Google Launches the Google Apps Marketplace
Today at the Google’s Campfire One event at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View the Internet search giant is launching its new app store for business, known as the Google Apps Marketplace.
Last week, we broke the story that Google Apps Marketplace would launch today, reporting that it would be an app store integrated within Google Apps that would allow third-party developers to sell software directly to Google’s business consumers.
Now, with developers gathered at the Googleplex, we’re about to learn how Google Apps Marketplace works and, more importantly, which apps are going to be available at launch.
My live notes from the event are below:
Google Apps Marketplace: The Details
- Note: you can watch the live stream of Google Campfire One on the Google Developers YouTube Channel.
- Vic Gundotra, Google’s Vice President of Engineering, has just started speaking
- Vic is talking about feedback it’s received from its business customers. Google believes that business apps should be run in the cloud. One problem: to use multiple business apps, you need to log into multiple websites, which can be messy and a security threat.
- Google Apps Marketplace announced.
- Details: $100 flat fee, no matter the amount of apps you launch. 20% revenue share. This is an important number, as most app stores charge 30% revenue share, especially Apple’s iPhone app store.
- Over 50 partners for Google Apps, including Aviary, Expensify, Intuit, and others.
- Now Google is talking about the technical details of how to get your app added into the Google Apps interface.
- Google’s diving into secure data access via OAuth. Google’s clearly thought about how to make sure that information that apps need is received from users, but that apps don’t take more information than they need.
- Google has brought up a developer, Ryan, to demo some of the code to integrate his app with Google Apps Marketplace. It’s a “Hello World” type of app.
- If you go to http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/, you’ll see the store’s future splash page.
- Intuit is demoing. They’re the people behind Quickbooks and showing off their Intuit Online Payroll app within Google Apps.
- They’re showing of integrations of Intuit’s payroll system within Google Calendar. Logging in via Google Apps seems intuitive.
- New demo: Scott from Atlassin is demoing Jira Studio. The dashboard they’ve built with Google Apps integration is very impressive. Screenshots coming.
- “Fingertip access” to Google Talk. It has Google Docs integration, and is available today. It’s a very killer apps for development management and issue tracking.
- Another demo: Manymoon.
- The key themes seem to be A) how easy it is to code integration with Google Apps, and B) How many nifty things you can do linked to Google Apps. Google Calendar will definitely benefit from these apps.
- Everything will be available tonight for purchase
- Last demo of the night: Ryan from Appirio, a cloud solution provider. It’s a tool for managing your team’s cloud applications, such as Salesforce. It’s meant to transition enterprise into the cloud more effectively.
- One interesting demo: you can trigger actions within your email with Appirio. You can, for example, get information on customers right from within your email (it’s embedded!). The embeds are called Gmail contextual gadgets, and they are really nifty.
- Example: Customers emails you saying that a project is behind schedule. With Appirio, you can access from Gmail the projects that are open with the customer vis PS Connect. It’ll show budget, the status of the project, end dates, and notes.
- Google’s David Glazer (Engineering Director) is closing the campfire session.
- The President of Google’s Enterprise division is on stage. Security, compatibility, simplicity, and more are possible through cloud apps, which is why Google has bet so heavily on it for enterprise.
- 25 million active users of Google Apps. And apparently once companies of 20,000+ employees switch to Google Apps, they don’t switch back.
Reviews: Aviary, Gmail, Google, Google Docs, google talk
Tags: app store, Campfire One, developers, Expensify, Google, Google App Store, google apps, Google Apps Marketplace, Google Campfire One, trending
Lindsay Lohan Sues E-Trade Claiming Baby Ad Is a Parody of Her [VIDEO]
The Super Bowl may be long over, but Brand Battle 2010 continues to rage on, as yet another commercial is bit by the controversy bug — this time one of those adorable spots from E-Trade featuring a talking baby named “Lindsay.”
According to the New York Post, actress Lindsay Lohan is suing the investment site on the grounds that the man-eating, substance-abusing baby in the commercial is based on her.
Lohan’s lawyer, Stephanie Ovadia, is asking that the commercial be taken off the air and every copy of the offending spot be rounded up (which could now be more difficult given today’s coverage). The actress is also asking for $100 million.
According to Ovadia: “Many celebrities are known by one name only, and E-Trade is using that knowledge to profit… They used the name Lindsay…They’re using her name as a parody of her life. Why didn’t they use the name Susan? This is a subliminal message. Everybody’s talking about it and saying it’s Lindsay Lohan.”
Ovadia also says Lohan was mistreated because E-Trade didn’t get her approval nor offer her compensation for allegedly being referred to in the ad. Now, the lawyer says her client is owed $50 million in exemplary damages, as well as $50 million in compensatory damages.
Although Ovadia says that the spot — which debuted during the Super Bowl and aired during the Winter Olympics — helped garner E-Trade mucho money, it wasn’t one of the most popular ads to premiere. It didn’t rank tops with either online viewers or couch potatoes (although the talking baby series has racked up a lot of success in the past).
Still, today it joins a cadre of commercials that cleaned up on hits due to controversy — including the Tim Tebow spot, GoDaddy’s rejected “Lola” ad and men’s-only dating site ManCrunch’s similarly punted ad.
One could argue that by suing E-Trade, Lohan is calling even more attention to the ad in question. As of right now, the ad has nearly 2.5 million views on YouTube. It remains to be seen — most likely tomorrow — what effect this lawsuit has on further increasing visibility. But judging from the fact that it’s been cropping up all over the web since the litigious news hit, you can bet Lohan’s legal ire will ensure the vid’s virality for at least the remainder of this week.
Check out the vid below and let us know in the comments whether or not Lohan has a case.
Reviews: YouTube
Tags: legal, lindsay lohan, MARKETING, Super Bowl, viral video, youtube
PlayStation First to Sell HD Movies from All Major Studios
Sony Computer Entertainment is proudly shouting “FIRST” (YouTube commenter-style) with an announcement that claims the PlayStation Network is the first online service to sell high-definition movies from all the major movie studios: Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Walt Disney, Warner Bros and, of course, Sony Pictures.
Some of the content has been around for a while — for example, NBC Universal videos debuted on the PlayStation Network one year ago tomorrow — but PlayStation owners have access to a few new movies today.
They include Up, G-Force, Earth, Star Trek, Paranormal Activity, Zoolander, This Is It, 2012, District 9, Zombieland, Inglourious Basterds, Couples Retreat, Public Enemies, The Hangover, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and The Wizard of Oz.
All the studios but Fox are represented there; Fox’s new contributions (Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Jennifer’s Body and Fantastic Mr. Fox) will debut on the PSN this Saturday, March 13.
PSN competitors like Apple’s iTunes Store and Apple TV set-top box and Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace and Xbox 360 console offer formidable libraries of on-demand video from the major movie studios, but Sony is boasting that it’s the only one to offer HD content from all of them.
In a time when the market is terribly fragmented between so many different formats and services, posting HD content from every major studio is actually a notable feat. Sony will have more firsts on the horizon, too; the PlayStation 3 is going 3D soon.
Apple and Microsoft have had their own opportunities to say “first,” though. The Xbox 360 streamed Netflix movies first, and both Apple’s iTunes Store and the Xbox 360 offered movie downloads and rentals before the PlayStation Network did.
Reviews: harry potter, iTunes, zombieland
Tags: 20th century fox, Film, hd, Movies, nbc universal, paramount pictures, playstation 3, playstation network, playstation portable, PS3, PSP, sony, Sony Pictures, sony playstation 3, Sony PSP, video games, walt disney pictures, warner bros
Announcing Mashable’s Google Wave API Challenge
Mashable and the Google Wave team are proud to announce the Google Wave API Challenge, a month-long competition to create exciting new Google Wave extensions.
Google Wave’s latest updated clean API and new extension abilities allow for faster development, more opportunities for integrations and lots of exciting potential for many new Google Wave use cases. We invite developers from around the world to showcase their latest extensions.
Over the next several weeks, Mashable and the Google Wave team will be showcasing and discussing the most interesting submissions.
There will be 3 voting categories: Most Fun, Most Useful and Best Use of the Embed API. We’ll then pick a Judge’s Choice as the overall winner.
The winning developer/development team will receive 2 unlocked Nexus Ones, see their extension featured on Mashable AND receive free passes to the Google I/O conference.
4 Step Submission Process
Step 1: Developers install the “Mashable submitty extension” from the public read-only wave
Step 2: After installing this, you’ll get a “New Mashable Submission” in your new wave menu
Step 3: Just use our “Mashable Submitty” Google Extension and fill out the form.
Step 4: After approving valid entries, we’ll create a public discussion wave with entries including a voting gadget.
Timeline:
Submissions Open: March 8th, 2010
Submissions Close: April 9th, 2010 11:59 PM EST
Public Voting on Top 20 submissions: April 12th, 2010 – April 19th, 2010
Winner Announced: April 21st, 2010
Rules:
• Developer or Developer Team (Preferred max of 4 names submitted)
• Existing Extensions are eligible only if they use the new API (ports to the new API are fine)
• Full Credit for any work due must be entered in April 9th, 2010
• Over 18 to receive prize
• Final winning submission will be judged exclusively by Mashable and Google Wave team
Reviews: Google, Google Wave, Mashable
Tags: contest, Google, Google Wave, google wave api challenge
“Tron Legacy” Trailer Featuring Jeff Bridges Hits the Web [VIDEO]
New Academy Award-winner Jeff Bridges reprises his role as arcade regular and computer programming genius Flynn in the trailer for Tron Legacy, which just made its official web debut today. The film is a long-anticipated sequel to the 1980s geek classic Tron, and this is the first full-length trailer.
The film (or at least the trailer) focuses on Flynn’s son, who goes looking for his father in the now-abandoned arcade that was the launching point for the first movie, only to find him in a more technologically advanced version of the fantastic and dangerous virtual world introduced in the first film (which won much acclaim for special effects).
Since the franchise has always been about the latest in filmmaking technology, Tron Legacy will be presented in 3D. A 3D trailer actually premiered before select showings of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Tron fans traveled from distant cities to see it. The movie is also trending on Twitter right now, so we think this has the makings of a hit.
Disney plans to release Tron Legacy on December 17, believing that it will draw a big audience during the lucrative holiday season.
We know many Mashable readers are going to be interested in seeing this film, but does it have any chance of living up to the iconic original? Watch the trailer and leave a comment letting us and other readers know what you think.
Watch the Trailer
Reviews: Mashable
Tags: 3D, disney, Film, jeff bridges, Movies, trailer, tron legacy, video
Cisco CRS-3: Download Library of Congress in Just Over One Second
Cisco has announced a new routing system that it says is going to speed up the Internet in a big way. According to the company, Cisco CRS-3 — currently being tested by AT&T — is three times faster than its predecessor, which was introduced in 2004.
The company offers a few intriguing sound bites about the CRS-3 and what it enables:
- the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress to be downloaded in just over one second
- every man, woman and child in China to make a video call, simultaneously
- every motion picture ever created to be streamed in less than four minutes.
Of course, that’s not for end users, but ultimately allows the telecom companies (Cisco’s customers) to route traffic around the Internet faster. Speaking to the reasoning behind the new speed push, Cisco CEO John Chambers says in the video below that he expects Internet traffic to grow at “200-500 percent per year” as bandwidth-intensive activities like downloading and streaming video continue to explode.
At the same time, Google has its own ideas for speeding up the Internet, and is currently looking to test its own fiber network to deliver 1 gigabit per second Internet connections (and Topeka, Kansas wants in!). One way or another, it looks like the Internet is only going to continue to get faster.
Here’s Chambers’s video and another with more of the nitty-gritty details of CRS-3:
Reviews: Google
Amazon is Working on a Better Web Browser for Kindle
Ask any Kindle owner about browsing the web on the device, and you’ll get the same answer: Well, you can do it, but… And then you’ll hear how abysmal the browsing experience really is. Having tried it myself, it made me want to whip out my iPhone and its Safari at each turn.
Now, the folks at Webmonkey have noticed that Amazon has posted a job listing (the listing has been online for quite a while, but has only now been noticed), looking for a software development engineer to “design and implement new features” on an “innovative Embedded Web Browser.”
While it’s the current Kindle’s monochrome, slowish screen will never provide a beautiful browsing experience, improvements could definitely be made to the current browser. With the iPad coming to the U.S. market in less than a month, Amazon needs to do damage control in all areas in which Apple’s device is superior to the Kindle, and building a better web browser is probably a priority.
The real question, however, is this: Will users prefer the readability of the e-ink screen or the more beautiful (but perhaps less enjoyable when you’re reading a book), backlit color LCD? Or will a new technology emerge, connecting the best of both worlds? For example, Kindle doesn’t have a touchscreen, but Sony’s e-readers have shown that it is possible to have one on an e-ink display, at the expense of some glare. We’ll have some (but not all) answers when the iPad finally hits the market.
In the meantime, tell us what you think. Will Kindle (with its current e-ink screen) ever provide a good or even great browsing experience? Please write your opinion in the comments.
Tags: amazon, browser, Kindle, trending
