Twitter

Google’s product leader for display ads business, Jason Bigler, took to Twitter yesterday to announce his not-so shocked reaction over General Motors, ya know—the nation’s third-biggest advertiser, slashing its $10 million Facebook campaign budget to zilch.

The Wall Street Journal’s Dennis K. Berman told the world via the micro-blogging service that GM pulled its $10 million advertising campaign from Facebook because “the ads didn’t work.” Bigler obviously agreed with the reporter’s sentiments.

Google’s ad boss has a reason to jump on the Facebook-bashing bandwagon, though. After all, his company operates its own social network that directly competes with Mark Zuckerberg’s widely-popular website. However, amid the Twitter trash-talk, there just might be some actual truths to Facebook’s potentially flawed campaign techniques when compared to Google’s advertising methods.

According to Business Insider:

Google’s perfect online ad product is the search ad. Search ads are perfect because the people paying for the ads know that the people looking at the ads want to see them. Consumers go on to Google and search for products or information about products, and Google shows them ads from the company that makes that product (and ads from its competitors).  There is no guesswork in the targeting of Google ads. The same cannot be said for Facebook ads. Facebook ads are targeted the old-fashioned way.

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Twitter just announced on its blog that its Android client will get an update today with enhancements made to “discover, search and notifications.” The update does not appear to be live, but it will be available here when it is.

Included in the update is a new “Activity” stream within the Discover tab. The blog post explained:

With this update, you can see Activity on Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android. Activity is a stream of updates that shows which Tweets are favorited or retweeted by the people you follow and which accounts those people follow or add to lists… Activity appears below the redesigned stories in Discover. Now you can tap any story once to see Tweets about a particular trend or news article. You can then read the entire story or join the conversation by replying, retweeting or favoriting related Tweets.

Improvements to search include suggestions for spelling and related terms, and autocomplete for first and last names in the Connect tab.

The update also brings push notifications for Interactions like retweets, favorites, and follows, and settings to manage them. You will be able to get all these new features when the update lands on Google Play shortly.
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LATEST UPDATE: Google’s App Status Dashboard, an official website that offers performance information for Google Apps services, claimed earlier today that Gmail’s status went down, but the problem is now resolved less than an hour later.

“Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better,” contended Google.

The service interruption only affected 2 percent of Gmail’s user-base. DownRightNow, a universal monitoring service for the Web that is similar to Google’s Dashboard, described the outage as a “widespread service disruption” that started somewhere between 12:40 p.m. and 12:59 p.m. EST. The service interruption did not seem to affect mail pushing to third-party clients.

Those who tried to access Gmail.com directly found the following “Temporary Error (500)” notice with a “93” numeric technical code:

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Blackberry Playbook users have —for a long time— been able to sideload Android apps for those who have not been updated with native versions for RIM’s tablet. As noted in a recent report from CrackBerry, Vice President of Developer Relations at RIM Alec Saunders announced via Twitter that the feature is being removed and an alternative solution for developers is on the way. In an earlier tweet, he noted, “Privacy is a huge problem for Android devs, and we don’t want to duplicate the chaotic cesspool of Android market.” CrackBerry explained the reasoning behind the move:

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The announcement was made— naturally— by Twitter:

[tweet https://twitter.com/#!/gabrielstricker/status/187725823690813440]

Google still lists Stricker as Director of Global Communications & Public Affairs, where he reported to Senior Vice President Communications Rachel Whetstone:

Gabriel Stricker is Director of Global Communications & Public Affairs at Google Inc. where he heads Search communications – addressing everything from web search and other search properties (such as Maps, Earth, News and Books) to issues pertaining to partnerships, content, and the use of intellectual property. Gabriel received his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley and his master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University. He is the author of the bestselling book on guerrilla marketing entitled, Mao In the Boardroom, published by St. Martin’s Press.

At Twitter, he is now called Vice President of Communications.

Via TomKrazit
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The widely popular “Instagram” iOS app is now available for Android devices at Google Play.

The iTunes-friendly version showcases 30 million users and holds Apple’s 2011 iPhone App of the Year crown. The Android community patiently waited for a Google variant, and now it can finally propel mobile snapshots to the retro days with snazzy filters and effects.

“Today, we’re excited to bring you Instagram for Android,” announced Instagram on its official blog. “We’ve been meticulous about translating the Instagram experience to the Android platform. The Android app offers an extremely familiar Instagram experience when compared to the iOS app.”

A screenshot gallery is available below. 

Skatter Tech’s Sahas Katta wrote a blog post yesterday about his Windows Phone challenge experience and explained how he beat the contest using a Galaxy Nexus, but Microsoft employees withheld his prize “just because.”

Katta claimed he beat a “Get Smoked” Windows Phone challenge at the Santa Clara Microsoft Store yesterday. The assigned quest was to “bring up the weather of two different cities” faster than a competing Windows Phone user. Katta cold booted his smartphone as instructed, accessed his unlocked screen, and quickly viewed two separate weather widgets for San Jose and Berkeley that were luckily running on the device’s home screen.

Despite executing the task first, Katta was immediately told the Windows Phone “smoked” him:

I excitedly thought I won out of pure luck. However, I was quickly told that I lost. I asked for a reason and was told Windows Phone won because “it displays the weather right there.” That was rather unclear. I showed her my device which also was showing off the same information with two side-by-side weather widgets on the center home screen. After pressing for a better reason, I was told that Windows Phone won “just because.”

After trying to push for a real answer since I clearly won the contest by their rules, another Microsoft Store employee (possibly a manager) came by after noticing me asking more questions. Thinking on his feet, he quickly gave a ridiculous out-of-thin-air reason that I need to display the weather of different cities in different states and that “my phone could not do that”.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4DbgiOCTQts]

This is what desperation looks like. Also this:

[tweet https://twitter.com/jr_raphael/status/181907358618882049]
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Hot off the wire from AllThingsD:

Rose’s mobile app incubator Milk yesterday announced it was shutting down its only product, Oink.

Google is not outright buying or “acqhiring” Milk, the sources explicitly said, but Rose and some others from the company have been hired. It’s not clear what will happen to Milk after Rose joins Google.

His social and more recent local background would seem to make him a natural at Google+. Rose is also an Angel investor having thrown in with Fab, Zynga, ngmoco, Foursquare, and Twitter.

Interestingly, Google was very close to acquiring Rose’s Digg four years ago, but the deal never went through.

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[slideshow]

Twitter updated its Android client with long overdue usability enhancements and a host of little improvements and bug fixes. Apart from the usual assortment of bug fixes, improvements and polish, Twitter for Android version 3.1, a free download from Android Market, brought back the handy swipe shortcut. Just swipe a tweet in your home timeline to reply, retweet, favorite or share it, or view the Twitter user’s profile without leaving your timeline.

A new confirmation alert was added to the Find Friends feature that now clearly explains that uploading contacts’ email addresses and phone numbers to the Twitter cloud is only used for finding friends on Twitter, provided are discoverable by email or phone number.

The company also said this version of Twitter is optimized for Android devices running Ice Cream Sandwich, as well as on the Kindle Fire, the Barnes & Noble Nook Color, and Nook Tablet. Sadly, you still cannot send long tweets. Release notes after the break.

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Marketing research firm Compete released a study depicting Google+ as half the size of Twitter, and it suggested the +1 button is now available everywhere on the Internet.

Click to enlarge.

Google’s social platform launched June 28, 2011 and quickly sought to combine personal search, custom social networking, and significance to any website with a new +1 feature (similar to Facebook’s “like” button). The Mountain View, Calif.-based Company saw $37.9 billion dollars of revenue last year— an appropriate correlation to its swelling Google+ service.

The social network reached a high of 20 million unique visitors, 50 million visits, and 200 million page views in December 2011, according to Compete. Those statistics corroborate recent estimates that peg Google+ as gaining 750,000 users daily.

“It is now safe to say that Google+ is becoming an enormous success, with nearly half of the unique visitors of Twitter (40,411,065 unique visitors in December),” announced Compete…

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CrunchFund partner and TechCrunch contributor MG Siegler made quite the stir over the past few days, when Google removed his Google+ image that showed him raising his middle finger. Once Google removed the image, Siegler uploaded the photograph a second time, only to be removed again. The second time, Google provided the following explanation to Siegler:

As the first point of interaction with a user’s profile, all profile photos on Google+ are reviewed to make sure they are in line with our User Content and Conduct Policy. Our policy page states, “Your Profile Picture cannot include mature or offensive content.” Your profile photo was taken down as a violation of this policy. If you have further questions about the policies on Google+ you can visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/policy/content.html, or click the “Content Policy” link located in the footer of Google+ pages.

Google explained that this is not directed just towards Siegler. Google revealed that it reviews every user’s profile when it is first created, and that all profile pictures are reviewed. Siegler himself wrote a post on the subject, and then later followed up. Marketing Land pointed to the rule Seigler broke that some might call debatable:

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With the Kindle Fire set to start shipping next week, Amazon sent out a press release this morning confirming a ton of Amazon Appstore-optimized apps will be available at launch. While the Fire runs a scaled back version of Android, the app selection through Amazon’s app store will be far from the full-fledged Android Market. Here’s what you can expect on day-one.

Most of these are expected or were already mentioned during the launch event– Pandora, Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, The Weather Channel, Rhapsody, and Comics by comiXology. In addition, Amazon says there will be “several thousand more apps” and is already working with a ton of developers including all the usual suspects–Rovio (Angry Birds), EA, PopCap, Gameloft, and Zynga.

You’ll be able to grab the Kindle Fire for $199 just about everywhere starting November 15. The press release (below) also provides the following list of other apps already optimized for the 7-inch tab:

Allrecipes, Bloomberg, Cut the Rope, Doodle Fit, Doodle Jump, Fruit Ninja, Jenga, LinkedIn, Zillow, Airport Mania, Battleheart, Pulse, The Cat in the Hat, Quickoffice Pro, Jamie’s 20-Minute Meals, IMDb Movies & TV, and Monkey Preschool Lunchbox.

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We got the highlights before but here’s the whole hour long interview.

[vodpod id=Video.15630199&w=650&h=420&fv=videoGUID%3D%7BB5506435-F8CB-497B-8356-51C6261CF867%7D%26amp%3Bplayerid%3D4001%26amp%3BplyMediaEnabled%3D1%26amp%3BconfigURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwsj.vo.llnwd.net%2Fo28%2Fplayers%2F%26amp%3BautoStart%3Dfalse]

Important quotes below:
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Over the weekend, many outlets reported that the Droid Bionic Twitter account tweeted the official Droid Bionic release date was September 8th. Sadly, PC Mag has confirmed with both Motorola and Verizon that the account is a hoax. That’s not to say the Bionic launch date still couldn’t be September 8th, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Motorola has also taken down the official Store listing that they made Saturday. The store listing didn’t provide anymore details on the device specifically. The listing did however give us a glimpse at a few more press shots — which you can find after the break.

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Bloomberg has discovered Google’s recently released social network Google+ is gaining ground fast — with 13% of U.S. males registered. Interestingly, Bloomberg doesn’t think Google+ will lose much traction, because they predict the service will gain 9% of U.S. males within the next year — making a grand total of 22%. If Google+ does gain this much ground they can pass LinkedIn and Twitter to become the second most popular social network, in only a year.

Google Inc.’s new social-networking service may grow to claim 22 percent of online U.S. adults in a year, passing Twitter Inc. and LinkedIn Corp. to be the second- most-used social site after Facebook Inc., a survey found.

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The floodgates are officially opening this weekend as Google is giving everyone 150 invites to Google Plus.  Pop them into your Twitter and Facebook streams to get your friends signed up.

Here’s an invite link for our readers not yet signed up (looks like ours are going pretty fast!
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Much like the long-forgotten Buzz social service, Google also quickly abandoned their Realtime Search feature after an agreement to display Twitter updates in search results expired on July 2, 2011. However, it seems the success of Google+ may have encouraged the team to revive the product and possibly integrate it right into search results within the Google+ stream.

Mashable reports Googler Amit Singhal told a crowd during a search panel, while “The value the product was providing was not enough,” the team is, “actively working” on reviving realtime search in one way or another. He also noted that Google+ integration and data from other social and realtime services is something the team is evaluating.

Why not just bring realtime search results right into your Google+ stream you ask? When SearchEngineLand asked the panel about a potential search engine within the recently 25-million strong service, Singhal responded, “We are on it.”

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwnJ5Bl4kLI&]
Today ComScore confirmed Google+ has officially hit 25 million unique users less than a month after its public launch. We told you not to worry when Experian Hitwise reported a 3% decrease in traffic for the new social network and today’s report from ComScore confirms our hunch that Google might actually be on the right track.

To put this in perspective, rival Facebook took approximately three years to reach the same milestone, while Twitter took two and a half.  Twenty-five million may be a long way from the more than 750 million current Facebook users, but it is certainly a step in the right direction after similar services such as Buzz have been long abandoned.

Its quite obvious Google is pretty serious about this whole Google+ Facebook/Twitter-killer thing and the incredible rate of growth should be more than enough encouragement to make it a big focus over at the GooglePlex. They have already done so by integrating the service into almost every aspect of their other services from Gmail, which SearchEngineLand notes seems to be tied to Google+ adoption, to YouTube Live integration, and rolling out updates for the Android app to both fix issues and add functionality.

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