Google has just rolled out the first version of the Google Wave extensions gallery, making it easier for users to take advantage of some of the cool add-ons developers are building into the service.

After making a big slash at Google I/O last year, Google Wave (the real-time communication platform that is still in preview) has re-gained some momentum, thanks to an improved API and the addition of e-mail notifications. The addition of an extensions gallery speaks to even more growth on the service’s part.

If you have a Google Wave account, you’ll see an “Extensions” item in your navigation panel. Click on it and you can see what extensions are available to install and then use.

Here’s a rundown of some of the extensions you can install and use now:

Wave Sudoku – Play Sudoku with a friend in real-time using Wave

Developers Extension Installer — Developers can use this to create an embeddable installer for extensions they create

Yellow Highlighter — Adds a yellow highlighter tool to your toolbar

Trippy — Useful for planning trips with friends

Video Chat Experience — Video chat in Wave

Pollo Gadget — Conduct polls and surveys across Wave

AccuWeather — See the weather of people in the Wave or from places you are planning on visiting

Once you install an extension, in most cases it is added to your toolbar and can then be accessed within a wave.

There are more extensions in the gallery and developers can submit their own to be included by going to this submission page for Google to review.

What Google Wave extensions are you using? Let us know!

Disclosure: Mashable has teamed with Google for the Google Wave API Challenge.

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Reviews: Google, Google Wave, Mashable, video

Tags: Google Wave, google wave extensions

Varias críticas sigue recibiendo la alerta de tsunami que se dio desde la cuarta hasta la décima región, ya que según expertos la alarma fue excesiva. Más de 1.500 kilómetros de nuestras costas fueron alertadas por Servicio Hidrográfico y Oceanográfico de la Armada (SHOA) de un posible tsunami tras 2 sismos cercanos a los 7º [...]

Google’s new social network, Google Buzz, is getting some additional refinement, based on user feedback. Today’s news: The search giant is testing new features that will give you control over the flood of Buzz e-mail notifications.

Google Buzz has the benefit of being integrated directly into Gmail. Not only does it have a prominent tab in millions of inboxes, but it also sends e-mail notifications of recent buzz activity to your inbox. If you’re like us, the e-mail flood can get pretty overwhelming pretty quickly. Plus, anytime someone comments on a buzz thread, the e-mail pops right back up.

Google’s heard you loud and clear. In a buzz post, the Buzz team revealed that it is testing two changes to e-mail notifications to help you better manage your inbox. While these changes are not live yet, they should be up in the next few days.

The first change is something we’ve been seeking for some time: The ability to choose which items get sent to your inbox. If you just want an e-mail when someone comments on your post, it will soon be possible. If you want just posts where you are @replied, that’s possible as well. The second feature is a “Mute” link on individual buzz posts, which will stop a buzz post from reappearing in your inbox every time someone comments.

Both changes are necessary if Buzz is to be usable as a product. Still, Google hasn’t addressed our number-one request: collapsible comment threads.

[via CNET]

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Reviews: Gmail, Google, Google Buzz

Tags: email, gmail, Google, google buzz, social media

Filed under: Original, Cámaras digitales

Definitivamente Sony ha decidido ofrecernos la información a cuenta gotas en relación a su (aún misteriosa) DSLR ultra compacta con lentes intercambiables. Tras un primer vistazo en la PMA 2010 a través de una urna de cristal y un vídeo promocional, el fabricante pone ahora a nuestra disposición las capturas de la interfaz -ya mostradas en la citada grabación de manera fugaz-, en las que pueden descubrirse (y/o confirmarse) pequeños detalles que ayudan a hacernos una mejor idea de sus capacidades. Entre ellas podemos, de esta manera, encontrar la posibilidad de tomar imágenes en RAW (algo por lo que apostábamos), el interesante modo de toma de escenas con desenfoque (con control manual), la detección de caras, y un menús principal bastante colorido y sencillo. Recuerda que si quieres volver a ver el anuncio promocional no tienes más que echar un ojo a este enlace.
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A few days ago, we spotted Twitter’s initial roll out of a geolocation feature on its Website. It appeared that Twitter was testing the feature because it quickly turned it off. Last night, the feature went back on, and Twitter co-founder and CEO Biz Stone officially announced it.

While Twitter’s geolocation feature has been live through its API since last November, this is the first time Twitter has enabled geolocation on its site. To start Tweeting with your location attached, you need to enable the feature in your Twitter Account Settings. Once you’ve opted-in, you will be able to add your location information to all your Tweets or choose to add them to individual Tweets as you compose them. You can choose to share your exact location (your coordinates) or your neighborhood or town.

Currently, the feature only works with Firefox 3.5 and Chrome for Windows. If you decide you want to send a Tweet without your location, you can simply click the “x” next to your location to disable it. Interestingly, if you Tweet with your geolocation on Twitter, the location doesn’t seem to show up in TweetDeck, Seesmic or presumably other third-party clients. And It doesn’t work from Twitter’s mobile site, at least not on the iPhone, where it would make more sense.

As we wrote in our earlier coverage, the timing of this move by Twitter is purposeful. With the SXSW conference in Austin starting today, the location wars are heating up. Earlier in the week, the New York Times reported that Facebook would unveil its answer to location next month at its f8 conference. Google, meanwhile, is in the game with Latitude and to some extent Buzz (but could have been in it a lot more). And of course, Foursquare, Gowalla and a host of other location-based apps are rolling out additional functionality. As we previously noted, many of these apps use Twitter’s geolocation API to pass the data back to Twitter, so it makes sense that this would be a good time to turn the functionality on for the website.

Having been to Paris, I can tell you that it’s a city you won’t be able to fully fathom in a week or a month — it takes a lifetime to see all the city has to offer. This was before, of course, this amazing 26-gigapixel panorama of Paris was created; it won’t replace actually visiting Paris, but with all of its amazing details, it gets pretty darn close.

Paris 26 Gigapixels is a stitching of 2,346 photos, which add up to a high-resolution panoramic view of Paris. When we say high-resolution, we mean it; the end result is a 26-gigapixel (354,159×75,570 px) interactive photo. You can move around by clicking anywhere on the image and moving your mouse, and you can zoom with your mouse wheel (alternatively, you can use the arrows and +/- keys on the keyboard).

It’s easy to get lost in this huge panorama, so Paris 26 Gigapixels features quick tours of 20 of Paris’ most impressive monuments, together with some textual information about them.

The entire project, created by Martin Loyer, Arnaud Frich and Kolor, is available in English and French; there’s also a special HD view (highly recommended), activated via an icon in the upper right portion of the page, which requires installation of an additional plugin.

Oh, and one more thing; this is one of those times when you’d want to switch to full-screen browser mode.

Tags: panorama, Paris, photo

One of the series of posts that we’re building here at ProBlogger is all about what to do in the first week of your new blog. We’re assuming you’ve already got your domain, chosen your blog platform and have installed a template/theme/design – but what comes next?

So far we’ve covered:

• Writing Your First Compelling Content
• Planning Future Content

Today we’re going to look at some of the key pages on your blog that can be worth setting up.

Why ‘Pages’ are Important

When a new person arrives on your blog there are a variety of types of pages that they may look for that will help them to decide whether they want to remain connected with you (or that will help them to actually make that connection).

Many blogs come with some of these set up by default but you’ll want to personalise these defaults as much as possible and possibly create some new pages of your own. These might include:

• About Page – setting up an about page is really important – it’s one of those pages that a new reader will head to in order to help them work out what your blog is about, who is behind it and to decide whether they’ll keep reading it. Read more on how to do it at Add an ‘About’ Page to Your Blog and How to Write Your “About Me” Page.
• Contact Page – some bloggers get a little nervous about being contactable either out of a fear of being overwhelmed by emails or over privacy concerns. While I get this – there are many benefits from being contactable (it opens up opportunities to be contacted by potential partners, advertisers, other bloggers, the press and readers) and there are ways of safeguarding your privacy. If you use WordPress there are numerous contact page plugins that will help you to set up a page that will safeguard your privacy.
• Subscribe Page – most blog templates have subscription buttons and links built in by default – however not all of your readers will be familiar with what they mean or how to use them. While most of us as bloggers understand what that orange RSS symbol means – many will not. Over at my Digital Photography site where I have readers of all levels of tech savyness I have a subscription page which outlines the different subscription options that we offer. This page is visited a lot and converts very very well both with RSS and Email Subscription methods (note: later in this series we’re going to explore the idea of ’subscription options’ to help you think through how to let readers connect with your blog).
• Other Pages – there are a variety of other types of key pages that you might want to consider setting up, depending upon the goals of your site. These might include a ‘Advertise with Us‘ page, ‘Press‘ page, ‘Disclaimer‘ page, ‘FAQ‘ page, ‘Resources‘ page (if you’re selling something for example), a ‘Privacy Policy’ page, ‘Testimonial‘ page (if you have some good ones from previous customers), a 404 page, a ‘Resources’ page, an Archives page etc. Not all of these would be relevant for new blogs but for more information on these and others – I’ve previously outlined 20 types of pages that bloggers should consider.

What pages have you got set up on your blog?

Position Links to Your Pages Appropriately

Once you’ve set up the pages that are important for your blog it is also important to think carefully about where you’ll link to these pages on your blog. Having the pages is one thing but you’ll also want to think about how you’ll be driving traffic to them.

This will depend upon your blog’s design but as with anything – make sure that the pages that are most important to you (for example an ‘About Page’ or a ‘Contact Page’ might be included in this category) ‘are linked to prominently on your blog. This might mean setting up a navigation area across the top of your blog or having one at the top of your sidebar.

Other less important pages might be linked to from your About Page or even in your footer (in this case I’d be putting things like disclaimer pages).

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The First Week of Your Blog: Set Up Key Pages

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Twitter has turned on a feature that lets users geotag tweets directly from the web site. So now you don’t have to rely on mobile apps like Tweetie to triangulate where you are. The move should help add location data to a greater share of conversations flowing through the microblogging network and enrich local discovery and search.

Right now, the feature is deployed to only 40 percent of users, according to spokesperson Sean Garrett. In personal tests, it works on Firefox for me, but not Chrome or Safari. You can geotag your tweet to a specific point or to a general neighborhood.

To be clear, the site doesn’t automatically geotag all of your tweets. You have to change the settings on Twitter.com to enable location-sharing in general. Then you have to agree to share your location in Firefox, and then you can choose where to geotag your tweet from. (See image below.)

Yesterday the company started showing geolocation on its website more prominently. You can hover over location pins on your Twitter feed, and a tiny map will pop up showing where the tweet was sent from.

Tags: geolocation, geotag, geotagging, location, tweets

Companies: Twitter

People: Sean Garrett

Micro-blogging service Twitter's user growth has almost levelled off since September 2009, according to a study

Twitter's growth seems to have lost its momentum, according to a new study.

Growth in the micro-blogging service's number of users peaked at nearly 20% last April, but had dropped down to 0.15% in December 2009, says a study by Barracuda Networks.

Recent web analytics had already suggested that Twitter had reached its peak, as Twitter.com recorded a traffic high in July 2009 and has never reached that level since. According to Compete, Twitter reached 23.5 million users in August 2009 and stayed put. However, as Twitter client applications have grown and have become a bigger percentage of Twitter's user base, the numbers didn't necessarily reflect the actual situation of the micro-blogging service. By using the growth in Twitter users, instead of the site's traffic, the Barracuda study now puts things into perspective.

Strong growth in user numbers of 21.17% in April dropped to 10.95% in July and to 0.82% in September, and has ever been under 1% since – 0.58% in October, 0.34 in November and finally 0.15 in December. The accounts deleted by month also was growing, from 3.36% in April to 12.03% in October from which they peaked off to 8.48% and 8.14% percent in November and December.

To get these figures, Barracuda analysed more than 19 million Twitter accounts for frequency and content of tweets, user-to-user interactions, and each account's overall activity level. "We have been monitoring Twitter for more than one and a half years and keep track of the public timeline, and any new account of the public timeline," says lead researcher Nidhi Shah.

Barracuda's chief research officer, Paul Judge, explains the stagnation of Twitter with the end of "The Red Carpet Era". Twitter shows "a very concentrated growth spurt during the early part of 2009 – a period that we define as the 'Twitter Red Carpet Era'. Twitter users came online to follow their favorite celebrities. The most famous people have already joined Twitter, so I don't think they'll see another growth spurt like that," says Judge. From November 2008 to April 2009, several big celebrities, including Ashton Kutcher, Oprah Winfrey and John Mayer, joined Twitter.

In comparison, the number of Facebook users has been rising continously. According to Facebook, today 50% of the 400 million active users log on to Facebook in any given day, with more than 35 million users updating their status and more than 60 million status updates posted each day.

Another Twitter study published by US web analytics company RJMetrics last month seems to confirm Barracuda's report. It says that Twitter has 75 million users, with a large percentage of accounts being inactive.

According to RJMetrics' data, about 80% of all Twitter users have tweeted fewer than 10 times, about 40% of accounts have never sent a single tweet, and 25% of accounts have no followers.

Barracuda concludes that "the past six months have shown steady decline in the number of new account registrations", but the number of new users a month is currently at about 6.2 million. Their report doesn't say anything on the number of deleted accounts.

Twitter, which has not yet commented on the reports, recently announced that it had hit 50 million tweets a day. According to Barracuda's report, users are becoming more active on Twitter, with the most active users being those with about 1,000 followers.

According to internal documents leaked to TechCrunch, the company's forecast that it would go "from 25 million users at the end of 2009 to 1 billion in 2013".

Until now, Twitter itself has not released precise figures on its growth. Recently, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone posted an email newsletter saying that it had recorded 1,500% growth in the number of registered users but did not specify the timespan.

The reports certainly will prompt several questions. Has Twitter reached its peak? Is Twitter a micro-blogging service where only marketing people tweet to each other? Was it overhyped? How relevant is it anyway?

One thing is certain, the days of micro-blogging might not look as rosy as they did last spring, but they are far from over.

Google is giving tweets a visibility they never had before. After the launch of Google's real-time search in December, Twitter's traffic rose 9% from December 2009 to January 2010, according to ComScore.

Twitter's number of users may not have grown, but with the Google deal it became more important than ever.