Everybody has been writing about Google + for the last week and it certainly has lots of buzz. It might not be a tide yet but it is certainly a strong ripple on the edge ofFacebook’s shores. So where does this leave Facebook and what is the company feeling at the moment? This is certainly the biggest threat it has ever faced from a competitor who has put years of work into a project and has very deep pockets and considerable marketing reach....

Unlike the iPhone, Android users are free to download apps from sources other than Google’s official Android Market. With Google not yet offering paid-for apps in the Android Market in all territories and some manufacturers not including access to the Market at all, alternative stores can be an attractive way for developers to reach a wider potential audience. However, are they worth trying from a user’s perspective? With the news this week that Amazon is now busypreparingto sell Android apps itself later this year, we thought we’d round up all the current alternative Android app stores that are already available....

The Windows platform has had a plethora of music players compared to Mac OS X, where iTunes has pretty much been the leading player in the field. I still remember the days when ‘iTunes’ was just that — an app to play, control and manage your music tunes. Today, the app has been stuffed up to its brim with features ranging from the ability to manage your iOS device to having a library of Movies and TV Shows....

The old adage that success breeds success underpins most monopolies. Whether it’s search engines or social networks, hegemony stems from success. A good case in point isGoogle,which not only has the lion’s share of the search market, but it’s also the world’s most visited website according to Alexa’srankingsystem. And Google-ownedYouTubeis the world’s third most visited website, testament to the popularity of video-sharing among the Web’s populace. But in the same way as Linux and Android (the latter of which falls under the auspices of Google too) offer open-source operating systems for those opposed to the Microsoft and Apple duopolies, there are alternatives to YouTube....

6 beefy bits of advice for the recently self-employed Make 2021 yours 1. Protect boundaries For self-employed people, boundaries can be blurry. This includes those between work and the rest of life, working for different clients, and working on personal business and on clients’ businesses. This can be caused by the income insecurity inherent in self-employed work,clients’ expectationsfor availability around the clock or renegotiation of agreed work, which creates complications in competing demands....