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Gavin O'Malley, 6 hours ago
Are Google's Social Tools A Threat Or An Excuse For Hyperbole?
The Wall Street Journal et al.
The futures of Facebook and Twitter lie in the balance as Google readies a new Gmail feature to compete against both networks' real-time communication tools.
Similar to Twitter and Facebook, the new feature will "allow Gmail users to view a stream of status updates from people they choose to connect with," reports The Wall Street Journal.
The move signals that, "Google is feeling the heat from red-hot social network Facebook," according to USAToday.com. "Many former Google executives now work at Facebook, including Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who at Google helped build the lucrative AdWords pay-per-click ad program ... Facebook has a similar pay-per-click program now.
Moreover, "If Google can get you to do more things in Gmail, they can sell more ads, because you've spent more time there," Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan tells the newspaper.
Under the headline, "Google Launching Twitter-Killer For Gmail!" the Business Insider writes: "If Google is smart, these status updates will pour into and out of Facebook and Twitter ... That way it will have an immediate install base of users already trained to update everyone they know about the latest thing they viewed, thought or ate."
About being a "Twitter-killer," The Los Angeles Time's Technology blog calls the Business Insider's characterization, "a case of blogger's hyperbole," adding, "Sure, it makes sense to integrate social networking features into Google's most popular social product."
Likewise, under the headline, "Why Google won't give Twitter or Facebook a buzz cut tomorrow," blogger Robert Scoble argues that both networks already have too great a presence online for Google to displace them. Also, according to Scoble, Google "isn't trusted socially," and it apparently has something called "big company disease."
"Of course," The Guardian writes, "some might argue that Google is coming extremely late to the party, while purists will grumble that the company should keep Gmail free of Web 2.0 clutter."
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Foursquare Friends Big Media
Mashable
Foursquare's partnership with Bravo Media is yesterday's news amid reports that Zagat, Warner Bros., HBO, the History Channel and ExploreChicago have all been added to the location-based social network roster of media clients. The Times is reporting that Foursquare has signed a deal with Zagat, and the restaurant reviewer's official Foursquare page is already live and includes official Zagat-rated tips and recommendations that users can add as to-dos to their Foursquare experience.
"Foursquare's relationship with Zagat is clearly an answer to Yelp's introduction of check-ins, especially given the trusted and prestigious nature of Zagat content," Mashable notes. Warner Bros., meanwhile, has tapped the social net to promote its upcoming movie, Valentine's Day, while AdAge is reporting that HBO is running a similar campaign to promote its new serious How to Make it in America.
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Data: Windows Mobile Falling Flat
Softepedia
Windows Mobile was present in about 18% of domestic smartphones at the end of December, according to new data from comScore. That number is 1% lower that the one it registered at the end of the third quarter, according to Softpedia. Meanwhile, Google's mobile client managed to double its market share in the country during the last three months of the last year, growing from 2.5% at the end of September to 5.2% at the end of December, according to comScore.
What's more, Windows Mobile's U.S. market share is significantly higher than that of its worldwide presence. During the third quarter of the last year, the mobile operating system accounted for around 8.8% of the global smartphone market, according to analysis firm Canalys.
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Researchers Cracking Facebook Wide Open
Read Write Web
For social networks and other online communities, the next stage of innovation may be services like recommendations, "self and group awareness," and other features made possible by software developers building on top of the huge mass of data that Web 2.0 made public. That's according to various researchers digging deep into the social innards and inner workings of Facebook and other networks, and just profiled by ReadWriteWeb.
Ex-Apple engineer Pete Warden, for one, runs a company named Mailana, which uses "social graph analysis" to help us better understand, navigate, and dissect complex online social environments.
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Study: Times Readers Spread The Awe
New York Times
People -- or, at least, readers of NYTimes.com -- prefer emailing articles with positive rather than negative themes, and they like to send long articles on intellectually challenging topics. Go figure. That's according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania, which was based on the New York Times' own list of most-emailed articles over a six month period.
"Perhaps most of all, readers wanted to share articles that inspired awe, an emotion that the researchers investigated after noticing how many science articles made the list," the Times says of the study. In general, the study found that 20% of articles that appeared on the Times home page made the list, but the rate rose to 30% for science articles, including ones with headlines like "The Promise and Power of RNA."
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Who's Apple & Amazon Hiring?
Fast Company
With e-readers on everyone's mind, one way to predict where both Amazon and Apple are heading next is to keep a close eye on their respective jobs boards. Amazon, for one, is actively seeking a senior "hardware display manager," with experience in "the LCD business," who must know the "key players in the market."
The Kindle maker is also looking for at least two experts in wireless technology. "And you know what that adds up to, particularly when you remember Amazon also just bought a touchscreen manufacturer?" asks Fast Company. "Amazon looks like it'll be giving the next Kindle proper WiFi ... a touchscreen (finally ditching that awful keypad), and yes, you guessed it, an LCD screen -- probably in color."
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