Who would bet against Facebook today, as it readies for the largest initial public offering (IPO) in the United States in the coming months?

Yet, amid the excitement, one thing that investors will read about is this troubling reminder of the threat coming from rival social networking efforts from the likes of Google, which can take away key advertising dollars.

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Google is spreading some Christmas cheer this holiday season with an “easter egg” that will unleash snow flakes on the screen right after you enter “let it snow” in a Google search box.

Once the screen has been filled with snow, there’s a button to defrost the screen, though snow flakes will continue to make their descent on the first page of the search results. …

Google started the building of a new data centre in Singapore on Thursday, a US$120 million facility which represents the Internet giant’s expansion of operations in the region.

“More users are coming online in Asia than anywhere else in the world,” said Julian Persaud, head of Google Southeast Asia at a launch event. Projected to go online in 2013, the new data centre promises to serve this growing demand by delivering fast and reliable access to Google services.

In addition, the data centre will boost the local job market in a small way, as Google is hiring a small team of full-time staff as well as a number of contractors in a variety of roles, including computer technicians, electrical and mechanical engineers, and catering and security staff. …

One of the most loved Android phones and certainly the most long-lasting – the Google Nexus One – looks to finally have a worthy successor in the Samsung-made Galaxy Nexus out in Singapore in January 2012.

For a long time, the Nexus One’s sleek lines, zippy performance and first access to the latest Google Android OS releases have made it a phone to cherish for folks who bought it when it first hit the stores about two years ago.

Since then, brighter and better screens, as well as dual-core chips and faster graphics processors have appeared on newer gizmos, but the Nexus One’s basic design and simple Android OS without any third-party manufacturer add-ons still kept it a favourite among Android geeks.

In the Galaxy Nexus, they will find a worthy upgrade. The Nexus model immediately after the Nexus One, the Nexus S made by Samsung last year, was interesting, but it didn’t feel as slim, as sturdy or as much of an upgrade to the original. …

The Galaxy Nexus, the first of many phones bearing Google’s latest Android 4.0 operating system, will hit the shelves in Singapore in January 2012, to the delight of Android fans who have waited a long time for a new Google-branded device.

Though it won’t make it in time for the holiday season, the Samsung-made gizmo will come with all the goodies on the “Ice Cream Sandwich” OS that were unveiled in Hong Kong about three weeks ago. Among these: a face recognition feature that unlocks the phone by detecting a user’s face, and updated Gmail features.

However, all the bells and whistles will come at a cool S$948, said Samsung at a regional media event.

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The next Nexus phone from Google and Samsung, the Galaxy Nexus, will start shipping in November with new features like an improved Gmail experience and the ability for the phone to unlock by simply recognising a user’s face.

They are part of Google’s new Android 4.0 operating system, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich, which will feature for the first time on the Galaxy Nexus, according to a Google show-and-tell in Hong Kong this morning. …

Stand aside, browser wars; a new battle is heating up between Microsoft and Google and this time, the battlefield is email.

Google fired the first shot by launching a new website called Email Intervention, designed to help you stage an intervention among your friends who still use that outdated email address from the 1990s. The accompanying video featuring an “intervention specialist” is cute, funny and completely in Google’s cheeky style.

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(Credit: Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Facebook has taken down an app developer’s ads promoting this Google+ account and promptly banned his other ads on the social networking site, as the tussle for control of the Internet heats up between the online giants.

According to reports over the weekend, Michael Lee Johnson had put up an ad telling fellow Facebook users to visit his Google+ page, where he claimed to be an “Internet geek, app developer (and) technological virtuoso”. But a few days later, Facebook yanked his ads out, saying that he had flouted their terms and conditions. …

Everybody is looking at social media as the next gold rush.

It’s not surprising, given that social media has moved beyond the consumer space and into the enterprise.

At a press event last week, infrastructure software company TIBCO showed off Tibbr 3.0, an social media platform for enterprises that will be available in August 2011.

Tibbr was launched in January this year after being in development since 2009.

It may be a little bit late to the game though, and gaining mindshare will be difficult as the market is quite crowded.

There are a ton of niche companies who specialize in this space like Yammer and Socialcast.

Not to mention all the big IT companies, who all have solutions or are looking at this space, like IBM (with Connections and Lotus Live) and Microsoft (with Office 365 and Officetalk) and Salesforce.com (with Chatter).

So what makes Tibbr different?

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This is it, folks. No more half-hearted and half-baked social products. Google has revealed their trump card in the war for your online social life and gone all in with their chips.  Google+ is an amalgamation of all of Google’s efforts to penetrate the social sphere thus far.

Although initially open only to a select number of users, the service has since expanded into the hands of quite a good chunk of people. But how will this latest foray into social networking fare for Google?  I spent the last few days playing with Google+ and messing around with it, so here’s my verdict, for what it’s worth.

Google+ is no Facebook killer, but it’s nothing to scoff at either. …