Google Currents for Tablets & Smartphones

Cost of the app: FREE

Website:  http://www.google.com/producer/currents

Download : Google Currents on Apple App Store / Google Currents on Android Market

Video introduction to Google Currents -

It seems like aggregated magazine apps are all the rage these days. Due to the size of the screen these magazine apps were launched exclusively for iPad users.  First, it was Flipboard then Zite, then AOL’s Editions and then Yahoo!’s LiveStand.

Trying to make a huge push in mobile and social applications, how can Google remain behind? Google released Google Currents, a magazine app for iOS and Android devices a couple of days ago without any publicity. I was so excited about this app that while lying in bed and ready to sleep I came across a tweet that said that Google had released Google Currents.

Without any further ado, I went to the app store on my extremely slow network and downloaded the app. It’s around 10 MB in size but I fell asleep while downloading it. After getting up, the first thing I did was to try my hands on Google Currents.

Let’s see the screenshots before we go any further. The iPhone screenshots are from when you first open the app.

1. The first screen tells you that it provides free magazines for your smartphones and tablets with a focus on you.

Google Currents - the get started tutorial

2. Google has included a few magazines for free by default to get you up and running. You can either touch the icons to open or add more magazines.

Google Currents gets you up & running with a few free magazines

3. Trending topics – you can’t be social without including people, right? Google Currents tells you what is being read by other readers around the world with Trending tab.

Trending topics - to know what people are reading right now!

4.  Learn about the controls. While some of the controls are self-explanatory, Google could have done a better job providing standard icons for sharing and sync.

The controls in Google Currents iPhone app

5. You’re ready to roll. This ends the getting started phase of Google Currents. Click done to enter the app.

Time to Dive in

Now, whenever Google releases something I have high hopes from them. I’m almost always certain that they’re going to raise the bar in design, aesthetics and it’s trademark – speed. I was expecting something that would completely replace my news & magazine apps but I was sorely disappointed.

The app is slow – When you click an article on your phone you want it to load instantly. No exceptions. You just don’t have the patience to wait 15 seconds before you see any word of it. Google Currents downloads the whole magazine before you can read a word. While it is certainly good for offline reading there should be a setting whereby a user can toggle between offline & online reading.

The controls are confusing – The app just doesn’t feel intuitive. On some screens you can’t see the home icon. On some there’s this list of articles and 3 controls. Sometimes the app starts syncing all by itself.

The design is not good enough for phone reading – Scrolling is not comfortable on a smartphone. I though Google knew that. I would like to give brownie points to Flipboard which has rather successfully implemented the “card deck” mechanism to scroll ( Flipboard review coming soon!). I’m yet to try my hands on the iPad version of the app so I can’t say if this is just the phone thing.

No custom font and size – I know the font Google has chosen is acceptable but still it would be better to have a choice of fonts if only for size. Zite gets fonts and font sizes very well.

There are a few hundred magazines and according to Google all are free. I don’t know if it will be applicable in the near future but right now the collection of magazines is better than most apps out there.

Frankly, it feels like Google was desperate to launch an app and it quickly locked a few developers in a room on a condition that they’ll be released only after finishing an app.

I could have stuck with Google Currents if there were enough reasons to. But right now – I’d wait for improvements for Google Currents before deleting my magazine apps.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

You can buy Google Storage. It is cheap and affordable if you really dont want to wash off your precious memories and work done by you.

Go to this page > http://www.google.com/accounts/PurchaseStorage

You can buy 20 GB for just $5 a year, I myself is a Google user and I have purchased the $5 one. Only 9 GB used out of 20 GB. Let me tell you that Google is actually a good choice if you want to all your photos at one place. If you have more than 20 GB then you have a great catch of 80 GB for just 20 bucks a year.

Note that the storage added is in the addition to the current free quota given to you.

Google Nexus S really takes over the smartphone industry with Android open-source platform. I know, but Android has got more than the iOS. Talking about Nexus S, really downs the iPhone 4 in nearly every field.

Nexus S is just more than what you think. Let me tell you that iPhone 4 can be used in the US locked and unlocked price is high over the charts if you wanna buy a phone under $500. Google is selling this phone unlocked which can be used all over the world without the worry of unlocking it at $525 to be exact.

Going on Android, it supports Flash. Yeah, Flash. Nexus S has the latest Android 2.3 Gingerbread update. Google’s Nexus S comes with a 4″ 800 x 400 resolution display with a 16 GB of internal memory with sadly no SD card slot. Offers B / G / N Wifi.

Battery is user-replaceable where one cannot replace the iPhone 4′s. Same as the iPhone 4′s 5 MP Camera but the Camera app loads faster than the iPhone 4. It has a front facing VGA Camera for the video calls on 3G, 4G. Has a powerful 1GHz Hummingbird Processor.

It is also featuring us a three axis gyroscope with a briliant contour display. The Nexus S has a cool and sleek design for you to handle it easily. iPhone 4 is famous for its brand but there are other Android phones that may defeat it at everything. And this phone is one of them.

Google’s Nexus S offers everything from Google’s Mail to Google’s  Maps.

Costing at $525 unlocked this is the iPhone killer. Head to the PROs and CONs

PROS

Latest Android software

16 gb internal memory

contour display

Humming bird Processor

CONS

No MicroSD Slot

No HD Video

No Notification Light

Fingerprints look easily on phone

Google Global  not only made it easy to see how search pages looked in different countries but it also let you customize it to particular country, city, IP address.

It not only gives you a high-level overview of how your websites performs in other countries but also lets you see how your website looks from your clients point-of-view.

Suppose, you’re based in San Franscisco and you have an SEO/PPC client based in Seattle, Washington you can now check how the results look as if you were sitting there with them!

Download Google Global extension

Let me show you how the extension looks and works -

1. First, search for any term on Google and then click on the Google Global extension on the task bar. Here we search for the keyword “movie reviews“. The page shown is the usual Google.com (US) result page.

2. Choose a country from which you want to see the search engine result pages (SERP)

3. There is no number 3! Its that simple!

Tips for Power Users -

1. Click on the Google Global extension >> Show Options…

2. You can also enable/disable personalized Google results

3. Select default SERP language

4. One of the best feature is you can also Turn On AdTest. When you turn AdTest on you won’t generate impressions for your AdWords ads! This is amazing if you’re a PPC agency because you don’t have to login into AdWords for the tool.

5. You can also add countries at your will which provides more flexibility without remembering the country-level TLD

It’s one of the most useful Chrome extensions if you’re a blogger, SEO/PPC expert or even a web designer! So go download this awesome extension from my friends at RedFly – they’re great at what they do.

The pace at which Facebook has penetrated the social media landscape is simply astonishing. From a niche college social network to one of the most popular destinations of the web, Facebook has influenced the very fabric of the web.

First it was the like button which gave Facebook too much data on which websites people visit, the behavioral data on how people share content across the world wide web and how that data blends into Facebook’s social graph and demographics.

From the past few days Facebook is constantly advertising an alleged Yahoo! Answers competitor below its advertising sidebar titled – “Get a Facebook Sneak Peek” which asks the user to apply as a beta tester for upcoming Facebook products.

After clicking through the link you’re taken to page which states that Facebook is in a process to launch a brand new product which will be as exciting as Facebook photos and Facebook events. In case you didn’t know, Facebook is the world’s largest photo sharing website (storing more than 15 billion photos) ahead of Flickr (hosting about 4 billion images).

Facebook is directly taking an aim on Yahoo! Answers which is a massive community-driven, user-generated Q&A (question and answer) content site. It is also one of the most successful product in Yahoo! arsenal.

I think opening a Q&A site is very intelligent from Facebook’s perspective given that there are more than 400 million active users of which 50% log in to Facebook everyday! Also, the user engagement of Facebook is greater than any other site on the web.

To get things started Facebook has made it mandatory for users “to submit 3 great sample question and answers” and that they must be provocative. These “mandatory requirements” will surely help Facebook get the initial surge of content that is required to make any user-driven content site successful.

Once the product is launched, Facebook will become a stronger destination with increased time spent onsite, increased number of pageviews and more content to place relevant social ads on. Which ultimately means more money for Facebook!

P.S: Ironically, Yahoo! Answers recently celebrated its 10 millionth answer! I wonder if they could continue celebrating like this once Facebook launches its not-so-secret Q&A product!

US Sen. Scott Brown

Sen Scott Brown made headlines the world over when he won the seat which was predominantly Democratic seat for the past 47 years!

If you asked Sen Scott Brown about his success he’d surely give it all to his voters which he should but one of the reasons he was able to pull a majority win over the seat was his clever suse of the internet.

It is no brainer how important social media and other creative forms of reaching people have become lately. The Obama win certainly underlined the importance. Youtube. Flickr. Twitter. Google ads. He used them all to create an awareness a movement which ultimately lead to his win.

Scott Brown used similar tactics to reach his voter using creative, well-crafted. geographically targeted Google ads to enroll volunteers, collect donations and get votes.

Because Google offers an array of sophisticated tools to its advertisers – be it selecting audience within a certain geographical range by zip code or creating separate messages based on demographics and not to forget the ability to track performace of these campaigns the investment on these campaigns was a hit right from the start.

Google’s Mr Panger said that if you were located in Massachusetts you’d see a Scott Brown ad all the time on sites that were a part of Google’s content network. Of course, you could only see those ads if you were located in Massachusetts as they were geographically targeted to his voters location.

I am glad that public figures have started embracing the tools of technology to reach out the people. If only they realize the importance of staying in touch with these tools America would have better, quicker and less complex policies and also satisfied people.

via WSJ

Google Chrome Extensions

The day has finally arrived – Google can now sync bookmarks and has enabled extensions both on the same day!

I’ve restricted my use of Google Chrome for the very reason that it wouldn’t let me sync bookmarks online.

Sync your Google Chrome bookmarks online

Have you ever saved a lot of web pages on Chrome and have lost all of them due to a PC crash? Well now you can make sure that your bookmarks can survive because Google has introduced “Sync bookmarks” feature in Chrome.

To enable Sync bookmarks in Chrome click the wrench icon and then click on the “Synchronize my bookmarks…” option. It’ll present you with a Google account sign-in box. Fill in your details and Google Chrome will start syncing your Chrome bookmarks by creating a folder in Google Docs and continuously syncing your bookmarks there!

You can also sync multiple computers and make sure that all your bookmarks are organized at a single place. When I accidently saw this option today I thought it’d sync the bookmarks with Google Bookmarks which (thankfully!) it didn’t!

Extending Chrome with Extensions

One thing that was stopping Chrome from attaining mass adoption and popularity despite its speed and simplicity was that it was a totally closed ecosystem. For one, you couldn’t install any toolbars – not even the ubiquitious Google toobar! While there was a work around to it by simply bookmarking the services and docking the bookmarks bar, it was too much work and it didn’t look good often cluttering the bookmarks bar.

Google has been in beta mode for Chrome extensions for quite some time. Some of the most popular extensions include Gmail notifier by Google, IE tab, AdThwart(!), Google Translate, AdBlock(!!) and many more. One of the alarming trends I see is that among the 5 most popular Chrome extensions 2 are for blocking ads – the pillar on which Google stands and the other 2 are Google’s and the remaining one being IE tab which I guess is used by Web developers to debug and run websites made for Internet Explorer.

A few days ago, the New York Times published an article - In Allowing Ad Blockers, a Test for Google where it discussed about the concerns Google could face if the extensions really took off (as they have done!) and there isn’t much Google can do to stop it. If it does, it could backfire in a lot of ways including more publicity for the extensions and other privacy concerns.

Use the Extensions at Your Own Risk

While the extensions exponentially increase the value of Google Chrome as a browser there is a risk in using these extensions.  While installing the extensions Google displays a warning that these extensions have access to private pages and even the whole computer.