IndustryGoogle+ Stream Filtering Upgrade In Works

Google+ Stream Filtering Upgrade In Works

Google plans to add filtering mechanisms to Google+, allowing users to receive more relevant social content as the company seeks to challenge rival Facebook. Elsewhere, Eric Schmidt calls U.S. authorities "idiots" and visits new Paris headquarters.

Google Plus Social ProjectGoogle plans to add filtering mechanisms to Google+, allowing users to receive more relevant social content as the company seeks to challenge rival Facebook.

“Noise control” will soon be added to the social site, and “we have a team figuring out how to do it right now,” Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said at the Le Web conference in Paris.

Google+ users currently have few ways to receive specific content from their circles relating to a particular topic. Google doesn’t second guess its users by promoting content it thinks they will find most interesting above the ongoing activity feed.

However, Schmidt argued that Google is in a good position to filter content for social network users, as essentially it is a “ranking company.” He said in his view the filtering should be based on algorithms, which would promote certain content above others.

“For the average person this filtering would be seamless,” Schmidt said. “But more technically sophisticated people would be able to manage their own filters.”

Schmidt also spoke about how Google benefits from the information people share over the Google+ network. “For instance, we can use the information to better select YouTube videos for users,” he said.

The executive also touched on Google’s move into TV. Schmidt said that the majority of TVs will have Google TV embedded by the summer of 2012, although the firm has no plans to buy a TV hardware provider despite its recent move into the smartphone market with the purchase of Motorola Mobility.

Schmidt: Silicon Valley Needs Competition; U.S. Authorities are ‘Idiots’

Also at Le Web, Schmidt argued that Silicon Valley needs to have more competitors on the world stage.

Schmidt said he considered a number of European cities to be eligible rivals for the California tech hub. Schmidt named Paris specifically, although this may well have been because Le Web took place in the French capital.

“Today’s entrepreneurs tend to break out young, they are risk taking, they are less family oriented, and these kinds of people prefer cities,” Schmidt said. “Also the diversity that cities offer tends to produce stronger organizations.”

Schmidt said the role of governments in creating the next Silicon Valley should be to ensure all citizens have access to fixed and wireless broadband. “Then the government should let the citizens do everything else,” he said.

Schmidt also told entrepreneurs attending the event that he thinks his country’s authorities are “idiots” for having such strict visa regulations that deprives the U.S. of innovative ideas.

“You can’t move to the U.S. because we are idiots and we won’t give you a visa,” said Schmidt.

Google also opened new headquarters in Paris, which will serve as Google’s “headquarters not just for France, but our entire Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa operations.”

This article was originally published on V3.

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