Yes! It's here...

The much much awaited product of the Google+ ecosystem has finally arrived. Yes! Starting right now you can follow brands or "Google+ Pages".

The Google+ pages logo

The G+ pages, for now, is half-baked. It neither offer good admin controls as Facebook does not it has the ability of a two way interaction. Fans or followers cannot post into the Page or even directly contact them in any means. But hours withing the launch Google's product manager of the Google+ project, Dennis Troper posted to his G+ profile that every feature will be up very soon.

There are a lot of pages to follow right now and every one can create a new page as well.

And it seems Google+ is changing its logo too. The official Google+ page on G+ shows "g with +" in red background which is also the favicon of profiles and pages. But still the favicon of the homepage is the "+ in black button"

[caption id="attachment_61" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="New logo of Google+"][/caption]

The one thing I love about Google is their creativity. And they have done it very well in making their pages. Google has used its scrapbook images to a greater extent in designing their pages. For example, Google's official page have G as the profile picture and the remaining letter are in each photos each taken from a different doodle. Google Maps page the scrapbook photos combined to give a complete map.

[caption id="attachment_62" align="aligncenter" width="530" caption="Google's page on Google+"][/caption]

Here are a few Google pages to add to circles on Google+:

• Google


• Google Maps


• Google Plus


• YouTube


• Android


• GMail


• Google Chrome


• Google+ Your Business a.k.a Google+ Pages

UPDATE:  Google totally changed the logo of Google+ in all its pages. Now Google+ is all red.

Good bye OVI

The only remaining product with Nokia's "ovi" identity was the Ovi Suite. But with the 3.2.1 update released today Nokia rebrands it as the "Nokia Suite" thus ending its once-a-dream Ovi trademark. :(

 

Counting down the last days of Snaptu

When Snaptu launched its revamped facebook application a year back, little was known that this is going to be the beginning of the end of one of the all-time favorite J2ME application.

The success of Snaptu lies in the fact that there was no good RSS reader or a twitter app for the s40 series of Nokia (which then covered almost 95% of mobile phone market) as well as other feature phones. Snaptu, powered by the superior interface quickly got into the gap.

It all began with their January 19 announcement, that they will launch a Facebook application for the feature phones in partnership with Facebook itself. Then it was called "Facebook by Snaptu". Still things were seemed to be well and good.

When rumors about Facebook's acquisition of Snaptu began in the late February, Snaptu replied by launching a LinkedIn application in partnership with LinkedIn. The voices were over and things became normal once again.

But that doesn't last long. 5 days later came this blog post from Snaptu, when no one expected.

The Snaptu team is excited to announce today that we recently agreed to be acquired by Facebook.

Right in the blog post, snaptu indicated that the app is counting down its last days.

The acquisition is expected to close within a few weeks.  We’ll have more updates on Snaptu soon, and we’ll be working hard to offer a richer and more advanced Facebook app on virtually every mobile phone. During this transition period, we expect Snaptu will continue to operate as it does today.

But facebook as they do as always, maintained that Snaptu as a product will not be affected by the acquisition. Yes, it was not affected until September. In September both Snaptu and Facebook by Snaptu is removed from distribution from its own servers to give way for "Facebook for every phone". It was then removed from app stores like GerJar and OVI store, a few weeks later.

The jar file, however was still available in the net and it did work. But with a banner reading "Upgrade to the new Facebook app!" linking to the "Facebook for every phone" application. A few apps were missing but the rest such as Twitter, Facebook, Cricinfo, TechCrunch and Masable! worked (and is still working) well.

This morning (1 Nov 2011), another banner below the previous one was seen on the app reading "Apps ending on 11/11/11". This was the news item pointed:

On 11/11/11 we'll end most of our apps, including Twitter, Cricinfo, LinkedIn. These apps will no longer be available. Snaptu is now a part of Facebook, and we strongly encourage you to upgrade to our latest Facebook app.

This is not new for Facebook. They have already done it with Divvyshot, Hot Potato and most recently Beluga.

For those who used snaptu as just an RSS reader, the same app along with Weather Forecast (powered by AccuWeather) and MyMovies are available on the "Facebook for every phone" itself. Yet the loss of Snaptu is great one who used them for Twitter and Cricinfo.



 

A few links:

• Snaptu on CrunchBase


• Facebook for every phone.