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Twitter: Google+ Does Not Concern Us

Twitter has spoken. And Google+ is not on its radar.

Co-founder Jack Dorsey spoke at a technology conference yesterday and stated that his company was much more than a social network and that Google's latest bid in the social space was not a concerning issue.

Describing Twitter as a personal news service as much as a "social network" like Facebook is considered, Jack called his microblogging platform an "information utility" in which "the biggest value is finding out what's happening in your world in real time." He also said that Twitter was still busy building itself and not focused on the competition.

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Tumblr Reaches 15 Billion Pageviews Per Month; YouTube Streams 4 Billion Videos Per Day

Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp revealed today at the Digital Life Design Conference in Munich that his blogging platform is visited by over 120 million unique users per month, resulting in more than 15 billion pageviews. Tumblr is now host to nearly 42 million blogs.

These numbers stack up well to four months ago, when 30 million blogs tallied up 13 billion monthly pageviews. Tumblr has raised incredible amounts of money, too—over $120 million in total, which it uses to "scale" its business and apply "real focus to further development." However, as a result, controversy surrounds the startup because it has thus far failed to monetize sustainably.

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Google Numbers: 250 Million Android Devices, 11 Billion App Downloads, 90 Million Google+ Users

Search engine and software behemoth Google released several big non-financial numbers today during its Q4 earnings report. (The financial numbers, while decent, actually fell short of Wall Street expectations, causing the stock to tumble 9% in afterhours trading.)

GOOGLE+

Chief executive officer Larry Page said during the company's earnings call that its social network, Google+, now has 90 million users globally—double the amount three months ago, and nearly half of 5-year-old Twitter's user count. But, like Twitter, not everyone is active. Roughly 60% of Google+ are active daily while 80% are active weekly, Larry says, although I suspect that these numbers are manipulated in Google's favour by counting indirect or involuntary engagements through the company's search engine and other tightly intertwined products.

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Apple Owners Are Highly Optimistic While BlackBerry Owners Are Extremely Negative [STUDY]

Research continues to reinforce the idea that certain types of people consistently wind up choosing certain brands of technology. For example, prior studies have suggested that iOS users tend to have higher incomes and education than Android users. Now, a new survey conducted this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by gadget recycling company Gazelle revealed some more stark differences between the owners of different mobile operating platforms.

As it turns out, iOS users are substantially more optimistic than BlackBerry users, with Android users falling roughly in the middle. According to Gazelle, over half of iOS users "expect the best in uncertain times," while a stunning 0% of BlackBerry users "usually expect the best" and about one-third of Android users are "always optimistic about their future."

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Google Reacts to Twitter's Response in Civil Manner, but We Know That Blood is Boiling

Yesterday, Google announced salient changes to its search engine. Most notably, it placed an emphasis on Google+.

We’re […] introducing three new features:

1. Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page; 

2. Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following; and, 

3. People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community. 

This immediately caught the eye of venture capitalist and tech journalist MG Siegler, who called the move "a slippery slope for Google" and believes the U.S. Justice Department will launch another antitrust inquiry on the company as a result.

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Google+ is Officially Becoming Relevant in Search. It Might Be Time to Get a Google+ Profile

Jon Mitchell at Read Write Web has been an outspoken proponent of how Google+ may ruin search results as he believes the Internet will "warp" if the only way to matter is to Google-optimize. He tweets about the changes that will register when you go on the search engine in the next few days: "Google is allowing me to expand my Google-identity beyond Google+. Facebook does not do that."

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These are the Five Most Leading Edge Technology Brands in Canada

What brands are considered "leading edge" by Canadians? Ipsos Reid conducted a nationwide survey of Canadian adults to find out. As part of its Ipsos Influence Index study to identify key factors that drive brand influence, the market research firm uncovered the 10 companies Canada believes are at the forefront of innovative excellence.

5 of the 10 companies in the list are technology companies. Number one overall is Apple, who won for its originality, innovation, and revolutionary product design. Steve Levy, president of Ipsos Reid, said that "it's been amazing to see what Apple has accomplished over the past decade, through the introduction of innovative and iconic products."

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Apple Stock Rises to New High as Zynga Stock Sinks to New Low

The global stock market has been considerably volatile for several months now following a short-lived recovery after the Great Recession. Tech stocks have been no exception to the rule: even staples of stability have put their wary investors on gut-wrenching roller coaster rides. Today marked a notable high and a notable low.

Apple's share price climbed to an all-time high of nearly $428, a new peak after rising beyond $400 in October before dropping back down into the $360s. It has since eased back into the low $420s but remains up on the day. This, despite numerous sessions at CES hyping up this idea of ultrabooks—in essence, the rest of the industry's response to Macbook Airs. That's because there is strong anticipation of a big year: one, if not two, new iPads; a new iPhone; and possibly even a dividend, plus likely upgrades to the Macbook and iMac lineups.

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A Very Apple Christmas: 1.6 Million More iOS Devices Were Activated on the 25th Than Android

Research from analytics agency Flurry revealed recently that a staggering 6.8 million Android and iOS devices were activated on Christmas Day alone, an insane 353% more than on the average day in December (1.5 million). It was also incredible growth from last year: Christmas Day in 2010 saw 2.8 million activations.

But Flurry did not offer a breakdown of how many devices were Apple-based versus how many were Google-based. However, Fortune columnist Philip Elmer-DeWitt believes he has found the magic number.

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Statistician Believes Google+ Can Hit 400,000,000 Users in 2012

Google is adding over 600,000 new users to its Google+ social networking website every day, says independent analysis. According to Google+'s self-proclaimed "unofficial statistician" Paul Allen - who is notably the founder of Ancestry.com - the social network could crack 400 million users by the end of 2012.

Google+ started as an invite-only beta in the summer and launched to the public in September. In October, Google confirmed the site had cracked 40 million users. Google has thus far leveraged the popularity of its existing users on Gmail, Android, and Google search to gain traction in user growth.

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