Google’s decision to cease its operation in China is edging closer to reality after months of negotiations. China Business News reports that Google plans to leave China on April 10. The report cites an unidentified Google China employee, but this information has not been confirmed by Google. Allegedly, Google gave its…

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here . The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: Trada Quick Pitch: Trada’s online marketplace boosts Google and Yahoo …

Google has released the Google Buzz widget for Android , which will make updating your status or tagging your location easier. Google first launched Google Buzz for mobile about six weeks ago, and while the overall Buzz platform has undergone some changes and refinements, the mobile aspect of the service hasn’t …

Digg this week unveiled plans to become a hub of web content, adding Twitter and Facebook shares to its Digg counts to present a more complete view of what’s popular on the web. What’s more, Digg will soon let you log in with any of your social networking accounts — or even…

The Social Analyst is a weekly column by Mashable Co-Editor Ben Parr , where he digs into social media trends and how they are affecting companies in the space. Two months ago, Google threatened to shut down its China search engine over censorship . Yet until today, its China search engine has stayed up with …

If you had to pick the one buzzword that’s dominating social media chatter today, it would have to be location . Just over a year ago, Foursquare burst onto the scene at the SXSW conference in Austin, TX. Since then, it’s only grown dramatically . The result has been a battle for…

It’s a bit funny to hear Microsoft referring to any other company as the “Goliath,” but when it comes to the business of search, there’s no doubt that Google has managed to overshadow Microsoft’s efforts, which prompted Microsoft to ditch Live Search and start anew with Bing . …

The Android Market may still lag behind the iPhone App Store in terms of variety and quality, but there is something to be said for the Android operating system’s extremely tight integration with existing Google products, and the wide choice of devices and carriers. There’s no question that the iPhone has many wonderful…

Retweet.com , a competitor to the much more popular Tweetmeme service, has put itself on the auction block. Retweet.com launched six months ago , declaring war on its Twitter story aggregating competitor. The service did almost exactly the same things as Tweetmeme: discover the most retweeted and shared stories on Twitter while…

At the Mobile World Congress, Google CEO Eric Schmidt showed off a new prototype of Google Goggles — Google’s experimental Android visual search application — that can translate text captured in photos. The prototype uses Google’s machine translation technology and image recognition capabilities to create an additional layer of useful context. …