Google Wants To Mix Your Business With Social Network [Orkut Badge]

A lot of businesses do use Orkut/Facebook to share information about their business/product and Google is now urging businesses to create profile on Google Places and grab a badge that they can embed on Orkut.

“If you own a business and have an Orkut profile but you haven’t received this badge yet, simply add your listing to Google Maps. Keep in mind that your business doesn’t need its own website to be listed on Google!

Google Places allows business owners to manage information about their listings if they’re already on Google Maps, or to add them to the map if they’re not yet listed.
Once they’ve verified that the basic information about their business is correct and up-to-date, and added details like hours of business and photos, business owners can count on their listings being shown to Google users to grow their customer base. Their listing will appear among search results across Google, including Google Maps, even if they don’t have a website. And of course, this is all completely free.” [blog]

Once you create your business listing in Google Maps, your Orkut profile will earn a badge for your business (read: Google Brings Badges to Orkut–Too late in the Game?).

This is an interesting service where Google incentivizes small business owners to add their business data on Google places and is automatically integrated with Orkut, giving it the necessary ‘social’ push (though relevance of Orkut itself is a big question).

Do you think a Facebook app (that pushes Google Places data to Facebook) makes more sense for Google?

View the original article here

Google I/O kicks off today : Here’s what to expect

One of our most beloved companies is kicking off its annual developers conference today and as you may have expected, the internet is buzzing with what we can expect from this annual gathering of the Google geeks. In its third edition, Google I/O is expected to focus on the most popular technologies that Google offers today , including its Android mobile OS and Chrome OS. Many rumors have been circulating the internet about the imminent launch of Google’s own music locker service. Here’s a look at what we can expect from one of the leading companies in the world when it comes to innovation.

Android Ice Cream/ Ice Cream Sandwich.
Android is booming, no question about it! Fragmentation is a real issue that most app developers are struggling with, combine that with the low number of paid apps on the market and it should sound the death knell for a platform. But consumer adoption is forcing developers to consider that supporting Android in their development efforts may become imperative. The breakneck speed at which Google develops upgrades to its Android OS has reached its destination for this half of the year with developers longing for a taste of the new version on Android that promises to bring some sort of unity to the fragmented Gingerbread2.3 and Honeycomb3.0 landscape of Android. Ice Cream/ Ice Cream Sandwich is expected to unify the OS scenario for Android, of course there will be some additional functionality and APIs that will be unveiled too.

Chrome OS
Chrome OS may be getting ready for an official launch soon, with reports that Acer and Samsung plan to launch Chrome OS powered notebooks later this year. Chrome OS is a linux based OS that uses the cloud services in browser based interface. This effectively turns your notebook into a dummy terminal. Chrome OS may make an official public appearance at the end of the conference with Samsung netbooks. Exciting technology for sure!

Google Music Beta
News blogs are reporting confirmed comments from a Google spokeswoman that the company will unveil the much awaited cloud music streaming service. After talks with record companies stalled, Google will pull an Amazon and go ahead without any licensing agreements with the four major record companies in the world. Google will reportedly open the service for a beta test internally and make it available to users in the U.S. shortly thereafter. The service will allow users to upload their music to their cloud locker and later stream it to any device on their Android phones running version 2.2( froyo )  with adobe flash support. Amazon launched their cloud music streaming service earlier this year that allows users to upload their music to a personal music drive and stream it to multiple devices. Apple is rumored to be readying its own cloud music storage and streaming service and not surprisingly is calling it iCloud.

Google TV
It is believed that Google will show a glimpse of its new version of internet enabled TV, Google TV 2.0 with software and hardware upgrades. The software will be Android Honeycomb like and will most likely bring Android apps to Google TV.

This will be Google’s first developer conference since the replacement of Eric Schmidt by Larry Page as CEO. Larry Page stated that his goal was to run Google with the pace and with the souls and passion of a startup. Developers attending the Google I/O will surely have a blast at this conference. We’ll keep you updated with the daily happenings.

Watch this space for our entire coverage of Google I/O.

View the original article here

OS X Freeware of the Day: Google Earth

Most people have used one Internet mapping service or another to find directions online. But a whole new level of navigational and explorative wonder awaits those who use the Google Earth software client to access Google's database of geographic data. Only fairly recently has an OS X client been available for Google Earth, which started out as a Windows only program. In today's FOTD, we take a closer look at Google Earth, which is available for free download directly from Google.

When you first open Google Earth, you will see an image of the entire planet, which can be spun around and zoomed in on. If you are really good at geography, you can keep zooming in on a location until you find your desired location. Since the data that feeds Google Earth goes down to street level accuracy at a few hundred yards from ground resolution, I'd be willing to be that almost nobody could find, say, their house just by zooming in from planet view.

More likely, you will want to enter an address and watch as Google Earth "flies" you to the destination, as though you were Superman in outerspace, looking at the planet, and then flying to your destination. This effect is quite impressive if you've never used Google Earth before, and it has been featured on news broadcasts and other media outlets in the past.

Some of the great features of Google Earth that push it beyond the simple interface of Google Maps are: (1) the ability to plot courses on the maps and calculate distances -- you can see which walking routes are the longest/fastest, (2) the ability to change the view angle of the data shown, (3) ability to see and contribute data on points of interest in maps, and more.

The data that supplies the Google Earth databases is continuously updated and new and better information is always being added. Since I first used Google Earth, certain areas which were not even available are now visible in high levels of detail. Certain metro areas in the U.S. and U.K. are available in ultra high levels of detail.

If you haven't checked out Google Earth yet, download this amazing free wonder now.