Googland

---

• [G] Eric Schmidt discusses innovation with news editors
• [G] Eric Schmidt discusses innovation with news editors
• [G] Setting efficiency goals for data centers
• [G] New frontiers in display advertising planning and measurement
• [G] Link units revamped
• [G] Google Summer of Code Student Applications Now Closed!
• [G] Dazzling new 3D buildings for New York City in Google Earth
• [G] How To Measure The Quality Of An Online Form
• [G] The next generation of Google Docs
• [G] A new Google Docs
• [G] Laying the foundation for a new Google Docs

[G] Eric Schmidt discusses innovation with news editors Posted: 12 Apr 2010 09:28 PM PDT Google News Blog: Eric Schmidt discusses innovation with news editors Posted by Chris Gaither, Senior Manager, Global Communications & Public Affairs This week, hundreds of newsroom leaders from across the country are gathered in Washington DC for the American Society of News Editors' annual conference. The theme of this year's event is "ideas," and Eric Schmidt shared many of his as the opening speaker. He spoke about some of the big trends that are shaping the Internet, such as the rise of mobile and cloud computing, and some lessons he has learned about how to navigate the Web's constant pace of change. He also talked about the importance of journalism to functioning democracies and encouraged the group to work together -- as well as with technology partners like Google -- to find new ways to reach and engage audiences, tell important stories and build thriving businesses online. You can watch Eric's speech, which we've posted on YouTube, below. And if you're interested in reading or contributing to the discussion about the future of news, check out the unofficial conference blog and #asne10 on Twitter. URL: http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/eric-schmidt-discusses-innovation-with.html

[G] Eric Schmidt discusses innovation with news editors Posted: 12 Apr 2010 03:48 PM PDT Google Public Policy Blog: Eric Schmidt discusses innovation with news editors Posted by Chris Gaither, Senior Manager, Global Communications & Public Affairs This week, hundreds of newsroom leaders from across the country are gathered in Washington DC for the American Society of News Editors' annual conference. The theme of this year's event is "ideas," and Eric Schmidt shared many of his as the opening speaker. He spoke about some of the big trends that are shaping the Internet, such as the rise of mobile and cloud computing, and some lessons he has learned about how to navigate the Web's constant pace of change. He also talked about the importance of journalism to functioning democracies and encouraged the group to work together -- as well as with technology partners like Google -- to find new ways to reach and engage audiences, tell important stories and build thriving businesses online. You can watch Eric's speech, which we've posted on YouTube, below. And if you're interested in reading or contributing to the discussion about the future of news, check out the unofficial conference blog and #asne10 on Twitter. URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/04/eric-schmidt-discusses-innovation-with.html

[G] Setting efficiency goals for data centers Posted: 12 Apr 2010 12:47 PM PDT Google Public Policy Blog: Setting efficiency goals for data centers Posted by Urs Hoelzle, Senior Vice President, Operations and Google Fellow For the past decade, we have been working to make our data centers as efficient as possible; we now use less than half the energy to run Google's data centers than the industry average. In the open letter below, I am very happy to welcome a group of industry leaders who collectively represent most of the world's most advanced data center operators. -Urs Hoelzle Recently, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) added data centers to their building efficiency standard, ASHRAE Standard 90.1. This standard defines the energy efficiency for most types of buildings in America and is often incorporated into building codes across the country. Data centers are among the fastest-growing users of energy, according to an EPA report, and most data centers have historically been designed and operated without regard to energy efficiency (for details, see this 2009 EPA Energy Star survey). Thus, setting efficiency standards for data centers is important, and we welcome this step. We believe that for data centers, where the energy used to perform a function (e.g., cooling) is easily measured, efficiency standards should be performance-based, not prescriptive. In other words, the standard should set the required efficiency without prescribing the specific technologies to accomplish that goal. That's how many efficiency standards work; for example, fuel efficiency standards for cars specify how much gas a car can consume per mile of driving but not what engine to use. A performance-based standard for data centers can achieve the desired energy saving results while still enabling our industry to innovate and find new ways to improve our products. Unfortunately, the proposed ASHRAE standard is far too prescriptive. Instead of setting a required level of efficiency for the cooling system as a whole, the standard dictates which types of cooling methods must be used. For example, the standard requires data centers to use economizers — systems that use ambient air for cooling. In many cases, economizers are a great way to cool a data center (in fact, many of our companies' data centers use them extensively), but simply requiring their use doesn't guarantee an efficient system, and they may not be the best choice. Future cooling methods may achieve the same or better results without the use of economizers altogether. An efficiency standard should not prohibit such innovation. Thus, we believe that an overall data center-level cooling system efficiency standard needs to replace the proposed prescriptive approach to allow data center innovation to continue. The standard should set an aggressive target for the maximum amount of energy used by a data center for overhead functions like cooling. In fact, a similar approach is already being adopted in the industry. In a recent statement, data center industry leaders agreed that Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is the preferred metric for measuring data center efficiency. And the EPA Energy Star program already uses this method for data centers. As leaders in the data center industry, we are committed to aggressive energy efficiency improvements, but we need standards that let us continue to innovate while meeting (and, hopefully, exceeding) a baseline efficiency requirement set by the ASHRAE standard. Chris Crosby, Senior Vice President, Digital Realty Trust Hossein Fateh, President and Chief Executive Officer, Dupont Fabros Technology James Hamilton, Vice President and Distinguished Engineer, Amazon Urs Hoelzle, Senior Vice President, Operations and Google Fellow, Google Mike Manos, Vice President, Service Operations, Nokia Kevin Timmons, General Manager, Datacenter Services, Microsoft URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/04/setting-efficiency-goals-for-data.html

[G] New frontiers in display advertising planning and measurement Posted: 12 Apr 2010 12:47 PM PDT Official Google Blog: New frontiers in display advertising planning and measurement This is the third post in our series on the future of display advertising. Today, Director of Product Management, Ari Paparo, looks at how better data will help marketers plan and measure their display campaigns in the future - Ed. Basketball teams in the 1980s looked at fairly simple statistics — points, rebounds, assists and shooting percentages — to measure team and player performance. However, in recent years, there's been a data renaissance — a recognition of the need to develop more insightful measures, and a resurgence in appreciation for the value of data in sports. Now, professional basketball teams measure all sorts of on-court happenings, as well as more ethereal things like team chemistry and player psychology. As advertisers and agencies try to plan and measure their display ad campaigns, they're much like basketball teams stuck in the 80's. Today, planning display advertising campaigns is largely based on relationships and habits, and often-primitive measures of website traffic. If asked to quantify the impact of their display ad campaigns, many advertisers could show you the number of clicks on their ads, and then shrug. The Internet has long held out the promise of being a truly accountable, measurable medium for marketers. In search advertising, a decade of investment in analytics and measurement tools has helped to realize that promise. But the same tools for display advertising have lagged. In the previous post in this series, Neal Mohan wrote about the creative possibilities that new display advertising technology is enabling. But how do marketers work out where to buy these ads, and quantify their impact? Let's look at what's becoming possible as we start to use newer technologies, improved statistical models and aggregated data to improve the planning and measurement of display advertising. Imagine an ad agency tasked with planning and measuring a campaign for a new male cologne (specially endorsed by a famous DJ). The ideal target audience is males aged 18-35 who are interested in dance music, well-groomed and who think they're hip. Today, it's possible (using tools like DoubleClick Ad Planner) to find popular U.S. sites that are read by males aged 18-35 who are interested in dance music or who have previously visited the DJ's website. Of course, there's no way to tell which sites' readers are well-groomed or if they're hip, but media planners can add in terms like "clubs," "nightlife", "sample sale" and "fashion" into Ad Planner's search term correlator to find sites whose users are more likely to search for those terms, as measured across large quantities of data. Looking forward, what if the agency could seamlessly click a checkbox to pull in site performance data from that same client's last ad campaign? The planner could rank the sites in the media plan that produced the best results for the last campaign. And what if the agency could click another checkbox to select recommended high-performing sites in the Google Content Network that offer above the fold placements and that fall within the client's budget and targeting criteria, then buy them with a click of the button in AdWords? Just as we're working to make planning more precise, we're also focused on evolving display measurement tools. For a long time, display advertisers have used fairly simple measures like clicks, impressions or conversions. These are great metrics for some types of marketing campaigns. But not for all. Not every ad campaign is looking to deliver an immediate sale. Lots of advertising — like the cologne campaign — is designed to influence opinions, spread buzz or build brand associations. For these campaigns, measuring clicks is like trying to judge an entire movie after watching just five minutes. We're developing new measurement products designed to gauge the impact of ads on brand awareness or on user interest in the product being advertised. Let's go back to our cologne example. Today, using our new tool called Campaign Insights, the agency can reliably measure the "brand lift" directly attributable to the display campaign. This measurement tool looks at two large groups of users — one that has seen the ad, and one that hasn't. It then compares the volume of searches and website visits to measure how awareness of the brand has improved as a result of the display ad campaign. Think about what other measurement tools may become possible. What if the agency could use an even larger real-time focus group like, say, the entire Internet? It could include social features in the ad, and then, by parsing public reactions — tweets, blogposts, status updates, YouTube comments and more — measure, in real time, how the Internet is responding to the cologne and the ad. This could give them an immediate, quantifiable view into the reactions and views of its potential consumers, and measure the viral effect of the ad over time. And what if the agency could precisely measure the impact of the campaign — not just on increased web traffic, searches or online comment — but (using geographical signals) on the actual purchases of their cologne in local stores? Imagine the possibilities — display ad campaigns could even communicate with the advertiser's supply chain or inventory system. These innovations in planning and measurement are all exciting, but what's most revolutionary is what will happen when they're combined. In the future, campaign measurement will take place in near real-time, creating an almost immediate feedback loop. Currently, the process is very linear — marketers plan their campaign, then buy ad space, then run their campaign, then measure the results, often with weeks in between. Soon, measurement will become truly dynamic and will feed into the planning process itself. Agencies and advertisers will be able to test multiple creatives and media plans, and immediately tweak them to deliver the best-performing ads and reach the optimal sites and audiences as measurement data starts to come in. We're on the cusp of a data renaissance in display ad planning and measurement. It promises to vastly improve online advertising for marketers, while resulting in ads that people find more relevant and effective. And by attracting new advertisers with more valuable ads, it will help online publishers earn more money from their online content. We think that's definitely something worth shooting for. Posted by Ari Paparo, Product Management Director URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/new-frontiers-in-display-advertising.html

[G] Link units revamped Posted: 12 Apr 2010 12:47 PM PDT Inside AdSense: Link units revamped If you're as excited about link units as I am, then you'll be happy to know that they're now better than ever! Link units are a different type of ad format which display a list of topics relevant to the content of your page. When a user clicks on a topic, we'll show a page of related ads and you'll earn from valid clicks on those ads. Many publishers have found that link units offer monetization similar to that of ad units and provide a more integrated user experience. In our biggest performance overhaul to date, the link units engineering team recently completed a full rewrite of the link unit matching system. The new system is much smarter: it not only uses more sophisticated topic ranking algorithms but also continuously optimizes by learning which topics have the most appeal to the visitors of your site. The results are overwhelmingly positive -- topic quality, user response rate to topics and ads, and monetization metrics have all improved in significant, measurable ways. If you aren't already using link units on your pages, I encourage you to give them a try. They're space-efficient and can help provide additional AdSense revenue. Visit your 'AdSense Setup' tab and select 'AdSense for content' to get started, or learn more in our Help Center. Posted by Jerry Krikheli - Engineering Manager for Link Units URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/04/link-units-revamped.html

[G] Google Summer of Code Student Applications Now Closed! Posted: 12 Apr 2010 12:10 PM PDT Google Open Source Blog: Google Summer of Code Student Applications Now Closed! Our application deadline for student applications to Google Summer of Code™ has now passed. Thank you to all the students who applied this year! We got 5,539 proposals in all. If you are a student waiting to find out if you will be accepted into the program, be sure to check out the Google Summer of Code site on April 26 at 19:00 UTC for the announcements. Our community bonding period starts right after announcements are made, and then, as mentioned in our timeline, coding officially starts on May 24. Good luck to all the applicants we got this year, and we're looking forward to a great summer! By Carol Smith, Open Source Programs Office URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/04/google-summer-of-code-student.html

[G] Dazzling new 3D buildings for New York City in Google Earth Posted: 12 Apr 2010 12:10 PM PDT Google LatLong: Dazzling new 3D buildings for New York City in Google Earth [From time to time we invite guests to blog about initiatives of interest, and are very pleased to have George Fertitta, Chief Executive Officer of NYC & Company join us here. – Ed.] In January 2009, NYC & Company, the official marketing, tourism and partnership organization of New York City, launched nycgo.com and opened an information center that makes it easier for visitors and residents to explore all the vibrancy, excitement and diversity of New York City's five boroughs. Mirroring the integrated Google Maps on the website, our highly interactive Official NYC Information Center in Midtown Manhattan includes Google Maps–based Interactive Map Tables where you can plan your visit and a beautiful Video Wall featuring 3D imagery of New York City in Google Earth that lets you "fly" through your selected itinerary. Since we opened our doors, thousands of tourists have virtually explored New York in our center before venturing out on their own. When Google let us know that they would be releasing new, high-quality 3D imagery of New York City, we were excited to help spread the word. The new imagery will be an amazing improvement to our already-stunning Video Wall and will help us to reach our goals in making New York City more accessible to visitors and residents alike. The detail at the street level, as you'll see in the video below, makes it easier than ever to virtually experience our variety of cultural institutions, storefronts and residential and commercial buildings. We invite you to come by the Information Center to see for yourself, or to power up Google Earth and explore the Big Apple from your desktop or phone. George Fertitta, Chief Executive Officer of NYC & Company URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/04/dazzling-new-3d-buildings-for-new-york.html

[G] How To Measure The Quality Of An Online Form Posted: 12 Apr 2010 09:47 AM PDT Google Analytics Blog: How To Measure The Quality Of An Online Form Guest post written by the team at Bluerank, a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant Online forms. You enter information into them all the time. You fill them out to make online purchases, sign up for things, sing into things, complete surveys, and more. They're an integral part of the online processes. And like all things, they can break. Let's talk about them from your point of view, as the manager of a website. If you have one or more on your site, it's important to check how they perform and see whether they are a hampering a conversion process because of low quality. The great news is that you can use Google Analytics to do quality control on your forms. Read on to learn how. Forms usually consist of a number of fields grouped into several steps. What's more, many of them are subject to validation. The presence of validated fields is a prerequisite for conducting a test of the form. It is advisable to validate the form at the time of sending. Form Error Rate (FER) When we want to measure the quality of a landing page, we check the Bounce Rate. However, in the case of measuring the quality of a form, we introduce a new metric called Form Error Rate. SubmitError: number of unsuccessful attempts to send the form SubmitAll: number of unsuccessful attempts to send the form + number of successfully submitted forms Example 1 A visitor was looking to buy an insurance policy online. In order to do that, he had to fill in a form with 25 fields. He got a confirmation that the form was successfully submitted on the 3rd attempt. Here is how to count the Form Error Rate in this case: SubmitError = 2 SubmitAll = 2+1=3 Example 2 Visitor 1 managed to fill in and submit the form at first attempt, while visitor 2 submitted the form successfully at third attempt. Lastly, visitor 3 tried 3 times, but finally resigned. In this case: SubmitError = 5 SubmitAll = 5+2=7 Error registration in Google Analytics To track errors in online forms we can use _trackPageview() function. When the user tries to submit the form, it undergoes validation and the information about incorrectly filled fields is coded. Example There is a form with 2 fields. Fields 1 and 2 get validated. When the user makes an error in a field, it will be coded as "1" and a "0" means that the field was either filled correctly or it was not subject to validation. So "10" means there were two fields, and the first was filled in with an error, and the second was filled in correctly. (click to enlarge) If the form is submitted successfully, the code will look like this: "00". In that case, the function that registers information about errors will look as follows: pageTracker._trackPageview("/onlineform/00"); In order to analyze the data registered in Google Analytics, we should export it to an Excel worksheet. Let's assume that during some period of time the following data was registered for our 2-field form (which the trackPageview function will populate in the Content report called Top Content): There were 23 page views of a form. An error occurred 18 times, and 5 submissions were successful. SubmitError = 18 SubmitAll = 18+5 The higher the Form Error Rate, the worse situation we have with our form. Obviously, an FER of 100% would mean that our form is not working at all. In the example above we have an FER of 78%. This means that our form needs improvement. In general, when the FER is under 20 % it means that our form doesn't hamper the online sales process. When analyzing the data, we can find the reason for low form quality. In the example, field 1 was the most problematic what means we should give it some extra attention. We hope that this method is helpful, and you use it as a model for your forms, or even for other functions or operations you have on your page. Registration of errors enables you to calculate the error rate, identify the areas that are the most difficult for users, and optimize them. Posted by Tomasz Lewandowski from Bluerank, a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-to-measure-quality-of-online-form.html

[G] The next generation of Google Docs Posted: 12 Apr 2010 09:47 AM PDT Official Google Blog: The next generation of Google Docs Today we are hosting nearly 400 CIOs and IT professionals from around the world at Atmosphere, our inaugural event at the Googleplex dedicated to cloud computing. The discussion is centered on how companies can focus their technology expertise on projects that truly improve their businesses instead of managing complex applications, technology platforms and devices. We are also sharing details about improvements to Google Docs, made possible by a new codebase that will allow us to deliver richer functionality more quickly. New document and spreadsheet features We've responded to many of your requests for features you're used to in desktop software. In documents, we've added a margin ruler, better numbering and bullets and easier image placement options. And in spreadsheets, you'll now find a formula editing bar, cell auto-complete, drag-and-drop columns and other features not possible with older browser technologies. Higher fidelity document import We've made big improvements to our document upload feature so moving files from your computer to the cloud is easier now. Imported documents retain their original structure more accurately, so you can hit the ground running editing in the browser without having to fix formatting like bullets and text alignment. Speed and responsiveness New browser technologies like faster JavaScript processing have made it possible for us to speed up Google Docs significantly. Even very large spreadsheets are fast to work with in your browser now. Applications that run this fast feel like desktop applications but have the unique advantages of being in the cloud. Faster collaboration We've extended Google Docs' collaboration capabilities too, with support for up to 50 people working together at once, and in documents, you can now see other people's edits as they happen character-by-character. And now you can also collaborate on flow charts, diagrams and other schematics in real time with a new editor for drawings on Google Docs. Learn more about these new capabilities and how to access them on the Google Docs blog, and if you're with a school, business or organization, we've shared more details on the Google Enterprise Blog. Posted by Dave Girouard, President of Google Enterprise URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/next-generation-of-google-docs.html

[G] A new Google Docs Posted: 12 Apr 2010 09:47 AM PDT Official Google Docs Blog: A new Google Docs They say a house is only as good as its foundation, and we believe the same holds true for web applications like Google Docs. With our old foundation, we could continue delivering most features you wanted quickly, but over time it became clear that some just weren't possible. So we decided to rebuild the underlying infrastructure of Docs to give us greater flexibility, improved performance and a better platform for developing new features quickly. Today, we're pleased to announce preview versions of the new Google document and spreadsheet editors and a new standalone drawings editor, all built with an even greater focus on speed and collaboration. To get a taste of what's new today, check out our video: A better document editor We've brought the responsive, real-time editing experience you've come to expect from our spreadsheets over to documents, which means you can now see character-by-character changes as other collaborators make edits. We also added another popular feature from spreadsheets: sidebar chat, so you can discuss documents as you work on them with colleagues. The new technical foundation also helped us improve document formatting, which means better import/export fidelity, a revamped comment system, real margins and tab stops, and improved image layout within documents. These improvements have been highly requested, but previously impossible to create with the older documents editor on older browsers. A faster spreadsheet editor With the new spreadsheets editor, you'll see significant speed and performance improvements -- spreadsheets load faster, are more responsive and scroll more seamlessly. We've also added a host of often requested features, like a formula bar for cell editing, auto-complete, drag and drop columns, and simpler navigation between sheets. And as always, real-time collaboration in spreadsheets is easy with sidebar chat and the ability to see which cell each person is editing. A new collaborative drawing editor In the year since we launched the Insert drawing tool, we've received many requests for the ability to collaborate on drawings and make them accessible directly from the docs list. The new standalone drawings editor lets you collaborate in real time on flow charts, designs, diagrams and other fun or business graphics. Copy these drawings into documents, spreadsheets and presentations using the web clipboard, or share and publish drawings just like other Google Docs. Please note, these new editors are not compatible with Gears (the technology that powers offline access), so they do not have offline support today. However, we plan to bring back offline support in the future, taking advantage of new technologies like HTML5 and advancements in modern browsers. The drawings editor will be available later today, and preview versions of spreadsheets and documents will roll out to all individual users over the next few days. To try them out, click "New version" at the top of any spreadsheet or go to the 'Document Settings' page and select 'New version of Google documents.' To learn more about using the new editors in your business, school or organization, check out the Google Enterprise blog. We're excited to take advantage of this new foundation to bring you even more new features in the future. Stay tuned for in-depth looks at Google documents, spreadsheets and drawings over the next few days on this blog. Posted by: Jonathan Rochelle, Group Product Manager URL: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/04/new-google-docs.html

[G] Laying the foundation for a new Google Docs Posted: 12 Apr 2010 09:47 AM PDT Official Google Enterprise Blog: Laying the foundation for a new Google Docs Over the last year, we've been hard at work rewriting the infrastructure underlying Google Docs to take advantage of the latest advances in modern browsers. Our updated codebase will help us deliver richer functionality more quickly, and over the next few days, we'll be rolling out a preview of the new editors. New document and spreadsheet features You shouldn't have to give up any routine features when you switch to web-based applications, and we're addressing many longstanding requests across Google Docs with this release that were not feasible with older browser technology. Documents support better formatting options like a margin ruler, better numbering and bullets, and more flexible image placement. Spreadsheets now have a familiar formula editing bar, cell auto-complete, drag-and-drop columns and more. Higher fidelity document import It should be easy to move files saved on your computer to the cloud, so we made our document upload feature much stronger. Imported documents keep their original structure more accurately, so you can spend less time adjusting files you move to the cloud. Speed and responsiveness Browser-based applications shouldn't force you to compromise on performance either, and our new architecture is much faster than before. Working with very large spreadsheets is even snappy now. Web apps really can feel just as fluid as traditional software. Faster collaboration Collaboration has always been Google Docs' forte, and the new codebase is letting us leap forward here, too. The applications support up to 50 simultaneous editors, and documents let you see other people's changes character-by-character as they type. Finally, we've added multi-user editing to drawings too, so now you can build flow carts, schematics, and other kinds of diagrams collaboratively. The new Google Docs editors will take advantage of faster rendering engines in modern browsers as well as new web standards like HTML5. As a result, we need to temporarily remove offline support for Docs starting May 3rd, 2010. We know that this is an important feature for some of you, and we are working hard to bring a new and improved HTML5-based offline option back to Google Docs. Please note that this change only concerns Google Docs. We will continue to support offline access for Gmail and Google Calendar. To learn more, please see our Help Center. Over the next few days, users will be able to start creating collaborative drawings from the Docs list. For Google Apps customers with the control panel option set to "enable new pre-release features," users will have the option to enable the new document editor in the 'Document settings' page, and activate the new spreadsheet editor with the "New version" link at the top of any spreadsheet. These improvements to Google Docs are designed to help businesses like yours move to the cloud faster and be more productive than ever before. We look forward to hearing what you think. Please join me for a live webinar on Tuesday, April 20th @ 9am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT to learn about the new features and more. Register here for the webinar. Posted by Anil Sabharwal, Product Manager, Google Apps URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/04/laying-foundation-for-new-google-docs.html

You are subscribed to email updates from Googland To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610