Google New Look for Orkut

Social networking site Orkut has revamped its look and added a host of new features as it tries to regain ground from one of its toughest competitor Facebook.

Google, which owns Orkut, said the new look has a user interface, or homepage, which is faster and easier to use.

"With the new user interface (UI), the user does not have to visit each page for viewing videos, or say posting scraps. He gets to see all updates and respond to his friends from the homepage itself," Google India Head (Products) Vinay Goel today said.

It also allows faster uploading of photos and has features like video chat, automatic face detection and a scroll down menu for viewing all friends on the same page.

"We have about 80-100 million users globally and India is the second leading market for Orkut after Brazil. India is a crucial market and we would continue to drive innovation for all our products," Goel said.

The new version would be initially available through invitation only but after a few weeks would be made available to all users. Companies, mainly in the FMCG, automobile, consumer durables and telecom space, are actively using social networking sites to connect with the youth.

Google to Buy Admob for $750 Million

Google is to pay $750 million to buy AdMob, a provider of advertising on mobile phones, the internet search leader announced Monday.

The deal is the third largest ever undertaken by Google and underscores the company's strategy of extending its online advertising dominance to the mobile web, where its Android smartphone operating system is becoming increasingly popular. Google said it expected antitrust regulatory review in the U.S. but not in Europe.

AdMob has a system that serves display ads on mobile phones and its purchase could give the still nascent market a powerful boost, analysts said.

"Google could have built this itself, but this gives them a head start," says mobile analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence. "It will thrust Google into the forefront of mobile display ads."

"AdMob is a great Silicon Valley story," said Google in a blog posting to announce the deal. "We are looking forward to having them join the Google team and work with us on the future of mobile advertising."

Google Chrome Leaked

Google asked people not to believe the leaked version of Chrome operating system. Recently, Google announced that it is coming up with its own OS, and after that there have been rumors about a leaked version being available for download. The 'leaked version' is a fake that is not related to Google at all.

Even a trusted source like Gizmodo has perpetuated the myth that Chrome is available. Its tough when there is so much pressure to be the first to publish a breaking news story. Gizmodo recently reported a story of alleged Chrome operating system screen shots, but later updated the story to state that it was verified as a fake. Gizmodo pushed the story of the fake download with a story titled Google Chrome OS Now Available, Go Get It .

The number of sites and individuals who are propagating the story is lending credibility to the false rumor. A quick scan of Twitter or a quick search of the Web will lead to all sorts of seemingly reputable sources talking about the availability of the Chrome OS beta. Most of the excitement though can be traced back to Gizmodo. It is a trusted source of breaking tech news and it doesn't take much for an announcement on Gizmodo to go viral on Twitter and blog sites.

The site in question appears legitimate in so much as it is actually on the google.com domain. The site lists features like a GNOME desktop, Google Picassa integration, and a Flash Player plugin. It comes complete with a few Google logos scattered about.

However, it is actually a product of Google Sites. Basically, someone created a page with Google Sites which points to sites.google.com and populated it with basic information about the Chrome OS which could be extracted from publicly available details Google has shared, then added a link to download some other completely unrelated tool.

To be fair, the site owner did include a disclaimer at the bottom stating "Chrome OS is not related to Google. Service is provided by SUSE Studio. Seethe license." Google has since disabled the site for violating the Google Sites terms of service.

Chrome sounds like it has promise, although the operating system market is a tough sell that is already filled with dominating players like Microsoft and Apple. Of course, Google hasn't shied away from head-to-head battles with either of those companies in other arenas like Web search, mobile phone operating systems, or web browsers.

In the meantime, if a guy in a dark alley whispers that he has an early version of Chrome OS available, there is good reason to be suspicious. Google may have shut down this fake Chrome OS site, but others are sure to follow. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, its probably a duck. Check your sources and exercise some common sense before you rush to download a fake, and potentially malicious, Chrome OS.

Google better than Microsoft say students

Bangalore: Google is more attractive employer than Microsoft according to the first global index of employer attractiveness by Universum. Google tops the list of Global Top 50 Business and the Global Top 50 Engineering employer. As compared to Google, Microsoft is on the third position on the Global Top 50 Business for attractive employers. After Google, PricewaterhouseCoopers is on the second spot in the Global Top 50 Engineering employers list.



Universum's global index of employer attractiveness is designed to assess the world's most powerful employer brands. Google is, by far, the ideal company to work for according to 120,000 students from top academic institutions worldwide. The positions occupied by the Google and Microsoft are clear indications of their success related to talent attraction and retention.

"These companies in the Top 50 really work with employer branding strategically. The Big Four, for example, are all in the top 10 business ranking, as they have employer branding as part of their business strategy. Many associate their corporate brands to people. This is normal for the service industry, but it's a new approach for other companies. These companies are in the Top 50 because they are focused, consistent and differentiate themselves in their communication." said Michal Kalinowski, CEO of Universum to Softpedia.

Students from U.S., Japan, China, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, Spain, Canada, and India have helped define the world's top 50 most attractive employers, Universum explained. In this regard, the list with the best employers to work for emphasizes the globalization of the talent market. Google, Microsoft and IBM are, in this context, attractive employers because students are aiming for an international career with multinational companies capable of offering secure employment.

But what can be other reasons to be attracted more towards Google. Here are few good reason: The campus in Mountain View strictly follows the company's founders, Sergei Brin and Larry Page, orders that food (it's free) should not be away more than 150 feet from the employees. So, Google runs 11 free gourmet cafeterias and scores of snack rooms, which contain cereals, candy, nuts, yogurt, carrots, fresh fruit and other snacks, and dozens of drinks, including soda and make-your-own cappuccino.

If an employee wants to buy a hybrid car, Google pays up to $5,000 to the employee for environmentally friendly effort. If employee has a baby, Google pays $500 to buy baby stuff. Drop off laundry and get it dry cleaned for free. Get onsite free massage and haircut, and an oil change or wash for the car. Work is such a cosy place that it's difficult for Google employees to leave office.

Google Docs adoption Increasing

ome big companies are starting to move their spreadsheets, word-processing and other productivity programs off of PCs and on to the Web.

About 20% of respondents to a study by researcher IDC say Google's (GOOG) Google Docs offering is widely used in their organization, up from 5.8% a little more than a year and a half ago.

This good news for Google has not gone unnoticed at Microsoft (MSFT). The software giant last week said Office Web Apps — lightweight versions of Office programs delivered through the browser — will enter a limited technical preview. Invited participants will test Word Web App, Excel Web App, PowerPoint Web App and OneNote Web App through Windows Live.

Google markets free and paid versions of Google Docs. IDC analyst Melissa Webster surveyed 262 respondents in diverse roles at a broad range of companies; 27% said they are either already widely using Google Docs or expect to be a year from now.

The suite is proving popular as a tool that enables several co-workers to edit content in real time.

"A healthy percentage of Google Docs adoption is coming from ad hoc use," Webster says. "It's the classic case of employees making use of free consumer (online) services to get their work done, without asking permission."

No one knows how fast the market for online productivity programs will grow. IBM sells Lotus Symphony and Lotus Live as an online suite; Zoho offers free Office-like tools popular with students.

One thing is clear: Microsoft has a lot at stake. Its business division, made up primarily of Office, generated revenue of $18.9 billion and operating income of $12.4 billion in 2008.

Chris Capossela, Microsoft's business division senior vice president, says Office 2010, due early next year, will have versions that work on Web browsers — and on Windows Mobile smartphones. "We believe the future is about delivering the best experience on the PC, mobile phone and the browser," Capossela says.

Still, Microsoft must walk a fine line between staving off Google and not cannibalizing sales of its bread-and-butter Office desktop software, says Matt Rosoff, tech industry analyst at research firm Directions on Microsoft.

You can bet Office Web will work with Microsoft servers that drive many corporate networks. The look and feel will be familiar to Office desktop users. For corporations already holding Office and SharePoint licenses with upgrade rights, adding Office Web might be inexpensive, Rosoff says.

Google Wave

Google hasn't yet finished previewing its new Wave collaboration tool, let alone given consumers full-blown access to it.

Google Wave is a collaboration and communication tool that allows users to work on the same content object, dubbed a "wave," which can house both text and multimedia. Users can reply to messages and edit together in real-time. Beyond those features, developers can extend Wave's features through a programmable interface.

Google is, at this point, focused on polishing and popularizing the product, rather than figuring out how to monetize it.

One very real possibility: incorporating Wave into Google Apps for businesses, the suite of Web-based software tools that Google licenses to enterprises for $50 per user per year.

Wave's next milestone will come at the end of September, when Google plans to let in a pool of about 100,000 testers. Rasmussen says about a third of those will be developers with existing access, and another third will go to some of the million or so people who've applied for access through Google Wave's public site.

Google will likely carve out the remaining third to Google Apps enterprise customers, Rasmussen says. That would enable Google to solicit the kind of feedback it needs to understand what works and what doesn't for businesses--and whether the tool brought the kind of value to Google Apps that would bring new paying customers to Google.

Google Chrome OS by 2010

Google is gearing up for an assault next year on Microsoft's dominance in PC operating systems, yet the companies that would have to be complicit in the battle are keeping quiet.

Judging by their public reactions to Google's news, much of the top tier of consumer PC makers appear caught off guard by Google's announcement on Tuesday of Chrome OS, an open-source operating system the company is preparing for launch in 2010. Google specifically noted in its announcement that its operating system would be lightweight enough to work on netbooks, low-cost mini laptops that almost all PC makers have flocked to in the past year. According to a person familiar with the operating system, Google is talking to Asus, Lenovo, as well as other original equipment manufacturers, and chipset makers about using Chrome OS.

Neither Asus nor Lenovo responded to requests for comment.

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It makes sense that Google would target Asus. It's the pioneer of then movement and dominates the market. But there are other potential partners too, whose names have not come up yet: Acer and MSI. Along with Asus, they've been happy to cut Microsoft at least partly out of the equation of building a computer. The three have led the charge in netbooks, and while they have offered versions with Windows XP, they also were early to make Linux versions available. Adding Chrome OS as an option would make sense.

But both HP and Dell, who account for 35 per cent of computers sold worldwide, were guarded about Chrome OS.

HP said that while it is "studying Chrome", it had no comment on whether it would incorporate it into forthcoming netbook models, or any other HP computers.

"HP wants to understand all the OS choices in the marketplace that may be used by its competitors, and remains open to considering various approaches to meet its own customer needs," a company spokeswoman said in a statement on Wednesday.

A Dell spokeswoman said: "Dell constantly assesses new technologies as part of managing our product development process and for consideration in future products."

Of course they do. But a Google OS could completely change the long-established process of putting together a consumer PC and would totally change how it is priced. Acer, which is the fastest-growing PC maker right now, said it "had no answer" yet.

Reading between the lines, it appears the top three hardware vendors have little or no relationship with the search and online advertising giant. But if Google plans to make inroads into netbooks and eventually lapops, that will have to change very soon. Every consumer desktop and notebook, and most netbooks today (excluding computers from Apple) are designed to run Windows. Microsoft has deep hooks in the manufacturers' design and engineering processes, and the hardware companies' marketing and product launch cycles always take Microsoft's plans into account.

More recently, Asus, Acer, and Samsung have said they plan to offer Google's Android, which is really an operating system for mobile devices like smartphones, on netbooks.

The flip side is that even if Google does develop a closer relationship with PC makers, it's consumer demand that matters most. Computer vendors have already seen that while Linux-based netbooks sold in small amounts to early adopters, the form factor didn't morph into a mainstream phenomenon until Windows XP began to be more widely available on the devices. Just a year ago, XP was on 10 per cent of netbooks. Now it's on 96 per cent.

Google Lays off 200

Google said Thursday that it would cut about 200 employees from its sales and marketing organization, the third and most significant round of layoffs at the company this year.
Google, which announced the layoffs in a blog post, said that the cuts would reduce overlap between different groups and speed up decision making.

Omid Kordestani, Google’s senior vice president for global sales and business development, said the cuts were meant to address mistakes the company had made during its phase of rapid growth. “In some areas we’ve created overlapping organizations which not only duplicate effort but also complicate the decision-making process,” Mr. Kordestani wrote on Google’s corporate blog. “That makes our teams less effective and efficient than they should be. In addition, we over-invested in some areas in preparation for the growth trends we were experiencing at the time.”

The cuts suggest that the deepening global recession is affecting some parts of Google’s business more severely than the company anticipated just two months ago. In January, after Google laid off 100 recruiters, Eric Schmidt, the company’s chief executive, said that deeper cuts were “unlikely.” In February, the company cut another 40 positions when it closed its radio advertising efforts.

About 100 of the eliminated positions will be in the United States and the rest overseas, said Matt Furman, a Google spokesman. Mr. Furman said the company continued to hire new workers, albeit at a slow rate. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the company grew by 99 workers, ending the year with 20,222 full-time employees. In previous years, Google had added more than 2,000 people in a single quarter.

Laid-off workers will be given time to apply for other jobs within the company.
The layoffs this year are neither the first nor the largest in Google’s history. Last April, Google cut about 300 positions from the American operations of DoubleClick, which it acquired earlier in 2008.