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Google launched its most ambitious social-networking effort yet, broadening a battle with Facebook Inc. to grab the attention of Web users and future advertising dollars. The new service, a top priority for new Google Chief Executive Larry Page, is aimed at exploiting what has been considered a weakness of Facebook-that by default people using Facebook share all their information with a big group of friends. The new Google social network, called Google+, was released Tuesday in a "field trial period," meaning it is an invitation-only product and will be available more broadly later.

Because the appeal of Google+ is in its targeted sharing options, companies won't be able any longer to blast messaging across the platform through a few well-connected users--often a good strategy on Facebook and Twitter. If Google+ sharing features are an indication of how we actually share and socialize, it points to a trend away from mass messaging across a network. And because Google+ encourages users to build out large networks while also managing a close circle of real friends, the power of these connections will become increasingly important to marketers. That means that having 600 friends or followers won't mean too much anymore. What will be important--for marketers at least--are those contacts you include in your close circle of friends, who regularly share with you, and who expect you to share with them.

I guess Wave didn't die after all :) I hope the new features in Google Apps take people (the ones I work with at least) away from email as their primary project management and collaboration tool. It's worth a shot.

"This new method for submitting URLs to Google is limited, so you should use it when it's important that certain pages be crawled right away. Although Google doesn't guarantee that they'll index every page that they crawl, this new feature does seem to at least escalate that evaluation process."

Learn how to filter out objectionable comments on YouTube, configure Google Alerts, and enable autofill in Chrome.

Google putting all its eggs in open systems. Schmidt admits the Internet is changing in a major way because of mobile and social media. He said Google can do everything better by being more social and remaining open.

As expected, YouTube (and Google) force the mobile broadband issue.

How the Internet works according to Google. Might be useful for DSN trainings. (Pages rendered in HTML5, may not work on your browser.)

Google helps us think, Facebook finds us friends, and Pandora plays our own personalized soundtrack. It's hard to say whether the computer algorithms that these services use to anticipate our needs and wants are turning us into puppets or geniuses. But algorithms have a huge impact on our tastes, buying habits, and decisions about our digital lives.

Americans spent nearly one-quarter of their time online visiting social networks and checking blogs, according to a report by Nielsen. Facebook was named the top social media destination, taking up more than 53 million minutes from 140 million visitors in the United States for the month of May. Blogger was the next most popular destination among American social media users. But the Google-owned brand's audience of more than 50 million in May was nearly three times smaller than Facebook's, according to Nielsen's quarterly social media report.