Google+ Approaches 18 Million Users

Google+ continues to set records as the fastest-growing social network in history, but Google’s social juggernaut is beginning to show signs that it’s losing steam.

Ancestry.com co-founder Paul Allen (not to be confused with the Microsoft co-founder of the same name) posted his most recent analysis of Google+’s growth on his Google+ account Tuesday. According to his analysis, the search giant’s Facebook competitor will likely reach 18 million users by the end of Tuesday, but its growth rate has dropped by 50% from its peak.

“Last week we saw two days where more than 2 million signed up in a single day,” Allen said in his post. “If that rate had continued, Google+ would have reached 20 million users by last Sunday night. But the last four days have averaged only 948,000 new users, and yesterday the site added only 763,000. Yesterday’s growth of 4.47% was the slowest viral growth since Google opened up invites back on July 6.”

Why is Google+’s growth slowing down? Google Trends indicates that the buzz around Google+ has died down some, which is natural for any major news item. Allen makes the important point that Google+ hasn’t been promoted by any of its other properties and that the social network is still invite-only. Once Google+ is promoted on YouTube or on Google.com, its growth may simply skyrocket.

Allen estimated that Google+ hit the 10 million user mark sometime on July 12 or 13. Google CEO Larry Page confirmed that Google+ had more than 10 million users during an investor earnings call on July 14. Its most followed user, Mark Zuckerberg, now has more than 250,000 followers, despite not posting a single public item on his Google+ account.

2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa: The Ultimate Guide To Digital Delight

Today’s the big day. TechCrunch turns five years old. And oh, there’s a huge football – no, not ‘soccer’ – event kicking off in South Africa too.

Many of you will be missing the opening match(es) while you’re out celebrating our birthday and 5 years of change on the Web all over the world, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to catch up from your mobile phone, or look up what went down on the Internet when – or if – you make it back home.Here’s our ultimate guide to how you can keep track of all things World Cup 2010 on the Web and/or through mobile applications. Sure, Mike Butcher over at TechCrunch Europe already posted a few pointers, and Nicholas Deleon from CrunchGear tried to compile an exhaustive list of websites, apps and podcasts as well.


INTERNET GIANTS
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Microsoft

Microsoft has detailed its plans for the World Cup two days ago.Bing Instant Answers aims to bring you all the latest details, the schedule, upcoming games, live scores group standings, and more. The results will show in the U.S. and 30 other countries (why not everywhere, we have no idea).Redmond also lets you visualize the World Cup teams on Bing.There is also a Bing Map App that will be displaying FIFA live data on Bing Maps, including team fixtures, results, news, photos, venues, a Photosynth hub for World Cup images, and a Twitter map that will display all of the World Cup related tweets.Finally, Bing has released a South Africa Bing Map imagery update, so you can see the stadiums where all the games will take place.

Google
Google is making it easy to keep track of the schedule and groups – just run a search for ‘world cup’ and the basic info will be displayed right on top. Also, there’s a cute easter egg to be found at the bottom, just in case you weren’t aware yet.YouTube sports a custom logo for the occasion (as does Google Search), and is shining a big spotlight on the World Cup on its homepage, too.Google also announced earlier that there’s new Street View imagery around seven new football stadiums in South Africa (see them in 3D here).

Yahoo
The logo on the Yahoo homepage today is animated for the World Cup kick-off, and leads to the company’s sports vertical, where Yahoo will be keeping track of news, photos, videos, results etc. Yahoo is also featuring shortcuts to relevant links when you enter certain search terms (e.g. world cup schedule).Yahoo has also launched a skinnable, themed toolbar (see Flickr) and has signed a deal with David Beckham to function as its brand ambassador and whatnot.

Facebook
Facebook today posted its ‘guide to the world cup’. The company is running a global competition to see which country has the most passionate football fans – you can check out the leaderboard here (Chile is winning right now).Facebook also has some official broadcast partners that enable users to share status updates and comments while you watch the events live on TV by using Facebook’s Live Stream social plugin. Partners, by country, are listed in the blog post and here.

Google will stop support for IE6

Google plans to suspend Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) support for its Gmail and Calendar services. Starting March 1, the search engine giant will start scaling back IE6 support for Google Docs and Google Sites.The company has said that it plans to stop supporting older browsers for the rest of the Google Apps suite, including Gmail.Incidentally, IE6 is not the only browser Google will stop support for. On the company's no-support list along with IE6 are Mozilla's Firefox 2.0, Apple's Safari 2.0 and Google's own Chrome 3.0.

For once, Microsoft too agrees with Google. The software giant endorses Google's advice to drop IE6. In a blog post, Microsoft spokesman Brandon LeBlanc said that the company supports this recommendation to move off Internet Explorer 6.In January, an undisclosed vulnerability in IE 6 was used in attacks that reportedly targeted more than 20 US companies, including Google, which blamed China. The vulnerability has since been fixed by Microsoft.

Google advisor found dead

Rajeev Motwani, a well-known Stanford University computer science professor who advised one of Google's creators, was found dead in his swimming pool.Stanford University said the 47-year-old professor apparently drowned on Friday at his home in Atherton, and his friends told the school news service he did not know how to swim.
Motwani's work using algorithms to search vast computer databases, like the Internet, is celebrated in Silicon Valley.Google co-founder Sergey Brin wrote on his blog that Motwani's counsel played a big role in his research, education, and professional development.

Now Android with Map Editor

Brian Cornell, a software engineer at Google developed the My Map Editor app that allows Android phone users to create and share maps using their mobiles and also to synchronize them in to their PCs.Tell you what, he has developed this app using just 20% of his time over a span of four months. The app sounds brilliant not only by the appearance but also application wise. The app is said to provide an excellent interface between the mobile and desktop.

The application lets users create, edit, share, and view personalized maps on their Android powered phone, as well as synchronize with the My Maps tab on Google Maps. “Create a map on your desktop computer using Google Maps and then take it with you on the go and update it on location. My Maps Editor by Google supports full editing functionality for markers, lines, and shapes on maps, plus the ability to mark your location using GPS or attach a photo directly from your phone.

New gmail gadget from google

The search engine giant Google released its new gadget for gmail which can be used with google desktop.With the help of this gadget you can read, search and send Gmail messages while in Google Desktop.In addition to this with the help of this gadget a user can star messages and use keyboard shortcuts. The plug also utilizes keyboard shortcuts and contact autocomplete.For using this gadget you have to requires Google Desktop version 5 or higher.As all we know that Google desktop was launched in 2004,the main motive behind this is to make the desktop search faster like web search.In addition to this Google desktop also provides you various different utilities.If you are interested in this gadget then you can download it from google's site.

New Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer users

In November 2008 Google toolbar became 8 years old,on this occasion google is going to launch the new version of its toolbar for its Internet Explorer users.The toolbar(beta version) that is going to launch in 40 languages.With the help of this new tool bar IT users can synchronise their settings online to access their Toolbar from wherever they are.It will also have the option for users to add buttons to their Toolbar that will let them visit and search their favorite websites and keep up with interesting feeds. Google's Button Gallery offers a selection of ready-made buttons for popular sites, and users can make also their own buttons by right-clicking within the search box on any site.As users type a search query into the new Toolbar's search box, they will see a list of useful suggestions based on popular Google searches, spelling corrections as well as their own Toolbar search history and bookmarks.Users can also click the `G' icon in the search box to search different Google sites, the current site, or sites for which they have installed custom search buttons.To translate a non-English web pages into English? Just select "Translate this page" from the Toolbar's Translate menu to view French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese (simplified), Japanese and Korean pages in English.Users can also use the WordTranslator feature to translate English words on a Web page into another language. Create multiple profiles in AutoFill to keep your business and personal information separate.

Want Prizes, use Microsoft search

As all we know that according to web traffic figures Google extended 63 percent of the US search market,after that Yahoo with 19.6 percent share and at third place it is Microsoft with only 8.3 percent share. Now to compete with Google and Yahoo search engines,Microsoft started a new strategy according to which use Microsoft live search and you can win airline miles, music downloads and games for Microsoft's XBox video game system.After the launching of this scheme Microsoft thinks that this will really help in increase web traffic counter of Microsoft search engine.In addition to this they also offer cash rebate to all that buy products using the Microsoft live search engine.To maintain privacy, the programme only tracks the number of searches and not the type of searches people do. SearchPerk users get one "ticket" for every search done on Microsoft, and can receive up to 25 tickets a day.The company has not yet determined how many points will be needed to claim prizes. The programme is currently available only for Internet Explorer 6 or higher.
Let's see whether this strategy of Microsoft will work or not.

Google postpones Yahoo online deal

As all we know that in july both Google and Yahoo was ready for their tie up in online advertising,but now this decision is postponed until they got the clean chit from the US anti-trust regulators.According to Google spokesperson,they want to give more time to US anti-trust regulators for further ramifications in the deal.As all we know that if this deal is completed then Google became the undisputed king of the internet.As against this deal Microsoft argued that the tie-up would crimp competition and give Google "unprecedented" control of the gateway to the Internet.As all we know that search is the gateway of the internet and most believe that it is, this deal will put Google in a position to own that gateway and the information that flows through it.After this deal Google will capable of putting their ads on the Yahoo search results and in this way Google will succeed in capturing the whole internet market.For the meanwhile, Senate Judicial Subcommittee chair Senator Herb Kohl has pledged close scrutiny of the deal and reportedly urged the DOJ to intervene if it looks like a Yahoo tie-up helps Google dominate online advertising.