Some people are going to go crazy with this.

Google is about to launch a new “get paid to surf” program where you can earn some incentives by trading your browsing habits and sending usage statistics to Google. Termed as Google Screenwise, the program will track your usage behavior in Google Chrome through a browser extension (pending official announcement). This is Google’s wild attempt to learn browsing habits of users in mass and create a better online experience for everyone. At least, the landing page at www.google.com/landing/screenwisepanel/ says so.

The monetary compensation is not direct hard cash, as panel members will receive the money via Amazon gift cards. As a panelist, you will get $5 for installing the Screenwise extension and a recurring fee of $5 will be paid every 3 months, provided you keep sending them your Chrome usage data and keep the extension installed.

If $25 sounds too meager, hang on for a year. The landing page has a tiny remark at the bottom which says – “As we continue to develop this research experience, we will evaluate what, if any, changes will be made to gifts amounts for continuing participation beyond 12 months.”

Speaking of data, Google isn’t saying what the company intends to track. Usage behavior can mean a lot for savvy users who spend 8 hours a day inside a browser. Not to forget the new unified privacy policy of Google, which will combine information you’ve provided in various Google services such as Blogger, YouTube, web search, Gmail and so forth.

I am curious to know why Google is becoming data hungry day by day. They have Google Chrome, Gmail, Android, YouTube – the best players in each department. Sure this is not enough, as they are willing to pay you for your data, browsing habits and privacy. This is the easiest 25$ a year offer I won’t regret turning down.

If you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer but the product being sold. And If you’re getting something for free and managing some cash along with it, you’re what? Probably, Google knows the exact term.

Thanks Matt. Image via Geekandpoke.

The Internet censorship scene in India has been heating up for quite some time now. Late 2011, the Indian government and Telecom frontman Mr. Kapil Sibal asked Internet companies to pre screen objectionable content, which can be a blog post, a photo, a video or a tweet. Google, Facebook, YouTube and 19 other social networking sites were precisely told to remove inflammatory material before February 6th 2012.

Pre screening user generated content is easier said than done. Everyone knows the size and volume of social users in India and removing all the user generated content is nearly impossible because of two reasons:

1. It is literally impossible to monitor each and every user on a social networking site. Anything that is posted online has to be viewed through human eyes, cross checked and then passed through the safe filter. How many eyeballs will faint reading 250 million tweets, that are posted every single day?

2. If we assume that the proposed system is successful in pre-screening content, how do you stop people from creating fake profiles and bulk post all the objectionable stuff in random order?

This idea is nothing but madness.Technically speaking, not at all feasible or achievable.

According to Google’s 2011 transparency report, Indian Government officials and cyber experts have made 68 requests to remove objectionable or obscene content. Metropolitan cities like Mumbai, have dedicated special cyber units who constantly monitor social networking sites e.g Facebook, Orkut and they will go all guns blazing, if they find someone crossing the line.

[January 13th]: Objectionable Content Can’t Be Filtered – Google, Facebook.

On January 13th 2012, both Google and Facebook appealed to Delhi High court arguing that it is impossible to pre-screen content posted by thousands of internet users. Instead, the users should be held responsible, not the social site or the search engine.

“The search engine only takes you to a website. What happens after that is beyond a search engine’s control,” Neeraj Kishan Kaul, a lawyer for Google India, told a packed High Court hearing on Monday. “If you use blocks, which is very easy for people to say, you will inadvertently block other things as well. For example: the word ‘sex’. Even a government document like a voter ID list or a passport has the word ‘sex’,” he added.

Likewise, it is not possible on the part of a social network to take down users who have aggressive thoughts or hatred towards political leaders, religions or a celebrity. A user who is innocent today may have some reactions tomorrow, where from you start drawing the line?

“The issue relates to a constitutional issue of freedom of speech and expression, suppressing it was not possible as the right to freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a totalitarian regime like China,” advocate N K Kaul, appearing for Google India, told Justice Suresh Kait. For example, if you block the word “Virgin”, how will people find information about “Virgin Airlines”? Times of India has the detailed conversation here.

[February 7th]: Objectionable Content Has Been Removed – Google.

Google India has now admitted that the company has removed or filtered controversial content that were flagged to be offensive towards religious and political leaders. Which websites or pages were removed? Google hasn’t revealed any names but the company is now adhering to the laws of the land and the legal requisitions of the government. Please note that the objectionable content has been removed only from Google’s localized India domain, the same content is accessible to users of a different country.

Just one week ago Google forced a new web address for all blogger blogs in India, shifting from a .com TLD to a more localized .in address. This is definitely in conjunction with selective censorship, as the search giant can control (and remove) objectionable content for Indian users only, while they will continue to be available in other countries.

Amongst other companies, the Delhi high court has issued directions to Facebook and Yahoo to take down offensive content at their earliest. Facebook India came up with a compliance report on Monday arguing that the complaints raised are not specific in nature. Facebook told the court that it does not control or operate the servers that host the website available at www.facebook.com , which are located in the US, according to a report from Indian Express. The operating party is Facebook India Online Services Pvt Ltd and not Facebook Inc.

On the other hand, Yahoo and Microsoft filed applications for deletion of their names from the civil complaint stating that there was no allegation against them for webcasting any objectionable content. “The Defendant no.5 (Yahoo) is primarily a content portal offering e-mail and messenger communication services but not offering features generally associated with social networking websites. So to that extent the website of Defendant no.5 cannot be regarded as a social networking website” – this is Yahoo India’s official remark, after they appealed deletion from the list of alleged parties.

All the alleged websites have to produce official statements and explanations within 15 days counting from today.

Country wide protests and reactions from online junta/media sources are already pouring in. Pre screening user generated content will eventually lead to the death of free speech, and lets not forget that India is the World’s largest democracy. [Image credit]

It has been a while since my Facebook news feed has turned into a wall of App-spam, thanks to zillions of Facebook apps that exist for whatever god damned reason. From “yearly recap calendars” to “what your name says about you” to “estimated profile views”, my news feed is always struggling to stay clean. Blocking posts from junk apps has become my daily routine but since habit is man’s second nature, I have become used to this environment. Well, everyone is.

Then of course, Facebook rolled out timelines and the noisy news ticker on the right. The self updating ticker is like a never ending storyboard of what your friends are doing right this instant. This includes real time notifications of whatever actions my friends take e.g commenting on someone’s photo I am not friends with, reading an article on some social reader app or playing Bingo blitz all day long.

Now here is another twist in the tale. Facebook has officially announced the launch of open graph applications, which will allow people to express more precisely what they are doing, how they are interacting with an application, business or a fan page. This change, takes user actions to a whole new level and miles apart from only “Likes” and “comments”

Here is how Timeline apps work on Facebook timeline and news feed.

Every application developer can now define a “verb” within his app, which is a way of broadcasting the user’s “action”. “Mr X read an article in ABC social reader” – here read is the verb and it will be broadcasted only when Mr. X has started reading the article using that application. “Mr Y is listening to the ABC song on domain.com” – here “listen” is the verb; you can click on the live notification to land on that same website and listen to that song right away. The following video briefly illustrates how Timeline apps are made to work:

I must say, this is better than just a mere “Like”. More engagement, more reach and more precise nature of “online broadcasting”.

Here is Where Background Sharing Might Get Worse For The Novice User

When you hit “Like” on any webpage, you know that this is going to be broadcasted on your Facebook profile. 200%. Hence, you double check the content and then hit the “Like” button.

But with timeline apps, everything rolls on its own. Your activities and actions are automatically broadcasted and your friends will know your actions  right from that news ticker. For example, you spot one of your friend using a video sharing app. You click the app, grant all the permissions, finish watching a crazy viral video and leave. So far, so good.

The next time you attempt to watch another video, it will be broadcasted automatically. “Mr X just watched a video on ABC video app”. There are chances that the video you’re watching might be obscene or vulgar but there is no way to stop the broadcast. The moment you perform an action, the trigger is pressed and there it goes on the news ticker and eventually on your timeline.

Of course you can review application permissions but considering all those novice Facebook friends you have, this is going to invite a boat load of embarrassment. Until they educate themselves how to block Facebook applications and review confusing application permissions, expect the news ticker and individual timelines to explode with recurring activities.

The confirmatory nature of sharing and broadcasting is fading away. FYI, these timeline apps can track your behavior and broadcast it, even when you’re not logged into your Facebook account. So before you jump into Timeline apps, review application requests and double check what they will be posting on your timeline.

Now what happens if a user adding a Timeline app hasn’t got Facebook Timeline yet? The short answer is that everyone will soon be switched to Facebook timelines anyway.

The Advertising Aspect Of Facebook Actions

I have strong reasons to believe that this roll out is Facebook’s core strategy to help marketers, business and brands engage more deeply with their users and audience. Businesses need a “Viral trigger” and there are situations when a mere “Like” is just not enough. The words read, cook, listen, played …….have a strong emotional hook, which causes an emotional drive in the user’s mind and makes him “CLICK”.

I agree with Jolie and Dean on this

Facebook can take your information and mine it for useful nuggets. It can give you back statistical information about your behavior that you didn’t know about. If there was any doubt that Facebook is a data mining company with a lot of ‘big data,’ that ended today.

This is going to be a gold rush for marketers who want more conversions through advertising campaigns on Facebook. Facebook’s ad system (also known as action spec) which focuses on timeline apps, would allow businesses and app owners to pick more users on their radar. It is easy to convince someone to buy a particular product, if they see their friend’s name over it.

For media and entertainment companies, it is going to be easy to hand pick new consumers through the “Watch” and “Listen” action triggers. Furthermore, these businesses may run dry ad campaigns to see which of your friends buys the latest DVD of XYZ artist, they have the data – you listened to three dozen songs of the same artist last week.

This is indeed a win win situation for marketers, developers and Facebook itself. Timeline apps will drive more engagement, which will result in more conversions. More conversions will drive more user goodwill and developers will be more keen to devise action driven apps.

Personally, I like the idea. It is great for engagement and discovery but considering the number of novice Facebook users and garbage apps lying all over the Internet, the noise to signal ratio might just fall even further.

While the entire world wide web is busy searching for workarounds to access Wikipedia during the SOPA blackout, Android users have a reason to rejoice. The long awaited official app for Wikipedia has arrived in the Android market, the very same day when the web version of Wikipedia was blacked out in protest of SOPA.

Okay, it might not exactly be the very same day (the last update on record was on January 13th 2012) but reading the only 7 user reviews on the download page, it appears that the app has been released today only. Strange, no?

Wikipedia’s official Android app is free from black outs and personal appeals, the spartan homepage welcomes you with “Today’s featured article”, followed by a brief “In the News section”. The search box located at the way top is your only gateway to navigate around Wikipedia pages; as there is no way to find categories and specific topics through navigational hyperlinks.

Here are some screenshots:

Tapping on the menu bar, you can choose your preferred language from any of the 43 international languages that Wikipedia supports. One feature I really loved is the ability to save Wikipedia pages locally on your Android, so you can read it later when your phone is not connected to the Internet. You can literally build a library of cached Wikipedia pages on your Android phone, the only downside is that there is no way to organize downloads into separate folders or custom tags.

There is a “Nearby” option which lets you explore locations on a Google map and find related information from Wikipedia articles. This is pretty handy, when you are travelling to a new city and want to know the history, geography, people or popular culture about your current location. The “History” option works similar to the browsing history of a web browser, shows a list of Wikipedia paged you have read recently.

There are a slew of third party Wikipedia and Enclyopedia apps in the Android market with the same logo and identical names, so be sure to download the official one from this link.

It has been nearly one year since Google released Personal Blocklist, a Chrome extension, which can be used to block specific sites on Google search result pages. This was soon followed by a built in search feature, whereby you can block all the pages of a given site directly from the search result page. After performing a query and visiting the target website, if you hit the back button and return to the Google search result page, you would be greeted by a link which allows you to block all results from that specific website. An example is shown below:

On clicking the “Block all domain.com results” link, the site would literally disappear from the search result page and the domain will be added to the list of blocked sites on your Google search preferences . This feature was very useful in keeping spam results from junk sites at bay; although it appears that something has malfunctioned recently.

As noted by Alex Chitu, personalized blocked results have started re-appearing on Google search since this morning.This might be temporary glitch but as of now, you can’t block any website from a Google search result page. Have a look below:

Looking into my personal list of blocked sites on Google search, I found that the earlier preferences are sometimes, working normally. To be precise, if you have blocked a domain weeks ago, Google might still show the message “You have blocked n results” on top of the search result page. However, you can’t block a website right now, neither manually, nor from any Google search result page.

And here is another exception when a website which was blocked on June 17th, 2011, is still appearing on Google search result pages. No message is shown

Matt Cutts, the guy who heads the webspam team at Google said:

This is temporary and the right people are looking at what needs to be done to re-enable this feature, but it might take some time.

I am curious to know why is it going to “take some time”, considering the tech company we are talking here is Google. I hope this is indeed “temporary” and not a head on collision with the Search Plus Your World nightmare, which is going to happen within a week or two.

Hangouts in Google Plus is a pretty exciting technology which adds a unique color to the social network. For example, users can discuss over a PowerPoint presentation from their Google Docs account and every member participating in the hangout gets to see it in real time. Then you can also pull in a YouTube video and every member can watch the video and exchange text messages from the same page.The user interface of Google Plus Hangout is far better than any web based group video chat app I have ever seen. I have used Facebook’s video calling feature but Google Plus hangouts still remains a close favorite.

The good news is that Google will be rolling out screen sharing support in Google Plus hangouts within a day or two. This is confirmed after Christopher Johnson, a UX designer who works at Google, announced the following on his Google Plus profile:

When we launched Hangouts with extras last September, we wanted to test new features and get feedback from users. We’ve learned a lot over the past few months, and today we’re rolling out a new Hangouts look and feel that incorporates some of the “extras,” and better reflects Google’s overall design. Highlights include:

- Screen sharing: share what’s on your computer screen with everyone in the hangout. This is the first of many extras we’re graduating to Hangouts.
- Bigger video: we’ve put more emphasis on the live video itself by optimizing white space and other screen elements.

Here is how the screen sharing UI of Google Plus hangouts looks like:

This takes screen sharing and online collaboration to a whole new level, given the fact that users can also join a Google Plus hangout from their mobile device (iOS, for example). From now on, conducting online meetings would be much more simpler, as Google Plus hangouts have a “social” nature that broadcasts itself. Google Plus hangout is not a Skype alternative yet, you can’t share files or send entire folders to remote participants and neither you can call a phone number from your desktop. But its free and gets the job done for many, doesn’t it?

The best part: you can provide remote assistance to your rookie friends who have never heard of Skype, Teamviewer, Join.me or a remote desktop application. Please note that Google Plus hangouts will only allow you to see the shared screen, not command full control over it (like Teamviewer does).

If your organization needs a decent free solution for online collaboration, tech support or remote assistance, you might want to give Google Plus Hangouts a spin. It is indeed getting better after each update.

That’s right, Google search results will now be accompanied by results that are more “personal” to you. This is one of the biggest changes Google has incorporated in the past couple of years and it is expected that more changes are a “work in progress”.

Search Plus your world takes personalized search results to a new level; whereby a user can get answers from not only webpages, but people with whom they are connected on Google plus, Picasa photo albums, Google Plus brand pages and more social stuff that Google offers. No Facebook, No Twitter, No Flickr – Only Google. That says something.

Here is an example where people and pages from Google Plus are highlighted on the far right of a Google search result page:

Wow.

Google’s main product is acting as a “catalyst” and pushing Google Plus as far as it can. Britney spears has a verified Twitter account, a Flickr photostream and a Facebook fan page but none of them are shown. Blind eye!

“Search Plus Your World” Is Not Evil But It’s Not “Complete” Either

Some bloggers are saying that this move is not evil.  Yeah, not “so” evil but it is definitely headed towards being one. Here is why:

A search engine is like a court room where every website is treated equal in the eyes of the “law” (in this case, it is the algorithms and Google’s way of determining the relevant answer to the user’s query). But with this social mix, it appears that Google’s own properties are thrown on the face of the user.

Consider a typical Google Plus user who perform searches while he is signed into his Google account. For a “people search” query, Google Plus profiles and brand pages will be ranked higher than Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles (almost always) . I update my Twitter profile almost every day and it has been months since I even logged into my Google Plus account. But, when I perform a keyword search for my name, I see my Google Plus profile on the way top.

Why this favor? I agree that I am using “your” search engine but you are assuming that my Google Plus profile is important than my Twitter or LinkedIn profile (and hence showing it on top). Not fair mate, not fair at all!

Social data is not just about a single social networking site that “connects people”. It is “the whole thing” and unless you have the system or ability to gauge, measure and evaluate “the whole thing”, it is too early to call this change “Your World”.

“Facebook, Twitter and other services, basically, their terms of service don’t allow us to crawl them deeply and store things. Google+ is the only social network that provides such a persistent service.” Google Fellow Amit Singhal told Search Engine Land.

It’s like –“Since they are not giving us your data, we will create our own Facebook and Twitter and force you to use it sooner or later. We will plaster Google Plus in every nook and cranny , be it Google Maps, YouTube, Google Reader or Gmail, we wont stop anytime soon. We will introduce new markups that influences search results, and we will slowly use search to propel our social network, which has failed over and over and over again.”

And it sucks. Not for Google, Facebook or Twitter but for us. For the entire web.

Facebook has an internal policy which “memorializes” the personal profiles of users who have died. The account of the deceased person is sealed from future login attempts and is not shown on search results and friend suggestion sections. If any of your friends or family members have recently died and you want to close his/her Facebook account permanently, head over to this form and complete your request.

Some savvy Facebook users are rather worried about the fact that they wont get their last chance to update their Facebook profile, when they are dead.

“Is there any way to authorize someone else to post on behalf of me and announce my death on Facebook?” The short answer is that as long as you don’t share your Facebook username and password with the person whom you want to post on behalf of you, there is no way you can execute this crazy idea. I agree the thought is grim but to some blind Facebook addicts, this is a concern. An important one.

An Israeli company named Wilook thought that if users have spent their entire life on Facebook, they have the right to post their last status update or publish a sweet video message to their friends and followers. The Facebook app “If I Die On Facebook” is the first and only Facebook application that lets “you” create a video or a text message that will only be published after you die. Super creepy!

The app lets you compose a text message as your “farewell speech” and then designate three of your friends as “Trustees”. When you are dead, these trustees will have to confirm your death and then your custom farewell messages will get posted on your profile. There aren’t any limitations on the number of messages you can create, so this is one good way to achieve a state of “social media immortality”.

Personally, I would just share my Facebook username and password with a close friend and request him to post a “farewell message” on behalf of me (of course when I am dead). But if you want your virtual friends to “Like” your death and comment upon it until eternity, you might want to use this app. Just make sure your “trustees” don’t have any grudges against you or this thing can misfire. The following video explains how the app works:

Sadly, you can’t “poke” someone from your grave. If I am forced to use this app, I would leave one short message – “You are next.”

Some good news for Facebook addicts who always wondered whether it is possible to use the profile photo of anyone as an emoticon in a Facebook chat message. The answer is a clear Yes, even for people you aren’t friends with.

When you are chatting with any of your Facebook friends and want to use the profile photo of any Facebook user, page or event as an emoticon, follow these steps:

1. Copy the vanity URL of the user whose Facebook profile photo you want to use as an emoticon. For example: if you want to use the profile image of Techie Buzz Facebook fan page, simply copy TechieBuzz(without quotes).

2. Some fan pages or event pages have a unique ID associated with their URL. Copy the page ID if the vanity URL is not available.

3. Enclose the vanity string or the number within double brackets e.g [[TechieBuzz]].

4. Hit send. The double bracketed text will convert into an emoticon of the user whose vanity URL was enclosed within double brackets. Sweet!

Here are a couple of examples I tried with my friend Jatin on Facebook chat and it worked as advertised:

As long as your Facebook profile is publicly viewable and people know the vanity URL of your Facebook profile, page or event, anyone can use the profile photo as an emoticon. Locked pages or groups, which requires an invitation to join, shows a blank white thumbnail but such is not the case with real Facebook users.

These profile emoticons are viewable from web only and does not work in mobile apps e.g the messenger app on Android or the official Facebook application for Android. You can send the emoticons from mobile and the web but the thumbnails will only appear when you are viewing the chat log from the web. An example is shown below:

This new profile emoticons may actually redefine online personification. Two people conversing on Facebook and frequently using their friends profile emoticons e.g why are you behaving like [[mr X]]?or you sound so much like [[Ms Z]]. The best line I have heard until now, comes from Josh –   Don’t be such a Justin bieber.

Thanks Jatin.

Since the day Google Plus opened up for everyone, the message from Google team has been pretty clear. Lets focus our attention towards people and re-invent every other Google product (keeping Google Plus in the centre). This includes Google search, Gmail, Google Reader, Google Maps, Authorship in search results, YouTube and what not.

Google is heavily focusing on the strength of peoplewith whom you connect and share in real life; familiar faces have already started appearing on search results, Google Maps, Google Reader and so forth.

How can Gmail stay behind? With the new Gmail and Google Plus integration, you get all your Google Plus friends and contacts within your Gmail inbox, so this update makes it easy to find messages that are related to specific Google Plus friends and contacts.The next time you login in to your Gmail account that is tied with a Google Plus account, you might see a new drop down menu on the left sidebar, as shown in the following screenshot:

The Circlesdropdown works exactly as labels work in Gmail and allows you to filter sent or received messages from people who are present in your Google Plus circles. For example: I have a circle named mediain my Google Plus account, which I have made to filter journalists and reporters I know. Now that the Circle filterin Google Plus is active, I can quickly find all the emails that were either sent to or received from anyone, who is present in the circle named as Media. I don’t have to remember their names, email addresses and the subject of a previous conversation.

Google has also integrated contact information of your Google Plus friends within Google contacts.

This has two advantages. First, you can export the contact details of all your Google Plus friends as a CSV file and import it on another Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail account. This is lifesaving, when you are permanently switching to a different email address and need a one click option to export all your email contacts and Google plus contacts from a central location.

I use a separate Gmail account for Google Plus and my work email address is on Google Apps, which is not tied to any Google Plus account. Hence, in my case, Gmail contacts and Google Plus contacts will be disjoint sets. But if you are not like me and use the same Gmail account for Google Plus and as your primary work email address; this update will simplify contact management to the next level.

Please note that only people who are sharing with you on Google Plus and have added you to their circles, will be added to your Google contacts. Adding someone to any of your Google Plus circles wont add his email address to your Google contacts list, so this will keep spam emails at bay. Another strong reason why you should be very careful in choosing whom you are sharing with on Google Plus.

The People widget, which Google started showing on Gmail’s right sidebar from May2011, will now include status updates, posts and recent links from people who are involved in a conversation.

Whenever any of your Google Plus friends send you an email, you will be able to interact with them, directly from the people widget on the right sidebar. Another nice feature I must mention is the ability to share photo attachments in Gmail directly on your Google Plus profile. Just hit the Sharebutton next to any attached photo, type in your message in the browser overlay window and choose the circles with whom you want to share.

Be careful with whom you share photo attachments in Gmail because once you hit Sharewith the default option (Your Circles) being checked, anyone can see that photo or download it on his computer.

As usual, Google Apps users are out of luck but Google said that it is a work in progress.