Google+ SVP Vic Gundotra and Google Co-founder Sergey Brin took to the stage today at The Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco to talk about their new social network and what exactly they’re up to these days.

Among other things, Gundotra touched on the success Google+ has seen since its launch, most notably that users have uploaded 3.4 billion photos over the last 90 days — a statistic which “blew his mind”. Because of this early success, much of which was unexpected, Gundotra said, Google has been focusing on scaling the social network to make sure that it works for all of its users.

As a result, Google+ has so far lacked integration with Google Apps, a feature many users have been clamoring to see. According to the Google SVP, the company “thought it would have more time” before it hit a scale and popularity in which these kinds of additions would become necessary.

With 40 million users, Google+ is already there. Gundotra said that Google Apps support on Google+ would be arriving “imminently”, which he later clarified by saying “within a few days”.

At the same time, developers have also been waiting for Google+ to make its APIs available for use, and many have wondered why the company hasn’t released them as of yet. The SVP said that the Google+ team has been taking a “cautious approach” to APIs and, though it might annoy some, they would not be rushing their APIs to the public’s hands.

“When we release an API we want developers to have high confidence that they can depend on Google”, he said.

Also of note: A la Twitter, Google+ will (in the next few months) be rolling out support for pseudonyms and other forms of identity, Gundotra said today. Google+ initially only allowed users to sign up using their real names, but it will be adding features in the near future that support other forms of identity, specifically pseudonyms and nicknames.

While Google+ had early on resisted the appeal for support for alternative identities, it seems to have changed course, understanding that some people do, in fact, have legitimate reasons to choose not to use their real name. In my case, it’s to avoid revealing my superpower. I’m sure many others feel the same way.

For more on Gundotra and Brin’s Q&A with Jon Batelle, check out Erick’s coverage here.

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Backupify, the startup that provides online data backup, archiving and export, is today releasing a new version of its Backupify Snapshot tool with additional features for Google Apps admins. The tool, for those unfamiliar, allows Google Apps administrators to extract and download the complete Google Apps account for a departing company employ and save the data locally.

Previously, Snapshot was in public beta – it’s now being commercially released to all.

Traditionally, when an employee left an organization, the I.T. department would backup their files and folders, disable their Exchange mailbox and export their mailbox .PST file. Now, as companies of all sizes are transitioning to the cloud, termination procedures on the I.T. side have also changed. Unfortunately, because there’s not a simple process for exporting and archiving a user’s Google Apps data, companies will often just keep the account open but unused. That, however, can lead to an additional expense, as Google charges by seat.

With Backupify Snapshot, the idea is to recreate the same sort of account termination procedures companies are used to, but for cloud-based services. The tool compresses a user’s Google Apps account data (Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Contacts and Sites) into a Zip file that can then be downloaded to a local machine or server. The Google Apps account can then be safely deleted.

The killer feature in today’s release is the added support for multi-user and batch downloading – that will be a huge timesaver for I.T. during those times when there’s more than one employee account to export. (Layoffs, anyone?)

Snapshot also improved support for large organizations via better search, introduced a referral functionality that will dole out free downloads for those who refer their friends and added Google Checkout as a payment option. (Snapshot users get only 5 free downloads, then have to pay $10 per download).

Backupify Snapshot is available both as a standalone service and as a part of Backupify’s Google Apps Backup service. It has been used by over 500 organizations since its release last month.

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Exclusive - Roughly 21 months after successfully launching its vendor-neutral online marketplace for SaaS and cloud-based business applications, GetApp.com has secured $1.1 million from Spanish-American investment firm Nauta Capital to invest in further growth.

GetApp.com is essentially a hub for SMB owners to compare, select and purchase SaaS and Web-based applications that can help them manage and grow their business.

GetApp.com says it currently reaches some 60,000 businesses on a monthly basis (located primarily in North America and the UK), helping them discover thousands of cloud-based business apps and find the ones that best match their needs and requirements.

In total, roughly 1,500 vendors – including the likes of Zoho, NetSuite, Mavenlink and Assistly – have started using the fledgling company’s platform for online leads generation.

Available app categories range from CRM to marketing automation solutions, HR and project management tools to accounting and business intelligence applications.

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Austin, Texas-based startup Spanning launched a new version of its Google Apps backup service today, which now includes business-grade backup for Gmail. Previously, the company provided backup for other Google Apps products, including Google Calendar, Docs, and Contacts, but, says, Spanning Cloud Apps founder and CEO Charlie Wood, “Gmail backup has been, by far, the most requested capability from our existing customer base.”

But Google Apps is already in the cloud – why do you need to back it up?

According to the company, even a company of Google’s size can have issues leading to data deletions. And not all data deletions are Google’s fault – sometimes, the end users themselves are to blame. Then what do you do? User-deleted data isn’t Google’s problem, so it can’t (and won’t) help you recover.

Businesses, particularly the small-to-medium sized companies which currently comprise the majority of Spanning’s target market, still need to be assured that their mission-critical data is securely backed up, whether it’s in the cloud or not.

What’s interesting about Spanning’s backup product is that it doesn’t require businesses to maintain their own servers, nor does it utilize its own servers for data storage. Given that the company is still a startup, and could be prone to its own issues and failures, that latter item is a much-needed assurance.

Instead, Spanning stores data on Amazon’s Web Services, using a combination of Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3 and Elastic Block Store (EBS), which provide 99.999999999% durability.

Spanning backs up data incrementally, and doesn’t overwrite the old backups with new ones. Restorations are made possible from a simple-to-use interface. And it respects user permissions so that I.T. can’t view the file’s contents, they can only restore files when deleted.

In addition, the Spanning Backup site, application, and Google Apps Marketplace listings are certified for privacy and security by TRUSTe, the leading online privacy solutions provider. It’s  also certified under the US-EU and US-Swiss SafeHarbor Frameworks.

Wary consumers can also use Spanning to backup their own Gmail, Docs, Calendar and Contacts, too, if so inclined. It’s only $3/month for an individual account vs. $2.50/per user/per month for businesses. But consumers are not Spanning’s main focus. It’s more interested in providing businesses (SMB up to Enterprise) with a cloud backup solution.

Spanning had previously raised $2 million in funding from the Foundry Group back in April. It competes with a very similar service from Backupify, but slightly undercuts them on pricing – $2.50/per user/per month vs. Backupify’s $3/per user/per month. It also hopes to capitalize on Backupify’s growing pains, we imagine.

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Social application developer Seesmic is making a big move into the social enterprise and is debuting a dedicated Android app and iPad app for Salesforce’s CRM product (Windows Phone 7 will also be added soon), called Seesmic CRM. The Android app will be launched tomorrow morning at Salesforce’s annual conference, Dreamforce, and Seesmic will launch the iPad app in a few weeks.

For background, Seesmic, which was founded by French entrepreneur Loic Le Meur, helps you monitor and track the social web. Seesmic’s desktop, web, and mobile clients integrate with Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. The bonus of using an app like Seesmic is the ability to aggregate your streams from a number of social web services, like YouTube, Foursquare, Techmeme, LinkedIn and others.

But of late, Seesmic has been dabbling in the enterprise and launching more business-focused features. Last Fall, Seesmic launched a deep integration with Salesforce’s social network for the enterprise, Chatter. And then earlier this year, Salesforce led a $4 million round in Seesmic.

Basically the Seesmic CRM Android and iPad apps bring all the functionality of Salesforce’s CRM to mobile phones. Users can search their Salesforce.com account from the native apps; look up leads, contacts, accounts, related activities and chatter newsfeeds on the go; create and update leads, contacts, tasks, and events; log calls and emails after meetings; and much more. And the apps leverage the mobile OS; allowing users to see maps of their leads respective to their current location; upload photos and more. While pricing hasn’t been announced yet, Seesmic may charge $10 per month per user for the apps.

Le Meur tells us that he isn’t competing with Salesforce because the CRM giant currently doesn’t offer in-depth Android and iPad apps. In fact, Seesmic has been working ‘hand in hand’ with Salesforce’s mobile team to develop these native apps. And Salesforce is particularly bullish on the social enterprise of late—’Welcome To The Social Enterprise’ is the theme of Dreamforce this year. As Le Meur says, “We are working with Salesforce, not competing with the company.”

Of course, it is interesting that a Twitter-platform developer is shifting focus away from building for the consumer and focusing on the enterprise. In March, Twitter basically told developers to avoid competing with them on native clients. It’s not that Twitter doesn’t want developers to build off their platform, they just don’t want developers to build clients that mimic Twitter’s own services.

Thus, Seesmic has found a new user base in businesses. Le Meur explains that bringing mobile and social to the enterprise is the future for Seesmic. While the startup won’t give up its web and mobile apps (the company’s Android app has over a million users); all of Seesmic efforts are now fully ‘focused on bringing social to business users,’ says Le Meur.

Seesmic also shuttered its BlackBerry app a few months ago. You can watch Le Meur’s recent conversation with TechCrunch TV’s Andrew Keene here.

(Disclosure: TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington was an early investor in Seesmic.)

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Box.net’s CEO and co-founder Aaron Levie has been open about his belief that mobile is a key pillar to the cloud storage company’s future. The company already offers native apps for a number of platforms, including Android, iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry, but the company’s mobile site was lacking in functionality. Which is why Box has completely re-developed its mobile site, and is launching HTML5 mobile offering and debuting apps for Android tablet and BlackBerry PlayBook devices.

For background, Box, which has 6 million users and stores 300 million documents, is a cloud storage platform for the enterprise that comes with collaboration, social and mobile functionality. Box has evolved into more than just a fils storage platform, and has become a full-fledged collaborative application where businesses can actually communicate about document updates, sync files remotely, and even add features from Salesforce, Google Apps, NetSuite, Yammer and others.

And now many Box clients wants to access much of the functionality listed above on mobile devices. Levie tells us that Box has seen a 600 percent increase in enterprise sales coming from companies that want mobile deployments. And Box has 1 million users across ioS, Android, and other mobile apps. Levie says that the mobile site is actually the most used mobile offering in the Box mobile family.

The HTML5 site is now more interactive, and includes automatic page refresh, commenting functionality, updated search, a new UI, and is altogether faster than the previous site. Users can also access and view files and folders and share content to co-workers and contacts.

The company is also launching new apps for the Android Tablet and BlackBerry PlayBook.

After talking to Levie briefly about Box’s new offerings, it’s very apparent that he’s bullish on mobile for the enterprise. “If you visited our offices today, every third word uttered by employees at Box has to do with our mobility strategy,” he says. “I see mobility has an inflection point for cloud computing and we want to make sure we are at the center of that.”

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Cloud Sherpas not only helps companies migrate and transition over to Google Apps but also provides additional tools, called Sherpa Tools, to make the productivity suite more useful. For example, the Directory Manager provides administrators with an interface for creating, retrieving, updating and deleting in-depth profile information for end users, shared contacts and groups. With Cloud Sherpa, users can also import and export contact information in bulk and add instant messaging features.

SherpaTools for Google Apps has been installed by over 16,000 domains representing three million Google Apps users worldwide, making it one of the most installed applications in the Google Apps Marketplace.

The company has also upgraded SherpaTools with new features including new admin delegation, end-user provisioning, and privacy tools and will unveil these at Google’s developer conference Google IO, this week. One of the major new features added to SherpaTools is the concept of constituencies. Now help desk workers with partial admin responsibilities can now be restricted to helping users within their constituent bases only. For example, an admin who is responsible for supporting an organization’s Engineering department may not have access to users in the Finance department.

Additionally, organizations that buy their Google Apps licenses from Cloud Sherpas directly now have the ability to instantly purchase additional end-user licences via SherpaTools. And SherpaTools now supports the free version of Google Apps.

Sherpa Tools has raised $3 million to date.

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Services like Google Voice, Reader, Analytics and AdWords will now be available on Google Apps accounts. The apps can be accessed through a new interface in administrative control panel for new customers. Existing customers can transition to the new interface at their own pace but Google says it will automatically shift all App customers over to the new control panel early next year.

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Sometimes you don’t need to spend weeks building the sleekest mobile apps for native environments. And depending on your business, something a little bit more quick and simple can do the job just fine. That’s the theory behind Widgetbox Mobile, a new offering from the team behind ClickTurn ads, which aims to help businesses build mobile web apps in minutes.

“There’s a new category of users who view the app store as not the best option for them,” says Widgetbox’s CEO Will Price.

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The New York Institute of Technology, New York State Teacher Centers, Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, the New York State teacher unions and New York State professional organizations, will all offer Google Apps access, training and support to 697 public school districts, as well as all non-public and charter schools, across New York. This deal will give 3.1 million students access to Google Apps for Education—including Gmail, Docs, Sites and Calendar.

Google Apps for Education, which is used by 8 million students, faculty and staff at educational institutions, is steadily catching up to Microsoft’s education suite, Live@edu, which has 11 million users.

Google has made it clear that it has major ambitions for Apps as a revenue stream; statewide school deals will only help build out this channel and perhaps eat away at Microsoft’s market share.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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