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Google Buzz Gets An Official Share Button

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If you  liked Buzz since day one chances are you’ve probably clicked on those Google Buzz share buttons developed and implemented by top blogs such as Mashable and TechCrunch. You may have also used some “unofficial” follow me on Google Buzz buttons in your blogs or websites. The thing is implementing those unofficial Google Buzz buttons maybe a tedius process and may require some codings and all.

But that was the case before, not until now. Google has just launch the official Google Buzz sharing buttons. Starting today, you’d be seeing more of those official Google Buzz share buttons on top sites which have partnered with Google. These include The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Glamour, YouTube and others. These buttons will make it easier for you to share interesting news items you find on the Internet and post it as updates to your Google Buzz accounts.

Likewise, those third-party share widgets/buttons such as Share This, Shareholic and other have also started implementing the Google Buzz button in their widgets.

Now, to post the Google Buzz button in your own blog/site, you can grab the Javascript code from this site and paste it to your site’s code.  You can also add the official follow me on Google Buzz button to your blogs/sites by also grabbing the code for it from the said site.

There you go, some new ways to spread the buzz and if you don’t like Google Buzz – add some more noise to the Buzz sphere.

Move Over iPad, Here Comes the WePad

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There you go. What was being touted as an iPad killer even before the iPad was officially released finally gets to come out of the closet and was finally and officially launched. We’re talking about the WePad. It’s definitely not the plural form of the iPad but rather a different product, created by the German company – Neofonie.

Some of the things that we don’t know yet about WePad are pretty interesting. For example, reports said that there will be two WePad models – a 16GB WiFi and 64GB HD-capable unit.  The rest of the WePad specs and features are pretty impressive, well of course if you’re looking at it from the perspective of what a tablet should be.

The WePad boasts of 11.6-inch touchscreen display, Intel Atom N450 CPU, two USB ports, onboard webcam, and of course something which has been much sought after from the iPad – Flash support.

And some of the major features that you can enjoy with the WePad include – browse the Internet, watch YouTube, check email, chat with friends on Facebook and more.

The WePad is also banking on the open-source dictum, having built the WePad’s platform on Android and Linux.  So, you can just imagine the possibility of more apps coming into the WePad’s way once it becomes publicly available.

WePad is also promising something about “WeMagazine.” This is an ePublishing Open Platform that provides publishers with tools necessary to develop their publication-specific applications for the WePad.

Could the WePad revolutionize the web magazine  publishing industry? Will it be able to steal the thunder away from the Apple iPad?  Are Flash support and Android or Linux OS enough to convince you to get the WePad?

Twitter Acquires Tweetie iPhone App

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For quite some time now, despite being one of the top social media service, Twitter has not been so active in the mobile scene.  There are third-party iPhone apps available on various mobile platforms, but none has been coming from Twitter itself.

So after releasing the public beta version of the Twitter for BlackBerry app, Twitter’s next target to fulfill its quest of establishing a mobile presence is the iPhone. Twitter has just acquired Tweetie iPhone app  from AteBits. Tweetie will be renamed as the Twitter for iPhone.

Tweetie is one of  the most popular and widely used Twitter app for iPhone. What’s good about this acquisition and interesting as well is that Twitter plans to release Twitter for iPhone as a free app on the Apps Store. Currently, Tweetie is priced $2.99. So, we should also expect that Twitter for iPhone will be available as an ad-supported app.

Loren Brichter, Tweetie’s owner and developer will become part of the Twitter mobile team. In addition, once the Twitter for iPhone is released, an iPad application will also be released.

Will this spike up Twitter’s clout establishing itself at par with Facebook? Only time can tell. Will you be getting Twitter for iPhone once it gets out? Or are you sticking with your current third-party Twitter app?

Farmville Player Spent £900 Using His Savings and Mother’s Credit Card

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I saw this news covered by a local news program yesterday but at first I didn’t give it much thought since I was waiting the the news program’s coverage of the iPad. Then I saw this new hitting the Techmeme’s headline right now and decided to give it a run.

After reading what happened to the 12-year old kid who spent £900 buying Farmville virtual goods, I could not help but sigh and felt relief that it didn’t happen to me. Two of my teen-age kids are into Farmville as well. But they don’t have access to my credit card.

So, the story goes that the kid spent around $900 to purchase Farmville goods using her mother’s credit card and his own savings. The credit card was used by the kid without her mother’s knowledge. All in the name of putting up the “coolest” farm in Facebook.

Zynga, the game developer refused to refund the amount since the kid lives in her mother’s house.  While the credit card company would only refund if the mother will report his son to the police and give him a police record. Now, what kind of mother would do that to her own son?

So, now. The son’s Farmville account was cancelled. The mother and the kid lost quite a sum of money. And Zynga earns. What a crappy system, right?

The kid and his mother should have read TechCrunch’s series on game monetization schemes of Zynga. This could have been prevented from happening.

Lessons learned?  You know that already.

Google Wants You to (Re)Confirm Buzz Privacy Settings

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True to what has been reported a couple of hours ago, Google has started asking Buzz users to confirm the new Buzz privacy settings. You’ll get the notification page the next time you click on the Buzz tab on your Gmail account.

Google also explained why they are asking Buzz members to confirm their privacy settings again. According to a post on the Official Google Blog – “we quickly realized we didn’t get everything right and moved as fast as possible to improve the Buzz experience. ”

Google has been making a number of changes since issues on privacy started to escalate such as replacing the auto-follow with suggestions for people to follow instead.  The good thing about this setup is that Buzz users are given the freedom to choose people that they will follow.

Now, this is well and good for new Buzz users after the new privacy policy was implemented. But for those who started using Google Buzz earlier, the auto-suggest may not have worked. So, Google is issuing the Google Buzz confirmation page again to ensure that old users are given a chance to change their privacy settings or accept these settings as it is.

The confimation page is the same privacy settings page given when you first activated Google Buzz. When you get it now, you are free to edit, unfollow and follow people before finally accepting it.

So, are you going to accept the new Google Buzz privacy settings? Or have you totally deactivated Google Buzz already?

TweetDeck App Fully Optimized for the iPad

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With the large screen real-estate that the iPad offers, I wasn’t really quite surprised that the first adopters among application developers would be those with mobile Twitter client apps. If you checked the iTunes iPad App Store right now, you’d find several Twitter apps for the iPad – both new and old ones ported to the new platform. One of these Twitter apps which happens to be also my favorite on mobile phones is TweetDeck.

Thankfully, the TweetDeck folks didn’t just ported their mobile TweetDeck app to the iPad platform but build a new application instead. In fact they’ve build two new interfaces – for portrait and landscape modes. TweetDeck for iPad also takes full use of the device’s multi-gesture features.

Feature-wise, TweetDeck for iPad lets you do practically everything that you can with its mobile phone versions. The app lets you fully manage all your Twitter accounts, check web pages from within TweetDeck, use columns to manage your real-time feed, sync your data with the desktop and iphone client, iPad gesture based navigation, geolocation data and map interface, and of course all the basic Twitter functions such as composing tweets, retweeting and sending DMs.

And guess what? TweetDeck for iPad is a free download. Get it from the iTunes iPad App Store once you received your iPad.

Or watch this video showing the TweetDeck for iPad in action.