This week's Linkbait Prize goes to Paul Tassi, blogging at Forbes.com, who has kindly penned a euology for Google+, a service he obviously despises that launched June 28. As in 6 weeks ago. Tassi noted : My profile tells me everything I need to know about Google Plus, and I suspect the same is true for many others. As active as I am in social media and the latest and greatest internet trends, I have 26 people who have added me into circles,

Google's $12.5 billion acquisition offer for Motorola set off the normal rounds of pontification such blockbuster proposals tend to send off. While pundits analyze to death the ins and outs and ramifications of the deal , antitrust regulators on Capitol Hill are likely preparing for this new headache, as Google is proving to be an increasingly sharp thorn in their sides. Google has gotten so large - 30,000 employees, $39 billion in cash,

One month ago, some folks were lamenting or even deriding Google+ as a place where Googlers, tech early adopters and journalists reigned. It's still true that those demographics still comprise the bulk of the 25 million-plus Google+ users, but Experian HitWise has some numbers that show otherwise. HitWise Research General Manager Bill Tancer said that in over 6 weeks since the limited launch of Google+ June 28 ,

Another quarter, another Chrome Operating System tablet rumor begans to build. Since the introduction of Chrome OS two summers ago, the search engine has been fond of posting mock drawings, UI designs and videos in its Chromium open source code Website showing Chrome OS running in a tablet. I noted in April that CNET discovered changes in Chrome and Chrome OS source code that point to the progress of a Chrome OS slate. Here is the latest clip,

One of the advantages Google loves to tout about its Chrome Operating System is its ability to upgrade the platform from the Googleplex. Chrome OS is a cloud OS, of course, so users don't have to install any upgrades themselves. They can simply wait for Google to provision new versions to their Chromebooks when the company is ready to launch them. And so it goes with the new Chrome OS version 13.0.782.108, which Google launched August 10 .

It's easy when the top players in the industry talk big. If Apple or Google executives want to trumpet how great their software is, we can oblige them to a degree. They own the leading smartphone platforms in the world right now. But comments offered by Chris Weber, president of Nokia in North America, to VentureBeat have me scratching my head. Almost until my scalp bleeds. Weber, whose company struck a live or die deal with Microsoft to run Windows Phone 7 handsets last year,

I've been following the Android mobile patent crusades closely, largely with the aid of Florian Mueller and others who have been kind or fervent enough to lend their wisdom and logic to the processes involved. PaidContent's Tom Krazit provided a fine analysis of the battles waged by Apple and Microsoft on one side and Google and Android OEMs on the other. Here is the rub: Android is a source of wounded pride for Apple and Microsoft. Why?

Tom Anderson has returned from the depths of near anonymity )ironic, considering he created MySpace,( to write some of the more thoughtful posts on Google+, where he is an active, active contributor. Not only that, but he's reproducing Google+ posts for TechCrunch )or vice versa( and I find myself reading ever piece he's putting out. He's not taking sides; he's telling it like it is, or like it should or will be.

Google is bringing one of the more popular features from its Gmail tablet application to the desktop with introduction of the Preview Pane from Gmail Labs. The idea is that users can preview message content before they click on them to take an action. Gmail users may enable Preview Pane from the labs tab in Gmail settings. Once they do,

The other day I wrote a post in which I addressed Mike Elgan's Cult of Mac post. Elgan's post, which you may read here, clearly explains how Google and Apple have a symbiotic relationship. Elgan wrote on Google+ that he viewed my post on his post as a negative critique , of which it really wasn't. I would never introduce a column by saying it was "an elegant and compelling argument." I'm not a sarcastic, passive aggressive type. At least, I try not to be in writing. First,

Step right up and into the Google Nexus Website , where the search engine is giving away free Samsung Nexus S smartphones via retailer Best Buy today only. Google posted this note on its Google.com homepage ) via Search Engine Land (: Clicking the link brings you to the Nexus Website, where users can get the phone free from AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile with a two-year contract: So why would Google be giving away the devices?

There are a lot of stories painting Google and Apple as enemies and there are some that paint the tech powers as frenemies. I'm of the latter camp, and so is Mike Elgan, who makes an elegant and compelling argument via The Cult of Mac about why the two can coexist peacefully. Why the two, in fact, need each other. Noting that Apple and Google compete in the mobile space with iOS and Android, respectively,

For owners of the Google TV-powered Logitech Revue companion box, little that came out of Logitech's first quarter earnings call can be construed as good or beneficial. Logitech lost $30 million for the first quarter , as sales of its digital home products, including the Revue boxes, fell 53 percent, resulting in a $34 million charge. Also,

Google may be winding down its Google Labs experiments , but the company has promised to keep experimenting in its core products, such as search, Gmail and Google Maps. To that end, Google July 28 timed its new Hotel Finder to help people planning summer vacations in the U.S. whittle down their options. The tool comes two months after Google added Flight Search , which isn't an experiment, to aid vacation planners looking to book flights.

Google+ use is slowing! Google+ use is slowing! Those sentences must be uttered with the Chicken Little cadence and timbre of "The sky is falling." Seriously though, Google+ was bound to slowdown. It took off like a rocket, hitting over 20 million users in 3 weeks, said comScore. Gut check time: Facebook took over 3 years to hit 50 million users . Experian HitWise, which released first calculated explosive growth in Google+ stats last week ,

One month into its already storied existence, Google+ is getting both advice and request features at a health clip. One of the most liberal advice dollopers has been Tom Anderson, also known as MySpace Tom, for better or worse. As the founder of the social media comet that flamed out perhaps far too soon, Anderson is in my opinion one of the best gurus to read regarding Google+. Why?

For this post I'm taking a break from my regularly scheduled Google+ critiques to critique one of the other hot news items of the modern technology age: That would be Windows Phone 7. Where are all of these devices running Windows Phone 7? What is this elusive "Mango" build I've read about? They must be selling like hotcakes because Microsoft won't give me one to review.

I've waited a week to write this post because there has been a lot of newsy stuff going on. Google+ has been newsy and topical since June 28, but it's also growing increasingly noisy, with what comScore claims are 20 million people using the service. That makes for one hell of a noisebox to filter. And filtering is one area Google+ is lacking. What? Did you think I was going to write about Google+' name and blame game issues? http://www.techmeme.

Google is facing an antitrust investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. Every acquisition Google makes of size is investigated by the FTC or the Justice Department. The company stumbled through 2010 with two major privacy gaffes with Street View and Google Buzz. It is looking to expand its cloud computing purview and push more aggressively into clean power, which has been hyped by a few presidential offices with little action.

Florian Mueller, who is doing yeoman's work for media by poring over meat and minutiae in the legal salvos between Oracle and Google over Android, has dug up some new meat from the latest filing in the patent infringement case. That is that Google has signaled a willingness )or resignation( to pay Oracle some cash for its use of Java technology, whose patents Oracle owns through the acquisition of Sun Microsystems.