Google invested $607 million in its Internet infrastructure in the first quarter of 2012, significantly lower than its spending in the previous quarter.

While Google’s top brass were busy dissecting the company’s Q1 earnings on their scheduled conference call, it was business as usual for the rest of the company. Over on the official Android Developers blog, for example, Google announced that developers in the Czech Republic, Mexico, Israel, and Poland can now sell Android apps and in-app additions in the Google Play store (and in their native currencies to boot).

“But wait,” you may say. “Developers from Israel and Mexico have been able to sell their apps for years now!” You’d be absolutely right — the Czech Republic and Poland are the only really new additions, but there was a bit of a catch for the other two.

At the time, developers in Mexico and Israel could only sell their apps through an AdSense merchant account and set prices in US dollars. With this new change in place, Google now supports both countries’ respective currencies. The process for Israeli or Mexican developers to make the transition seems a bit hairy though — Google outlines the whole thing here, and it involves creating a new Google account and re-registering with Google Play.

So what does this mean for you developers? Well, unless you live in one of the aforementioned countries, not a whole lot. While most of the work will have to be done by developers operating out of those locales, Google stills suggests that you consider whether or not you want to set a specific price for each of those new markets instead of just letting your default price ride.

Those minor issues aside, Google now officially supports paid application sales from developers in 31 countries. It sounds pretty good until you realize that it’s taken over a year and a half for Google to add these new names to the list of supported countries. I’m sure that developers in those countries will appreciate that Google has finally gotten around to them, but there are still quite a few that haven’t.

A link to the post was shared by the Android Developers Google+ account, inspiring a litany of requests from people asking Google to support their countries as well, prompting Android Developer Relations Lead Reto Meier to apologize for the delay. Then again, Google’s always been very upfront about this sort of thing — they note in their list of seller countries that they are “unable to provide any guidance on timelines.”

Last December, Google launched Currents, its attempt at challenging popular mobile apps like Flipboard and Zite. Since then, the company has added about 400 new publishers and over 14,000 self-published editions to its lineup . Until now, though, Currents, which runs on Android and iOS, was only available in the United States. That’s changing today, as Google is taking Currents global. Local publishers can now start adding their content to the app and U.S. publishers can now turn on a translation feature to make their texts available in any of the 44 languages that are supported by Google Translate.

Among the international publishers who are already using Google Currents are The Guardian in the UK, LaStampa in Italy, Financial Times Deutschland in Germany, ABC News in Australia, Neue Zürcher Zeitung in Switzerland and Hindustan Times in India.

The translation feature, though, is what Google really wants to highlight in this release. Given that it’s based on Google Translate, those translations can be a bit rough at time, though they are generally good enough to get the general gist of an article.

This new version of Currents also sports a new “dynamic sync feature,” which ensures that articles are downloaded immediately when you open the app without having to press the sync button. Currents’ users can now also download select editions for offline reading.

Google this morning is announcing a new look for its social network, Google+, which introduces a revamped navigation, with drag-and-drop elements and actions that appear when you hover over each item, as well as the introduction of new features aimed at making it easier to discover conversations to join, new profile pages, a dedicated page for Google+ Hangouts (Google+’s multi-person video chat offering), and more.

It’s interesting that Google+ has now changed its design, after its first efforts received such praise. But, after using the service for some time, it became clear that Google+’s navigational elements became a little cluttered. That “share a YouTube video” feature, for example, which popped out a box on the right side of the screen, felt tacked on.

The new interface drops the static icons at the top and moves all the navigation off to the side, allowing users to reorder the icons as they wish. The list includes access to all of Google+’s features, including Hangouts, Photos, Circles, Games, your Profile page, an Explore option for browsing the site, and an icon called “More” which will hold all the icons you don’t care to see.

As you hover over each icon, related actions will appear. For example, hover over Photos for access to a big red button to “Add Photos” from either your phone or your albums.

The Explore icon is also a new addition, and takes you to a page showing the trending and popular content across the network.

Meanwhile, Google+’s version of the News Feed has been redesigned, too, and now features full bleed photos and “conversation cards,” which better separate each post and the discussion from the next by wrapping it in a box. Activity surrounding the content – like how many people “plussed” it or re-shared your post – is also now available directly beneath your shared item in a drop-down box (the “activity drawer”).

Hangouts, which have always been one of the network’s main selling points, are now being better highlighted in the refreshed site, and now have their own dedicated page, featuring a list of Hangout invitations from people in your Circles, easy access to live and public Hangouts, and a rotating billboard showing popular Hangouts, and other information.

There are other improvements, too, including a new profile page with bigger photos, and a new chat list that’s now in off in the sidebar.

In highlighting the new features, Google also mentions that Google+ now has over 170 million users. However, it’s still counting those who share via Search, Gmail, YouTube and other places across Google’s network – so, again, it’s not a real count of how many users are visiting Google+ as a destination of its own.

Editor’s Note: Ian Lurie is CEO of Portent Inc, an internet marketing agency that he founded in 1995. He co-published Web Marketing All-In-One for Dummies, where he wrote the sections on SEO, blogging, social media and web analytics. He also wrote Conversation Marketing: Internet Marketing Strategies.

I’m a Google-phile. Or at least, I was. Lately, my gut’s felt a bit wobbly every time someone mentions the big G. Page, Brin and company have lost their focus. Once, they helped us all find the stuff we needed. Now, they spend their time in slap fights with Facebook. It’s almost like the Googlers are no longer in charge at Google.

That’s because they’re not. The Google IPO put the company’s fate in the hands of investors. And it’s ruined the company. IPO-bashing is popular right now. But I’m not just jumping on the bandwagon here. The evidence is pretty damning: Pre-IPO, Google was laser-focused on being the best tool on earth for search-and-discovery, and they appeared unstoppable. Post-IPO, the company has lurched from one social media debacle to another.

Google’s total victory

Google owns search. According to Search Engine Land, Bing still only holds 15% market share. Google? 66%. That’s a mind-boggling lead when you consider the money Microsoft has poured into promoting their search engine. Put an average apartment complex next to the Empire State Building. That’s the difference between Bing and Google.

Google has the closest thing to total victory they’re likely to get. The also-rans don’t compete with them—they compete with each other. And everyone’s an also-ran.

How Google makes money

Google makes its money with their pay-per-click network, Google Adwords. Advertisers purchase clicks, one click at a time, in a modified, keyword-based auction. The Adwords model is brilliant. Correctly implemented, it’s a money-generating machine for everyone involved, including Google.

In 2011, Adwords accounted for at least 95% of the company’s income. But it has its limits: In an Adwords model, clicks are your inventory. When you run out of inventory, your revenue stops growing. That’s OK. You can make incremental gains by getting more clicks, and you can get more clicks with better, more ubiquitous search tools.

The IPO trap

But post-IPO, incremental revenue growth isn’t enough. Stock prices are emotional, and incremental isn’t exciting. If you want shareholders to love you, you have to make them a lot of money. That means dramatically outperforming last quarter’s numbers.

In 2011, Google earned $103 million per day. That’s a staggering amount, particularly if you’ve got shareholders clamoring for you to crush your past numbers. To do so, Google will have to find an entire new line of business: A new source of advertising revenue to match Adwords. Or, they’ll have to find a massive new venue in which to place Adwords.

Ironically, Google’s penalized by their success: They’re so dominant in search that they must go far, far outside their expertise to maintain their share price.

IPOs force a company to forever outperform past results, no matter how miraculous. That’s where Google is, right now: Pushed to surpass total victory in their space, they have to move on to an entirely different one.

Suspicious timing

Google didn’t attempt to create their own social network until Orkut. That was early 2004, just before they filed for their IPO. At that point, the pressure was already building to find a new way to generate shareholder value.

How’d Orkut do? Do you remember it? Didn’t think so. Sidewiki? Failed. Friend Connect? Gone. Google Wave didn’t even get past testing. Now we’ve got Google Plus, which is showing some of the worst engagement numbers of any major social media site.

Success is beside the point

I think Google Plus has a lot of strengths. It could succeed. But even if it does, the social media red herring so distracts Google from search that the giant will become vulnerable, for the first time. And understand: Search generates Google’s dramatic revenue numbers. Not social media.

And make no mistake: Google’s work in social is compromising their search supremacy: They’ve ended their ‘firehose’ agreement with Twitter. That agreement allowed them to deliver near-real-time results from one of the internet’s biggest social networks. Now, they don’t get instant access to Twitter posts.

In addition, Google’s started showing Plus posts in search results. That works if Google Plus reaches critical mass, where most Google users are also Plus users. But that’s not currently the case.

By stuffing Google Plus posts into search results and excluding Twitter/Facebook results, they’re cutting off two huge content sets, and replacing them with a smaller, less relevant one. That is not good for the relevance of their results.

So, even if Google Plus survives and grows, it’s unlikely the benefits to Google will outweigh the costs. And Google wouldn’t be doing this, I think, if not for their shareholders.

What’s next?

Google is now beholden to shareholders. They can’t change that. What they can do is stop pandering, and start leveraging their greatest strengths:

They own two of the largest search engines in the world: Google and YouTube. They know more about information discovery than any of their competitors. They have a dominant e-mail toolset in GMail. They have the biggest information corpus in the world. They have a mountain of cash.

It’ll be hard to do. Shareholders get excited about social media, not about a better search tool. But for shareholders and Googlers alike, real success will come from strong, sustainable growth. And that depends more on growing their strengths than struggling against their weaknesses.

Back in November, we reported that Sean Garrett, Twitter’s Head of Comms, would be stepping down from his post. As he tweeted at the time, for the first time in his career, he would be taking more than a two week break between jobs. Since Garrett stepped down, Karen Wickre, who was hired shortly before Garrett’s departure, has been filling in an interim role.

Today, Twitter moved to more officially fill the vacancy, as Gabriel Stricker, the Director of Global Communications & Public Affairs at Google, will become the new Head of Comms. Stricker tweeted the news on a seemingly brand new Twitter page. His official title will be VP of Communications.

When reached for comment, the new Twitter employee was reluctant to elaborate beyond what he’d said in his tweet, other than that he enjoyed his 5+ years at Google and is looking forward to new challenges at Twitter.

I’m thrilled to be joining Twitter — and thankful for my time at Google. Both are more than just companies. They’re movements.

— Gabriel Stricker (@gabrielstricker) April 5, 2012

Image credit: Mediabistro & Nancy Lazarus

Google announced an expansion ot its data center in Pryor, Oklahoma that will add a second building at the campus. The company said the initiative will double its server capacity in Oklahoma and add 50 jobs, primarily for local residents.

According to new data released today by mobile analytics firm Flurry, Amazon’s Appstore for Android is generating more revenue for mobile developers than the Google Android Market, which was recently rebranded as the Google Play store. That shouldn’t be surprising, given that Amazon vets apps for quality, runs promotions to entice users to return daily, and perhaps most importantly, is able to leverage its established user base of Amazon account holders who already have credit card information on file – perfect for one-click checkouts.

To generate its figures, Flurry examined a set of top-ranked apps that have a presence on all three stores: Apple, Amazon and Google Play. Combined, the apps average 11 million daily active users.

Flurry set the revenue generated in the iTunes App Store to 100%, then compared the relative revenue generated by Amazon and Google to that of the App Store. In doing so, the firm found that Amazon revenue is 89% of App Store revenue and Google revenue is 23% of App Store revenue. Or, in other words, for every dollar an iOS app makes, it generates 89 cents in the Amazon Appstore and 23 cents in Google Play.

The findings back up Flurry’s December report, which found the Android Market to generate 23 cents of revenue for every dollar generated by iTunes.

Flurry cites Amazon’s online retail prowess as reason for its success. “Amazon, who invented the one-click purchase, perfected online shopping with data, efficiency, and customer service,” says Flurry’s VP of Marketing Peter Farago. Meanwhile, running a store – whether digital or retail – is not one of Google’s core competencies, he notes.

The data speaks to Amazon’s potential (or really, its place) as a viable third ecosystem for developers looking to generate revenue, which leaves one wondering where the Microsoft/Nokia ecosystem will fit in. Can the mobile app ecosystem support it as a strong fourth player one day, too?

Farago tells us that Flurry believes it can. “We believe that Microsoft + Nokia have a lot of the key assets to succeed, from a powerful OS, hardware know-how and, most importantly, building robust third party developer support. We are bullish on their progress,” he says.

He also suggests that Amazon’s success may leave other players considering similar tactics – that is, forking Android to build their own Android-flavored OS and associated app store.

Samsung, specifically, is called out as one company that might see this path as appealing. Farago explains that most OEMs want to differentiate their software, if for no other reason than to please carriers which want unique phones.

“Software is the easiest way to achieve this,” he says. “If all hardware makers have the same software, then differentiation drops.”

With Amazon’s growth as a revenue generator for developers as well as a new hardware competitor, Flurry thinks Samsung may be considering its own Android fork.

“If you put together the idea that OEMs want differentiation and Amazon is now competing strongly against Samsung in the tablet category, as well as its ability to make revenue for developers, then a fork for Samsung becomes a real strategic choice to consider,” Farago explains. “Let’s also not forget that apps will soon be on TVs, where Samsung already has a strong footprint in hardware. Finally, Samsung has Bada. If they haven’t switched to that already, then it’s because Android is working for them well enough, until possibly now. If that’s the case, a fork of Android again looks like an alternative to evaluate.”

Here we go again: the rumors of Google branching out into the tablet space have been floating around for what seems like ages now, and the Wall Street Journal has jumped into the fray. They cite the usual handful of unnamed sources, who this time say that Google is planning to open up their own online store a la Amazon to sell Android tablets.

Not just any Android tablets, mind you — co-branded ones that bear Google’s name along with that of the manufacturer. Google does many things (some better than other), but they’re definitely not in the consumer hardware production game. Instead, Google is said to be working with hardware experts at Asus and Samsung (and presumably Motorola at some point), and is also considering the possibility of subsidizing the tablet’s price to fall in line with devices like Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

If these whispers hold true, then Google could be onto something. That theoretical store could already have a flagship if the oft-rumored $199 Nexus Tablet actually materializes, and the package only gets sweeter if it ends up running Jelly Bean, which the WSJ reports will hit in mid-2012. To date, the only Android tablet to give the iPad a run for its money is the Fire, but if Google can get close in price while beating them out on specs, Amazon could be in trouble. The formula may not exactly prove to be an iPad killer, but a strong second place in the tablet race is nothing to sneeze at.

What gets me though is how Google is reportedly thinking of selling these things. Google has toyed with this sort of online retail model before — the Nexus One was sold unsubsidized by Google, even though T-Mobile provided the network for it. By the time Google’s next Nexus made the rounds though, the search giant wised up and tapped Best Buy to help put the Nexus S into people’s hungry hands. Getting those tablets out into meatspace could do wonders for visibility, and brick and mortar retail certainly has a sense of immediacy about it — there’s little delay between seeing something you want and owning it.

Still, the direct-to-consumer approach has its advantages. By cutting out the retail middleman, Google gets to retain that much more control over the situation (not to mention the revenue they don’t have to share with stores). The Nexus One seems like a dicey precendent, but people who shied away from it didn’t do so because it was a bad phone, they did so because it was $529.99 without a contract. With potentially aggressively priced tablets and a decent payments system in tow, Google should be able to lock up this new revenue stream pretty tightly. That is, of course, if they can keep on top of demand for a cheap, Google-approved tablet.

Not to load you up on Google news today or anything, but in addition to the launch of Google’s new Activity Reports this morning, the company is also announcing the arrival of some of its first fully featured apps for Google+ Hangouts.

For the most part, the starter set of Hangout apps are designed for having fun and playing games with others, save for the addition of +SlideShare and +Cacoo. Arguably the two most practical new arrivals, SlideShare’s app lets Google+ users view presentations, documents and videos together, while +Cacoo supports wire-framing, mind-mapping and collaborative diagramming.

Hangouts, for those still uninitiated with Google+ lingo, are the multi-person video chats that can support up to 10 participants at a time. No matter what you may think of the social network, and Google’s change in strategy to support it, Hangouts can be thought of as one of Google+’s saving graces. It would have made for a killer standalone product.

In any event, Google’s announcement today (via Google+ post, no doubt) indicates that the first few third-party Hangout apps are finally available to try. These will be found within the Hangout itself, and can be accessed by clicking the new “Apps” button. Hangouts will be also be sorted into “Featured” and “Recent” groups here.

The full list of new Hangout Apps includes:

1) +Aces Hangout, for playing poker with friends, face-to-face-to-face
2)  Clubhouse Challenge by +Bravo, for testing your pop culture IQ against other teams
3) +Cacoo, for wire-framing, mind-mapping and diagramming with others
4)  Google Effects, for trying on headwear, eyewear or facial hair
5) +Scoot & Doodle, for drawing and coloring with the people you care about
6) +SlideShare, for co-viewing presentations, docs and videos

We covered Aces Hangout back while it was in testing, as it looked then like one of the more promising uses for the Hangouts technology. The app connects users to play a real world game of poker, and, thanks to the real-time video streams, users have to actually keep a poker face, so as not to give away their attempt at bluffing.

Today, however, there are a few more apps that look interesting – like the Draw Something-esque Scoot & Doodle - but the ones that may have the most potential are those that let users collaborate on work: SlideShare and Cacoo. In the SlideShare app, for example, users don’t just view an embedded slideshow, they can actually watch as someone gives a presentation of that show, switching between the presenter and slide itself at will.

Google says that Hangouts API has been available publicly since last September, but today is the first time that those apps can actually be accessed by anyone in the world.

A post on the Google+ Developer blog today informs us that the API is now also moving out of preview mode, allowing developers to launch and share apps with the entire Google+ community. Developers can post links to their apps directly on Google+ to get the word out and they can add a new “hangout button” to their website, in order to promote their app.

You can see the full list of new apps here.