Friday, February 12, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] Let the games begin!

Posted: 12 Feb 2010 01:20 AM PST

Official Google Mobile Blog: Let the games begin!

The festivities begin this Friday in Vancouver, and we're all holding our breath to see who brings home the gold. Perhaps you're rooting for Lindsey Vonn or Shaun White or Sven Kramer. No matter who your favorite athlete is, you can keep up with the latest news on your phone.

Just do a search for the name of your favorite sport, and you can see the latest info about game results, schedules, medal count, and more right above the search results. On Android and iPhone devices, our Real Time Search feature will also reveal the latest updates related to the games within the same search results. (We're offering the same info and more for people searching on computers.) Looking for something more in-depth? Follow along using Google News for mobile. You can find quick links by going to google.com/games10/m on your phone.



Posted by Nitsan Oz and Igor Tsvetkov, software engineers
URL: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/02/let-games-begin.html

[G] Best in Jest Returns

Posted: 12 Feb 2010 12:05 AM PST

YouTube Blog: Best in Jest Returns

Comedy fans are rarely starved for laughs on YouTube, especially when there's a new edition of Best in Jest, our long-running comedy program. B.I.J. is back for three weeks of concentrated comedy capers, sponsored by Warner Brothers' Cop Out, starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan.

When compiling this edition of the program, we noticed that comedy on YouTube seems to be evolving: the most popular comedy videos are often collaborations between visible personalities like TheStation's ShayCarl and KassemG. While scripted comedy is going strong, YouTube "star power" seems to be in the driving seat. Does a great comedy video need a successful face to make it shine, or do channels like TheLandline demonstrate that sketches don't need celebs to make a splash? Is your favorite comedy creator being overlooked, or do videos with online stars feel more like a uniquely YouTube experience?

Let us know in the comments what you think of the state of comedy on YouTube these days and who's worth noting. We'll spotlight the most interesting suggestions in the comedy section soon.

Mark Day, Senior Associate, Ad Programs, recently watched "The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre's Take on Star Wars."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/YFZqkF8Dr7k/best-in-jest-returns.html

[G] Imagery update

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 06:40 PM PST

Google LatLong: 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 you view the updates in Google Maps.






Updates are noted with a red frame

Also included in this update is additional Haiti imagery from January 25th.


Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior Geo Data Strategist
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/02/imagery-update.html

[G] Millions of Buzz users, and improvements based on your feedback

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 05:50 PM PST

Official Gmail Blog: Millions of Buzz users, and improvements based on your feedback

Posted by Todd Jackson, Product Manager for Gmail and Google Buzz

It's been just two days since we first launched Google Buzz. Since then, tens of millions of people have checked Buzz out, creating over 9 million posts and comments. Plus, we're seeing over 200 posts per minute from mobile phones around the world.

We've had plenty of feature requests, and some direct feedback. In particular there's been concern from some people who thought their contacts were being made public without their knowledge (in particular the lists of people they follow, and the people following them). In addition, others felt they had too little control over who could follow them and were upset that they lacked the ability to block people who didn't yet have public profiles from following them.

Like Gmail's chat service, Buzz helps you create a social network by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with most. You can change, delete or add any contacts you want to follow.

So here is some more information about how Buzz works, and some immediate improvements we are making today based on your feedback.

The first time you create a post or comment in Buzz, we ask you to create a limited public profile (at a minimum it's just your first and last names). We do this so we'll know what name to display next to your posts — and so the people you follow know who you are. As you do this, we notify you that the lists of people you follow and the people following you will be displayed on your public profile. You can view, edit, and even hide these lists. The lists of your followers/people you follow are not made public on your profile until after you go through this profile creation step.

That said, we heard from people that the checkbox for choosing not to display this information was too hard to find, and based on this feedback, we've changed the notice to make it very clear. We will roll these changes out to all Gmail users later today.

1. More visible option to not show followers/people you follow on your public profile
If you don't want to share the lists of people who are following you and people you are following publicly on your profile, you can always opt out during the profile set-up when you first use Buzz or at any time from the edit profile page. We are making this option more prominent in the set up process, to ensure everyone who wanted to hide these lists can do so easily.



2. Ability to block anyone who starts following you
We are making it easier to block anyone, by adding "Block" links to the list of people following you. Previously, you were only able to block people from following you after they had created a public profile. Now, you can block anyone, regardless of whether or not they've already created profiles for themselves.



3. More clarity on which of your followers/people you follow can appear on your public profile
Initially, we showed you a list of all the people who would be following you once they created a public profile. However, only those contacts who had already created a public profile would show up on your public follower list. We're making this clearer by explicitly distinguishing which of your followers have public profiles and will show in your public list of followers. With this change you'll be able to see who is on the public list of followers that everyone else sees.



We designed Buzz to make it easy to connect with others and have conversations about things that interest you, and it's great to see millions of you doing this already. It's still early, and we have a long list of improvements on the way. We look forward to hearing more suggestions and will continue to improve the Buzz experience with user transparency and control top of mind. For more information about the choices you have when using Google Buzz, please visit our Help Center.
URL: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/millions-of-buzz-users-and-improvements.html

[G] Bid ideas now in the Opportunities tab

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 04:33 PM PST

Inside AdWords: Bid ideas now in the Opportunities tab

Over the past few months, you may have visited the Opportunities tab to get customized keyword and budget ideas for optimizing your account. Now we're adding more functionality to the Opportunities tab with the introduction of bid ideas. Bid ideas, based on bid simulator data, will help you raise or lower your bids on specific keywords to improve your AdWords ROI. Whether you wish to decrease overall costs or increase traffic to your website, customized bid ideas can help you determine exactly which bids to adjust to make the most of your advertising budget.

You'll see bid ideas in your account if we determine there's an opportunity for you to:
  • receive significant additional clicks without a significant increase in cost
  • save money without sacrificing a lot of clicks
Bid ideas will be visible in some accounts starting today, and available in all accounts in the coming weeks.


Bid ideas are shown with their estimated cost, impression, and click impact. When you click on a bid idea, you'll see a graph showing clicks versus cost for a range of bid amounts. The graph will include your keyword's current bid (marked in gray) and the proposed bid (marked in yellow). If you're raising a bid, consider whether the extra clicks and impressions are worth the potential added cost. If you're decreasing a bid, consider whether the saved cost is worth the potential loss of clicks and impressions.

The estimates you see are variations on your past performance over the last 7 days and are not attempts to predict or estimate future performance. Also, traffic patterns are always subject to fluctuation, so keep in mind that your future performance may shift over time. If you have reason to believe that next week's traffic will be significantly different from the last week, due to seasonal reasons for example, then it's a good idea to incorporate that information when selecting your bids.

While this tool doesn't know enough about your advertising goals to make a recommendation of which specific bid is best for you, it does provide useful data and gives you bid ideas to consider. We suggest that you use the data we provide to gain insight into how different bids could affect your performance. If you'd like even more information on bid ideas, including information on how they're generated, you can read our detailed article in the AdWords Help Center.

You should think of the Opportunities tab as your homepage for account optimization. You can view all your customized optimization ideas in one place, allowing you to make informed decisions before adjusting your account. We suggest checking the Opportunities tab every few weeks to look for new ideas. Continue to look out for new features in the coming months as we work to make the Opportunities tab an even more robust resource.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew
URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/02/bid-ideas-now-in-opportunities-tab.html

[G] A new look for Google Search for mobile

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 03:40 PM PST

Official Google Mobile Blog: A new look for Google Search for mobile

We're always looking for ways to improve your user experience with our products. If you use Google Search with a web browser on your Android-powered device or iPhone, you'll see some changes to the look of the buttons and toolbars to a style you may now be familiar with on Mobile Gmail, Latitude, Calendar and Tasks. As with these Google apps, the color contrast of the style now adds more focus to the search results of the page, and the header controls are bigger to make them easier to touch.

The Google logo has been moved up to the top of the search results page, allowing us to increase the width and height of the search box. You can now more easily touch the larger box to enter a new search, the new big bold font makes it easier to see what you have entered, and the wider box helps you see more characters at once.


We have also given our homepage some love. While this got the bigger search box last month, we have created a new search button beside the search box rather than below, so when search suggestions appear, they no longer hide the button.


Just go to www.google.com on your phone to try it out, and let us know what you think.

Posted by Nick Fey, User Experience Designer, Google Mobile
URL: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-look-for-google-search-for-mobile.html

[G] A view into Tehran

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 03:11 PM PST

Google LatLong: A view into Tehran


Today marks the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and with it a new round of demonstrations has presumably arisen. With tight controls of media and Internet access, it's very hard for those outside of Iran to get a clear picture of what's going on on the streets of Tehran and around the country.

Thanks to our partners at GeoEye, we're able to share with you one independent view: from 423 miles in space, via the IKONOS satellite. The road in the heart of the image is Azadi Road in the heart of Tehran. It was taken at 10:47 AM local time on February 11, and shows huge throngs in the streets:



If you prefer to view this imagery on your desktop you can download the KML file.

In addition to this view from above, hundreds of videos from on the ground are finding their way around government lockdowns on websites such as YouTube and providing witness to the world. For a selection of these views, visit CitizenTube, a blog about citizen journalism maintained by our colleagues at YouTube.


Posted by Jesse Friedman, Associate Product Marketing Manager
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/02/view-into-tehran.html

[G] Thanks for your feedback on the AdSense Dory

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 01:43 PM PST

Inside AdSense: Thanks for your feedback on the AdSense Dory

Back in December, we invited you to submit and vote on product ideas for AdSense. Thanks for participating and voicing your opinions! We received over 600 ideas, and now, we'd like to follow up on what we're doing with them.

We've sorted through and categorized your ideas, which ranged from suggestions such as additional ad format types to new payment methods, and we recently shared them with the Product Management team. Our product managers are now looking into a number of these ideas and are evaluating whether they can be incorporated within our current product roadmap. We're focused on responding to your feedback, but it might take a little time before you see the features we choose to include because product changes require time to build and test across all the accounts and languages we support. We appreciate your patience in the meantime.

Also, we noticed a few ideas on the Product Ideas page that relate to existing features in AdSense, so we'd like to take a moment to highlight some of them here:

  1. You suggested: Show a list of sites displaying ads from a specific publisher ID to prevent malicious activity.

    We recommend: Try the Allowed Sites feature to protect your account. You can enter the URLs of sites you own, and earnings from only those sites will be recorded in your account. When you opt in to this feature, we'll also show you a list of URLs that haven't been added to the Allowed Sites list, but where your ad code is appearing. Please keep in mind that if you create additional sites in the future and would like to earn from them, you'll need to add the URLs to the Allowed Sites list in order to be credited for valid activity.

    To get started with this feature, visit the 'Allowed Sites' page under your AdSenseSetup tab. You can also find more information in our Help Center

  2. You suggested: Create an index of AdSense sites so AdWords advertisers can easily find sites to target.

    We recommend: Try the Publisher Center within Google Ad Planner to provide advertisers with information about your sites. You can claim sites you own, customize their descriptions, and add categories that describe your content. In addition, you can share your Google Analytics data to provide advertisers with insight into your traffic levels. Recently, we added the ability to display a clickable badge on your site that will take interested advertisers directly to your Ad Planner profile. Any publisher can use this feature, but please note that the interface is currently only available in English.

    To claim your sites in Ad Planner, follow our instructions and visit our Help Center.

  3. You suggested: Enable more flexible Custom Search options.

    We recommend: Try the Google AJAX Search API or the new Custom Search Themes feature for additional customization options. These features will allow you to control the branding of the search box and change or enhance the look and feel of your search results to match your site.

    For more information on these options, we recommend visiting the Custom Search blog and the Developer's Guide for the Custom Search API.
Thanks again for all of your ideas and votes -- stay tuned to Inside AdSense for the latest news and product updates.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team
URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/02/thanks-for-your-feedback-on-adsense.html

[G] Hundreds of new protest videos flood YouTube on anniversary of Iranian revolution

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 12:15 PM PST

YouTube Blog: Hundreds of new protest videos flood YouTube on anniversary of Iranian revolution

Scores of fresh protest videos from Iran are appearing on YouTube today, as pro-reform protesters take to the streets in Tehran on the 31st anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. This marks yet another outbreak of protests since the disputed election last June.

Within hours of the protesters hitting the streets of Iran today, videos began streaming onto YouTube that document the large crowds chanting anti-government slogans and violent clashes with anti-riot police forces. Once again, these extraordinary videos provide an exclusive window into what's taking place on the ground, as foreign press have been banned from the country. YouTube remains blocked in Iran, but dissidents are passing videos to friends out of the country and using Internet circumvention technologies to post the footage, according to news reports and correspondence with those on the ground.

We're tracking the videos on Citizentube, and here's a selection that have come in so far today. A playlist can be found here.

A young man is dragged and beaten by members of the Basij police forces:




Protesters face-off against the the police:




Citizens flee from tear gas:




Security forces stand in the streets, armed and ready:




Protests in the Metro in Tehran:




Large groups gather in the streets to demonstrate:




Olivia Ma, YouTube News & Politics, recently watched "Mass Rallies, Protests in Iran"


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/lNMImMrxwxI/hundreds-of-new-protest-videos-flood.html

[G] Simple wedding planning with Google Docs

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 10:42 AM PST

Official Google Docs Blog: Simple wedding planning with Google Docs

Cross posted on the Official Google Blog

We all want important life moments — like graduating from school, getting married or having your first baby — to be perfect. For many couples, your wedding is a chance to celebrate with everyone you care about; it's also the largest, most complicated party you'll ever host. From tracking guest RSVPs, to picking the right florist, DJ and caterer, to coordinating every last detail with your wedding party, it's no surprise that the process can become overwhelming and expensive.

After proposing to the woman of my dreams with 100 red roses, six months ago I started planning my own wedding. My fiancee and I decided to use Google Docs to manage every aspect of our wedding, starting with shared budget, guest list, to-do list and venue-tracking spreadsheets and keeping all our docs in our "Wedding" shared folder. I ended up talking to other couples who planned their weddings using Google Docs and discovered I wasn't alone in thinking that it helped save time and avoid headaches.

Today, I'm happy to share this knowledge in the form of over 20 wedding templates available in the Google Docs template gallery. These tools make it easy to estimate and track your wedding budget, collect addresses for invitations, compare vendors and much more. For example, take a look at the address book template below. Instead of emailing hundreds of guests and copy/pasting hundreds of addresses into a spreadsheet, you can send a Google form and collect addresses in a spreadsheet automatically:


Because these documents, spreadsheets and forms live online in the cloud, you can easily get help by sharing them with your parents or bridal party, and you can access them from the bakery, bridal shop or anywhere around town using your smartphone. Plus, you never have to worry about versions and email attachments, because everything is always up to date.

Having the tools to plan a wedding is a good start, but you also need to know what questions to ask when interviewing vendors and which factors to consider when inviting guests or choosing music. To give you a leg up, we've teamed up with StyleMePretty, a popular wedding blog, to add tips from wedding experts to each template. Style Me Pretty is also hosting a sweepstakes and asking engaged couples to share their wedding planning experiences: one randomly selected winner will receive free consultation with celebrity event planner Michelle Rago and a $500 gift certificate to Wedding Paper Divas.

We're excited to give more engaged couples tools to make the wedding planning process easier and more fun. To learn more about simplifying wedding planning with Google Docs and Style Me Pretty, check out docs.google.com/wedding.

Posted by: Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager
URL: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/02/simple-wedding-planning-with-google.html

[G] Simple wedding planning with Google Docs

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 10:42 AM PST

Official Google Blog: Simple wedding planning with Google Docs

(Cross posted on the Google Docs Blog)

We all want important life moments — like graduating from school, getting married or having your first baby — to be perfect. For many couples, your wedding is a chance to celebrate with everyone you care about; it's also the largest, most complicated party you'll ever host. From tracking guest RSVPs, to picking the right florist, DJ and caterer, to coordinating every last detail with your wedding party, it's no surprise that the process can become overwhelming and expensive.

After proposing to the woman of my dreams with 100 red roses, six months ago I started planning my own wedding. My fiancee and I decided to use Google Docs to manage every aspect of our wedding, starting with shared budget, guest list, to-do list and venue-tracking spreadsheets and keeping all our docs in our "Wedding" shared folder. I ended up talking to other couples who planned their weddings using Google Docs and discovered I wasn't alone in thinking that it helped save time and avoid headaches.

Today, I'm happy to share this knowledge in the form of over 20 wedding templates available in the Google Docs template gallery. These tools make it easy to estimate and track your wedding budget, collect addresses for invitations, compare vendors and much more. For example, take a look at the address book template below. Instead of emailing hundreds of guests and copy/pasting hundreds of addresses into a spreadsheet, you can send a Google form and collect addresses in a spreadsheet automatically:


Because these documents, spreadsheets and forms live online in the cloud, you can easily get help by sharing them with your parents or bridal party, and you can access them from the bakery, bridal shop or anywhere around town using your smartphone. Plus, you never have to worry about versions and email attachments, because everything is always up to date.

Having the tools to plan a wedding is a good start, but you also need to know what questions to ask when interviewing vendors and which factors to consider when inviting guests or choosing music. To give you a leg up, we've teamed up with StyleMePretty.com, a popular wedding blog, to add tips from wedding experts to each template. StyleMePretty is also hosting a sweepstakes and asking engaged couples to share their wedding planning experiences. One randomly selected winner will receive free consultation with celebrity event planner Michelle Rago and a $500 gift certificate to Wedding Paper Divas.

We're excited to give more engaged couples tools to make the wedding planning process easier and more fun. To learn more about simplifying wedding planning with Google Docs and Style Me Pretty, check out docs.google.com/wedding.

Posted by Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager, Google Docs
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/simple-wedding-planning-with-google.html

[G] Speed Matters - Introducing the YouTube Video Speed Dashboard

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 10:42 AM PST

YouTube Blog: Speed Matters - Introducing the YouTube Video Speed Dashboard

Your YouTube video speed can mean the difference between a fast and fun video viewing experience, or a slow and frustrating one. That's why, today, we're launching a YouTube video speed dashboard to make the speed information available to you.



YouTube video speed depends on many different factors some of which are the speed of your Internet connection, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) you are using and the distance to the video servers. The goal with this dashboard is to give you insight into what your YouTube speed looks like compared to the YouTube speed of users in other regions and different ISPs. We may also list the YouTube speeds for users in you neighborhood but with different ISPs. The speed numbers are calculated by measuring the speed at which YouTube video is received by the browser. This is then averaged over the previous 30 days provided you've used the same browser during this time period.





So, what can you do with all of this new data about your video speed? Well, that's entirely up to you. Some users will find it interesting to compare their city's average YouTube speed with the rest of the world's. Some will discover they're running at slower speeds compared to other users with the same ISP. A higher YouTube video speed translates to a better and faster experience not just for YouTube videos but for the Web in general; and by making this speed data available to users we would like to continue our ongoing efforts to make the web faster.



If you're interested in checking this feature out, go to http://youtube.com/my_speed and see just how fast your YouTube video speed is. Let us know what you think in the comment section below.



Kevin Carle, Engineer, recently watched "Charlie Brooker - How To Report The News" and Arvind Jain, Engineering Director, recently watched "Google's Experimental Fiber Network"


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/MJSnbCdBjNQ/speed-matters-introducing-youtube-video.html

[G] A new beta of Google Chrome for Mac - with extensions and more

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 09:15 AM PST

Google Chrome Blog: A new beta of Google Chrome for Mac - with extensions and more

Since we released Chrome for Mac in beta last December, we've been busy adding new features. Today, after some incubation in the developer channel, we're happy to make some of these features more widely available. The new beta release of Chrome for Mac offers extensions, bookmark sync, and more.

With this new version, you'll be able to install any of over 2,200 extensions (and counting!) currently available in Chrome's extensions gallery. Extensions can add useful, informative, fun, or quirky functionality to the browser. You can manage your extensions by clicking on the Window menu and choosing "Extensions."

For this release, we remained focused on providing a snappy, safe, and simple browsing experience on the Mac. If you haven't tried Chrome on the Mac yet and are curious about its features, this video will take you on a brief tour:



Those of you who use several computers will now be able to keep your bookmarks synchronized between them. If some of your computers aren't Macs, don't worry: bookmark sync works in Chrome for Linux and Windows too. We also added bookmark and cookie managers in a way that feels completely at home on the Mac. For technically-oriented users, our new Task Manager will help you keep tabs on all of your tabs.

If you're not using Chrome yet, you can try all of these new features out by downloading the Google Chrome Beta for Mac. Existing Chrome users should be automatically updated to the new beta within the next day – just check the About window and look for version 5.0.307. We hope you're as excited about this new version as our animated friends are:



Posted by Mark Mentovai, Software Engineer, Google Chrome
URL: http://chrome.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-beta-of-google-chrome-for-mac-with.html

[G] Google Chrome Beta for Mac updated - now with extensions

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 09:15 AM PST

Official Google Mac Blog: Google Chrome Beta for Mac updated - now with extensions

The last time we put on a show
was just over two months ago.
We polished our Chrome
for Mac! It's at home
on anyone's MacBook or Pro.

It's fast, and of course, we ensure
the browser will stay more secure.
But some wrote a letter–
they wanted it better!
So clearly it had to mature.

Today, we are happy to mention
on Mac, you can use that extension!
And bookmark sync too,
plus, there's more for you
and if I still have your attention:


Read more about our release on the Google Chrome blog. If you're as psyched as we are, you can download the new Google Chrome Beta for Mac, now with extensions, bookmark sync, cookie and bookmark managers, and more. Still not convinced? Maybe a cute foam arrow would be more persuasive:




Posted by Mark Mentovai, Software Engineer, Google Chrome
URL: http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-chrome-beta-for-mac-updated-now.html

[G] Bringing extensions to Google Chrome for Mac

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 09:15 AM PST

Official Google Blog: Bringing extensions to Google Chrome for Mac

As thousands of Mac fans and developers gather in San Francisco for this week's Macworld conference, we're particularly delighted to announce a new beta release of Chrome for Mac. Today's release includes some of our most requested features from the Mac community, including extensions and bookmark sync.

You can read more about these features on the Google Chrome blog, or you can try it out directly by downloading the Google Chrome Beta for Mac. If you're already using Chrome, you should be automatically updated to the new beta within the next day.

Downloading Google Chrome will give your mouse pointer a new reason to get excited:



Posted by Mark Mentovai, Software Engineer, Google Chrome
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/bringing-extensions-to-google-chrome.html
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