Having come up with a new way to connect experts with people in need of their specific expertise, Google this week is debuting Helpouts -- face-to-face video calls powered by Google+ Hangouts. TechCrunch calls the service a “fusion of Google+ Hangouts, Google Wallet, and [Google’s] identity tools.” To be successful, however, “Helpouts will need far more providers,” TC notes. “Diversity of offering here is key, naturally.” 

Once the bane every retailer, some big-box stores have started to embrace “showrooming.” In a new ad campaign, Best Buy describes its stores as, "the ultimate holiday showroom," The Wall Street Journal reports. The ads are part of a strategy by retailers to compete against those with no physical presence like Amazon and eBay. Best Buy exes, for example, “have put in place strategies from price matching to customer-service improvements that will convert more shoppers into buyers.” 

Having already poached David Pogue from The New York Times, Yahoo is hungry for more top tech reporters, Kara Swisher of AllThingsD reports. And, Swisher should know -- Yahoo tried to hire away two reporters from AllThingsD, this week. “According to the recruiter … the effort had the ‘backing of [Yahoo CEO] Marissa Mayer … and will be the first of many of these types of editorial models that [Yahoo expects] to roll out globally within the next year,” Swisher reports. 

Albeit in Italy, Windows Phone has overtaken iOS, according to a new report from Kantar.  Microsoft’s mobile device now makes up one in 10 smartphone sales across five major European markets, including the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. “Windows Phone’s progress is driven ‘almost entirely’ by Nokia sales -- as it continues to progress rapidly in Europe,” The Next Web notes. 

Consumers won’t find Google Glass on store shelves this holiday season, but Google’s high-tech gadget is getting more accessible by the day. “The still-relatively exclusive Google Glass club is set to grow by as much as 300% in the days and weeks ahead, now that Google's allowed the first round of Explorers to invite up to three friends to try the $1,500 wearable,” Android Central reports. Google is also planning to start delivering the devices.

Ads could finally be coming to Google+, according to technology news reporter Amir Efrati. “The Google+ team has considered introducing graphical or photographic ads that look just like other Google+ posts that would show up in a person’s activity stream,” he blogs on jessicalessin.com. “But Google+ may not be ready for advertising … There are doubts about whether the social network can come up with a novel ad format that is both attractive to brand advertisers and can reach a lot of active users.” 

Marketing shares of Twitter stock is proving easier than selling salsa on the fifth of May. “Twitter has attracted more than enough demand to sell all of the shares in its initial public offering,” Bloomberg reports, citing sources. Say those same sources: “Banks managing Twitter’s market debut were getting sufficient interest from investors for the IPO to be oversubscribed even before they started taking orders.” 

Facing accusations of betrayal and complicity, tech companies are purportedly going to new lengths to protect the privacy of angry consumers. "What began as a public relations predicament for America’s technology companies has evolved into a moral and business crisis that threatens the foundation of their businesses, which rests on consumers and companies trusting them with their digital lives,” The New York Times reports.  

About that barge Google is building out off the coast of San Francisco. As a CBS Bay Area affiliate recently suspected, the floating vessel will literally serve as a platform on which to promote Google’s Glass project. Once completed, it will feature “luxury showrooms and a party deck for the tech giant to market Google Glass,” KPIX 5 reports, citing sources. The project, let by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, “is Google’s attempt to upstage rival Apple and its chain of popular retail stores.”