Never mind its experiments with snippets and the occasional free-but-old-or-odd novel; sometime this summer, Google is going to become a proper (digital) bookseller.  A strategic partner development manager at the company said today that it will go into business by launching a site called Google Editions.

Chris Palma spoke at Random House’s offices in Manhattan, which is one indicator of how important this development may be.  Another is the title of the event: "The Book on Google: Is the Future of Publishing in the Cloud?"

Anyway, Jessica E. Vascellaro and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg reported afterward that Google will try to establish deals with publishers, and then, "Google says its new service . . . will allow users to buy digital copies of books they discover through its book-search service."  Which should put Google into competition with Amazon and Apple.

What’s more, Google will let lots of other companies in on the game, as Vascellaro and Trachtenberg said it’ll "also allow book retailers – even independent shops – to sell Google Editions on their own sites, taking the bulk of the revenue."

Look for Google Editions to be unveiled in late June or early July.

Chrome did pretty well in April, according to the latest stats from Net Applications, increasing its market share by 0.60 percent.  And now, to perhaps speed the browser’s adoption even more, Google’s unveiled what it promises is the fastest beta version of Chrome to date.

"Today’s new beta release incorporates one of Chrome’s most significant speed and performance increases to date, with 30% and 35% improvement on the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks over the previous beta channel release," a post on the Google Chrome Blog boasted.

The new beta includes some fresh features, too, like the option to sync browser preferences, plus Geolocation APIs, App Cache, web sockets, and file drag-and-drop capabilities.

It seems possible that the people behind other browsers will have to go back to the drawing board – or just weep – as a result.  IE already lost 0.70 percent of market share between March and April, according to Net Applications.  Opera slipped a little, too.  And Firefox, Safari, and Opera Mini gained a bit of market share, but not as much as they did between February and March.

Finally, for your viewing enjoyment, here’s a video involving potato guns, paint, a pirate ship, and a mock lightning strike that relates to the new beta’s speed.

Four and a half years ago, Google lost the right to use the term "Gmail" in the UK due to a trademark dispute, and ever since, "Google Mail" is what its email service has been called in the region.  Only now, Google’s finally ditching the two-word moniker and going back to good old Gmail.

A little background info: Independent International Investment Research first objected to Google’s use of "Gmail" because it offered a G-mail service of its own.  And Independent International Investment Research wanted $500,000 per year, plus "the same amount in advertising credits," in exchange for standing aside.

Unfortunately, no one’s talking about whatever sort of settlement Google’s reached with the company.  Google Software Engineer Greg Bullock was happy to explain the ramifications on the Gmail Blog, though.

Bullock wrote late yesterday, "If you already have a Google email account in the UK, you’ll soon have the option to switch your existing @googlemail.com address to the matching @gmail.com one, but you’re also free to stick with @googlemail.com.  And starting later this week, anybody who signs up for a new account in the UK will get an @gmail.com address."

This should make things slightly more convenient for users and decrease the chance of typos occurring, considering that Bullock stated, "Since ‘gmail’ is 50% fewer characters than ‘googlemail,’ we estimate this name change will save approximately 60 million keystrokes a day."

For whatever it’s worth, Bullock also claimed, "At about 217 microjoules per keystroke, that’s about the energy of 20 bonbons saved every day!"

Two wind farms in North Dakota now enjoy the support of a certain search giant.  Google announced this afternoon that it’s invested $38.8 million in the farms, and believe it or not, this may be a move that both environmentalists and investors can get behind.

In a post on the Official Google Blog, Rick Needham, whose title of "Green Business Operators Manager" itself speaks to striking a balance between environmental and financial concerns, explained, "[W]e’re aiming to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy – in a way that makes good business sense, too."

Needham also stated, "[W]e’ve been looking at investments in renewable energy projects, like the one we just signed, that can accelerate the deployment of the latest clean energy technology while providing attractive returns to Google and more capital for developers to build additional projects."

And concerned parties should know it’s not like Google had to get rid of any employees in order to accommodate this investment; the company’s first-quarter earnings report revealed it had $26.5 billion more or less lying around as of March 31st.

One more for-the-record item: for the moment, at least, Google won’t be using either of the wind farms to power any of its data centers.

Twitter has released its first official application for Android 2.1 and Google will be open sourcing the code in the app soon. 

Twitter for Android app features a share button in your favorite applications for sharing links and images via Twitter.

The Twitter Blog provides more details. "Reading tweets is easy in a bunch of places on your phone. Quickly access your timeline with the home screen widget, view a tweet location on a map, and see your friend’s latest tweet in your phonebook, GoogleTalk list or any application that uses Android’s QuickContact bar."

"We had a great time working with the Android team and are thrilled that Google will be open sourcing the code used in this app in the near future. We look forward to the amazing experiences developers will create using Twitter APIs in their upcoming Android apps."
 

The Federal Trade Commission is not going to give Google’s acquisition of AdMob a thumbs up, according to new reports.  Indeed, the FTC seems likely to take the opposite approach and attempt to block the deal, with a formal show of opposition expected to occur in the near future.

Three people "familiar with the matter" told Jeff Bliss and Dina Bass this weekend that the FTC "is urging the filing of an antitrust suit."  And Kara Swisher’s heard similar things from "multiple sources," too, with next week looking like the time when something will transpire.

Obviously, that would represent bad news for Google.  The fact that the search giant tried to buy AdMob for $750 million shows it very much values the idea of getting ahead in the mobile advertising market.  Losing the opportunity to do so could be damaging to both the company’s reputation and its bottom line.

There’s a bit of good news for Google this morning, though, as investors don’t seem worried about the FTC-related reports.  Google’s stock is up 0.39 percent at the moment, which makes for a nice start to the week.

We’ll see what happens.  The FTC has yet to drop any official hints about its take on the matter.

Rather than just announce some partnerships, or even parade a few unfinished prototypes across a stage, Google may share some rather important information regarding its TV software with developers at Google I/O.  Enough info for developers to start making apps, perhaps.

Jessica E. Vascellaro and Don Clark reported this morning, "Google Inc. is planning to introduce Android-based television software to developers at an event in May, according to people familiar with the matter."

Then here’s a key additional point: "The decision to address developers suggests that the Internet giant may be hoping to kick-start a race to build applications for its TV platform, much in the same way that Google, Apple Inc. and others have courted developers for smartphones."

It’s not hard to imagine that there would be a lot of interest in these apps.  Something that could level out the volume differences between commercials and regular programming could become popular, for instance, and an IMDB app would qualify as a must-have.

We’ll just have to see how much information Google provides to developers.  Stay tuned for reports and live video straight from Google I/O, as a WebProNews team will attend the conference.

It’s no secret that Google has, on a very steady basis, dominated its competition and managed to return big profits.  And Carol Bartz may be in no position to question the company’s methods.  But Yahoo’s CEO nonetheless chose to point out a potential weakness today, and she may be on the right track.

Bartz told Jonathan Fildes, "Google is going to have a problem because Google is only known for search.  It is only half our business; it’s 99.9% of their business.  They’ve got to find other things to do."

Also, in terms of how Google will be judged as it attempts to find those other things, Bartz observed, "Google has to grow a company the size of Yahoo every year to be interesting."

The 99.9 percent figure is obviously an exaggeration.  Still, if you figure that Google has a market cap of around $169 billion and Yahoo’s market cap is closer to $24 billion, the second remark doesn’t seem too inaccurate.

So as Bartz indicated, that puts a lot of pressure on Google to succeed at something other than search.  Whether that something’s Android, Google Apps, the TV Ads program, or a different product doesn’t matter, but in this light, Yahoo’s rather scattered network of properties starts to look a little more attractive.

Google scored a big win today, and by all accounts, the state of Oregon made out well, too.  This is because the Oregon school system will begin using Google Apps for Education, saving it a boatload of cash while allowing Google to increase its market share.

In fact, Oregon is the first state to agree to make Google Apps available to all of its public schools, meaning this is a significant breakthrough for Google.  And if all goes well, it could represent the start of a trend, since other states would want to reap the same benefits as Oregon.

As for the exact nature of those benefits, the Oregon Department of Education will supposedly save $1.5 million per year by switching to Google Apps.  And there are some other consequences that won’t show up on any balance sheet.

Jaime Casap, a Google Apps Education manager, wrote on the Official Google Blog, "With Google Apps, students in Oregon can build websites or email teachers about a project. . . .  And instead of just grading a paper at the end of the process, Oregonian teachers can help students with their docs in real time, coaching them along the way. It’s critical that students learn how to use the kind of productivity technology they’ll need throughout their lives, and Oregon is helping students across the state do just that."

Oregon and Google are moving fast, too, considering a "Request an Oregon Google Apps account now!" link is already live on the Oregon Virtual School District site.

Google has launched a new feature in its search results, which displays results that are deemed "similar" to the query. If you search for eBay, for example, you may get results for Craigslist, uBid, Buy.com, and ebayanuncios.es.

Basically, if someone searches for a brand, there is a good chance Google will inject links to the competition on that results page by default (though at the bottom).

It’s actually not a new feature entirely. "We’ve offered a ‘Similar’ feature on results for a while now as a way to discover new, useful sites, but it hasn’t been too visible," says Google software engineer Doantam Phan. "Since we’ve been continuously improving this feature and we think it’s really useful, we’re now going to start showing these alternative sites more prominently."

I thought it would be interesting to see what pages Google thinks are similar to Google itself and some of its competitors. When I searched "google" I didn’t get any similar pages. When I searched "bing", I got the following:

For "facebook" I got the following:

For Yahoo, I got the following:

I find it interesting that Google deems Bing to be more like Dogpile than Google or even Yahoo. It’s also worth noting that Gmail is in the mix for Facebook, with Buzz presumably being the connecting factor, which is interesting in itself since Buzz is more like FriendFeed than Facebook, and Facebook actually owns FriendFeed, but that’s not listed (while Microsoft.com is listed as similar to Bing).

Google scored a big win today, and by all accounts, the state of Oregon made out well, too.  This is because the Oregon school system will begin using Google Apps for Education, saving it a boatload of cash while allowing Google to increase its market share.

In fact, Oregon is the first state to agree to make Google Apps available to all of its public schools, meaning this is a significant breakthrough for Google.  And if all goes well, it could represent the start of a trend, since other states would want to reap the same benefits as Oregon.

As for the exact nature of those benefits, the Oregon Department of Education will supposedly save $1.5 million per year by switching to Google Apps.  And there are some other consequences that won’t show up on any balance sheet.

Jaime Casap, a Google Apps Education manager, wrote on the Official Google Blog, "With Google Apps, students in Oregon can build websites or email teachers about a project. . . .  And instead of just grading a paper at the end of the process, Oregonian teachers can help students with their docs in real time, coaching them along the way. It’s critical that students learn how to use the kind of productivity technology they’ll need throughout their lives, and Oregon is helping students across the state do just that."

Oregon and Google are moving fast, too, considering a "Request an Oregon Google Apps account now!" link is already live on the Oregon Virtual School District site.

Google has launched a new feature in its search results, which displays results that are deemed "similar" to the query. If you search for eBay, for example, you may get results for Craigslist, uBid, Buy.com, and ebayanuncios.es.

Basically, if someone searches for a brand, there is a good chance Google will inject links to the competition on that results page by default (though at the bottom).

It’s actually not a new feature entirely. "We’ve offered a ‘Similar’ feature on results for a while now as a way to discover new, useful sites, but it hasn’t been too visible," says Google software engineer Doantam Phan. "Since we’ve been continuously improving this feature and we think it’s really useful, we’re now going to start showing these alternative sites more prominently."

I thought it would be interesting to see what pages Google thinks are similar to Google itself and some of its competitors. When I searched "google" I didn’t get any similar pages. When I searched "bing", I got the following:

For "facebook" I got the following:

For Yahoo, I got the following:

I find it interesting that Google deems Bing to be more like Dogpile than Google or even Yahoo. It’s also worth noting that Gmail is in the mix for Facebook, with Buzz presumably being the connecting factor, which is interesting in itself since Buzz is more like FriendFeed than Facebook, and Facebook actually owns FriendFeed, but that’s not listed (while Microsoft.com is listed as similar to Bing).

What is by Google’s own admission a "glaringly obvious" missing feature has been added to Google Wave.  Now, it’s possible for participants to be removed (or remove themselves) from waves, potentially saving people all sorts of time or embarrassment.

Add someone to a wave by accident?  Find out a friend can’t attend the event you’re trying to discuss?  This update addresses the fact that you still would have wound up bothering these folks with all sorts of irrelevant messages.

It has another interesting quirk, too.  Dhanji R. Prasanna, a software engineer, wrote on the Google Wave Blog (using an amusing Mexican wrestler message as an example), "Imagine this: after a rough day at work, you spend the night out with friends and return home to write a less-than-flattering message to, say, your boss."

He then hit the important part: "With a wave . . . you simply remove your boss as a participant, and when she wakes up at 7am to check her messages, the wave is gone from her inbox.  As long as she didn’t open the wave before you removed her, she will never see it."

These upgrades could help increase Google Wave’s popularity by a significant amount.  And further major modifications may be on the way, as well, considering that Prasanna actually characterized the removal option as "one of the more glaringly obvious missing features."

Ready or not, Google Maps fans, here Google Buzz comes.  Following all other sorts of product integrations, Google’s now made it possible to combine its Google Buzz layer of data with the desktop version of Google Maps.

This really does make for a significant trend.  In just the past month or so, we’ve discussed a Buzz widget for Android, the integration of Buzz with Google Apps, the blending of Buzz and Gmail for mobile, and a tie-in with Blogger.

Of course, whether these steps are entirely welcome may be a different story, considering that the majority of Buzz users appear to be bots and an international group of data protection authorities is still protesting Google’s rollout of the service.

We’ll leave all that alone for the time being, though, and move on to the most recent development.  A post on the LatLong Blog explained it by stating, "We’ve received a lot of requests to make the Google Buzz layer available on desktop Google Maps, and today we’re doing just that."

The post then continued, "To view the Google Buzz layer from your computer, go to Google Maps in your web browser and select Buzz from the More… menu in the top right corner of the map.  Find an interesting area like your neighborhood and select any available icon to see what’s going on there.  In the post’s window, click on the name to see the author’s public profile, the timestamp to comment on the post, or the place to see it in Maps."