The tech giant starts rolling out custom URLs for certain brands and users, like +britneyspears and +toyota. Now, memorizing those long strings of numbers could be a thing of the past.
Both Twitter and Facebook have offered vanity URLs personalized to users' accounts for years -- something that has been glaringly vacant in Google Plus' URLs. But, that's about to change.
Google's social network announced today that vanity URLs for profiles and pages are on their way. It has even begun rolling out a few for celebrities, like soccer player David Beckham and pop singer Britney Spears, along with brands like Toyota, Delta, and Hugo Boss.
Here's what Google product manager Saurabh Sharma wrote in a blog post today:
Your Google+ profile is a place for you to share your passions with the millions of people who come to Google each day...Today we're introducing custom URLs to make it even easier for people to find your profile on Google+. A custom URL is a short, easy to remember web address that links directly to your profile or page on Google+.
Sharma writes that at first just a few "verified profiles and pages" will get custom URLs, but eventually they will be offered to "many more" people and brands around the world. It's not clear how Google is choosing who is "verified" and who isn't and the timeframe for the greater inclusion of vanity URLs.
In other Google+ news, the social network also announced today that it is launching a new audio setting for hangouts called "Studio Mode," which optimizes sound specifically for music. Beforehand, hangout sound was tweaked for conversations; but now by clicking settings and switching from "Voice" to "Studio Mode," music should sound more like a live concert than a video conference.
"Since we launched Google+ a little over a year ago, we've seen a thriving community of musicians connect with fans in really cool ways," Google product manager Matthew Leske wrote in a blog post today. "In particular: singer/songwriters like +Daria Musk, bands like +Suite 709, and many others are using Hangouts On Air to perform live for global audiences, and jam with fans face-to-face."
Dara Kerr, a freelance journalist based in the Bay Area, is fascinated by robots, supercomputers and Internet memes. When not writing about technology and modernity, she likes to travel to far-off countries.
Google looks like being beaten again in China, as Baidu leaps ahead in the mobile mapping space.
The text ads giant was still second in the Quarterly Survey of China's Mobile Map Client Market, but only just, according to Beijing-based Analysys International.
Chinese player Autonavi was the market leader by a long way, with 25.7 per cent, and Google Maps came in second with 17.5 per cent, but had Baidu breathing down its neck in third with a 17.3 per cent share.
The momentum is with the Chinese search firm too – Baidu Maps' market share rose from 13.6 per cent in Q1 to 17.3 per cent in Q2 while Google’s fell from 23.2 per cent. As a result, Baidu is predicted to supplant Google in the current quarter.
To add to Google’s woes, the analyst said local users were having problems updating their version of its mapping client, while Apple is set to drop Google Maps as a pre-install on the next version of iOS, with reports suggesting Cupertino is working with Autonavi now in the region.
“If the above problems are not solved quickly, it's hard for Google map to reverse the situation,” wrote Analysys International in a blog post.
Baidu and Google are of course old foes in the search space, where the home-grown firm routed its Californian rival after Google moved its search servers to Hong Kong in 2010 over censorship concerns.
Google's market share is now around 16 per cent while Baidu dominates with around 78 per cent.
The mobile map market in China is growing at a staggering pace, jumping 206 per cent year-on-year last quarter to 229 million accounts, according to Analysys International.
The analyst predicted it would be a key battle ground for the next phase of the mobile internet given that maps and associated apps are closely tied to up to a quarter of mobile advertising. ®
China may not have repeated their feats of Beijing 2008, but their presence in the top two was never in doubt. (AAP)
China proved they've arrived as a genuine Olympic super-power, and both Koreas impressed -- but Japan were top of the flops among Asian countries at the London Games.
China may not have repeated their feats of Beijing 2008, when they topped the medals table for the first time, but with 38 golds their presence in the top two, behind the United States, was never in doubt.
South Korea were the only other Asian team in the top 10. North Korea, finishing 20th, had their best Games in 20 years, Hong Kong celebrated cycling bronze and Singapore won their first individual medal in 52 years.
India couldn't follow Beijing by claiming their second individual gold, but they finished with two silver medals and four bronze -- their highest individual total.
Much as expected, China's divers and badminton and table tennis players missed just two gold medals between them, and their weightlifters hoisted five titles at London's ExCeL.
But China's shooters were off-target compared to Beijing, winning only two golds, and their gymnasts dropped from seven victories in 2008 to three on the London apparatus.
China's track hopes went up in smoke when 110m hurdler Liu Xiang, the 2004 champion, heart-breakingly limped out of the heats for the second Games running with a career-threatening Achilles tendon tear.
But his brave hop down the track to the finish line, symbolic kiss of the last hurdle, and embrace by his waiting competitors, was one of the Games' most memorable images.
Meanwhile Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen, 16, led China to their best performance in the pool, claiming two wins and a world record each as the team broke through with five titles in one of the Olympics' top-tier events.
Sun became China's first male Olympic swimming champion in the 400m freestyle, and then broke the 1500m world record for the second time in a year.
Ye set a new mark in the women's 400m medley and also won the 200m medley, while Jiao Liuyang won the women's 200m butterfly. Unproven doping speculation surrounding Ye was angrily dismissed by Sun.
"People think China has so many gold medals because of doping and other substances, but I can tell you it is because of hard work," said Sun.
"It is all down to training and hard work that we have results. Chinese are not weaker than those in other countries."
China, South Korea and Indonesia were also embroiled in one of the Games' worst scandals, when eight badminton players were disqualified for trying to lose group ties to secure easier quarter-finals.
South Korea's peerless archers, included the legally blind Im Dong-Hyun, hit the bull's-eye with three out of four gold medals, and their shooters added three more at the Royal Artillery Barracks.
They had two more in judo and two in fencing -- but none for Shin A-Lam, whose tearful, hour-long protest over her loss in the women's epee semis won sympathy and media coverage, but no Olympic medal.
North Korea's Games made an unpromising start when their women's footballers were pictured next to the South Korean flag on a stadium big screen, prompting a lengthy protest.
But tiny, 1.52m (five foot) weightlifter Om Yun-Chol put them on the gold trail when he lifted three times his bodyweight to win the 56kg category with a world record-equalling 293kg.
Kim Un-Guk and Rim Jong-Sim also lifted their way to gold at the ExCeL venue, while An Kum-Ae got judo gold on the opening weekend as North Korea matched their best ever haul of four titles at Barcelona 1992.
Japan, who are bidding to host the Games in 2020, had high hopes of emulating their record total of 16 gold medals. But after a near-wipeout in the judo, they ended with just seven.
South Korea rubbed salt into the wound when they beat Japan, their fiercest rivals, 2-0 for men's football bronze.
South Korea's Park Jong-Woo celebrated by waving a politically sensitive banner laying claim to an island group claimed by both countries. He was later barred from collecting his medal.
Sarah Lee Wai-Sze pedalled to Hong Kong's first cycling medal, bronze in the keirin, and China-born Feng Tianwei ended Singapore's half-century wait for an individual medal with bronze in the women's table tennis.
Malaysia got their first diving medal after Pandelela Rinong's bronze in the 10m platform, and there was a wave of sympathy for badminton star Lee Chong Wei, who fell just short of claiming the country's first gold.
Indonesia won two weightlifting medals, but nothing in badminton for the first time in 20 years, and Thailand had medals in boxing, taekwondo and weightlifting.
Both Twitter and Facebook have offered vanity URLs personalized to users' accounts for years -- something that has been glaringly vacant in Google Plus' URLs. But, that's about to change.
