When I was in school, my teacher would advise me always to make a diagram or flowchart of things I learnt, so I could understand and retain more. Making diagrams and charts is a great way to explain to your readers new ideas, trends and concepts emerging out of data.
Webmasters can create complex graphical charts and then embed them into their website by using Google Charts. It is a product on Google Code and basically useful to create charts from databases or data from Google Docs.
Just look up Image Chart Editor and view a host of different chart types you can select from.
Along with different types of charts, there is also the option of creating new charts from ground up. This gives a great amount of flexibility.
Once done, you can tweak the HTML code if you want, which can then be copied and entered on your website, so visitors can enjoy the diagram charts on your website.
Google Plus has the full backing of Google behind it and evidence of it is how many people have adopted it in its early stages. Google+ has raced to 10 millions users in 2 weeks. This landmark took Facebook 852 days while it took Twitter 780 days.
Here is a nice presentation Leon Håland on Google+ brings out the contrast between the initial growth chart of Google+ compared to Twitter and Facebook. What is more incredible is that Google+ is invite based and not open to everyone.
This proves that Google+ is being accepted and looks like they have finally a winning social product on their hands. It might be interesting to see the strategies adopted by other companies who might be threatened by Google+.
What are your views on this phenomenal growth of Google+? Do drop in your comments.
When two giants end up fighting the earth shakes. It can lead to a lot of upheaval and there can be a few unexpected casualties. In the tech world these giants are Facebook and Google with is new social product Google Plus.
Google Plus seems to have been created with a lot of care and a single-minded focus on a goal. That goal being to get Google a popular and first class social product.
Google Plus is powered and made more potent thanks to all their various products. Here are 5 online services or companies that could be seriously hurt in the future with the rise of Google+.
Google Plus has something called Hangouts. This allows group video chatting for free. This stands in stark contrast with Skype which charges for group video chatting.
Skype is backed by Microsoft and unless Microsoft does something spectacular, there is a good chance that Google+ will gobble up Skype users slowly but surely.
#2. Yahoo
Yahoo it might be argued is going downhill considering they have gone from being a $100 billion company down to $22 Billion over the last decade. But its demise could be hasten with Google Plus which might challenge their popular services like Flickr.
Picasa never took off but now as part of Google+, it has got a new lifeline and might dislodge Flickr. With a coming together of all Google Products in Google+, might simply be too much for Yahoo to survive.
#3. Linked In
Linked In is a professional network and has great advantage over Facebook and other social networks because in it’s niche there is none like it. Linked In is a must for anyone who is a professional as it becomes your professional social network.
Google+ and its rise is also promoting the idea of Google Profiles. Not many people took interest in creating Google Profiles but it automatically comes to the fore with Google Plus.
If Google+ becomes a place for putting up professional resumes, then there is a good chance it might challenge Linked In over the next few years.
#4. Twitter
Twitter is a gold-mine of real-time reactions from literally millions of people around the world. It has become a news source for many. The big plus for it is that is so easy to use with mobile phone, which has driven its growth exponentially. Google+ is also targeting mobile users aggressively and also follows the Twitter model of separation of following and followers (unlike Facebook where both contacts have to accept each other as ‘Friends’).
The early rise of Google+ might not wean away people from Facebook as much as it could from Twitter.
#5. Facebook
The big fish of social network, Facebook may not become extinct or may not be defeated by Google Plus anytime soon. But last year, Facebook has tried to branch out into messaging. This was feared to be Gmail killer and Google must have felt nervous.
With Google+, the issue is settled. Gmail will not be threatened by Facebook as it will have to keep improving essentially as a social product to stave off competition from Google+.
This might be good news as Facebook was taking its users for granted with privacy and design changes. Next time with Google+ around, it might be that easy at all. Also competition is always good for the end users, that is us.
What are you views on Google Plus? Will it seriously challenge these companies? Do drop in your comments.
Google Plus is really in the ascendancy, so much so that almost everyday we are publishing a post on it. One of the nifty ideas with Google+ is that it has posting options and comments like Facebook, while you can follow and be followed independently like on Twitter.
Google+ allows users to organize their contracts into Circles and most users give it names like ‘School Friends’, Work Friends’ etc.
But in reality we organize people into lists on social media so that we can filter their updates. These lists usually mean something completely different from their actual names.
John Jantsch, has a funny take on what these actual names of Google Circles are with an image.
So do you have similarly named Circles on Google+? Do drop in your comments.
Yesterday, I wrote on how Google is prioritising their focus on Google Plus by culling some not so popular or productive projects. Google Labs will soon be shutdown and it will be joined by Google Toolbar. What is surprising about this announcement, is that Google Toolbar has a few fans out there.
Google maintains that a lot of features are already provided within Firefox 5 which were included in Google Toolbar and hence it will stop support for Firefox 4 onward. This means new Firefox versions will not have Google Toolbar supported on it.
Strangely Google makes no mention of Internet Explorer users who also will be affected.
Google’s obvious Chrome pitch!
I think somewhere down the line, Google is betting on its own browser and probably expects people who used Google Toolbar to move over to Chrome instead and use the many extensions which makes having a toolbar irrelevant. Firefox is pushing new updates faster than ever but it is not really exciting the casual user.
This is a clear sign that Google is on a real clean-up drive to prioritize talent and time on Google Plus and other core products. I wonder which Google service is next up for culling? Will Orkut get dumped? In all probably sometime in the future. What are your views? Do drop in your comments.
Sometimes even if you are a very large company with billions of dollars in the bank, you need to cut out some fun and popular services to concentrate on something that is becoming popular and possibly profitable. Google released a lot of nice but still in beta products in Google Labs.
These services are different form the labs sections of Google Reader or Gmail and might not be finding as many takers. So Google has decided to shut down Google Labs.
Last week we explained that we’re prioritizing our product efforts. As part of that process, we’ve decided to wind down Google Labs.
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Disappointing decision!
Personally I liked looking up various services on Google Labs. Some of Labs products like Google Transliteration were quite useful. Hopefully Google will find a way to keep these services in a different format. This is not something new for Google who have in the past even done away with the much fancied Google Wave when it did not make any waves.
Do you like the idea of Google shutting down Labs project so they can concentrate on Google Plus ? I find it disappointing but probably a good move considering how Google+ is growing. Do drop in your comments.
I have used it and I found it quite useful to stay in touch with what my friends are sharing on Google+. It also is a nice way to quickly type in an update, without the need of using my browser.
Download the software, and install it. It will need your Windows OS to have .NET Framework 4.0 installed on it. If your computer does not have .NET 4.0, get offline downloader here.
Once installed, type in your email address and get the License Code for registering the software.
After the Registration Code is inserted the GClient for Google+ can be seen in an icon in the system tray.
I have not used this desktop application for more than a few days, but it is quite useful if you are addicted to Google+. In case you still prefer using your browser then look up these 10 great app and extensions.
Thinking that you’re a power user of Google services? Think again, I might be able to prove you wrong. 😉
We know, Google is much more than a search engine and many of its services are overlooked by many people. Here are the top 6 Google services you may not be knowing about but are pretty nifty.
#1. What do you love?
Previously mentioned WDYL (What do you love) shows results from different Google products for your search query. This one is extremely useful when you’re researching a topic or a person. Get started by entering a search query, you get results from Youtube, Google Blog search, Maps, Translate and many more Google products.
PostRank is an aggregator of social engagement data, it has been acquired by Google recently. PostRank also has developed many widgets and plugins, one such plugin is PostRank extension for Chrome. This extension filters out the most popular posts from the normal ones, it uses social statistics (Tweets, Facebook shares etc) to determine the quality of a post.
Currently available only in USA, Google Offers helps you in finding the best deals in your area. All you have to do is, just subscribe to Google Offers and you get notified of amazing deals in your area. If you’re interested in any offer, you can buy the voucher via Google Checkout, print it and use it.
Photovine is a smart phone app made by Google which promises to make photo sharing more fun. It is still not released but you can always ask for an invite.
With Google Wallet, you can transform your smart phone into a wallet. Google is currently working on smart phones with inbuilt card readers, so the only plastic you need to carry is your phone. The card reader scans your credit card and stores virtual version of it in the micro chip of the mobile, so the next time you shop online, you can just tap and pay.
A Google a Day is a fun game where you get a new puzzle everyday and you need to use your search skills to solve it. Geeks love it. Checkout Inside Search if you’re looking for some Google search tips.
Google Plus has sparked off a good number of third-party extensions and online apps. As more and more people adopt Google+, we might find it a little over-whelming to follow many public profiles. A good idea would be to have a RSS feed of that particular Google+ profile, so we can easily follow it via Google Reader or other RSS Readers.
In came to know in a blog post, about plusfeed.appspot which allows creating RSS of Google+ profiles.
Creating RSS Feeds of Google+ Profiles
First look up the Google+ profile you are looking to visit. Every profile has a unique ID number which is also part of the profile’s URL.
Just copy that number as shown in the image below. I decided to follow Larry Page (Founder and CEO of Google) on Google+.
Now append that number to plusfeed.appspot.com/ so it looks something like plusfeed.appspot.com/106189723444098348646.
This will create a RSS feed of the page, all that is left to do is to add the URL into your Google Reader and you get a feed of the Google+ profile’s posts.
Google found out recently, they received some unusual search traffic. On investigating it further they realised that it was because of malware which infected computers, sends traffic to Google through a number of proxies.
To combat it, Google is proactively showing an alert to affected users (like the image below). This will warn users to connect carry out a system check and clean up, to make their computers safe.
What to do if your computer is infected?
If you see such an alert why looking up Google search page, make sure you update your anti-virus software and also run a scan to clean any infections.
When I was in school, my teacher would advise me always to make a diagram or flowchart of things I learnt, so I could understand and retain more. Making diagrams and charts is a great way to explain to your readers new ideas, trends and concepts emerging out of data.
