Googland |
- [G] Two more weeks to update your Google News Sitemap
- [G] Reinventing classroom geography with Google Earth API
- [G] Show customers where you'll go with Google Places
- [G] Greater transparency around government requests
- [G] Introducing YouTube Show & Tell
- [G] Greater transparency around government requests
- [G] More countries go Western Union
- [G] Introducing Google Places
- [G] Introducing Google Places
| [G] Two more weeks to update your Google News Sitemap Posted: 20 Apr 2010 05:02 PM PDT Google News Blog: Two more weeks to update your Google News SitemapPosted by Andy Golding, Google News Software EngineerAlmost five months ago, we announced a redesign for our Google News Sitemap. We wanted to give publishers plenty of advance notice so they could make a smooth transition to the new format. This transition period will end on May 4, when we'll discontinue supporting all old-style Google News Sitemaps. If you are a publisher and haven't already shifted your Google News sitemap to the new format, we urge you to do so by following these instructions as soon as possible. This update is key to avoid interruption in crawling your content and allow our crawler to capture all necessary information about your articles. If you've already made the changes to your sitemap, we thank you. There is no need to worry about this update. If you're interested in learning more about Google News sitemaps, we encourage you to read this section of our Help Center and submit a sitemap for your articles in Google News. You may also be interested in checking out our Help Forum where other publishers have shared useful tips and discussed other Sitemaps-related questions. Don't forget to update your Google News Sitemaps. There are only two more weeks to go!  URL: http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/two-more-weeks-to-update-your-google.html      |
| [G] Reinventing classroom geography with Google Earth API Posted: 20 Apr 2010 05:02 PM PDT Official Google Enterprise Blog: Reinventing classroom geography with Google Earth APIEditor's note: Every now and then we like to showcase innovative uses of Google Maps and Earth. Today we're excited to welcome Don Rescigno is the Director of Marketing for NYSTROM Herff Jones Education, which has implemented the Google Earth and Maps API into educational software to make learning more interactive. School Maps & Globes 2.0 NYSTROM Herff Jones Education Division & Roundarch use the Google Earth API to reinvent the classroom map and globe Technology is changing the face of what today's classrooms look like. In the United States alone, roughly one out of every five classrooms has an interactive whiteboard, like this:  These are steadily replacing the chalkboard and leave little to no room for traditional wall maps and charts. As the leading producer of maps and globes for schools, NYSTROM Herff Jones Education Division saw an opportunity to deliver geographic information to educators – a market we've served more more than 100 years – through innovative technology. We partnered with Roundarch, a leader in digital design and technology, to help. Ultimately, we chose to use the Google Earth API to power our educational content and reinvent our products in ways never before possible. The result of our work is StrataLogica(TM). Released late September 2009, StrataLogica is a revolutionary web-based product that delivers layers of age-appropriate, curriculum-based content for use in the classroom, school library, or at home. To meet grade-level curriculum standards, Nystrom mapped the world in many ways to illustrate various themes including physical features, political divisions, land cover, elevation, and U.S. and World history. StrataLogica geo-references the content and presents it wrapped on the 3-D Earth allowing users to navigate and interact with our multi-layered world beyond the scope of traditional maps and globes.  Using the StrataLogica dual-map viewer, teachers and students can compare and contrast a variety of topics side by side. They can examine "then and now" by comparing, say, a World War II history map with a current political view (see image) of the same place.  Students can consider why people live where they do by creating side-by-side mash-ups of population, rainfall, and land use. They can also take advantage of Google Earth's 3-D imagery by zooming down to satellite view to explore terrain or cities and communities around the world while keeping one globe view locked to provide context. With the intuitive tool bar built on top of the API teachers and students can interact in numerous ways with content. They can add their own placemark pop-ups and include explanatory text, videos, or photos. They can use a ruler tool to measure distance. They can add their own text labels or drop in symbols to highlight land use, transportation, weather, and more. Each user can save this information to his or her account. Nystrom and Roundarch have recently announced the addition of new StrataLogica features and functions that include collaboration, sharing, projects, and presentations. With these new capabilities students and teachers can work together to map curriculum content—exploration routes, famous battles, immigration patterns—in this online environment so learning to continue outside the confines of the classroom. It's our belief that with the release of StrataLogica, Nystrom is redefining the way schools will think about and provide this fundamental, relevant content. Today's students are so technically savvy – they deserve resources that will feed their appetite for information while improving their educational lives. Though it was introduced only months ago, StrataLogica is already being adopted by schools and districts around the country. The overwhelming response has been that it inspires teachers and students in an entirely new way. We invite you to see videos of StrataLogica in action and encourage educators to get a free trial at www.stratalogica.com. You can also follow Nystrom's StrataLogica on Twitter at twitter.com/stratalogica. Don Rescigno, Director of Marketing NYSTROM Herff Jones Education Division Representatives from both Nystrom and Roundarch will be participating at the annual Google I/O Conference this May in San Francisco, California. Posted by Natasha Wyatt, Google Earth and Maps team  URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/04/reinventing-classroom-geography-with.html   |
| [G] Show customers where you'll go with Google Places Posted: 20 Apr 2010 03:06 PM PDT Google LatLong: Show customers where you'll go with Google PlacesNot all businesses serve their customers from a brick-and-mortar storefront. Folks like photographers, piano tuners, and plumbers tend to travel around town to provide their services, and may operate from home. To better connect with all the customers they serve, these businesses can now use Google Places to specify a service area -- that is, where they're willing to travel to do business. If you operate one of these types of businesses, you can set a service area for a listing in your Google Places account quickly and easily. If you have a limit to how far away you're willing to travel, you can set your service area as a circle around a specific location. If you have a particular list of places where you work, you can list your areas served (by zip codes, cities, counties, or even neighborhoods). When customers search for you on Google Maps, they'll see something like this: .png) If you run your business from a home or private office and don't have a location for customers to visit, you can choose to show your service area but mark the listing address as private in your Google Places account. When a customer searches for you, they'll see the business service area, but no specific location marker:  In addition to letting business owners list their service areas, we've also aggregated data from third-party sources to expand the number of businesses with service areas and help keep the information accurate and up-to-date. To see a business' service areas, click on the "show service area" option (when available) in the info bubble. To learn more about service areas on Google Maps and in your Google Places account, take a look at this short introductory video we've put together: Posted by Ari Bezman, Product Manager  URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/04/show-customers-where-youll-go-with.html   |
| [G] Greater transparency around government requests Posted: 20 Apr 2010 03:06 PM PDT Google Public Policy Blog: Greater transparency around government requestsPosted by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer (cross-posted from the Official Google Blog) Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights states that "everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Written in 1948, the principle applies aptly to today's Internet -- one of the most important means of free expression in the world. Yet government censorship of the web is growing rapidly: from the outright blocking and filtering of sites, to court orders limiting access to information and legislation forcing companies to self-censor content. So it's no surprise that Google, like other technology and telecommunications companies, regularly receives demands from government agencies to remove content from our services. Of course many of these requests are entirely legitimate, such as requests for the removal of child pornography. We also regularly receive requests from law enforcement agencies to hand over private user data. Again, the vast majority of these requests are valid and the information needed is for legitimate criminal investigations. However, data about these activities historically has not been broadly available. We believe that greater transparency will lead to less censorship. We are today launching a new Government Requests tool to give people information about the requests for user data or content removal we receive from government agencies around the world. For this launch, we are using data from July-December, 2009, and we plan to update the data in 6-month increments. Read this post to learn more about our principles surrounding free expression and controversial content on the web. We already try to be as transparent as legally possible with respect to requests. Whenever we can, we notify users about requests that may affect them personally. If we remove content in search results, we display a message to users. The numbers we are sharing today take this transparency a step further and reflect the total number of requests we have received broken down by jurisdiction. We are also sharing the number of these content removal requests that we do not comply with, and while we cannot yet provide more detail about our compliance with user data requests in a useful way, we intend to do so in the future. As part of our commitment to the Global Network Initiative, we have already agreed to principles and practices that govern privacy and free expression. In the spirit of these principles, we hope this tool will shine some light on the scale and scope of government requests for censorship and data around the globe. We also hope that this is just the first step toward increased transparency about these actions across the technology and communications industries.  URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/04/greater-transparency-around-government.html   |
| [G] Introducing YouTube Show & Tell Posted: 20 Apr 2010 11:57 AM PDT YouTube Blog: Introducing YouTube Show & TellArt Directors Club President Doug Jaeger introduces YouTube Show & Tell, a new program and partnership with the ADC to showcase the best examples of marketing on YouTube.As president of the Art Directors Club, an organization for creatives and designers in integrated media and the first international creative collective of its kind, it's my job to continually look for new opportunities to translate the club's mission: to connect, provoke and elevate advertising initiatives into to action. That's why I'm honored, and totally psyched, that ADC is part of a new initiative launching today, YouTube Show & Tell. Show & Tell is a new gallery-style brand channel showcasing the best marketing and advertising campaigns on YouTube. YouTube developed the concept and serves as the platform; ADC's ongoing role is to curate content, drawing on 89 years experience in identifying the most creative marketing ideas and recognizing the work that exhibits exceptional excellence and craft. Each quarter, ADC will curate a lively and interesting new body of work in four categories: brand channel, home page, viral video and interactive. We will promote the entry process, assemble creative experts to review campaigns that have run on YouTube, and elevate the best work to the forefront. All advertising and marketing work appearing on YouTube is eligible. Our team of creative reviewers will change each quarter and will be selected based on their ideas, body of work and contributions to the industry to sound off on their favorite examples. These world-renowned creative directors, designers, art directors, digital creatives and copywriters will represent a range of creative thinking and execution, ensuring that the visual voice on YouTube Show & Tell represents a broad cross-section of leading-edge perspectives. See what Steve Simpson of Goodby, Silverstein, and Partners has to say about marketing on YouTube For the first curation, we've worked together with YouTube to feature some of the most creative campaigns we've seen so far, but this is by no means an exhaustive list of great campaigns we've seen on the site. So check out the site and check back often. And kudos to the great creative minds behind the examples that are currently on the site. Doug Jaeger, President, Art Directors Club, recently watched "Augustin Hadelich - DAWN." Cross-posted in the YouTube Biz Blog.    URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/yoSbbDIoI6k/introducing-youtube-show-tell.html   |
| [G] Greater transparency around government requests Posted: 20 Apr 2010 11:57 AM PDT Official Google Blog: Greater transparency around government requestsArticle 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights states that "everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Written in 1948, the principle applies aptly to today's Internet -- one of the most important means of free expression in the world. Yet government censorship of the web is growing rapidly: from the outright blocking and filtering of sites, to court orders limiting access to information and legislation forcing companies to self-censor content.So it's no surprise that Google, like other technology and telecommunications companies, regularly receives demands from government agencies to remove content from our services. Of course many of these requests are entirely legitimate, such as requests for the removal of child pornography. We also regularly receive requests from law enforcement agencies to hand over private user data. Again, the vast majority of these requests are valid and the information needed is for legitimate criminal investigations. However, data about these activities historically has not been broadly available. We believe that greater transparency will lead to less censorship. We are today launching a new Government Requests tool to give people information about the requests for user data or content removal we receive from government agencies around the world. For this launch, we are using data from July-December, 2009, and we plan to update the data in 6-month increments. Read this post to learn more about our principles surrounding free expression and controversial content on the web. We already try to be as transparent as legally possible with respect to requests. Whenever we can, we notify users about requests that may affect them personally. If we remove content in search results, we display a message to users. The numbers we are sharing today take this transparency a step further and reflect the total number of requests we have received broken down by jurisdiction. We are also sharing the number of these content removal requests that we do not comply with, and while we cannot yet provide more detail about our compliance with user data requests in a useful way, we intend to do so in the future. As part of our commitment to the Global Network Initiative, we have already agreed to principles and practices that govern privacy and free expression. In the spirit of these principles, we hope this tool will shine some light on the scale and scope of government requests for censorship and data around the globe. We also hope that this is just the first step toward increased transparency about these actions across the technology and communications industries. Posted by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer  URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/greater-transparency-around-government.html   |
| [G] More countries go Western Union Posted: 20 Apr 2010 10:59 AM PDT Inside AdSense: More countries go Western UnionGood news! We've expanded Western Union Quick Cash as an AdSense payment method to 10 new countries: Saudi Arabia, Croatia, Iceland, United Arab Emirates, Latvia, Lebanon, Slovenia, Tunisia, Moldova and Malta. If you live in any of these locations, you can now sign up to receive your AdSense payments from your local Western Union agent. With Western Union, you'll receive your earnings sooner, since you won't have to wait for checks to arrive in the mail or clear at the bank. Plus, AdSense won't charge you a fee to use this payment method.Please keep in mind these important points:
Posted by Deborah Chang - AdSense Payments Team  URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-countries-go-western-union.html   |
| Posted: 20 Apr 2010 05:59 AM PDT Google LatLong: Introducing Google PlacesWe launched Place Pages last September for more than 50 million places around the world to help people make more informed decisions about where to go, from restaurants and hotels to dry cleaners and bike shops, as well as non-business places like museums, schools and parks. Place Pages connect people to information from the best sources across the web, displaying photos, reviews and essential facts, as well as real-time updates and offers from business owners. Four million businesses have already claimed their Place Page on Google through the Local Business Center, which enables them to verify and supplement their business information to include hours of operation, photos, videos, coupons, product offerings and more. It also lets them communicate with customers and get insights that help them make smart business decisions. Google Places will continue to offer these same tools, but the new name will simplify the connection with Place Pages. This reflects our ongoing commitment to providing business owners with powerful yet easy-to-use tools. We're also introducing several new features:
To keep track of how your business listing is performing on Google, we offer a personalized dashboard within Google Places that includes data about how many times people have found your business on Google, what keywords they used to find it and even what areas people traveled from to visit your business. With the dashboard, you can see how your use of any of these new features affects interest in your business and make more informed decisions about how to be found on Google and interact with your customers. One out of five searches on Google are related to location, and we want to make sure that businesses are able to be found and put their best foot forward. We're excited to announce Google Places today, as it's just the beginning of what's to come from our efforts to make Google more local. If you want to learn more about Google Places, we'd like to invite you to an upcoming overview webinar, or you can visit our newly updated Help Center. We'll also be posting on the Lat Long blog throughout the week to give a deeper dive into many of our newest features. To get started now, go to google.com/places. Posted by John Hanke, VP Google Maps, Earth and Local  URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/04/introducing-google-places.html   |
| Posted: 20 Apr 2010 05:59 AM PDT Official Google Blog: Introducing Google PlacesToday the Local Business Center is becoming Google Places. Why? Millions of people use Google every day to find places in the real world, and we want to better connect Place Pages — the way that businesses are being found today — with the tool that enables business owners to manage their presence on Google.We launched Place Pages last September for more than 50 million places around the world to help people make more informed decisions about where to go, from restaurants and hotels to dry cleaners and bike shops, as well as non-business places like museums, schools and parks. Place Pages connect people to information from the best sources across the web, displaying photos, reviews and essential facts, as well as real-time updates and offers from business owners. Four million businesses have already claimed their Place Page on Google through the Local Business Center, which enables them to verify and supplement their business information to include hours of operation, photos, videos, coupons, product offerings and more. It also lets them communicate with customers and get insights that help them make smart business decisions. Google Places will continue to offer these same tools, but the new name will simplify the connection with Place Pages. This reflects our ongoing commitment to providing business owners with powerful yet easy-to-use tools. We're also introducing several new features:
To keep track of how your business listing is performing on Google, we offer a personalized dashboard within Google Places that includes data about how many times people have found your business on Google, what keywords they used to find it and even what areas people traveled from to visit your business. With the dashboard, you can see how your use of any of these new features affects interest in your business and make more informed decisions about how to be found on Google and interact with your customers. One out of five searches on Google are related to location, and we want to make sure that businesses are able to be found and put their best foot forward. We're excited to announce Google Places today, as it's just the beginning of what's to come from our efforts to make Google more local. If you want to learn more about Google Places, we'd like to invite you to an upcoming overview webinar, or you can visit our newly updated Help Center. We'll also be posting on the Lat Long blog throughout the week to give a deeper dive into many of our newest features. To get started now, go to google.com/places. Posted by John Hanke, VP Google Maps, Earth and Local  URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/introducing-google-places.html   |
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