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Google Buzz, Google’s latest social media offering launched last week, but has already come under heavy criticism. Buzz, which is integrated into Gmail, is the search engine’s answer to Twitter, Facebook and the vast range of other social media tools and it allows users to post updates including YouTube and Flickr links, follow people they regularly engage with . However, Google was forced to admit that its testing of the product was insufficient and that it had bypassed many of its usual extensive testing phases, after users raised privacy concerns about the tool.
Google is normally rigorous in its testingdoes this quick introduction signal that Google feels a genuine threat from search engine alternatives such as Twitter?

 

A new website which will publish translations of both western and Middle Eastern news stories will be launched today. Meedan aims to improve relations between English and Arabic speakers by enabling them to see the news from a different perspective and understand how events are interpreted and reported by different media. The site will also provide a forum which will allow speakers of both languages to communicate in near real-time.

 

Facebook is upping its global efforts and recruiting growth managers in Brazil, Russia and India. Seen as three of the leading emerging global markets, along with China, it is no surprise that Facebook will want to increase its presence in these markets which all have growing internet populations. Facebook currently trails Orkut, a Google-owned social network in Brazil and India and various Russian networks such as Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki.

 

Internet measurement service Hitwise is expanding into France, offering users insights into French internet activity including data on search behaviour and competitor activity. Whilst there are already existing tools available to measure data from the France, this expansion offers marketers a new means of comparing internet data from several markets including the UK, the US, Hong Kong and Brazil.

 

All the updates from the conference can be found on Twitter - check out #ses and #seslondon

 

The latest ComScore figures show that Bing has increased its market share in the US to 11.3% and that the number of searches conducted on the search engine saw an 11% increase from December to January; Google’s search volume remained the same. While these figures won’t be worrying Google too much - the search giant still holds 65% market share in America – they do show that Bing is gaining popularity and acquiring new users. Last week Microsoft renegotiated its partnership with Facebook, which sees the social network integrate Bing search facilities into its site and the two companies are extending their partnership outside of the US to reach the millions of Facebook users around the globe. Bing might have a way to go, but its certainly headed in the right direction.

 

Having announced that over 100 million Facebook users access the site via their mobile phone, the leading social network has revealed that it will launch a new version of its mobile site – Facebook Zero. The new site which is set to launch in the coming weeks is a text only version of the site, which will require lower bandwidth and make it easier for people with poor internet connections, particularly in developing countries, to access Facebook.