Google plans to officially role out a new interface for U.S. search users, which “highly resembles Google’s mobile search results pages,” Search Engine Land reports. Additionally, “Options to search verticals like Images, News and Maps are moved from the left-side of the page up above the top search results.” As many a Web watcher noticed, Google has recently been testing the new interface. 

Although a patently “back-end” issue, Twitter’s knack for crashing under the weight of usership surges has long been seen as the company’s Achilles’ heel. But, as AllThingsD reports, Twitter’s “Fail Whale” might be extinct. “All throughout November 6th, that cutesy, once ubiquitous cartoon -- a symbol of a young Twitter’s infrastructure problems -- was nary to be seen,” it writes. That’s despite the fact that Twitter saw record numbers of tweets leading up to President Obama’s reelection. 

Proving Steve Jobs wrong, are smaller tablets -- like the recently released iPad Mini -- destined to replace their full-size forebearers? Business Insider is suggesting as much, and some respected analysts agree. Splatf’s Dan Frommer, for one, predicted this week that Mini sales will soon surpass full-size iPad sales. “It's becoming clear that [Steve] Jobs was dead wrong about the potential for smaller tablets,” BI notes. Before his untimely passing, Apple’s founder said consumers would never embrace smaller tablets. 

Trying to improve on star-based ratings, Foursquare is now attaching a number score to locations when users find them via the Explore tab. “If you think that star ratings are oftentimes faulty or unspecific indicators of a location’s true worth, the people at Foursquare agree with you,” WebProNews writes. “Now … each location with sport a number between 1-10.” That number should show, “how much people love it,” according to Foursquare. 

Taking on Netflix, Amazon.com just debuted a monthly subscription option for Amazon Prime, a service for shipping and streaming video. Bloomberg said that move is “designed to entice holiday shoppers and step up competition with Netflix.” Prime subscriptions, which have cost at $79 a year, can now be bought for $7.99 month, according to pricing information on Amazon’s Web site. Also, “Free two-day shipping may help Amazon … encourage consumers to make more holiday gift purchases,” Bloomberg adds. 

Android phone adoption is ramping up six times faster than iPhone, according to famed analyst Mary Meeker. What’s more, Android surpassed Windows as the Number 1 operating system for Web-enabled devices in the first quarter of the year, Meeker revealed in a rare mid-year report released Monday. Also, as TechCrunch reports, Meeker said mobile growth is still strong, but slowing faster than previously expected.  

The New York Times takes a fresh look at Google’s search business, as it has never been a greater source of criticism among government regulatory bodies, as well as the small businesses that live and die by their Google search ranking. “The relationship between Google and Web sites, publishers and advertisers often seems lopsided, if not unfair,” NYT writes. “Being big is no crime, but if a powerful company uses market muscle to stifle competition, that is an antitrust violation.” 

Dabbling in conspiracy, ars technica suggests that Facebook might be artificially driving down traffic to the Web sites’ of Facebook page owners (including consumers brands). Why? Recently, some Facebook page owners have reported a steep drop in traffic to their sites. “Even worse, some brands noticed that this drop in traffic coincided with a new Facebook feature called ‘promoted posts’ through which brands can pay … to push their content out to more news feeds than they would normally reach.” 

Hubspot -- an “inbound” marketing SaaS specialist -- just raised an additional $35 million, bringing its total raised capital to $100 million. “The company has big plans for that cash, including acquisitions and more hiring,” GigaOm reports. “It also paves the way to an IPO.” Simply put, the startup’s software is designed to help marketers “pull in” customers via social media channels. 

If current trends persist, Apple could soon control less than 50% of the tablet market for the first time. In the third quarter of the year, Apple’s iPad held onto a 50.4% share of the market -- but lost 9.3 percentage points since the second quarter -- according to the latest estimates from IDC. Eating into Apple’s dwindling tablet dominance, as The Next Web notes, is increasing competition from Samsung, Google, and, most recently, Microsoft.