Google

Google Analytics, which is used on millions of sites worldwide to show web publishers who is visiting their sites, today published its first report on Web traffic. Among other interesting tidbits was the above chart showing Windows losing a staggering 5.1% of its market year over year.

At the same time, the Mac OS actually gained almost a percentage point of the market.  But the groundswell was in the “Other” category which includes iPads, iPhones, Android and other non-Mac/Windows/Linux machines.  That category was up almost 5 %.

The “Post PC Era” seems to be fast approaching.

Google conveniently also found a 1% gain in Search Engine  referral traffic, below:

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A consortium including Apple Inc, Microsoft, EMC Corp, Sony, Ericsson, and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion bought bankrupt telecommunications gear maker Nortel Networks Corp’s remaining portfolio of 6000 patents for $4.5 billion, in an auction that began early this week.

RIM reportedly paid $770 million, Ericsson paid $340 million.  It wasn’t immediately clear how much Apple paid.

Google had originally opened bidding with a $900 million bid.  The consortium of strange bedfellows will split up the portfolio based on the split of the purchase price.

The sale is subject to Canadian and U.S. court approvals which will be sought at a joint hearing expected to be held on July 11.  Full press release follows:

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At this point, it seems pretty obvious that Google means business with the Google Plus platform. Besides all of the other areas Plus has engulfed, it looks like Google is heading into the gaming realm.  The above snippet was found in the Plus web page code

“have sent you invites and more from Google+ Games”

So now Google is taking on Microsoft’s Xbox and Apple’s Gamecenter? Perhaps Google might want to lower the barrier to entry.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwnJ5Bl4kLI]

You have to be intrigued by Google’s ambitious attack on Facebook here, in much the same way they are competing with Apple in mobile devices, Microsoft in DesktopOS and Office and Oracle/Microsoft in Enterprise Apps.  It feels like if there is a big market in technology, Google is there.

More coverage at 9to5Google.com
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We haven’t gotten official word on this but the Economic Times of India is reporting that Apple changed its return policy on Apps from minutes to 7 days.  We reported earlier this month that Taiwan gave both Apple and Google two weeks to comply withits consumer protection mandate.

An official said the lack of a return and refund mechanism violated the Consumer Protection Act. In an example of the problem the city government is trying to prevent, Yeh cited a case of software bought on Apple Store on Thursday that did not work, but left the buyer without recourse.

It appears that Apple has complied (Google, less so):
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It sure seems like it.

A guy named Jordan from 97th Floor, a company that represents Adobe’s SEO interests, asked us to “fix/make a link to Adobe.com” in one of our posts.  The post had nothing to do with Adobe, but the terms “photo editing program” were desired link terms for Adobe which appears to be trying to juice its search engine rankings.

As far as I know, this is a no-no.  I think Bing and Google frown on this type of behavior. 

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The rest of the exchange is below:
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Nortel decided to extend the deadline for the start of the auction for its patents until June 27 citing “significant interest” from third parties. Today we learn that two Silicon Valley giants are significantly interested in Nortel’s war chest of more than five thousand wireless patents said to be worth well over a billion dollars. They are Apple and Intel, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Other bidders include Ericsson AB and a company called RPX Corp which “defensively buys up patents on behalf of other companies to stop them from being used against them by investors”.

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From 9to5toys.com:

Best Buy takes 15% off all Apple iTunes Gift Cards. With free shipping, that’s the best deal we could find on these cards and the first time we’ve seen them discounted in several months. After the discount, a $15 gift card costs $12.75, a $50 gift card costs $42.50, and a $100 gift card costs $85, among others. They’re good for both music/video and app purchases.

Obviously, with a Lion purchase coming up, it might be a good time to stockpile iTunes credit.
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With five days to go before WWDC, Apple now is the official registrant behind iCloud.com. It appears that there may just be some live iCloud demos in store (shocking, we know). Also, it explains why Apple had to go public about the iCloud.com – the domain registration would have went public beforehand anyhow

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Twitter’s CEO Dick Costello just went off stage at D9 with the announcement that Twitter would be doing native photo-sharing. Obviously he didn’t release Apple’s plans but many think Twitter is set to be a lower level service in Lion and iOS 5.

From the Twitter blog:

Today we’re starting to roll out a completely new version of Twitter search. Not only will it deliver more relevant Tweets when you search for something or click on a trending topic, but it will also show you related photos and videos, right there on the results page. It’s never been easier to get a sense of what’s happening right now, wherever your curiosity takes you.

We’re hearing rumblings that Apple will let you Tweet from any app with hooks from Lion and iOS.  If so, you’ll have a Twitter login in the general settings, almost like we  had for Facebook in iOS 4.

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More fun from the D9 event: Kara Swisher told Eric Schmidt that Steve Jobs told her “to do more privacy stories on Google” and that “Android is a probe in your pocket.”  The conversation would have been off the record until now. More at 9to5Google.com
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From 9to5Google:

With Apple’s purchase of two mapping companies over the last couple of years – Poly9 and Placebase – many have speculated that iOS 5 will finally be the iOS release where Apple moves from a Google Maps backend to an Apple backend. Multiple job postings on Apple’s official site backed up this speculation and even Apple promised some under-the-hood maps tweeks for their next-generation iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch operating system.

Now, sources have told 9to5Google that although Apple is working to improve the iOS Maps application, iOS 5 will not bring an Apple developed maps service and Google Maps is still in. Besides Apple’s purchase of both Placebase and Poly9, some speculated that Apple is building their own maps service to either compete with Google or step away from their input into iOS.

Apple began the process of distancing themselves from Google when former Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned over “conflict of interest.” Apple has also added Microsoft’s Bing as a Safari search option and will be competing with Google head-to-head with their upcoming cloud-based music service. Those who enjoy Google Maps should not fear iOS 5, though, and hopefully Apple is working to implement turn-by-turn directions or something else to improve their maps application without changing the backend.

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The Ecconomic Times expands on the recent chatter about the iTunes Cloud (iCloud?)service we’ve been hearing about.  The news site confirms that Apple has locked up deals with 3/4 of the top labels (Universal is widely reported to be the holdout) and is set to reveal the new service at next month’s WWDC.

The Cupertino, California-based gadget-maker is expected to launch a new Web-hosted music service next month, according to multiple reports, after negotiating deals with at least three of the four major record labels.

WWDC isn’t traditionally a venue for iTunes related news but we’ll give Apple a pass…

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Patently Apple today reveals a trademark today by Apple for the word “Noteworthy” which they postulate is a new OCR app that could be released in iOS 5.  One use would be taking an image and turing it into a document like Google’s recent Docs app does.

Update: Apple has a Font named Noteworthy which is likely the reason for registration
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I remember when installing Toast was one of the first things I did when I got a new Macintosh.  Now, I don’t even have an optical disc reader on my main computer and I use optical less and less on the home Macs.

However, I know there are a lot of uses of optical still out there and for those folks that create it, Roxio today updated their Toast software to Toast 11 with some important updates.

For existing users, Toast 11 adds many requested features such as recording to multiple drives simultaneously, a streamlined product update mechanism, and the ability to save custom video profiles, which is very useful for those that are often converting video for a particular device. The latest version now also offers built-in features for directly uploading media to social networking sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, or Facebook and technology optimizations, dubbed VideoBoost, that help dramatically speed H.264 (high definition) video conversion or encoding.

New or exclusive-to-Toast features include: Internet audio recording; the ability to capture, save, and convert Web-based video content; disc spanning (automatically spreading a large amount of data or audio tracks across many discs); one-click backup of HD camcorder footage; dual-platform compatible disc creation; and TiVo-to-Go support.

The boxed package is $99, the Not-App Store download is $79 and a Toast 10 upgrade is $59.  Amazon has it as well.

Also launching today is Roxio Toast 11 Pro. Toast 11 Pro includes everything offered in Toast 11 Titanium as well as the Blu-ray Disc Plug-in and four award-winning digital media applications for making stunning video, photo, and audio projects….
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As we showed you back in January, Google Instant is now live for all users on iOS and Android.

Instant Previews provides a fast and interactive way to evaluate search results. Starting today, Google Instant Previews is available on mobile for Android (2.2+) and iOS (4.0+) devices across 38 languages. Similar to the desktop version of Instant Previews, you can visually compare search results from webpage snapshots, making it easier to choose the right result faster, especially when you have an idea of the content you’d like to see.

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Here’s some interesting news from the periphery.  In Europe, where Microsoft was forced to institute a ‘browser ballot ‘upon the installation of Windows (giving Opera, Safari, Chrome, Firefox and IE equal billing), Firefox has just passed IE as the most popular browser on the continent.

That’s according to Statcounter who told Reuters “This appears to be happening because Google’s Chrome is stealing share from Internet Explorer while Firefox is mainly maintaining its existing share. We are probably seeing the impact of the agreement between European Commission competition authorities and Microsoft, to offer EU users a choice and menu of browsers from March last year.”

Given equal footing with other browsers, users just don’t pick IE (remember this ballot is only a year old and it will likely get much worse for Microsoft.

Full graph below:
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMltvlqEM54&w=670&h=400]

Apple’s iOS has won a big thumbs-up from the Angry Birds themselves, who say that when it comes to mobile devices, Apple’s going to excel against the rest.

“Apple will be the number one platform for a long time from a developer perspective, they have gotten so many things right,” said Peter Vesterbacka, Angry Birds development lead.
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Perhaps you’ve been wondering if Apple will feel much impact once those Android and Chrome-powered tablets ship in 2011 — now a pair of reports suggest the magical iPad is set to maintain dominance for some time yet.

Report one tells us LG Display shipped 1.5 million iPad panels in November, while Samsung delivered 1.2 million units, suggesting Apple might have sold nearly three million iPads this month.
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Yet more fascinating action in the smartphone space with an unholy rumored combination between Nokia and Microsoft set to potentially change the structure of the market.

What’s happening?
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The figures are in and they confirm that iTunes remains the biggest US digital music retailer, with Amazon failing to grab too much of Apple’s digital music heartland.

NPD tells us AAPL’s iTunes took 66.2% of the digital music market in the third quarter of this year – that’s up from 63.2% in Q3 2009.  Easy still beats free.
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