Google has added games to its Google+ social network. Thursday saw the Internet giant start rolling out a games button at the top of users’ streams, with Angry Birds amongst the first games released, according to Computer World.Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of engineering at Google, announced the new feature in a blog post, noting that users could hide the games pages when they weren’t playing.
“The experiences we have together are just as important as to our relationships,” writes Gundotra. “We want to make playing games just as fun, and just as meaningful, as playing in real life.”
In a further challenge to Facebook, Google is charging game developers just 5% commission instead of Facebook’s 30%, VentureBeat reports. Since announcing its pricing, Google+ could become far more attractive to potential developers as its user base grows. The only catch is that the percentage is promotional, and a fixed rate is yet to be decided. With Facebook committed to 30% though, it shouldn’t be hard for Google to push its own cut up without too much protest from developers.
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Apparently fighting back, Facebook has announced a set of enhancements to its own social game platform. Users can now brag about successes and leaderboard positions on friends’ Facebook Walls, and there's a new bookmark system on the homepage for easy access to favored apps, VentureBeat reports.
According to Facebook's own blog post, users can see what their friends are doing on other games and apps, using a new real-time “app activity” ticker window. Arjun Sethi, a top executive at 6waves Lolapps, one of Facebook’s biggest game developers, attended an event where Facebook described the announcements.
“They’re really focusing on engagement and retention of the user,” Sethi was quoted as saying. “They have a qualitative and quantitative way to deliver better discovery of games for developers.”
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Leaked images of Google Android’s upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich update have hit the web. Images that first appeared on Android Police and RootZWiki show a new Android interface, complete with transparency, an app shortcut button, and a revamped notification bar.
Along with a couple of new features, the new interface is predominantly dark with a light blue trim, The Next Web reports. According to Android Police, a source said that the update also features a newly designed launched and app drawer, and that the camera has a new panoramic mode.
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LinkedIn is backing away from an advertising scheme to exploit user photos and recommendations, on privacy concerns. The company said in a blog post Thursday that it should have communicated its intentions with the new ad feature more clearly, PC World reports. As a result, it will change how the ads appear.
If a user “followed” a company or service, the new feature would display that user's name and photo when advertising the company. Users soon complained though about privacy and consent, as it became clear they had to opt out, rather than opt in.
The changes, announced yesterday, will see users' names and photos disappear from the ads, replaced with an “XX people in your network are following” banner. Users still have to opt out of the feature if they wish, though.
“What we’ve learned now, is that, even though our members are happy to have their actions, such as recommendations, be viewable by their network as a public action, some of those same members may not be comfortable with the use their names and photos associated with those actions used in ads served to their network,” says LinkedIn's director of product management, Ryan Roslansky, in the blog post.
