Google Veteran Asks Obama to Raise His Taxes (Mashable)

Doug Edwards greatest fame is that he is a Google employee number 59, and the author of a biography called I'm Feeling Lucky. He retired from the Silicon Valley search giant in 2005, shortly after the IPO, with a significant amount of stock. He is now, as he puts it, "the unemployed by choice." As of Monday, but Edwards a new title: the man who asked Barack Obama in a public forum to raise taxes on millionaires like himself. "My question is do you want to raise my taxes?" Edwards said on Monday LinkedIn Town Hall. "I'd love for our country to continue to invest in things like Pell grants, infrastructure, training programs that made ​​it possible for me to get where I am. It kills me to see Congress not support the end of the tax cuts that benefit so much from us for so long. "

[More from Mashable: Obama Talks Jobs on LinkedIn Town Hall [Images]]

Edwards would not name the company, where he earned his money, saying only that he had gone with a starting nearby. But when pressed by Obama, admitting that it was "a search engine."

The former journalist who served as Google's brand manager from 1999 to 2005 is usually not so reticent. He runs a blog on memories of former Googlers called Xooglers. His memories spilling the beans on various disagreements with Google luminaries as Marissa Meyer and co-founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin. As head of branding in a boot that tended to distance themselves from all forms of marketing, relying instead on the quality of the search product had Edwards his work cut out for him.

[More from Mashable: 4.7 million LinkedIn users who are employed in small firms [Infographic]]

Obama for Congress to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans – or at least to sunset the Bush tax cuts – is still uncertain. But the billionaire investor Warren Buffett wrote a piece in The New York Times, opinion, asked the president to do just that, leading to the so-called "rule Buffett" Obama proposed legislation in American jobs. Edwards is unlikely to get a law that bears his name, but has just added its voice to the chorus – and quickly became the most visible figure rich in Silicon Valley to ask for a higher tax law.

This story originally published here on Mashable.

Salesforce.com’s Benioff inspired by Arab Spring (Reuters)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The head of the web software company Salesforce.com Inc. executive Marc Benioff unveiled a series of social networking tools and said he was inspired by the recent revolutions in Egypt and Libya.

Benioff said Salesforce.com was to strengthen their existing chat services company to allow better interaction between people who do business together, after Facebook and Twitter have been widely used in the overthrow of dictators in Egypt and Libya.

"There were signs saying" thank you Microsoft, there were signs saying "Thank you for IBM," said Marc Benioff as a slide show of Arab protesters during his speech to the convention of Salesforce.com 's annual San Francisco.

"No. Look at this:" Thanks to Facebook, in all these different languages, in all these different cultures. "

Salesforce.com has become a darling of investors, who see themselves as blessed with the holy trinity of Silicon Valley social media, cloud computing and mobile devices. The stock is trading at a massive 77 times expected annual profits and increased by 3.38 percent Wednesday.

Stimulation of a stage and auditorium shaking hands with members of a captive audience, Marc Benioff also showed off software tools to help Salesforce.com customers use its services more easily on the Apple iPhone and other mobile gadgets.

"Salesforce.com is a social enterprise to be fast," he said. "Smartphones and tablet to take. We recognize that. "

The new social networking tools, it will be easier for customers to learn by following and analyzing their activities on Facebook and Twitter. It will also enable customers and suppliers to create the social network media where their employees can work together.

Rock Legend Neil Young and rapper MC Hammer Benioff appeared in both the event and said she's tools Salesforce.com 's social networking business using.

Feeding the hope that cloud computing companies can avoid getting caught in a possible slowdown in technology spending, Salesforce.com this month increased its annual profit forecast.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich)

Jobs Steps Down at Apple, Saying He Can’t Meet Duties

Steven P. Jobs in San Francisco in June.

“I have always said that if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s C.E.O., I would be the first to let you know,” Mr. Jobs said in a letter released by the company. “Unfortunately, that day has come.”

Mr. Jobs, 56, has been on medical leave since January, his third such absence. He underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004, and received a liver transplant in 2009. But as recently as a few weeks ago, Mr. Jobs was negotiating business issues with another Silicon Valley executive.

 Mr. Jobs will become chairman, a position that did not exist before. Apple named Tim Cook, its chief operating officer, to succeed Mr. Jobs as chief executive.

Rarely has a major company and industry been so dominated by a single individual, and so successful. His influence has gone far beyond the iconic personal computers that were Apple’s principal product for its first 20 years. In the last decade, Apple has redefined the music business through the iPod, the cellphone business through the iPhone and the entertainment and media world through the iPad. Again and again, Mr. Jobs has gambled that he knew what the customer would want, and again and again he has been right.

“The big thing about Steve Jobs is not his genius or his charisma but his extraordinary risk-taking,” said Alan Deutschman, who wrote a biography of Mr. Jobs. “Apple has been so innovative because Jobs takes major risks, which is rare in corporate America. He doesn’t market-test anything. It’s all his own judgment and perfectionism and gut.”

Mr. Cook, an expert in logistics, has been instrumental in locking up contracts in advance for critical parts in the company’s devices. It has had the effect of securing favorable prices, keeping Apple’s profit margins high. But it also has prevented rival companies from producing competing products at significantly lower prices.

While Mr. Cook is well respected in the industry, he is little known outside of it. Analysts and Silicon Valley experts said new Apple products were in the pipeline for the next few years, but the company’s success beyond that was already being debated.

Tim Bajarin, president of the technology research firm Creative Strategies, said the news about Mr. Jobs was “a shock because it’s abrupt.” But Mr. Bajarin said that “while there’s definitely concern for Steve as a person,” he had little concern for the company.

“Steve has built a very deep bench of managers, including the leadership of Tim Cook, who clearly understands Steve’s vision, goals and direction,” said Mr. Bajarin, who has followed Apple for 30 years. 

Others were not so sure.

“You could make the case that Steve has injected so much of his DNA into Apple that Apple will continue,” said Guy Kawasaki, who was an Apple executive in the late 1980s. “Or you can make the case that without Steve, Apple will flounder. But you cannot make the case that Apple without Steve Jobs will be better. Hard to conceive of that.”

The technology world has never been short of strong-willed leaders (think Bill Gates at Microsoft or Larry Ellison at Oracle). But even in this select group, Mr. Jobs was noted for the control he exerted and the loyalty he commanded. Without him, his devoted team might soon fracture.

“I think the key question is whether the Apple team will continue to work as effectively as a collaborative without the single person to rely on for the final decision,” said Charles Golvin, a Forrester Research analyst.

Mr. Cook, 50, joined Apple in 1998. He was promoted to chief operating officer in 2007, overseeing the day-to-day operations.  Wall Street had long assumed the soft-spoken Mr. Cook, who was raised in Alabama and is an Auburn University graduate, would be the successor to Mr. Jobs.  While Mr. Jobs convalesced, Apple thrived with the continuing rise in iPhone sales and huge growth in the iPad, the dominant tablet computer.

The company and Mr. Jobs had been criticized in the past for revealing little information about his health to investors. The news of Mr. Jobs’s resignation came after the market closed Wednesday. In after-hours trading, the stock fell 5 percent.

Federal Push for ‘Cloud’ Technology Faces Skepticism

Vivek Kundra, the former White House chief information officer, on "cloud computing" services. Some organizations are wary.

But even if Mr. Kundra returns to university education, after a run of two-and-a-half-years, his vision of a leaner and more focused on the Internet to get the government reached with caution at least some of the Heads of federal agencies in technology that now make it happen.

This is because the vision of Mr Kundra is on "cloud computing", where computer programs of an agency (such as e-mail) and data (including emails) stored by private contractors and officials of the services on the Internet.

Entrepreneurs such as Amazon, Google and Lockheed Martin marketing their cloud services as a way for private companies and public institutions in order to avoid having to build and operate costly data centers, adding new computing capabilities.

The store, as well as reduce costs, greater flexibility, because agencies can change the size of a project without having to add or subtract their IT infrastructure.

"As the Internet has led to the creation of new business models unfathomable 20 years ago, the cloud will break and reshape entire industries in unpredictable ways," said Kundra writes in an e-mail.

Such praise for new Internet technologies can be common in Silicon Valley, but is rare in the federal government, where security is paramount.

Attacks overseas this spring and summer on government systems and businesses have increased security in the defense and intelligence. In July, the Pentagon said it had suffered its greatest failure, in which hackers gained 24,000 confidential files. Defense officials said they suspected intelligence service of a foreign government might have been behind the attack.

Surveys of chief information officers of federal agencies, led by various research companies show a high degree of concern about safety when asked about the cloud. But agencies must comply with Mr. Kundra is "the first cloud" policy, which promotes the use of cloud services for new projects, and forcing them to spend at least three existing projects to the cloud of the summer.

Some organizations, especially those dealing with confidential information unless, were quick to adopt the model. During the first six months of Mr.Cus, Agriculture Department moved approximately 46,000 employees accounts and is currently adding 120,000. The cloud can help to accelerate along the technology project, said Chris Smith, Office of Communications.

But other departments, notably defense and the state is progressing slowly. Teri Takai, Chief Information Officer for the Department of Defense said that her Office's use of cloud computing will be limited for the foreseeable future to keep confidential information within the military advanced safety systems.

"With the increasing frequency and sophistication of cyber attacks on the defense system, we are dealing with all the new strategies that can introduce new risks," Ms. Takai said in an e-mail.

Pentagon, was able with its global reach and hundreds of thousands of users take advantage of anytime, anywhere the opportunity for cloud computing. Ms. Takai is a twist on Mr.Cus vision is the concept of "Mission-Oriented Resilient Wolken, a security approach that the Pentagon is developing for use in military operations.

"When you're done with due consideration and planning cloud computing will be a highly effective and efficient tool," said Ms. Takai.

The U.S. Ministry of Foreign Affairs is moving forward with only a low risk projects, as a place for the office of the historian, who gives the public information about the history of American diplomacy, the Agency Chief Information Officer Susan Swart said.

As PCs Wane, Companies Look to Tablets

Dell, one of a handful of American companies still making personal computers, struggles for every percentage of market share.

The announcement on Thursday by Hewlett-Packard that it was considering offloading its PC business, even though it is the undisputed worldwide market leader, was a clear sign of the difficulties.

If H.P. goes through with the idea, it would follow I.B.M., an early PC maker, which was one of the first to recognize the long-term problems and, in 2005, sold its business to Lenovo, a Chinese company. Other American makers like Compaq (acquired by H.P.), Gateway and Packard Bell were absorbed by others or just faded away. Depending on how H.P. sheds the unit — it could sell or spin it off as a separate company — only two American PC makers would remain.

One of them, Dell, struggles for every percentage point of market share.

The other, Apple, prospers. And the reason it does highlights the shift from a PC-centric era to one dominated by smartphones and tablets. H.P., Dell and, indeed, every PC maker worldwide, has been unable to make a tablet consumers feel they must have. At the same time H.P. said that it might spin off PCs, it killed off its tablet, the TouchPad, after just a few weeks on store shelves.

Computer makers are expected to ship only about 4 percent more PCs this year than last year, according to IDC, a research firm. Tablets, in contrast, are flying off store shelves. Global sales are expected to more than double this year to 24.1 million, according to Forrester Research. More than two-thirds of those tablets, however, are sold by Apple. Sales of its iPad pulled in $9 billion in just the first half of the year, or 30 percent more than all of Dell’s consumer PC business in the same period. The joke in Silicon Valley is that there is no tablet market, only an iPad market. (That was also true of Apple and the iPod market.)

The other observation that is no joke: Apple is the only maker with strong PC growth. Spending on desktops and laptops grew 16 percent in the latest quarter, while Dell’s consumer product sales increased 1 percent.

“It’s definitely weighing on the computer makers, and it is something that will weigh on them for some time,” said Louis Miscioscia, an analyst with Collins Stewart.

“The tablet effect is real,” said Leo Apotheker, H.P.’s chief executive, in an interview on Thursday, acknowledging that the TouchPad had failed to live up to expectations and that it would have cost too much to compete. “It’s very different from where the business was going 10 years ago,” Mr. Apotheker said.

On Friday, H.P.’s shares fell 20 percent in reaction to his plans.

Michael S. Dell, Dell’s chief executive, took the opportunity to poke fun at the prospect of H.P. unloading its PC unit by saying in a message on Twitter that “they’re calling it a separation, but it feels like a divorce.” Following up with more sarcasm, he said, “If HP spins off its computer business … maybe they will call it Compaq.”

Mr. Dell was clearly enjoying the moment, but his company faces the same market forces as H.P. Its overall PC business has been flat. Recently, Dell has pared back some of its consumer products, including a 5-inch Streak tablet, while keeping a 7-inch tablet. Together, they eked out barely 1 percent of the market, according to ABI Research.

Like H.P., Dell is pushing its enterprise business, which has higher margins. But David Johnson, Dell’s senior vice president of corporate strategy, said his company had no plans to follow in H.P.’s footsteps and split off its PC business. “We have no plans to change our strategy,” he said.

Tablets remain the hope of other PC makers and phone makers. By next year, tablet sales in the United States will outpace those of netbooks, the mini-laptops people use to surf the Web, according to Forrester Research. Netbooks were considered a salvation for the PC industry when they were introduced a few years ago, but they have since fallen out of favor with consumers.

But buyers see little need to buy any tablet other than iPad, even if it is slightly more expensive than some of its rivals, analysts said.

“The performance still isn’t there for a lot of them,” said Richard Doherty, research director for the Envisioneering Group, a market research and consulting firm. “And it’s not just the product, it’s the ecosystem behind it.”

For that matter, selling tablets is no easier for the smartphone makers. Motorola Mobility, which Google said this week that it would buy, got nowhere with its Xoom. Research in Motion entered the tablet market this spring with a long history of building mobile devices. Still, the company has struggled to get consumers to buy its tablet, the PlayBook, which it introduced earlier this year.

RIM says it shipped 500,000 PlayBooks during its last fiscal quarter. Kevin Burden, a vice president at ABI Research, estimated that only 40 to 50 percent of those tablets found buyers.

Shoppers were not charmed by the PlayBook’s inability to directly check corporate e-mail — they have to connect wirelessly to BlackBerry phones — and lack of applications.

M. Kenneth Oshman, Who Brought Fun to Silicon Valley, Dies at 71

M. Kenneth Oshman

The cause was complications of lung cancer, said his wife Barbara.

Just one year after receiving a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1969 Mr. Oshman and three former classmates at Rice University, ROLM Corporation, primarily a manufacturer of rugged military computers.

At that time, Silicon Valley was in the midst of a transition from the military avionics computing technologies for businesses and consumers. ROLM was one of the leading manufacturers of digital telephone switching systems for businesses, to PBX or PBX as we know it.

The company derives its name from the first letter of the surname of each of the four founders: Gene Richeson, Mr. Oshman, Walter Stern Loewe and Robert Maxfield.

In the 1970's and 80's, Rolm is the best example of a new Silicon Valley style of management that effectively broke the barrier between work and play. Heading out to hire the brightest technical minds, Rolm was known as a great place to work while he was nicknamed "General Program of Work"

Soon as CEO, took Mr. Oshman funds normally used for corporate Christmas parties and used to help build an entertainment company that has swimming pools, racquetball courts, gym and other facilities to attract new employees and highlights the Rolm image was a fun place to work.

But there was a trade-off, said Keith Raffel, who left a staff position in Congress to become an assistant to Mr. Oshman at Rolm, before starting his own company.

"The quid pro quo was that it was driven and works very hard," he said.

With a soft, discreet, Mr.Oshman is distinguished from other well-known leaders in Silicon Valley, many of which were seen as capricious and even tyrannical. He was a mentor to a generation of engineers in Silicon Valley and to inspire a kind of loyalty in his employees is often seen in high-tech industries.

"Working for Ken was like going to business school better than you can imagine," said Raffel.

Mr. Oshman avoided being a celebrity CEO.

"It 's probably the biggest secret of Silicon Valley," said Scott McNealy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. "I learned from him, probably more than anyone I've met in the valley."

ROLM passed the end of AT & T PBX on the market and sold to IBM in 1984 to $ 1.25 billion. After the merger, Mr. Oshman became vice president of IBM and a member of the board until 1986.

In 1988, after leaving IBMr. M.. Oshman became CEO of Echelon, a manufacturer of computer networking equipment Armas Clifford Markkula Jr., known as Mike, one of the first investors in Apple Computer founded. Unlike ROLM Echelon but did not become an overnight success, and Mr. Oshman years of service manager.

The original vision of computer networks – linking all types of devices ranging from industrial parts of refrigerators and thermostats in the house – was ahead of its time. And 'finally found its expression in the systems, the efficient use of energy, now known as the mandate of "Smart Grid".

Malin Kenneth Oshman on 9 July 1940 in Kansas City, Mo., was born and grew up in Rosenberg, Texas, wrote his entrepreneurial passion of an uncle, a farmer who has started selling cotton as a teenager.

After graduating summa cum laude from Rice, Mr.Oshman had plans to attend the Harvard Business School to a subsidiary of Silicon Valley's aerospace Sylvania recruited with the promise that he would support his studies at Stanford University.

Mr. Oshman also served by a number of boards both inside and outside of Silicon Valley, including Sun Microsystems, Knight Ridder, ASK Computer Systems, StrataCom and Charles Schwab Corporation.

He lived in Atherton, California, in addition to his wife, he is survived by his son Peter, of Atherton, and David, of Palo Alto, a brother, Rick, of Houston, and four grandchildren.

Which Tech Giants Birth The Most Successful Startup Founders? [INFOGRAPHIC] (Mashable)

Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook compete for top talent. Thus, they attract and hire-purchase of the brightest minds in technology – which, unfortunately for them, then continue to trade in these jobs for a comfortable life avatars of the founders of the start underway. Which of these four mega energy technologies (at one time or another) has occurred, and then transferred to the best talent in the industry? The analysis of a small start-ups that have come from former employees of the technology heavy hitters, and a look at the financing of these start-ups have been raised, could shed light on the answer.

[More on Mashable: Google Elegant 10 icons for your website or blog]

TopProspect the rescue.The beginning of a site that helps you get hired through social networks of friends, formed the chart below details the analysis of data dating back to 2006 from its users and their social contexts – that the pool has more 3 million people mainly in the area of ​​Silicon Valley.

"We have focused only on companies that were founded during the last 5 years," says its Boot analysis. "Second, we ensured that the companies had at least 10 employees in our network (a very good sign that they are legitimate, and well connected). Companies Finally, we included only with publicly available information on subsidies. "

[More Mashable: Facebook for business launches to help businesses promote themselves]

Google founders gave birth the most successful, if you measure success by money raised (which is not always the best measure of success).The search powerhouse-turned-social-media company has 13 qualified founders achieved in five years -. The companies have, including Foursquare, color and began Qwiki Together, these startups raised a whopping $ 309 million in aid.

Lowest on the totem pole, at least for now, Facebook. His descendants are the seven founders – Increase in total more than $ 65 million – has gone to find start-ups such as quorums, Path, and asana.

Surprised by the results? Check the full info graphic below and share your thoughts with us in the comments.

Image courtesy of Flickr satanslaundromat,

This story originally published on Mashable here.

AP Source: Google among firms looking to buy Hulu (AP)

Los Angeles – Search giant Google Inc. is one of a dozen companies involved in talks to possibly buy the online video site Hulu, said a person familiar with the matter Friday. As owner of YouTube, it would be a strategic acquisition of Silicon Valley technology company that has had a rocky relationship with Hulu is Hollywood owners.

Hulu has begun presenting its financial information to many potential bidders, but it is too early to declare a pioneer, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are confidential.

Online video service began to seek bidders early last week after an unsolicited offer prompted Hulu board to pursue other interests.

Hulu streams movies and TV shows from broadcasters NBC, Fox and NBC to personal computers, and for a monthly fee for a number of web-connected devices.The company is owned by broadcasters parent, The Walt Disney Co., News Corp. and Comcast Corp., along with Providence Equity Partners. In February, said Hulu CEO Jason Spikes Hulu gets one million paying customers at the end of the year and generates nearly $ 500 million in revenue, up from $ 263,000,000 in 2010. He has said that the company is profitable.

Google's own attempts last year to launch a service, streaming web content to TVs, Google TV, was met with a blockade of the broadcaster that continues to this day. People who use personal computers can see the last show on Hulu for free with ads, but they try to access them through Google TV can not. Hulu does not allow viewers to watch their programs on mobile devices or via television, unless the user subscribes to Hulu Plus, an $ 8-A-month plan that provides access to a wider range of materials.

Even if Google were to buy Hulu has the right to continue to stream content from its current owners are not guaranteed. Broadcasters insist Mountain View, California, Google has to reach a new agreement to license the content to be used that way.

YouTube, Google also rent movies from studios like Sony, Warner Bros, Universal and Lionsgate, but not Disney, Paramount and 20th Century Fox Paramount owner Viacom Inc. is appealing a lower court's rejection of their demands for $ 1 billion that accuses YouTube to show thousands of pirated clips from their programs.

Google's interest in Hulu previously reported by the Los Angeles Times.

A Google spokesman said the company did not comment on rumors and speculation. A Hulu spokeswoman declined comment.

How a Google-Hulu Tag Team Threatens Facebook’s Future (The Atlantic Wire)

Picture this. You're hanging out, doing some Gmailing and Googling to find this one Parks and Recreation clip on YouTube. (Ugh, YouTube never has the good teevee clips because of all that copyright business.) Hulu has it. In fact, they have entire episodes. So you copy the URL for the "Freddy Spaghetti" season finale, jump back to Gmail and– Wait, maybe it's better to post this to Facebook. That way people can watch it and make some jokes about how much they love Lil' Sebastian, the little miniature pony, and it would almost be like you were sitting around a living room with your friends on couches and sort of hanging out like kids used to do.

Related: Why Google Won’t Survive the Facebook Threat

Google's thought about this scenario, and presumably, so has Hulu. The pioneering video site has lawyered up in anticipation of an acquisition, and folks in both Hollywood and Silicon Valley are speculating like crazy over who the buyer might be. Unnamed "people familiar with the situation" told The Los Angeles Times that it's Google. A couple of weeks ago, anonymous sources also said that Yahoo was going to buy Hulu, but nevermind that. Google makes much more sense, especially in light of the launch Google+, a new social layer for all Google products.

Related: Google Launches Google+, a Facebook Clone

As we pointed out earlier, it's easy to think about Google+ as a Facebook clone. At first glance, it looks like any other social network with a profile picture in the upper lefthand corner and the ability to draw friend connections and share links on a wall and all that. A deeper dive into the unique features to Google+ shows that you can group friends into Circles and set up virtual Hangouts with your friend circles. Hangouts are basically video-enabled group chats. You set up a Hangout, send the URL to whomever you want to join, and as everybody joins you can see their faces via webcam and chat in real time. Maya Baratz made a timely observation as she was checking out the new features on Thursday night. "What if Google+, I dunno, partnered w Hulu or Netflix for viewers watch movies together via hangouts," Baratz said on Twitter. "Now that would ruffle FB's feathers."

Related: The Irony of Facebook’s Secret PR War Against Google

That's actually a terrific idea. Let's revisit the original, very complicated scenario of trying to gather friends around a Parks and Recreation episode. Hangouts already has a button on the bottom that let's you find a YouTube video and watch it with your friends. Instead of the five-step process from Gmail to Search to YouTube to Hulu to Facebook for sharing and commenting, Hangouts does it all in the Google ecosystem, and it looks like fun. This is a lonely-looking example, but you get the point:

Related: Google’s Top Brass Are Still Warming Up to Google+

Related: Web Buttons Boom: Get Ready for Google’s ‘+1′ and Twitter’s ‘Follow’

Google of course owns YouTube and can funnel those videos into Google+ very easily. Buying Hulu would expand that library to include TV episodes, feature-length films and clips not otherwise available on YouTube. 

Facebook would love to do something like this, and Hulu is actually already working with them on it. Around the same time the LA Times reported on the Google rumor, Hulu announced some new Facebook features that made it easier to comment at a specific moment in a Hulu video and share it on your friends' Walls. The new feature even embeds the video on your Wall to create a "water cooler" effect. It cuts out a couple of steps, but it's still doesn't compare to watching your friends' faces as they react to TV shows and chat about it in real-time.

Over at All Facebook, a blog that covers exactly what the name suggests, Nick O'Neill points out how Google+'s total integration could serve as a real threat to Facebook. Currently the average user spends about 30 minutes per a day on Facebook; part of the reason why that number's not higher is that people have to click off of Facebook to do other things like search for movies or check stock quotes. O'Neill writes:

To be honest, my gut reaction after using Google Plus was initially, “Why on earth would anybody switch to this from Facebook?”

However, when I loaded up Google Finance as I do every morning, I suddenly realized that I was asking the wrong question. The reality is that users won’t have the option of not using Google Plus.

Google already has more users than Facebook, over one billion. They aren’t going to suddenly leave Facebook in droves, they’re just going to spend more time on all the sites in Google’s network. That big notifications box in the top right of all Google sites is the reason why.

As I’m browsing around Google-powered sites there’s occasionally a red notification alert that pops up and immediately grabs my attention. Soon enough I’m clicking through the various notifications and seeing what my friends have shared and who has recently begun sharing with me.

Mark Zuckerberg himself said that this kind of experience would be the future of the internet. And Facebook's recent addition of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings to their board hints that they're starting to plan for this future. "I just think over the next two, three years, we’re going to start to see that in more and more industries, and the next ones I would expect are going to be media-type industries–which are things that you typically do with your friends," said Zuckerberg at an industry event in Seattle on Wednesday. "You watch movies with your friends, you watch TV with your friends, you discuss books and music with your friends, you listen to music with your friends. Those are pretty ripe to be disrupted and have just completely new approaches happen."

If the rumors are true and Google manages to buy Hulu and integrate it into Google+, Facebook would be looking at a disruption indeed. That is, if Google manages to finagle its way out of this enormous anti-trust investigation. 

Want to add to this story? Open Wire.

Social networking browser backed by Khosla, Accel (Reuters)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – RockMelt, a Web browser that integrates social networks Facebook and others staggered in two heaviest hitters in Silicon Valley in a new round of $ 30 million financing.

Accel Partners and Khosla joined existing investors Andreesen Horowitz in this latest round, the company and investors, he says. Jim Breyer of Accel and Khosla Vinod Khosla will take leading roles RockMelt observer.

RockMelt allows Facebook users to send messages from their primary browser, screen and the signals when there is news of a reader wants – a new tweet or update of a favorite site. The idea is to make Web browsing more portal applications and surf the Internet, one-stop shop for the addicts to the media.

Many of these features are the result of an association of RockMelt and Facebook, which is also supported by Andreesen Horowitz.

Breyer called a browser built for social media optimization "an attractive opportunity."

Which helps companies get the most time and make runs to the fate of Flock, a browser integrated social media, but never reached a critical mass of users, said RockMelt co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Tim Howes avoid. Social gaming company Zynga Flock bought this year, and then announced in April that it would stop the browser.

"They were just too early," said Marc Andreessen Andreessen Horowitz, an early proponent of Flock RockMelt.

The money will allow the company to about 40 people to grow faster and develop partnerships in areas such as music, games and e-commerce, said company executives.

rock melt goal is to collect "hundreds of millions" of users and the use of social networks like Twitter and Facebook are becoming more widespread, but executives declined to specify a time frame or be more specific about the numbers to be.

Currently, about 1 million customers have tried to melt rock with a few hundred thousand active users, said CEO and co-founder Eric Vishria rock melt and co-founder and chief technology officer Howes.

The average person used 6.5 hours per day, and more than half the users are 24 years or less, the two founders.

The company raised $ 8.2 million in September 2009 and $ 1.7 million in an angel round in February 2009. The company refused to give his latest assessment.

melt rock is based on Chromium, the same technology as the Google Chrome browser.Tuesday, Google announced a rival named Google as Facebook.

(Editing by Steve Orlofsky)