Google Acquires Frommer's

Google is acquiring print travel brand Frommer's for an undisclosed sum. Google Local might be in for some big changes.

Google is purchasing the venerable Frommer's travel guide brand from publishers John Wiley & Sons. Under the terms of the deal, which are undisclosed, Google will also get the travel database. It is not known whether Google will continue to publish Frommer's guidebooks in print.

The decision to acquire Frommer's brings Google their second print brand--regardless of whether they continue to publish. Zagat, also a travel property, was purchased by Google in 2011. “Our commitment is to keep things as they are today and once we combine operations, we'll know better what the future looks like,” Zagat's Bernardo Hernandez told The Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey Trachtenberg.

One of Google's major priorities has been the transformation of Google Maps and the Zagat-powered Google+ Local into a Yelp and Facebook killer. Frommer's databases are also used by Kayak to help fuel hotel searches. Although the last few years have been rough for print travel guides as the Internet ate away at their past dominance, Frommer's has extensive brand recognition and a large network of contacts throughout the travel and hospitality industries.

IBM Plans Research Lab In Kenya

Nairobi will play host to a new IBM research lab, one of 12 sprinkled worldwide. The lab will focus on tech innovations focused on solving local problems, while keeping costs low, IBM's senior VP of research, John Kelley, told the New York Times. IBM plans to have 50 members working at the facility in five years.

Google Faces U.K. Heat For Possible Tax Avoidance Issues

Google revealed, in its last financial release, that it paid just £6 million in tax to the U.K. authorities despite the fact the web giant's British operation turned over £395 million in 2011. Now the company is facing heat from the government, with a Labor MP of the Treasury Select Committee (an inner group in government responsible for some fiscal policy) condemning Google's low tax rate as "entirely immoral." Google's executives are likely be pulled before the Committee to explain their actions.

Google's British wing is run as a subsidiary of its Irish section, making the most of Ireland's low tax rates which are designed to spur high tech innovators to choose to base themselves in the nation (resulting in Dublin earning, to some, the status of Europe's silicon valley). Google has defended its tax payments as being within U.K. law.

Google rival Apple faced deep criticisms recently for pulling a so-called "double-Irish, with a Dutch sandwich" tax maneuver that also results in the company paying reduced tax in the U.S.

Olympic Athletes Win Big On Social Media

The results are in. The 2012 London Olympics were the most actively followed on social media so far. Twitter has swelled, and Facebook has grown to 900 million active compared to 400 million during the 2010 Winter Olympics and 100 million during the 2008 summer games in Beijing.

New figures from Wildfire, the social ad firm that Google recently acquired, found that star athletes--Usain Bolt from Jamaica, Roger Federer from Switzerland and Russia's Maria Sharapova--powered their home nations to the top three spots for countries with the most global reach. U.S. gymnast Gabby Douglas picked up a record number of Facebook followers--more than 550,000 in the month since mid-July, Wildfire says, leaping from 14,000 followers to 582,912 by August 12. Marcel Nguyen and Camille Muffat came in second and third place, each crossing 194,000 and 124,000 Facebook followers by the time the games closed.

Twitter says that the Olympics fueled 150 million tweets in total, spiking at 80,000 tweets per minute during Usain Bolt's closely watched 200 meters race. Bolt, followed by Michael Phelps and Tom Daley took the top spots on the Most Tweeted About list. A report from Starcount says Phelps added 1 million Twitter followers putting his total fan count at 1.2 million. Douglas, at last count, has a little over 650,000 followers on Twitter.

Facebook and Twitter, social media organizers like Shazam, and news organizations like the BBC and NBC News have been bending over backwards to collaborate at this summers' games, to tap into this accelerated engagement.

Bluefin Labs, the TV social media analytics firm has jumped in with numbers on how they performed. Bluefin says it recorded 36 million tweets and comments related to NBCU coverage of the games. In total, anywhere, Bluefin counted 86 million Olympics-related tweets and Facebook comments fly between July 27 and August 12.

FTC Finds Facebook's "Verified Apps" Scheme Unverifiable

An FTC investigation into Facebook's security and privacy activities has thrown up some red flags. For six months in 2009 Facebook charged developers to enroll their apps in a verification program. An FTC report suggests that Facebook pocketed the cash but did not carry out the suggested extra checks. (Facebook ended the program after the six-month period.) The first details about the Verified Apps program came to light when the FTC first published its report in November 2011, which led Facebook and the FTC to a settlement. Among the terms of that settlement, Facebook agreed to be audited every 20 years. The settlement was finalized on Friday.

Developers paid an extra $375 (or $175 if the developer was a student or belonged to a nonprofit organization) and would receive a Verified App badge and green check mark at the end. Facebook earned $95,000 through the scheme, the Guardian reports.

"In many instances Facebook has permitted a Platform Application to display its Verified Apps badge when its review of the application’s security has not exceeded its review of other Platform Applications," the FTC explains in its report. In doing so, the FTC suggests that Facebook deceived developers as well as Facebook users.

Motorola Mobility To Cut Staff By A Fifth, Close One Third Of Offices

Motorola Mobility announced on Sunday that it is going to slash around 20% of its global workforce and will also shut down a third of its offices. This equates to about 4,000 staff, one third of which will be in the U.S., along with reduced focus on its Chicago and Sunnyvale R&D efforts. There's also a simultaneous restructuring of the company's executives.

The cost-cutting and restructuring are part of efforts to reshape Motorola Mobility, the part of Motorola that is essentially its handset business, in order to align with the needs of its new owner Google. Google bought the ailing business for $12.5 billion, possibly more for its patents than its other assets, and the company has continued to deliver losses in the weeks since the deal finally closed.