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Serious Games, Serious Money: Google's Web Reshaping



Via: TechCrunch 

TechCrunch reports today that “Google’s stock is reaching its highest value over the past six months, trading as high as $619.50 share on Friday, putting search giant just shy of a $200 billion market cap.”

TechCrunch adds “in the week following the launch of Google+, the company’s most ambitious social product yet, investors added $20 billion to Google’s market cap. That combined with the general strength of the market and health of Google as a company propelled the stock upwards into July.”

As Google+ hit 20 million users, analysts are now optimistic for Google’s social plans. As the Wall Street Journal reported last week, Barclays Capital equity researchers are telling investors that “given positive initial traction from users we believe Google is now better positioned to compete and integrate social cues across its products than before, which could drive increased relevancy in search going forward.”

I tend to agree with Geek with Laptop that Google News Badges can also become an important piece in Google’s Web Reshaping.

The analogy: as Google+ Turns Spheres of Connections Into Serious Games, Google Badges gamifies our selection of topics, thus personalizing the news that tends to bombard us every day.

Google News Gamified

“In the past month, Google has started to change many products that they currently have. It all started with that black bar and fulminated with the end of Google+. We may not sense it, but everything was carefully planned, even the Google Translate interface was modified so that its colors suit the Google+ style.”

“Google News Badges is another piece in the giant puzzle Google is trying to put together and we have to wonder: are they doing this for the Chrome OS, transforming the online navigation into a real OS experience or they’re just improving their products?”