his death, in the early 20th century, that the importance of his works was realised.

For being the architect of genetic experimental and statistical analysis, Mendel is acknowledged as the father of genetics.

Google occasionally swaps its logo for an artistic doodle These Google doodles have gained immense popularity over the past few years and the Google doodle team has put out commemorative doodles on numerous events of international or national importance, ranging from news events, civic milestones, birthdays, death anniversaries and important dates in history.

Apart from the static image doodles Google also puts up animated and interactive doodles. The last interactive doodle was to celebrate the 96th birthday of the country and jazz guitarist, songwriter and inventor, Les Paul.

Google Shares 13% Rises as Sales Gain With Page’s Progress

Google Inc. (GOOG), the largest Internet- search company, rose as much as 13 percent in late trading yesterday after reporting sales that beat projections, a sign it’s making progress expanding beyond search advertising.

Sales, excluding revenue passed on to partner sites, rose to $6.92 billion, Mountain View, California-based Google said yesterday on its website. That topped $6.57 billion, the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Chief Executive Officer Larry Page, who succeeded Eric Schmidt in April, is pushing into new markets such as mobile and display advertising while trying to preserve the company’s leadership in search, an area that generates most of Google’s revenue. Ad prices, calculated on a per-click basis, rose at a faster pace last quarter, a sign companies are more willing to market their wares online.

“Google is a real-time indicator in terms of the broader economy; this is a good sign,” Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray Cos. in Minneapolis, said in an interview on “Bloomberg West.” “The improvements in ad units that we saw tonight can continue for the next few quarters.”

Google rose as much as $67.44 in after-hours trading yesterday. Before today, the shares had declined 11 percent this year to $528.94. Second-quarter profit, excluding some items, was $8.74 a share, exceeding the $7.85 average of analysts’ estimates. Net income gained 36 percent to $2.51 billion, or $7.68 a share, from $1.84 billion, or $5.71, a year earlier.
Ad Prices Gain

The average price for ads, calculated on a per-click basis, rose 12 percent last quarter, after rising about 8 percent in the previous period, Google said.

Page is investing in new businesses to help Google compete with newer Internet rivals such as Facebook Inc., the world’s most popular social-networking service. Online users spent an average of 6.7 hours on Facebook in June, compared with 4.1 hours on Google, according to ComScore Inc.

To narrow that gap, Google last month rolled out Google+, a feature that lets users interact online. It’s comparable to Facebook, yet aims to let people more easily set up groups of contacts. More than 10 million users have signed up for Google+ so far, and they share and receive more than a billion items -- such as photos and messages -- a day, Page said during a call with analysts.

“That is a big number for something that is essentially” in a test phase, said Paul Meeks, an analyst at Capstone Investments Inc. in Charleston, South Carolina. He rates the stock a “buy” and doesn’t own it.
‘Long Ways Away’

Still, Google+ is far from an alternative to Facebook, with its more than 750 million users, Munster said.

“The probability that they will succeed has definitely gone up, but it’s still a long ways away from 750 million and growing at Facebook,” Munster said.

Other areas where Page is pushing Google to expand include mobile and display advertising.

Google’s Android mobile operating system is expected to maintain its lead globally this year, with 38.9 percent of the worldwide smartphone market, compared with 18.2 percent for Apple Inc.’s iPhone, according to research firm IDC. Page said on yesterday’s call that 550,000 Android devices are activated on a daily basis.

Google this year should command 9.3 percent of the display advertising market in the U.S., making it the No. 3 provider behind Yahoo! Inc. and Facebook, according to EMarketer Inc. Google had 4.5 percent of the market in 2009.

Even as Google nabs share, its costs are rising as it adds employees. Staff increased 2,452, or 9.3 percent, to 28,768, the company said in a statement. Page is being careful not to waste shareholder money, he said during the call. Page, who made only a brief appearance on the previous quarter’s call, stayed for the duration of yesterday’s call.

“We are focused on long-term absolute profit and growth as we have always been,” Page said on the call. “We will continue the tight financial management we’ve had in the last two years, even as we’re making significant investments in our future.”