The website, which has been in the decline for the past few months, will see a lot of new features and a drastic change in the looks. The “refreshing new look” of Orkut is based on the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) infrastructure and will include the ability to discover friends automatically, video chat integrated with Google Talk, ability to upload photos in bulk very quickly, add/view photos and videos in-line, and a more interactive activity stream, says Google.

The activity stream looks like a status message update functionality on the lines of Twitter and Facebook. Other new additions include video testimonials and of course applications, which seems to have not taken off much — especially when compared with Facebook. The aforementioned activity stream has the option for comments as well - quite similar to the Facebook update feature - even visually!

Orkut, in its previous avatar, was notorious for its insecurity. The new version claims to be a lot safer and there will be customized mobile versions too for the iPhone, S60 and J2ME platforms. Orkut also sees a neater integration with other Google services with the typical “Google bar” at the top of the site. This allows quick access to other Google services. Until now, Orkut looked like a Google outcast with no links to other Google services on the homepage - with the only Google indication being the integrated Gtalk and the occasional Chrome advertisements.

The new Orkut is being rolled out to a select few users initially. These selected few can invite others to experience the new Orkut. Orkut has a community for those who wish to take a preview of the new version and where you can list yourselves to be invited. Click here for more on that.

The new version of Orkut with the new features certainly looks promising. However, will this be enough to stop the Facebook juggernaut that is taking over India? We will soon find out!

Source:Techtree.com

Google’s blog announces that Google Maps Navigation will be available in Android 2.0. The first mobile phone that comes with Android 2.0 is Motorola Droid. “This new feature comes with everything you’d expect to find in a GPS navigation system, like 3D views, turn-by-turn voice guidance and automatic rerouting. But unlike most navigation systems, Google Maps Navigation was built from the ground up to take advantage of your phone’s Internet connection.” And unlike other navigation systems, it’s free.

For now, Google Maps Navigation is only available for the US, but it will certainly be available in other countries when Google collects enough mapping data.

Companies that provide navigation solutions aren’t afraid that they’ll lose their customers. “There’s a lot of content included in our applications that gets updated on an ongoing basis–and that costs money. Millions of customers use our service because of its reliability, ease of use and additional features. People are willing to pay a premium to have something work all the time on their phones,” said a TeleNav spokesperson.

Source: Googlesystem.blogspot.com

Specifically, the rather startling news from Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa that Google has ditched PageRank from Webmaster Tools.

“We’ve been telling people for a long time that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it’s the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true,” states Moskwa. “We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it.”

Now, for SEO reasons or for ranking in Google’s index, PageRank has long been eunuchified by Google. However, even missing a few dangling bits, history has shown us, eunuchs still wheel tremendous power. PageRank is no different.

Regardless of what Google wants to happen, PageRank is still extremely important to anyone marketing on the web, especially if you’re selling SEO services or operating a web business. Try selling SEO services when that little green bar on your site is pointing to PR0 or worst yet, pointing to a solid gray bar.

Obtaining a high PR7 or PR8 simply means more business and revenues… regardless of how Google is or is not using PageRank. People know how to count and they learned long ago, a ten is a lot more than a big fat zero.

Placed against a PR1 site, a PR8 will win more respect in the eyes of potential clients and can produce enormous profits for the site owner and we won’t even mention the still widely practiced habit of selling links, which Google is desperately trying to stop. Total and full elimination of PageRank would be an honest start but it will still be an uphill, if not an unwinnable battle, for Google to fully eliminate link selling.

Even with my modest sites, I have turned down a small fortune by not selling text links on any of my sites. When I had a PR6 site instead of a PR4 - those link requests were nearly doubled. So one can easily understand Google’s position and the need to downplay PageRank, if they want to put even a small dent in all this link selling and buying, which is still running rampant on today’s web.

PageRank is Google’s creation, and unless they remove it fully from their system and the Google toolbar, then PageRank still Counts. Actually, in the whole scheme of marketing your website on the net, PageRank counts big time. And in more ways than one.

There are several reasons why you shouldn’t count PageRank out.

For years Google has been downplaying the important of PageRank and states it’s only one of about 200 ranking factors which determines how Google ranks its index for keywords. Obtaining top organic rankings for popular lucrative keywords in Google simply means money in the bank. Actually, even a movement of only one or two places on those first page SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) can make a major difference to any online marketer’s bottom line.

Now while you can have a lower PR number and still rank above other higher PR pages for your chosen keywords, I have even had many times when my PR drops but my actual SERPs rankings in Google goes up, mainly due to building related relevant backlinks. So PageRank counts little towards your keyword rankings but it can’t be totally dismissed.

Mainly because, even if PR is just one ranking factor, in close competitive keyword battles (I am presently fighting tooth and nail for some very choice keywords) just one ranking factor such as high PR can make the difference of whether or not you get to the top spot. Big dogs are still jumping and for those of us who know how to count, getting a number one spot in Google makes all the difference in the world.

Not only because Google controls roughly 80% of all search engine traffic, but more importantly Google has established unmatched credibility and brand recognition in the eyes of potential customers visiting your site. Web users trust Google. Web users look to Google for guidance and direction. Web users believe what Google is telling them. In the online world, rightly or wrongly, perception is everything.

Source: Site-reference.com

With Social Search, Google finds relevant public content from your friends and contacts and highlights it for you at the bottom of your search results. When I do a simple query for [new york], Google Social Search includes my friend’s blog on the results page under the heading “Results from people in your social circle for New York.” I can also filter my results to see only content from my social circle by clicking “Show options” on the results page and clicking “Social.”

All of the info in Social Search is publicly available, but they highlight info based on their (massive data collection) information about you from:

• Google profile contacts
• Gmail contacts, chats and groups
• People you’re following on FriendFeed or Twitter
• Feeds in your Google Reader

Source : http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009/10/

“Chrome has been doing very well for us,” said Sundar Pichai, VP of product management at Google, in a public interview with at the Web 2.0 Summit on Thursday.

As a point of comparison, Firefox, initially released in late 2004, has over 300 million active users.

Pichai said that Google’s goals for Chrome — speed, simplicity, and security — have resonated really well with users. He also said that Linux and Mac versions are coming soon.

To the suggestion that Chrome OS — the operating system that Google is developing around its Chrome browser — is on a collision course with Windows, Pichai responded that the world is entering a period of tremendous innovation in personal computing. “Browsers are suddenly hot again and I think operating systems are too,” he said, referring both to Chrome OS and Android, Google’s operating system for mobile devices.

“There haven’t been other choices for a long time,” he said. “Most operating systems today were designed before the Web existed.”

“The goal with both our efforts is to get great free open source software stacks out there,” he said.

In the case of Chrome OS, everything is built around the browser. “Web apps are our core platform,” said Pichai. “You write something that works on the browser, it works on Chrome OS.”

“We describe Chrome OS as Chrome on top of Linux, with a new windowing system,” said Pichai.

But Pichai said the Chrome OS computing paradigm differs from the Linux experience.

“As a user, you don’t install software, you don’t maintain software,” said Pichai.

That reflects Google’s focus on simplicity and Google’s view that the technical burden of PC maintenance is something the world would be better off without.

As Pichai put it, if your car did what computers do today, stopping frequently for adjustment and tuning, drivers wouldn’t accept it.

Nonetheless, Pichai expects Chrome OS will be able to support browser extensions without the maintenance and security problems that come with user-installed software. Chrome extensions, he said, run in their own process and can be killed, without any access to native system resources.

Pichai said that people are spending more and more time on the Web and the trend is continuing.

“The browser is what matters,” he said.

Source: Informationweek.com

Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online services group, said, “We are going to get access to all of the public Twitter information in real time.” Bing will also get the Facebook status feed at a later date. Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer, Facebook, said, “We are giving Bing a feed of data made open to everyone. No money exchanged hands. We are not trying to make money on data.”

Bing Twitter search comprehends text of a Twitter update and any shortened links tagged with it. Domain names are displayed after the shortened links mentioned in the Twitter update. However, Bing Twitter search throws up results after indexing only a week’s Twitter updates. Protected and deleted Twitter updates won’t be displayed into Bing Twitter search since it shows up results after indexing data of public Twitter Feed.

So, if there’s a Twitter update: Apple updates Mac Mini Lineup http://bit.ly/crLDU, Bing Twitter will show it up as “Apple updates Mac Mini Lineup http://bit.ly/crLDU (techtree.com)”.

Back in April, Google and Twitter were reportedly involved in preliminary discussion over real-time search and product search. Marissa Mayer, vice president of Search Products and User Experience, stated in a blog post on the Official Google Blog that Google’s search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data. Basically, Google is finally bending to include indexed data for real-time search.

We know not what’s going on in the minds of Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone. Twitter had acquired Summize.com and integrated the search engine to show it as Twitter Search. A few months down the lane, we’d get to see real-time content to seep into mainstream search. With this integration and more people joining Twitter, one major issue has been burning since a while - spam. Not to worry about it anymore since Twitter has already pulled up its socks to fight spam.

Source :Techtree.com

The type of mobile phone a user employs dictates what the different blogs will look like, the company said in a blog post. A modified version of WPtouch will be displayed on phones with “modern Web browsers like those on the iPhone and Android phones,” the company wrote. A second, unnamed theme from an old version of Wordpress Mobile Edition will be displayed on all other mobile devices.

The themes will be displayed automatically, regardless of the themes used for normal browsing.

According to Wordpress, those who access Wordpress.com blogs from their iPhone or Android-based devices will be able to access the particular blog’s “posts, pages, and archives.” WPtouch will also support AJAX-based “commenting and post-loading.” Header images will be scaled to fit the device’s screen.

Those accessing blogs on other phones won’t be treated to all the bells and whistles. According to the company, those visitors will see a simple page that focuses mainly on loading blog content as quickly as possible.

The decision to automatically display two themes was rooted in the success of mobile devices, Wordpress said in the blog post. So far, the company said, mobile devices have helped its Wordpress.com blogs generate 60 million page views per month. But content was loading slowly or, in some cases, not at all. By automatically displaying these two themes, Wordpress can limit those issues.

The key to every affiliate marketer’s goal is to select worthy and profitable affiliate programs and to employ excellent promotion methods in advertising or the selling of the products to customers. So, look into the following tips and propositions on how to best select the affiliate platform that is right for you and your niche.

Information is needed to make the appropriate choices and it helps when you have already focused your search to a distinct niche, which might be the theme of your website (if you already have one). In this way, you will point yourself at a program that perfectly matches your niche, wants and resources that you are offering. You can become a member of affiliate forums and join a few SEO Newsletters so that you can discover some tips and get help from seasoned affiliate marketers and SEO Experts for free, but be aware enough to study their ideas before you buy into them.

The Internet allows you to find affiliate marketing program groups which are ideal sites to look for choices as this is the place merchants and affiliate marketers like you meet. The merchants advertise their available affiliate programs to interested affiliates some as high as 75% but the norm would be affiliate programs that pay 50% or more where you can join that network for free such as Clickbank, Paydotcom or Commission Junction.

Source: Affiliatexfiles.com

Search options, as the name suggests, will help users get more refined search results and will also help the search engine throw more relevant search results for you. The options are currently available only for users in U.S.– that too if you happen to own an iPhone, an Android or a WebOS laden device. You can also filter your search results by “location” - as in forums and reviews, or by time (the last 24 hours, the last 7 days and so on).

All you need to do to check these features out is to go to Google.com from one of the devices running on the afforementioned platforms. Oh and you need to be somewhere in U.S. as well. Other souls on lesser endowed operating systems will have to wait for this to arrive on your phones. S60 users need not worry. You can open the web version of Google and play around with the “advance search” option anyway, if you’re the impatient kind.

Google, the giant search engine, is famous for its doodle on special occasions. Today Google is celebrating the patent anniversary of bar code and saying thanks to Barcodes. Barcode is something that accompanies us everywhere, everything that we buy, consume, read has a barcode inscribed on it. Not only this but also the tracking of item movement, even of rental cars, airline luggage, nuclear waste, mail, couriers and parcels also done with the help of barcodes. Even researchers also use tiny barcodes to be placed on to the insects to track their habits.

7th October is the day when barcode got patented in the year 1952. That means today barcode inventor got the sole rights to his invention.

Google has placed a Google doodle of barcode today. Barcode is a Code consisting of a series of vertical bars of variable width that are scanned by a laser (released through a barcode reader) printed on consumer product packages to identify the item for a computer that provides the price and registers inventory information.

A rectangular mark with black and white colored parallel lines having space in between is the Google logo of the day. Barcode can be read with the help of device that can scan bar codes on products and convert the information into a digital format for processing by a computer. This device is known as bar code reader.

Google usually amaze people by celebrating important days and reminding people about the significance of particular dates. On 2nd October Google has given homage to the ‘Father of the Nation’ Mohandas KaramChand Gandhi on his 140th birth anniversary.

People who have previously featured in Google doodle are, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Confucius, Luciano Pavarotti, Dr Seuss, Andy Warhol, Claude Money, Louis Braille, Pablo Picasso, Vinc ent van Gogh – and Michael Jackson.

Google has marked the 11th anniversary of the company by adding one more ‘l’ in the word google, i.e. ‘Googlle’ where double‘ll’ represented 11.