Google just rolled out Social Search , a new experiment in providing better or more relevant results. You join the experiment through google.com/experimental  In addition to the usual results, if you click the "show options" link at the top of the search results page, you'll see an option for Social. Google Reader. MORE >>

( image ) I’ve just been sent an official response from Google to the updated version of my story posted yesterday ( Compete To Death, or Cooperate to Compete? ). In that story, I reported about 2009 negotiations over incorporation of Facebook data into Google search. And Google Pages, Maps, etc. Google balked. MORE >>

Updated : Google just announced it is ending its Labs program, in an effort to focus more on its existing products, and a collective gasp has gone up around the Internet. For many of Google’s hard-core or even medium-core users, certain labs features have become essential tools to personalize the apps to their needs. MORE >>

Think back when YouTube was growing like a weed, and Google snapped it up. Most folks (including me) saw this as Google "getting into the video business," and sure, that in fact was one part of the equation. So why did Google really buy YouTube? Afterall, YouTube now gets more searches than Yahoo, Google's closest search rival. MORE >>

Although Google+ is still only a few months old, there seem to be plenty of people willing to write it off as doomed, or close to it. Is Google+ fatally flawed? As he puts it: Although Google seems determined to keep adding new features, I suspect there’s little it can do to prevent Google+ from becoming a ghost town. MORE >>