There are numerous comparisons between Google’s new Google+ social offering and Facebook, but most of them miss the mark. Google knows the social train has left the station and there is a very slim chance of catching up with Facebook’s 750 million active users. However, Twitter’s position as a broadcast platform for 21 million active publishers is a much more achievable goal for Google to reach.

There are two different types of social networks, private and public — each defined by its default privacy setting. Facebook is by default private and meant to connect actual friends. Twitter by default is public and anyone can follow anyone else. Google+ is decidedly in the Twitter camp — meaning you can follow anyone, including Google CEO Larry Page. Google+ lets you see Page’s posts and “like” his photos of kite surfing in Alaska. When posting on Google+, it forces users to select specific social circles they are posting to, which includes “everyone” as an option that mimics a Twitter-style broadcast. If not for the lawsuits and FTC settlement about Google Buzz automatically broadcasting posts, it is likely that Google+’s default setting would be pubic posts.

Although Twitter is growing (having just hit 200 million tweets a day), Twitter has left itself open to be displaced with a slow pace of adding features. Even newly returned founder Jack Dorsey has said that it was too difficult for “normal” people to use Twitter.

So, how can Google go after the 21 million people who are actively publishing on Twitter, and, more importantly, the few thousands that own the majority of Twitter followers? These types of posters are generally publishers, and Google’s core competence is serving publishers. Publishers pay a lot of attention to Google, from search engine optimization to increase the ranking on Google searches, search engine marketing keyword ads to drive traffic, and on-site advertising solutions ranging from AdSense to DoubleClick.

Publishers are interested in increasing their search rankings and improving their reach. Posting content to Google+1 increases search rankings. The black toolbar across the top of all Google services (other than YouTube), which integrates both Google+ and Google+ notifications, definitely provides reach and is now in front of as many user minutes as Facebook commands. Users commenting or liking on items from publishers will show up in their friends’ toolbars. Even if they only have a few friends, the overall traffic bump will be significant. The Google+ bar has not yet been activated on YouTube, a key publisher and celebrity channel, and likely will broadcast YouTube likes, comments and shares.

While Facebook is not sweating about Google+, the threat to Twitter is significant. Google has the opportunity to displace Twitter if it gets publishers and celebrities to encourage Google+ follows on their websites as well as pushing posts to the legions of Google users while they are in Search, Gmail and YouTube. Google was turned down when it tried to buy Twitter for $10 billion, and now it is going to try to replicate it. With Google+, the company actually has a shot.

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Yes, Microsoft is a slow, lumbering giant. It has been working on cloud for years, with numerous iterations, that took so long cloud proponent Ray Ozzie got fed up and left. Microsoft had to work through cannibalizing reseller arrangements, reconciling how to reach consumers versus businesses and a host of other issues. With Office 365, Microsoft has finally delivered an end-to-end cloud platform for businesses that encompass not only its desktop Office software, but also its server software, such as Exchange and SharePoint.

Contrary to Google’s narrative, cloud based office software is still a wide open market. The three million businesses that have “Gone Google” — proclaimed on billboards in San Francisco airport’s new Terminal 2 — are for the most part Gmail users, who are still happily using Microsoft Office and even Microsoft Outlook. Gmail is a fast, cheap, spam-free and great solution for business email, especially relative to the expensive, lumbering email service providers. Google Apps has definitely found a niche for online collaboration, but generally for low-end project management types of spreadsheets and small documents. The presentation and drawing Google Apps are barely used.

Yes, there are definitely Google Apps wins, since it seems cheap. On implementation, businesses find that switching to Gmail is one thing, but switching their entire business infrastructure to Google Apps is a completely different animal that goes far beyond simply changing how employees are writing memos.

Imagine you are a 25-person law firm in Kansas City running Microsoft Office, Microsoft Exchange for email and calendaring, Windows Server for file sharing, SharePoint for wiki/collaboration, and have a custom billing application written in .Net and running on Microsoft SQL Server. Like the majority of small to medium-sized businesses, you are an all-Microsoft shop.

Google comes in and presents: Google Apps looks primitive and doesn’t have all the features of Word and especially Excel and PowerPoint. It also doesn’t work offline. Email and calendar is sort of the same, but you should really use a browser instead of Outlook to get full functionality. Plus, you have to manually move all of your SharePoint content over to Google Sites, the file server isn’t integrated with the Windows or Mac desktops, and you have to keep your .Net app the way it is or rewrite it into Google AppEngine.

Compare this experience to the Microsoft value prop: go home on Friday, and on Monday when you come back everything will look the same, except now we are hosting it all and you can lay off your IT staff. There’s no training required. Employees can run apps on the desktop or in the browser, whichever they like, and the browser version looks like the desktop version, only cheaper. For a regular business where technology really is just a pain and an expense item — not a mission in life —  it’s really a no-brainer. In addition, Microsoft has historically been very smart about seeding nonprofits and educational institutions with copies of software that are virtually free, which it will likely also do with Office 365.

The thing about Microsoft Office 365 is that it looks really good, and look and act just like the well-known native Office apps. The ribbon interface is intuitive and the apps are fast and responsive. Google Apps, conversely, looks like it was made by college students from a weekend project. I don’t understand how Marissa Mayer loves fashion like Oscar de la Renta at night, but goes to work during the day and insists on data-driven web sites that look like crap. Google hasn’t shipped a good user interface since Google Maps. The different between Office 365 and Google Apps is glaring.

Microsoft definitely has a few issues to work out. As Google pointed out, collaboration is not very simple, since you have to be a Microsoft Office 365 subscriber in order to collaborate. However, Microsoft already launched Docs.com, a free Office offering with free collaboration. Microsoft will likely integrate Skype into Office 365, which will offer chat, audio and video conferencing, screen sharing and (probably) free document collaboration based on Docs.com.

Google’s claim that Office 365 doesn’t support many platforms is moot. It works fine on my Mac OS X with Chrome, and officially supports Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox. Office definitely has numerous pricing tiers. The lowest tier is on par with Google Apps and the higher tiers include subscriptions to the desktop software, which help to transition Microsoft from feature-driven bloatware to subscriptions —  a model that has worked for Adobe.

Google Apps will definitely have a place for new businesses and small businesses with younger employees that aren’t tied to the Office user interface. Google App Engine is a hidden jewel within Google Apps and its hands down the fastest solution for programmers to create and deploy a comprehensive web app. However, with Office 365, Microsoft is clearly on a trajectory to continue its Office hegemony. Microsoft is much more concerned about Apple than Google at this point, and insuring that it monetizes Apple devices like it used to make more per Mac than Apple did in the early 1990s. Conversely, Google should be much more concerned about Microsoft, which now has almost 30% marketshare in search.

Total revenue from app stores like the Apple App Store and Android Marketplace will nearly double to $14.1 billion next year and will reach $36.7 billion by 2015, according to tech research firm Canalys.

App Stores are expected to bring in $7.3 billion in revenue in 2011, which includes direct app purchases, in-app purchases and subscriptions, Canalys said.

The overwhelming number of apps on the Apple App Store and Android Marketplace might prove too daunting for consumers. That could create an opportunity for phone carriers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless to set up customized app stores that suggest apps based on user data, the firm said. Carriers have better access to phone-use data, which gives them a clearer picture of phone owner’s habits.

Apple currently takes a 30 percent cut from all transactions for in-app purchases and in-app subscriptions. Apple also takes a 30 percent cut of the sales of paid applications. The Apple App Store has more than 425,000 apps.

The iPhone manufacturer says it has sold more than 200 million iOS devices, making iOS the number one mobile operating system. Apple sold more than 25 million iPads in its first 14 months on sale. iPhone and iPad owners have downloaded more than 14 billion apps from the App Store in less than three years. Apple has also paid out more than $2.5 billion to developers building apps for the App Store.

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IBM researchers have made a breakthrough in a new kind of memory chip that can record data 100 times faster than today’s flash memory chips. That means scientists are one step closer to creating a universal memory chip that is fast, permanent, and has lots of capacity.

If they really work as billed, these multi-bit phase-change memory chips could transform enterprise computing and storage by around 2016, according to IBM. The technology could lead to chips that are lower cost, faster, and more durable in storing applications for consumer devices, including mobile phones and cloud storage. It could also benefit enterprise data storage applications.

Scientists at the research labs of Big Blue have demonstrated that phase-change memory can reliably store multiple bits of data per cell for extended periods of time.

The technology moves science one step closer to finding a universal non-volatile memory. Dynamic random access memory — used for main memory in computers — is fast, but it can only store data when the power is turned on. Flash memory can store memory permanently, even when power is turned off, but it is slower and has less capacity than DRAM, and it’s also more expensive. Hard disk drives have a lot of capacity, but they’re slower. A universal memory would theoretically be able to store and fetch data quickly, keep it permanently, and have a low cost and high capacity.

Computers with a universal memory could boot instantly (like Apple’s flash-based MacBook Air) and have lots of storage capacity and fast performance that would be useful in enterprise computing. Phase-change memory can retrieve and write data 100 times faster than flash, enable high storage capacity and not lose data when the power is off. It is also durable and can endure for 10 million write cycles, compared to 30,000 cycles for enterprise flash memory and 3,000 cycles for consumer flash memory.

People shouldn’t get too excited until IBM can prove that it can mass produce the technology, since phase-change memory has been under research for a long time. The IBM scientists say they used advanced modulation coding techniques to get rid of a problem known as “short-term drift,” which changes resistance levels in chip circuitry over time and causes data read errors. Up to now, reliable retention of data has only been possible for single-bit per cell phase change memory. Now IBM has demonstrated that multi-bit cell phase change memory can be made reliably.

The phase change memory leverages the change in resistance that occurs in the material, which is an alloy of various unnamed elements, when it changes from a crystal phase to an amorphous phase. The crystalline phase has low resistance, while the amorphous has high resistance. That can be changed by applying electrical voltage or pulses. Those changes can designate a switch from a one to a zero, which are the basic bits used in digital memory systems. Depending on the amount of voltage applied, part or all of the material will undergo a phase change; that means that multiple bits can be stored within a single memory cell, making the material cheaper to produce.

It’s sort of like being able to put four people into a single family home rather than just one. The housing cost per person goes down. IBM is able to put four distinct bits into one cell. IBM scientists made the writing process more reliable by writing and then measuring the accuracy of the write. If it isn’t accurate, the write action is performed again until it is accurate, said Haris Pozidis, Manager of Memory and Probe Technologies at IBM Research, Zurich.

The latency, or time it takes to get a task done, is 10 microseconds, which is 100 times faster than the fastest flash memory on the market today. But to be really useful, the phase change memory will have to be able to beat the flash chips that are on the market in 2016. IBM also used an advanced modulation coding technique that enabled better read accuracy. Reading and writing are the basic functions of a memory chip, in addition to storing data.

The phase change memory test chip was created by IBM scientists located in Burlington, Vermont; Yorktown Heights, New York and in Zurich. The experiment for retaining data has been under way for more than five months. IBM presented a paper on the topic at the 3rd IEEE International Memory Workshop in Monterey, Calif.

As I sit awaiting my delayed flight, 5 out of 6 people on my row are using an iPad to consume content. I am the lone holdout, but only because my iPad is in my bag while I type this post on my MacBook.

Everyone knows that Apple dominates mindshare and wallet-share in mobile and tablet (70-80% iPad market share), and Apple is of course leveraging that momentum back into huge growth in Mac laptops.

So, when I read the comments of Box.net’s Aaron Levie about iCloud in a June 22 VentureBeat article, I was perplexed.

He argues that Apple, like Microsoft before it, is at risk because of the proprietary nature of its approach and says that the standardization Apple is bringing to the table limits innovation, and runs counter to the mix-and-match openness that customers really want.

To the contrary, I’d argue that Apple is setting the stage for more innovation, and that iCloud is going to speed the maturation of cloud services by setting a foundation – indeed, a platform, that the rest of us can build around, and innovate on.

First of all, iCloud is nothing like Microsoft’s Office 365 cloud strategy (which, incidentally, is far from failing).

Furthermore, if we are all honest with ourselves, the combined annual revenue of online file-sharing companies, including my company, Alfresco — is less than 10% the annual revenue of Microsoft’s online enterprise file-sharing service, SharePoint. The reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

More importantly, though, I think Levie is missing the big point here: iCloud marks the “featurization” and standardization of the cloud file system.

Just like every computer and server has a pretty run-of-the-mill hierarchical file system, Apple is making content storage, organization, version control and synching standard features of a cloud operating environment. It’s about time.

And Apple is going to get it right, considering what it has learned from Time Machine (making version control a no-brainer, incremental synch) and iPad (eliminating the need to “save” documents) — and the fact that it is cutting their teeth on large audio and video files in iTunes.

I have no doubt it is going to figure out documents in a few short months and eliminate my need for third-party file sharing or synch tools altogether.

But that’s just scratching the surface

Just like computer OS vendors of old, Apple is unleashing iCloud as a file system-like service for thousands of iOS, OSx and even Windows application developers.

It will be just another service that you use when building an app — significantly decreasing the need for application developers to integrate with DropBox, Box.net or even Amazon’s S3 to store files.

The easiest path will be just to use iCloud services for file management. I am already envisioning that when I download certain iOS apps, they are going to say, “This app wants to have access to your iCloud files. Do you accept?” — just like they do for location services today.

And here is why I will gladly accept: Standardization in this case enables new kinds of magic on top of commoditized (and to-date, chaotic) cloud services.

Once we have a standard, things get really interesting. Levie needs chaos so that Box still has a role to play. But what if the problems Box thinks it solves simply didn’t exist in the first place? What if we could all just focus on creating high-order value, instead?

What if all this file system functionality was just a feature of a new breed of cloud applications?

That is precisely what is happening here. Apple introduced its original HFS (hierarchical file system), and it was certainly innovative at the time, but historically speaking, it only remains of note because of everything else it has since enabled.

For one, I’m hoping for a Roambi-like iPad app that, like Tableau, will be able to look into my spreadsheets in iCloud and present back to me beautiful, interactive visualizations of my spreadsheet data that I can share with my co-workers.

My own spreadsheets, always available in iCloud, become little online databases that I can control and update and allow apps to access.

Two, it’s not difficult to imagine a Flipboard-style app that would build a channel around a folder of documents or a keyword search across my documents.

It would make reading a stack of PDF analyst reports a lot more exciting and interactive (maybe it would even pull in web searches for related articles from around the web, and display those fresh articles alongside a static report).

Or even how about an app that allows me to select one of my Keynote or PowerPoint presos, select a few contacts from my iPad contact list, and start up a WebEx-style group presentation (complete with audio) using FaceTime as the delivery mechanism?

iCloud as a cloud file system has some juicy possibilities when it’s a service available to Apple’s huge community of application developers. And in a few short months, iCloud will make the use cases for online file sharing a lot less relevant.

Now, if I could only convince Apple to support CMIS (content management interoperability services) so that third parties like Alfresco could enable smart, secure enterprise document sharing through iCloud … well, I can dream.

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World of Warcraft, one of the top-selling online games in the world, will be free to download and play for a good chunk of the game’s introductory content, game developer Blizzard Entertainment announced today.

The new program is another way Blizzard Entertainment is trying to rope in new players for its popular online game. New players will have to buy all three expansions in addition to the original game if they want to continue playing past the first 20 levels of the game. Blizzard Entertainment recently dropped the price for an original copy of the game and the first expansion to $20, but the other expansions are still priced at around $35.

World of Warcraft players can reach level 85, so the amount of content Blizzard Entertainment is making available for free is actually only a small fraction of the content available in the game. There is also an enormous amount of “end-game” content that is designed for players looking for additional challenges and better rewards once they reach level 85.

The company tried a number of “free trial” programs in the past, including a 48-hour trial and a one-week trial. By removing the time limit, Blizzard Entertainment gets a better chance at roping in casual players that need to play on their own schedules rather than a schedule defined by the game.

Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft is already a huge commercial success. The game boasts around 11.4 million monthly subscribers who pay around $12 a month to access the world of Azeroth. And the company makes a lot of money selling additional expansion packs and initial copies of the game. It has become one of Activision-Blizzard’s most reliable sources of revenue.

Activision-Blizzard sold more than 4.7 million units of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm in the first month after it was released. On the first day, Cataclysm’s sales topped 3.3 million sold. By comparison, World of Warcraft’s previous expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King sold 2.8 million units on its first day in 2008 and The Burning Crusade sold 2.4 million units on its first day in 2007. World of Warcraft’s third expansion generated an estimated $188 million in retail sales in its first month.

 

I’m sure my fellow iPad owners have been there. You’re sitting on the couch chatting with someone on FaceTime and think, “Why the heck can’t I video chat with more than one person?” Well now you can give it a shot.

Fring on Monday released the first iPad app to offer four-way video chat, and it’s completely free. It works for the iPhone and iPod touch as well, and works over Wi-Fi, 3G, and 4G. Those devices will also offer group chat features. That said, we’d recommend sticking to the iPad and using it over Wi-Fi because you’ll want screen real estate and a strong connection for those video streams.

Fring currently offers apps for iOS, Android, and Nokia devices. It’s possible Fring’s app was released today because Skype will reportedly release its own iPad app on Tuesday.

Speaking from personal experience, I’ve always had technical troubles with Fring on iOS and Android. Oftentimes, video calls simply wouldn’t connect, and if they did work, the connection always needed to be incredibly fast to have a chance at clear images. I will certainly give this new version a shot, but I’m not going to hold my breath for a great experience.

Last month, the Israel-based Fring raised a reported $10 million in a Series C round of financing, which brings their funding to more than $30 million. Investors include North Bridge Venture Capital, Pitango Venture Capital, and Veritas Venture Partners.

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Apple has added extra security features in iOS 5 that will make it much harder for hackers to safely jailbreak their iPhones, according to the high-profile jailbreakers at Dev-Team Blog. Apple’s changes will make it harder to roll back to an older version of iOS if jailbreaking goes bad.

Apple has been attempting to stop jailbreakers from altering its iOS software for years, but the U.S. copyright office came down on the side of jailbreakers last July. Users can jailbreak their iPhones and iPads to add new features, run unapproved apps or make the devices work on unofficial carriers. Earlier this month, hackers claimed to have already figured out how to jailbreak iOS 5.

The process of jailbreaking has always been a little tricky. When a jailbreak goes wrong or a hacker simply wants to revert to an older version of iOS, they could do this by saving what are known as “SHSH blobs” and use those blobs to downgrade the software without iTunes noticing. But iOS 5 makes this process nearly impossible.

The jailbreakers at Dev-Team Blog have been hacking their way though the iOS 5 beta and noticed Apple has added a feature called “APTicket” that resets the SHSH blobs each time the phone is rebooted. This will make it essentially pointless to save old blobs and try to use them to roll back the software.

The Dev-Team Blog notes that this is just for iOS 5, so restoring to builds before 5 should be fine to roll back to. But anyone that makes the leap to iOS 5 should be warned that once they upgrade, it may be a heck of a lot harder to go back.

The Department of Justice on Friday gave the go-ahead to Apple and Intel to bid on Nortel’s highly valued patent portfolio. The two high-profile firms follow Google as potential bidders.

Nortel’s patents relate to all manner of technologies, including Wi-Fi, social networking, and 3G and 4G wireless capabilities—all things that could help better position whatever tech firm ends up winning. Patent ownership can also come in handy for fighting back when another firm sues over a patent claim.

Google’s opening $900 million bid on Nortel’s patents was accepted by the DOJ a week ago, with bidding starting on Monday. The auction was originally supposed to take place on June 20, but it was delayed as other firms waited for bid approval.

Nortel filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2009, and since then it has been selling off its assets. Google’s $900 million bid will act as the floor for all other bids, so players like Apple and Intel will be allowed to submit their own higher bids after that.

U.S. antitrust regulators had been reportedly looking closely at Apple concerning its bid on Nortel’s patents because Apple could potentially stifle competition with them. If Apple controlled wireless 4G LTE patents, for example, it could pressure carriers into meeting its demands.

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Google on Friday announced that it’s pulling the plug on Google Health and Google PowerMeter, two products in its lineup that haven’t been as popular as services such as Gmail, Chrome, or Maps.

The Federal Trade Commission is about to start a large-scale antitrust investigation to examine “fundamental issues relating to Google’s core search advertising business.” The investigation could involve examining the scope of Google’s wide array of products and their relation to its incredible advertising capabilities. Retiring lesser known products like Health and PowerMeter could help Google make the case that it doesn’t intend to provide every possible Web service. It could also simply help Google save a little money.

Google Health was launched in May 2008 and its purpose was to track and aggregate health and wellness statistics. PowerMeter was launched in September 2009 as an energy monitoring tool to help people measure their home-based energy consumption.

“Both [products] are based on the idea that with more and better information, people can make smarter choices, whether in regard to managing personal health and wellness, or saving and conserving energy at home,” Google product manager Aaron Brown wrote in a company blog post. “While they didn’t scale as we had hoped, we believe they did highlight the importance of access to information in areas where it’s traditionally been difficult.”

As of today, Google is set to retire PowerMeter on Sept. 16 and Health on Jan 1. However, users of the Google Health service will still have access to records and other personal data for download until Jan. 1, 2013.

While it’s unfortunate to see innovative products discontinued, there’s no incentive to keep them going if no one’s using them. Of course, Google could be lowering the number of its product offerings in the wake of a major antitrust suit, but we’ll likely never know the internal rationale behind the decision.