Yogi Land

Google is reportedly in advanced negotiations with major Hollywood movie studios to launch a streaming, pay-per-view movie rental site by the end of 2010.

The site would be either part of or connected to YouTube, and Google would use its massive search and video empires to direct new users to the new service, helping it stand toe-to-toe with Apple and other competitors in the space.

According to anonymous sources cited by The Financial Times, including an executive with knowledge of the deal, talks have been taking place for months, but they’ve picked up recently. The big reveal here is not the fact that Google wants to launch such a service — we’ve known that for a long time — but the reports that studios are increasingly enthusiastic, so much so that the service is expected to go live by year’s end.

Many enthusiasts and bloggers believe that Apple will release a new version of the Apple TV platform at an event later this week, so the pressure is on Google to show the world what it’s planning as soon as possible. The Financial Times story says that Google’s service will be available first in the United States, but that other countries will be added later.

It also says that the rentals will cost $5 — significantly more than the rentals at iTunes or Amazon Video on Demand. We find that number hard to believe, to be honest. Google is not likely to price its service too highly in comparison to competitors, which typically charge between two and four dollars for a rental.

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Building on What’s Already There

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Google actually began testing out video rentals at YouTube months ago. Its first public test involved a handful of independent films from the Sundance Film Festival. Reports were that the test was not a financial success, but Google nevertheless expanded its service to include a much larger and more mainstream base of titles. It still was not a real competitor to iTunes or Amazon Video on Demand.

Those early rollouts may have been for testing purposes, though, and Google didn’t really sell them with search links and YouTube promotions like The Financial Times describes. One of the executives The Financial Times spoke with said, “They’ve talked about how many people they could steer to this . . . it’s a huge number.”

That’s probably going to be true so long as Google executes its search promotions in the right way, and if it has attractive content, service and prices.

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Reviews: Google, YouTube, iTunes

More About: a la carte, apple, Apple TV, Film, Google, Hollywood, itv, Movies, pay per view, ppv, studios, video, video on demand, vod, youtube

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According to a recent blog post from Google, Earth for Android will now allow for experiences of the submarine variety.

The latest 1.1 version of Google Earth for Android includes features that will let you delve into the mysterious depths of the ocean as well as the more terrestrial spaces of the planet’s surface.

Google first dove underwater with its Earth product early last year. At that time, the company announced it would partner with organizations such as National Geographic to create a sort of Street View of the seas.

Earlier this year, those partnerships came to fruition with Ocean Showcase, a dazzling new feature that highlighted surf spots, shipwrecks, marine research and more.

It’s fascinating to see the underwater aspects of Google Earth coming to handheld devices, as well.

“For example,” writes Google product manager Jenifer Austin Foulkes, “check out the landscape and terrain in Monterery Bay Canyon, which is larger than the Grand Canyon, by zooming in on Google Earth below the ocean surface just off the coast. Once underwater, you can use the ‘look around’ button to tilt the view and see the extent of this great undersea canyon.”

This version of Earth for Android includes an “Explore the Ocean” layer. Seemingly similar to the Ocean Showcase, this feature shows off hundreds of images and video from Google’s content partners.

And if you’re running Android 2.2 (a.k.a. Froyo), you’ll be happy to learn that Google Earth supports Flash in balloons, making it easy for you to view videos from within the app. For most devices, you can also use two-finger navigation to “look around” and change your view when examining underwater mountains and canyons.

If you’d like to check out the app on your Android handset, just use this QR code:

Is this app interesting and entertaining to you? Let us know what you think in the comments.

[img credit: babymellowdee]

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Reviews: Android, Google, Google Earth

More About: android, google earth, Mobile 2.0, ocean, sea

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We all know Chrome is fast, but can it also be social? We’ve already brought you a list of social media extensions for Google’s Chrome browser, but here we set our sights on extensions designed specifically for Twitter.

We’ve scoured Chrome’s extensions listings and found seven free tools that we think are worth the install for anyone who uses Twitter’s web interface.

From extensions that will help you be more productive, to those that will just let you have more fun, check out our list below and let us know about any Twitter-related Chrome plug-ins that you use in the comments.

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1. Twitter Share This Page

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If you want a super-quick way of sharing a URL on Twitter, you can’t go wrong with the “Twitter Share This Page” extension.

Once installed, all you have to do — when you are on the page you want to share — is hit the blue “t” icon (which appears on the right-hand side of your browser bar) and the extension will load the relevant URL in your “What’s happening?” Twitter box.

If you want the link shortened, right click on the “t” icon and select the shortening option. All shared links will be pre-shrunk using Bit.ly.

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2. Twitter Extender

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Khaled Musaied’s “Twitter Extender” also offers tidy Bit.ly URL shortening abilities with an “add URL” option inserted just below the “What’s happening” box.

There are a ton of other enhancements offered by the extension, including old-style retweeting abilities, “reply to all” functionality, quicker direct messaging and the option to load previous tweets if the tweet is a reply.

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3. TwitterWatch – Real Time Twitter Update

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This tool is very useful for anyone wanting a lightweight way to watch keywords and topics, especially if they are topical memes.

Installing it will place a little blue “t” button on the right-hand side of your browser bar, which, when clicked, lets you manage your keyword phrases.

Once you’ve set up the words you want watched, a tiny number will appear on the “t” letting you know how many mentions the word has racked up. Clicking it again will let you see the mentions in full.

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4. Twitter Refresh

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You can make Twitter streams — whether they are your homepage stream or a search stream — refresh automatically. Tweets pour fluidly down the page, saving you from having to bother with the “X new tweets” clickable bar.

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5. Twitter Creation Date

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This is a fun one. Other than pure nosiness, the only real reason we could see for anyone needing this data is journalistic/research purposes. Usefulness aside, this extension will let you see the date that any user joined the micro-blogging service.

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6. Twitter Photo Zoom

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Ideal for the lazy Twitterer, Twitter Photo Zoom will super-size anyone’s avatar from the home screen or sidebar lists when you run your cursor over the thumbnail.

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7. Twitter Symbols

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Use this extension if you want to spice up your tweets with unusual symbols like stars, check marks and the like. If they’re supported by the browsers and systems on the reader’s end, they’ll appear in your tweets normally, and you won’t have to memorize any unusual codes or load up a character map outside the browser to make it happen.

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Reviews: Chrome, Twitter

More About: browser add on, chrome, Chrome Extensions, extensions, google chrome, twitter, twitter apps, twitter tools, web apps

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The rumors have been confirmed: Google has acquired Jambool, the company behind virtual currency Social Gold.

Jambool made the announcement in an open letter from its founders, Vikas Gupta and Reza Hussein. “Our vision is to build world-class products that help developers manage and monetize their virtual economies across the globe,” the founders said in their letter. “When the opportunity arose to join forces with Google to execute against this vision, we couldn’t pass it up. We are thrilled to bring the Social Gold platform to Google’s global users.”

The company also released an FAQ explaining what’s happening next to its users. The thirteen-point Q&A really boils down to one key takeaway, though: Social Gold will continue to operate as it always has and will continue to process payments. In other words, Google will not be shutting down the product anytime soon.

News of the acquisition broke earlier this week. Google was rumored to have paid out $70 million in the deal.

Jambool is best-known for its Social Gold platform, which allows games and virtual worlds to create their own virtual currencies, including in-application payments and virtual economy analytics. The company has raised approximately $6 million in two funding rounds.

More About: acquisition, Google, jambool, social good, virtual currency

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Facebook has entered the net neutrality debate with a statement critical of the key provisions of Google and Verizon’s net neutrality proposal.

Ever since we found out Google and Verizon were in talks over net neutrality’s future, the web has been awash with an endless stream of opinions, most of them expressing outrage. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is not happy, and neither is the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Facebook, it seems, isn’t a fan of the Google-Verizon proposal as it’s currently written. Here is the company’s statement (emphasis ours):

“Facebook continues to support principles of net neutrality for both landline and wireless networks. Preserving an open Internet that is accessible to innovators — regardless of their size or wealth — will promote a vibrant and competitive marketplace where consumers have ultimate control over the content and services delivered through their Internet connections.”

There are several sections of the proposal that trouble a lot of people, but the biggest sticking point is the exclusion of wireless networks from net neutrality regulations. Verizon and Google exclude it from their proposal for wired connections because “imposition of too many rules up front would not allow us to optimize this network in a fashion that would supercharge the growth we’ve seen in the past.” Critics say that Google and Verizon are trying to protect their own interests, especially their highly profitable Android partnership.

Facebook’s statement doesn’t surprise us; the Google and Facebook are now at war, and allowing Google to define net neutrality on its own terms presents a grave threat to the social network’s business.

For now, expect more of these nuanced statements from all of the parties involved — that is, until the Google-Verizon proposal makes its way to Congress. That’s where you’ll find the real fireworks.

More About: facebook, fcc, Google, net neutrality, verizon

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A version of Gmail used by Google employees has been revealed in a screenshot included with a Chromium OS bug report, and the image reveals more than a half dozen changes to the Gmail most of us are using today.

The blog Google Operating System posted the image yesterday, and we’ve also featured it below. Note that Google Operating System originally posted it as two images — the top bar that says “report issues” and so on was its own image, so we’re not sure how it’s really oriented in relation to the rest of the stuff you see.

Also remember that this internal version of Gmail may differ from future public versions.

Savvy Gmail users immediately picked apart the screenshot looking for new features and interesting changes. Most notably, Mail, Contacts and Tasks have all been featured in the top left as the three pillars of the user experience. Right below those, you can see that “Compose Mail” is now an actual button, not just a text link. That’s simply an aesthetic change, but it’s an interesting choice regardless.

Following that theme, there are no longer text links to actions such as “Select All” or “Select None” — those appear to now exist under a textless drop-down box above the Inbox. Drop-down boxes are ubiquitous in general, actually. Note that the e-mail address at the top menu is accompanied by a drop-down box — could that be the Gmail account switcher that Google promised? We’ll all find eventually, I’m sure.

Look in the chat window and you’ll see a new “Call Phone” button. That might be Google Voice integration. You’ll also see two little buttons in the top-right corner of the Google Talk window; one of those could be a rejiggered settings menu, but it’s hard to tell for sure.

Do you see anything else interesting in this image? Let us know in the comments.

More About: chromium os, gmail, Google, image, pic, picture, screenshot

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Google has indicated it’s going to be working with developers on checkins for location-based applications through its Places API.

This spring, Google announced Places as a revamping of its local and local-business listings. Originally, we saw Places as a SEM/user review mechanism, perhaps a Yelp competitor.

However, with the recent preview of the Google Places API at Google I/O, the company showed developers a whole world of geographical, commercial and social information attached to each Place on its vast radar.

In a May blog post, Maps API Product Manager Thor Mitchell wrote, “Each Place Page consolidates together everything we know about a single Place, be it a business, point of interest, or geographical feature such as a city or neighbourhood. We believe that this unified concept of Places more accurately reflects the way that Maps users see the world, and are working to bring an awareness of Places to the Google Maps API.”

Based on developers’ interest in the Places API, Google is going to begin offering access to certain apps. Mitchell wrote today that while his team has seen “applications looking to show a user Places around them and applications looking to offer a search and browse experience for Places similar to that offered on Google Maps,” what intrigued the company most were the applications that offered a checkin function — easily one of the hottest features of present-day social media.

“We are going to focus initially on check-in applications,” Mitchell continued. “These are the applications that we feel the API currently caters to well, and we are excited to work with developers building these applications to understand their requirements, and ensure that we are offering them the best possible experience… We have now begun reaching out to developers who have expressed an interest in building checkin applications using the API, including those working on client applications for the Buzz API.”

We can’t wait to see who gets to work with the Places API and what kinds of apps they build. Devs, what do you expect to come from Google’s interest in checkins?

And what do you think this new direction bodes for Latitude? Could a better, Places-based app take its place as Google’s de facto location-based service?

More About: checkin, geolocation, Google, google places, lbs, location, places API

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It turns out that you can play the classic game Snake (especially popular on cell phones back in the day) at Google-owned YouTube by holding the left and up arrow keys on your keyboard while a video is playing or paused.

Once the game starts, you can direct a transparent snake around the video player with the arrow keys to gobble up dots that cause the snake to grow. Hitting the edge of the player or any part of your snake’s body will end the game.

The easter egg — just one in a long series of similar stunts from Google — was discovered by users last week. No one’s sure exactly when the game was added, but it must be recent because it only works on the new YouTube video player introduced in April. It doesn’t work with embeds, either, so you’ll have to go to YouTube’s website to try it out.

Previously, Google put a button on YouTube videos that played a World Cup-style vuvuzela sound. Google’s no stranger to playable games on its websites, either; the logo on the Google home page became a playable game of Pac-Man two months ago, supposedly costing society more than $120 million in productivity.

This video that was embedded at gaming blog Kotaku reveals the feature, but note that the creator’s claim that you must be in a “Gaming” category video to play Snake is incorrect. Otherwise, it’s a solid explanation.

[via The Next Web]

More About: easter egg, Google, online games, snake, video, video games, youtube

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Today, Google has announced the launch of the Google Buzz firehose, which will give developers access to all public activity published on Buzz via a single feed with real-time PubSubHubBub syndication.

Google said the firehose was their most-requested features from developers. We’re also guessing that Google’s been eating its own dogfood, since they just launched Buzz results in Google Social Search a couple weeks ago.

In the announcement post, Google highlighted the pretty and mostly useless We Feel Fine-esque Buzz Mood, an app that parses Buzz updates for emotion-related verbs then relays them to the viewer with snappy, slide-y animations.

Partners for the firehose launch include some familiar names in the real-time space; both Collecta and OneRiot have integrated the firehose into their real-time search results, and Boulder-based social data firm Gnip was also among the first companies to use the Buzz firehose.

Buzz might not be the biggest source of currently available social data, but adding its firehose to a wider mix of real-time social update data can help expand and refine and application’s results.

Google is also releasing a few new API features today; users’ comments, users’ links and share counts will now be available via their respective feeds.

What do you have to say: Will you be using the firehose API in any of your applications? What do you find interesting or exciting about this development?

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Reviews: Google

More About: api, developers, firehose, Google, google buzz, real-time

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A few months ago at the Google I/O conference, we were approached by Zach Steindler, a co-founder at Olark (a way to gain customer insight and sale better through live chat) who was raving about Google Analytics Annotations. He had such a great business case, we decided to let him rave here. Enjoy, and thanks Zach.

Making good business decisions is hard, and making the right one is even harder. At Google I/O I realized many people use Google Analytics but they aren’t familiar with the recent annotations feature that has helped us make smarter business decisions.

When we look at our Google Analytics, we don’t really care if our numbers are up or down; what we really want to know is why. This means asking a lot of questions, particularly questions about what happened when, like:

“How long has that ad trial been running?”
“When did we release that update to the website?”
“What happened after that last blog post?”

To answer these questions I might have to dig through e-mails, commit logs, and probably end up pestering my teammates for an hour while we try to figure out what happened when. But this is serious stuff; if our numbers went up 50% in a week, you better believe we want to know why so we can do more of it!

Annotations are exactly the tool we needed to answer these questions without having to pester teammates and dig through the past. If you don't know, basically, they allow you to add notes of what events happened on a particular day. These notes are then visible for the different views in Google Analytics, so you can see how the events impacted your page views, goals, or whatever else you are tracking.