According to the LA Times, Google+ interest is fading. According to logic, history, and common sense, Google+ is exactly where it needs to be. Lest we forget, Google+ grew to 20 million and then to 50 million users ten times faster than Facebook. “Fading interest” is not a challenge for a site that grew that quickly. It’s a fact that would happen to any site that grew through buzz. Simply stated, buzz excitement is unsustainable. Google knows this. The LA Times and other bloggers apparently do not. Most things are falling into place exactly as Google has predicted. They’ve had some major missteps…

The world’s largest social network, Facebook, is planning a number of acquisitions that will improve site design and advance mobile features. The company is moving quickly to increase the amount of time users spend on its site, but the company is also eager to launch improvements in response to growing competition, specifically Google+. Facebook is also hoping to make the site run smoother and more reliably. Since its userbase has grown to more than 750 million, Facebook needs to support its growth without adding to the site’s complexity. In total, the company has made 13 acquisitions…

Almost all of the social media hoopla lately has been about Google+ and its relationship with Facebook. Just over a month ago, it was impossible to conceive of anyone truly competing against Facebook, yet Google was able to make such a large splash that many are already calling it a question of “when” rather than “if” they can overtake Facebook and dominate our frivolous online time spend. Does it really have to be one or the other? Mathematically, yes, there’s really no way for both to survive indefinitely. One will have to crush the other simply because there aren’t enough hours in the day otherwise,…

It was fun while it lasted. Something new and shiny popped into our social media lives in the last month that offered nearly everything we’ve ever wanted. Much like a new significant other, we fawned over how cool this feature was or how amazing that feature was. We declared our undying love for this new network and vowed to someday completely transition away from the old hag run by Mark Zuckerberg. We only saw the good. There was nothing bad other than a few bugs here or there and some quirky taste-choices. It was great. The shotgun wedding that saw 20 million users flock to Google+ in three weeks (versus…

Facebook has been doing everything it can to keep people from exporting their contacts to bring them into Google+ ever since the search giant’s new social network launched this month. Household Hacker has come up with a relatively quick and very easy way to make it happen using Facebook’s relationship with Yahoo. …

In the wake of the Google Plus launch, Google’s online photo-sharing service Picasa has received a mild overhaul, including improved tagging and unlimited storage for photos and video. The update looks to be another blow to Yahoo’s Flickr, one of Picasa main rivals. Users uploading content through Google Plus will automatically be adding to Picasa. However, those same uploads will not count toward the service’s storage limits. Exceptions include videos lasting longer than 15 minutes or photos beyond 2048 x 2048 pixels. Larger photos can still be uploaded directly to Picasa, but doing…

For a company that has had trouble understanding social, the response to Google+, the company’s new social network platform, has been remarkably good. But no-one so far has suggested that Google+ will be the proverbial “Facebook killer’. And nor should they. We have no idea how the mass market will respond to Google+, especially since there’s no agreement among early adopters yet. Still, at least in terms of ideas, Google+ is very interesting – innovative, even. In fact, the ideas are so surprisingly good, I think Facebook has a reason to worry – if, of course, they decide not to steal those ideas…