UK Expert in Search Engine Optimization & Search Engine Marketing

Google has given an update on its immediate plans for Google Wave. As you probably know, the company recently announced that it would be shutting down Google Wave as a standalone product, thought Google said it would preserve the technology behind Wave for future use and integration with other Google products.

Google announced that it will expand upon the 200,000 lines of code that it has open sourced already, to "flesh out the existing example Wave server and web client into a more complete applicatino or 'Wave in a Box'".

The project will include:

• an application bundle including a server and web client supporting real-time collaboration using the same structured conversations as the Google Wave system
• a fast and fully-featured wave panel in the web client with complete support for threaded conversations
• a persistent wave store and search implementation for the server (building on contributed patches to implement a MongoDB store)
• refinements to the client-server protocols
• gadget, robot and data API support
• support for importing wave data from wave.google.com
• the ability to federate across other Wave in a Box instances, with some additional configuration

Google stresses that the project won't have full Google Wave functionality, but it will give developers and users a way to run Wave servers and host waves on their own hardware. This should please some IT departments.

It still remains to be seen what other Google products Wave technology will appear in.

It seems that bedbugs can be found everywhere these days, and the New York office of a certain search giant is no exception.  Late yesterday, a Googler reportedly tweeted that her workplace had been invaded.

According to Nicholas Carlson, the pammy5 Twitter account belonging to "a Googler in marketing" just sent the message, "jeepers i am not immune from the bedbug epidemic.  bedbugs have been found at work."

Now the account - which a small amount of detective work connected to Pamela Eng, a product marketing manager previously employed by DoubleClick - seems to have been deleted, and Google's not volunteering many details.

This doesn't exactly count as a PR win for the company.  There's a definite stigma associated with bedbugs, and it may be that no amount of free food and fun artwork will convince would-be recruits to risk getting bitten.

To be fair, though, it's not known whether 20 or 2,000 of the creatures were found.  And as we acknowledged in the first sentence, lots of other places in New York, including the Empire State Building, a Times Square movie theater, and the Time Warner Center, have been affected.

Good luck to all Google employees who work at the New York offices.

Google is planning to launch a mobile music download service that would allow users to access songs wherever they have access to an Internet connection.

According to Reuters, Google has been in discussions with the major labels about reaching licensing agreements.  Google has not yet signed any licensing deals but the major labels are reportedly interested in seeing a competitor to Apple’s iTunes launch.

"Finally here's an entity with the reach, resources and wherewithal to take on iTunes as a formidable competitor by tying it into search and Android mobile platform," said a label executive who asked not to be identified.

"What you'll have is a very powerful player in the market that's good for the music business."

Andy Rubin, Google vice president of engineering hopes to have the music service launched by Christmas, according to “people familiar with the matter.”

“We're cautiously optimistic because Google has great scale and reach but doesn't have a track record in selling stuff," said another label executive who declined to be named as the talks are still ongoing.