Social Media and its influence

Toro, a startup that helps developers promote their apps on Facebook, just announced that it’s been acquired by Google.

The company was originally known as Red Hot Labs, and it’s led by Amitt Mahajan and Joel Poloney. They previously co-founded MyMiniLife, which played a key role in the creation of FarmVille (and was acquired by Zynga).

Mahajan and Poloney told me last fall that the company’s aim was to make launching and optimizing a Facebook ad campaign as easy as possible for mobile app developers, by automatically creating and testing “hundreds of variants” for each campaign.

In its announcement, Toro writes that joining Google will give team members access to more resources and distribution, allowing them to “continue our mission of making the lives of app developers easier.”

Twitter is constantly moving. That’s part of the allure of the social network. But sometimes you want to dig up a tweet you saw and of course you go to the place where you search for everything: Google.

Today, Twitter announced that it was giving Google access to its firehose of data in order to make finding all those tweets. First reported by Bloomberg yesterday, tweets will start showing up in Google search results as soon as they are posted to the social network.

Google has acquired Emu, a new mobile messaging application that just exited beta earlier this year. Emu was at heart an IM client, but it differentiated itself from the crowded market with smart features that incorporated a virtual assistant not unlike Siri to automate tasks based on your conversations – meaning you could do things like schedule appointments to your calendar, set reminders and even make reservations at a restaurant directly from your conversations.

Learn more:

- http://www.scoop.it/t/social-media-and-its-influence/?tag=acquisitions

See ya never, Orkut and Quickoffice

Learn more:

- http://www.scoop.it/t/social-media-and-its-influence/?tag=Google+GraveYard

Wer auf Google nach aktuellen Themen sucht, bekommt auch Beiträge aus dem Kurznachrichtendienst Twitter angezeigt. Und das in voller Größe und von Twitter gewohntem Erscheinungsbild.

Mehr erfahren / Learn more:

- http://www.scoop.it/t/social-media-and-its-influence

Google annonce la fermeture de la plateforme Helpouts, qui avait été lancée en novembre 2013. Celle-ci devait permettre à des experts de donner des cours à d'autres internautes, en utilisant la visiophonie. Le service n'a toutefois pas rencontre le succès espéré. L'arrêt de Helpouts sera effectif le 20 avril.

Learn more:

- http://www.scoop.it/t/best-of-de-google-knol-francophone/?tag=Google+Graveyard

As part of a possible effort to improve the Google+ Photos experience, the Mountain View company has acquired the team behind Odysee, an app that automatically backed up images from a mobile device to a desktop and also let users easily share content privately with friends and family.

“Odysee’s vision was to be the easiest way for everyone to capture unlimited memories and access them everywhere,” the startup said on its website on Sunday, adding that its integration into the Google+ team means it can “continue to focus on building amazing products that people love.”

Learn more:

- http://www.scoop.it/t/social-media-and-its-influence/?tag=acquisitions

Googles Instant Messaging Dienst Gtalk wird am 16. Februar endgültig eingestellt. Google setzt voll auf Hangouts.

Google GraveYard: another one bites the dust...

Learn more:

-  http://www.scoop.it/t/social-media-and-its-influence/?tag=Google+GraveYard

Remember those rumors a few weeks ago that Google was looking to acquire the plug-in-play security camera company, Dropcam? Yep. It just happened. Just..

Like Nest customer data, Dropcam will come under Nest’s privacy policy, which explains that data won’t be shared with anyone (including Google) without a customer’s permission. Nest has a paid-for business model and ads are not part of our strategy. In acquiring Dropcam, we’ll apply that same policy to Dropcam too