It's been a long time coming, but Google has finally made a serious entry into the social media market. It took three attempts - you remember Wave and Buzz right? No? That's okay, no one does - but it looks like Google may finally have a winner on its hands.

Still, Google+ has a long way to go. The service has launched to a relatively small group of users and continue to be limited by invites, but that could provide the kind of hype Google wants for a new service. Here's an excerpt from an article I wrote about the service for Bullz-Eye:

One of the coolest parts of Google+ is Hangout, which allows users to jump into text and video chat rooms with customizable accessibility. It’s a product that could easily punch a hole in Skype and become an amazing productivity tool. That’s especially true for the companies that have made the transition to Google’s online products.

Sparks, on the other hand, is the service’s big flop. It’s meant to be some sort of social news feed, but it’s cumbersome instead of sleek, slow instead of fast, and skimpy where it should be overflowing with information. Sparks actually surprises me in its shortcomings. Google has mountains of information about me. I’m always signed in to its email service, I use the search engine exclusively, I have an Android phone, I use Google Reader on a daily basis, and I’m writing this article in Google Docs. Why is it so hard for me to get a decent feed on Sparks?

For the rest of the article, head over to the Bullz-Eye Gadgets channel.

A couple months back, Apple CEO Steve Jobs made a number of enemies by implementing restrictions around App Store subscription pricing that included a 30 percent finder's fee for Apple. Apparently some of that change is being rolled back, though Apple won't be making it easy for subscribers to get content outside the App Store.

The new rules don't go into effect until the end of the month, at which point we'll be able to see just how well the app development world is handling the restrictions. Several publishers have pledged to comply with the new rules, but others have pledged to abandon the App Store altogether. I'll be particularly curious to see what happens to the developers who continue on like nothing has changed. Will we see mass bans from the App Store?

To me, this change seems like a PR move. Apple knows that there are quite a few customers who are also App Store developers, and those guys were not happy when the changes rolled out. Hell, I wasn't happy and I have no stake in the situation whatsoever.

Apple's really nailed down its presentation strategy. The company doesn't leak features before they're absolutely ready for mass consumption (not counting the old AppleTV of course), and then it announces the product, shows just how awesome it is, and puts a release date just close enough that the world will stay excited until its release. iCloud is no different. Apple's unveiling made Google Music look like a high-school project by comparison.

I'm really impressed by what Apple put together. There are a few recent Apple policies that have really made me question whether the company is worth supporting in any capacity. But iCloud is free, and iTunes Match, maybe the single greatest part of the iCloud rollout, is just $25 a year. None of this is to say that I think Apple has pioneered anything amazing. In fact, pretty much everything about the iCloud service has been available through Google for quite some time. It is clean, pretty, and looks incredibly easy to use, which is exactly what Apple is good at. It also further ties consumers into the iOS ecosystem, making it harder to consider leaving.

For the non-Apple users of the world, there is some good news here. Google is looking at iCloud and thinking of ways to do it better (and they can't be happy about Apple taking the notification bar pretty much directly from Android). The next version of Android will almost certainly try to best iCloud in some serious ways. Google knows that Apple is going for brand loyalty with iCloud. Whatever the company releases to compete will have to be good enough to pull people away from iOS.

As far as tech outages go, the recent Playstation Network downtime is a real doozy. The company has been working hard to recover from the security breach, but that involves a move to a new server bank, software upgrades, testing, and on and on. But just how bad is it?

That graph from The Technologizer should tell you. You'll probably remember a few of those dates from the wild amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth that accompanied those outages. And that graph says nothing of the amount of personal data that was pilfered from Sony servers, which led to the outage in the first place.

How does an online service recover from massive data theft and 3+ weeks of downtime. In all honesty, it might not. We'll have to see how Sony plays its cards for the remainder of the year.

Source: The Technologizer

The Apple iPad may already come pre-loaded with a pretty handy, no-frills weather app, but for those that want their weather forecasts delivered with a bit of style, Tiny Mammal's Weather Doodle is just the app for you. Although it's been available for the iPhone since late 2010, the app has finally made its way onto the iPad, and it's currently on sale for only $0.99 (normally $1.99) through May 23rd.

Weather enthusiasts won't find too much to get excited about -- using individual weather stations within cities across the world, you can access basic info like current conditions, the 5-day forecast, and wind speeds and humidity -- but it's in the presentation where the app really shines. Instead of just seeing a static image of the weather conditions, Weather Doodle depicts it using animated art, whether it's the moon glowing, snow falling, or lightning striking from storm clouds. There are three different art themes to choose from (with more on the way), but only one of them comes installed with the app. The other two can be purchased for an additional $0.99 each, which is perhaps its biggest shortcoming. Fortunately, the one theme that is included (titled Paperscape, which looks like a grade-school art project using construction paper) is undoubtedly the best of the bunch.

Still, for as appealing as the simple yet beautiful presentation may be (it certainly makes checking the weather more interesting than usual), the lack of any really cool features prevents Weather Doodle from being a must-have app. It's a great deal at its current sale price, but at its usual $1.99 price point, there's just not enough there to make it worthwhile.

All you mobile nerds are getting excited about that new Sidekick, right? Yeah, right. I'm actually shocked that T-Mobile even has plans to make a Sidekick 3 now that smartphones have become the wave of the future. If I can get an Android handset or an iPhone for the same price (or cheaper), why bother with an expensive data plan for what is essentially a hardware gimmick at this point?

It seems 471,000 consumers agree with me. That's the number of subscribers T-Mobile has lost in the first quarter of 2011. That's not the full story - the company did sign 372,000 to new contracts, but that's still some 99,000 short of growth. In any case, it's not good news. Maybe AT&T is right about the buyout. Does T-Mobile need Big Blue to keep itself afloat?

Today Cisco finally had to come to terms with the fact that it fundamentally misunderstands the consumer electronics market. Like, $590 million misunderstands it. That's how much the company paid for Pure Digital originally. Now, Cisco will kill off the brand and let go of 550 employees in an attempt to restructure.

I can't say I understand why Cisco bought the Flip in the first place. It's like you can almost see the guys at Pure Digital biting their lips and trying not to laugh as Cisco drops a $590 million dollar offer on the table. I imagine there had to have been one guy in that meeting who would raise his hand every now and again to say "Hey, don't you think this tech will be in every smartphone ever soon?" He was also probably getting kicked every time he got to, "Hey don't you think...ow!"

Roughly one week from today, Verizon will no longer be offering customers the option to sign a one-year contract. “The reason behind the change is the greater majority of customers sign up for a 2 year contract and take advantage of the discounted (promotion) price,” a Verizon Wireless spokesperson told BGR in an email. “Customers will still have the option of choosing month to month, prepaid or service with a two year contract.”

I can't say this is really a surprise. Few carriers gave such deals and frankly there wasn't a lot of benefit to the customer. American consumers typically put up with contracts for free or significantly reduced handsets. If they are really averse to contracts, a one year deal probably wouldn't be any more appealing than two.

One of the big advantages to jailbreaking has been the ability to enable tethering without carrier support. That doesn't mean the carrier is unaware of the way the phone is being used. In fact, AT&T has started sending text messages to customers who are tethering without the company's tethering plan.

The message reads as follows:

“Did you know tethering your Smartphone to a computer requires a tethering plan? Pls call 888-860-6789 for details or visit att.com/dataplans."

Some customers are also receiving emails about the usage, alerting customers that they will be automatically enrolled in the DataPro 4GB plan if they don't get in touch with AT&T. From the email:

"If we don’t hear from you, we’ll plan to automatically enroll you into DataPro 4GB after March 27, 2011. The new plan – whether you sign up on your own or we automatically enroll you – will replace your current smartphone data plan, including if you are on an unlimited data plan. If you discontinue tethering, no changes to your current plan will be required.”

AT&T says the goal is fairness to customers. Yes, they would like to screw all of us equally.

There was such a clamor leading up to the Verizon iPhone launch that you'd think it would be the only thing the world is talking about. Instead, it's been pretty quiet since the launch, which has everyone wondering, how good was the launch?

If you see things how Marco Arment, founder of the popular Instapaper app for multiple mobile platforms, the Verizon iPhone is selling mostly to existing iPhone customers. Arment used the sales of his own application, which are historically fairly steady, to analyze the current level of Verizon iPhone sales.

Here are the basics from his blog:

Since my ranks rarely change significantly, the resulting sales volumes seem to track the entire App Store’s volume. In other words, since my rank is held mostly constant, but my sales vary, it’s reasonable to extrapolate that trends in my sales indicate approximate trends in the entire App Store market.

The results are fairly obvious: I see huge spikes whenever there’s a new iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad released, whenever they become available in a major new country, or whenever there’s a major reason for people to buy a lot of them (like the holidays).

Arment hasn't seen any spikes surrounding the Verizon iPhone release, though. In fact, things have been surprisingly moderate. Arment's own theory about slow adaptation among Verizon customers seems spot on to me. He thinks most of early adapters are the hardcore smartphone nerds. These are the people that wait in lines and stay up until 3AM to pre-order. These are people who put up with AT&T just so they could have the iPhone.

The next wave of iPhone owners are the casuals - people who have seen the phone and liked it but aren't in any real hurry to buy one. Casual users always take longer to adapt new tech and the Verizon iPhone won't likely be an exception.