Whatever Google’s reason for threatening to leave China , the latest numbers from StatCounter , a free online stat service, show that it certainly isn’t for lack of opportunity. Google has been steadily gaining ground on China’s premier search service, Baidu, since last August. Sponsor According to StatCounter , Google held just 28% of China’s search market back in August and since has climbed to nearly 43%. That’s a 15-percentage-point gain in just four or five months. Yahoo and Bing account for just over 1% of China’s search engine market. While estimates put Google’s projected 2010 income from business in China at around 2% of the company’s entire revenue, the long-term implications of pulling out of the country are much larger . If any company should just give up the ghost and get out of China before making any more PR (and human rights) gaffes , maybe it’s Yahoo. Discuss

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Google Gained Ground on Baidu in 2009

Just one week after Google launched the Nexus One , its entry into the smartphone field, the numbers are in and it doesn’t look to be keeping up with the competition. We reviewed the iPhone-competitor the other day and see it as a formidable challenger, but its first week sales numbers fall drastically short of those same numbers for other smartphones during their first week, according to statistics from mobile analytics firm Flurry . Sponsor While Flurry’s own analysis of the numbers makes sure to point out that the statistics may not provide an “apples to apples” comparison, the Nexus One’s first week sales were a fraction of its top three competitors. Flurry details the methods used to arrive at these numbers in its blog post and is certain to call the data an estimate, but if they are even close to correct, the Droid outsold Nexus One by more than 12 times, myTouch 3G by 3 times and iPhone 3GS by 80 times. Whether it was Google’s lack of marketing, the fact that the phone was only available for purchase online, or its $500-plus sticker price without a service contract, Flurry identifies a number of reasons for the slow start. The company also points to the post-holiday release date and the fact that Google did little compared to Verizon’s $100 million marketing of the Droid. We see a few other points that could have contributed to the slow start. For those using AT&T, the Nexus One works in slower EDGE mode, not 3G. And for the contract weary, news about Google charging additional early termination fees certainly holds some scare factor. We’ll have to keep an eye on these numbers as time goes on, but we’re curious – what, if anything, has kept you from taking the leap? Discuss

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Nexus One, Week 1: Outsold by iPhone 3Gs 80-to-1

Google has announced that Gmail will now operate using HTTPS , a secure connection between a browser and a server, by default. Previously, users could turn on HTTPS connections as default in their settings, but the situation has now been reversed. Google said that after taking a look at the trade-off between speed and security , the primary concern in this case, they decided that it was worth it to the end-user to automatically use a secure connection. Sponsor A group of 37 security and privacy specialists sent Google a letter (.pdf) last June, urging the company to offer this feature. Gmail became the third largest email provider last August, with more than 37 million unique visitors. For all of you sitting at a coffee shop all day, using its unsecured wireless network, Google may have just saved you some serious headaches. That extra couple of seconds of load-time may just be worth it. Of course, if you don’t use Gmail or your service doesn’t offer HTTPS, there are always solutions like Pretty Good Privacy to keep your private emails secure. Discuss

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Gmail Goes Secure

Google just launched an updated version of Google Flu Trends , a service that predicts flu trends by tracking flu related queries on the company’s search engine. Until now, Google only showed aggregate data for states in the United States. Starting today, Flu Trends will show data down to the city level for 121 cities . As Google notes in today’s announcement, this update was timed to coincide with the National Influenza Vaccination Week . Sponsor Google also offers Flu Trends data on a country level for Mexico , Australia, New Zealand and most of Western Europe. Data on Flu Trends is updated daily. By tracking flu-related queries, Google has already proven to be able to accurately predict the flu levels on the state and country level. It looks like Google now feels like its algorithms are accurate enough to predict influenza trends on a more granular level. Until Google is able to validate this data, however, the company is labeling the city level estimates as “experimental.” Google and Google.org – Google’s non-profit foundation – sponsor a number of influenza-related projects. Google, for example, now offers a vaccine-finding map and the company is working with the Public Library of Science (PLoS) to to give give scientists a place to collaborate and share research on influenza research on Google Knol . Discuss

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Google Launches Flu Trends For 121 U.S. Cities

A distinguishing aspect to PBWorks is its industry-specific approach. The enterprise collaboration service has made a name for itself by focusing on the particular requirements of the education and legal markets. Now PBWorks is taking a smart approach by extending its position in vertical markets and offering a template store that people may download and use in a variety of business- and industry-specific ways. Sponsor The template store is opening with 25 applications, both officially approved and those developed by the community at large. PBWorks screens the templates that users provide. The enterprise collaboration space is still in its early days. People understand the importance of collaboration but often they do not know where to start. The PBWorks templates provide some framework for how to start using wikis and other forms of collaboration. The templates can include embedded media, files and documents as well as folders. PBWorks is making a smart move by offering templates. It follows a long standing tradition of providing a structure for people who are just starting to use new software or who want to improve what they are already offering. Microsoft has been doing this for years. The practice seems well suited to the increasing complex world of enterprise collaboration. Discuss

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PBWorks Offers Templates – A Great Way To Get Started In Enterprise Collaboration

A new report released today by Forrester Research is calling the tech downturn of 2008 and 2009 “unofficially over.” “Coming out of a lousy 2009, 2010 is looking a lot better,” said Andrew Bartels, the report’s author. “We see 2010 as the first year in a multi-year growth cycle. It’s not a simple rebound from a downturn.” Sponsor The report predicts IT growth in the U.S. to come in around 6.6%, more than twice the growth of the nominal GDP. Bartels said that this growth would be led by two primary factors: “smart computing” and a rebound in mature technologies. “Investments that were planned to be made were put on the shelf,” he said. “PCs will do very well in 2010 as a rebound.” As the economic downturn ends, we can expect to see a rebound in mature technologies as repairs and purchases that would have normally been made were put on hold until the economic situation looked more promising. To that end, a large variety of PCs, peripherals and storage devices will make a comeback, the report predicts. As for “smart computing”, a separate report last December predicted that the technology sector was entering a cycle of tech innovation and growth called “smart computing”. Bartels defines “smart technology” as “a new generation of integrated hardware, software, and network technologies that provide IT systems with real-time awareness of the real world and advanced analytics to help people make more intelligent decisions.” So, basically, it’s many of the innovative applications we look at here at RWW, from location-based iPhone apps to real-time diagnostic software being implemented in hospitals. Bartel said that businesses will be able to leverage the data provided by new applications and will be able to run more efficiently, a change he said we began to see in late 2007, before the global economic downturn. According to the December report, this new area will promote growth for the next seven or eight years. Discuss

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Forrester: "The Tech Spending Downturn is Over"

Google is extending Google Docs , allowing any kind of file to be uploaded up to 250 MB in size. The move signifies how Google Docs is now a storage service as much as a collaboration platform. Enterprise customers may now store large files on Google Docs for free or a small cost. Additionally, the documents may be backed up using third-party applications. Sponsor Google is promoting the service as a way for enterprise customer to store files without the need for a thumb drive. That’s a clear sign of how traditional storage devices may be bypassed by online alternatives. Until recently, a thumb drive served as the best way to transport large files. But now, large files can be accessed from anywhere and can be used in a collaborative context. For example, Google Docs users may store files in a shared folder for group collaboration. The capability to upload large files will be ready within the next few weeks. Users receive 1 GB in storage. Enterprise customers will also have the capability to add additional storage for $3.50 per GB per year. Companies may use the Google Documents List API to sync files and provide additional backups. Google is partnering with three companies to provide additional services: Memeo Connect for Google Apps is a new desktop application that offers an easy way to access, migrate, and synchronize files to Google Docs across multiple computers. Syncplicity offers businesses automated back-up and file management with Google Docs. Manymoon is a project management platform that makes it simple to organize and share tasks and documents with coworkers and partners, including uploading files to Google Docs. Google Docs is emerging as the strongest player in the storage and collaboration space. Competitors like Box.net provide similar services but are far smaller than Google. This is a trend to watch as cloud computing becomes more predominant and the concept of collaborating online becomes more palatable. This will be especially true as it becomes apparent how documents can be accessed anywhere on any device with potentially significant cost savings. Discuss

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Google Docs: Now for Storage as much as Collaboration