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Google Buzz, the social media service that has not been as popular as expected, attracted a lot of unfavourable attention in February due to privacy concerns. At that stage Buzz, which aggregates social media content, automatically included Gmail users’ frequent contacts on their public Buzz profiles.

However even though Google quickly changed their policy to give its users a better understanding of the privacy features of the service, they still got stuck when Gmail user Eva Hibnick filed a lawsuit against the company in February.

Apparently the proceedings of the settlement of $8.5m will be donated to non-profit privacy groups according to the text of the settlement which was made available to the public. The settlement also requires Google to “undertake wider public education” about how the privacy aspects of Buzz works, but no specifics were provided.

The more established social networking sites continue to expand while Google Buzz does not seem to be gaining a foothold. In fact Google has never disclosed how many users Buzz has. Application bugs and the privacy problems in February have certainly not helped. At the sort of scale Google Buzz is aiming at, only a few social networks including Twitter, Facebook and MySpace really matter.

Buzz is supposed to make it easier for users to integrate the information feeds they receive on each of these networks. In addition, Buzz also collates all the contact information and profile information of friends and acquaintances that an individual has listed on their various social networks. It is an appealing product but the jury is out on whether Buzz will gain any traction soon.

Intertrust has bought the assets of Seeqpod – the online search and recommendation engine. Since April 2009, SeeqPod ceased its service and has filed for bankruptcy but may now be resurrected by Intertrust. SeeqPod developed a web crawler that indexed playable search results across a wide variety of media including audio, video, podcasts and so on. SeeqPod was powered by an algorithm developed to aid biologists understand complex genetic connections called GenoPharm. This was adapted to enhance search by linking complex information in the same way the human brain might.

Now, Intertrust has announced that it has bought all software and patents produced by SeeqPod including the GenoPharm algorithm. This is nothing new for Intertrust who already hold over 150 patents in the US and over 300 worldwide but they plan to incorporate SeeqPod’s technology into search across many platforms. For example, Internet TV, targeted advertising, recommendation systems and e-music distribution are some of the potential uses for SeeqPod software.

Intertrust may also use the software in their existing digital rights management business as well in their other ventures like SyncTV and Beyond Oblivion. These in particular stand to benefit from SeeqPod technology.  The new IPTV project also stands to benefit as Intertrust has been involved in Project Canvas and Marlin. Interestingly, it has been reported that Microsoft has bought a comprehensive license to the company for a rumoured one-time payment of US $440 million which means they may now be looking to incorporate the SeeqPod engine into their music offering.

The days of obscure paper manuals could be numbered as ShowUHow gets enough money to start work on its online instruction manual service. The San Diego based business has received a $3 million investment from Syncom Venture Partners to continue developing the service.

ShowUHow has created online video guides for products sold at BestBuy, CocstCo and others – akin to an official video e-how or videojug presentation. However, unlike the crowd sourced competitors, ShowUhow’s platform can also help consumers order spare parts, register for warranties and submit support requests. The website can also generate analytics which can be helpful to pro-actively identify trends and should ultimately improve customer service.

The videos are aimed at products that consumers might find difficult to assemble or use without a manual. The videos give a live, step by step re-enactment of using the product and are more effective than a printed and usually difficult to decipher paper manual.

ShowUHow claims that its instructional videos are so good that it can actually reduce product returns and customer support costs.  Not only that, it claims that sales are also improved thanks to the increased confidence that consumers have in their ability to assemble products once they see the simple assembly procedure demonstrated in the video.

The application provides a deep benefit to consumers who would otherwise have great difficulty in following a print manual. This and the ability to order parts and complimentary products makes it valuable for consumers. In turn, sellers of self-assembly products should be willing to pay to put their products on ShowUHow.

Placecast, the SMS-based advertising company was founded in 2005. Since then it’s been developing its text based advertisement model. With its newly announced partnership with Location Labs, Placecast has extended its reach to over 180 million US consumers.

This means that up to 60% of US consumers could soon be receiving texts from the ShopAlerts service. This service uses the Location Labs API to allow customers of Placecast to send texts, IM’s and tweets to consumers who have opted in to receiving offers based on location and shipping preferences.

This so-called ‘geo-fencing’ model has been used by the well-known brand, The North Face. Location Labs uses carrier information to work out consumer location so no extra wireless apps need to be downloaded to smartphones or other devices. This differentiates the service from others such as Shopkick which uses Foursquare or others to harvest location data.

The targeted nature of the advertising makes this delivery mode more efficient and represents better value for money for the advertiser. At the same time, consumers must double opt-in to the service and the brands that their interested so the message is far less likely to be disregarded as spam.

Exciting times for consumers and marketers but the question is whether anyone will actually opt in. As with similar services it is the number that will make or break profitability so Placecast and Location Labs will need to make sure their combined efforts attract enough users to make the venture profitable.

Formspring.me, the question and answer service, has seen their user base pushing the 16 million users mark, and that’s only since they’ve launched. This equates to about one billion questions answered between now and last November.

In common with other early start-ups, the feature list has been a bit light allowing developers time to concentrate on core business but this is set to change. Notably, Formspring is launching connections, allowing users to form connections by answering questions.

This is in contrast to the Twitter / Facebook follow functionality. The system will use weightings to sort connections by ‘strength’ but it’s important to note that it doesn’t work with anonymous questions and answers.  More features are planned and some have been developed by third parties.

The iPhone app has been developed by taptivate which may or may not license the application back to formspring, regardless an iPhone presence is sure to boost the site’s user base substantially and an Android app is likely to follow very soon. The site has recently acquired the ability to connect with your friends on Facebook, twitter or MySpace and your contacts can be harvested from your Gmail or yahoo contacts. With these and other features it seems that the company’s mission is expanding from its original “ask my anything” motto.

Although it’s recently been cruised from some quarters who say the site has been used for cyber bullying thanks to its anonymity the user numbers speak for themselves and the user numbers say that Formspring seems to be on the up.

Spotify Music Pro@ile is the new feature set from popular music service Spotify. Integrating with Facebook, Spotify believes it has created a true social music network. Spotify’s goal is to be ‘your only music source’ in what Daniel Ek, Spotify’s founder and chief executive, says is the ‘the biggest change to Spotify since our launch’.

The star feature is the new Facebook integration option, which allows a user to view the tracks that their friends are listening to, as well as a feature allowing them to recommend songs. When signed in, the Spotify/Facebook feature will appear in a people sidebar, listing all Facebook friends who are also subscribed to the Spotify feature.

Spotify now also integrates with the music library on a user’s PC, allowing users to merge their own tracks into Spotify playlists. Using the Gracenote service, Spotify imports and titles the music on the local PC. Premium users can synchronise their playlist with Spotify’s mobile client which works even if the artist is not in the Spotify database, as Spotify will wirelessly upload the content.

Spotify is a closed peer to peer music service streaming application from a Swedish company. The service features instant playing of any track or album, with no buffering. The new features are part of the Spotify 0.4.3 software which is being rolled out now, although Spotify says it might take a while to reach all users, there is currently no way to force the upgrade.