The tablets war is still going on. Tomorrow Google will start delivering its Nexus 7 Tablet for $199, a price that will put the Kindle Fire on more fire. With a front camera and full access to Google Play store with more than 600,000 applications and the restrictions Amazon is having on its Kindle for accessing the Play store, consumers will most probably switch to the Nexus and put the Kindle aside.
In my opinion, the fastest Amazon.com allows its users to access the Play store and install Google apps on their Kindle Fire, the better the shock of the market will be absorbed.
After seeing Apple stores and Windows stores, the world’s first “Google store” opened not in California but in the less glamorous setting of PC World in Tottenham Court Road in London-UK.
“The Chrome Zone”, occupying an area of about 90 square meters, does not offer a large choice of references, as it is mainly occupied by Chromebooks, headsets and other accessories, but, oddly no Android smartphones, Nexus and others.
Arvind Desikan, head of consumer marketing at Google UK, said: “It is our first foray into physical retail. This is a new channel for us and it’s still very, very early days. It’s something Google is going to play with and see where it leads.”
Few days ago, Google launched Google+, a long-rumored social network platform. I was one of the few lucky users who got an invitation the 2nd day of the launch before Google decided to lock down the invitation mechanism.
As a new platform, it is still in beta release and Google is listening closely to their users and one of the quick responses came from their Product Manager regarding the privacy issue that many users raised.
But the problem are not those little details, it is more about the change that will happen in the social media scene in overall. For friends sharing there is Facebook, for quick sharing there is Twitter and for professional sharing there is LinkedIn, is it Tumblr, Quora, Foursquare or Foodspotting … where really Google+ stand in this crowd??
Is it a mix of all social networks? In my opinion, Google+ will not shake Facebook, not now not later, Twitter might lose some market share at the beginning but if they are good they can maintain their positioning and come back and LinkedIn is on a totally different category but they also need to be careful. I guess it is too early to know or discover exactly what will happen before the service stabilizes and open its doors back to all users and we hear more buzz about it.
So far for me, the mainstream is still Twitter and neither my real friends from Facebook are already on G+ nor my professional contacts from LinkedIn, mostly my contacts on G+ are my virtual friends. And I still find it funny to post on 2 different services.
Another rumor is running online about Google+ for brands and businesses, this might be a threat for Foursquare and Gowalla with the power of Google Map and the location sharing feature of Google+, another feature we have to wait for.
Also many people and developers are waiting for the API to ship, that will open more doors. If you are a developer and reading this, please launch a plugin to post to G+ from self-hosted wordpress blog, that would make my life easier.
On the other hand, the G+ Android app I have been using for the last few days on my Galaxy S, is ok.
And because Google+ profiles URLs are long ones, somebody created Gplus.to, it is a little web app that’s essentially a link shortening tool, except that it allows you to set the username shown in the URL. All you need is your Google+ ID — the long string of numbers that currently makes the URLs so ugly — and to plug in your name, and you’re are done. Mine is gplus.to/krikor
Two questions for Google+ or for people who are active on the network:
1) How can I know if someone mentioned me in the stream if I have disabled the notifications?
2) How can I favorite a post from the stream to read later, on both the site and mobile app?
As long as Google+ is still trending mainly on Twitter, we have to wait to see where Google will be taking social media networking.
Meanwhile, enjoy this video from Meet the Fockers, these guys were into circles way before Google+
After dangling a reported $6 billion offer in front of daily deal site Groupon (which it ultimately rejected), Google is pressing on with its own service. Google unveiled Offers, a new feature that will allow local businesses to show off deep discounts to consumers. Seemingly a direct competitor to Groupon and Living Social, Offers boasts of discounts of 50% off or more.
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on 2 September 2008, and the public stable release was on 11 December 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or “chrome”, of web browsers. As of January 2011, Chrome was the third most widely used browser, and passed the 10% worldwide usage share of web browsers, according to Net Applications
Few days ago, Google launched 
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