Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] February imagery update

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 08:34 PM PST

Google LatLong: February imagery update

We've just finished pushing out an imagery update for Google Earth and Google Maps; check to see if any of your favorite places has gotten an update! You can view the updated areas highlighted in red below. Alternatively, you can download this KML, for viewing in Google Earth, or view the updates in Google Maps.


Updates are noted with a red frame

Also included in this update is additional Haiti imagery from January 21st.

Posted by Matt Manolides, GIS Specialist
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/02/february-imagery-update.html

[G] GNOME.Asia Summit News

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 07:00 PM PST

Google Open Source Blog: GNOME.Asia Summit News



The GNOME.Asia Summit 2009 was held at Quang Trung Software City in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam this past November. The event attracted more than 1,000 participants from 14 countries including Cambodia, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and the United States. 79 speakers — 34 from outside of Vietnam — held 109 talks, presentations and panels, and the slides are available for download. The event was supported by 138 volunteers, nearly 100 of whom were women. The combined number of all participants was 1465, with 60% women attendees. The organizing committee is very proud that our conference was such a welcoming event for women in the Open Source community.

GNOME.Asia 2009 was the first community event of its kind in Vietnam. The engagement of large, multinational companies like our sponsor Google, as well as many local companies, reflects the increasing importance of Free and Open Source solutions for businesses in Asia. The event was exceptionally well-covered in the Vietnamese media; all major media outlets, including three TV stations, covered the event.

In addition to hacker space for GNOME core projects, the summit offered meet-up opportunities for related Free and Open Source projects. 255 people participated in our Linux course, which was organized in cooperation with Ubuntu Vietnam. A Saigon Mapping Party was organized by the OpenStreetMap Community together with local companies. OpenOffice and OpenSolaris were community partners. Local groups including Saigonlug, Java Vietnam, Vithon (Python), Mekong Open Source Club (MOSS), LXDE and BKIT supported the organization and set-up of the event. Education partners included Saigontech and the University of Pedagogy.

Looking Forward to the 2010 Summit

The work for GNOME.Asia 2010 is starting already. The call for a new location will be published in the upcoming weeks. A good potential spot is Taiwan, where there is interest and where the summit could be co-hosted with local events. Singapore could be a good location for a future event. Locally one of the major goals after the GNOME.Asia Summit is to use the momentum to foster development for the GNOME project, as well as Free and Open Source software in general. Our post-event goals include creating meeting and education labs that can function as hackerspaces for local groups to promote FOSS and GNOME. We hope that groups interested in helping coordinate GNOME.Asia will answer the call for location and volunteers when it is published, so keep an eye on our website for details.

By Emily Chen, Committee Member of GNOME.Asia
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/02/gnomeasia-summit-news.html

[G] Send SMS to multiple recipients

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 07:00 PM PST

Google Voice Blog: Send SMS to multiple recipients

Until now, sending a text message to multiple recipients required copying and pasting the message for each recipient.

To make this a bit easier, we just launched the ability to send a single SMS message to multiple recipients. Just click on the SMS button at the top of your Google Voice inbox, enter names or numbers (separated by commas) in the "To" field, write your message and click send.



Replies from each recipient will be threaded into separate conversations, so you can keep track of them in your Google Voice inbox. To prevent spam, we've set a maximum of five recipients per message.

This feature is also available from the Chrome extension and we'll also be adding it to the Google Voice mobile app soon.

We hope you like this new feature, and as always, welcome your feedback.

Posted by Greg Hecht, Member of Tech Staff
URL: http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/send-sms-to-multiple-recipients.html

[G] Your Questions for President Obama

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 07:00 PM PST

YouTube Blog: Your Questions for President Obama

Today, President Obama had his first exclusive interview after his State of the Union speech with you, the YouTube community. The President engaged in a direct conversation about a broad range of issues, from generating jobs to opening up the health care process to investments in nuclear energy.

The best part of the process was that it was driven by you. ​Five days ago, as the President began his State of the Union address, we opened up our Moderator platform on CitizenTube, and over 55,000 of you submitted and voted on both video and text questions. Some of them were hard-hitting, others were emotional, and some were even funny.

You can watch the full interview now:



Only able to ask less than 0.2% of the 11,696 questions submitted, it was hard to choose the final handful. Here's how the selection process worked: we tried to cover a range of issues, minimize duplicate questions, and include both video and text submissions. First, we looked at which topics had the highest participation -- like jobs, foreign policy, health care and government reform -- to determine how many questions to ask in each category. We then took the top 5% of video and text questions and picked questions that reflected what you cared about. None of them were chosen by the White House or seen by the President before the interview.

In some cases, we combined questions, grouping similar ones from different categories like health care and government reform:
"Why are the health care meetings, procedures, etc not on CSPAN as promised?" - Mr. Anderson, Texas

"How do you expect the people of this country to trust you when you have repeatedly broken promises that were made on the campaign trail. Most recently, the promise to have a transparent healthcare debate..." - Warren Hunter, Brooklyn
Sometimes the top overall question in the category was a video question:



To try to get as many question in as possible, we had a section called "Good idea/Bad idea" in which we tried to solicit short responses from the President on ideas you sent in that might not be presented to him in traditional interviews. And in all cases, we tried to select the top questions that would solicit conversation, lead to substantive answers, and hadn't been asked in previous programs we've had with the President.

We had many more questions on hand than we had time to deliver, so we're pleased that the White House has agreed to respond to more of the top-voted questions in their blog soon, at whitehouse.gov.

We hope this interview brings us one step closer to creating better access to your government through YouTube -- and we'd love to hear your feedback and any other ideas you have on YouTube's political programming.

Steve Grove, Head of News & Politics, recently watched, "The YouTube Interview with President Obama"


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/HrJelV1AGHk/your-questions-for-president-obama.html

[G] Search by camera

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 03:52 PM PST

Google Photos Blog: Search by camera

Posted by Chao Yang, Software Engineer

In the past year, we've added several advanced search options for finding public photos in Picasa Web Albums. To help you find the right photo, you can filter your search by aspect ratio, size, photos vs. videos, photos with faces, and more. We're now happy to add one more dimension: the ability to search by camera. Searching by camera allows you to sample the quality of photos taken with a particular brand of camera or a specific model, and could help you make a decision between buying a Nikon D90 or a Canon EOS 50D.

To search by camera, first do a search in Picasa Web Albums. Click the 'Show Options' button, click 'Camera Models...' and then either choose your preferred make or type in a specific model.

URL: http://googlephotos.blogspot.com/2010/02/search-by-camera.html

[G] Cloud computing in the President's 2011 budget

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 03:52 PM PST

Google Public Policy Blog: Cloud computing in the President's 2011 budget

Posted by Harry Wingo, Policy Counsel

When it comes to cloud computing, the Obama Administration is putting some skin in the game.
Everyone talks about the capacity of cloud computing to transform government and reduce costs (one study estimates that federal agencies could eventually save 85% of their IT budgets by moving to the cloud). But the vast majority of the federal government's IT spending today is spent on traditional desktop or client-server computing. And until that changes, the federal government won't have the ability to tap the true potential of cloud computing.

That's why the inclusion of cloud computing in the Obama Administration's new FY 2011 budget is a big deal. Check out page 42 of the budget overview which identifies the problem:
"Under the leadership of the Federal Chief Information Officer, the Administration is continuing its efforts to close the gap in effective technology use between the private and public sectors. Specifically, the Administration will continue to roll out less intensive and less expensive cloud-computing technologies; reduce the number and cost of Federal data centers; and work with agencies to reduce the time and effort required to acquire IT, improve the alignment of technology acquisitions with agency needs, and hold providers of IT goods and services accountable for their performance."
Later on page 321 of the Analytical Perspectives section, the Administration writes that
Adoption of a cloud computing model is a major part of the strategy to achieve efficient and effective IT. After evaluation in 2010, agencies will deploy cloud computing solutions across the Government to improve the delivery of IT services.
And on page 327, the Administration says that it will, among other things
[...] initiate pilot projects in cloud computing to transform how the Government provides computing services while taking steps to improve the security of Federal information and systems.
What about specific funding commitments? We've learned this morning that federal CIO Vivek Kundra will control a $35 million fund to set up innovative tech pilot projects, including projects using cloud computing.

These pilot projects will be a drop in the bucket of the $79.4 billion federal IT budget, but it's still a great start. Here's hoping that the congressional budget and appropriations committees agree with the Administration that cloud computing represents the future for federal government computing.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/02/cloud-computing-in-presidents-2011.html

[G] 80 days until major AdWords API v13 sunset

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 03:52 PM PST

Inside AdWords: 80 days until major AdWords API v13 sunset

This is an important reminder for those of you who use the AdWords API. On April 22, most v13 services will be turned off. To make sure that your application continues to work after this date, we recommend migrating to v200909 as soon as possible.

If you're an API user, you might want to follow the AdWords API Blog. It's a great place to learn about what's changing with the product and find migration resources.

If you're not an API user, but would like to learn more about it, visit the Google Code website.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew
URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/02/80-days-until-major-adwords-api-v13.html

[G] Starring stories in Google News

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 03:52 PM PST

Google News Blog: Starring stories in Google News

Posted by Jude Britto, Software Engineer, Google News

A couple of months back, we launched the Custom Sections Directory feature in Google News to allow users to set up sections on topics of their interest, and to share them with other users.

Today, we are giving users even more options for following stories. Users can mark a story cluster by clicking on the star next to it, like they can with messages in Gmail and items in Google Reader. When you star a story in Google News, it's one way to let us know that you're interested in that subject. When there are significant updates, we will alert you by putting the headline in bold so you can get more information. You can also follow your 20 most recent starred stories in the "Starred" section of Google News.


We hope you enjoy the new feature and welcome your feedback.
URL: http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/starring-stories-in-google-news.html

[G] How to quadruple a conversion rate

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 11:41 AM PST

Official Google Website Optimizer Blog: ​How to quadruple a conversion rate

We're big fans of increasing conversion rates. The bigger the increase, the happier we are. So we were delighted when Conversion Rate Experts, one of our Website Optimizer Authorized Consultants, told us how they recently quadrupled Voices.com's conversion rate from under 5% to 22%.

You can read all about how they did it on their website, which I strongly encourage you to do. Come back after you've finished reading. We'll wait.

OK, done reading? You probably got some great ideas on what you can do to improve your site.

Here's CRE's summation of key lessons:
  • Find out why customers aren't converting; don't just guess. If you don't know what their objections are, your chances of overcoming them are very slim.

  • Don't "hide your light under a bushel." If your company is the best at something—and if you have proof—make certain the proof is prominently placed on your website.

  • Consider segmenting your visitors. How do you know whether to segment visitors? If your most common "visitor intentions" can't be addressed with the same message, you should segment them. Similarly, if you have more than one type of visitor, and they can't all be served by the same message, you'll probably have to segment them. Beware that segmentation can create a lot of extra work, so only do it if you absolutely have to.

  • People don't buy what they don't understand. Clearly explain your service, so the prospect is more likely to feel in control and take action.

  • Sometimes video is the best medium for explaining things—and for providing proof. Web video needn't cost a lot, as we'll reveal soon (subscribe to our newsletter to receive details). Screen capture videos can easily be carried out using Camtasia (for PC) or Screenflow (which is our preferred option for Mac).
The Big Lesson
For me, the biggest lesson from this story is that quadrupling a conversion rate is hard work. Let's break this up a bit:

Know your (client's) customer
CRE has a lot of experience in improving websites, but the first thing they did was work to understand the customer. They ran surveys, they spoke with the Voices.com CEO, they dug deep into the web analytics, all to find out what customers were thinking when they visited the website.

Time and again, the greatest conversion rate increases I've seen have come from a better understanding of the customer. So, take the time to really get inside your customers' heads.

Avoid the Spaghetti Strategy
If you want to radically increase your conversion rate, you can't just throw up a test with two new images and three new headlines like pieces of spaghetti and hope that they stick. You need to put thought into how you can improve conversion rate, and you need to know your customer.

Don't stop at the first test
Conversion Rate Experts didn't go from 5% to 22% with one test. It wasn't two, three, or even five tests. The 400% increase is the result of 11 tests. Maybe more importantly, these tests spanned the entire conversion funnel and didn't just focus on the landing pages. By continuing to learn more about the customer and methodical testing, CRE achieved great results. Testing isn't a one time thing, and it takes a few iterations to get the biggest wins.

It may be hard work, but as Voices.com's results show, it's worth the effort.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Website Optimizer team
URL: http://websiteoptimizer.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-to-quadruple-conversion-rate.html

[G] Gmail Chrome extensions

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 11:41 AM PST

Official Gmail Blog: Gmail Chrome extensions

Posted by Christos Apartoglou, Product Marketing Manager, Google Chrome

There's always that email. You know the one I'm talking about: the message we're waiting for so anxiously that we end up checking our inbox 100 times a minute to see whether it's arrived. Since last Monday, I've stopped being a manic tab switcher and the F5 key on my keyboard has breathed a sigh of relief — all thanks to the Google Mail extension in Google Chrome.

Extensions are small programs that help you customize your browsing experience. They can give you quick access to your favorite websites like Weather.com or eBay, provide alerts or updates from sites like Woot.com or NPR, or help you perform common online tasks such as getting driving directions or simply change the look and feel of your browser.

The Google Mail extension adds a nifty little button next to Google Chrome's address bar that provides an updated indicator of the unread messages in your inbox. It also lets you access your inbox with just one click.


There's also a Send from Gmail extension which makes Gmail your default email application and opens a compose window whenever you click an email address on a webpage. It also adds a new button next to the address bar that makes it easy to send an email directly from Gmail, pre-filling the subject of the message with the title of the web page you're currently on and the body with selected page text and the link address.


There are several other Gmail extensions that the Google Chrome developer community has written; you can check out these and more than 2,000 other extensions in the Google Chrome Extensions gallery.

Google Chrome Extensions are now available for all Windows users. For those of you on Linux, extensions are enabled on the beta channel. Mac users, hang tight — extensions are coming to the beta soon.
URL: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/gmail-chrome-extensions.html

[G] Wrapping up our Free Holiday WiFi program

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 10:00 AM PST

Official Google Blog: Wrapping up our Free Holiday WiFi program

In November, we officially launched our Free Holiday WiFi gift. 54 airports, one airline and many millions of connected WiFi users later, our two-month Free Holiday WiFi sponsorship ended on January 15. We're happy to have made this year's holiday travel season just a bit easier for the millions of people who logged on and connected at our participating airports and on Virgin America flights.

Though some airports will no longer have free WiFi, we're excited that Burbank, Seattle and most recently, Boston airports have all decided to offer free WiFi all year.

In the spirit of the season, passengers connecting to the networks donated over $250,000 to Engineers Without Borders, One Economy Corporation and Climate Savers Computing Initiative. With Google's matching donation, the three charities received over $500,000 in total.

Finally, Edward Doan of Austin, Texas won the grand prize of ten Virgin America tickets, a Motorola Droid from Verizon Wireless and a Canon SX200 digital camera. You can view a complete list of winners on the contest site.

Posted by Jeff Aguero and Missy Krasner, Product Marketing Managers
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/wrapping-up-our-free-holiday-wifi.html

[G] Project: Report 2010 – Sharing Your Stories With the World

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 07:32 AM PST

YouTube Blog: Project: Report 2010 – Sharing Your Stories With the World

Today, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, YouTube presents Project: Report 2010, a journalism contest – made possible by Sony and Intel – for non-professional, aspiring journalists to tell the stories that might not otherwise be covered by the media, and to share those stories with the world.

This year, Project: Report (www.youtube.com/projectreport) will consist of two rounds of competition held over the next three months. In each round, contestants will be given a reporting assignment to complete. After the first round, 10 finalists will be chosen by a panel of judges at the Pulitzer Center. Each finalist will receive a Sony VAIO notebook with the new 2010 Intel Core i7 processor and a Sony HD video camera and proceed to the second and final round, where they will compete for five $10,000 travel fellowships to work with the Pulitzer Center on an international reporting project.

All five winners will also receive invitations to Washington, D.C., for a public screening of their work and the chance to participate in a special workshop with Pulitzer Center journalists.

Arturo Perez, Jr., the winner of the first edition of Project: Report, traveled to Jerusalem and worked with the Pulitzer Center to produce a story on dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis.

Watch the first installment of his video diary from the trip:

Do you have a story you want to tell?

Here's the assignment for Round 1 of Project: Report 2010:

Document a single day in the life of a compelling person the world should meet and showcase how that person is making a positive impact in his or her community. All videos must be three minutes or less, and submissions will be open through February 28, 2010.

Even if you do not participate in or advance past Round 1, you may still complete the assignment for Round 2, though you will not be eligible for the grand prize. YouTube and the Pulitzer Center hope to highlight and bring an audience to as many of your stories as possible.

So, without further ado, it's time to pick up that video camera, take on this assignment, and start reporting your stories to the world.


Olivia Ma, News & Politics Manager, recently watched "Project Report: What the Pulitzer Center is looking for"



URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/WGRtg8GiI-A/project-report-2010-sharing-your.html

[G] Univision Channel Launches on YouTube

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 06:07 AM PST

YouTube Blog: Univision Channel Launches on YouTube

It's been a few months since we announced our partnership with Univision to bring current, full-length and short-form TV episodes from one of the most popular Spanish-language broadcasters in America. Today marks the official launch of the Univision channel on YouTube, where you can find leading programs from Univision's three major networks: Univision, TeleFutura and Galavisión. Some of the most popular shows on the channel include Univision's morning show Despierta América (Wake-Up America); TeleFutura's entertainment show Escándalo TV (ShowBiz TV), and Galavisión's home decorating series Decorando Contigo (Decorating with You), among many others. The Univision channel on YouTube will also premiere weekly show recaps made just for YouTube viewers. These videos will feature top Univision talent summarizing the best moments from Univision shows in the last week.



The launch marks the first time Univision programming will be made available on the web outside of Univision's properties, and we're excited to bring it to our growing Hispanic audience. So sit back, press play and enjoy this great new content. ¡A gozar!



Shanna Preve, Strategic Partnerships, recently watched "Pink Glove Dance."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/HHy2e4YbZ8U/univision-channel-launches-on-youtube.html

[G] Llega a YouTube el canal de Univision

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 06:07 AM PST

YouTube Blog: Llega a YouTube el canal de Univision

Unos meses atrás anunciamos nuestra asociación con Univision para traer episodios televisivos completos, y actuales, de la transmisora más popular de habla hispana en Estados Unidos. Hoy tenemos el agrado de dar a conocer el lanzamiento del canal de Univision en YouTube en el que puedes encontrar los principales programas de sus tres cadenas: Univision, Telefutura y Galavisión. Algunos de los shows más populares disponibles en el canal incluyen al programa despertino de Univision, "Despierta América"; el programa de entretenimiento de Telefutura, "Escándalo TV"; y las series de decoración del hogar de Galavisión, "Decorando Contigo"; entre muchos otros. El canal de Univision en YouTube también estrenará recuentos semanales de los programas, resaltados con introducciones hechas por parte del principal talento de Univision a la comunidad de YouTube. Dichos videos darán un vistazo a los mejores momentos de los más reconocidos programas de Univision.



Así se marca la primera vez en que la programación de Univision estará disponible en la web fuera de las propiedades de Univision y estamos muy entusiasmados de traerla a nuestra creciente audiencia hispana. Así que a relajarse, presionar play y disfrutar este nuevo y espectacular contenido. Enjoy!


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/H-ONDrPk6XA/llega-youtube-el-canal-de-univision.html

[G] Your Interview With the President: Live at 1:45 pm EST

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 06:07 AM PST

YouTube Blog: Your Interview With the President: Live at 1:45 pm EST

Today at 1:45 pm EST, President Obama will participate in a unique interview at the White House in which you get to ask the questions - and have a say in which questions will be asked. For the past five days, since the President's State of the Union speech, people across the country have been submitting and voting on video and text questions in our Moderator platform on CitizenTube. Looking at your votes, we've scoured through the top tier of the over 11,000 questions - and we'll bring as many as we can to the President today. The event will be live-streamed on CitizenTube (youtube.com/citizentube)

Neither the President nor his staff will know which questions will asked ahead of time. But what's clear from looking at the submissions is that they represent a broad cross-section of topics and concerns. When people are asked to weigh in on what matters most to them in an open forum, the result is a fascinating and informative look at the pulse of the country. It's this kind of transparency and direct access to information that we believe represents the promise of platforms like YouTube to improve our politics.

The President hasn't taken an interview since his State of the Union address last week, so you will be the first to ask him follow-up questions after his speech. Don't miss this opportunity to participate in your democracy - tune in today at 1:45 pm EST on youtube.com/citizentube.

Steve Grove, Head of News & Politics, recently watched "The 2010 State of the Union Address"


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/09EfQBcfK8Y/your-interview-with-president-live-at.html
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)