Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] BBQ and Movies

Posted: 16 Mar 2010 12:55 AM PDT

YouTube Blog: BBQ and Movies

Today marks the last day of the SXSW Film Festival (stay tuned for a "BBQ and Music" blog as the music portion of SXSW kicks off tomorrow), where we continued to roll out our Filmmakers Wanted campaign, launched back atSundance, to educate filmmakers about opportunities to distribute and make money from their work on YouTube, especially through YouTube's new Rentals program.

Here's a shot of some of our handiwork for those of you who couldn't make it to Austin this year...


But for any filmmakers out there who want more than just my amateur photo of a poster, visit our Filmmakers Wanted channel for information on Rentals and how to become a partner.

As much as we've enjoyed our stay here in Austin, it's never a party unless we get to celebrate with all of you. So we've put together a kickin' collection of music documentaries to transport you to that artistic otherworld where music and film coexist in beautiful harmony (and if this virtual otherworld doesn't do it for you, try to get to Austin next year -- the BBQ's really good, too).

Below are descriptions of the films, which are available for rent, and trailers to help you decide what to watch.

Socalled is a Canadian klezmer/hip hop artist and part-time magician with millions of views on YouTube (and he also happens to be performing at tonight's SXSW Film Closing Party if you're here in Austin!). Find out what drives this eccentric rapper as he blasts through the boundaries that separate music from different cultures, eras and generations in "The Socalled Movie."

In the late 80's and early 90's, The Pixies took the indie rock world by storm until internal strife tore them apart. This rockumentary takes you behind the scenes of their 2004 reunion tour and explores some of the band's darker demons.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, "DiG!" recounts the friendship and rivalry between the American rock bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols.

In "Air Guitar Nation," a cadre of the nation's greatest would-be guitar heroes - including C-Diddy, Jam Toast and The Shred - converge on the first-ever U.S. Air Guitar Championships, before moving onto the world finals in Finland.





Sara Pollack, Entertainment Marketing Manager, recently watched "Socalled - (Rock the) Belz"


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/m6X5-GDSUmY/bbq-and-movies.html

[G] Google Message Security wins SC Magazine Reader Trust award

Posted: 15 Mar 2010 02:54 PM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Google Message Security wins SC Magazine Reader Trust award

A few months back, we learned that Google Message Security, powered by Postini, was selected as a finalist in the 2010 SC Awards for outstanding achievement in IT security. Today, we are thrilled to announce that Google Message Security has received the Reader Trust Award for Best Managed Security Service.

At Google, we think about the user experience in all that we do, so we are especially honored to receive this award from the Reader Trust Voting Panel, which consists of security and technology experts from large, medium and small enterprises from all major vertical markets.

The Postini team would like to thank SC Magazine and the many readers who voted for Google Message Security. We'd also like to congratulate our fellow nominees and award-winners and acknowledge their contributions to the field of online security.

For more information on Google Message Security and the Postini suite of security and archiving products, please visit, www.google.com/postini

Posted by Gopal Shah, Google Postini team
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/03/google-message-security-wins-sc_15.html

[G] A broadband catapult for America

Posted: 15 Mar 2010 12:17 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: A broadband catapult for America

(Cross-posted from the Google Public Policy Blog)

Power. Clean water. The Interstate highway system. It's easy to forget that the advantages of modern American life result from basic infrastructure investments made by earlier generations.

Tomorrow the FCC will release a national broadband strategy. The plan will set goals for expanding broadband to unserved and under-served areas, promote greater speeds, and drive consumer demand. It will harness this communications technology to urgent national priorities, such as jobs, education, health, energy, and security. In short, the plan will lay the groundwork for investing in America's future.

Yes, the Internet was invented in the United States. Yes, we once led the world in broadband development. But now, networks in many countries, from Western Europe to East Asia, are faster and more advanced than our own. Long after we recover from this recession, this broadband gap will be a dead weight on American businesses and workers, unless we act now.

As with the space race in the 1960s, America needs a national effort by our scientists, engineers, companies, educational institutions and government agencies. Just like that great national adventure, we need near-term and long-term goals.

Broadband is an essential input to expanding business, education, and healthcare opportunities everywhere. As soon as possible, we need to bring Internet access to every community, from rural America to the inner cities.

But we also need even more ambitious objectives -- or "stretch goals" -- that test the limits of our ingenuity. When President John F. Kennedy summoned the nation to space exploration, the immediate goal was to send an astronaut in orbit around the earth. But JFK called for "putting a man on the moon" because he knew that dream would inspire Americans to literally reach for the stars.

The private sector has a big job to do, and needs to carry much of the investment. For our part, we plan to build and test an ultra-high-speed broadband network in at least one U.S. community. We are excited by the amount of support our proposed testbed has received from local communities and individuals.

But smart, tailored public policies are critical too. Let's install broadband fiber as part of every federally-funded infrastructure project, from highways to mass transit. And let's deploy broadband fiber to every library, school, community health center, and public housing facility in the U.S.

I support a national broadband strategy because ubiquitous broadband connectivity can catapult America into the next level of economic competitiveness, worker productivity, and educational opportunity. But as in the past, we will make this breakthrough by choice, not chance.

Posted by Eric Schmidt, CEO
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/broadband-catapult-for-america.html

[G] A broadband catapult for America

Posted: 15 Mar 2010 12:17 PM PDT

Google Public Policy Blog: A broadband catapult for America

Posted by Eric Schmidt, CEO

Power. Clean water. The Interstate highway system. It's easy to forget that the advantages of modern American life result from basic infrastructure investments made by earlier generations.

Tomorrow the FCC will release a national broadband strategy. The plan will set goals for expanding broadband to unserved and under-served areas, promote greater speeds, and drive consumer demand. It will harness this communications technology to urgent national priorities, such as jobs, education, health, energy, and security. In short, the plan will lay the groundwork for investing in America's future.

Yes, the Internet was invented in the United States. Yes, we once led the world in broadband development. But now, networks in many countries, from Western Europe to East Asia, are faster and more advanced than our own. Long after we recover from this recession, this broadband gap will be a dead weight on American businesses and workers, unless we act now.

As with the space race in the 1960s, America needs a national effort by our scientists, engineers, companies, educational institutions and government agencies. Just like that great national adventure, we need near-term and long-term goals.

Broadband is an essential input to expanding business, education, and healthcare opportunities everywhere. As soon as possible, we need to bring Internet access to every community, from rural America to the inner cities.

But we also need even more ambitious objectives -- or "stretch goals" -- that test the limits of our ingenuity. When President John F. Kennedy summoned the nation to space exploration, the immediate goal was to send an astronaut in orbit around the earth. But JFK called for "putting a man on the moon" because he knew that dream would inspire Americans to literally reach for the stars.

The private sector has a big job to do, and needs to carry much of the investment. For our part, we plan to build and test an ultra-high-speed broadband network in at least one U.S. community. We are excited by the amount of support our proposed testbed has received from local communities and individuals.

But smart, tailored public policies are critical too. Let's install broadband fiber as part of every federally-funded infrastructure project, from highways to mass transit. And let's deploy broadband fiber to every library, school, community health center, and public housing facility in the U.S.

I support a national broadband strategy because ubiquitous broadband connectivity can catapult America into the next level of economic competitiveness, worker productivity, and educational opportunity. But as in the past, we will make this breakthrough by choice, not chance.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/03/broadband-catapult-for-america.html

[G] Leuven, Belgium GSoC Infosession

Posted: 15 Mar 2010 12:17 PM PDT

Google Open Source Blog: Leuven, Belgium GSoC Infosession

On the 9th of March, Google Summer of Code™ veterans Vincent Verhoeven (student for both KDE and Thousand Parsec), Ruben Vermeersch (K.U. Leuven researcher and GNOME Google Summer of Code admin) and Bram Luyten (@mire co-founder and mentor for DSpace) gave a presentation about the Google Summer of Code 2010 program to an audience of interested students.

The Google Summer of Code schedule is quite challenging for Belgian students because of the large overlaps between the program and their examinations. However, the presenters made it clear that with careful planning in the application, and transparent communication with mentors, successful participation is definitely possible. As an added bonus, if students can find a mentor in a company, participation in Google Summer of Code can be counted as an internship for some of the master's programs at K.U. Leuvens, which adds even more value on top of the stipends.

For many of the attending students, it sounded too good to be true, as we saw true stares of disbelief when the stipend of 5000 USD in exchange for a few months of programming was announced. Vincent's testimonials of his experiences as a student for the KDE and Thousand Parsec projects, and Ruben's recruiting talk for GNOME "Become the Next GNOME Rockstar," convinced them in the end.

The slides, a recording of the event (in Dutch) and additional information is available.

By Bram Luyten, Head of Sales and Marketing, @Mire
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/03/leuven-belgium-gsoc-infosession.html

[G] Innovent Solutions: "test driving" eCommerce potential

Posted: 15 Mar 2010 11:18 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Innovent Solutions: "test driving" eCommerce potential

Editor's note: Today's guest blogger is Jason Hellman, Information Access and Search Practice Leader at Innovent Solutions, a Google Enterprise Partner that works with Google search and analytics technologies. For the past eleven years, Jason has implemented eCommerce search, Enterprise search, and Business Intelligence solutions at major Internet Retailer Top 100 and Fortune 500 companies.

When Google announced Google Commerce Search we were excited to learn about the technology and the business challenges it could help solve. The promise of Google's outstanding relevance being tailored to the unique needs of eCommerce search was an intriguing prospect and we wanted to be very involved.

Google Commerce Search delivers features such as parametric search, product promotions, and customization which extend the powerful backbone of their high-availability, highly-scalable infrastructure. All of this allows the eRetailer to focus on merchandising and quality of search instead of issues such as infrastructure and peak loads. It's exciting technology and very powerful.

One of the biggest challenges we typically face is the ability to provide a demonstration of technology that is tailored to the specific interests and culture of our clients. The issue is fairly simple: how do I build a compelling proof of concept quickly that will be received enthusiastically by my customer?

It's a challenge in any situation, but it's even more difficult for eCommerce search. Search results are interwoven within the site design, and customers often want to see how search technology will help improve their existing product thumbnails page. Creating a demonstration usually means rewiring a sample page with enough technology to demonstrate the desired features. Submission forms, pagination, browser history, and the various search features themselves must be hand-crafted. Simply put, it can be a tedious and time-consuming task.

To help commerce site managers and developers understand the capabilities of Google Commerce Search, and see the features that are often important, we developed a reference application using Google Web Toolkit (GWT). By including the GWT-generated JavaScript within a sample page, and adding a few "div" tags to surround elements to replace, it is possible to take a static HTML page and turn it into a robust AJAX application, deriving results from Google Commerce Search.

A few tweaks to a style sheet and the results will appear identical to the original source page. It's that simple: add some JavaScript, wrap some elements with "div" tags, and tinker with a few CSS settings.

We can then present the Google Commerce Search results as if they were within the client's site itself, fully functional with faceted navigation, promotions, and all the power of Google's searching relevance.

The story can end here, as we now have a functioning implementation of Google Commerce Search. But a proof of concept only tells a part of the story. The rest of the story is told by interweaving features throughout your site with promotional zones, merchandising options, and strategies to make the most of your data and your shopper's experience.

If you'd like check out our open source solution for Google Commerce Search, take a look at the demo page on our website and let us know what you think.

Jason Hellman
Information Access and Search Practice Leader, Innovent Solutions

Posted by Brent VerWeyst, Enterprise Search Partner Lead
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/03/innovent-solutions-test-driving.html

[G] The future of display advertising

Posted: 15 Mar 2010 10:03 AM PDT

Official Google Blog: The future of display advertising

It's been two years since we completed our acquisition of DoubleClick, a leading provider of display advertising technology. This is the first in a series of posts over the next few weeks about our vision for online display advertising in the years ahead. Today, Susan Wojcicki previews the series and looks back at how we've brought Google and DoubleClick technologies together over the past two years. -ed.

The first online display advertisement — a simple, clickable image — appeared online over 16 years ago. Fast forward to 2010. You're likely to see display ads — image, text, video and rich-media formats — on most of the websites that you visit. These ads are crucial to the Internet. They provide information about thousands of products, services and businesses. They help to fund the web content and services that we all use. And they enable large and small advertisers to reach new customers, increase sales and grow their businesses.

I've watched display advertising evolve from a series of simple, static images, to the incredible creative units that we see today. The best display ads today are often like mini-websites with complex animations, stunning graphics or videos, interactive and social elements. As technology enables better ways of matching ads, they're becoming more relevant to the audience that views them and the website that hosts them. In addition, they're bought and sold across the web more seamlessly than ever before.

Our belief in the potential of display advertising has spurred our investments in this area. We started investing seriously nearly six years ago, by offering display ad formats on our AdSense partner sites in the Google Content Network (which now comprises over a million online publishers). About three years ago, we acquired YouTube and began to offer various display advertising options.

And two years ago, we acquired DoubleClick, a leading provider of display advertising technology. Since then, we've been busy integrating the DoubleClick and Google technologies, and unveiling new features to improve display advertising for users, advertisers and online publishers alike. I thought this was a good opportunity to look back on what we've done over the past two years by bringing Google and DoubleClick together.

Helping our advertisers get better results

By combining Google and DoubleClick technologies, we've made significant enhancements to advertising on the Google Content Network. For example, we've offered support for third party vendors, enabled ads to be frequency capped so that users don't see the same ad over and over, introduced view-through conversion reporting and opened a beta of interest-based advertising. Through these enhancements, we believe we can deliver more relevant, measurable ads that create more value for everyone — users get more useful ads, and these ads generate better results for advertisers and higher returns for publishers.

We're also working to provide an integrated solution that enables advertisers and agencies to plan, buy, create, serve and measure display ads across the web, in a single interface. For the longest time, getting a display ad campaign up and running has been inefficient and cumbersome. We've made significant upgrades to DoubleClick's ad serving technology, DoubleClick for Advertisers, adding new measurement and planning technologies, including Ad Planner and Google Analytics. These improvements streamline advertisers' and agencies' online advertising campaigns.

New ways of buying display ads: the Ad Exchange

In September 2009, we launched the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange. The Ad Exchange is a real-time marketplace that helps large online publishers, ad networks and agency networks buy and sell display advertising space. The new Ad Exchange is a major step towards creating a more open display advertising ecosystem for everyone. The technologies in the new Ad Exchange — principally "real-time bidding" and "dynamic allocation" — are already delivering great results for participants. AdWords advertisers can run ads on sites in the Ad Exchange, using their existing AdWords interface. This gives AdWords advertisers more high quality sites to run display ads on. Similarly, our AdSense publishers are benefiting from more high-quality display advertisers coming through the Ad Exchange.

Maximizing revenue for online publishers

A few weeks ago, we launched the upgraded DoubleClick for Publishers, to help publishers get the most value out of their online content and improve the process of selecting the ads to appear on their websites. In making this upgrade, we've been focused on combining the best of Google's technology and infrastructure with the best of DoubleClick's ad serving expertise to help generate more advertising revenue for major online publishers. For these publishers, managing, delivering and measuring the performance of ads on their websites can be a hugely complicated process that can have a significant impact on how much money they make from their online content. Ad serving is the core technology that underpins this process.

Unleashing creativity in advertising

There's no shortage of creative marketers with brilliant ideas to engage and reach consumers — from remarkable rollerblading baby videos, to customizable ads featuring interactive Twitter feeds. We launched DoubleClick Studio, a rich media tool that makes it easier for agencies and advertisers to design interactive rich media ads. We've also continued to invest in DoubleClick Rich Media, which enables complex and creative ads to be easily trafficked and served. Ads created with these DoubleClick products are engaging users every day, and frequently appear on the homepage of YouTube, on sites in the Google Content Network and all across the web. To further help marketers run engaging ads across the web, we recently acquired a company called Teracent that developed technology that can tailor literally thousands of creative elements of a display ad, in real-time.

To date, we've put hundreds of thousands of engineering hours into building our display solutions and have partnered closely with advertisers, agencies and online publishers to help them get the best results; and to help users see more engaging and relevant ads. We've also developed controls like the Ads Preferences Manager and a specially-engineered opt-out plugin, so that users have transparency, choice and control over the ads they see.

However, our work in recent years is really only the beginning of what's possible in this area. Across the board, we're building and seeing vast improvements in display advertising technology. These technology improvements will make it far easier to buy ads across the web at scale, create engaging ad formats, measure the impact of ad campaigns in innovative and insightful ways, deliver relevant ads to precisely the right audiences in real-time and maximize the value of publishers' online content. With these advances, we think that display advertising, as a category, can grow dramatically.

Over the next few weeks, we're looking forward to exploring these themes on this blog, and explaining some of the ways that new technologies are helping to move display advertising forward for everyone.

Posted by Susan Wojcicki, Vice President of Product Management
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/future-of-display-advertising.html
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