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The technology has got advanced to a great extent, even; social networking phones are running on a fuel cell. But the main competition is in the field of social media network of goggle. There have been a lot of speculations that users made regarding Google’s social network known as Google Plus. With its rapid growth which surpassed other networks by 25 million in just a month, by far surpassing the growth of huge social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have achieved in their past years, it has shocked the entire online community and has even posed as a threat for the existing social media giants. However, true the figure is, it is still not enough. Google+ was still unable to draw in a huge number of followings and keep them intact in the network unlike what its giant competitors did. Google+ indeed has some unique features such as their “Hangouts” feature and other video conferencing tools which can’t be seen within any other social networks. In fact, these are truly impressive but the point here is how come that Google’s latest social networking attempt is a big failure?

There are in fact several reasons behind why users tend to stick to their current social networks rather than deviate to a whole new one. And for the part of the premature Google plus, here are some reasons why the network just won’t catch the heart of the crowd.

Nobody wants another social network as of this time -:

“Nobody wants another social network right now”. Those words came straight from Brian Solis, a well-known social media analyst from Altimeter Group. This might sound to be quite illogical, but it is in fact true. People are just too hooked up to the already famous social networks, and they just can’t find the time to jump off to a new one. Even though Google plus have just reached about 90 million registered users, it still pales in comparison with Facebook’s 845 million monthly users and 100 million that of Twitter. These numbers only show that you can find a lot of your colleagues and friends on Facebook and Twitter than you can on Google plus.

Also by comparison, ComScore has the number that Google+ users only spent a few three minutes per month on the network from September to January as compared to that of Facebook which goes around an average of 405 minutes per month.

Negative aspect of G+ -:

Lately Google has been coming under pressure in recent weeks because of the news that their user numbers and the amount of time that people are spending on the site are getting down by great time. To be honest here it is no surprise as I’ve been very negative on their chances since day one, but even I can’t believe on the sort of stuff they are releasing now. They have just announced that their latest feature is a mask that you can add to their Google Hangouts product so as you can turn yourself in to, wait for it….A cat or a dog. I literally thought it must have been April fool’s day or something when I first saw the story but it clearly isn’t and this is the level they have descended to in order to get attention for something that is turning in to a huge failure for them. People will turn around and say that this is only a bit of fun and a quirky little feature but Google seem to be doing more and more of this useless attention seeking stuff in recent times and it really is bordering on pathetic.
Google continues to ship upgrades to Google + at an unprecedented level. Even though Google considers it’s users of Google + as more of a “product” versus a customer they are obviously concerned about keeping the users satisfied and making sure that their over all experience on the site is a positive one.  There are at least two new upgrades this week worth noting: New invite feature to Hangouts and the change to the +1 button.

Over a million websites use Google+ plugins — like the +1 button and the badge for Pages – to help visitors connect with their brand and share their content with others. Today we’re excited to announce a number of improvements to these plugins that make sharing and connecting even easier.

Easier to share from the +1 button -:

Well, starting from today itself, it’ll be a little easier to share right from the +1 buttons all across the web. Now, after you +1 something, the share box will pop open right away, without an extra click. Add a comment if you want, choose the people you want to share with, and you’re done.

Easier to follow brands and businesses -:

When you add Google+ pages to your circles, it’s typically to follow their news and updates. That’s why we’re updating badges for Google+ pages to read “Follow.” With just one click, this button adds a business or brand to your “Following” circle, and if you want to customize which circle they’re in, you can do that too.

If you’re one of the many businesses and brands with a Google+ page, we’ve also put together a handy style guide (pdf) which includes recommended language and images for promoting your page.

Adding a badge for people, not just pages -:

We heard you! Now anyone (including Britney Spears!) can add a personal Google+ badge to their web pages, and let visitors add them to circles quickly and easily.

We’ve got lots more planned for the Google+ plugins, stay tuned!

About the author: Claudia is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on luxury and technology. These days she is working on google autonomous. 

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The company was founded in 2006, and differently from most generic e-commerce and classified ads (e.g. like India’s Sahipasand) the site has decided to focus entirely on gift items such asgourmet products, jewelry and toys, providing as same-day delivery as a special service. In other words, their goal has been to become the go-to online gift shop for the Turkish population.

Headquartered in Istanbul, CicekSepeti currently employs 160 people.

The exact amount of the investment from Amazon, which joins Himmingbird Ventures in the founders’ team, is unknown.

Turkey seems to be a hot market for investors this year, after Tiger Global and KPC & Byers invested heavily in Trendyol and Quants Financial Services (a Swedish fund) entered in Grupfoni. Looking at this list, it seems also onlien shopping is getting hot again: maybe the Internet won’t be seen as a place for loans and real estate business only any more?

Related articles

• Amazon Invests In Turkish E-Commerce Startup Ciceksepeti (techcrunch.com)
• Why Turkey is the next raging e-commerce hotspot (venturebeat.com)

Search engine Yahoo has released its results for the top 10 search terms of 2011.

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This year, the most popular search were dominated by the usual news stories, celebrities and natural disasters, but there was also one big surprise. A gadget (see slideshow) topped Yahoo’s list of the top ten most-searched terms, a rare occurrence, according to Yahoo.

“In the 11 years that Yahoo! has compiled its annual list of top searches, PlayStation 2 (2001 and 2002) is the only other device to have captured the top slot,” Yahoo wrote in a post accompanying the list. “This year, [a gadget again] led the queries, bypassing a reality TV divorcee and America’s most wanted terrorist.”

Rival search engine Bing, which is owned by Microsoft, recently released its own year-end recap of the most-searched gadgets. Interestingly, the gadget that lords over Yahoo’s list appears in fourth place on Bing’s list.

As part of the company’s 2011 year in review, Yahoo has also put together a compilation video of the year’s most inspiring moments, a list of the 10 worst trends of the past 12 months, and much more. Visit Yahoo to see all these year-end goodies.

• iPhone

• Casey Anthony

• Kim Kardashian

• Katy Perry

• Jennifer Lopez

• Lindsay Lohan

• American Idol

• Jennifer Aniston

• Japan Earthquake

• Osama Bin Laden

Related articles

• iPhone more searched than Kardashian on Yahoo in 2011 (news.cnet.com)

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An Australian technologist has claimed that Facebook can track the web pages you visit, even when you are logged out of the social networking giant.

According to Wollongong-based Nik Cubrilovic, when the user is logged out of Facebook, rather than deleting its tracking cookies, the site merely modifies them, maintaining account information and other unique tokens that can be used to identify its users.

This simply means that any time you visit a web page with a Facebook button or widget, your browser is still sending personally identifiable information back to Facebook.

“Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows and can track every page you visit,” Cubrilovic wrote in a blog post.

“The only solution is to delete every Facebook cookie in your browser, or to use a separate browser for Facebook interactions,” he added.

Cubrilovic said he tried to contact Facebook to inform it of his discovery but did not get a reply, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

He said there were significant risks to the privacy of users, particularly those using public terminals to access Facebook.

“Facebook are front-and-centre in the new privacy debate just as Microsoft were with security issues a decade ago,” Cubrilovic said.

“The question is what it will take for Facebook to address privacy issues and to give their users the tools required to manage their privacy and to implement clear policies – not pages and pages of confusing legal documentation, and ‘logout’ not really meaning ‘logout’,” he added.

Source :- http://in.finance.yahoo.com

Related articles

• Facebook tracks what you do online, even when you log out of Facebook (paulspoerry.com)
• Facebook tracks what you do online, even when you’re logged out (venturebeat.com)
• Facebook denies cookie tracking allegations (zdnet.com)
• Facebook is watching (theage.com.au)
• Logging Out Of Facebook Is Not Enough (ghacks.net)
• Facebook can track you even after you log out (theinformativereport.com)

Windows 8, which was fully unveiled at the Windows Build Conference in Anaheim, California, is here, and it looks much,

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much different from Windows 7. Sure, it has the start-bar-and-icon “Desktop” look that Windows users are familiar with, but it also has a new, touchscreen-optimized interface called ‘Metro,’ which looks more like the Windows Phone operating system and which looks like the future of Microsoft Windows from here on out.

The touch-optimized interface was all Stephen Sinofsky, President of Windows, and Julie Larson-Green, Corporate Vice President of Windows, were talking about when they showed off Windows 8 to developers at the conference. (They did not, however, mention when the new OS would be available to users.)

Here are some screenshots of the new Windows 8 from Sinofsky and Larson-Green’s presentation, along with explanations of the newest features and interfaces that users can expect on their new tablets and PCs.

• Lock Screen - The new lock screen for Windows 8, which appears after you put your computer to sleep or restart or lock your computer. Notifications such as new email alerts, Wi-Fi availability and other essential, user-chosen information will be pushed to this screen.

• Start Screen - Here is the start screen in the ‘Metro’ view (the classic start bar “desktop” view is still available). Users can scroll side-to-side, much as they would on an iOS or Android phone, for different groups of applications. Immediately to the right of this homescreen is the media hub (seen above).

• Grouped Apps - Users have the option to categorize their apps into genre or function. Sinofsky and Green showed off a Media category, Games category and social networking category.

• Zoomed Out View - Users can zoom out from this view to see all of their apps at once. This is also where you can move entire blocks at a time closer to the homescreen. For example, if you want Games immediately next to your homescreen, or on the homescreen itself, you can pick up the entire block and drag it to the left.

• On Screen Keyboard - Emphasizing touchability, a demo of the Windows 8′s on-screen keyboard was shown to pop up with the scroll of the thumb. The new Microsoft OS still works, of course, with mouse and physical keyboard, but this is an option for those on tablets or touchscreen PCs.

• Control Panel

• RSS Feed - An RSS reader in Metro view–very scrollable and visual.

• RSS Feed – Expanded - An expanded view of the RSS feed. Users can scroll up and down within articles or left and right to switch between articles.

• Social Network - A view of a hypothetical social network, in a pane interface. You can see the news feed pane on the left and the full view on the right.

• Video Player And Settings - While playing a video of paragliding, Julie Larson-Green turned up the volume via in the collapsible sidebar settings panel.

• Multi-Tasking – News Feed And Video - You can view two apps or windows at once on your tablet by dragging them together and letting them “snap” together. Seen above, a scannable News Feed flanks a paragliding video, letting the viewer work while enjoying media entertainment.

• Newly Opened Tab In Internet Explorer - Starting up Internet Explorer in Metro mode. Here you can see the Most Visited pages and Favorites pinned to the page.

• Internet Explorer With On-Screen Keyboard - Typing a web address into Internet Explorer using the on-screen explorer.

• Webpage In Internet Explorer

• The ‘Share Charm’ - The ‘Share Charm’ icon sits on the Start bar. When you see something within an app you want to share, pull out the start bar and click ‘Share”.

• Share Charm (Continued) - Select a piece of text, image, video or whole webpage and choose a contact in your address book you want to send that information to.

• Universal Spell Check - Green didn’t mean to, but she showed off another new feature of Windows 8 (also recently added to Lion OS X): Universal Spell Check, which proofs words typed in any Windows 8 app.

• Universal Search - Speaking of Mac, Windows 8 will have a spotlight-style universal search, which will let the user browse through the entire system for a search query.

• Universal Search (Continued) - The search bar can also scan through any of your apps, including apps like Bing that search online.

Related articles

• Microsoft Launches Windows 8 (bestalan.wordpress.com)
• Microsoft unveils Windows 8 software (news.consumerreports.org)

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list of 27 female founders who are changing industries, reshaping the public sector, doing good, and helping others, all by using technology in creative new ways.

These women are also active Twitter users who are each worth following for the insights and advice they offer about everything from entrepreneurship and VCs to social media and coding. They include CEOs and CTOs, experienced entrepreneurs and experts, scientists and engineers.

• Rashmi Sinha – CEO and co-founder, SlideShare & Follow her: @Rashmi

• Susan Wu – Co-founder, Ohai, a creator of multiplayer online games. Founding partner at the Obvious Corporation, an “idea incubator” headed by Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams, as well as former Twitter product chief Jason Goldman.  Follow her: @Sw

• Caterina Fake – Co-founder, photo-sharing service Flickr, recommendation-engine Hunch. Follow her: @Caterina

• Kanchan Koya – Co-Founder, SwitchBiotics, which researches new antibiotics to treat “superbugs” and other infections. Follow her: @KKoya

• Allyson Kapin – Founder, Women Who Tech . Follow her: @WomenWhoTech

• Angela Benton – Founder and publisher, Black Web 2.0. Founder, NewMEAccel, a startup accelerator for companies led by minorities. Follow her: @ABenton

• Alexa Hirschfeld – Co-founder, online invitation service PaperlessPost. Follow her: @AlexaHirschfeld

• Gina Trapani – Founder, LifeHacker. Follow her: @GinaTrapani

• Linda Avey – Co-founder, 23andMe.com, a “genetic testing service that provides information and tools to understand your DNA,” and Curious, Inc. Follow her: @LindaAvey

• Brooke Moreland – Founder, Fashism, a social shopping site that lets users rate each others’ outfits, accessories and style choices. Follow her: @AudraBrookie

• Kaliya Hamlin – An expert on online identity issues and co-founder, Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium, Internet Identity Workshop. Follow her: @IdentityWoman

• Carol Realini – Founder, Obopay, which provides mobile payments and banking services. Follow her: @CarolRealini

• Cathy Edwards – Co-founder and CTO, Chomp, a search engine for apps. Follow her: @CathyE

• Jennifer Pahlka – Founder, Code for America, a non-profit organization that aims to help people in the tech industry work with the public sector. Follower her: @PahlkaDot

• Angela Beesley Starling – Co-founder, Wikia, which hosts community sites that any user can create or add to, and member of Wikimedia’s advisory board. Follow her: @Wikiangela

• Katrin Verclas – Co-founder, MobileActive.org, a non-profit that seeks to use mobile technology to promote social change. Follow her: @Katrinskaya

• Ellen Miller – Co-founder and executive director, Sunlight Foundation, an organization that seeks to increase government transparency and accountability using technology. Founder, Center for Responsive Politics and Public Campaign. Follow her: @EllnMllr

• Laura Fitton – Founder, oneforty, a social media management company. Follow her: @Pistachio

• Cheryl Contee – Co-founder, Fission Strategy, which helps “organizations inspire social good through social media”. Follow her: @Ch3ryl

• Jen Bekman – Founder and CEO, 20×200, an online marketplace for affortable art. Follow her: @JenBee

• Cynthia Padnos – Founding managing director, Illuminate Ventures, a venture capital fund investing in high-tech startups. Follow her: @IlluminateVC

• Sarah Allen – Co-founder and CTO, Mightyverse, an online compendium of translations in numerous different languages. Follow her: @Ultrasaurus

• Stephanie Robesky – Founder and CEO, GrowsUp.com, an online retailer selling items for children and babies. Follow her: @NerdGirl

• Alexis Ringwald – Co-founder, Valence Energy, a startup acquired by Serious Energy that had focused on creating energy management software. Follow her: @AlexisRingwald

• Juliana Rotich – Co-founder, Ushahidi, a non-profit that uses tech to crowdsource and map information from around the world. Follow her: @Afromusing 

• Leah Culver – Co-founder of Convore, an application designed to facilitate real-time group communication. Follow her: @LeahCulver

• Amy Jo Martin – Founder, Digital Royalty, a company that advises athletes, brands and teams, such as Nike and Shaquille O’Neal, on their social media strategies. Follow her: @AmyJoMartin

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Rashmi Sinha

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The first half of 2011 was the busiest period of malware to date as increasingly sophisticated hackers set their sights on mobile devices, particularly those using Google‘s Android operating system, according to a new report.

In a report released Tuesday, the cyber-security firm McAfee said malware jumped 22 percent in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year. Google’s Android operating system was the most popular target for mobile malware developers during the second quarter, according to the report.

Hackers are setting their sights on Android, the report found, by disguising malware as legitimate apps. For example, a fake update of the popular game Angry Birds sends sensitive information about the user to the hacker who gains access to the user’s phone and downloads more malicious software, the report found.

In early March, after several malicious apps were published to the Android Market, Google said it was taking measures to help prevent additional malicious applications from being distributed and working to fix the underlying security issues. It said the malware did not affect Android versions 2.2.2 or higher.

But in a white paper released in June, the security firm Symantec noted that Google’s model for vetting apps on Android devices was “less rigorous and consequently, less secure” than Apple’s iOS platform.

Namely, Google allows attackers to anonymously create and distribute malware in the Android market and relies on Android users to make important security decisions they are often not capable of making, Symantec found.

The findings come as Americans are now buying more smart phones with the Android operating system than those running Apple’s iOS.

McAfee’s report also found an increase in fake anti-virus software for Mac operating systems, suggesting that such malware could start appearing on other Apple products, including iPhones and iPads.

The report also said cybercriminals are continuing to buy and sell bulk email address lists to send spam. For example, one million email addresses in the United States now sells for just $25, according to the report.

Source:- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Related articles

• McAfee: Android increasingly targeted by malware authors (digitaltrends.com)
• Android now most attacked mobile OS (infoworld.com)
• McAfee says Android plagued by the most malware (news.cnet.com)
• McAfee: Android malware surges 76%, iPhone untouched (electronista.com)
• Google’s Number One! In Malware! (blogs.wsj.com)
• McAfee to Security Industry: “Are We Really Protecting Users and Companies?” (readwriteweb.com)

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The ever-popular Apple iPad, with its wide, high-resolution screen, is a great device for watching video (better than the tiny iPhone, anyway); and yet the options for video discovery are surprisingly limited, given how tailor-made the iPad seems to be for media consumption of all kinds.

Sure, you’ve got YouTube for your standard viral video-viewing pleasure, iTunes for individual purchases and rentals, and Netflix and Hulu Plus for those with subscriptions. But what about for us freeloaders?

Here are eleven zero-dollar apps we found that can be quite useful both for finding new videos online and for watching them full-screen on your iPad, or hooked up to your wide-screen television at home. Just be sure you plan ahead: you’ll need an Internet connection to stream the clips, as the free apps don’t allow for downloads.

Follows are some of them :-

• ABC Player
• PBS
• TED
• Showyou
• Crackle
• Squrl
• Fanhattan
• Plizy
• SnagFilms
• Boxee
• WatchESPN

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

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• Discovr Music for iPad: Find Music Similar to Artists You Like (socialtimes.com)
• Miramax launches movie renting on Facebook with iPad support (electronista.com)
• Major Evernote iOS update adds rich text, iPad redesign (intomobile.com)

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he web’s dominant URL shortener, Bit.ly, has acquired social publishing tool Twitterfeed.

Twitterfeed is a tool that automatically publishes RSS feeds to social networks with a title and shortened Bit.ly link. Using the service, you can set your blog up to post to your Twitter account, or your Twitter RSS to publish to your LinkedIn page.

While some Twitterfeed functionality might pop up in Bit.ly at some point, it’s not the technology that Bit.ly is after.

“Let’s face it, posting updates to Twitter is not rocket science,” Bit.ly CEO Peter Stern says.

More valuable is Twitterfeed’s userbase and its creator, Mario Menti. Twitterfeed has more than 1 million unique users and posts more than 5 million updates every month (granted, those are automatic). Bit.ly could take the opportunity to make its analytics features more apparent to that userbase — and upsell them to its premium data tools in the meantime.

For now, though, neither Bit.ly nor Twitterfeed users are likely to notice the change in ownership.

“We bought it because it’s a product, it’s out there, it’s growing, it’s in use,” says Stern, who became CEO in May after the deal had closed. “For the foreseeable future it’s kind of business as usual.”

Source :- http://mashable.com

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After a running start, Google+‘s growth may be slowing down a bit. A report from Experian Hitwisefound both traffic and users’ average time on the social network fell last week in the U.S.

Total visits to Google+ declined about 3% to 1.79 million in the U.S. for the week ending July 23 compared to the previous seven days, according to the research company. The site received 1.86 million visits the prior week. Average time on the site was down 10%, from 5 minutes, 50 seconds to 5 minutes, 15 seconds.

Matt Tatham, a rep for Experian Hitwise, was careful not to overplay the findings. “This is not a huge drop,” he says. The company extrapolates its figures from data from ISPs and from an opt-in panel of about 2.5 million users.

The report comes after Google+’s traffic enjoyed a steady climb since its June 28 debut. Last week, comScore reported that the network hit 20 million unique visitors. Some were so enamored with Google+ that they closed out their Facebook accounts and moved all their activity to the new network.

Source :- http://mashable.com

Related articles

• Interest in Google+ falling among users (digitaltrends.com)
• Google+ Traffic Down Last Week (blogworld.com)
• Google+ Traffic Is Multiplying Fast Says Experian Hitwise (fastcompany.com)
• Who is Using Google+ and How Often [Stats] (searchenginewatch.com)
• Google+ Growth: Time Spent Spikes, Young Demos Dominate (clickz.com)
• Google+: The Numbers Driving Its Growth [STATS] (mashable.com)