Social Networking Watch

Google CEO Announces Zynga Partnership

TECH CRUNCH - July 29 - When asked about Google’s partnership with Zynga, Mr. Schmidt said “we haven’t announced it” but “you can expect a partnership with Zynga” in the future. Expect Google Games to be announced sometime this year. And Zynga will be one of the main game engines populating it. And eventually one of these companies will admit that Google invested in Zynga, too. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Google Spent $100 Million Defending Against Viacom’s $1 Billion Lawsuit

TECH CRUNCH - July 15 - How much did Google spend to fend off Viacom’s $1 billion copyright lawsuit? CFO Patrick Pichette revealed that Google’s legal bills for the case amounted to $100M, and that was before it went to trial. The legal bill could have ended up being many times that amount, but last month the judge threw out the case, and Google declared victory. The judge found that while there were a huge number of infringing videos on YouTube, the site did take them down when notified. In fact, he points out one instance in 2007 when Viacom gave YouTube a single takedown notices for 100,000 videos. By the next day they were down. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Google Secretly Invested $100+ Million In Zynga

TECH CRUNCH - July 10 - Google has quietly invested somewhere between $100M and $200M in social gaming behemoth Zynga. The company has raised around half a billion dollars in venture capital in the last year alone, including $150M from Softbank Capital last month and $180M late last year from Digital Sky Technologies, Tiger Global, Institutional Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz. The investment was made by Google itself, not Google Ventures, say our sources, and it’s a highly strategic deal. Zynga will be the cornerstone of a new Google Games to launch later this year. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Google Names Facebook Most Visited Site

PC WORLD - May 28 - Google has publicly released a list of the top 1000 websites in the world, ranking Facebook as the leading Web property by unique users. According to Google's AdPlanner stats, Facebook scores more than 540M unique visitors per month, reaching 35.2% of the Internet population. Facebook also has the most page views per month, 570 billion views, ahead of other properties like Craigslist (#49) with 14 billion views. FULL ARTICLE @ PC WORLD

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AdMob Is Now Part Of Google

MASHABLE - May 28 - More than six months ago, Google announced that it was acquiring AdMob for $750M. However, a prolonged review by the FTC delayed the acquisition. Just last month, it seemed likely that the FTC would challenge the Google-AdMob deal. Google says that it will quickly integrate the teams and AdMob’s technology in order to keep competitive in mobile advertising. Google believes that mobile search, websites and apps are already key ways people access information. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

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Google TV To Be Unveiled Next Month

MASHABLE - Apr 30 - Google will unveil the Android based television platform at its annual developer event in San Francisco on May 19 and 20. Hardware partners, including Sony, Intel and Logitech, have already announced plans to release products on the Google TV platform. Consumer electronics giant Samsung also recently confirmed that it’s considering the platform as well — an interesting move considering Samsung already has its own app store for Internet-connected TVs. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

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90% Of Content On Google Buzz Is Bots

READ WRITE WEB - Apr 20 - A new report from social media analytics service PostRank has found that 90% of the content published into Buzz is automated: 63% is piped in from Twitter and 27% is from automated RSS feeds. So does that mean that nobody participates in Buzz? The fact that 10% of content published is added manually might even be seen as an early success... maybe. FULL ARTICLE @ READ WRITE WEB

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Google Searches Twitter Archive

LA TIMES - Apr 14 - Google is giving netizens access to the vast archive of billions of updates on Twitter. Searching for past tweets used to be an exercise in futility. As quickly as they would appear, they would disappear. The feature will be available around the globe in the next few days. It currently goes back two months but will eventually include every tweet dating back to the first one on March 21, 2006. FULL ARTICLE @ LA TIMES

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Google Rolls Out Privacy Reset For Buzz

BBC.CO.UK - Apr 5 - Google has said that it will begin to roll out a privacy reset for its controversial social network Buzz. Google was forced to make a series of changes to Buzz just days after launch, following a backlash from users worried about privacy intrusions. Buzz allows users to post status updates, share content and read and comment on posts in much the same way those who have signed onto Facebook and Twitter do. FULL ARTICLE @ BBC.CO.UK

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Google Acquires Episodic

TECH CRUNCH - Apr 2 - Google has acquired Episodic an online video hosting platform. Episodic’s technology will be folded into YouTube. Details on the acquisition price were not disclosed. Episodic’s publishing suite lets users manage and measure video content, and use the platform’s monetization services which enable ad insertion and credit card transactions for both live and on-demand video streaming. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Google: Android Market Now Serving 30,000 Apps

MOBILE CRUNCH - Mar 16 - Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealed that the company’s partners are now selling over 60,000 Android handsets on a daily basis. With that kind of growth rate, it’s no wonder that the size of the Android Market is quickly increasing in its slipstream. The app store for Android devices supposedly hit the 10,000 apps milestone in September 2009 and today there are now officially 30,000 apps in the Android Market. FULL ARTICLE @ MOBILE CRUNCH

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Google, Facebook Sued Over Patent For Phone Social-Networking

BUSINESS WEEK - Mar 10 - Google and Facebook were sued by a New York company over an invention related to software that lets people join social networks on their mobile phones. Wireless Ink Corp., which runs the Winksite service, claims that Facebook Mobile and Google Buzz are infringing a patent issued in October. The company is seeking cash compensation and a court order to prevent further use of its invention. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WEEK

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Class Action Complaint Filed Over Google Buzz

MASHABLE - Feb 18 - A local class action complaint was filed in San Jose federal court, alleging that Google Buzz broke the law by sharing personal data without user consent. This is not the first privacy-related stirrup Google Buzz has caused. Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada had some doubts about Google Buzz; the issue then, was the fact that Buzz automatically finds users to follow based on your e-mail correspondence. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

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Lots Of Buzz Over Google

SEATTLE TIMES - Feb 14 - With a new product on Gmail, Google makes it easier to share with friends. Buzz, which launched Tuesday, will also be accessible on mobile phones. And there eventually will be a version of Buzz for businesses. It is taking on Facebook and Twitter as well as other hot startups such as Foursquare. The new service has five features:
- You will automatically follow the people you e-mail and chat with on a regular basis.
- You will be able to share content from around the Web, including YouTube videos, Flickr photos, site links and other materials.
- You will be able to share your thoughts in a public way and in a private way.
- You will get social updates in your inbox.
- And Google will help you find only the stuff that matters by recommending popular content.
FULL ARTICLE @ SEATTLE TIMES

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Yelp Walks Away From Google Deal

TECH CRUNCH - Dec 20 - Jeremy Stoppleman, the CEO of Yelp, has walked away from an all-but-signed deal to be acquired by Google for more than half a billion dollars. The deal was in the later stages of negotiation. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Google Really Purchases Yelp

ECOMMERCE - Dec 18 - Many sources confirm that Google is in advanced talks with Yelp over the acquisition deal which is likely to close soon. The transaction price will be at least half a million dollars. Over 25M people access Yelp's website each month, putting it in the top 100 of U.S. web sites. The revenue of the company are expected ~$30M in 2009 and $50M or so in 2010. FULL ARTICLE @ ECOMMERCE JOURNAL

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Google Adds Social Networking Features To Friend Connect

MASHABLE - Nov 4 - In the growing battle for internet gateway dominance, Google's Friend Connect is struggling to compete with the likes of OpenID, Sign In With Twitter, MySpace ID, and current market leader, Facebook Connect. Friend Connect's lack of a major social network has severely hampered its adoption. Google hopes to remedy that with a simplified implementation process and the addition of social networking features like interests queries and private messaging. This move is smart, but it won't be enough to tackle Facebook's 300 million user advantage. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

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Google Launches Music Search

MASHABLE - Oct 29 - Music-related searches currently make up ~6% of total queries on Google according to Hitwise. That's why Google has launched a major new feature that incorporates streaming audio previews when you search for an artist, album, or song using the search engine. When you enter a music-related query like the name of a song, artist or album, your search results will include links to an audio preview of those songs provided by Google's music search partners MySpace or Lala. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

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