Android is eating away at Apple's share

Android owns 68% of the global smartphone market.

As of spring 2012, nearly half of all Americans own a smartphone, about 46% of the adult population. The percentage of adults who own a tablet nearly doubled over the 2011 holiday season from 10% to 19%. With how dominate Apple has been recently, Google is stealing some of the limelight. Android has surged ahead of Apple in  the smartphone market share.

According to a Wednesday report from the research firm IDC, "Google's Android surged to a whopping 68% share of the global smartphone market last quarter. That's four times the 17% market share held by Apple" (CNN).

Google experimenting with Gmail results in search queries

Gmail Icon

Earlier today, Chris Taylor reported on Mashable about a new feature that Google is rolling out.  One million beta testers are being sought out to test out a feature that will show results from Gmail when you search in Google.  The results will appear on the right-hand side of the screen (where pay-per-click advertisements usually can be found).

With this feature, Google is essentially doubling the amount of data that users search with each query - Gmail data is about the same size as the  search database.

When users are searching on Google, they have the option to "hide personal results" - giving you privacy if you are searching with company nearby.

While this new search feature is a phenomenal display of how much data Google searches in under a second, I still think the personal results will be irrelevant to a majority of the Gmail users.  Most people have their personal email accounts managed so that they know (at least vaguely) what messages are being stored.  Along with that, most personal users probably don't search for things on Google that they are already discussing in email dialogue.

The only Gmail users that will benefit from the new search feature will be the following: 1) People who collect offers from companies whose mailing list they have signed up for, and 2) Topic specialists.

The users that collect advertisements from companies might do a search and remember that they had a coupon code that they could use on a next purchase - making for a quick copy-and-paste.  The topic specialists will be those who follow tons of news regarding an industry, hobby, or their profession.  For example, a marketing professional might follow news from tons of stories (such as social media marketing, advertising, mobile marketing, etc.).  That way, doing a search might yield some articles that he or she already has in Gmail.

Overall, I don't think that the new search feature for Google is very relevant.  However, I still think that it is impressive that Google is doubling the amount of data that is being used for their search engine.

What do you think about this feature?  Are any of you beta testers?  Let me know.

No More YouTube App!

YouTube is the world's second largest search engine, right behind Google and right before Yahoo!  It is where you look up the day-to-day "How-To" videos, find music videos, create channels, and if you're the outgoing-type, it's a great place to express yourself.  You may even get famous like Justin Beiber or Rebecca Black... even Jefferson Bethke.  But the question of the day has been - do you use the YouTube app that seems to be planted on every phone and tablet?  YouTube is a Google-product, yet it was on every version of the iPhone and iPad until... today.

London Olympics: The Social Podium

Over 1 billion people will be viewing the summer Olympic games.

Not every athlete qualified for London and not every loyal fan is able to afford cheering from the sidelines of the games. But every one can connect to the London summer Olympics through the social media platform. If social media was an Olympic event, there would be about one billion athletes (mobile users and TV viewers combined) competing for the gold. Here's a breakdown of social networks and their activity during the London games.

Facebook experimenting with "Save for Later" feature

Save for later (photo by cultofmac.com)

Facebook is currently experimenting with a new feature for both the desktop and mobile versions of their website.  Save for Later allows users to add stories to a Saved folder.  This is similar to the Favorites feature on Twitter - minus the notification that it sends to users.

On the mobile version of Facebook, users can save a story by holding down on it until a window pops up with the option to save the story.  For the desktop version, this feature is displayed next to the Share, Comment, and Like buttons.

The good thing about this feature is the fact that it doesn't send notifications when users save stories.  Instead of having to like content and then view it on your profile activity later, you can simply have your own collection of funny pictures or interesting content that you don't have time to read immediately.

Currently, the Save for Later feature is being tested with a small percentage of the Facebook users.  For mobile users who have been selected to test it, there is no update necessary to use this function.  It was released Tuesday to a portion of the iPhone, iPad, and desktop users.

I personally think that this feature is much better than just liking material on Facebook.  It creates a personal cache for users to visit engaging material (or save it to show others) without having to share it publicly on your profile.  It also keeps your profile and notifications clean of clutter!  What do you think about this feature? Is this something that you would use?