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Free Online Word Processing Software from Google

Google just released a new free service. This service called Docs & Spreadsheets combines an online word processing software and a storage and sharing system. In fact, Google simply shared two applications that it had already: Writely, acquired at the beginning of 2006 and his storage and sharing system.

No installation will be necessary and the service will be completely free. By offering Docs & Spreadsheets free, Google competes with the famous Office of Microsoft which is sold nearly 400 $ and requires a long installation. Let us recall that Microsoft and its Word software dominate the field of the word processing software since years and that version 2007 of Office should be released in a few weeks.

Microsoft carries out the majority of its profits by selling its Office package and Windows to private individuals or companies of the whole world. Also, the arrival of a free text processing which is likely to be very popular, like all the products of Google, could hurt Microsoft badly.

With Youtube: Google goes over 100 millions users

For 1,65 billion dollar in actions, Google, the first search engine, will acquire YouTube, most popular video exchange website. Google, which is worth more than 9 billion dollars out of Stock Exchange, first search engine on the web, has a sales turnover of 6,14 billion dollars in 2005.

YouTube, for its part, opened the Web with the digital images turned by the amators of the whole world, armed with their light cameras or their portable telephones with video function. The young start-up did not yet gain only one dollar, but represents a true phenomenon of audience, with up to 100 million viewed videos certain days, a figure which, in the absence of profitability, surely weighed in the decision of acquisition of Google.

The YouTube company, founded in February 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Charin, is operational since December. In less than one year, this service of free remote loading, of a very simple use, constituted a "social network", a vast community of users who post their own clips (of less than ten minutes), comment on those which they view, gather by affinities, share their experiments... YouTube, it is, to some extent, the tv-reality of the Internet. "Our community radically changed the way in which people use the media, and created a new culture of the video clip, declared, Monday October 9, in an official statement, Chad Hurley, the chairman of YouTube. While joining our forces to those of Google, we will benefit from his total distribution and its advanced technology, in order to propose a more complete experiment with our users, as well as new opportunities for our partners." "Everyone agrees to saying that it is right the beginning of the revolution of the video on Internet", Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google commented on, by confirming the maintenance of the YouTube mark.

Google wants to invade your website!

Google will invade the sites of the Webmasters In its ultimate conquest of the Web, Google benefitted from the interest of the Webmasters for the dynamic contents in order to invade the remainder of the web which did not belong to them. The company will propose to the developers, gadgets that they will be able to install on their Internet site. Google launched successfully a few months ago the Google Gadgets service, which makes it possible to all the Net surfers to personalize the banner page of the search engine by installing on their computer various utilities. The company benefits now from the passion for the dynamic contents by proposing to the Webmasters a bank of 1200 applications ready to be installed on their site. About thirty of those were designed by Google, the others coming from developers seeking a distributor for their varied programs. The mini-applications that Google calls "Universal Gadgets", contrary to "Desktop Gadgets" intended to be installed on the micro-computers, could be integrated easily into the Web sites. Adam Sah, the person having found the title "Universal Gadgets" for Google, affirms that "the gadgets are nothing more than HTML and a little Javascript". With this new service, Google will be represented, a little everywhere on the independent sites, with the Net surfers who had not yet adopted the search engine or one of its many services.

Technorati Tags: Google

Possible purchase of Youtube.com by Google?

The rumours are going fast in the technological world, in spite of the reserve of the large companies to reveal certain information. This time, Google does not escape from it. A writer and founder of a site of technological news received an e-mail relating a purchasing possibility of Youtube.com by the Google. It is between 1,5 billion and 2 billion us dollars that Google would be ready to spend to put the hand on one of the most popular sites of the Internet. This could finally make the Mountain View company the leader in the service of videos on line with Google Video. Several other Internet sites and companies aspire to that title like Microsoft with its service called "Soa pb ox" or Yahoo.com with Yahoo Video. This kind of service becomes extensive more and more, because it generates astronomical incomes, thanks to publicity.

Technorati Tags: Google, Youtube

Microsoft to Compete with YouTube: Soapbox Beta is Here

Microsoft announced their beta version you Youtube. The new service called Soapbox is part of the msn.com network.

Available only by invitation, the users can discover what Microsoft has done to compete with Youtube and Google video. Users are limited to 100Mb of data for the moment. You can add keywords, comments and send links by e-mail.

The site works with Windows media and Quick Time. All major browsers are supported by Soapbox and should work on PC and Mac. You will need you Windows Live ID to log-in after you receive the invitation.

Here is the Soapbox homepage and the official Microsoft press release

Microsoft seems to be a follower these days. With the annoucement last week of the Zune Player to compete with the i-pod and now Soapbox to compete with Youtube.