Third-party sources of reviews like Yelp and TripAdviser have long complained that Google was building Google Places on the backs of their content, while at the same time trying to replace them. As TechCrunch reports, however, said sources will now be happy to see that Google Places has transitioned to reviews written by Google users themselves. "Now Google Places no longer shows those reviews on Places pages for a specific venue, nor does it count them in the total number of reviews which it shows for each place," TechCrunch writes. "Instead, it links to the reviews from sites …

In other Google+ news, it looks like Google's social network will soon be getting a Games Stream, or, as SlashGear describes it, "a place where results from what will presumably be social-style gaming on the new network will be pulled together." The move is a no-brainer, considering the great success that social king Facebook has had with gaming. "If you're looking for updates shared from games, check out your Games stream," a new article on Google's help pages suggested, though, according to SlashGear, currently the link it mentions leads to a 404 page. Meanwhile, It's not …

How's Google+ doing three weeks after its unofficial debut? For what it's worth, according to comScore, Google's social media platform has attracted about 20 million unique visitors -- 5 million of them in the U.S.. "It is definitely the fastest ascent to 20 million visitors that I can think of," said Andrew Lipsman, ComScore's vice president of industry analysis. "The new data shows that explosive growth, even though Google has not officially rolled out the service or marketed it to its more than 1 billion search engine users," writes the Los Angeles Times. "It comes just a week …

Microsoft's online services division, which includes Bing, lost $728 million in the second quarter -- and $2.6 billion in the past 12 months, according to Microsoft earnings released late Thursday. "Microsoft still hasn't turned a profit in that unit," notes CNNMoney.com. Overall, Microsoft still managed to grow its overall sales by 8% over the past three months to $17.4 billion -- despite a sales slump in its Windows division. (Windows revenue fell 1%, marking the second straight quarter of declines.) The software giant also continued to sign on long-term contracts with business customers in its Office and server …

TechCrunch is reporting that four top Twitter executives are being shown the door, including Anamitra Banerji, who was responsible for launching the company's controversial ad platform. The changes follow Jack Dorsey's recent return as CEO. "This move is said to be led by Dorsey as a final measure to remove those still closely affiliated with the old Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Jason Goldman regime," TechCrunch writes. "Those three, of course, all left Twitter in recent months and just re-launched the Obvious startup incubator where Twitter was originally born." Along with Banerji, Jean-Paul Cozzatti, Kevin Cheng, and Josh Elman are …

If perhaps a bit prematurely, tech writer Robert Cringely is busy preparing obituaries for Facebook, and the entire social networking phenomenon. "Facebook is a huge success," he admits, noting that its 750 million membership is obviously impressive. (And, no, Cringely doesn't envision Google+ bringing Facebook down.) What he sees instead "is more properly the fading of the entire social media category, the victim of an ever-shortening event horizon." So, what does Cringely imagine will take the place of social networks? It must be its "disintermediation by all of us reclaiming our personal data," quite possibly by people learning to speak …

PayPal isn't just for online and mobile payments anymore. No, the top-performing eBay unit is now targeting offline "point of sale" transactions with merchants. "By the end of the year, PayPal will be testing point of sale integration with a major U.S. brick and mortar retailer," Forbes reports, citing comments from John Donahoe, CEO of eBay, on an earnings call this week. "In 2012, PayPal reportedly expects up to 20 national retailers using its point of sale service. "We're in a strong position in online payments to expand to point of sale," Donohoe reportedly said this week. "We intend to …

Remember the early days of mobile when the iPhone made up just a sliver of the Nokia-ruled market? Well, fast-forward four years, and Apple is now officially selling more iPhone's per quarter than Nokia's entire smartphone range. That's right, the Finnish phone-maker sold just 16.7 million smartphones in the second quarter of the year, compared to 20.3 million iPhones sold by Apple, according to earnings reports released by both companies this week. More remarkable still, "It means that Apple made almost four times the revenue from iPhones ($13.3bn) as Nokia did from smartphones (€2.4bn/$3.4bn)," The Next Web notes. Nokia is …

Like many a Web publisher and platform, Twitter is now reportedly eyeing commerce as a way to its millions of users in billions in revenue. "After discussing its various advertising options -- including its plans to eventually offer self-serve ads -- [Twitter CEO Dick Costolo] mentioned how conference organizers and sports teams had used Twitter to find buyers for unsold inventory," Fortune reports. In one instance, the San Diego Chargers quickly sold around 1,000 tickets to a game that otherwise would have been blacked out on local television. Twitter didn't make any money on those transactions, but according to …

Following a similar deal by rival Netflix, Amazon has added a slew of TV shows from CBS. It's all part of Amazon's broader effort to build up a digital video service that can rival the one Netflix has built, assures All Things D. "The deal is more or less a replica of the pact CBS and Netflix struck in February," which allows for access to relatively recent CBS shows that are not on the air anymore, as well as library titles, including "Frasier" and "Cheers." Neither deal, however, includes any "in-season" episodes. Financial terms of the deal are not …