The top 50 Android phone apps

Android has overtaken iOS as the UK's most popular smartphone platform. We pick the best of its 450,000 apps, for music fans, children, gamers, shoppers… There's even an antidote for app addiction

There is far more to smartphone life than Apple's iPhone. Google launched its Android software in 2008 and has since sold more than 300m of its smartphones; currently, more than 850,000 are added to that number every day.

More than 450,000 apps are available on Google Play, which is generating more than 1bn app downloads every month. The latest Android smartphones are also viable competitors to the iPhone (stylish and powerful phones from companies such as Samsung, HTC and Sony Ericsson have been flying off the shelves in the UK), but Android apps haven't always had a great press. Android has been criticised on security grounds, with accusations that there are more viruses and malware apps on Google's store than on Apple's App Store. However, Android apps have to ask for explicit permission to access your personal data and phone features, so familiarise yourself with these permissions requests when installing apps and you'll be less at risk.

Android is interesting, because it attracts two very different kinds of people

Big games such as Grand Theft Auto III and Angry Birds Rio now launch on Android at the same time as on iPhone, while all the major social networking apps are also available on both. There is a growing catalogue of useful productivity tools and lifestyle apps, while Google has ensured that its key web services all have polished incarnations for Android.

Over time, Google has made it easier for people with Android smartphones to find new apps, too. Its recently rebranded Google Play store has improved greatly on the one available when the first Android phone went on sale, but as with iPhone, finding the best apps can still feel like rooting through a digital haystack; apps such as Appsfire (featured here) are making the needle hunt less of a chore.

Android is interesting, because it attracts two very different kinds of people: on the one hand, tech-savvy users who have made a decision to choose Android over iPhone and regular phone users who want a nice smartphone for a more affordable price. We've taken as read that you'll be installing some of the most obvious apps, such as Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Amazon Kindle, BBC iPlayer and eBay, which is why they aren't in this list.

We've left out some very good apps due to restrictions on their availability or the phones they work with. Google Chrome browser (currently restricted to the handful of handsets running the latest Ice Cream Sandwich Android software) and excellent keyboard app Swype (still in beta and not available on Google Play) are two examples. However, the fact that they will be available for all Android users in the near future is another reason for smartphone owners to feel excited about the future of their gadgets. This list of 50 apps is a starting point, but there is plenty more in store.

OUR TOP 50 PICK OF THE ANDROID PHONE APPS

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SOCIAL 

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ANDMADE SHARE Free This is a simple utility that replaces your Android phone's default "Share" menu with a better one, to make it quick to share your photos, messages and updates on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

FOURSQUARE Free It started as a way for groups of friends to check into bars, restaurants and other venues and earn points for their gadding about. That's still true, but now it's as much about using that data to recommend new, cool venues to visit.

GLANCEE Free One of several social location apps that are all the rage. You sign in with your Facebook details and it then alerts you when people with similar friends and interests are nearby, so you never need miss an important connection.

GOOGLE+ Free It's nowhere near as big as Facebook, but Google is making a big push for its Google+ social network, which has plenty of fans already. Its most impressive feature is Mobile Hangouts: live video chat with up to nine friends at once – and while you're on the go.

PATH Free Instagram for Android has only just been announced, but Path is plugging the gap with this well-designed social photography app. Upload photos for friends to see and post them to Facebook to share with your wider circle.

LINKEDIN Free If Facebook is for fun, Linkedin is strictly for business: a network for your work contacts. Its easy-to-use Android app helps you add new people, see what your contacts are up to and enables you to browse news from your industry.

WHATSAPP MESSENGER Free An app that wants to kill off text messages, replacing them with instant messaging that works across every smartphone. It supports text, photos, voice notes and videos and also offers group-chat features.

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ENTERTAINMENT

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TUNEIN RADIO PRO £0.20 TuneIn is an essential download for radio buffs or anyone who regularly travels abroad and wants to fend off homesickness. It streams more than 50,000 radio stations – including the big UK ones – as well as podcasts.

ADELE Free She's sold more than 20m albums and scooped a host of awards and Adele's official Android app is equally classy. It offers news, videos and tour dates, as well as a "fan wall" to post comments and chat to other fans.

7DIGITAL MUSIC STORE Free Looking for a good Android alternative to Apple's iTunes Store for music downloads? 7digital is the one. It has a catalogue of 18m tracks for sale and lets you re-download your purchases when you buy a new device.

ESPN GOALS Free This sounds too good to be true for football fans, but it isn't. ESPN's app delivers video highlights of Premier League goals just minutes after they're scored, as well as live scores and stats. It's free, and funded by ads.

SHAZAM Free Are you listening to a tune on the radio or in a club, but can't quite place it? Shazam is your friend. It identifies tracks, then enables you buy them, watch the YouTube videos or start them playing in Spotify. It can also display lyrics.

SKY GO Free to Sky subscribers Sky's live TV app offers up to 23 channels, although how many exactly depends on which you have access to through your home subscription. They stream over 3G or Wi-Fi and you can register up to two devices.

SPOTIFY £9.99 a month Streaming music service Spotify goes from strength to strength, with more than 15m tracks available to stream or store locally on your phone for offline listening. It also works with Facebook for friends' music recommendations.

TED Free Californian conference Ted is famous for its thought-provoking technology talks, as big thinkers grapple with the future of… everything. Its Android app serves up its archive of videos, many of them genuinely mind-changing.

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GAMES

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ANGRY BIRDS RIO Free You can't escape Angry Birds on any smartphone these days. The game sees you catapulting the miffed birds at nefarious pigs, with the addition of characters from animated movie Rio and boss battles to spice up the action.

FLICK SOCCER £0.69 There are full simulations, such as FIFA on Android, but the most addictive football game is Flick Soccer, which sees you flicking free kicks into a goal from a variety of positions. Fearsomely addictive, with bags of depth.

FRUIT NINJA £0.77 Fruit Ninja is another casual game that's as playable on Android as it is on iPhone. Here, you're slashing various fruit in half with swipes of your finger on the touchscreen, building up your score with squishy skills.

GRAND THEFT AUTO III £2.99 It's 10 years old, but GTA III still feels fresh on a mobile phone. This is the full console game crammed on to Android devices, with new touchscreen controls. Your nan still wouldn't approve, but this is excellent.

MINECRAFT - pocket edition £4.29 Want a game where you make things rather than kill them? Minecraft sees you roaming a colourful virtual world made of blocks and digging and building to your heart's content. It's like digital Lego for gamers.

TANK HERO: LASER WARS £1.99 The first Tank Hero has been a big hit on Android, with more than 5m downloads. This sequel bumps up the puzzle action, as you kit out a tank with all manner of destructive weapons to eliminate enemies.

WHALE TRAIL £1.49 Another excellent iPhone game that has found its way on to Android. Willow the Whale soars through the clouds as he seeks to escape the evil Baron Von Barry. The soundtrack comes from Super Furry Animal Gruff Rhys.

WORDS WITH FRIENDS Free Words With Friends is basically Scrabble under a different name: you make words with tiles on a board with rows and columns. Here, though, you're competing with your Facebook friends, taking turns at your leisure.

WORLD OF GOO £2.99 Having started life as a PC game, World of Goo has become one of the stickiest Android games. It sees you squeezing and stretching goo balls to build objects to get you through a succession of puzzle levels. Tactile and wonderful.

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READING

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THE CAT IN THE HAT £1.91 There is a comprehensive selection of Dr Seuss books on the Android Market, so why not start with the most famous? You get voice narration, sound effects and words that rise up to help children's comprehension.

THE GUARDIAN Free Excuse us this one self-interested entry. This app puts a slick, mobile interface on the Guardian website, complete with podcasts, videos, the ability to save articles for offline reading and customise the homescreen categories.

BBC NEWS Free The BBC's official news app for Android is a well-designed way to scoot quickly through its stories, from UK and world through to technology, business and entertainment. You can also pick categories for its homescreen to suit.

PULSE NEWS Free Pulse is one of a clutch of news aggregation apps for Android. You tell it what websites you like and it pulls down the latest stories, while also letting you search for keywords of specific topics you're interested in.

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LIFESTYLE

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AA ECO DRIVE Free An app that aims to save you money while also helping the planet? That will be AA Eco Drive, which uses GPS to track your driving style, then provides useful tips on how you can be more efficient at conserving fuel.

ANDROIDIFY Free One of Android's strong points is its striking robot logo, something capitalised on by Google's own Androidify app. It lets you create your own Android avatars, complete with accessories, to store and share with friends.

BUILDAPP Free This app is still in beta, but if you are thinking of moving house or redecorating, it could still prove invaluable. Buildapp enables you to design your rooms in 3D and then move virtual furniture around to see how it might look.

GOOGLE MAPS Free Google Maps remains, hands down, the best maps app for Android. Hardly surprising – it's easy to use and the maps are clear and detailed. Although built into Android, this standalone version is updated more frequently.

JAMIE'S 20-MINUTE MEALS £4.99 Android is as pukka as iPhone for Jamie Oliver, whose app offers 60 recipes. They can be made in less time than an episode of The Naked Chef (though 20 minutes is optimistic)and have step-by-step instructions and photos.

LONDON BUS CHECKER £1.66 This app has been a huge hit with the capital's commuters on iPhone, but now it's on Android too. See live times of the buses coming to your nearest stop, based on live data from Transport for London as they travel around.

MET OFFICE WEATHER APPLICATION Free The UK's Met Office has an official Android app and it's very good indeed. It provides five-day forecasts and daily weather maps, as well as severe weather warnings and favourite location forecasts.

NETFLIX £5.99 a month Netflix is a service for streaming films and television shows. It crossed over to Britain from the United States early this year and has a broad selection of things to watch. It works well on Android smartphones and tablets.

TOUCHNOTE POSTCARDS Free Picture messaging, Facebook and email might be good ways to share your photos, but sometimes you have to get physical. Touchnote turns your pics into postcards, sent to any address for £1.49 a time - in the UK or beyond.

TRAIN TIMES UK £3.49 If you're used to using the National Rail website to look up train times, Train Times UK is the best equivalent on Android. It provides live departure and arrival times, fare details and directions to and from stations.

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SHOPPING

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BARCLAYS PINGIT Free Barclays' new mobile payments app is an innovative and impressive idea: send money direct to friends' bank accounts from your phone. For now, only Barclays customers can send, but that will change in the future.

APPSFIRE Free Appsfire is an app to help you shop for… apps. It lets you browse your own collection and, crucially, recommends other app downloads you might like, based on your tastes. Appsfire offers a good way to keep on top of the latest apps.

AMAZON MOBILE FOR ANDROID Free Still think people won't shop on a phone? They said that about websites once. Amazon's app is fast and efficient for browsing and buying products, with barcode scanning to get more details on something when in a real-world shop.

TESCO GROCERIES Free Tesco's shopping app is a model of simplicity and effectiveness, as you create and manage shopping lists, book delivery slots and switch between the mobile and web shopping services. You can also scan products in-store to add them to your list.

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TOOLS

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ADVANCED TASK KILLER Free If you're experiencing performance issues with your Android smartphone, it may be because too many apps are running in the background. Advanced Task Killer is the antidote, helping you shut down those you don't need.

DROPBOX Free Wonder why there's so much excitement around cloud services? Dropbox should help you understand. When installed on your computer and Android, you can swap files between the two at will – photos, videos, documents…

EVERNOTE Free Another good advert for the power of the cloud, Evernote wants to help you "remember everything across all of the devices you use", storing and synchronising notes and to-do lists, while adding photos for visual memory aids.

GOOGLE DOCS Free It should come as no surprise that Google's own online office suite works very well as an Android app. You can create, edit and share Google Docs with it; it also uses the camera to convert snaps of printed text into documents.

ONAVO Free You may know that your mobile tariff provides 500MB of data a month, but do you know how that data gets used by different apps? Onavo will show youhow, monitoring data traffic and displaying it as easy-to-understand charts.

OPERA MINI Free Looking for an alternative to Google's preloaded Android web browser? Opera Mini is well worth a look. It uses compression technology that ensures websites load faster and cost you much less in data usage – a godsend when roaming abroad.

SKY MAP Free Originally made by Google, this app has just been open sourced for other developers to work on. It's an excellent showcase for Android phones: point your device at the sky and it will tell you what the various stars are.

SWIFTKEY X KEYBOARD £0.49 If you don't get on well with the default on-screen keyboard for your Android phone, maybe you should give Swiftkey a try. It learns your language and provides more accurate predictions and corrections as you tap.

Adarsh vijay

5 ways to control your privacy on Google

Like it or not, your relationship with Google is becoming a lot more intimate

The company recently expanded its ability to combine data from its various services to create a highly detailed profile on you.

Google says it's doing that to simplify its privacy policy and improve your experience on sites such as Gmail, Picasa, Google Plus and YouTube. But there's a business reason, too. Google gets a chance to use the data it collects to tailor ads that align more precisely with your interests, and those personalized ads are among the most lucrative for the company.

Many privacy groups complain that Google is forcing you to accept these changes. The European Union is investigating whether the new approach violates its data-protection rules.

Before getting too worked up, it's important to understand what's happening.

Google has long monitored its users in order to target advertisements. If you've been reading a lot of news articles on golf, don't be surprised to see golf products pitched in graphical, display ads as you move across the Web. Google identifies you not by name, but by a string of characters attached to your Web browser. Google also promises not to target ads based on sensitive attributes such as sexual orientation, religion and serious health conditions.

Google also keeps logs of your searches and other activities, partly as feedback to improve services, the company says. Those logs don't have your name, but rather a numeric Internet address associated with your computer and the same browser-based characters used for ads. That Internet address also gives Google your approximate location, so a search may return local plumbers and not those 500 miles away.

Things change when you sign into a Google account — the kind you have for Gmail. When you do that, Google will have personal attributes such as your name, address and a list of friends. The new policy gives Google more ability to combine such data from email, YouTube, search and other services, beyond the limited rights it had in the past.

Keep in mind that as much as Google makes promises to guard data about you, it's legally bound to respond to subpoenas and other government requests. That's no different from policies at Facebook, Yahoo and other websites. This was the case with Google's old policy as well.

I find no reason to be paranoid online, but it's best to know what's happening so you can take appropriate precautions if you feel the need. I really don't care if Google's ad system mistakenly thinks I'm a teenage girl because I search for the latest on ABC Family's “Pretty Little Liars.” But I'd care if ads popped up on my work computer based on a job search I might have done at home the night before.

Here are five things you can do to guard your privacy:

Manage your sign-ins

Remember, the new policy affects what happens when you sign in. You can avoid a deeper level of tracking and personalization simply by not signing in.

Of course, some services such as email and photo sharing on Picasa do require signing in. You can get around that by using different browsers to keep your identities separate. You could, for instance, use Google's Chrome to sign in for email and Firefox to sign in under a different account for YouTube. You could then use Microsoft's Internet Explorer to search the Web without signing in. That way, Google will see you as three different people and not link your activities.

If you want to stick with one browser, one approach is to use other providers such as Microsoft's Bing for search and Yahoo's Flickr for photos.

Keep in mind that Google still collects data about your use when you're not signed in, but it won't have as much information on you.

Review what Google knows

Google makes it easier than many other services to see what it knows about you.

Start with the Dashboard at http://google.com/dashboard . You'll have to sign in to use it. Go through each service to make sure it's up to date. On the right columns are links for managing your settings and profiles.

If you've enabled a feature called Web History, check the lists of past searches and delete any you don't want Google to remember. You can suspend recording by visiting http://google.com/history .

Part of what's changing is that Google will now be allowed to use your Web history to suggest videos you might like to see on YouTube. So if I've visited a lot of sites on “Pretty Little Liars,” YouTube might recommend video clips featuring some of its stars.

Next, check out Google's Ads Preferences manager at http://google.com/ads/preferences . That page reflects what Google thinks it knows about you when you're not signed in. You can remove or edit categories of interests.

If you don't like targeted ads, you can throw Google off by adding a bunch of fake interests. Or simply turn it off by hitting the “Opt out” link and button. You'll still get ads, just not targeted ones. The page might give you a few chuckles, as Google's guess of your age and gender is often wrong.

The Dashboard is tied to your Google account, while the ad manager is specific to your browser, so you'll have to do this with each browser on each computer or mobile device you use.

Take advantage of your browser's privacy modes

Major browsers offer a stealth mode. Typically, that means things you do aren't recorded in your browser's history files, and any data files added by a website for tracking get deleted after you're done.

On Chrome, look for “new incognito window” under the picture of the wrench. Microsoft's Internet Explorer calls it “InPrivate Browsing” under “Safety.” The feature is called “Private Browsing” in Firefox and Apple's Safari.

While you're at it, you can delete data already recorded by the browser. Look for a menu item that says “delete,” “clear” or “reset.”

Keep in mind that some services won't function properly in stealth mode. Netflix's streaming service won't operate, and Gmail won't store password information to automatically sign in next time.

Also, Google will still have your numeric Internet address. Stealth mode will curtail tracking but won't make you completely anonymous.

Use anonymizers

Several services are available to help you mask your Internet address. Requests to retrieve email or get search results will get bounced through multiple servers to get to a website such as Google. That means Google would have the address of the last computer on that chain, but not yours.

A popular free option is Tor, though it requires a software download and can slow down Web surfing.

Stay offline

Even if you take all of the above steps, it won't guarantee anonymity or track-free browsing. For starters, your Internet service provider has information on you regardless of what Google has and does with it. With a subpoena, it can link your name to nameless IDs in Google's logs.

The products and techniques I've outlined here can help, but the only way to completely protect your privacy is to disconnect.

You may actually like the policy changes. Combining data allows Google to do such things as suggest spelling corrections in Google's online word processing program for contacts you have in Gmail or chat.

Many people complained when Facebook introduced feeds of friends' status updates to save you from having to sift through dozens of profile pages to see what your friends are up to. These days, few people can imagine Facebook without that.

FBI Seeks Google's Help to Crack Alleged Pimp's Android Phone

The FBI needs some help cracking the Android phone of an alleged pimp being investigated as part of a federal human trafficking investigation. Agents out of the FBI's San Diego office seized one Dante Dears' Samsung phone on Jan. 17, tried and failed to get past the device's pattern lock , and have now applied for a warrant ordering Google to unlock it for them.

Dears is the convicted founder of a San Diego street gang called "Pimpin' Hoes Daily." After his release from state prison in January 2009, he allegedly fell in with his old set and the FBI secured a search warrant for his phone. In the affidavit filed on March 9 with the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of California, FBI agent Jonathon Cupina reveals that after seizing the device, FBI Regional Computer Forensics Lab (RCFL) technicians tried "multiple times" to get into the locked-down phone but couldn't do it.

So where does Google come in? The RCFL techs' attempts to get past the phone's pattern lock triggered a memory lock on the device that can't be unlocked without the user's Gmail address and password. The feds want Google to divulge that information, plus "any and all means of gaining access" to the phone, including password reset info and the manufacturer default code, or PUK, "in order to obtain the complete contents of the memory" of the device.

Christopher Soghoian of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research first spotted the FBI warrant Wednesday. Posting on his Slight Paranoia blog, he wondered why the RCFL techs didn't just "use commercially available forensics tools or widely documented hardware-hacking techniques" to get into Dears' phone.

But the competency of the RCFL techs or their willingness to use possibly illegal hacking tools isn't the primary concern of Soghoian and his commenters.

For one thing, Soghoian raises the issue of whether texts, voice mails, emails, or other communications arriving on the phone after it was seized could be used as incriminating evidence against Dears if the original search warrant didn't also request the phone be used as a surveillance device.

Second, at the end of the warrant application, Cupina requests of the court that Dears (or any other subscriber using the phone—the suspect claims the phone isn't his, according to Cupina, but the feds believe otherwise) not be told "by any means of communication" about the effort to collect the data on it. Either the court decided to disregard that request or somebody made a pretty big error in unsealing the record of the application for all the world to see and report about.

Of course, it would be somewhat baffling if Dears didn't realize the FBI wanted to see what was on his phone when they seized it. Unfortunately for the feds, it's possible he may have already taken steps to erase data accessed through the phone but stored in the cloud, like email.

Google Plus: The problem isn’t design, it’s a lack of demand

While Google continues to maintain that its Google+ social network is doing just fine, thank you very much — with a user base of about 100 million, according to the web giant — skepticism about the actual popularity of the service remains high. New York Times writer Nick Bilton argues in a recent post that the problem with Google+ is poor design, since new social networks like Path and Instagram have managed to gain a substantial audience. As others have pointed out, however, those networks are much more specific than Google+ wants to be: Google’s vision is of a Facebook-style network that encompasses hundreds of millions of people and a broad range of activities. The problem is that no one seems to want that except Google.

A recent Wall Street Journal story on Google+ painted a picture of a service that is “a virtual ghost town,” a network where users spent an average of just three minutes a month, according to statistics from web measurement firm comScore — in other words, a blink of an eye compared to the six or seven hours that typical Facebook users spend on the site. While comScore’s traffic numbers suffer from a number of problems, including the fact that they don’t measure mobile usage, that still indicates a massive gap between Google+ and Facebook. And measuring mobile probably wouldn’t help Google+ much anyway, since its mobile apps still leave a lot to be desired.

Google still sees Google+ as an “identity service”

Google responded fairly swiftly to the WSJ piece by talking to Bilton and the New York Times about how great Google+ is doing. Vic Gundotra, the executive in charge of the network, made the case that the company had “never seen anything grow this fast, ever” and that Google was more than happy with the usage of the service. Gundotra said that according to the company’s internal measurements, more than 50 million people use the network daily — which sounds pretty impressive, until you notice that this number represents people who have used “Google+ enhanced products.”

That means anyone who has logged into YouTube or Google.com or Picasa, or done any number of other things that are tied to Google+. Said Gundotra:

This is just the next version of Google. Everything is being upgraded. We already have users. We’re now upgrading them to what we consider Google 2.0.

In other words, Google sees its network as a social layer that is integrated into all of its other services, as VP of product Bradley Horowitz argued last year when he said Google+ would become part of everything the company did — and chairman Eric Schmidt said that he saw the network as an “identity service” that would be incorporated into all of Google’s products. That vision is presumably what convinced Google that favoring its own Google+ content in search results via the “Search Plus Your World” personalization feature was a good idea, instead of being (as some see it) a betrayal of its previous promise to users about providing unbiased and objective search results.

So it’s easy to see why Google would want a network like Google+ — among other things, it provides all kinds of data about users that could be useful for ad targeting (which seemed to be the real impetus behind the company’s initial insistence that users provide real names instead of pseudonyms). But why do users need it? That one is a lot harder to answer, and the short version may be simply that they don’t. While the network has caught on with certain groups of users, including the photographic community and early adopters such as blogger and uber-geek Robert Scoble, there remains little that would compel users who are already attached to Twitter or Facebook to spend large amounts of time on Google+.

What does Google+ offer that other networks don’t?

Bilton argues that new networks like Path and Instagram have captured a large and devoted user base, so therefore Google+ must be suffering from other problems such as poor design. But I’m inclined to agree with developer and designer Tom Coates that Google’s service is actually quite well designed in many respects, as one would expect from something that was crafted in large part by legendary Apple designer Andy Hertzfeld, the man behind the Macintosh and other products. The way the Google+ web version functions is actually quite impressive in many respects, especially when compared to most of the other socially-oriented services that have come out of Google.

I think Path and Instagram, both of which I use and enjoy, offer different aspects of social networking to users. It’s true that Path’s design and usability are excellent, and they make it a pleasure to use the app — but it is the small and defined nature of the social graph one has on the service (which is restricted to 150 connections) that makes it really useful. And with Instagram, it is focused on the simple act of sharing a photo and posting comments, and that focus makes it appealing in a way that Google+ is not, and likely never will be. And if I want to share with a larger group, then there is Facebook.

As a former Googler argued in a recent blog post about his departure from the company, the single biggest problem with Google+ is that no one needs it except Google. Do some people like and enjoy using it? Clearly there are some who do. But they don’t need it in the same way they need other networks like Facebook. Whenever I use Google+, I feel like I am doing Google a favor, but it’s not clear what I get out of it. Until Google can change that kind of perception, its network is going to seem a lot like one user’s devastating putdown, which compared it to a cemetery — plenty of residents, but not much activity.

Google Slows Down

The big Google news relevant to libraries is that Google is slowing down its book scanning project. After scanning over twenty million books in six years, they’re probably just tired. I know I would be.

After six years, the thrill of anything is gone. If you don’t believe me, stay in your current job for six years.

Google books has proven to be popular, with probably many more users than Google Plus, though that’s not saying much. However, there are some naysayers.

One person commented on the article above, claiming that, “Librarians have this delusion that all information can be transferred into electronic data bases.”

Do librarians have that delusion? It seems to me most of the information transferred to databases hasn’t been done by librarians. Elsevier and Google have done considerably more than most libraries put together.

Also, is it even a delusion? All information can be transferred to databases, at least theoretically.

The comment goes on to claim that the “problem is that aside from saving money on storage the new system is technically fragile, jeopardizes privacy, restricts access and makes browsing impossible.”

And here I thought the problem was that so much of the digitized information was just so darned expensive.

I sort of see technically fragile. The comment says that “Electronic data systems are easily hacked, changed and sometimes destroyed. It has already happened to governments, banks and the Iranian isotope separation facility.” Yeah, that’s true. And if those Anonymous people ever set their sites on Ebsco, we’d all be in big trouble!

Then there’s this bit. “And don’t forget as you read something online big brother will be watching – your government, any government, corporation, a teenager having fun or a nosy neighbor. On top of all this since the publishers can control access they get away with charging fees for continued access. This is what librarians have in mind. for us. By contrast once a book is on a shefl and paid fo,r no more is owed to the publisher. Well bound books printed on acid free paper have survived five hundred years of the violent history of Europe. You don’t need a computer to read a paper book. It takes at most a good pair or glasses. Nobody knows what you are reading. Beware the siren song of the electronic libraries.”

I feel like I’m reading Alex Jones or something. Paranoia strikes deep. Into your heart it will creep. Then it will creep into the comments section of the Chronicle of Higher Education. I can’t say I feel terrified by a teenager having fun turning into “big brother.”

The logic is paranoid, but also inaccurate. It’s true that publishers can control access and charge fees for continuing access. However, the next sentence cracked me up. “This is what librarians have in mind. for us.” I think it was the period after “mind” and that solemn “for us.”

I hate to break it to you, baby, but librarians don’t like the way things are going any more than you do. That whole “charging for continued access” is a pain for us all. Librarians are the ones who have to see the bill. Everyone else on a campus just clicks on things and they work.

I’m not the paranoid type. I don’t need to be paranoid, because people really are out to get me. But if I were the paranoid type, I’d be less worried that my Google Books account was hacked by Big Brother and much more worried about a commercial company having such a huge amount of control over digital content and the libraries that supplied it having so little communal control.

Google Books has been a great thing, but how long will it last? It seems Google has more money than it could ever spend, but the company’s only 13 years old. That doesn’t seem like a long enough time to build a track record.

Though what track record Google has developed makes hard to tell the future of Google Books. Will Google Books be like Google Docs or Google Buzz? Will it go the way of Knol, soon to be discontinued? Or the old Uncle Sam search discontinued last year?

Even Google Scholar has been removed from the “more” list and made much harder to find. Google supports stuff until it no longer supports stuff, then it doesn’t.

So if I were to be paranoid, I’d be worried that Google has all these books digitized that millions of people depend on, and because of lawsuits or fatigue or a desire to sell you Google ebooks Google Books becomes the next Buzz.

Then the digitally paranoid might rejoice, but the rest of us would definitely be worse off.

Registration for Google I/O 2012 kicks off March 27

If you have an interest in the annual Google I/O Developer Conference then you should make a note on your calendar. We have just learned that registration for Google’s I/O 2012 will kick off on March 27 and seeing how quickly tickets for the event sold out last year you’ll need to be on the ball.

Last year the conference event tickets sold out within an hour and as registration this year begins at 7am PDT on March 27 you should be up bright and early. A general admission ticket will have a $900 price tag, that’s a significant increase of almost double last year’s cost. Also there is no early bird pricing available this time around. For students and faculty members, the tickets cost $300, $200 more than for last year. However the event this year is one day longer and spreads over three days.

Google guidelines for registration mean that only one ticket per person can be requested while any ticket transfers have to be approved by Google, according to Android Central. Also you can only register with access to Google+ and Google Wallet. This year the I/O conference runs from June 27 to June 29 and takes place at Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco.

On March 27 head to this Google I/O 2012 registration page where applications are strictly first-come first-served. If last year is anything to go by there will be a lot of people who will be unable to get their tickets so if you want to attend this year we’ll wish you luck with your registration. Attendance is expected to be around 5,500 people.

If you want to know more about Google I/O then head to this Google FAQ page about the event which gives daily times, information about what the registration includes and much more. Are you intending to head to this year’s Google Developers Conference? What makes this event one not to miss?

Social Ads Work For Google, Facebook

Social ads work. Google’s +1 button encourages more people to click on socially “enhanced” ads. For Facebook, social ads increases ad recall by 55 percent. So it’s not too surprising that more money will be spent on social media ads this year.

Microsoft has also recently jumped into social advertising with the assistance of Bazaarvoice, to create "people powered stories" that include customer reviews and ratings within display ads.

Here’s a quick look at the latest reports showing the how social is influencing advertising.

Google +1 Lifts Click-Throughs 5-10%

Ads with a social annotation are seeing a 5 to 10 percent lift in click-through rate, according to Vic Gundotra, Google’s vice president for engineering. Gundtotra cites this as proof that Google+ is succeeding, despite a spate of stories that claim otherwise.

“We have been in this business for a long time, and there are very few things that give you a 5 to 10 percent increase on ad engagement,” Gundotra told the New York Times. He added that Google, unlike its competitors, can deliver these socially enhanced ads at the time of intent rather than at random in a social stream.

Ideally, this means that if a user is searching Google for a television or some other product, then Google can deliver an ad based on suggestions from people who are in that user’s Circles.

Nielsen: Social Ads Lifts Ad Recall by 55%

Ad recall increases on average by 55 percent for social ads compared to non-social ads, according to a Nielsen study.

Social has its advantages, Nielsen said, because 76 percent of U.S. Internet consumers trust recommendations from friends and personal acquaintances, while 49 percent trust consumer opinions posted online.

The study looked at 79 Facebook campaigns over a six month period, leading Nielsen to conclude:

Based on this analysis, more and more advertisers may consider leveraging ads with social content as a means to better utilize the power of the network of consumers engaged with their brands. This also serves as justification for marketers’ efforts to create more social connection points with their consumers, as their brands will be better positioned to reach a larger group of prospects.

More Social Spending to Increase Social Ad Revenues

Fifty-nine percent of respondents to an Advertiser Perceptions survey reported that they plan to increase social media ad spending over the next 12 months, compared to 4 percent who plan to decrease social spending. Social media advertising will account for about 27 percent of digital budgets, up from 22 percent over the previous year, according to the survey of 1,200 people, as reported by Advertising Age.

Meanwhile, social networks will see revenue from advertising increase nearly 50 percent this year. Advertisers will spend $7.72 billion on social networks – with nearly half of that money coming from the U.S., led by Facebook, which will take in about 70 percent of all social networking spend in the U.S., while Twitter will grow to 8 percent by 2014, according to an eMarketer forecast.

Despite Backlash, Google’s 'Search Plus Your World' Hasn’t Impacted Google’s Market Share

ComScore has released its search data for February 2012, and Google continues to lead, gaining 0.2 percentage points over the previous month, up to 66.4% in February from 66.2% in January. Microsoft sites, which includes its Bing search engine, also continued to hold second place, up just 0.1 percentage points to reach a 15.3% share. Yahoo, meanwhile, dropped 0.3 points to 13.8%, down from 14.1% in January.

None of the numbers are all that remarkable, which, when you think about the changes Google recently introduced to its core product involving the fusion of social and search, is actually somewhat remarkable.

Trailing the three search leaders were Ask Network at 3.0% and AOL, Inc. (disclosure: TechCrunch is owned by AOL) with 1.5% of the market.

In terms of explicit search queries, the rankings remained the same, with Google at 11.7 billion queries, followed by Microsoft at 2.7 billion and Yahoo sites with 2.4 billion. However, all three were down by 1% in terms of queries from January. Ask Network, with 535 million queries was up by 2% in the same time frame and AOL with 266 million queries was down 4%.

In “Powered by” searches in February, Google gained, going from 68.4% in January to 68.6% last month. Microsoft’s “powered by Bing” search, which includes Yahoo, dropped slightly, from 26.5% in January to 26.2% in February.

One thing these results do show is that Google users have not yet been so turned off by Google’s search engine changes, including its introduction of social search known as “Search Plus Your World” (SPYW), to have actually migrated over to another competing search portal. Introduced in early January, SPYW adds search results from Google’s social network, Google+, above other organic search results surfaced by Google’s engine. There has been a lot of grumbling about the changes, but nothing that has impacted Google’s use as a search engine. (Google’s public image may be another matter, though).

In addition, it’s also too early to see the results of Google’s decision to merge all its user privacy policies under one umbrella, a change that went live on March 1st. That move had raised the ire of some privacy advocates, but it’s unlikely that this will result in bottom line impacts to Google searches, either.

Google is intrusive but still favourite: Survey

Google is almost everyone's favorite search engine, despite misgivings about data-collection and advertising practices that are widely seen as intrusive.

A survey released Friday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found 83 percent of US search engine users rated Google as their preferred search engine. That was up from 47 percent in 2004, the last time that Pew gauged people's attitudes about Internet search engines.

Yahoo's search engine ranked a distant second at 6 percent, according to the latest numbers, down from 26 percent in 2004.

Google Inc has turned its dominant position in Internet search into a gold mine. The company's Internet search engine is the hub of an advertising system that generated $36.5 billion in revenue last year — up from $3 billion in 2004.

But the Pew findings also indicate Google may be risking its popularity by trying to learn more about users in a quest to sell more advertising.

Nearly three-fourths of search engine users said they don't want search engines to sift through their personal information to deliver results tailored to their individual interests. Google has been doing this more frequently since January when its search engine began to include personal information pulled from Google's social networking service, Plus.

More than two-thirds said they don't want to be targeted by customized ads because they don't want their Web surfing activities to be tracked and analyzed.

Google might be vulnerable to a backlash if its major rivals, including Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Facebook Inc., didn't also collect personal information to help them aim their ads at the right audiences.

Like its rivals, Google believes a well-placed ad is appreciated by most Web surfers. To gain a better grasp on people's preferences, Google this month overhauled its privacy policy to enable the company to compile individual dossiers on its logged-in users' activities on more than 60 different services, including Internet search.

Pew took its survey of 2,253 adults, including 1,729 Internet users, before the March 1 revision to Google's privacy policy, but mostly after the company had announced its changes. The poll spanned January 20 through February 19. The changes were announced January 24. The results based on Internet users have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points

Google and its rivals say they offer a variety of tools to protect their privacy, including ways to erase their search histories. But only 38 percent of Internet users are aware of these privacy-protection options, Pew found.

Whatever privacy fears might be nagging them, most people remain comfortable using search engines. Pew found 59 percent of online Americans use a search engine at least once day, up from 29 percent in 2004.