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Google's greenhouse gas impact is zero, company says

Software giant Google for the first time disclosed its energy usage.

The company consumes just over 2 kilowatt hours per user per year—the equivalent and running a 60-watt lightbulb for three hours, Google's vice president of technical infrastructure said on the Google Green blog. And because Google invests in renewable energy projects and purchases carbon offsets, its greenhouse gas impact is effectively zero.

Google's total electricity usage is over 2,200 megawatt hours, which clocks in at 0.01 of the world's electricity, one quarter of a nuclear power plant's yearly output.

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Google acquires Zagat

Software giant Google has acquired review and recommendation master Zagat for an undisclosed sum.

Zagat, founded in 1979, put itself up for sale for $200 million in 2008 but then took itself off the market. Meanwhile, Google tried to buy Yelp in 2009 for $500 million but nothing materialized.

From Google's blog:

Moving forward, Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering—delighting people with their impressive array of reviews, ratings and insights, while enabling people everywhere to find extraordinary (and ordinary) experiences around the corner and around the world.With Zagat, we gain a world-class team that has more experience in consumer based-surveys, recommendations and reviews than anyone else in the industry. 

So obviously Zagat fills the void that the Yelp fallout created, and will bolster the rather unpopular Google Places.

QR, AR, Barcode Scanning Becoming Interchangeable with Super Scanning Apps

There’s more to barcode and QR code scanning than what has met most marketing and consumer minds.  Companies like junaio, Digimarc, Google Goggles and Layar by IBM are quickly blurring the lines between augmented reality and QR code scanning.

The third edition of what is touted the world’s most advanced augmented reality browser, junaio, allows you to scan the world around you.

Peter Meier, junaio’s company’s CTO  says: “We are using the very objects around us as markers to get virtual information”.

Here’s the video on junaio’s capabilities in conjunction with the launch of junaio 3.0:

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Google's Chris O'Neill: Canada loves the internet but businesses need to use to better

Ontarian Chris O'Neill is a Google exec who, after five years working out of the company's California headquarters, has returned home to run Google Canada.

In a recent interview with The Globe and Mail, Chris described Canada's love for the internet: "Canada leads the world," he said. "We are the most wired nation."

But Chris also believes our risk tolerance "tends to be a little lower," which can be good and bad. It's helped our banking system become world-class, he noted, but  "when it comes to technology, Canadian businesses could use a little more of that risk-taking entrepreneurial spirit."

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The average Google+ user spends less than one minute per day on it; traffic dips in August

According to new research from Experian Hitwise, the averge user is spending less than 6 minutes per week on Google's new social networking platform, Google+, which is down from July's average.

Traffic rose by nearly 300% in mid July when the company saw an incredible out-of-the-gate surge in membership, but has since slipped, stagnating early last month and then dipping 5% in the last week August.

Has Google+ already plateaued? Likely not, given that it's still in invite-only mode. We must also remember the modest growth Facebook and Twitter saw for months and even years before truly growing. Still, that's a sharp stop in momentum.

Image credit: Business Insider

Google launches Canadian online movie service to compete with Netflix

Google is going head-to-head with Netflix in Canada by launching a YouTube-based movie rental service. Known simply as YouTube Movies, the service which launched in the US earlier this year, is now ready for a Canadian audience.

The service allows users to rent new and classic movies for about $3.99 or $4.99. Users will have 30 days from the moment they rent a movie to begin watching it, and 48 hours to finish.

YouTube Movies will compete directly with Netflix, which offers Canadians unlimited access to thousands of movies and TV shows for a flat monthly subscription of about $8.

In order to avoid the wrath of the CRTC, the Canadian version of YouTube Movies will offer many more Canadian productions than its US counterpart. Google has established partnerships with several distribution companies such as Alliance Films in order to differentiate themselves in the market while also making it less likely that CRTC will want to regulate them over a lack of Canadian content.

Google's announcement comes just one day after Blockbuster Canada announced it's closing its remaining movie rental outlets.

Google's +1 button to impact search results?; +1s for sale

According to Wired, Google has shared its plans to use its +1 button to influence its search results.

“Google will study the clicks on +1 buttons as a signal that influences the ranking and appearance of websites in search results,” a spokesman wrote. “The purpose of any ranking signal is to improve overall search quality. For +1’s and other social ranking signals, as with any new ranking signal, we’ll be starting carefully and learning how those signals are related to quality.”

The idea is that using clicks from the +1 buttons will improve the relevancy of the website's search results, but there is speculation that Google is also seeking to increase the viability of its own social networking platform. Google+ has seen a huge influx of users, but the site has realized that its platform may need more incentive to remain relevant within the shadow of its Facebook rivals. Recently, Google+ expanded the scope of the +1 button so that when clicked, you're Google+ feed is updated with the site — more similar to Facebook's Like button.

As far as websites are concerned, if Google's search results become heavily dependent on its social networking, there will be a lot of pressure to use the +1 button.

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Google's Acquisitions by Country: Canada comes in at #2 with six

Woork up's Antonio Lupetti has turned a comprehensive list of Google acquisitions on Wikipedia into a pretty sweet infographic.

The infographic covers 102 acquisitions over 11 years and the USA dominates the stats accounting for 74 of Google's purchases. In second place is Canada, or more accurately the province of Ontario.

Complete infographic after the jump.

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Setting a new personal record, Twitter eclipses LinkedIn traffic for the first time ever

Twitter leads the pack of the big three social networks in terms of traffic growth, according to a new comScore report.

Ranked number 34 in a top-50 list of websites based on U.S. traffic, Twitter's increase of 32% dwarfed Facebook's 11% growth. Meanwhile, the professional-oriented LinkedIn is suffering from stagnation—it saw 32.5 million visitors in July, down from 33-million-plus in both June and May.

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Maybe not so hot after all? Just 17% of Google+ users are actually active

Google saw 25 million people join its Plus social network in its first month. We've heard the stats: took Facebook 852 day to reach its first 10 million users, that Twitter took 780 days, and that Google+ took just 16.

But users who don't stick around aren't worth much. In which case, Google+ isn't worth much.

New statistics unveil the ugly truth: a paltry 17% of Google+ users are actually active. This doesn't bode well for the burdgeoning social network—it's leading a lot of horses to water but not many of them are drinking. 

And, for whatever reason, men still dominate Google+. Where most other social networks are quite balanced—and some even in favour of females—Google+'s userbase is less than one-third chicks.