Google News, Inside.

Happy Birthday Google Gears!

“Today, MySpace is launching enhanced functionality for MySpace mail using Gears. They are using the original Gears Database API with Full Text Search to enable fast and easy search and sort capabilities. The latest build of WordPress also integrates Gears, to improve performance, and to let users manage their blogs offline. And as many of [...]

Yahoo! to Support Google’s OpenSocial

Mashable reporter, Stan Schroeder, brings this one to us here at Google Inside. Yahoo! is said to be supporting the OpenSocial initiative that Google started four months ago.
As a recap, here is a quick list of sites/companies already supporting OpenSocial. Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six [...]

Rumors of Google to Buy The New York Times

John Ellis brings up the rumor (or potential rumor) of Google acquiring The New York Times.
What’s in it for Google? Well, for one thing, it’s cheap. Sell off the New England properties and the real cost is $3 billion. That’s not much money to buy one of the premier brands of the information age. It [...]

Google is Powerless

Errr well, it could be powerless. As I was going through my morning routine of checking Sphinn, checking Digg, going through and checking out my latest backlinks (thanks Donncha!), I noticed a particular comment that rings true in my mind as well. The comment left on the LinkWorth blog actually, by CyberCelt. “I am boycotting G@@GLE. Internet users have given them this power and we can take it away.”

Google News as a Facebook Application

Facebook Applications have been the latest craze on the Internet due to the amount of potential these apps have. Facebook has taken social media to the next level and set the bar very high. MySpace is trying to catch up, but that’s neither here nor there.
Google has been very slow to create their own Facebook Application, but the time has finally come. Google has presented the Google News Facebook Application.

Yahoo! to Take on Facebook and MySpace

Yahoo! is once again at it trying to take on the big dogs. The question that first comes to mind is, “will is be successful?” I ask that question because if you look at the first post for the Mash Blog, you can see that it’s powered by Wordpress. But wait a second, doesn’t Yahoo! already have their own blogging platform called 360? Yeah, they do…so why are they using third-party software to power their blogs instead of their own in-house software? Hit number one against Yahoo!

You can make starter profiles for your friends. Think: “first round’s on me.”
You can leave your profile open to contributions by trusted friends.
You can customize your — or your friend’s :) — profile with modules from a growing gallery of apps.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Under Scrutiny

Mark Zuckerberg is now facing charges from past colleagues that “want their share” of what Facebook has now become — a social empire. The Observer says, MySpace was bought by News Corporation in 2005 for $580m, now regarded as a bargain. Facebook is expected to sell for more than double that, turning Zuckerberg, its 23-year-old creator, into the latest dotcom millionaire and darling of Silicon Valley. But there

Facebook Seeks to Acquire, Not be Acquired

Loren Baker makes some great statements here about activity of Facebook lately. I can’t see where the rumor is coming from yet, but it looks to be promising.
Under the spotlight of acquisition rumor talks, Facebook has started its own agenda of purchasing Internet start-ups with the buying of Parakey, a web to desktop application company which is run by Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt, two of the founders of the Mozilla Firefox browser.
So why would Facebook consider acquiring companies instead of just being acquired? Vision.

Firefox Extension Review: Adblock

Operating System: Windows XP SP2 Browser: Firefox 2.0.0.3 Plugin Name: Adblock – 0.5.3.043 Homepage: Adblock Homepage Click here for screenshot This extension is exactly what it says. It blocks ads. This is another Godsend from Heaven. Browsing around Facebook … and occasionally MySpace, I never see ads — or at least it’s rare. I use asterisk modifiers for all the normal advertising domains, such as domains like ‘fastclick.net’ or ‘http://oascentral.*.*/*’ so it blocks all oascentral advertising platforms. The plugin is very basic but does an amazing job at making web browsing cleaner and more efficient — the pages load faster because of no ads. I have installed this on quite a few of my friends’ computers as a helpful tool for them. I highly recommend it to everyone as it really helps create a better browser experience. Direct Download Link

Picasa Web Albums API

Picasa Web Albums now has an official API which can be used to interface with the Google data of Picasa.
So what might be a good use for this API? Access to user accounts’ data for Picasa Web. I am a personal fan of Gallery2, but something it’s lacked is great integration with Picasa — both Picasa Web Albums and the Picasa2 stand-alone app.

Google Signs Deal with Friendster

Hoping to finally become profitable, online social-networking pioneer Friendster Inc. is joining the crowd of Web sites that rely on Internet search leader Google Inc. for a large piece of their advertising. Google already has been feeding Friendster ads aimed at making a connection with the surrounding content displayed on a Web page. Under an expanded deal announced Wednesday, Friendster will soon display ads from Google based on Web search

LinkRush: March 9th, 2007

Google releases some trade secrets Google will be gaining some serious new competition through open-source search Google joins in on the mobile industry filing for a “phone call prediction” patent Personalize your homepage with the new Netvibes widget MySpace releases a “digg killer” that has new syndication like Google news — seems like more advertising space for Google now Finally! Sync your Outlook and Google Calendar without hassle. Now we just need one for Palm Desktop Another one under the legal department: Google is being subpoenaed over videos from Magnolia Pictures

Want a Virb.com Invite? I Have Some!

I recently received an invite to Virb.com which appears to be a new social networking site (yes, geez, another one), but with a little twist of lime to it. What does this social networking site do differently? Virb.com, from my initial reaction of it, feels like a blend of Myspace, LinkedIn, and Facebook. why did I choose those three to describe it? It has a

Viacom to Compete with YouTube

Viacom recently requested removal of tons of content on YouTube due to copyright violation. This wasn’t to go to say that they no reason for it, because now they have a reason. Viacom is starting up their own video broadcasting network similar with YouTube and Google Video to try to take some market share away from these two industry leaders. The idea of allowing people to take content

Time to Google Friendster

Google is becoming the unchallenged leading providing in content ads on the web. With Google’s not too long ago partnership with Myspace to provide their search and some advertising, Google is dominating the realm of online exposure for advertisers. Friendster – the pioneer social network founded in 2002 by Jonathan Abrams – is going to partner with Google to place ads on the community site and to power the search technology. Google takes over yet another social networking site and is on their way to becoming (if they aren’t already) the number one advertising source on the web. AdWords is a great platform and it reaches out to billions of people a day across the world.

Something you need to watch

This video really meant something to me, maybe you can take it to heart too. This isn’t related to Google at all, but I felt I needed to share it. Mila’s Myspace

Hurry, Time to Orkut!

Orkut — the Google social networking site — has officially been released to the public. While before you could only sign-up with an invitation, it is now open to everyone. With the new release of Orkut to everyone, Google has also integrated Google Talk into the platform. This makes it very easy to communicate with anyone using Orkut. So what makes Orkut stand out from other

Let the Battle Begin

Valleywag makes some good points. Google has been chasing and beating Yahoo! in every major deal lately. Count 1, 2, but wait, no, 3. First was the AOL advertising deal for 5% stock, the second was with MySpace for another advertising deal — for $900 million, and thirdly was the purchase of YouTube.com for $1.63billion. But what’s next on the table? Facebook.com. Yahoo! put up an offer a few weeks ago, but now Google is putting something on the table for it. Google made an offer for $2.3billion while Yahoo! only had $2.0billion on the table. Yahoo! needs to grow some balls and make a gutsy move in order to gain some advertising control. Google just seems to be sweeping up all the good companies and taking control of the advertising realm.

Picasa Web Tips

And if you weren’t yet aware of that, you can embed photos into your site by clicking on “Embed in blog/MySpace” link. Unfortunately, you’ll embed only a thumbnail, but if you’re smart enough you’ll manage to customize the thumbnail. (Hint: replace s288 from the image URL with s576 or s followed by some multiple of 144.) There are a bunch of tips here, some really great ones too if you use Picasa Web Albums on a regular basis.

Did Someone MySpace Google?

Fox News Corp has signed a contract with Google to be the search engine powering this monster social networking site, MySpace.com. The agreement calls for Google to power web, vertical and site specific search for MySpace.com and the majority of Fox Interactive Media properties. Google will be the exclusive provider of text-based advertising and keyword targeted ads through its AdSense program, for inventory on Fox Interactive Media’s network. Google