Facebook challenger Google+ introduces a new feature that allows its members to add captions to their photo submissions. It’s called the LOLcaterizer captioning tool or the LOLcat text font generation. Is this finally the Facebook killer Google+ has been looking for?
In a Google+ post today, programmer Colin McMillen wrote, “Today we’re rolling out a feature that makes it easier to add big, bold text on top of your photos. To try it out, drop a photo into the sharebox on Google+, then click the “Add text” button underneath the photo. Type in something funny, then share and enjoy.”
Well, maybe the feature won’t even be noticed enough to pull down Facebook’s market lead, but LOLcat is a practical feature that adds intimacy and humor to photos such as when parents put words in the mouths of their babies in their uploaded photos. Perhaps it will catch on to become a creative outlet for members who may be missing the Cheezburger Network in its SOPA protest.
McMillen shows a nerdy techy streak as a co-founder of the Recaptcha project which was acquired by Google. He enjoys an Erdos number 4 which means he co-authored a math paper with another who has an Erdos number 3, who in turn co-authored another paper with someone with Erdos number 2, until it reaches a paper co-authored by the famous mathematician Paul Erdos, considered to have produced the most number of technical papers than anyone in the academe and whose Erdos number is 0.
Talking about tech trends, the social network further adds to its features with hashtag auto completion. This allows members to type hashtags into their Google+ posts and the social site offers suggestions members can choose from to complete them. The enhancement was announced by former Twitter staffer Chris Messina who has helped popularize labels that start with the # character on Twitter.
These enhancements come hot on the heels of Google’s own progress in using voice search technology for its search engines. The feature currently supports 26 languages which include Spanish, Zulu, and Hindi. To do a search in 26 languages, the Google team is travelling around the world taking 250,000 voice samples of local speech in each language.
