Google Archives - Page 2 of 4

Google Ventures “We Will Never Invest In A Company That Tanks” Gets Fund Upped To $1.5B

Google’s venture arm, Google Ventures, is the proud recipient of $1.5 billion dollars in capital to invest in startups through 2017. Google Ventures has been the venture arm of the search and web giant since 2009. A mix of great entrepreneurs are involved with Google Ventures including Rich Miner one of the co-founders of Android and Kevin Rose (or is he).

While Google is known for their acquihires to bring talent from strategically related startups into the Google umbrella, Google Ventures is investing in startups for financial reasons and not necessarily for strategic partnerships. Some of their investments to date include HomeAway, Nest Labs and 23andMe.

The $1.5 billion dollar commitment is $100 million dollars more per year than Google Ventures has had in the past. Traditionally they’ve had $200 million a year to invest. That brings 2012 to $300 million, along with 2013 and the remaining years after that through 2014.

Google Ventures managing partner Bill Maris told the Wall Street Journal’s, Venture Capital Dispatch, that it took about 30 minutes to convince the powers that be at Google to up the ante. Maris is also very confident in the fund, telling the Journal “We will not invest in any company that tanks”

In addition to the investment Google Ventures now offers their portfolio companies a whole suite of services like design, marketing and technical recruiting. Of course all of these are resources that Google is very good at already.

The increase in funding was announced via a tweet last Thursday at a gathering in Mountain View of 100 Google Ventures portfolio companies.

Linkage:

Source: WSJ Venture Capital Dispatch

Startup news from nibletz.com

Make sure you come to this startup conference

Facebook’s Sandberg And Google’s Schmidt Being Considered For Cabinet Position?

Now that the votes have been counted and Barack Obama has been elected to a second term as President Of The United States, his administration is preparing to shuffle the cabinet around.

While many are expecting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, to step down from her post to run for President in 2016, another post that needs to be filled immediately is Secretary of The Treasury. Politico reported on Thursday that while Obama has had a very stable cabinet in his first term, almost the entire cabinet could be replaced in this second term.

Rumors have been running rampant about Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. There’s been wide spread speculation that President Obama has been looking at Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt for the Treasury position going back to July of 2011.

While insiders feel that White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew is a shoe in for the post at Treasury, counselor to the President Pete Rouse has been vetting Fortune 500 CEO’s for the Treasury position for the past few months.

This time around, Eric Schmidt is on the short list of possibilities as is Facebook CFO Sheryl Sandberg. Sandberg once served as Treasury Chief of Staff under Larry Summers and according to Politico, “Obama clearly likes her”.

One of Mitt Romney’s strengths in the 2012 election was his experience running big business at Bain Capital. It seems that Obama may give the nod to Sandberg or Schmidt, both of whom have the experience running major Fortune 500 companies, that could be pivotal over the next 4 years in building our economy back up.

Linkage:

More tech news from nibletz.com

Will we see you “everywhere else”

Google Has Added Amber Alerts To Maps and Search

Somehow in the hubbub of activity surrounding Halloween and the Presidential election we missed some great news out of the GooglePlex. Google has teamed up with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Google Public Alerts Platform, to send out Amber alerts, when and where they are relevant to you. Of course Amber alerts are the alerts used to help bring children back home safely.

Google wrote on the official Google Blog:

If you’re using Google Search or Maps on desktop and mobile you’ll see an AMBER Alert if you search for related information in a particular location where a child has recently been abducted and an alert was issued. You’ll also see an alert if you conduct a targeted search for the situation. By increasing the availability of these alerts through our services, we hope that more people will assist in the search for children featured in AMBER Alerts and that the rates of safe recovery will rise.

AMBER Alerts will provide information about the abducted child and any other details about the case as they become available. Additional details could include the make and model of the vehicle he/she was abducted in or information about the alleged abductor.

Linkage
Source: Google Blog

National Center For Missing & Exploited Children

The big everywhere else thing

Apple Drops Their Preloaded YouTube App Leaving Google To Finally Bring Their Own YouTube Experience To iOS

As many of you know already, Apple has just announced that they would not include their 1st-party YouTube app in the next iteration of iOS. Plenty of sites have taken this opportunity to show the fact that Apple and Google are opposing forces, and with that comes a dissociation of products and services. However, this can actually be a very good thing for Apple, Google, and all iOS users.

Up until the release of Google’s new version of Google+ for iOS, almost every single app Google put into the App Store sucked. For instance, Gmail. But after we got a glimpse of Google’s beautiful work on the new Google+ app, many became believers. If Apple had announced their dropping of the YouTube app before we saw Google+ for iOS’s makeover this reaction would have been a completely different story, but because of Google’s latest efforts, I am a believer.

Apple’s move to drop their 1st-party YouTube app leaves Google in a position with two possible outcomes: develop a YouTube app for iOS or let iOS users deal with the mobile site. Now that Google has decided they would like to make quality apps for iOS, it doesn’t worry me that they will have to develop their own app, and leads me to believe that they will. And this will be a good thing for iOS users, because the YouTube app Apple was supplying was pretty bare. You could watch videos and leave comments, and that’s about as far as it went. Sure, there were a few other features, but it was nowhere near as robust and Google’s YouTube app for Android. This means that if Google follows their recent iOS app development patterns (and I mean very recent), the iOS community should be anxiously awaiting a beautifully developed YouTube app.

Google hasn’t actually said they will develop an iOS app yet though, and if they don’t many iOS users will be hurting for a native app. But Google knows how big YouTube is, and even if they were so blind as to say a native app isn’t necessary, the community will make sure El Goog knows its mistake. This also will relieve the duty of developing a third-party app for a service they don’t actually own, much like they’ve done with Google Maps. Now all we can do is wait to see if Google can bring us the YouTube app that we want to see, and if they do, the world of iOS will be ready to finally get a proper YouTube experience.

Google Sells Out Of 16gb Nexus 7

The Google Nexus 7 was the most highly anticipated Android tablet after the Kindle Fire last holiday season. However, many are expecting the Nexus 7 to eclipse the sales of the Kindle Fire which is the best selling Android based tablet to date.

The main advantages to the Nexus 7 over the Kindle Fire is that it actually runs the Android operating system in it’s latest release called JellyBean. The Kindle Fire runs it’s own software on top of a previous version of Android.

Amazon also created the Kindle Fire to use their own content ecosystem backed by over 15 years of experience in online sales. Unlike other Android devices theKindle Fire can’t access the Google Play store or any apps out of the Google Play Store’s app place, instead they use the Amazon app store, Kindle store and Amazon movies.

The Nexus 7, was designed by Google and their hardware partner for this project, Asus. With each new major release of the Android operating system Google picks a hardware partner to market a “Nexus” branded device which is the developer and reference device for that version of the operating system. In this case Jelly Bean debuted on the Nexus 7 tablet.

The Nexus 7 was introduced at Google’s annual developer conference held at the end of June. Google I/O sees thousands of developers specializing in all the varieties of Google products for a three day conference similar to WWDC for Apple developers. At Google I/O, Google and their partners typically launch key flagship devices.

Despite Android being the dominant operating system across the country and around the world, it’s hard to pinpoint the most successful Android devices because of fragmentation. At last count there were over 400 different devices world wide running Google’s mobile operating system.

As for the Nexus 7 it was highly anticipated because of it’s native Android operating system, the new version of Android, superior hardware and the seven inch form factor. There are rumors that Apple is going to produce a smaller version of the iPad in a 7.8″ frame to compete with Google and Amazon.

Retail stores and web direct sales started selling the Nexus 7 last week. Google stopped selling the 16gb version of the Nexus 7 yesterday after running out of inventory. Various online sites are reporting that local big box retailers still have limited quantities of the 16gb version. Best Buy, Staples and even Game Stop were retail partners for the Nexus 7.

Google tried their luck with direct to consumer sales a few years back with debut of the Nexus devices called the Nexus One. That Android powered device was made by HTC and sold in two varieties on Google’s website and not in retail stores at first. After a few short months Google got out of the direct sales business. Many were surprised when they announced that they would return to direct sales with the Nexus 7. Unlike the previous attempt though the Nexus 7 is being sold in Brick & Mortar stores and other online sites as well.

It appears that Google has not responded to anyone yet with comment on the amount of units sold. Google tends to keep actual sales numbers like this close to the vest. Google did not report actual hardware sales for their Motorola Mobility unit that they purchased early this year for over $12 billion dollars.

Source: CNet

Holy Google’s Marissa Mayer Is Moving To Yahoo As CEO

As many of our loyal readers know, we don’t typically report on Silicon Valley news, unless it’s say as big as Facebook acquiring Instagram for $1 billion dollars, or Google’s Marissa Mayer getting the nod as CEO at Yahoo. Mayer replaces a disgraced Scott Thompson who was fired when it was discovered he did not possess a computer science degree that was on his resume and subsequently reported in filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

This is a significant accomplishment for an incredible woman who I’ve personally met on two occasions and have seen speak on more than a handful of occasions. Mayer was the first woman engineer at Google. She led Google’s search team for years before pivoting to lead Google’s maps team. She is one of the few, female or male, people that can withstand a Mike Arrington beating in the hotseat and still not give up any information.

It’s clear that Mayer has the strength, knowledge and expertise to go head first into straightening out the mess that was left in the wake of Thompson. This includes an erroneous patent battle Thompson put Yahoo in with Facebook. Google has been on both sides of similar patent situations.

Mayer is also a visionary and a respected leader in Silicon Valley. Yahoo co-founder David Filo (who still works at the company) said in a statement:

“Marissa is a well-known, visionary leader in user experience and product design and one of Silicon Valley’s most exciting strategists in technology development. I look forward to working with her to enhance Yahoo’s product offerings for our over 700 million unique monthly visitors.”

Mayer said, “I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the internet’s premier destinations for more than 700 million users. I look forward to working with the Company’s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world.”

“The Board of Directors unanimously agreed that Marissa’s unparalleled track record in technology, design, and product execution makes her the right leader for Yahoo! at this time of enormous opportunity,” said Fred Amoroso, Chairman of the Board of Directors.

While some may find it odd that Mayer is leaving Google for the CEO position, at what was once one of Google’s key competitors, it was actually a Facebook executive, Sheryl Sandberg who summed up Google’s internal philosophy on moves like this. While giving a commencement address at Harvard Sandberg told a story about her interview with then CEO of Google Eric Schmidt. After showing Schmidt a spreadsheet declaring that the position she was up for at Google matched none of her job criteria Schmidt told her “don’t be an idiot” “Get on a rocket ship”. The same holds true for this opportunity for Mayer, which direction that rocket ship is going is still unclear though.

Source: SAI

[UPDATE] Google Assures Us That The Galaxy Nexus Will Be Shipping Again Next Week

The Galaxy Nexus sold directly from Google Play was moved from “In Stock” to “Coming Soon” due to a preliminary injunction filed against it by Apple. Because Apple holds so many vague patents, judges will often do things such as suspend sales (like we saw with the Tab 10.1) because Apple feels there are infringements in products from Samsung and Google. Of course, the Android community was either infuriated or just disappointed by a somewhat broken patent system that allows this, and Apple fanboys either don’t care or are rejoicing over their “victory.” Either way this smartphone war has proved to be as bitter as ever, without showing any signs of less aggression.

Google said they had a fix though, through software, that would allow them to get the Galaxy Nexus shipping again without any ridiculous delays. They have just told ABC that they will resume sales and shipping next week. This is very good for both Google and the image of Android, as this is the flagship “Pure Google” experience device that is available other than the Nexus 7. At only $349 from the Play Store (GSM HSPA+ only), it’s nothing shy of a great deal either.

Specifically, the patent Apple has seen as infringed upon is its “Siri patent” that patents a single interface searching multiple sources and delivering those results back to the user in a “common sense” fashion. Again, this is a pretty vague patent, and really presses on what Google is all about: search. So whether they will change or even remove Google’s search bar and Google Now service is unknown, but El Goog has assured us things will be back in full swing shortly. Let’s hope they’re right.

UPDATE: Sales have been resumed by allowance of a federal appeals court until July 12. “Coming Soon” is still posted on the Play Store to purchase a Nexus, but we expect that to change soon.

iOS Users Get To Use Google Chrome Before 90% Of Android Users Do

Today was the second day of I/O, and Google announced that they would be delivering Google Chrome to iOS users. That’s great news at first. Mac, PC, Android–they all have Chrome, it’s just second nature to think that iOS has to be next on the list. They were, and Chrome was released today in the App Store and quickly rose to the #1 spot in the store. This is because, well, it’s Chrome and Chrome is awesome. While Google usually doesn’t release the most polished apps on iOS (Gmail was pretty embarrassing to say the least), they really seemed to take the time to not only make Chrome work properly, but really come out polished and beautiful.

Chrome for iOS will sync all of your settings and bookmarks with your Mac or PC’s Chrome settings, and tabs will sync seamlessly from device to device. I know myself and a lot of others are huge desktop Google Chrome fans because of its sleek, lightweight design, and that factor definitely remains constant in the iOS iteration. Chrome is as reserved as it needs to be, and really only shows your tabs above and nothing else unless a menu is opened. Plenty of options are available to play with, and you can even have an unlimited number of tabs. Chrome for iOS is a fantastic app.

This may leave Android users a little sore, however. While Chrome has been on Android in beta for quite sometime (and saw its first stable release yesterday), over 90% of Android users can’t even download and install it. Only Android 4.0 and higher has access to the app, so even phones with ridiculous specs that are limited by Gingerbread or older can’t even view Chrome in the Play Store. This has got to change. Google can not continue to let Android is so fragmented that iOS devices from 2 years ago can use Google Chrome when a 2 month old Android device still can’t.

Google Updates Maps With Offline Use, Chrome Comes Out Of Beta, And Google+ Gets Tablet Support

At Google I/O today after announcing Android 4.1 Jellybean and the Nexus 7 tablet, the Google team also went ahead and updated a few of their apps as well. First, Google Chrome has finally come out of beta and is hitting the Play Store today. It is still only available to devices running Android 4.0 and higher, but it is out of beta and ready to roll in full. Google Maps has also been updated to finally support offline Maps, something they announced would be the “next dimension of Maps.” This will make it much easier for users to navigate with a bad data connection, and those without one at all can download certain maps and use them without any type of connection at all. This version of Google Maps is in the Play Store now and available for download for all users with Android 2.2 and higher.

Google+ finally has a tablet version as well, and an iPad version is on its way according to the Google+ team. This new tablet version is what Google calls the best Google+ experience they have created yet, and it incorporates the newly added events feature as well. Android users have access to this newly optimized app today, and iPad users will get it “soon.” Google+ for Android and iOS recently got a complete UI overhaul and now tablets can have an optimized version so the new UI can properly come to light on the big(er) screen.

Google Nexus 7 Tablet Ships Mid-July For $199 With Android 4.1 Jellybean

We’ve known for a while now that Google would be announcing their own Nexus tablet and that it would be made by Asus. Google wouldn’t be going after the iPad with this tablet though, they would be opting for a cheaper, smaller solution that still delivers an amazing experience. Much like the Kindle Fire, a $199 price tag and 7-inch screen will definitely be some of the major attractions for this device, and Google’s first official tablet, the Nexus 7, may finally be the Android tablet that gives Android a solid hold in the tablet market.

The Nexus 7 has a 7-inch screen with 1280 x 800 resolution, and a quad-core Tegra 3 processor with 1GB of RAM. Another huge selling point for the Nexus 7 is that it will be the first device to ship with Android 4.1 Jellybean, and will be very media-driven. There is only one camera, a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera for video chats and self portraits, and an NFC chip is on board as well. The tablet is Wi-Fi only with no 3G/4G options, and the battery is 4325 mAh for 8 hours of HD video playback and 300 hours of standby. The Nexus 7 should last just as long as anyone would expect another Android tablet to, and maybe even a bit longer due to the absence of a constant carrier data connection.

The Nexus 7 will ship mid-July for $199 with 8GB of storage and $249 for a 16GB model. The tablet is actually up for preorder right now at the Google Play Store, and for the low price is pretty good deal for anyone looking for a true, pure Android experience on a tablet. The link for the pre-order is below, and we will be sure to share our thoughts on the device as soon as we get our hands on one.

Play Store link

Andy Rubin Denies Claims Of Leaving Google For CloudCar Startup

Today Robert Scoble, a very tech-engaged icon who never shies away from a good rumor, posted an update on his Google+ that claimed that Andy Rubin, the founder of Android, would be leaving Google. Yes, Google I/O is just a few days away, and yes, Rubin leaving would mean a huge overhaul of I/O and likely result in an event no one would have predicted, but Scoble posted it nonetheless. Scoble claimed that Andy would be leaving to take charge of a startup called CloudCar that Rubin is closely tied to, but this has been proved to be false. Rubin did give CloudCar space in his startup incubator, but that is as far as the relationship goes at this point. Now, maybe Rubin wouldn’t have left before I/O, and it’s likely that such a parting would take place after Google’s key annual event, but still this news would have sent shock waves through the foundation of the Android/Google community.

However, posting his eleventh tweet since joining Twitter, today Rubin announced that he had “no plans to leave Google” after all. Rubin didn’t stop there though, no, his eleventh tweet had to have more substance–more pizazz. He also dropped the 900,000 number for Android activations per day, a number which is higher than the previous 850,000 that was revealed at MWC. This not only proves that Android’s growth is still climbing, but it also gives us an understanding of something else Rubin may have been trying to imply. Why would he leave Android now, at its peak. Well, maybe because of the famous “what goes up has got to come down” logic, but Apple has definitely proved that wrong thus far. Either way, Rubin is here to stay…for now, that is.

Official Google Buys Meebo, But What About Google+

It’s official Google has announced that they are acquiring social network company Meebo. This comes right on the heels of Google Plus’s one year anniversary. While this is great news for Meebo, it leaves some people wondering why purchase a social network when Google is telling everyone that Google plus is going so well.

Meebo began as an instant messenger type of service and then evolved into a social networking platform of it’s own with it’s user base hitting around 100 million.

“We are always looking for better ways to help users share content and connect with others across the Web, just as they do in real life,” Google said in a statement. “With the Meebo team’s expertise in social publisher tools, we believe they will be a great fit with the Google Plus team.”

According to Yahoo Google Plus currently has 170 million users but they are having trouble converting those users to regular daily users, as with Facebook and Twitter. Google’s number of users has been widely criticized because they recently lumped a bunch of their services under the Google+ umbrella. Also, new users to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, are persuaded to sign up for a Google+ account to activate their phone’s operating system. Google has also made it really easy to hit a big button to sign up for Google+ when signing up for a new, free GMail account.

It’s cases like Android activations and new GMail users which result in a bunch of new users being created that never actually do anything with the social network.

Meebo specialty is working with web publishers and engaging users for longer more frequent periods, which is something the Google Plus team definitely needs.

Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg and Milk was recently acquihired by Google to lead the Google Plus team. It was announced in a separate announcement last week that Rose is moving onto the Google Ventures team and exiting his post with the social networking arm of the search giant.

Meebo seems very excited about the news of the acquisition. As with most Google deals the financials have not been revealed. Over the weekend we reported that Google acquired the software from DC startup KikScore for an undisclosed amount.

Google has spent more than $16 billion dollars acquiring over 140 companies since 2009. That does include the $12.5 billion dollar acquisition of Motorola.

Source: Yahoo

Washington DC Startup: KikScore Aquired By Google

Google has Acquired a Wahington DC startup called KikScore. KikScore is an online reputation startup that helps smaller online businesses build reputations and become more trusted for consumers.

CEO and co-founder Rajeev Malik created KikScore after his wife noticed that people would fill up their shopping carts on her furniture website and then abandon them. Malik and his wife did some research and discovered that most incomplete shopping cart purchases were partially based on the customers trust, or lack thereof, of the merchant.

Malik describes KikScore on their blog as:
a patent-pending online reputation score and interactive report card for small businesses around the world. KikScore enables online small businesses to take information and reputational data about themselves, their track record of responsibility and dependability and show their website visitors that their business can be trusted. Small businesses do this by placing the interactive KikScore Confidence Badge, real-time merchant report card and comment platform on their website so they can close more leads and sell more.

KikScore’s other co-founders are Travis Valentine CTO, Mike Collins Head of Product, Mike Mauseth Board of Advisors member, and Tom Lewis another Board Of Advisors member.

This article from SocialMatchbox positions the acquisition as a straight up acquisition without acquihire. Malik told SocialMatchbox that he aimed to spend more time with his budding family and work on his next startup.

Google will most likely fold KikScore into their current Trusted Stores product that falls under the Google Checkout/Google Wallet department.

Linkage:

Source: socialmatchbox.com

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more stories from “everywhere else”

We are on a sneaker-strapped, nationwide, startup road trip more info here

Google Unveiling “The Next Dimension Of Maps” On June 6

Google Maps has been the king of maps for a while now, due to its stellar service and incredible iOS and Android applications, but things haven’t been looking very good as of late. When Google decided to start charging for its Maps API’s (in high-usage situations) companies like FourSquare dropped it as its maps provider. Other startups and companies began to do so, and before we knew it Apple is about to release their own Google Maps replacement. This isn’t only because Google began to charge, but it’s also because Apple undoubtedly enjoys their independence, especially from Google.

In the midst of all of these issues, however, Google has still kept improving their Maps platform and applications, adding things like indoor maps and directions and integration into Google+. Now they have announced that they will be unveiling “the next dimension of Maps. On June 6 they are holding an event to showcase this, and it is still unknown what exactly the next dimension of maps is. There are possibilities of a literal meaning such as adding a new 3D spin to Google Maps, or it could be something completely unrelated. Either way, we will be covering it every step of the way so be sure to stay tuned for what Google has in store for the Maps service.

Source: Google