Google unveils AT&T-compatible Nexus One

Google’s Nexus One smartphone was unveiled in January for use only on the T-Mobile network. Recently Google announced a Nexus One compatible with AT&T’s 3G network.

Unlike the T-Mobile version of the Nexus One, the AT&T-compatible model isn’t available at a subsidy from the carrier. Customers have to buy the unlocked AT&T-compatible version of the phone.

The AT&T version of the Nexus One is also compatible with the Rogers network in Canada, the same provider that sells the iPhone and, for the first time, Google will ship the device to Canada.

While both T-Mobile and AT&T use GSM-based cell phone standards, the two networks use different frequency bands for their respective 3G traffic. Hence, the T-Mobile-compatible unlocked Nexus One could be used on AT&T, but only at EDGE speeds. Both the T-Mobile and AT&T versions of the Nexus One can be used internationally in most countries.

Google Nexus One sales lag Apple, Motorola: Flurry

Nexus One phone is first hardware device directly to consumers by Google. The initial sales of this smartphone are ahead of Apple’s iPhone and Motorola’s Droid. An analytics firm named Flurry has reported this news recently. According to a report by Flurry, Google sold roughly 135,000 of its new Nexus One phones in its first 74 days on the market. By contrast, during the same timeframe Apple sold 1 million of the original iPhones in the first 74 days, while Motorola sold 1.05 million Droid phones based on Google’s Android software.

According to a recent report by comScore, the market share of Android-based smartphones in the U.S. grew to 7.1 percent in January from 2.8 percent in October 2009. By contrast, Apple’s share grew at a much slower pace, reaching 25.1 percent in January compared with 24.8 percent in October.

Though The users of Nexus One smartphone think this phone is overpriced.

Creation of YouTube Overlay Ads are now automated

After acquiring YouTube in 2006, Google is trying a lot to turn it into a profit center. That’s why, Google is automating the way that Flash overlay ads can be created and displayed on YouTube videos. Through the self-serve Display Ad Builder in Google AdWords, one can easily create Flash overlay ads as easily as they can create display banner ads and place them in YouTube videos. Most of the small businesses don’t have the tools to create Flash overlay ads. Now Google is providing them with templates, much like it does already for banner ads.

Google AdWords is a text-sensitive advertising service. Overlay ads have been around for a long time on YouTube and other video networks.

YouTube wants to open up all of its video inventory to advertisers. Creation automated Overlay Ads is the latest move in that direction.

China again tells Google to obey the law

China again warned Google not to stop filtering its web search engine results. From the commerce ministry if China said, Google should respect and abide by Chinese laws. They have also said, said if Google were to decide to shut down its businesses registered in Beijing, it would have to notify the commerce ministry. They confirmed that they have not get any such notice from Google.

Google has said it does not want to bow Chinese government’s web censors. It also says it could abandon its Chinese-language search engine and possibly pull out of China altogether after the hack attacks in China.

Google threatened in January, 2010 to abandon google.cn and perhaps leave China altogether over what it said were cyber-attacks aimed at its source code and at the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. The internet giant has since continued to filter results on google.cn, but says it will not do so forever.

Google’s new move to buy ‘Picnik’

Google has bought online photo-editing site Picnik. It will take about three weeks to complete the deal. The firm did not disclose the cost of buying this online photo-editing site. As, five-year old start-up Settlement, 20-strong team will start working on Picasa, Google’s online photo sharing service.

Last month, Google bought social search engine Aardvark and mobile e-mail service reMail and introduced a social network named Buzz. It also said it would offer ultra-fast broadband network service to thousands of US homes.

Since September, 2009, Google has bought eight companies, and threatened to leave China. Google claimed that the hackers in China had tried to infiltrate its software coding and the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said, “the company would resume its historic pace of acquiring one small company a month on average, with larger deals happening every year or two.“

Google’s new deal indicates its interest on Social Networking Market.

Google Inc. has signed deal to buy Aardvark. Aardvark is a San Francisco based Internet search and social networking company. Aardvark’s service taps a person’s network of social contacts. It introduced ‘social search’ instead of typical searching.

The purchase represents the latest sign of Google’s interest in the fast-growing social networking market. At present, most of social networking market is captured by companies like Twitter and Facebook. Recently Google has introduced a new product called Google Buzz into its Gmail Web-based email service. Google Buzz directly integrates Twitter-like social networking features.

Google said that it had signed a conclusive agreement to acquire Aardvark, but it did not comment about the amount of the deal, but technology blog TechCrunch has demanded deal was for $50 million. The deal acquisition deal between Aardvark and Google was expected to close within the next week.

Google proposing affordable ultra-fast broadband network in US

Though Ultra-fast broadband networks are available in some selected sector in USA, but they aren’t yet available for mass people. Google Inc. is now planning to build an affordable ultra-fast broadband network to connect mass people in USA through the Internet. It will also intend to provide a platform for outside developers. Beside, Google will let Internet service providers sell their own services over its network.

Google said its testbed fiber-optic network will deliver speeds of 1 gigabit per second which would be roughly 50 to 300 times faster than most U.S. homes cable and fiber-optic networks to the Internet today.
It will enable consumers to download a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five minutes. Google hope this broadband connection will help students to collaborate with classmates around the world while watching live 3D video of a university lecture.

Google’s ultra-fast broadband service is now prepared to sell access directly to consumers.

Google Buzz: an entirely new world in Gmail

Recently Google has introduced a new product called Google Buzz into integrated Gmail service. It operates on desktop computers, the iPhone and phones that run Google Android.

The social media service offers its users to share and see contents (photos, links, status, messages, and so on) from other sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Picasa. Through Google Buzz, public updates will also be available to search engines. The firm has also integrated it with its mapping service and mobile platforms.

It is not the first time Google has tried to launch a social network. In 2004, it released Orkut. Recently Google Inc. has signed deal to buy a San Francisco based Internet search and social networking company named Aardvark.

Google Buzz pitches Google directly against rival networks such as Facebook, which has nearly 400 million users since. Buzz’s primary target is to capture its regular 170 million Gmail users.
Google’s Rival Yahoo has already offered a social service like Twitter and Flickr from inside their Yahoo Mail page.

Goojje launches in after Google’s warning to leave china

A new search engine named Goojje has appeared in China. In Mandarin word “jiejie” (sounds like “goojje”) means older sister. While Goojje sounds like “sister”, the word Google sounds similar to the Mandarin word gege, which means “big brother”. Goojje has a message on its site which reads: “Sister was very happy when brother gave up the thought of leaving and stayed for sister”.

This site also contains very similar branding to Google. Goojje’s search results appear to be filtered for sensitive content in accordance with Chinese regulations.

Google said that hackers had tried to infiltrate its software coding and the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Google warned to leave china unless the the China government relaxed censorship.

Search Stories: Google’s new look and feel of marketing campaign

As Google has about 70 percent market share in search, it hardly needs to attract users. But last week Google has launched half dozen of short videos called “search stories” which look suspiciously like commercials posted on its blog and YouTube.

Cheermobile (My Favorite)

This Search Stories are titled like Parisian Love, Mad to Live, Batman, Newbie, Potholes, and High School. Google has launched these videos in a common tag line “Search on” to have the look and feel of a marketing campaign and give the feel of belongingness of Google homepage to its users. IT also stresses a variety of Google products, such as mapping, video, price comparisons, email and more. Some people are smelling  that the Search Stories are for the $100 million marketing push by Microsoft launched for its Bing search service, but Google said that it was feeling all warm and fuzzy and decided to make some kids-let’s-put-on-a-show videos and simply avoided the debate.