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At a gritty industrial site occupied a century ago by a textile mill, five universities are collaborating to install supercomputers that will recreate the start of the universe and perform other research.
The developers of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, which is being built and is expected to be operating by the end of next year, were drawn to Holyoke for the same reason industrialists flocked to the city in the 19th century: cheap water power from the Connecticut River.
Boston University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts formed the venture to boost academic research in protein structure, fluid flows, the dynamics of the earth's atmosphere, human social interaction, the evolution of the galaxy and other issues. The universities are each spending $10 million, the state of Massachusetts has committed $25 million and technology companies EMC Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. are contributing $2.5 million apiece.
The universities will pool resources by using the 90,000-square-foot building, which will be larger than anything they could operate on their own, said Jim Kurose, executive associate dean of the College of Natural Sciences at UMass-Amherst.
Only about of dozen employees will work at the computing center, with the bulk of the research being done remotely from the campuses. The people who work at the center will include administrators responsible for finances and use of the center, security personnel and employees who oversee the building's operations and grounds.
With no employment boom at the computing center, Holyoke officials and its promoters say the center's real attraction for the area will be its ability to draw research companies and other businesses looking to establish a high-tech footprint in western Massachusetts.
The nearly 9-acre site that will house the supercomputing center is now a construction zone with open pits, a stream of heavy equipment and piles of bricks that once formed the walls of the mill and will be used as fill. Signs of Holyoke's past are evident everywhere - in the obvious, such as a wire manufacturing plant nearby - or harder to see, a crumbling tar surface that exposes early 20th-century brick beneath.
City officials and others are trying to reclaim Holyoke's history as an industrial powerhouse in the 19th century and early 20th century that drew top entrepreneurs and immigrants seeking work. It suffered "some disinvestment over the years" as paper manufacturers left, Anderson said. And many mills changed hands, were retooled for new types of business or shut down.
Holyoke's backers have high hopes for a modern resurgence. They're using waste heat from the center's computers for greenhouse and building heating systems and capitalizing on a proposed high-speed rail line to draw more business.
John Aubin is one of Holyoke's more passionate supporters. The owner and developer of Open Square, a residential and commercial center in what was Holyoke's first mill, said the computing center being built in his neighborhood will be a boon to Holyoke. The city's proximity to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley guarantees a well-educated work force, he said.
Holyoke's hydropower generated by the falls over Connecticut River's 57-foot drop is a strong attraction, say Goodhue and others involved in planning the computing center, which has a generator on site that draws water power from a canal more than 100 years old. Holyoke's water power accounts for about two-thirds of locally generated electricity.
The relatively cheap electricity is particularly important for the computing center, which is expected to be able to use at any time up to 15 megawatts, the equivalent of powering as many as 15,000 homes.
The center helps meet a growing a demand for more powerful computers to do wider-ranging research, said Thom Dunning, director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois.
He cited molecular-level research, weather and climate change and health issues such as viruses and how infectious diseases affect populations. For example, researchers in Los Angeles are using a supercomputer to model the impact of an earthquake to help the city prepare for one, Dunning said.
In addition, rapidly increasing computing power opens a whole new range of problem" that could not be solved by previous generations of computers.
Goodhue said the Holyoke computing center is intended to capitalize on the real tectonic shift in the amount of computing power available for academic research.
This story first appeared in the Wall Street Journal.
A botched technology upgrade was responsible for online banking problems that spilled into a sixth day at Bank of America Corp., inconveniencing customers and handing the biggest U.S. bank by assets fresh image problems.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal late Wednesday, the bank's head of online and mobile banking blamed the glitches on heavy customer traffic amid a continuing effort to upgrade Web capabilities.
The problems hit the most-trafficked U.S. bank website at a time when Bank of America, under pressure from investors because of weak revenue and high expenses, has been promoting Internet banking services in a bid to cut costs. The problems also come on the heels of an unpopular $5 fee the bank unveiled last week on purchases made using debit cards.
Until Wednesday afternoon, the bank hadn't said what was behind the outages, leaving customers exasperated and inconvenienced. At one point the bank urged them to avoid using the website during heavy-usage periods—typically during daylight hours on weekdays.
B of A said the website has had full accessibility since Monday. But the Charlotte, N.C., company warned users in a message on its site Wednesday that pages would be slow to load, and customers have had intermittent trouble accessing online banking services since late last week.
If you're a Bank of America customer and don't like paying a $5 a month for a debit card, you have three options.
A former chief risk officer at Citigroup Inc.'s global transactions-services unit, said clients had called with concerns that Bank of America was under attack.
But he said he has seen no evidence of an attack and called the site's problems shocking because of the bank's strong reputation in information technology. The bank has said it hasn't been hit by attacks from computer hackers who seek to steal customer data, or by denial-of-service attacks that render sites inoperable by flooding computers with communications requests.
BofA shares have dropped 6% over the past week, a period that includes the debit-card fee announcement and the start of the online troubles. That compares with no change in the Keefe, Bruyette & Woods index of big bank stocks, and a drop of less than 1% in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Bank of America shares rose a penny to $5.77 in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading Wednesday.
Some local lenders have said they have seen an uptick in new accounts in recent days. Arizona State Credit Union, for example, has seen a 20% increase in account openings. Many of the new customers have complained about debit-card fees recently announced by Bank of America and Wells Fargo & Co., an executive said, and a few have cited BofA's recent Web outages.
Wells Fargo is testing a $3 monthly fee in five states, though Arizona isn't one of them. A Wells Fargo spokeswoman declined to comment about customer reaction.
For the first time, they are seeing consumers…taking action on feelings they have had for a long time. Some call the new debit-card fees "the straw that broke the camel's back."
To be sure, Bank of America isn't alone among banks in suffering a widespread Internet problems. Customers of J.P. Morgan Chase were hit by service interruptions for about three consecutive days in September 2010, resulting in a backlash for the company, which had provided few details about the disruption.
The New York-based bank ultimately disclosed that the outage occurred because a vendor's database software corrupted the log-in process. It said no customer data was at risk, but the episode forced Chief Executive James Dimon to apologize, and prompted the bank to make whole customers who may have incurred late payment fees because of the site's issues.
Bank of America has recently reshuffled checking-account offerings, including a push to get its customers to use an account that is free as long as the customer doesn't visit a teller. The bank charges $8.95 a month if the customer visits a teller.
A spokeswoman said the bank would work with any customers who accumulated fees on an individual basis amid the website problems.
Story first appeared in USA TODAY.
It isn't a pretty picture at Yahoo right now, but that's not stopping the beleaguered Internet company from touching up its popular photo-sharing service, Flickr.
Wednesday with the introduction of a new way for friends in different locations to simultaneously browse through pictures. The company also unveiled its first official application for the millions of devices running on Google's Android software.
It's part of a broader effort by Yahoo to recapture some of the ground that it has lost in recent years to Facebook, which has emerged as an advertising and photo-sharing hub. Yahoo touted its free Android app as a sign of its determination to become a bigger force on mobile phones and tablets.
Yahoo's product managers are making the push at a time of internal turmoil.
The company, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is trying to figure out whether it makes sense to sell part or all of its business after firing tough-talking Carol Bartz as CEO earlier this month. Employees were told the process could take several months in an e-mail last week from Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock and co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo. In the meantime, Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse is also filling in as interim CEO.
Flickr's newest sharing tool, called "Photo Session," is designed to replicate the experience of leafing through an old-fashioned photo album, even if the people who are browsing are located thousands of miles apart. Any of Flickr's nearly 170 million users can activate a session by obtaining a special link that can be sent to other invitees. A photo session can be done on iPhones, iPads and personal computers using the Safari, Firefox and Chrome browsers. The feature doesn't currently work on Internet Explorer or Opera browsers.
Photo Session also doesn't work on the new Android app, but Yahoo plans to address that shortcoming in future updates.
Until now, the millions of people with Android devices had to rely on apps designed by non-Yahoo programmers. Douty cited the Android app as just one of several that Yahoo will be releasing in the next few months to expand its reach beyond the 137 million mobile devices that currently use some of its services.
In doing so, Yahoo hopes to revive its revenue growth after several years of erosion that have contrasted with steady growth at Google and Facebook. Yahoo's financial funk has depressed its stock price and ushered out three CEOs in less than five years — Bartz, Yang and Terry Semel.
The keepers of the Internet have become acutely concerned about their ability to protect the most sensitive personal information such as account logons and credit card numbers.
Hackers cracked three companies that work with the most popular Web browsers to ensure the authenticity of Web pages where consumers type in sensitive information.
The hacked firms are among more than 650 digital certificate authorities (CAs) worldwide that ensure that Web pages are the real deal when displayed by Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome.
A hacker gained access to digital certificate supplier DigiNotar this summer and began issuing forged certificates for dozens of marquee companies.
Unable to cope with the fallout, the Dutch company filed for bankruptcy last week. Two other digital certificate companies, New Jersey-based Comodo and Japanese-owned GlobalSign, were similarly hacked this summer, exposing a glaring weakness in the Internet's underpinnings.
"The infrastructure baked into the Internet, which is based on trust, is starting to fall apart," says Michael Sutton, research vice president at security company Zscaler.
CAs digitally certify account sign-ins, shopping and other pages where consumers type sensitive data. This sets up an encrypted connection to the Web browser, which displays the form for the consumer to fill out. The browser trusts only digitally signed pages.
A counterfeiter issued valid DigiNotar certificates for 531 faked pages. Some of the pages were crafted to expertly impersonate online properties of Google, Microsoft, Skype, Equifax, Twitter, Facebook and the CIA, among others, according to consulting firm Fox-IT.
This touched off a scramble to cut off the faked pages, which were difficult for consumers to spot as faked.
The successful hacks demonstrated that it is possible to "impersonate any site on the Internet," says Josh Shaul, chief technical officer at security company AppSec.
No banks or payment-service websites were targeted, says Mikko Hypponen, chief researcher at anti-virus company F-Secure. The hackers seem much more interested in harvesting personal data from e-mail services, social networks, credit bureaus, blogging sites and anonymity services.
The pressure is on CAs and browser makers to do more to identify and quickly eradicate counterfeit certificates and faked Web pages, security experts say. "No one knows where the next breach will occur," says Jeff Hudson, CEO of digital certificate management company Venafi.
Microsoft, maker of Internet Explorer, declined to comment, as did Apple, maker of the Safari browser. "The security of the Web is our collective responsibility," says Johnathan Nightingale, Mozilla's director of Firefox engineering.
The Wall Street Journal
by JOHN LETZING
Sept 28, 2011
Amazon.com Inc. is expected to unveil Wednesday the latest—and possibly biggest—challenger to Apple Inc.'s dominant iPad tablet.
Few specifics are known about the tablet, and Amazon hasn't publicly acknowledged its existence, even in the invitation for an event to be held Wednesday. However, a tablet from the Seattle-based company is seen posing a threat to the iPad's dominance due to Amazon's strong media offerings, history of aggressive pricing and its ability to market the device on its popular website.
Among the features expected: touch-screen technology; a customized version of Google Inc.'s Android operating system; and access to Amazon's app store, streaming movies and TV shows. Some observers have speculated that the device could be priced below $300—a new iPad is $499 —and could include Amazon Prime, the company's $79-per-year shipping and media service.
An Amazon spokeswoman didn't respond to a request for comment.
In a page lifted from Apple's playbook, Amazon distributed cryptic invitations—containing nothing more than the company's name, an address, a date and time—to a media event in New York. The Wall Street Journal reported in July that Amazon was working on tablet that would run on Google's Android platform, according to people familiar with the device. Unlike the iPad, it won't have a camera, one of those people said.
Amazon already has established it can successfully market a piece of hardware. As Apple's iPad sets the bar for tablets, Amazon's Kindle is the de facto standard for dedicated e-readers. Citigroup has estimated the Kindle will contribute about 10% of Amazon's total revenue by next year, or more than $6 billion, even as the company lowers prices on the machine.
As for whether a new tablet could eat into Kindle sales, Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos has touted the compatibility of the Kindle and fuller-featured tablet devices in the past, saying many shoppers buy both. Amazon will also likely benefit from the millions of people who visit its website, which could serve as built-in promotion. "Amazon has an advantage that other tablet manufacturers don't in that millions of people already visit its site on a regular basis," said Ken Sena, an analyst who covers Amazon for Evercore Partners. He added that those consumers will be regularly exposed to advertisements for the device.
"It certainly creates a competitor to the iPad," Mr. Sena said.
The iPad, credited with kicking off the consumer tablet-computer market, has won plaudits for its ease of use, elegant design and selection of over 90,000 apps that transform it into everything from a video player to a DJ turntable.
The iPad already has left several high-tech bodies in its wake. Research In Motion Ltd.'s PlayBook, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s TouchPad, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.'s Galaxy Tab and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.'s Xoom have all failed to attract mass audiences. Last month, just weeks after the tablet device had first gone on sale, H-P wound down its TouchPad project. Samsung, meanwhile, faces lawsuits around the world from Apple, which claims the Korean electronics giant copied the iPad's look and feel.
Apple has sold about 29 million iPads since the product went on sale early last year and had 68.3% of the tablet market in the second quarter, according to data tracker IDC.
Apple declined to comment for this story. The Cupertino, Calif.-based consumer-electronics giant has scheduled its own media event for next Tuesday, at which it is expected to unveil the latest version of the iPhone.
Amazon's new tablet will also have to compete with Barnes & Noble Inc.'s Nook, a low-cost e-reader that offers a color screen and Web surfing.
Still, Amazon appears intent on replicating Apple's most appealing qualities. On Monday, the company augmented its media offerings by striking a partnership with News Corp.'s Fox unit that places the network's shows, such as "24," on the Prime streaming service.
The All Things D website, a sister publication to The Wall Street Journal, has reported that Amazon also has media partnerships to support the tablet with publishers Hearst Corp. and Condé Nast.
News Corp. owns All Things D as well as the Journal.
Amazon's longstanding relationships with consumers also means it has reams of sensitive information, including email addresses and credit-card data. That could make it easy for Amazon to market additional products for its tablet, as well as charge for them. "They have an awful lot of consumer credit cards already on file," says Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at research firm Gartner Inc. "I don't think we've seen anyone quite in this position to present a different alternative."
The Wall Street Journal
by DANA MATTIOLI
Sept 28, 2011
Retailers have found an interesting characteristic of consumers who browse their websites using tablets: They're much more likely to pull the trigger on purchases than other online shoppers.
That discovery is making retailers focus on tablets ahead of the all-important holiday season, as the tough economic backdrop puts a premium on what the industry calls "conversion"—making sure the shoppers who show up actually buy something.
Tablets still account for only a small percentage of overall e-commerce, but they are punching above their weight. While the conversion rate—orders divided by total visits—is 3% for shoppers using a traditional PC, it is 4% or 5% for shoppers using tablets, says Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research.
Many retailers also report that tablet users place bigger orders—in some cases adding 10% to 20% more to the tab—on average than shoppers using PCs or smartphones. Retailers are trying to take advantage of that trend by tweaking their websites to better accommodate tablets and rolling out catalogs that have been developed for the device. "Everything helps," says Peter Sachse, chief marketing officer at Macy's Inc. and chairman of Macys.com.
The tablet market is still dominated by Apple Inc.'s iPad. Offerings from new entrants including Amazon.com Inc., which is expected to unveil a tablet Wednesday, could further broaden the market. Forrester Research thinks one-third of U.S. adults could own tablets by 2015.
For most retailers, e-commerce is the fastest growing part of their businesses, posting double-digit revenue gains each year even as in-store growth remains muted. Around 3% of the nearly $150 billion U.S. consumers spent online last year came via mobile devices, of which tablets are a rapidly growing component, according to market research firm comScore Inc.
While only 9% of online shoppers own tablets, their behavior is encouraging for retailers. Consumers tend to spend more time on the Web after buying a tablet, and nearly half shop from the device, according to a survey of more than 2,300 consumers by Forrester. Tablet owners tend to be wealthier, which gives retailers a self-selected audience of their best customers. They may also be encouraged to spend by less tangible attributes: large touchscreens that draw users into the content, and a portability that helps users get more comfortable than when surfing on PCs.
Macy's, teen retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co. and Gap Inc. all say they are seeing the highest percentage of conversions from shoppers using tablets. The companies wouldn't disclose figures.
Blake McCrossin, a public-relations associate in New York, says he thought shopping would be the last thing he would do on his iPad. The 30-year-old has since used the Apple device to order everything from clothes to a flat-screen television and has already finished most of his Christmas shopping using it. "The visuals and graphics are amazing, and I get caught up in impulse buying," Mr. McCrossin says.
Shopping network QVC promotes tablet use on-air and through its social media channels. It is also using alternative technologies to Flash on its website to accommodate the iPad, which doesn't support that software. "We see it as a key growth vehicle for QVC," says Claire Watts, CEO of QVC U.S.
Mobile commerce accounts for about 3% of QVC's revenue, which last year came to $7.8 billion. Tablets are the fastest growing part of mobile and deliver a higher conversion rate than mobile or PC users, according to Ms. Watts.
Macy's, which owns its namesake department store as well as Bloomingdale's, began making its sites compatible with devices that don't support Flash this year. The department store owner is rethinking the "point and click" experience of its website, which like most others was designed on the premise that links would be clicked with an arrow controlled by a mouse rather than by a user's finger, which is more blunt.
"Every website in the world was built for a mouse," says Mr. Sachse. "We underline things to click. We are thinking about what that should look like in a touch environment."
Many retailers are finding tablet users prefer to visit their main websites directly through a browser, just as they would from a PC, even though some companies have pumped lots of money into creating specialized sites that would work better with mobile phones' small screens and long load times.
Cosmetics chain Sephora uses the same website for tablets as it does for PCs, says Bridget Dolan, Sephora's vice president of interactive media. Sephora also has a free tablet app. QVC also says more tablet users visit directly through its website than via its apps.
Some retailers are revamping their catalogs in light of tablets, which allow them to add videos, slideshows, how-to demonstrations and 'order' buttons. Sephora dropped its summer catalog for the first time this year and shifted entirely over to tablets in an experiment to see what effect it would have on sales. The company will continue to produce print versions of its other seasonal catalogs.
Sephora has partnered with Google Inc. and online shopping site TheFind, both of which have tablet apps that aggregate catalogs from brands such as Nordstrom Inc., Crate & Barrel, Neiman Marcus and Urban Outfitters Inc. Users can swipe through their favorite catalogs and place orders through the free apps.
Siva Kumar, CEO of TheFind, says the conversion rate on its Catalogue app is about 10% higher than on its website, and average order size is between 10% and 20% higher.
Tablet users on average are spending three times as much time on the catalog app than on the website, he says.Sephora receives as much revenue from tablets as it does through mobile, even though people visit Sephora by smartphone much more often. Sephora's tablet conversion rate and average order size is also higher than PC and mobile, says Ms. Dolan. "She who can afford a tablet tends to be a higher spender in general," she says.
The Wall Street Journal
Sept 22, 2011
NEW YORK - Target is a victim of its own success.
The discounter drummed up so much hype around its exclusive, limited-time line by upscale Italian designer Missoni that its website crashed and was down most of the day on Sept. 13 when the collection was launched, angering customers. More than a week later, some shoppers who bought the Missoni for Target line are posting on social media websites Facebook and Twitter that they won't shop at Target again because their online orders are being delayed - or worse, canceled - by the retailer.
Brielle deMartino, 23, from Del Ray Beach, Fla., was so excited that she woke up at 6 a.m. on the launch day and spent $700 on Missoni clothes, a bike and plates. The next day, she got an email from Target that her online order was cancelled. Then, she spent hours on the phone with Target customer service representatives she describes as unapologetic.
"I have never been treated like this," says deMartino, who got the charges removed from her card after calling her bank and posted on Facebook and Twitter about the ordeal. "Instead of taking responsibility, they didn't care. I have always been pro-Target, but I don't want to give my money to a company like that again.'
Talk about having a bulls-eye on your back. Target became the discount industry's darling by making it cool to buy stylish clothes and trendy decorations at the same place you pick up toothpaste and paper towels. But recently, it has suffered from similar public relations nightmares as its rival Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Earlier this year, Target had its first union election in what is seen as a precursor to more labor disputes nationwide. Now, customers are blasting Target on websites like Twitter at a time when Americans worried about the economy are easily being influenced by what their friends say on social media websites.
"This was badly handled," said Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys Inc., a New York customer research firm that has an index that shows Target's image has taken a hit. "What was supposed to be engaging and delightful is now the opposite - disappointment."
Morgan O'Murray, a Target spokeswoman, said the company experienced unprecedented demand for the collection and is working on correcting problems.
"This demand impacted our Target.com site and affected the shipment and delivery of select guest orders," O'Murray said in a statement. "Providing an exceptional experience is incredibly important to Target, and we have a team dedicated to addressing those guests who have been affected."
The crash heard around retail
The Missoni collection was an attempt by Target to regain the cachet it lost among the fashion-forward crowd after it began focusing on expanding its food business. Target is among a few retailers who have partnered with high-end designers that create exclusive lines they can offer for a limited time at deep discounts.
The collections can spur demand by creating a sense of urgency to buy. Last year, Target scored big with a line created by Liberty of London, offering 300 items with the designer, which is known for its floral prints, and selling out of most of it in a couple of days.
The retailer tried to recreate that success with Missoni line, which featured stationery for $2.99 up to $599.99 patio furniture at a fraction of the cost of the designer's original works that can go for $595 to $1,500 and more. Target declined to comment say how much it spent on marketing, but it used social media websites and ads on TV and in Vogue magazine.
Target also opened a temporary store in Manhattan at the start of New York Fashion Week on Sept. 8. On the night of the store's opening, Target hosted a party attended by Missoni-clad celebrities like actress Elizabeth Olsen, the younger sister of the twin actresses Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen. The temporary store, which spanned six blocks, was supposed to stay open three days, but closed after items sold out in six hours.
By Sept. 13, the day of the launch, Target said demand for Missoni items rivaled the frenzy on the day after Thanksgiving, which is typically the busiest shopping day of the year. More than 100 customers lined up at stores nationwide. Some locations sold out in a few hours.
Celebrities were even writing about the launch, or tweeting, on Twitter. Actress Busy Phillips, who plays Laura in ABC's "Cougar Town," tweeted: "Got the bike. Not the colorful one but still SO EXCITED." Actresses Jessica Alba and Jessica Simpson also were gushing about the line: "I dreamt about the Missoni 4 Target bike last night," Alba tweeted. Simpson replied, "I want that bike too!! So cute!"
The buzz turned to frustration for some shoppers. About two hours after the 6 a.m. launch, many on Target's website came face-to-face with Target's mascot bulldog and the disappointing news: "Woof! We are suddenly extremely popular. You may not be able to access our site momentarily due to unusually high traffic. Please stay here and we'll try to get you in as soon as we can!"
This happened throughout the day. Some who were patient got through. Those who weren't left the website disappointed.
Ben Rushlo, director of performance management at Keynote Systems Inc., which tracks websites' performance, said that he couldn't remember the last time a site stayed down most of the day. He said usually, a website slowly deteriorates throughout the day - with minor glitches becoming more prevalent - before crashing.
"It wasn't your normal meltdown," he said.
The Missoni mess gets messier
Even some customers who got through complained that items disappeared from their online shopping carts. Some were unable to checkout. Those who were able to buy breathed a sigh of relief, with some hocking their buys on eBay.com for more than double Target's prices.
But the celebration was short-lived for some. Twitter and Facebook are abuzz with customers complaining that they got emails from Target notifying them that their orders will be delayed or canceled altogether. The posts range from mild ("I'm waiting for orders and now get an email that some may not ship," to prickly ("Every time I see someone with Missoni for Target I get a little more mad.").
Megan Bonner, 26, from Memphis, Tenn., bragged on Twitter after ordering $300 worth of Missoni dresses and cardigans until the next day when she got emails telling her that her shipments would be delayed. Nervous that she wouldn't get the items at all, she bought some of them at a nearby Target. But now she worries she won't be refunded for the other merchandise.
"I feel violated. I feel taken advantage of," she said. "If I don't hear back from them in another week, I will call back. Maybe, I just won't go back anymore."
Target had planned to sell the line into October online and at all 1,700 U.S. stores. But many locations are sold out and the online pickings website are slim. Target had said it was replenishing merchandise, but that it would trickle in.
The debacle comes at a precarious time for Target. The chain, which has struggled to return to its pre-recession growth, is just beginning to benefit from its expanded grocery business and a 5 percent discount it gives shoppers who pay with a Target credit or debit card.
Target Corp., based in Minneapolis, had been posting disappointing revenue gains, but it had a 3.9 percent second-quarter increase in revenue at stores opened at least a year - a measure of a retailer's health. That compares with a 2 percent first-quarter gain.
Analysts disagree on whether Target's image can rebound from the snafu, which comes just months after a failed measure to unionize by employees at a Valley Stream, N.Y. spurred organizers to target stores nationwide.
C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group said in order for Target to recover, it needs to placate angry customers by, say, offering $10 to $20 gift cards. "A lot of companies don't want to fix the problem," he said. "They feel it's better to let it go away. But the problem is that's a dangerous strategy."
Passikoff, with Brand Keys, says the damage is already done - and he can prove it. He said the negative publicity has pushed down Target's reading on the company's Loyalty Index, which measures brand reputation, among other things, to 109 from 119 in August. Brands should have at least a 116, Passikoff says, and anything under 100 signals "trouble."
But Brian Sozzi, a Wall Street Strategies analyst, says shoppers' discontent - much like the Missoni for Target line - is fleeting. "I think it is short-term anger," he said.
USA Today
by Gary Strauss and Jon Swartz
Sept 22, 2011
Facebook's latest move is testing the patience of its friends.
The world's most popular social-media site, which is making a habit of making changes and tweaks with little or no advance warning to its 750 million users, set off tons of dislikes Wednesday, angering many with a redesign that alters the look and feel of its popular profile pages.
News stories under Facebook's News Feed now top the pages instead of fresh posts from friends. Event reminders such as birthdays and friend requests are squished under a ticker-like function, part of a broader effort to give more of a real-time feel à la Twitter and upstart rival Google+, which opened its invitation-only social network to the public Tuesday. There also are newly designated categories for "close" friends, family, co-workers and others.
The pitch to consumers is convenience: an app that promises to help save time and, through loyalty rewards and digital coupons, money. You can store and sync up redeemable Google discount offers inside the Wallet.
I've used the Nexus S to pay at 7-Eleven and Subway, as well from the back seat of a taxicab. The tap-and-pay process is simple. The phone incorporates Near Field Communications or NFC, a short-range wireless technology that makes secure transactions possible.
The Google Wallet app on my test phone was funded by a prepaid Google debit card. Google is encouraging usage, for the time being, by issuing a $10 credit on the card. You can add to the total via any plastic credit card, starting at a $20 minimum. Citi MasterCard holders can use a digital replica of that card. (Don't worry, the full account number isn't displayed.) Eventually you'll be able to use other credit cards. You'll also be able to add favorite loyalty and gift cards to the app. Initially, that feature is limited to American Eagle Outfitters.
For now you can make "tap-and-go" payments at merchants who accept the MasterCard PayPass Network. There are some 140,000 PayPass locations in the U.S., and Google includes a PayPass finder inside the app. Google also has announced licensing arrangements with Visa, Discover and American Express and will add those payment networks to Google Wallet. (Google won't disclose timing.)
Acceptance will take time
Of course, Google Wallet and other initiatives to turn your cellphone into a digital billfold are in their earliest stages. People have paid with cold cash or plastic for generations. Educating the public and merchants about mobile payments will take time.
Google must also make the Wallet app available to other handsets. For the moment, Sprint's Nexus S is the only phone capable of exploiting the Wallet service, though more NFC-capable devices are coming.
And while Google Wallet arguably represents the most ambitious mobile payment initiative to date, it isn't the only one. The ISIS network, formed by the wireless carriers AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless, is cooking up its own digital wallet. I already buy coffee from time to time with a prepaid Starbucks card app on my iPhone. I've also tried the free Card Case app from start-up Square. Intuit and PayPal are also in the game. (Not all these efforts involve NFC technology.)
Setting up the Google Wallet account involves creating a four-digit PIN that can help protect the phone should it be lost or stolen. Entering the wrong PIN five times wipes the Wallet clean. You don't have to be connected to a cellphone network, however, nor do you have to open the Google Wallet app to pay.
If prompted at checkout, you are asked to choose to "pay by credit." And then you just tap the back of the phone against the terminal to complete the payment. In some cases you may have to re-enter your PIN, and in some cases the retailer may ask you to sign your name.
At CVS I had to present my physical CVS loyalty card to earn further discounts. It will be a lot more convenient when such loyalty cards are stored inside the Wallet.
I was handed paper receipts each time I made a purchase. Google Wallet records a history of "events" inside the app that signify when you used the prepaid Google card and (in some cases) the approximate location where you completed the transaction. Alas, the name of the merchant and the amount paid does not appear.
Google says refunds are handled as with any prepaid card. But though the CVS clerk told me my refund request went through when I tapped the phone against the PayPass terminal, the refund credit never showed up on the prepaid card inside the app. Google says that can take up to a week.
Some day lots of people may pay for stuff through the Google Wallet or similar ventures. But rest assured you'll carry plastic cards and physical wallets for quite some time to come.
The other day while buying Tic Tacs at my neighborhood CVS Pharmacy, I didn't pull cash or a credit card out of my wallet. Instead, I paid with a Nexus S smartphone from Sprint. Moments after the clerk rang up the purchase, I placed the back of an Android handset against the point of sale terminal and heard a friendly beep signifying that I had successfully used the phone to pay. The transaction took just seconds.
I've been checking out Google Wallet, the mobile payment app that can transform your cellphone into a digital wallet. On Monday, the search giant began rolling out the app to customers who own the Nexus S through an over-the-air software update. Google had been running Wallet field trials in New York and San Francisco, after first unveiling the pay-by-cellphone venture last spring. I conducted my own tests in Silicon Valley, Manhattan and northern New Jersey.
The pitch to consumers is convenience: an app that promises to help save time and, through loyalty rewards and digital coupons, money. You can store and sync up redeemable Google discount offers inside the Wallet.
I've used the Nexus S to pay at 7-Eleven and Subway, as well from the back seat of a taxicab. The tap-and-pay process is simple. The phone incorporates Near Field Communications or NFC, a short-range wireless technology that makes secure transactions possible.
The Google Wallet app on my test phone was funded by a prepaid Google debit card. Google is encouraging usage, for the time being, by issuing a $10 credit on the card. You can add to the total via any plastic credit card, starting at a $20 minimum. Citi MasterCard holders can use a digital replica of that card. (Don't worry, the full account number isn't displayed.) Eventually you'll be able to use other credit cards. You'll also be able to add favorite loyalty and gift cards to the app. Initially, that feature is limited to American Eagle Outfitters.
For now you can make "tap-and-go" payments at merchants who accept the MasterCard PayPass Network. There are some 140,000 PayPass locations in the U.S., and Google includes a PayPass finder inside the app. Google also has announced licensing arrangements with Visa, Discover and American Express and will add those payment networks to Google Wallet. (Google won't disclose timing.)
Acceptance will take time
Of course, Google Wallet and other initiatives to turn your cellphone into a digital billfold are in their earliest stages. People have paid with cold cash or plastic for generations. Educating the public and merchants about mobile payments will take time.
Google must also make the Wallet app available to other handsets. For the moment, Sprint's Nexus S is the only phone capable of exploiting the Wallet service, though more NFC-capable devices are coming.
And while Google Wallet arguably represents the most ambitious mobile payment initiative to date, it isn't the only one. The ISIS network, formed by the wireless carriers AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless, is cooking up its own digital wallet. I already buy coffee from time to time with a prepaid Starbucks card app on my iPhone. I've also tried the free Card Case app from start-up Square. Intuit and PayPal are also in the game. (Not all these efforts involve NFC technology.)
Setting up the Google Wallet account involves creating a four-digit PIN that can help protect the phone should it be lost or stolen. Entering the wrong PIN five times wipes the Wallet clean. You don't have to be connected to a cellphone network, however, nor do you have to open the Google Wallet app to pay.
If prompted at checkout, you are asked to choose to "pay by credit." And then you just tap the back of the phone against the terminal to complete the payment. In some cases you may have to re-enter your PIN, and in some cases the retailer may ask you to sign your name.
At CVS I had to present my physical CVS loyalty card to earn further discounts. It will be a lot more convenient when such loyalty cards are stored inside the Wallet.
I was handed paper receipts each time I made a purchase. Google Wallet records a history of "events" inside the app that signify when you used the prepaid Google card and (in some cases) the approximate location where you completed the transaction. Alas, the name of the merchant and the amount paid does not appear.
Google says refunds are handled as with any prepaid card. But though the CVS clerk told me my refund request went through when I tapped the phone against the PayPass terminal, the refund credit never showed up on the prepaid card inside the app. Google says that can take up to a week.
Some day lots of people may pay for stuff through the Google Wallet or similar ventures. But rest assured you'll carry plastic cards and physical wallets for quite some time to come.
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt was on the hot seat Wednesday at a Senate antitrust hearing as CEOs and senators accused Google of abusing its dominance in Internet search to the detriment of smaller rivals.
Schmidt defended Google's business practices, asserting that his company "does nothing to block access to any of the competitors and other sources of information in Web searches." He opened his remarks with a reference to the Microsoft antitrust case, which nearly broke up that software company. "Many of us in Silicon Valley have absorbed the lessons of that era," he said.
His remarks landed on a cross section of senators who either praised or probed Google's business. Cozen O'Connor antitrust attorney Melissa Maxman said that was a good tone for Schmidt to hit. "It's the smart way to present it because the Microsoft inquiry didn't go all that well."
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, launched some of the sharpest attacks on Google, charging that it has a "clear and inherent conflict of interest" in its search results.
Yelp, TripAdvisor, Nextag, Expedia and dozens of other companies say Google — which operates rival services such as travel and shopping search — gives preferential treatment in Internet search queries to its own businesses. "Google rigs those results," Nextag CEO Jeffrey Katz said at the hearing.
Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said, "Let's be clear: Google is no longer in the business of sending people to the best destinations on the Web. It has everything to do with generating more revenue."
The inquiry put the spotlight on Google's behavior and whether it harms competition. That issue will be closely scrutinized in the months ahead by the Federal Trade Commission, which in June launched a separate antitrust investigation of Google. The Justice Department and European Union are also examining Google, which has two-thirds of the Internet search market, trailed by Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing.
John Mayo, a professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, says, "This will come down to the same issues as the Microsoft case: Is the firm's behavior pro-competitive or exclusionary?"
Google came prepared for its date with Washington. It has ramped up its lobbying presence in the nation's capital, hiring 13 lobbyist firms since June 1, according to CQ MoneyLine.
USA Today
by Alex Veiga, The Associated Press
Sept 22, 2011
LOS ANGELES – America's economic woes don't appear to be hurting philanthropist Bill Gates, who tops Forbes' list of the 400 richest Americans for the 18th year in a row.
The magazine said Wednesday that the Microsoft co-founder's wealth amounts to $59 billion, ranking him ahead of all the other billionaires who make up this year's list.
Gates' fortune swelled by $5 billion from a year ago, outpacing No. 2 on the list, Warren Buffett, whose net worth is $39 billion, Forbes said.
Buffett, who wrote in a recent piece for The New York Times that the tax rate he paid last year was lower than that paid by any of the other 20 people working for him in his office, was the only person among the top 20 on Forbes' list to see his fortune shrink from a year ago.
The Berkshire Hathaway CEO's fortune decreased by $6 billion — the largest dollar-amount loss by anyone on the Forbes 400 this year, the magazine said.
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison rounds out the top three richest Americans with a net worth of $33 billion, $6 billion more than last year.
Financier George Soros took seventh place, his first time among the top 10. Forbes estimates his wealth at $22 billion.
Three members of the Walton family, descendants of Wal-Mart Stores founder Sam Walton, also are among the top 10 wealthiest Americans this year. Rounding out the top 10 are Sheldon Adelson, CEO of casino developer and operator Las Vegas Sands, and oil billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.
Forbes said the combined wealth of the 400 people on this year's list is $1.5 trillion, with an average net worth of $3.8 billion. That amounts to a 12% increase from last year.
Some 262 people on the list saw their fortunes grow, while 72 saw a decline, the magazine said.
This year, entrepreneurs dominate the list at an all-time high of 70%, Forbes said.
All told, 18 people made it to the Forbes 400 for the first time this year, including Napster co-founder Sean Parker, who ranked 200th, and John Henry, majority owner of the Boston Red Sox and the Liverpool soccer team, at No. 375.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was the biggest dollar gainer on the list, with a net worth of $17.5 billion, which earned him the No. 14 spot.
There were 42 women on the list, including media mogul Oprah Winfrey at No. 139, with a net worth of $2.7 billion.
CHICAGO – From the outside, the Gothic brick and limestone building a few blocks south of downtown almost looks abandoned.
Plaques identify it as a landmark completed in 1929, a former printing plant that once produced magazines, catalogs and phone books. The sign over the main door says "Chicago Manufacturing Division Plant 1."
There are hints, though, that something is going on inside. Cameras are aimed at the building's perimeter. A small sign at the back entrance says "Digital Realty Trust."
Sturdy gates across the driveway keep the uninvited out.
There's good reason for the intentional anonymity and security, says Rich Miller: "The Internet lives there."
Miller, editor of Data Center Knowledge, which tracks the industry, and Dave Caron, senior vice president of portfolio management for Digital Realty, which owns the 1.1 million-square-foot former R.R. Donnelley printing plant, say it is the world's largest repository for computer servers.
Caron won't identify its tenants, but he says the building stores data from financial firms and Internet and telecommunications companies. "The 'cloud' that you keep hearing about … all ends up on servers in a data center somewhere," he says.
There are about 13,000 large data centers around the world, 7,000 of them in the USA, says Michelle Bailey, a vice president at IDC, a market research company that monitors the industry. Growth stalled during the recession, but her company estimates about $22 billion will be spent on new centers worldwide this year.
The need for data centers is increasing as demand for online space and connectivity explodes. Some are inside generic urban buildings or sprawling rural facilities. For all of them, security is paramount. Inside, after all, are the engines that keep smartphones smart, businesses connected and social networks humming.
Some data centers have "traps" that isolate intrusions by unauthorized individuals, technology that weighs people as they enter and sounds an alarm if their weight is different when they depart, bulletproof walls and blast-proof doors, Bailey says.
When Wal-Mart opened a data center in McDonald County, Mo., a few years ago, County Assessor Laura Pope says she signed a non-disclosure agreement promising "I wouldn't discuss anything I saw in there." She hasn't.
Borrowing a line from a 1999 movie, Miller says, "I used to kid about the Fight Club rule: Rule No. 1 is you don't talk about the data centers, and Rule No. 2 is you do not talk about the data centers."
Although the rapid growth of data centers has diminished their ability to "hide in plain sight," he says, many owners and occupants are "very secretive and … sensitive about the locations."
That makes sense, Miller says. "These facilities are critical to the financial system and the overall function of the Internet."
Making new use of the old
Some data centers — sometimes called carrier hotels because space is leased to multiple companies — are in large urban buildings where they can tap into intersecting networks, Miller says.
Old manufacturing facilities such as Chicago's Donnelley printing plant often are repurposed because they have high ceilings and load-bearing floors to support heavy racks of servers.
"They are interesting examples of the new economy rising up in the footprints of the old," he says.
Giant companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo and Amazon often build their data centers in rural areas. "They're looking for cheap power and cheap real estate," Miller says. While the number of private centers grows, the federal government is consolidating. It has more than 2,000 data centers and this summer announced plans to close 373 by the end of 2012.
Communities such as Quincy, Wash., population 6,750, and Catawba County in western North Carolina want to become data center hubs. Catawba and neighboring counties dubbed themselves "North Carolina's data center corridor," says Scott Millar, president of the Catawba County Economic Development Corp.
Apple last fall opened a 500,000-square-foot, $1 billion facility in Catawba County. Google and Facebook have data centers in nearby counties and more are under construction.
Catawba County is building a second data center park in hopes of attracting more, Millar says. Because data centers don't require many employees, most of the permanent jobs are created by contractors who provide electrical, cooling or security support, he says. About 400 people work at the giant Chicago data center; many employ far fewer.
The Apple data center, Millar says, is "pretty secretive." No signs indicate what the building holds, he says, "but everybody knows what it is."
James Lewis, a senior fellow in technology and security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a public policy research group in Washington, D.C., compares the evolution of data centers to changes in the way electricity is generated.
A century or more ago, he says, factories and other companies operated their own electric plants to power their lights, elevators and other functions. Those with spare capacity began to sell it to their neighbors. "That's what happened to computing," Lewis says.
Instead of maintaining computer servers in their own facilities for rapidly growing data storage needs, some businesses locate their servers or backup servers in data centers, he says. They can save money because the centers minimize energy consumption, ensure security and allow computers to share tasks. Data centers also give companies places to store backed-up data that is crucial to their businesses.
"The amount of data in the world doubles every couple of years and people … are willing to pay for it to be stored," Lewis says.
He doesn't think it's essential to conceal the centers' locations, though, because hackers won't try to come in through the front door. "The main source of risk isn't physical, it's cyber," he says. "If hiding the location … is all that they're doing, they're not doing enough."
Tall building, low profile
Keeping a low profile is just the beginning of the security measures at Digital Realty Trust's massive Chicago data center.
The exterior is embellished with terra cotta shields depicting printers' marks. The building occupies almost a full block, is nine stories tall and has a 14-story tower. Inside, there are visible and unseen protections, some of which the company won't talk about publicly. There are guards at both entrances, cameras inside and out, motion sensors and much more. To access the rooms where rows of servers live, a card must be scanned and a fingerprint recognized.
The interior of the building is a mix of old and new. Because it is a landmark, its wood-lined two-story library, which has been used for photo shoots, must be kept intact. Some corridors feature stone arches overhead, and some offices are paneled in English oak.
Other hallways are sterile and silent. Inside the locked doors of the individual data centers are locked metal-grid cages and, inside them, rows of black shelving with the blinking lights of servers visible through the doors. The only sound is an electronic buzz. Cameras scan every square foot of the room.
Between the rows of servers are "cooling aisles" with thousands of round holes in floor tiles feeding cool air into the space. Over the server shelving are ladder racks that suspend "raceways" — yellow plastic casing enclosing fiber optic cables. The shelving doesn't extend to the ceiling; air must circulate above the servers to keep temperatures down.
Caron says it costs $600-$800 per square foot to build a data center and often less than $70 a square foot for a normal industrial building, including the land. The giant printing presses that once filled space in the former Donnelley building made it ideal for conversion to data center use, he says. A data center floor must be able to handle at least 150 pounds and as much as 400 pounds per square foot. By comparison, most office buildings are built for 70 pounds per square foot.
Huge amounts of electricity power all those servers, he says: 100-150 watts or more per square foot, compared with 3-5 watts for each square foot of an office building. To keep the servers running, there's more than one electrical feed into the building and backup systems and generators ensure there's never an interruption in power. The Chicago facility has 63 generators.
Digital Realty Trust, which bought the building in 2005, owns 96 properties, most of them data centers, in the USA, Europe and Asia, Caron says. There is, he says, "a lot of demand" and the company expects to spend up to $500 million this year on acquisitions. Last year it spent more than $1 billion , he says.
'You have no idea what's here'
Not every data center is a fortress. The one owned by the city of Altamonte Springs, Fla., is a former 770,000-gallon water tank next to City Hall.
Lawrence DiGioia, information services director in the city of 40,000, says he relocated the city's servers after being forced by three hurricanes to pack everything up to keep them out of harm's way. The tank has 8-inch-thick walls. "It did a great job holding water in," he says, "so we knew it could keep water out."
Even a small-scale data center needs security, though. DiGioia says his is protected by video surveillance, requires dual authentication to enter and a biometric lock limits access to the server room.
It's even harder to get into the five data centers 200 feet deep in a former limestone mine in Butler County, Pa.
"The facility affords a very high level of security, not only physical — armed guards, steel gates, layers of security, biometrics — but also we're protected from the elements, civil unrest, terrorist-type things," says Chuck Doughty, vice president of the Underground, as it's called, for Iron Mountain, an information management company.
Except for the cars parked outside, he says, "you'd have no idea what's here." Besides 7 million gigabytes of digital data, including e-mail, computer backup files and digital medical images such as MRIs, the Underground is home to documents, film reels and computer backup tapes owned by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Sony Music and Universal, among others.
Doughty worked for years on Room 48, an experiment in making data centers more energy-efficient and reliable, and is working now on ways to utilize some of the cold water in the mine to cool the computer space without using chillers or cooling towers. He hopes to begin construction next year.
The security of data centers, Doughty says, is becoming increasingly important for companies and governments "not only because of the situation in the United States with terrorism, but because of the world situation."
Lewis says one of the lessons of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was the importance of having data stored in more than one place. As more data centers are built, he says there will be more debate about legal issues: What happens if law enforcement has a warrant for a server that also contains data owned by other companies? Should there be standards for protecting consumers, including requirements that they be notified of breaches? Should data centers be regulated by the government?
John McKay, a visitor to Chicago from Vancouver, Canada, snapped photos of the former printing plant recently. A brochure highlighting historic buildings in the neighborhood had led him to it.
AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong has reportedly approached private equity firms to gauge interest in a deal with Yahoo that would place Armstrong as the head of the combined company, according to a Bloomberg report.
CNBC later reported that a source close to Yahoo said the company had no interest in a deal with AOL.
AOL shares closed down 5.3 percent at $14.72 while Yahoo inched up 0.3 pct to $14.48.
Both former tech powerhouses have fallen on tough times and Reuters.com columnist John C. Abell says: “It’s impossible to know if anything short of IBM-like reinvention could have altered the course of these two companies so that the music playing now would still be more jazz than dirge.”
In other AOL-related news, Xconomy blogger Wade Roush argues that the “explosion of criticism” over TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington’s plans to create a startup seed fund has finally convinced Armstrong that “yoking a formal venture fund to a journalistic operation would make the (real or perceived) conflicts wholly unmanageable.”
Apple Inc scored a symbolic legal victory in efforts to keep its lead spot in the tablet computer market when a German court upheld a ban barring Samsung’s local unit from selling its Galaxy 10.1 tablets in Europe’s biggest economy.
A new iPhone application aims to make social networking truly social, with the help of geo-location technology.
Evernote, which makes a popular app for taking notes and storing data on tablets, phones and personal computers, is considering filing for an initial public offering by the end of next year, its chief executive told Reuters on Friday.
Reuters
by Edwin Chan and Alexei Oreskovic
Sept 21, 2011
(Reuters) - Google Inc (GOOG.O) and Facebook trotted out a variety of new social networking features in back-to-back announcements on Tuesday, underscoring their intensifying competition for Web surfers.
Google integrated its flagship search engine into its 3-month old social network -- with membership now open to the Internet public -- and expanded its "Hangouts" video-chat feature to allow mobile use and broadcasting.
The company said on its official blog its well-received Hangouts feature -- where up to nine people can link up and chat with a user on video -- will be available on camera equipped smartphones powered by its own Android software. Support for Apple Inc (AAPL.O) iOS devices "is coming soon", it added.
And a user can now host an online broadcast with this feature -- recording a session and broadcasting it live for public access online. Black Eyed Peas front man will.i.am will host the first "Hangout on Air" on Wednesday, Google said.
"Hangouts should keep pace with how you socialize in the real-world, so today we're launching it on the one device that's always by your side: your mobile phone," senior vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra said on the blog post.
For its part, Facebook said it was introducing a new "ticker" on its users' home pages, providing real-time notifications of what friends are doing on the service. Facebook also revamped the service's main news feed to flag important items -- such as a new baby announcement -- for Facebook users who have not logged on for a few days. Facebook also changed the way photos are displayed on the site, increasing the size of pictures that appear in a users' news feed.
Facebook is the world's No.1 social networking service, with more than 750 million users. The company has rolled out a series of improvements to its service recently, many of which seem designed to match features Google has used to set apart its rival social networking service, Google+.
Google did not say how many people had signed up for Google+ so far, but confirmed the social network was now open to all, whereas previously it had been invitation-only. Analysts estimate upward of 25 million users have joined Google+ since its inception.
The company also made its search engine available from within the social network. Users can search from Google+ and get results not just on the network, but from the worldwide Internet.
Google's infant social network, which counts Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a member, has met scepticism so far. Some are waiting to see if it can maintain the rapid momentum of its first months.
If CEO Larry Page's brainchild -- which some say mimics better than Facebook the instinctive categorizing of friends that occurs in real life -- takes off, it will come at a pivotal moment for its bigger rival. Facebook is widely expected to go public in 2012.
"We're nowhere near done, but with the improvements we've made so far we're ready to move from field trial to beta," Gundotra said.
