- Since launching its Google+ social network three years ago, Google has insisted that Google+ users use only their real names on the network — no pseudonyms. Perhaps in an effort to attract more users to Google+, the company has now abandoned its real-name policy — but has this change arrived too late to have an impact?
- Airbnb, perhaps the best known “sharing economy” platform, reportedly plans to launch a major redesign soon and may be moving well beyond its current business of providing short-term apartment rentals.
- LinkedIn has just acquired Newsle, a three-year-old service that scours the Web for news items regarding a user’s friends, colleagues and acquaintances (as gleaned from the user’s LinkedIn, Facebook and email contacts), and makes available such news items to the user.
