Google has begun integrating Google+ into search results with public Google+ posts now appearing in Social Search.

Whenever a user publicly shares a link on Google+, an annotation will show up under that link when it appears in a friend’s search results. For example, if I share a Mashable article about Google+ eliminating pseudonyms publicly on my Google+ page, users who have added me to their circles will see a note that I shared that link if they stumble upon it in Google Search.

Google+ now joins Flickr, Twitter, Quora and Google Buzz as other inputs for Google’s Social Search product. Social Search debuted in 2009 at the Web 2.0 Summit, partly as a response to Bing’s integration with Facebook and Twitter. Social Search highlights what links your friends are sharing on the web and returns results it believes are relevant based on your friends’ interests.

Social Search integration is only the beginning for Google’s plans for combining its search engine and social network. Google intends to revive real-time search with Google+ data and will launch a search engine for Google+ posts. Of course, the tech giant did the same thing with Google Buzz, and we all know what happened to that product.

Do you think Google+ makes Google Search a better product? Let us know what you think in the comments.

The API team over at Google Buzz have been buzzing to say the least. If you recall the long lost Twitter feature known as Track whose disappearance spawned numerous impassioned pleased for return you’ll appreciate the latest from Google Buzz.

Last week the Google Buzz API team updated their blog to announce the general availability for Track as well detailed error messages. This means that you can get started with Track right now in Google Reader.

Some examples:

Here is the XML returned for the VMworld example

To illustrate this, I decided to add the “vmworld” example for my trip to VMworld 2010 and discovered a host of references that I can peruse in Google Reader.

As you might expect, you’ll get the statistics as well:

Also, as you might expect with a conference the size of VMworld… I’m already behind!

What are some of your favorite Google Buzz queries that you’ve added to Google Reader? Let us know in the comments below!

Netflix is finally streaming movies in high definition through its web-based player, according to Hacking NetFlix. Before this update you could only get HD Watch Instantly content on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and select Blu-ray players or set-top boxes like Roku.

HD streaming works on both Macs and PCs, though the library of HD titles is much smaller than the one available for the supported consumer electronics devices. You can check out a list of movies that work in HD on the Xbox 360 et al, but there’s no list for browser-based player HD support yet, so it’ll take some trial and error to find what you want.

Netflix hasn’t made any public announcements about this feature yet, but we’re hoping that the entire HD-encoded library will become available on the web. It’s been a long time coming; user content-oriented sites like YouTube and Vimeo have streamed in HD for months, while pro content sites like Hulu and Netflix have stuck to standard definition.

We’d guess that most folks would want HD for Francis Ford Coppola films and Lost episodes more than they would want it for video blogs and cat vids. Then again, it’s hard to argue with those crazy-popular Lady Gaga HD music videos.

According to a report based on a source from an Asia-based Reuters correspondent, smartphone maker HTC has decided not to bid for Palm after looking at the company’s numbers. The source, which reportedly has direct knowledge of the talks, said there “weren’t enough synergies to take the deal forward”.

That leaves Palm, which has been struggling to boost sales of its new range of smartphones, running out of options fast.

Bloomberg on April 12 reported that the Pre and Pixi maker had tapped Goldman Sachs and Frank Quattrone’s Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer. HTC was cited by a host of industry pundits as the best fit.

If the Reuters report checks out, this means bad news for Palm, even if CEO and former Apple exec Jon Rubinstein has been telling press that the company could survive as an independent company in spite of disappointing sales of its flagship handsets. Rubinstein has also expressed interest in an alternative route to an outright acquisition, namely to start licencing other smartphone makers use of its webOS operating system in their devices.

We should note that Palm’s head of software and services has just quit the company to pursue a career at Twitter. More and more, Palm looks to be a sinking ship.

It makes the company’s new slogan for webOS all the more ironic: “Life moves fast. Don’t miss a thing.”

According to this morning’s Reuters report, the only major Asian bidder now left in the field expected to show an interest in the plagued smartphone and software maker is Lenovo, after HTC apparently declining to bid and Huawei dropping out of the bidding race earlier. Lenovo, the world’s number 4 PC brand, had more than $2.4 billion in net cash reserves at the end of 2009, according to its website.

Other potential buyers that have been cited by industry analysts in the past include Dell, ZTE, HP, Acer and Nokia.

Question is: if even the most likely buyer is not pleased with the numbers, who would be?

(Thanks, NeverKnowTech)

There is a lot of action surrounding Foursquare right now. And CEO and co-founder Dennis Crowley has a tough decision to make.

It’s already been widely reported that Yahoo is seriously pursuing a Foursquare acquisition, but now we’re hearing that at least two other companies are in talks or have been in talks recently with the location-based startup as well. And they’re big ones: Facebook and Microsoft. Facebook, from what we’re hearing, has been talking to Foursquare about a range of possibilities in recent weeks, but seems to have cooled on the idea of an outright acquisition. Microsoft, meanwhile, is likely still thinking about buying the company, according to sources.

While we’ve already made the case for why Foursquare shouldn’t shouldn’t sell to Yahoo, these other two players offer other interesting options. And, with multiple bidders, the price is undoubtedly going up, probably north of $100 million. One may make an offer that Crowley can’t refuse.

“Dennis is seriously considering his options,” says one source about these new bidders. That would seem obvious, but remember that Crowley has already sold one startup (Dodgeball) to a big player (Google) and it left a bad aftertaste in his mouth. Following that acquisition, he (and co-founder Alex Rainert, who just joined Foursquare) left Google in somewhat of a huff. And that’s probably the only reason that Google isn’t also in the running for the hot startup as well right now.

And Crowley does have options. There are also no shortage of people just waiting to put money into Foursquare. Last month, we heard that four VC firms, Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and Redpoint Ventures were all in the running to be the lead investor in a new round of funding for Foursquare. A few days ago, BoomTown reported that Andreessen Horowitz backed out. We’re now hearing that Redpoint may be out as well. But BoomTown also noted recently that Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies (which has pumped a ton of money into Facebook and Zynga) is trying to invest as well. We’ve heard the same thing.

The round, if taken, would probably total $10 million and could value the company around $60 or $70 million. Previously, Foursquare raised a $1.35 million round.

So why not sell? Well, aside from the bad experience Crowley had selling to a big company, Foursquare has been seeing quite a bit of success recently. While the company isn’t yet profitable, it is already making revenue off of some of its partnership deals. And new deals are seemingly being signed on a daily basis. Also, a strong surge of new users post-SXSW helped the service hit 1 million users today. And businesses are signing up quickly using its newly released tools.

Foursquare certainly could also opt to take some money off the table in a new round of funding, that would allow its employees to make some money without selling the company.

So why sell? Well, there’s no shortage of thought that Foursquare’s success may be fleeting. Many think that when Facebook does inevitably enter the location space, it will be game-over for many of these services specializing in check-ins. But based on what we’re hearing, that may not be true.

Many people wondered why Facebook didn’t announce any location features yesterday at f8, but as we noted the night before the event, their location plans likely aren’t finalized yet, and they’ve been experimenting with a lot of different things. That includes federating check-ins from services such as Foursquare and Gowalla. As Inside Facebook dug up yesterday in Facebook’s new protocols documentation, its looks like Facebook will be open to accepting location data from other sources. So while they’ve talked to companies like Loopt and Foursquare about possible acquisitions, it would seem that this federation model is what they’re going to stick with for now.

Foursquare and Facebook have also been talking about other types of arrangements, perhaps broader partnerships, according to people familiar with such talks. If that’s the case, maybe Crowley would be crazy to sell to the likes of Yahoo or Microsoft now. If he could leverage the nearly 500 million Facebook users rather than be stomped by them, his service can probably grow even faster.

But, another source believes that Crowley is leaning towards selling. “Who wouldn’t be? 12 months = $100 million. Assume he had 50% when they started and you’re probably talking $20 million plus for him personally. Not a bad yearly bonus.” Indeed.

Neither Foursquare nor Microsoft have returned requests for a comment. Facebook will only say “we don’t typically comment on rumor or speculation.”

In order to understand the value of a Facebook ad impression, Nielsen analyzed over six months of responses from 800,000 users to more than 125 Facebook ad campaigns by 70 different brand advertisers.

The study – after analyzing reach via impressions and effectiveness of impressions – concluded that earned media and social advocacy made Facebook users more likely to notice ads, absorb their content and make purchases.

Paid vs. Earned Media

To arrive at the aforementioned conclusion, Nielsen looked at three types of impressions on Facebook and categorized them as either paid media, earned media or both.

• Homepage ads: Above-the-fold ads that contain ad creative as well as an option for users to engage with the brand (e.g. “Become a Fan”). This is an example of paid media.
• Social impressions: Homepage ads that include social context, like the names of users’ friends who are already fans of the brand. This is an example of a hybrid ad that is both parts paid and earned media.
• Organic impression: Social stories that appear on the homepage of friends of users who have engaged with a brand or become a fan of that brand. This is an example of earned media.

Earned media is being used to describe brand mentions on Facebook that are broadcasted (“shared”) by the consumer, whereas hybrid organic impressions offer a more controlled way to generate earned media from paid advertisements.

The data clearly shows that the social advocacy of earned media played a substantial role in the performance of homepage ads on Facebook. According to the data, ad recall grew from 10% to 16%, awareness doubled from 4% to 8% and purchase intent quadrupled from 2% to 8%. That last metric is perhaps the most telling, and shows that when a Facebook user advocates for an ad, the ad is 4x more likely to result in a purchase.

In the organic impression department, Nielsen found that “those users exposed to both the ‘paid ad’ and the organic impression remembered the ad at three times the rate of those just exposed to the paid homepage ad,” and that “homepage ads increased awareness of the product or brand by 4% on average, but exposure to both homepage ads and organic ads increased awareness by a delta of 13% versus the control group.”

The bottom line is that the more the user was exposed to paid and earned media – with a combination of both packing a powerful punch – the greater the ad recall, awareness and purchase intent.

Tips for Advertisers

Nielsen recommends the following tips for advertisers looking to capitalize on their data:

• Start with engaging homepage impressions; these will drive more organic impressions and the engagement rate goes up as the organic impressions go up.
• Buy paid media on social networks; it’s the catalyst for more earned media.
• Balance reach and frequency across homepage, social, and organic impressions.

You can read the full report below for even more information and tips on how to leverage earned and paid media on Facebook.

[Img credits: Nielsen]

A survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers showed that more of us than ever before are choosing to watch TV shows on websites such as Hulu rather than on a TV. For younger folks, a full 83% said they watched some, most or all of their TV programming online.

This study, which was conducted by consumer electronics shopping site Retrevo, shows that the majority of Americans – 64%, according to the survey results – get at least some of their TV content online. Eight percent of the total said they watched most of their TV shows online, and 5% said they only watched television programs on the Internet.

For people under 25, almost a quarter of respondents said they watched most of their TV shows online, and 6% said they only watched TV online.

Another interesting demographic breakdown shows that men are more likely than women to forsake the television set in favor of the computer monitor. Seventeen percent of male respondents, as opposed to 9% of female respondents, said they watch most or all of their TV shows online.

When asked what would prompt a switch from cable or satellite TV to online-only programming, folks talked about their current cable and satellite providers and about the kinds of programming currently available online.

Around 43% of respondents said they had considered canceling their service or had actually canceled; those in that group who chose not to cancel did so because they couldn’t get their favorite shows online. As far as shows go, respondents said that premium channel programming, live sports and HD options were important factors in deciding whether to switch from cable/satellite to online-only TV.

The survey concludes that “online TV viewership is on the rise, and people are tired of high-priced programming[...] With the advent of Internet-capable TVs (starting to appear on the market) and the dissatisfaction with satellite and cable service (at least with the hefty monthly bills), we will likely see increasing attraction toward online offerings in the years to come.”

What do you think of this trend? How much television programming do you watch online, if any? Do you think piracy – be it through consumer video sites or torrent sites for premium shows or live-streaming sites for sports events – plays as important a role as legal sites such as Hulu? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.