Android Market, Google’s official app market for Android, recently celebrated the milestone of ten billion total downloads. To commemorate the achievement, they released an infographic containing a slew of statistics about Android Market and its users.

Singapore, it turns out, is the fifth most app-crazed country in the world by downloads per capita. Asian nations are doing particularly well on this front, with the South Koreans coming out on top, followed by Hong Kong and Taiwan. The United States is the only non-Asian country in the top five.

Its most recent API, released on 4th October, gives developers access to Google+’s search functions, which calls up relevant people and posts based on keywords entered. The feature scans not just the title, but also the body and comments of the post, as well as the people who reshared the content.

Prior to this, Google+ released a developer preview of the Hangouts API. Hangouts is a feature that lets multiple users conduct a video chat and even watch video content together. This API enables developers to run their apps from within Google+ Hangout.

And on 15th September,  Google+ launched its first API which gives developers access to user profiles and their latest posts. Code libraries for developers that code in Java, Python, Ruby or PHP have been released as well.

Google has been rapidly improving its social network to compete with Facebook. Previously invitation-only, the Internet giant soon opened the floodgates to allow anyone to join.

A recent estimate has put the size of the Google+ network at around 50 million users, although nobody but the Googlers themselves know exactly how active these users are. So it’s anybody’s guess whether the social network will flourish or flounder.

As a developer, are you looking to use these APIs for your apps? Do you know of anyone who plans to do so? Share with us in the comments section below!

Here are some interesting startup news around Malaysia, not only in its capital, Kuala Lumpur, but also other startup hubs such as Penang, Malacca, and many more.

(1) Google announced a team up with Tourism Malaysia to poll Malaysians on which national tourist treasures and uniquely Malaysian sites should be featured in Google Street View — the Google Maps feature that allows users to view and navigate 360-degree street-level imagery. Malaysians can vote and suggest their favorite locations at the website maps.google.com.my/svtrike, which will remain open for the rest of the month.

(2) The Retails Shop Transformation Programme with its acronym TUKAR, was introduced by the Ministry of Domestic Trade, Cooperative and Consumerism. TUKAR is the Entry Point Project (EPP) to help modernise traditional neighbourhood stores and provide them a competitive edge in today’s highly competitive retails environment.

(3) Local inventors hoping to make a name for themselves in the industry can look forward to the International Conference and Exposition on Inventions of Institutions of Higher Learning (Pecipta) 2011 later this month. Organised by Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), the event is a collaboration between the Higher Education Ministry and selected public higher learning institutions. It will showcase new products and inventions from students in Malaysia and other countries.

We thank nordicfactory for the flag image.

If search engine optimization is crucial to your business in terms of visibility and sales leads, then this is something to watch out for. Wired recently reported that Google is now looking into how to use data from its +1 button to rearrange search results.

This news comes hot on the heels of the recent revelation that you can now share content on Google+ directly through the +1 button on a website. This means that if I read an article on New York Times that I like and click on the +1 button, I can now share it on my Google+ Stream through the NYT webpage.

The Internet giant confirmed its latest plan via email: “Google will study the clicks on +1 buttons as a signal that influences the ranking and appearance of websites in search results. The purpose of any ranking signal is to improve overall search quality. For +1’s and other social ranking signals, as with any new ranking signal, we’ll be starting carefully and learning how those signals are related to quality.”

Should the plan be carried out, how far up your company website appears on Google would perhaps depend on the number of +1s you’ve garnered. However, the spokesperson also qualified that the +1 button would be one of over 200 signals used to determine site rankings. Of course, it’s a given that some signals are more significant than others, so it’s still unknown how influential the +1 button will be.

Google would face many tripwires when trying to implement this, the Wired article noted. Factoring social data in search opens the doors for more blackhat operators to manipulate search results in their favor, resulting in unsavory spam content appearing on search pages.

More trouble could come from anti-monopoly legislation, which means courts could potentially view the implementation as an attempt to unfairly use Google’s search prowess to gain an advantage over Facebook in the social network wars.

Previously, readers that click the +1 button will only have the article tucked away in a tab on the profile page, which makes it less useful as a means for businesses and web publishers to spread their content on social media.

With this announcement, it looks like publishers and businesses will have more reason to add the +1 button to their website. So far, the +1 button has crossed 2 billion daily views, although it is still not as widely implemented as the Twitter and Facebook buttons.

If you’re impatient about trying out the new Google+ features, you can sign up for the Google+ Platform Preview here, which lets you to try out new features before they are launched to the general public.

According to Find People on Plus, the new social network is certainly catching on in Asian countries, with India and Indonesia listed among the global top 10 for Google+ users. The development team has also promised Business pages, although that is still some time away.

Singapore
When: Tuesday, 6th Septemeber 2011
Where: Pan Pacific Singapore, Ballroom 1 & 2 (Map)
Register here by 29th August.
Malaysia
When: Thursday, 8th September 2011
Where: Hilton Sentral Hotel, Grand Ballroom A, Level 6 (Map)
Register here by 29th August.

Here you can find some interesting startup news around Philippines, not only in its capital, Manila, but also other their startup hubs such as Cebu, General Santos City, Pasay, Quezon City, and many more.

(1) Real estate giant Megaworld Corporation announced its plan to develop the 7.1 hectare property of the National Police Commission in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig into a P25 billion business complex.

(2) The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Department of Agriculture (DA), and the Local Government of Quezon City is jointly monitoring supermarkets and wet markets to check on the stability of prices and supply of basic necessities and prime commodities.

(3) The Social Security System (SSS) will release new Unified Multipurpose Identification System or “UMID” cards free to members before the end of the month. The new UMID ID has a contactless chip and a magnetic stripe, which stores information.

(4) Cebu Pacific announced that they have now the biggest market share in flights between the nation’s capital and its southern financial hub, Davao City. Based on its second quarter performance for this year, the Gokongwei led airline cornered 44 percent of the local market that flies between Manila and Davao, or a total of 318,694 passengers.

(5) SM Development Corporation topped off its Princeton Residences in New Manila, San Juan. The single tower development boasts of 1,076 units, several amenities, and its close proximity to the light rail transit station.

(6) According to FindPeopleonPlus.com which tracks over 4.4 million Google+ users since the service went online a couple of weeks back, Philippines ranked #27 on Google+.

(7) DTI-GIZ, under the Private Sector Promotion Program (SMEDSEP), came up with this pretty neat Google Mapping project to map the whole island of Bohol and all of its 700+ tourist sites and tourism-related establishments.

(8) Two Indian philanthropists and a Philippine non-profit development organization are among the winners of the Philippines prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Awards. The annual awards, named after a popular Philippine president who was killed in a plane crash in 1957, are widely seen as Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prizes.

(9) Earlier this year, a serial tech entrepreneur, Jeffrey Stewart and fellow entrepreneur Richard Eldridge founded Lenddo, a New York-based company that seeks to administer microloans to working middle-class folks in the developing world. The Philippines became their first market, and they doled out their first loan in March.

We thank nordicfactory for the flag image.

Here you can find some interesting startup news from Indonesia, not only in its capital, Jakarta, but also other their tech startup hubs such as Yogyakarta, Medan, Surabaya, and many more. These listed news are taken from our partner, DailySocial, a leading blog on Indonesia’s tech startup scene.

(1) Tasterous, the location-based app that lets you find and share local dishes, has launched an iPhone version. The company officially launched their Blackberry app in April 2011 and their Android app in June 2011 before finally launch their iPhone app.

(2) Google chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt announced that the company will open their office in Indonesia before 2012. The announcement was made during his meeting with Indonesia’s vice-president Boediono in Jakarta. The vice-president’s spokesman Yopie Hidayat, as quoted by Kompas, explained that Google would like to develop their business by leveraging SMEs from Indonesia with foreign buyers like what Google did in China.

(3) MediaWave, a social media analysis platform, will continue to make improvements in their platforms, especially on the functions and user interface.

(4) StatCounter, an independent agency that tracks Internet access stats, have a web app called GlobalStats. If we look at the data captured by StatCounter in Indonesia, there was a monumental shift in June 2011. For the first time, accessing the Internet via BlackBerry beat Symbian-based phones.

(5) Internet reach in Indonesia has surpassed traditional media and ranks second only to TV according to a recent survey done by Yahoo! and TNS. The survey was conducted in several major and smaller cities across the country.

(6) A very recent report from Akamai, The State of The Internet report, shows that Indonesia holds 7th position as the slowest country in terms of narrowband connectivity.

More about Indonesia tech startup scenes (below excerpts are translated by SGE team, while the full article is in Indonesian)

(7) Freco.com is a site that provide search results on various topics based on other users recommendations. At this site, users can type some keywords to get other users’ recommendations. Users can add their own recommendations on some topics, which could be stuff that Freco.com does not have yet.

(8) Joining the e-commerce industry in Indonesia is Bibli.com, which was officially launched in Jakarta by CEO Kusuma Martanto. Bibli positions themself as an online mall with an easy, fun and free concept.

(9) HackerSpace is now present in Yogyakarta and will be managed by Bancakan 2.0, a community of developers.

(10) Indonesia Communication and Information Ministry will start to block internet access to the websites that provide pirated mp3 download services.

This has been brought to you by SGE and DailySocial. DailySocial is a blog that covers the Indonesian tech startup scene. They publish in both Indonesian and English.

Thank you to nordicfactory for the flag image.

Features of the app include: Huddle, which allows group chat; Circles, which enables users to categorise contacts into different groups so that different things can be shared amongst them; Stream, which updates the user on what their friends are up to; and Instant Upload, which enables users to upload photos or videos onto the social network (for tips on using Google+, read this).

However, iPad users may have to wait a bit longer to download the Google+ app since it is only accessible on the iPhone for now.

Previously, we reported on how the social network has been rapidly gaining traction among users globally and in Asia, scoring 10 million users at last count. That figure has since ballooned to 18 million, according to Mashable. We also mentioned how businesses have been eager to set up accounts on the network, although Google+ has been embarking on a crusade to remove them.

And according to PC World, Facebook appears to be treating their new competitor seriously now, seemingly responding to the  Google+ deletions by launching a “Facebook for Business” page, which contains tips for small businesses on how to use Facebook.