Google on Friday confirmed that it has acquired Slide, an online entertainment company focused on virtual communities.

The acquisition may help Google boost its social networking aspirations and fuels speculation that it is developing a social networking platform centered on games.

In a blog post, Google said that with the Slide acquisition, it is investing in more ways to add social networking features to Google services. Gmail, Docs, Blogger, Picasa and YouTube already have “strong social elements,” David Glazer, an engineering director at Google, wrote in the blog post.

Slide develops virtual community applications used on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. On its website, Slide says its goal is to build communities that allow virtual goods to be created and distributed.

Google did not reveal the price of the acquisition. Earlier this week, TechCrunch, which first reported the deal, said it was worth US$182 million while The New York Times later put the value at $228 million.

A variety of recent rumors have suggested that Google is pursuing social networking opportunities around gaming. Reports have suggested that Google invested in Zynga, the company that built Farmville, the popular Facebook game. Other reports say that Google has been talking to gaming companies to help launch a social networking platform around games.

Some past attempts by Google to break into social networking have floundered. Google Buzz, which lets Gmail users share status updates, photos and videos, met with an uproar when it launched. That’s because users quickly discovered that their lists of followers, automatically generated based on people they e-mail, were publicly shared with others. Google changed its privacy policies in response.

Google’s Orkut has been popular in some regions, notably Brazil, but hasn’t been broadly successful at the level of MySpace and Facebook.

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Google and Rumblefish are set to announce a new version of an existing deal that allows licensed music to be used on YouTube.

The companies are planning a press conference for June 29 with Rumblefish founder and CEO Paul Anthony and an unnamed YouTube executive, according to an e-mail pitch received by CNET. Representatives for Rumblefish and YouTube declined to comment further on their plans, but it appears they are likely set to expand their current relationship.

Rumblefish is a music-licensing company that cuts deals with musicians and companies looking for background music to use in marketing campaigns or products. Google started offering Rumblefish music on YouTube in 2008 to give its users a legal option for using music in their videos.

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Web search engines make our lives easier: They connect us with what we’re searching for in a matter of seconds, and sometimes they bring us to places we didn’t even know we were looking for.

But they can also teach us a lot about ourselves, as more than half of adult internet users already know.

About 57 percent of adult internet users in the United States said they have entered their name into a search engine to assess their digital reputation, according to a new Pew Research Center study “Reputation Management and Social Media.”

That’s a significant increase since 2006, when only 47 percent of adult internet users said they had looked their name up on a search engine. The findings show “reputation management has now become a defining feature of online life,” the study says.

This probably doesn’t come as a surprise to many, considering a new story about Facebook’s privacy settings surfacing each day.

And the concern about people’s digital reputations will most likely continue to grow as posting and sharing information over the internet becomes more and more widespread.

The study also found that young adults are more apt to “restrict what they share” and manage their online reputations more closely than older internet users. This is “contrary to the popular perception that younger users embrace a laissez-faire attitude about their online reputations,” wrote Mary Madden, a senior research specialist.

The Pew Research Center study, which took place by phone between August 18 and September 14, sampled 2,253 adults 18 and older. The margin of error is 2.3 percentage points.

Have you ever Googled yourself? Were you surprised by what you found?

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 Google kicked off the first day of its I/O developer conference Wednesday by opening up Wave to the general public, providing a preview of a Chrome Web store, introducing Google Apps Engine for Business, and unveiling a few new APIs.

Executives also talked up the benefits of HTML5.

Wave, which Google debuted at last year’s I/O conference, is a collaboration tool that has been in invite-only public beta mode since September. Invites are now open to everyone at wave.google.com, and Google Apps administrators can now enable Wave for all users at no extra cost, said Lars Rasmussen, Google’s software engineering manager.

Rasmussen acknowledged that early adopters of Wave might have found that it was not ready for primetime, but said Wednesday that “now is the time to come back.” Google has “put a lot of work into basic usability things,” he said, like e-mail notifications, navigating to unread pieces of a Wave, as well as tutorials and templates for new users.

Sundar Pichai, Google’s vice president of product management, also provided a sneak peak at a Chrome Web Store, a Web-based app store.

When live, the Web Store will appear as a new tab within Chrome, Pichai said. The store will feature a gallery of apps, which can then be added to a customized tab. Pichai demoed an HTML5-based version of Twitter client TweetDeck that utilizes Google’s notification and geo-location APIs. He also showed off a Flash-based version of the popular mobile game Plants vs. Zombies for the Chrome Web Store.

“Apps in the Chrome Web Store can be built on standard Web technologies like Flash and we will support all of them in the Chrome Web Store,” Pichai said.

Google is expected to release a Google Chrome OS-based netbook later this year.

On that front, Google also announced WebM, an open Web media format project. As part of the effort, “we are fully open sourcing VP8, [a video codec], under a royalty-free license,” Pichai said. “Video is one of the most important forms of communication on the Web, [and] we think video should have a great, free, open alternative as well.”

WebM also includes Vorbis, an already open-source audio codec, and a container format based on a subset of the Matroska media container. Supporters include Mozilla, Opera, and Adobe, which appeared Wednesday to announce Adobe HTML5 for Dreamweaver. A developer preview can be found at www.webmproject.org.

The effort is part of Google’s August 2009 acquisition of On2 Technologies, a creator of high-quality video compression technology, Pichai said.

On the API front, Google also announced some updates to its APIs. The Google Maps API v3 is now enterprise-ready and part of the Google Maps API Premier, the company introduced new ways to optimize AdSense on your Web site, a new version of the Feed API, and a new Google Font API.

Google also launched Google App Engine for businesses.

Google designed its App Engine for Business for enterprise customers, building the service on top of a 99.9 percent uptime service-level agreement, centralized administration tools, and security. But the pricing is set at an SMB level: $8 per user, per application, per month – capped at $1,000 per application per month. It is still in preview, and will be available later this year.

Google also announced an agreement with VMware to connect its developer tools with the VMware SpringSource tool suite to quickly build Java applications.

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It wasn’t much of a secret, really, but the sleek, Android-powered Nexus One is finally here, and yes: you can buy it directly from Google, over the Web. As expected, the unlocked, no-contract Nexus One will cost you a pretty penny, but subsidized versions will also be available from T-Mobile and … what’s this, Verizon Wireless? You betcha.
Announced this afternoon during a press conference at Google’s Mountain View headquarters, the Nexus One (designed by phone maker HTC under Google’s strict supervision) is available for purchase right now on Google’s new Web store rather than through a carrier—a twist that some observers see as a paradigm shift in the wireless market, where the balance of power is usually tipped in the carrier’s favor.

Then again, Google is sticking with the practice of charging an arm and a leg for an unlocked, no-contract handset. If you want it unlocked for use with any SIM card and without a contract, the phone will set you back a cool $530. Here in the U.S., you’ll be able to use the Nexus One with either an AT&T or T-Mobile SIM card; that said, AT&T users will only be able to tap into the carrier’s EDGE data network, while T-Mobile customers can use both EDGE and 3G.

Another option is to opt for a traditional two-year contract with T-Mobile, which brings the price of the Nexus One down to $180. That detail has already been well leaked; one of the surprises Tuesday, however, was the news that Verizon Wireless in the U.S. (which currently has the Android-powered Motorola Droid) and Vodafone in Europe are also on board with the Nexus One, with versions of the handset for those networks due in the spring. Interesting. (I should note, though, that the current unlocked Nexus One will only work on GSM-based networks, not CDMA carriers like Verizon or Sprint; I’m assuming that the eventual Nexus One for Verizon will be a CDMA phone.)

If you’ve been following all the rumors over the past few weeks about the Nexus One, few of the hardware details revealed by Google on Tuesday will come as a surprise. Yep, the Nexus One is slim and trim, alright, measuring about 0.45 inches thick and weighing in at a relatively light 4.6 ounces, and as predicted, it’ll come with a speedy 1GHz “Snapdragon” processor under the hood, a five-megapixel camera with an LED flash, Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth, a slot for microSD memory expansion, and a standard 3.5mm jack for headsets. Missing in action: a slide-out keypad and “multitouch” for the Web browser (for “pinching” or “zooming” Web pages).

Also on board the Nexus One: the latest version of Android (version 2.1, to be precise), which adds a series of interface enhancements, more home screens (five, up from three), live news and weather widgets, “live” wallpaper (which, as demonstrated during Google’s press conference, might feature a forest scene with falling leaves and water that ripples when at your touch), and even built-in voice recognition for any text field on the phone (meaning you can simply speak rather than type out a text message).

Now, I haven’t personally seen the Nexus One yet, but the bloggers at Engadget have, and their praise is, well … somewhat guarded. No question, they say, the Nexus One is a sleek, sexy, and speedy handset, but the bloggers conclude that the much-vaunted 2.1 version of Android doesn’t look all that different from the Droid’s version of Android. Also, while the Nexus One is “fast,” says Engadget, it’s “not so much of a leap up from the Droid.”

So yes … it sounds like the big news with the Nexus One is the way in which it’s being sold, not so much the handset itself (although the hardware certainly does sound impressive). But while I’m pleased that Google is selling the Nexus One unlocked out of the gate, the unsubsidized $530 price tag is awfully steep.

In any case, that’s the scoop; if you’re interested in more details about the Nexus One, you can check out Google’s site right here. Nexus One

So, show of hands: Who’s interested in snapping up the unlocked Nexus One?

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Google’s Android mobile OS is showing slow growth in Western Europe since its launch, according to analysts.

Noted analyst firm IDC has stated that while Android’s market share has grown in this region, from 4.2 per cent to 5.4 per cent in the July- September period, consumers are still shying away.

“Consumers steer clear of Google’s OS and sell-out is below everyone’s expectations. Consumers recognize the Google brand, but still do not understand what Android is,” IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo.

Lack of awareness

“The lack of devices available didn’t help to raise awareness, though this is expected to change, with more handsets from LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and other vendors hitting the market soon.”

It’s worth noting that Android is still pretty nascent compared to other operating systems – it’s barely a year from release, and in relative terms, a 1.2 per cent increase in three months can be interpreted in a number of ways.

However, the number of ‘headline’ handsets has been minimal, with the Hero the main phone consumers will be familiar with. Android is still also early in the development stage, meaning elements consumers take for granted in other phones, such as full Bluetooth support, aren’t added until later in the development cycle.

Symbian – the operating system used for years by Nokia in its smartphones and more recently in Samsung and Sony Ericsson models – has 48 per cent of the market in Western Europe, but many predict this to decline as other competitors raise their game.

Windows Mobile is still the mainstay of the business market too, and although the iPhone and Android handsets are growing, it will take a larger range of more compelling devices to properly take on the established players and move Android from ‘Geek Chic’ to a genuine contender.

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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.–Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo may be tough competitors when it comes to Internet software and services, but they are putting their differences aside to build a developer community to tackle bigger picture problems like saving lives in emergencies.

The companies have joined with NASA, the World Bank, and PR agency SecondMuse to organize the first-ever Random Hacks of Kindness event, which was held at a warehouse space-cum community center called Hacker Dojo this weekend. For two days, coders worked on ways to use technology to help solve real-world problems, such as how people can get information and find each other during disasters.

 The event came about after representatives from Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo attended a Crisis Camp conference for emergency and disaster relief groups in Washington, D.C. in May. The technologists decided that they would join forces to create a community of developers to build tools to help emergency workers.

Developers worked on a dozen or so tools that could help disaster and emergency workers in times of crisis. Several tools took advantage of social media sites, like Twitter, and SMS for information sharing. One project envisioned using laptops, routers, mobile devices, USB keys and Wi-Fi to create a mesh network for times when normal networks are down.

Several projects explored the use of maps, including one group that built a widget that allows a user to click on a point in a map to have the coordinates automatically inserted into a message that can then be posted to multiple social networks at once via the HelloTXT service.

The first-place prize went to a group primarily from NASA that worked on a mobile notification app that can be used when regular cellular networks are so bogged down people can’t make phone calls. Using the “I’m OK” app, people can easily notify friends and family members that they are safe via SMS by clicking one button. The “I’m OK” message is then instantly distributed to everyone a user has designated on a pre-set contact list.

Separately, NASA coders have created a GeoCam tool that was used by people fighting California fires earlier this year to place photos of burn areas that were taken by GPS-enabled cell phones on maps so workers can see what damage is like in specific locations.

In addition to training AMES Research Center employees to be first responders in disasters, NASA wants to offer developers use of the satellite and other earth science data collected by its space crafts, which comes to about four terabytes per day, said Robert Schingler, a project manager in the office of center director at NASA Ames research center at nearby Moffett Field. NASA also has tools to analyze the data, which provide information about things like sea surface temperatures, ice sheet activity, and aerosols in the upper atmosphere, he said.

“We’ve got 40 years of data,” Schingler said. But, NASA needs a good application programming interface (API) so developers can make better use of it, he said. Meanwhile, the tools developed at Random Hacks of Kindness events could be used by workers at the World Bank and other agencies.

“It’s a perfect opportunity to mobilize the technology community to work on issues such as sustainable development and disaster relief,” said Emma Phillips, a consultant in disaster risk management and sustainable development at the World Bank. “This is a first step in building community, and bringing together the public and private sectors for a common goal.”

The next Random Hacks of Kindness event will be early next year in Washington, D.C.

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Google’s Chrome OS project, first announced in July, will become available for download within a week, we’ve heard from a reliable source. Google previously said to expect an early version of the OS in the fall.

What can we expect? Driver support will likely be a weak point. We’ve heard at various times that Google has a legion of engineers working on the not so glamorous task of building hardware drivers. And we’ve also heard conflicting rumors that Google is mostly relying on hardware manufacturers to create those drivers. Whatever the truth, and it’s likely in between, having a robust set of functioning drivers is extremely important to Chrome OS’s success. People will want to download this to whatever computer they use and have it just work.

We expect Google will be careful with messaging around the launch, and endorse a small set of devices for installation. EEE PC netbooks, for example, may be one set of devices that Google will say are ready to use Chrome OS. There will likely be others as well, but don’t expect to be able to install it on whatever laptop or desktop machine you have from day one. Google has previously said they are working with Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba on the project.

We’ve seen convincing and not so convincing screenshots of Chrome OS over the last several months. The good news is the speculation is about to end, and you can try it out yourself. If you have one of the supported devices, that is.

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Google’s Caffeine initiative to perk up search results is leaving the sandbox.

First revealed as a “secret project” in early August, Caffeine is intended to speed up search results and improve their accuracy. Google’s Webmaster Central blog at the time described Caffeine as “the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions.”

A Caffeine Web page had been set up as a developer preview test site asking people to try out the new feature and offer their feedback. But as spotted by Mashable.com, the developer information has been taken down and replaced with a note from Google, pegging Caffeine a success and briefly describing the next phase.

Based on the success we’ve seen, we believe Caffeine is ready for a larger audience. Soon we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data center. This sandbox is no longer necessary and has been retired, but we appreciate the testing and positive input that webmasters and publishers have given.

Caffeine won’t change the look or feel of Google’s popular search engine but will work under the hood to improve its performance, reportedly delivering faster, better, and more flexible results. Though Google continually tweaks its search engine, Caffeine represents the first major enhancement to its search indexing since 2006.

No word or response yet from Google on when Caffeine might actually go live.

In a late August interview with WebProNews, Google engineer Matt Cutts said that the feedback on Caffeine had been very positive.

And in a forecast of Google’s latest move, Cutts also said he wouldn’t be surprised if Caffeine were gradually opened up one data center at a time. Then once Google is satisfied with the new search indexing, Caffeine should spill out into more and more data centers.

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