Google Inc. on Monday removed content from various blogger specific domains in India after the countries leaders warned a “China type response” if the company didn’t better censor content deemed “religiously inappropriate.”

The request comes one week after Google announced plans to censor blogger platform content in certain countries through specific URL domain protocols. For example a post may be banned in India but still show up in a country where freedom of speech is available.

Speaking about the request Google representative Paroma Roy Chowdhury  noted:

“(Our) review team has looked at the content and disabled this content from the local domains of (Google) search, Youtube and Blogger.” read more

Less then a week after Twitter announced the censorship of Tweets in certain parts of the world search giant Google has announced a similar program targeted at the company’s blogger platform.

To reach the company’s new censorship goal GOogle will begin redirecting Blogger users to country-specific URLs for example instead of a Google.com blog in France the content would direct the users to Google.fr.

By adding country specific URLs Google can censor a blog post in one country but leave it untouched for example in the United States. read more

Google+ is cruising along these days and that fact was buoyed by Google CEO Larry Page on Thursday when he announced during the company’s quarterly finance meeting that Google+ is now serving more than 90 million users.

When you take into consideration the fact that Google+ was reporting just 40 million users in October 2011 the improvement in usage is astounding.

In December 2011 Google+ watcher Paul Allen predicted that the social network had 62 million users while Experian Hitwise has predicted 400 million users by the end of 2012. read more

We knew it was only a matter of time before Google+ and Google search were integrated in some way and on Tuesday Google rolled out that system. Under the deeply integrated platforms Google users who are logged into their Google+ accounts and to a smaller extent their other Google accounts will now see general search results along with the option to find results based off their Google+ friends network.

Using the search Google+ users can search their circles, photos, posts and a huge list of other on-site options.

Google has dubbed their new search platform Search Across The World and have given users the option to not just search a public database of websites, photos and other information but also a more private web consisting of your friends, co-workers, family and other Google+ followers.

To ensure there is no confusion over the new system all Google+ results are clearly annotated as such for example if searching for a photo (see above) you can see which friend shares the picture of the dog breed you are searching for.

Here’s a video showing the awesome capabilities of the new Google+ search integration for Google.com: read more

Google+ still has a long way to go before the social network catches up to Facebook but recent numbers have proven once again that decent growth potential is being witnessed by the team at Google.

Experian Hitwise reported on Monday that the social network more than doubled it’s traffic in December. On their Twitter account the Experian team added:

“Google+ total US visits reach more than 49 million in Dec-11, biggest month to date & up 55% compared to Nov-11 ow.ly/i/oT3R.” read more

Britney Spears on Friday became the first Google+ celebrity to officially surpass the one million circles milestone.

The find, made by The Next Web also reveals that Spears is the most followed person on Google+

Based on current numbers and the time since her page went live she’s literally receiving thousands of new followers every single hour of the day.

While Britney has the most fans on the service his content is hardly the type of marketing genius we would have hoped to find from a leading Google+ user. For example here’s her most recent Google+ update:  read more

In their quest to build a better network and remain the world’s #1 search engine and software firm the team at Google must consume tremendous amounts of electricity while always building new products.

The folks at BusinessMBA.org have created an infographic that showcases just how big Google has become.

Among some of the infographics most interesting facts are the 2-billion Killowatt-hour of electricity the company’s data centers need to consume to remain online (50% of what Hoover Dam produced in a year) and the simple fact that Google in 2010 with $29.3 billion in revenue made more money than the 28 poorest countries in the world COMBINED!

Throw in more than $2 billion earned annually from the massively growing mobile ads market and it’s easy to see why Google has managed to carve out a very nice business for themselves in a rather short period of time.

Here’s the infographic to show you more interesting fact about the Google company structure and what it takes to run the world’s fastest growing software and search firm: read more

With the 2012 election cycle quickly approaching the team at Google+ has posted a guide for politicians and candidates, a step-by-step set of instructions for creating the perfect politician page for interacting with voters and constituents.

According to Google the guide is meant to help candidates:

“Promote an issue(s), platform or cause across the web.”

In the guide Google shows off the pages of Mitt Romney, Sen. Bernie Sanders and others who have already taken advantage of the Google+ platform to spread their messages. Other politicians also using Google+ at this time including President Obama and Newt Gingrich. read more

Google on Thursday released their first Google+ commercial and in the TV spot the company attempts to convince users that their system is like “sharing but in real life.”

First aired during the Lions vs. Packers football game the spot focuses on the ways in which Google+ is different than Facebook, for examine how Circles allows users to organize their friends, acquaintances, colleagues, family and others into different circles, while also emphasizing the use of Google Hangouts.

Google has had a great deal of success with commercials in the past, including their Google Parisian Love Super Bowl commercial which brought a great deal of positive reviews to the company’s evolving search platform. Google also launched a Google Chrome TV commercial over the summer that featured pop star Justin Bieber.

Here’s the Google+ Sharing But Like Real Life commercial: read more

Google on Monday rolled out a new feature that allows Google+ members to automatically chat with any Google Circle member who also has them listed in their Circles.

The new feature can be found in the bottom left-hand corner of your Google+ profile and is meant to mimic the Twitter direct message feature which allows Twitter members to send messages to people who are following them.

As Google explains the new product:

Google Chat makes it easy to chat with people you have relationships with. In Google+, you can chat with anyone in your Circles who also has added you to their Circles. And, when you’re not using Google Plus, you’ll still be able to chat with them using Google products including, Gmail, the Google Talk client, iGoogle, Orkut and 3rd party apps. read more