Saturday, January 9, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] Fast Flip now available on Google News homepage

Posted: 08 Jan 2010 05:29 PM PST

Google News Blog: Fast Flip now available on Google News homepage

Posted by Jack Hebert, Matthew Watson and Corrie Scalisi, Software Engineers

Today you may notice a change to the Google News home page: Near the bottom, we're now displaying stories from Google Fast Flip, the article-reading service we launched in September. Fast Flip is still in Google Labs, so we'll continue to experiment with the format. But so far we've found that the speed and visual nature of the service encourages readers to look at many articles and, for the ones that catch their interest, click through to the story publishers' websites.

In December we added more than 50 newspapers, magazines, web outlets news wires and TV and radio broadcasters, bringing the total number of news sources discoverable in Fast Flip to more than 90. Encouraged by the positive feedback we've received from users and partners, we decided to expose the service to more potential readers by integrating it with the U.S. English version of Google News. As always, we welcome your thoughts.
URL: http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/fast-flip-now-available-on-google-news.html

[G] This week in search 1/8/10

Posted: 08 Jan 2010 05:29 PM PST

Official Google Blog: This week in search 1/8/10

This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs on Fridays. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

In honor of the first full week of the new year, it seems the perfect opportunity to take a look back at 2009. Just as with our year-end Zeitgeist in early December, it's always fascinating to glimpse the collective consciousness of Google users. Beyond search queries rising for Michael Jackson, swine flu, Twitter and Lady Gaga, what else did Google searches reveal last year?

Proportion of Google users in the United States making more than one query per day:
7 out of 10

Proportion of Google users in the United States making more than 10 queries per day:
1 out of 7

Fraction of Google queries, duplicates excluded, never seen before: More than 1/3

Fraction of Google queries, duplicates included, never seen before: More than 1/5

Country with the greatest increase in Google web search traffic in 2009 vs. 2008: Indonesia*

Approximate percentage of Internet users in Indonesia: 11.1%*

Average amount of time it takes a user to finish entering a query: 9 seconds

Average amount of time it takes Google to answer a query: Less than 1/4 second

Number of search quality improvements made by Google in 2009: 540, ~1.5 each day

Proportion of Google result pages that show a map in search results: 1 in 13

Average increase in driving distance on weekends vs. weekdays on Google Maps: 11km

Median distance from a user's location to ice skating rinks found on Google Maps: 30km

Median distance from a user's location to ski resorts found on Google Maps: 300km


Unless otherwise noted, most of these statistics are based on our U.S. weekday traffic. We hope you enjoyed this week — and year — in search, and we're looking forward to an exciting 2010!

Posted by the Google Search Team
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/this-week-in-search-1810.html

[G] Subscriptions Enhanced With Bulletins, Progress Bar & Ability to Remove Videos

Posted: 08 Jan 2010 03:47 PM PST

YouTube Blog: Subscriptions Enhanced With Bulletins, Progress Bar & Ability to Remove Videos

The subscription system delivers videos from content creators to
eager viewers and has become such an essential part of YouTube that
that "subscribe" button is clicked over 1 million times every day.
That's a lot -- which is why we're especially focused on improving the
reliability, usefulness and transparency of subscriptions.



First
off, you've told us that you want ways to message your subscribers.
Now, the bulletins you write on your channel will appear on your
subscribers' homepages, in their "Recent Activity" module. If you go to
your channel -- let's say it's celebrityplaylists -- you should see an
area to write a bulletin and attach a video:






















...which looks like this when your subscribers see it in their homepage feed:






















Note
that these bulletins will only show up for people who subscribed to you
after September 2009. If you subscribed to someone before September and
want to receive their bulletins, simply visit their channel, click the
"Edit subscription" link, and choose "Subscribe to all videos uploaded,
rated, favorited, and commented on."



We've also heard from many
of you that after you upload a video, you'd like to feel more confident
that it's actually made its way to your subscribers' homepages.
Recently, we rolled out a new indicator that shows the syndication
status of your video after it's been uploaded; once it reaches 100% you
can rest assured that all your subscribers have received your video.
Here's an example of what this looks like:















































Please keep in mind that after your upload finishes processing, it starts
getting sent out to the

people subscribed to you, though it can take up
to an hour to reach everyone. (In rare cases, it might take longer than
an hour.) This short delay helps us fight spam and preserve the overall
integrity of the system.




Finally, you can now delete
individual items from your subscription feed. Click "edit" options for
the subscriptions module and check "Exclude videos I've already
watched" (see below). Once you've done this, hover over videos in the
module to see a small "x" that will allow you to remove it from the
module, making way for more videos from the people you follow.



















We'd love to read comments below about other subscription system improvements you'd like to see.




Brian Glick, Product Manager, recently subscribed to 73368's channel.



URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/RFsK_FMGHG0/subscriptions-enhanced-with-bulletins.html

[G] Vote Now: Send a YouTube Activist to Davos to Meet with World Leaders

Posted: 08 Jan 2010 02:29 PM PST

YouTube Blog: Vote Now: Send a YouTube Activist to Davos to Meet with World Leaders

The entries are in and the finalists have been chosen. Now it's your turn to determine who should go to this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Judges Arianna Huffington, Paolo Coehlo and Muhammed Yunus watched all of the entries in our "Your pitch to the world" contest and have chosen the five finalists who will vie for the opportunity to fly to Davos to take their issue to the world leaders at the forum. You can vote on the videos on the Davos YouTube channel. All votes must be cast by January 15, so vote early and often (you can submit one vote per video per day).



In the wake of the worst global recession in decades, the organizers of Davos have given a poignant title to this year's annual meeting: "Improve the State of the World: Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild." Let's make sure those gathered in Switzerland hear your thoughts about how we can improve the world in 2010, and stay tuned for other opportunities to get involved with this important conference.

Steve Grove, Head of News and Politics, recently watched "Vote in the 2010 Davos Debates"


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/CHXXvFjLjcI/vote-now-send-youtube-activist-to-davos.html

[G] Find us at the National Retail Federation Big Show in NYC next week

Posted: 08 Jan 2010 12:37 PM PST

Google LatLong: Find us at the National Retail Federation Big Show in NYC next week


Shoppers are increasingly turning to Google.com and Google Maps to find, learn about, map, and get directions to retail locations. We offer several tools that help retail businesses connect with these shoppers, such as Local Business Center to make sure your listings are accurate and contain many relevant details, and embeddable Google Maps to power your online store locator.

That's why several of us from Google will be attending, presenting, and demonstrating products next week at NRF 2010, the National Retail Federation's annual convertion and expo at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. We'll be speaking at a session on Tuesday (January 12) at 11:30am (EXPO Hall, 3D04) called Helping Shoppers Find You.

We'll also have a booth in the Expo Hall (Booth #365) so attendees can chat with us directly about Google Maps and Local Business Center. Any question is fair game! Look for the Google logo on our booth wall and a big map of Manhattan at the floor of the booth. We hope to see you there.

Posted by Andrew Chang and Ryan Hayward, Product Marketing Managers
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/01/find-us-at-national-retail-federation.html

[G] Google Apps highlights – 1/8/2010

Posted: 08 Jan 2010 12:37 PM PST

Official Google Blog: Google Apps highlights – 1/8/2010

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label "Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

Over the holidays, clever elves left us some nice improvements to Google Apps for individuals, companies and schools using our web-based services.

Co-editor presence in presentations
When you're co-editing in real-time, knowing where collaborators are making changes helps you avoid stepping on each other's toes. We already have visual indicators for co-editor presence in documents and spreadsheets, and now presentations sports this feature, too. You can see which slides others are working on, and if you're editing the same slide together, colored indicators make it clear which text box, shape or other element they're modifying.


Easier duplicate contact merging
Over time, as friends and coworkers send you messages from different email addresses, your Gmail contact list can accumulate duplicate contacts. We recently made it easier to find and merge these duplicates. To get started, just just click the 'Find duplicates' button in the contact manager. Cleaning up your contact list is especially helpful if you sync your Gmail contacts with your phone.


Google Apps on Nexus One
Speaking of mobile phones, the new Nexus One Android device is a great way to take Google Apps with you everywhere. Nexus One not only syncs with multiple Gmail accounts, but it also syncs your contacts, with Google Calendar and with Picasa Web Albums. Nexus One lets you instant message using Google Talk and access voicemail — including handy message transcriptions — with the Google Voice app.


Automatic page translation in Google Sites
Building the same website in multiple languages is lots of work, even if you're multi-lingual. With automatic translation in Google Sites, sharing information with people who don't speak your language is much easier. Just create your site in your native language, and visitors can instantly translate your site into any one of 51 languages that they're more familiar with.


Who's gone Google?
MWV is famous the world 'round among students and parents for Five Star notebooks and Trapper Keepers, but they make a wide array of other products and packaging that you probably see every day. We're thrilled that they've migrated over 12,000 employees to Google Apps, unifying their globally distributed workforce on a single email solution to address the complexity and frustrations of running multiple instances of Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes. You can find more on MWV's story on the Google Enterprise Blog.

We hope these updates help you get even more from Google Apps. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/google-apps-highlights-182010.html

[G] In Case You Missed It

Posted: 08 Jan 2010 09:22 AM PST

Google Analytics Blog: In Case You Missed It

Before you say goodbye to the holidays, take a look at this great holiday list on the official Google blog by our very own Avinash Kaushik, called Top Ten Ways To Get Your Business Ready For The Holidays. By publishing this now in January, we're hoping you'll take these lessons into the whole year, just like Mom used to say - "Christmas should every day of the year."

Seriously, these tips are applicable moreso now, when the holiday craziness is over and you have a second to optimize your campaigns and analytics, and also take a look at some other free marketing tools from Google that you should really be using, such as Ad Planner, Insights For Search and Website Optimizer. 2010 will be much better if you take Avinash's advice early on.


Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team
URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/01/in-case-you-missed-it.html
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