Friday, April 30, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] Keeping Track of the World with Chrome Extensions

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 06:40 PM PDT

Google Chrome Blog: Keeping Track of the World with Chrome Extensions

In recent weeks, we saw not only breaking news, but erupting, stunning and unveiling news! To keep myself from drowning in the news flood, I found that using a few Chrome extensions can help me keep track of it all.

If you're a media enthusiast like I am, there are many Chrome extensions that can help you stay on top of your favorite media sites. With the Financial Times extension, you can quickly browse the financial and economic headlines. At the same time, you can keep up with the latest in politics and art with the NPR extension. A neat feature is that you can also listen to episodes of "All Songs Considered" and other NPR programs. Fan of cricket, Formula 1, or rugby? ESPN has extensions that give you one-click access to top headlines and live scores while you browse the web.



For those who prefer using Google Reader to manage your news feeds, you can quickly preview subscriptions in a pop-up using the Google Reader Notifier extension. Interested in a particular story? You can open your Google Reader in a new tab or go directly to the article.

Sometimes I want to see all of my content in one, easily accessible page. Feedly organizes your content from your favorite sites and services such as Google Reader, Twitter and Flickr into a stylish, magazine-like start page.

These are just a few extensions to help you stay in the know, and you can find many more in the Chrome extensions gallery. You can also check out this video to see some other features you can add to your browser.



Posted by Koh Kim, Associate Product Marketing Manager
URL: http://chrome.blogspot.com/2010/04/keeping-track-of-world-with-chrome.html

[G] Imagery for response to Haiti earthquake and Yazoo tornado

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 06:40 PM PDT

Google LatLong: Imagery for response to Haiti earthquake and Yazoo tornado


To help support ongoing relief efforts in Haiti, we've been working with our satellite partner GeoEye to capture updated imagery of Port-au-Prince. As the rainy season approaches, it's important to have current imagery in order to help aid workers identify and monitor the numerous refugee camps that have sprung up.

You can access the new Haiti satellite imagery by using the Historic Imagery feature in Google Earth. Simply open Google Earth and click on the clock icon in the top toolbar.


The historical imagery time slider will appear just beneath the toolbar. The tick marks on the slider represent images in our database that are available for your current view.


Drag the slider with your mouse to flip between images from different dates. In the below example, you can learn about how a refugee camp has changed in the months since the earthquake.

We'll continue adding new imagery to the database as it becomes available. We also now have new imagery of the Yazoo City, Mississippi area, where a devastating F4 tornado tore through the town over the weekend. We are making the imagery available as a Google Earth overlay, which we hope can be helpful for responders and those affected by this tragic event.


While we're not able to publish imagery after every disaster around the world, we appreciate the work of our partners and providers to help make this imagery available whenever possible.

Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior GIS Strategist
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/04/imagery-for-response-to-haiti.html

[G] Tags: Now in 11 cities

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 06:40 PM PDT

Google LatLong: Tags: Now in 11 cities


Last week we announced that our new ads offering, Tags, would be rolling out to additional cities. Now business owners in San Jose, Houston, Austin, Atlanta, Washington DC, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder, Chicago, San Francisco and Mountain View can sign up for Tags from their Google Places accounts.

You'll notice that we've added Mountain View, CA to the list of cities participating in the trial. Because we are still tweaking the product a bit, we thought we'd make it available in our hometown so we can get quick feedback as we work on new features.

For those who are not yet familiar with Tags, for a $25/month flat fee businesses can opt to add a yellow tag to their Google Places listing that highlights a particular aspect of their business. The tag options today include coupons, photos, videos, menu, reservation, website, and driving directions. In a couple of weeks we will launch a new tag type: "post to your Place Page," a freeform text field in which a business owner can highlight a custom message announcing a sale or an upcoming event.

Posted by Shalini Agarwal, Product Manager
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/04/tags-now-in-11-cities.html

[G] April showers bring... new imagery

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 01:51 PM PDT

Google LatLong: April showers bring... new imagery


The Google Earth and Maps Imagery team has just finished finished pushing out large amount of updated imagery. In total, more than 35 countries are getting updates in one form or another. Some of my favorite highlights include:

Las Vegas, NV

"The Boneyard" in Tucson, AZ

The World Expo in Shanghai

For a complete picture of where we updated imagery, check out the Google Earth plug-in below (updated areas highlighted in red). 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

Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior Geo Data Strategist
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-showers-bring-new-imagery.html

[G] Bringing Living Stories to Wordpress

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 01:51 PM PDT

Google News Blog: Bringing Living Stories to Wordpress

Posted by Eric Zhang, Software Engineer

For the last few months we've been talking with publishers about ways to make it easier for them to use Living Stories, our experimental format for displaying news coverage, on their own websites. Today we're releasing a Living Stories plugin and theme for Wordpress. Now anyone who publishes through Wordpress can use the plugin to organize coverage of an ongoing event on a single dynamic page.

We first showcased Living Stories in December through a two-month-long experiment with the New York Times and Washington Post. We got great feedback from both readers and publishers. Our next step was to open-source the Living Stories format, allowing publishers to build on it using Google's AppEngine infrastructure. We then released a version of the code that runs independent of our infrastructure. Since then, a number of publications have shared their ideas for ways we can offer additional tools to help them create Living Stories.

The Wordpress plugin is a direct result of those conversations. We hope the plug-and-play solution will make it easy for you to get a Living Story up and running in almost no time at all. Head to our documentation page for detailed instructions. If you have questions or feedback, feel free to leave us a note in our help forum. We're looking forward to reading your stories and seeing how the Living Stories format evolves on Wordpress.
URL: http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/bringing-living-stories-to-wordpress.html

[G] More relevant traffic estimates now in the updated Keyword Tool

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 12:45 PM PDT

Inside AdWords: More relevant traffic estimates now in the updated Keyword Tool

In late September, we launched a beta version of the updated Keyword Tool. This tool is a new, streamlined way for you to identify additional keywords and add them to your account. Previously, we offered two distinct tools to expand your keyword list. The Keyword Tool generated keywords based on the content of the URL, words or phrases you entered into the tool. The Search-based Keyword Tool gave you insight into keywords that you may have been missing out on by identifying actual Google searches that were relevant to your site's landing pages. Now, with the updated Keyword Tool, you can search by words or phrases, websites, and even categories (where available) to receive the results of both the Keyword Tool and the Search-based Keyword Tool in one central location.

Our beta launch began what will eventually be a permanent transition from the previous Keyword Tool to the updated version. Over the next few months, you'll be able to switch back and forth between the two tools as needed. We'll post again on this blog when the transition period is over. At that point, the updated Keyword Tool will be the only version available in your account.

In the meantime, as you get accustomed to the updated version, we'll continually improve it and add functionality that we hope you'll find useful. Over the next few days, we're adding a new feature to the tool that will help you get more relevant search traffic estimates for your keywords.

To do this, you'll select specific keywords from the list of suggestions and click on the 'Estimate Search Traffic' button.


From there, you can choose the ad group to which you'd like to add those keywords and see the average estimated CPC, total estimated clicks, and total estimated cost for the keywords you selected on the previous screen.


This enhancement enables you to see how your keywords might perform in a specific ad group. Keyword traffic estimates in the context of an ad group can look at the interactions between keywords, and can give you a more accurate prediction of performance than you'd see from a full list of keywords.

It's important to note that due to these changes, we're removing some columns that you had previously been able to add to your Keyword Tool results: Estimated Avg. CPC, Estimated CTR, Estimated Ad Position, Estimated Impressions, Estimated Clicks, and Estimated Cost. While you won't be able to access these columns in the updated version, you'll still be able to see much of this information in the context of an ad group. If you're interested in seeing keyword-level search traffic estimates, you can do so through the standalone Traffic Estimator tool, which also has a new, more intuitive interface. To access the Traffic Estimator tool, click on the 'More Tools' link under the 'Tools' section of your Opportunities Tab.


Posted by Katrina Kurnit, Inside AdWords crew
URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-relevant-traffic-estimates-now-in.html

[G] Additional publisher resources: Navigating DoubleClick Ad Planner

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 12:45 PM PDT

Inside AdSense: Additional publisher resources: Navigating DoubleClick Ad Planner

In an effort to help our publishers navigate the array of Google products, we're happy to announce the first part of our 'Additional publisher resources' video series. In these videos we aim to provide an introduction to other Google products that are of interest to AdSense publishers. We'll cover topics such as how to maximize your site's visibility to advertisers, how to ensure your site is properly indexed in Google's search engine, how to make your site more interactive for users and how to gather information on your site's traffic.

In the first part of our video series the AdSense team's own Vijay Vachani will walk through the ins and outs of the DoubleClick Ad Planner. Vijay will explain how advertisers find information about your site through the Ad Planner, and how you can take advantage of the features available in the Ad Planner's 'Publisher Center".



Posted by Posted by Matthew Carpenter-Arevalo - Inside AdSense team
URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/04/additional-publisher-resources.html

[G] Integrating virtual keyboards in Google search

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 12:45 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Integrating virtual keyboards in Google search

You've spilled coffee on your keyboard. The a, e, i, o, u, and r keys have stopped working. Now try to search Google for the nearest computer repair shop. The pain of typing on this broken keyboard is similar to what many people searching in non-English languages feel when trying to type today. Typing searches on keyboards not designed for your languages can be frustrating, even impossible.

Our user research has shown that many people are more comfortable formulating search queries in their own language but have difficulty typing these queries into Google. (Try typing नमस्ते on a keyboard with English letters.) To overcome the difficulty they face in typing in their local language scripts, some people have resorted to copying and pasting from other sites and from online translation tools. But there's an easier way — a virtual, or "on-screen" keyboard, lets you type directly in your local language script in an easy and consistent manner, no matter where you are or what computer you're using.

Virtual keyboards let people type directly in their local language script and don't require any additional software.

Last year, to make text input easy for people across the globe, we introduced a virtual keyboard API through code.google.com. This allowed developers to enable virtual keyboards on any text field or text area in their webpages. Today, we are taking this effort one step further by integrating virtual keyboards into Google search in 35 languages.

A virtual keyboard on www.google.am to input Armenian text (the query term is [armenia])

If you use Google search in one of the languages listed below, you'll see a small keyboard icon show up next to the search field, on both the Google homepage and search results page. Clicking on that keyboard icon brings up a virtual keyboard in your language. You can input text by either clicking on the on-screen keyboard or pressing the corresponding key.

You can find out more information on how to use the virtual keyboard in our help article. If you use Google in a language not listed below and feel that your language will benefit from a virtual keyboard, let us know by voting for your language. We hope virtual keyboards help you find information more easily — especially those of you who speak/type/read in non-Latin scripts.

Languages with integrated virtual keyboards
Albanian
Arabic
Armenian
Basque
Belarusian
Bosnian
Bulgarian
Catalan
Croatian
Czech
Finnish
Galician
Georgian
Greek
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Icelandic
Kazakh
Kirghiz
Macedonian
Malayalam
Mongolian
Persian
Polish
Russian
Serbian
Slovak
Slovenian
Swedish
Tatar
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Uzbek

Posted by Manish Bhargava, Product Manager Google Îñţérñåţîöñåļîžåţîờñ
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/integrating-virtual-keyboards-in-google.html

[G] More ways to share your photos

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 12:45 PM PDT

Google Photos Blog: More ways to share your photos

Posted by Ping Chen, Software Engineer

Like many other things in life, photos are best when shared. I share the majority of my photos on Picasa Web Albums, but I also sometimes tweet about specific photos or share them on my blog. Today, we're making it a little simpler to share your PWA photos to whichever destination you want, with the launch of easy share buttons for Google Buzz, Blogger and Twitter.

To share a photo or album from Picasa Web Albums straight to any of these sites, just click the appropriate icon to the right of your photo, customize your message, and post it.


We also know that sometimes you don't want to share quite so publicly, but actually just want to share a link to a single unlisted photo, without revealing the whole album. We've now made this possible, by updating the "Link to this photo" URL so that the album name is hidden on the viewer's photo page (the "Share" button still works as normal).

Check out our Help Center for more information, and please let us know what you think about the new sharing options in our forum.
URL: http://googlephotos.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-ways-to-share-your-photos.html

[G] Open-sourcing Traditional Chinese IME on Android

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 12:45 PM PDT

Google Open Source Blog: Open-sourcing Traditional Chinese IME on Android

Traditional Chinese IME on Android is a 20% IME project initiated in Google's Taipei office and it is now open sourced on Google Code. It includes Zhuyin and Cangjie, two dominant input methods for Traditional Chinese users.
This project is based on the Android input method framework, like the open-sourced LatinIME, and its codebase is kept small, readable, and open source under an Apache license.

For people interested in building up a new input method over this project, see how ZhuyinIME and CangjieIME extend AbstractIME and create their respective Editor and WordDictionary subclasses to compose Traditional Chinese characters.

There is still much room for improvement, and we are currently working on two features:

1. How to support English suggestions without duplicating LatinIME data.
2. How to map Zhuyin's 41 keys onto the QWERTY 26-key layout for hardware keyboard.

If you have comments or questions, please see android-traditional-chinese-ime and send them to us. Thanks!

By Yuli Huang, Software Engineering Team
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/04/open-sourcing-traditional-chinese-ime.html

[G] Connect with your "neigh"bors using Google Places

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 09:36 AM PDT

Google LatLong: Connect with your "neigh"bors using Google Places

[Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]

This is the second post in our Small Business series about entrepreneurship and the various Google tools you can use to establish and improve your business presence on the Internet. Here, you'll learn how Google Places (formerly called the Local Business Center) can help you attract and be discovered by customers in your area for free. -Ed.

As a local business owner, one of the things that sets you apart is your ability to make personal connections with your customers because of your passion for what you do. Letting people know who you are and what your business is about is a vital part of finding customers, building lasting relationships with them and helping your business succeed. Google Placeshelps business owners like you to manage your online presence and supplement your Place Page with all the information that helps people decide to visit you — from basics like hours of operation and address to helpful extras like videos, coupons and special announcements.

To give you a firsthand account of how Google Places can help a small business grow and succeed, I've invited Danya Wright to share her experience:
I first began riding horses at age six. Ever since then I knew that I wanted to spend my life working with horses and sharing my passion with others. I had jobs working for several barns and riding programs around Arizona, but always dreamed of having a school of my own.

Two years ago, I finally realized my dream and opened Specialized Training and Riding School — S.T.A.R.S. of Horsemanship. At S.T.A.R.S., we offer lessons to riders of all ages and skill levels, provide therapeutic horse training services for those with disabilities, and train Special Olympics riders. Our property is a 10-acre scenic environment for our students and horses. But because we're located in a rural area ofGilbert, AZ, this also presents a big challenge: I don't have the advantage of "window shoppers" or drive-by traffic. Without a storefront, those who do pass by may not realize that my stable is open to customers. Whenever I want to find a local business, Google Maps is my resource, so I wanted to make sure my business appears there too.

I did a little research and quickly found Google Places (which was known as Local Business Center when I first signed up). Within a few minutes, I was able to update theS.T.A.R.S. Place Page to add key details about my business, like exact location and contact information. And I could mention the special services we offer like group classes, private lessons, birthday parties, Scouting events, parent-child sessions and so on. Now when a company's looking specifically for a team-building venue, they can find my business easily.



Since avid equestrians can be quite particular about facility details, I wanted to make sure that my Place Page included all of the specialized information that's relevant to my target clients. Now when you search on Google, you can be taken to our Place Page to see photos that offer preview of our stables and even meet Salty, one of the horses. You can also find a coupon to help provide a little extra incentive to come try out our lessons if you're new to horseback riding.

Since I started using Google Places six months ago, my business has grown tenfold from what it was before — I've gone from averaging around 10 to 15 students to now serving more than 100. To be honest, I had just figured that new customers would trickle in over time, but it's boomed far beyond my expectations. And now I can spend more time with horses and riders, and less at the computer!



Posted by Carter Maslan, Director of Product Management, Local Search
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/04/connect-with-your-neighbors-using.html

[G] Connect with your "neigh"bors using Google Places

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 09:36 AM PDT

Official Google Blog: Connect with your "neigh"bors using Google Places

This is the second post in our Small Business series about entrepreneurship and the various Google tools you can use to establish and improve your business presence on the Internet. Here, you'll learn how Google Places (formerly called the Local Business Center) can help you attract and be discovered by customers in your area for free. -Ed.

As a local business owner, one of the things that sets you apart is your ability to make personal connections with your customers because of your passion for what you do. Letting people know who you are and what your business is about is a vital part of finding customers, building lasting relationships with them and helping your business succeed. Google Places helps business owners like you to manage your online presence and supplement your Place Page with all the information that helps people decide to visit you — from basics like hours of operation and address to helpful extras like videos, coupons and special announcements.

To give you a firsthand account of how Google Places can help a small business grow and succeed, I've invited Danya Wright to share her experience:
I first began riding horses at age six. Ever since then I knew that I wanted to spend my life working with horses and sharing my passion with others. I had jobs working for several barns and riding programs around Arizona, but always dreamed of having a school of my own.

Two years ago, I finally realized my dream and opened Specialized Training and Riding School — S.T.A.R.S. of Horsemanship. At S.T.A.R.S., we offer lessons to riders of all ages and skill levels, provide therapeutic horse training services for those with disabilities, and train Special Olympics riders. Our property is a 10-acre scenic environment for our students and horses. But because we're located in a rural area of Gilbert, AZ, this also presents a big challenge: I don't have the advantage of "window shoppers" or drive-by traffic. Without a storefront, those who do pass by may not realize that my stable is open to customers. Whenever I want to find a local business, Google Maps is my resource, so I wanted to make sure my business appears there too.

I did a little research and quickly found Google Places (which was known as Local Business Center when I first signed up). Within a few minutes, I was able to update the S.T.A.R.S. Place Page to add key details about my business, like exact location and contact information. And I could mention the special services we offer like group classes, private lessons, birthday parties, Scouting events, parent-child sessions and so on. Now when a company's looking specifically for a team-building venue, they can find my business easily.


Since avid equestrians can be quite particular about facility details, I wanted to make sure that my Place Page included all of the specialized information that's relevant to my target clients. Now when you search on Google, you can be taken to our Place Page to see photos that offer preview of our stables and even meet Salty, one of the horses. You can also find a coupon to help provide a little extra incentive to come try out our lessons if you're new to horseback riding.

Since I started using Google Places six months ago, my business has grown tenfold from what it was before — I've gone from averaging around 10 to 15 students to now serving more than 100. To be honest, I had just figured that new customers would trickle in over time, but it's boomed far beyond my expectations. And now I can spend more time with horses and riders, and less at the computer!


Posted by Carter Maslan, Director of Product Management, Local Search
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/connect-with-your-neighbors-using.html
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