Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] Fun on the Autobahn: Google Maps Navigation in 11 more Countries

Posted: 09 Jun 2010 04:31 AM PDT

Official Google Mobile Blog: Fun on the Autobahn: Google Maps Navigation in 11 more Countries

There's nothing quite like driving through Europe in the summer. In the past week, I've seen the beautiful Val d'Aosta, the Swiss Alps, the Cathedral in Chartres, and travelled through the Channel Tunnel as I road-tripped from Milan to Geneva, Zürich to Stuttgart, and on through Paris to London. Why the burst of mileage? Well, I've been testing Google Maps Navigation version 4.2. Yes, road-testing it around Europe was a grueling process, but somebody had to do it :)

Today we're launching Google Maps Navigation version 4.2 in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland for Android devices 1.6 and higher. Google Maps Navigation is an Internet-connected GPS navigation or 'satnav' system that provides turn-by-turn voice guidance as a free feature of Google Maps.


On my test trip, I found a number of Navigation features useful:
  • While driving through the Loire Valley, I put my French language skills to the test by finding my destination with Search by voice (now launched in French, German, Italian, and Spanish for Android 2.0 and higher);
  • I previewed a typical British roundabout with Street View to see exactly where I'd need to exit before getting there in person;
  • I satisfied my craving for moules frites by searching for it along my route;
  • I kept the gas stations layer on to ensure I'd always know where the nearest petrol station was, just in case;
  • And, of course, the turn-by-turn voice guidance kept me on-track to my destination -- despite my sometimes spotty connection in mountain tunnels -- thanks to the way Maps Navigation saves the route on your device when you start.
Google Maps Navigation (beta) with Search by voice is available in version 4.2 of Google Maps, on Android devices 1.6 and higher. To download Google Maps version 4.2, search for Google Maps in Android Market.

Try Google Maps Navigation in your local country and language today -- and have a great time touring around the Continent this summer if you get the chance!

Posted by Michael Siliski, Product Manager, Google Maps for mobile
URL: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/06/fun-on-autobahn-google-maps-navigation.html

[G] Salut! Willkommen! Benvenuto! ¡Bienvenido! Google Search by Voice in French, German, Italian and Spanish

Posted: 09 Jun 2010 04:31 AM PDT

Official Google Mobile Blog: Salut! Willkommen! Benvenuto! ¡Bienvenido! Google Search by Voice in French, German, Italian and Spanish

Here's a test for the German speakers out there: which is faster...saying Geschwindigkeitsbeschränkung (German for speed limit), or typing the same query character-by-character?

Voice has always been the most natural way to interact with a phone -- speaking is typically faster and easier than typing. We first developed Search by voice for English, and then for Mandarin Chinese and Japanese. Today we're excited to welcome speakers of French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Images of Google Search by Voice in Italian (Android), German (iPhone), Spanish (BlackBerry)

Our goal is to bring Google Search by voice to speakers of all languages. We follow a rigorous process to add each new language or dialect. Working directly with native speakers in each country, we spend weeks collecting spoken utterances to create the specific models which power the service. Our helpers are asked to read popular queries in their native tongue, in a variety of acoustic conditions such as in restaurants, out on busy streets, and inside cars. We also construct, for each language, a vocabulary of over one million recognizable words. It's no small feat, but we love doing it.

Note that our new language models are designed for accents from Spain, France, Italy, and Germany. If you speak one of the new languages with another accent (for example, German in Austria, French in Switzerland, or Spanish in Mexico), Search by voice may not work so well for you.

How you get started with Google Search by voice depends on what kind of phone you have. If your phone runs Android 2.1 or later, and you have the Quick Search Box installed, all you have to do is tap the microphone icon to start a voice-powered search. iPhone and BlackBerry users who already have Google Mobile App installed can enable voice search by selecting the new languages from the settings panel within the app.

If you have Android 1.6 or 2.1 (Donut or Eclair), and you have already installed the Search by voice application, starting later today voice search will return recognition results for French, German, Italian or Spanish if your phone has one of those languages chosen in 'Language and keyboard' settings. If you do not have the Search by voice application, you can install it from Android Market on your phone - search for 'voice search'. This application is only available in the Android Markets for France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

To get Google Mobile App for iPhone, search for 'Google Mobile App' in the App Store or follow this link. BlackBerry and Nokia S60 users should visit m.google.com using their phone's browser.

Learn more at http://mobile.google.com and select your country in the footer.

So if you speak French, Italian, German, Spanish, grab your phone and bid Google Search by voice a hearty Salut! Willkommen! Benvenuto! ¡Bienvenido!

Posted by Amir Mané, Product Manager, Google Speech Technologies
URL: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/06/salut-willkommen-benvenuto-bienvenido.html

[G] Give your conversion rate a workout by taking the AdWords Conversion Champion Challenge!

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 06:52 PM PDT

Inside AdWords: Give your conversion rate a workout by taking the AdWords Conversion Champion Challenge!

Now that summer is here, people are thinking about how to get in shape as quickly as they can. Well, your conversion rate wants a beach bod too, and with a little work and some tools in your AdWords account, you can whip it into top form. It's critical that your marketing efforts and website are in peak condition to attract valuable visitors and convert them into customers. Getting started is the hardest part, so to give you a push in the right direction, we're launching the Conversion Champion Challenge.

The contest is simple:

1. Track conversions on your site using one of Google's free measurement products:
2. Analyze and try to boost your performance using AdWords Search Funnels and/or Conversion Optimizer.
3. Show us the results and tell us your story here!

We'll select the advertiser with the most interesting, innovative and unique case study for:
  • An inclusive trip (including flights, hotel & dinner for 2 people) to Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA, just outside San Francisco.
  • A meeting with the Google Conversion Team who will audit your Google Analytics implementation and give you a usability assessment of your website along with recommendations to further improve your conversion rate.
  • $500 in AdWords credit.
  • A post on the Inside AdWords Blog featuring your website and a big smiley photo of you with the Google team!
So what are you waiting for? Take the Conversion Champion Challenge today!

Entries are due by 31 July, 2010. If you'd like to learn a little more about Conversion Tracking, Conversion Optimizer and Search Funnels, attend the free webinar happening this week on Thursday, June 10. Register now or read more details here.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew
URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/06/give-your-conversion-rate-workout-by.html

[G] Our new search index: Caffeine

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 05:57 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Our new search index: Caffeine

(Cross-posted on the Webmaster Central Blog)

Today, we're announcing the completion of a new web indexing system called Caffeine. Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it's the largest collection of web content we've offered. Whether it's a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before.

Some background for those of you who don't build search engines for a living like us: when you search Google, you're not searching the live web. Instead you're searching Google's index of the web which, like the list in the back of a book, helps you pinpoint exactly the information you need. (Here's a good explanation of how it all works.)

So why did we build a new search indexing system? Content on the web is blossoming. It's growing not just in size and numbers but with the advent of video, images, news and real-time updates, the average webpage is richer and more complex. In addition, people's expectations for search are higher than they used to be. Searchers want to find the latest relevant content and publishers expect to be found the instant they publish.

To keep up with the evolution of the web and to meet rising user expectations, we've built Caffeine. The image below illustrates how our old indexing system worked compared to Caffeine:


Our old index had several layers, some of which were refreshed at a faster rate than others; the main layer would update every couple of weeks. To refresh a layer of the old index, we would analyze the entire web, which meant there was a significant delay between when we found a page and made it available to you.

With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index. That means you can find fresher information than ever before—no matter when or where it was published.

Caffeine lets us index web pages on an enormous scale. In fact, every second Caffeine processes hundreds of thousands of pages in parallel. If this were a pile of paper it would grow three miles taller every second. Caffeine takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database and adds new information at a rate of hundreds of thousands of gigabytes per day. You would need 625,000 of the largest iPods to store that much information; if these were stacked end-to-end they would go for more than 40 miles.

We've built Caffeine with the future in mind. Not only is it fresher, it's a robust foundation that makes it possible for us to build an even faster and comprehensive search engine that scales with the growth of information online, and delivers even more relevant search results to you. So stay tuned, and look for more improvements in the months to come.

Posted by Carrie Grimes, Software Engineer
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

[G] Making it easier to video chat, voice chat, and group chat in Gmail

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 05:37 PM PDT

Official Gmail Blog: Making it easier to video chat, voice chat, and group chat in Gmail

Posted by Josh Teague, User Experience Designer

Video chat, voice chat, and group chat have all been available for some time within Gmail, but they've been curiously tucked away. Getting them up and running required fidgeting with a little menu at the bottom of each chat window. Starting today, all of these features will be just a single click away.


One of the more subtle benefits to surfacing these chat options is that it's easier for people to get started who don't yet have the voice and video chat plugin.
If your chat buddy doesn't have the plugin, clicking on this icon in the chat window will invite them to install it. As soon as they're done, you can carry on with a face-to-face video chat. Since we launched a similar feature on iGoogle and orkut a little while ago, we've seen a dramatic uptick in people using video chat.


Finally, you'll find oldie but goodie features such as "Go off the record," "Block", and "Send SMS" in a more aptly named "Actions" menu of each chat window.
URL: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/making-it-easier-to-video-chat-voice.html

[G] Woody and Buzz star in a Google Search Story

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 03:48 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Woody and Buzz star in a Google Search Story

Hopefully some of you have seen one or two of our Search Story videos. We've been blown away by the creativity and brilliance of everyone that shared their own search story using the Search Stories Video Creator. It's been a pleasure to see how all kinds of people use search to tell tales—whether silly, inspiring, true or imagined.

It seemed like the next logical step was to ask the world's best storytellers to get involved, so I called up my friend at Pixar. He liked the idea, the writers at Pixar were into it—and a few days later, we were brainstorming with the minds behind WALL-E, Finding Nemo and, of course, Toy Story. We're huge fans of their work, so getting to explore what the Toy Story gang would discover using Google has been pretty special. Together, we ended up creating a short video that looks at Google through the eyes of Andy's toys and how they deal with the fact that Andy's about to leave for college.

A big thank you to the nice folks at Pixar for their spirit and their sense of collaboration. Check it out now online and in theaters nationwide kicking off Toy Story 3, opening June 18.

We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.



Posted by Robert Wong, Creative Director, Creative Lab
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/woody-and-buzz-star-in-google-search.html

[G] Invite someone to try Google Docs - without signing up

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 02:11 PM PDT

Official Google Docs Blog: Invite someone to try Google Docs - without signing up

If you've been holding off on trying our new editors or know a friend who has never tried Google Docs because they don't have a Google Account, you can now take Google Docs for a test drive with the new Google Docs demo. This lightweight demo includes a sample document, spreadsheet and drawing and works even if you aren't logged into a Google Account.

Instead of trying to explain to friends how real-time collaboration in Google Docs works, now you can show them. All you have to do is go to docs.google.com/demo, share the link over chat or email, and start typing. Real-time character by character co-editing in documents, cell presence in spreadsheets and instant updates in drawings are all seconds away.



Take it for a spin and let us know what you think in the comments.

Posted by: Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager
URL: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/06/invite-someone-to-try-google-docs.html

[G] See collaboration in action on Google Docs

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 01:54 PM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: See collaboration in action on Google Docs

Collaboration is at the heart of the modern workspace, yet many businesses still run cumbersome client-side software that makes it unnecessarily difficult to work together. With Google Docs, coworkers can collaborate in real-time on documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and drawings. Instead of creating a document, sending it as an attachment, receiving multiple revisions, and then having to merge edits, with Google Docs everyone can work on the same version at the same time.


If you've never tried our web-based documents, spreadsheets and presentations, now you can instantly take a test drive at docs.google.com/demo. No need to download any software or even sign in -- just start editing right in your browser. Better yet, you can share the unique link provided with others to try out real-time collaboration together.






Google Docs is designed to help people be more productive than ever before. But don't take our word for it, take Google Docs for a spin and let us know what you think. To learn more about how Google Docs make your teams more efficient, visit google.com/apps/docs.


Posted by Scott Johnston, Product Manager, Google Apps
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/06/see-collaboration-in-action-on-google.html

[G] A Segmentable Funnel

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 01:52 PM PDT

Google Analytics Blog: A Segmentable Funnel

Ready for a fun workaround that you can use in Google Analytics if you like? We enjoyed this contribution from a poweruser that anyone can try.

Are you familiar with the Funnel Visualization report?


It's a visual representation of your onsite conversion funnel, showing how many visitors go to each step and how many leave the funnel at that step. You can spot trouble points with your funnel and take steps to correct the issue. Looking for a way to use Analytics to find a small tweak that will make a big difference on your bottom line? Improve just one step of your funnel abandonment - say by 1% - and that could translate to lots more conversions and money by making it easier for people to buy on your site.

However, an issue with the data and the visualization is that you can't segment it to find out what types of visitors are abandoning. For instance, which step is posing more problems for new visitors, than return visitors?

John Henson from LunaMetrics, a Google Analytics Certified Partner, has written a post on the LunaMetrics blog called "Segment your goal funnel in Google Analytics" about a workaround that will allow you to segment the funnel visualization. He calls it the "horizontal funnel" because visually, you look at the funnel from left to right, by using a goal as a step in the funnel, instead of the 10 steps in each funnel provided by Google Analytics. You'll see what he means below and in his post.

He uses the example of what a traditional e-commerce funnel looks like:

Shopping Cart -> Address Info -> Payment Info -> Review Order -> Thank You

And flips it on it's side to be able to segment it. In the image below: the values outlined in blue are the visits to each step, and the values outlined in orange are the exit rate between steps.

In John's words: "It's like a regular funnel, just flipped on it's side, using goals, first steps in funnels, and custom reports....As you can see, this is in a keyword report. So, the funnel can be seen in-line in the report, for whatever segments you want; in this case for individual keyword phrases. And you can apply Advanced Segments or Secondary Dimensions to the report."

He then explains how to implement this workaround easily. Curiosity piqued? Head over to John's post for all the details.


Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team
URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/06/segmentable-funnel_08.html

[G] Explore the South African stadiums in 3D

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 12:56 PM PDT

Google LatLong: Explore the South African stadiums in 3D

[Cross-posted from the SketchUp Blog]

Whether you call it soccer, like us, or football, like the rest of the world, we have your virtual ticket to South Africa right here. Google Earth is proud to feature 3D models of all ten stadiums and the nine cities of host nation South Africa.

To check it out for yourself, download this 3D tour to explore the stadiums in Google Earth, or check it out using the new Earth view in Google Maps. Fly into Green Point Stadium for a seat looking out at Cape Town's famous Table Mountain. From there you may want to head over to the dramatic arch that suspends Durban's Moses Mabhida Stadium. The distinctive multi-hued orange shell of Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg is a must see. It's here where South Africa kicks off against Mexico in the first game on June 11, and where the final takes place exactly a month later.

See what's in store for you to explore in Google Earth:


South Africa offers much more than soccer stadiums of course, which is why we've also modeled thousands of buildings around the country. These 3D cities can help you get a feel for why South Africa receiving the world's attention. And if you're lucky enough to be there, you might like to see how close the stadium is to your hotel.


Finally, since several of the stadiums are either newly constructed or heavily remodeled, you can use the Historical Imagery feature in Google Earth to see the transformation over the years. Open up Google Earth, turn on the Historical Imagery layer by clicking on the clock button at the top, and slide the bar to travel through time.


We realize that the United States winning the Cup is a long-shot, but the 3D team here in Boulder, Colorado will be cheering for team USA anyway!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/06/explore-south-african-stadiums-in-3d.html

[G] AdSense Facts & Fiction Part II: Electronic Funds Transfer

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 12:31 PM PDT

Inside AdSense: AdSense Facts & Fiction Part II: Electronic Funds Transfer

Fiction: Google doesn't support Electronic Funds Transfer in my country because they don't like me!

Fact: There are many factors we have to consider when launching EFT in new countries. In the meantime, please know that we're always working towards expanding our payment options for publishers in all regions.

Where we can provide in-country EFT depends on a number of factors. Whenever we launch Electronic Funds Transfer, our fastest payment method, in a new country, we hear a number of requests to launch it in even more countries. Don't worry -- we hear you! We'd like to launch EFT in as many countries as possible, but there are many things that we need to take into consideration before launching it, including legal and banking restrictions.

We're working constantly to overcome the hurdles to launch EFT in more countries, so thanks for being patient with us. We also know that you are the local experts -- if there are payment methods that we don't offer, but would work well for you otherwise, please leave us a comment! We'd love to have good suggestions from those who know best.

Posted by Posted by Elizabeth Ferdon - AdSense Payments team
URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/06/adsense-facts-fiction-part-ii.html

[G] It’s “app Tuesday:” avoid patches, embrace new apps

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 11:37 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: It's "app Tuesday:" avoid patches, embrace new apps

Does a certain Tuesday each month feel like the movie Groundhog Day, where you find yourself going through the same firedrill with no end in site? Let's hope you never have it as bad as the character in this video:



With Google Apps, instead of spending time behind-the-scenes patching existing systems, you can focus on providing new functionality that will have a material impact on your business. The Google Apps Marketplace offers more than 100 cloud apps that integrate with Google Apps, many of which are free to get started, so they're easy to try and can deliver immediate value to your users.

Marketplace apps come in many sizes, from bite-size apps that add features to Google's existing applications to large apps that can run major business systems and processes. As an Apps administrator, once you install and evaluate an app, you can deploy it to your users in only a few clicks.

Here's just a small sampling of apps that have recently been added to the Marketplace for you to try.

Kwaga
See social profiles, a list of all your conversations with a contact, and remember whether or not an email thread remains unanswered - all at the bottom of each mail in Gmail.

Mailchimp
Easily send email newsletters to your customers, manage your subscriber lists, and track campaign performance.

MyERP.com
Deploy CRM, sales, accounting, projects, purchasing, and inventory apps that are integrated with Gmail, Contacts and Calendar.

Promevo
Get an enhanced administration layer for Google Apps that includes role-based access control and delegation.

Viewpath
Manage project workflow and task collaboration with graphically-rich task and resource tracking.

Every month we'll be highlighting apps that make your users more productive, with no patching required.

And we're continuing the conversation on our @googleatwork Twitter account with the hashtag #apptuesday. So tell us, what Marketplace apps do you recommend?

Posted by Kevin Gough, Sr. Product & Marketing Manager, Google Enterprise

URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/06/its-app-tuesday-avoid-patches-embrace.html

[G] Hope for Cousteau’s Ocean on World Oceans Day

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 10:55 AM PDT

Google LatLong: Hope for Cousteau's Ocean on World Oceans Day


Today is the second annual United Nations-designated World Oceans Day.

We celebrate this year by remembering the wonderful underwater films by Jacques Cousteau, as it would have been his 100th birthday on Friday. Take a tour of 10 locations from The Silent World and other film clips on our Ocean showcase following Captain Cousteau as he explored our connection to the Ocean World.

Take a highlight tour through 10 Cousteau film clips.

We as well have added the third Hope Spot tour with Sylvia Earle's Mission Blue foundation to the Ocean Showcase, where you can visit 5 more special places in the ocean in need of protection from the Chilean Fjords off South America, to the deep sea angler fish in the Charlie Gibbs Fracture Zone, to the surfing hippos off the Gulf of Guinea off West Africa to the Outer Seychelles and Kermadec Trench north of New Zealand. You can now explore any of the Hope Spot posts in the Ocean layer in Google Earth by clicking on the yellow highlighted circle icons in the ocean.

See Hope Spot content highlighted with yellow circle icons in Google Earth. Click on the flame icon in the Gulf of Mexico to get more information on the Deep Horizon oil spill.

Celebrate the opportunities and challenges of our shared resource, the Ocean. See the cost of the Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion with new data, as that oil spill tragedy unfolds by clicking on the default on placemark southeast of New Orleans, USA.

Dive deeper on your own using Google Earth.

Posted by Jenifer Austin Foulkes, Product Manager
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/06/hope-for-cousteaus-ocean-on-world.html

[G] Code, Open Source, and Summer Love on the 17th Floor

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 10:25 AM PDT

Google Open Source Blog: Code, Open Source, and Summer Love on the 17th Floor

Jon Trowbridge and Borja Sotomayor welcome students to the Google Chicago office

It's springtime in Chicago, and that can only mean one thing: time for the 3rd Annual Chicago-Area ACM-Student/Open-Source-and-Google-Summer-of-Code™ Lightning-Talks-Meetup! Ok, ok, so we haven't settled on a good name yet, although it's mostly a Google Summer of Code meetup. I say "mostly" because, although the event revolves around a series of lightning talks delivered by accepted Google Summer of Code students and by Google engineers, it is open to all students from Chicago-area universities with ACM Student Chapters. (The local ACM chapters helped to organize this event.) Roughly 70 students, mostly Computer Science undergraduates from The University of Chicago, Northwestern University, DePaul University, the Illinois Institute of Technology, Loyola University Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago stormed the Google offices in downtown Chicago on May 7th for an evening of intercollegiate mingling and geeking out.

This year, we had three Google Summer of Code student speakers, starting with Michael Lucy from The University of Chicago:

Michael will be working on Guile this summer, as part of the GNU project. His project will involve writing a module for compiling Parsing Expression Grammars (PEGs).

Next up, Jamie Schwettmann:

Jamie is a 2009 Google Summer of Code alumna from The University of Oklahoma, but now she now lives in Chicago because her summer work for The Globus Alliance rocked so hard that the University of Chicago ended up offering her a job to continue working on Globus software! Jamie told us about her project, Project Performance characterization of GridFTP on 10+ Gigabit networks using hosts with 10 Gigabit network interface cards. She also told us not to be intimidated by the title- her summer work ended up revolving mostly around creating an automated parameter optimization utility for GridFTP. She also reflected upon her experience in Google Summer of Code, and all the wonderful things that have happened as a result of it.

Finally, Emily Brand from Loyola University Chicago:

Emily will be working for Drupal on porting QueryPath to D7.

We were also treated to talks from three Googlers G-Men who, according to them, were there for comic relief, although they also provided many insights on real-world coding. First up, Jacob Matthews told us how his views on software development have evolved since his pre-college years. Here he is shown emphasizing the importance of testing:

Next, Vijay Menon extolled the benefits of learning multiple programming languages:

And finally, Jon Trowbridge told us how relational databases are not the be-all-and-end-all of data storage and management, and how Google relies on different approaches for its own data.

Besides the talks, there was also a truly scrumtrulescent dinner:

The captive audience:


And some truly awesome views of downtown Chicago from the 17th floor where Google's conference space is located:

Many thanks to Google's Chicago office for being such an awesome host! And congratulations to our Chicago-area students for making it into Google Summer of Code!

By Borja Sotomayor, University of Chicago Ph.D. Candidate and Google Summer of Code Organization Administrator (Globus Alliance) and Mentor (OpenNebula)
Photos by Anne Celestino and Borja Sotomayor.
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/06/code-open-source-and-summer-love-on.html

[G] AdWords Campaign Experiments Beta: Split testing tool for your campaigns

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 10:20 AM PDT

Inside AdWords: AdWords Campaign Experiments Beta: Split testing tool for your campaigns

We're excited to announce AdWords Campaign Experiments, or ACE: a tool that will help you optimize your account by letting you accurately test and measure changes to your keywords, bids, ad groups and placements. As part of our ongoing effort to improve your AdWords experience, we're testing this new tool and inviting U.S. advertisers to participate in the beta.

In the past, the most common way to measure how changes to your account affected your campaign performance was to measure how the campaign performed before and after you implemented your changes. However, this type of analysis can often be complicated by events that occur during the test period, including holidays, weekends, or changes to end user or advertiser behavior.

ACE allows you to perform faster, more accurate tests by executing your experimental campaign alongside your original campaign. By performing this type of simultaneous split test, we can tell you precisely if your campaign changes produce statistically significant results.

Different ways of using ACE
Use ACE to experiment with any combination of bid, keyword, ad group or placement changes. You can test and measure a variety of scenarios including:
  • The incremental impact of adding new keywords to your campaign or changing keyword and ad group-level bids
  • The value of restructuring your Content campaigns to use more tightly themed ad groups
  • The change in volume by using different keyword match types
  • The value of using an ad group default bid versus keyword-level bids
  • And much more!
Sign up to test the AdWords Campaign Experiments tool
We invite all U.S. advertisers with English as their language preference to participate in the beta of this feature. We may not be able to offer the beta test to all advertisers who apply, so thanks in advance for your patience as we continue to work on the tool. If you'd like to try the ACE beta, please fill out this form.

Learn more
For more information, please watch the video below and visit the Help Center for how-to-videos and additional FAQs.



Posted by Courtney Lischke, Product Marketing Manager
URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/06/adwords-campaign-experiments-beta-split.html

[G] Demonstrating the Flexibility of Web Apps

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 09:42 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Demonstrating the Flexibility of Web Apps

Editor's Note: Pedro Mar is director of Método DeRose Matosinhos Uni-Yoga school in Portugal. Método DeRose provides more than 65 students personalized exercise routines based on an intimate knowledge of each student's needs, as well as healthy eating choices, social activities and creative ways to improve all aspects of his or her life.

When Mar and his team were looking for software to help manage their three year-old business, they needed something as accomodating and personal as the services they provide. Already happy using the Google Apps suite, they turned to the Google Apps Marketplace, and found that they were able to design a solution that perfectly met their needs with BatchBook CRM, which not only met all of their needs for a CRM system, but easily integrated with Google tools and other Marketplace apps they were already using.

Here, Mar shares some insights into the business benefits he has seen since using the Google Apps Marketplace.

Diogo Toledo, Joana Santos and Pedro Mar from Método DeRose Matosinhos

I run an independent yoga school that is part of Uni-Yôga (www.uni-yoga.org), a worldwide network of approximately 150 schools. My business needed a solid customer relationship management (CRM) software program, mainly to keep track of former, current and potential students, but also to provide a good workflow. I was looking for a program that gave me the freedom to customize the data in a way that worked best for my business and suited its needs.

A friend and student of mine recommended searching the Google Apps Marketplace for a CRM software application. I tried several trial versions of some of the solutions offered there and eventually decided on BatchBook. After viewing the tutorial videos offered on the BatchBlue website, I knew I could customize the software to suit all our needs. After using BatchBook for more than two months, I can see the progress we've achieved.

Getting personal with our customers
All of our services are tailored to our clients' health profiles, so it very important that we have the most accurate information about each individual. Since creating our BatchBook account, we have customized the contact information to track things beyond name and address. These include everything we need to know about potential new students; things we learn during our time with our students, such as their birthdays, classes they've taken and experience levels; how often we are communicating with all of our contacts.

We sync BatchBook with our company Gmail app to keep every customer's information updated. We can also track our products and services--like books and workshops --as well as create lists that are important to our business. This all means we can provide better customer service, making our clientele happier and enjoy better, longer relationships with our students.

A workflow that bends to our needs
The to-do template in BatchBook is an amazing feature. Using the template we are able to enter a student's information upon enrollment. From there we can easily create a scheduled list of tasks for each student to complete up to two years into the future. We use Google Apps to manage several calendars, and we can follow all of the BatchBook to dos right in Google Calendar. This is great for tracking students and their overall progress through our program as we help them achieve one level after another. All of our academic programs, marketing programs, and operational programs are also tracked in the to-do templates, so we are sure not to miss a thing.

Finding the right marketing balance
Our best and most cost effective marketing strategy is communicating, communicating, communicating. We track every e-mail, phone call, cell phone message, class, note, student referral and recommendation in BatchBook. By doing so, we are constantly connected with our network of people. We even use the Rapportive integration with BatchBook and Gmail to obtain social network information we need about a customer right within an e-mail message. It's genius.

We also take advantage of MailChimp's integration with Google Apps and BatchBook to allow different team members to send e-mail newsletters to different groups. Each of the different departments within the school can create their own lists from our list of contacts, and reach out with personalized details about upcoming events, special parties or birthday wishes.

Within one month of using BatchBook our number of students has grown by 10%. We are now managing more than 1,000 contacts in the software and with BatchBlue, we can turn more propects into engaged students. Once we create a file on a prospective student within BatchBlue, we never lose track of him or her. That is a huge value to us.

Previously, we simply had too many other things to worry about. With only four to five instructors at the school, we would easily lose track of a potential student or forget something like a birthday, which is unforgivable in our school's culture of appreciation, attention and trust.


Other programs we tried in the past did not support the rich interaction we have with our students or the workflow that helps us stay on top of the important details like BatchBook, Gmail and Google Calendars does. Using BatchBook, we can now closely monitor our relationship with each student and each lead.

Clearly, BatchBook has made a positive difference in how we run our business. Since using the program, we have improved the quality of our outreach to potential clients, and we have registered new students more easily. With the assistance of the customized to-do templates, integrated with our Google Calendars, we are reminded regularly when to send an email or reach out through another method of communication to a prospective student.

Our success using Google Apps and BatchBook has led me to encourage other schools within the network to do the same. By duplicating our system and taking advantage of our efforts, they can implement the practices into their own business and see firsthand the results we have experienced.

Posted by Chris Kelly, Google Apps Partners team






URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/06/demonstrating-flexibility-of-web-apps.html

[G] Got Soccer Fever?

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 09:10 AM PDT

Google Photos Blog: Got Soccer Fever?

Posted by K. Michael Alexander, Picnik UI Designer

The Picnik team recently launched a set of soccer-themed photo editing effects that make it easy and fun to show the world which team you're cheering for in South Africa.



With the new effects, you can add digital face paint, soccer-themed stickers and team flag overlays, customized for each of the 32 qualifying teams. To get started, go to picnik.com and choose a photo to edit — you can upload from your computer or import one of your photos from Picasa Web Albums, Facebook, or other photo site. Pick a team from the pulldown menu, select a Soccer Fever effect you want to add, and edit away.
URL: http://googlephotos.blogspot.com/2010/06/got-soccer-fever.html

[G] WWDC 2010 Journal, Day 1

Posted: 08 Jun 2010 08:23 AM PDT

Official Google Mac Blog: WWDC 2010 Journal, Day 1

By Mike Morton, Google Mac Team

Google engineer Mike Morton is doing his annual blogging from Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco. Today we get Mike's insights on WWDC keynote day, with all the fun and reality distortion it brings.

It's 10 PM Monday. I've had six hours sleep in the last 48 hours and am verging on delirium, but it's a happy kind of delirium. I got a good dose of Reality Distortion today ("a few molecules of Steve Jobs" as one developer said as he settled in for the keynote).

Waiting for the keynote, we got to listen to music, including Satchmo's Wonderful World, and watch on the big screen as the camera focused on various audience members. Audience folks quickly caught on to the idea that if you put an interesting message on your iPad screen, the camera would find you. The big screen showed iPads saying "This is not a PC", a New Zealand (I think) flag, "Hi Mom!", "Free Hugs", and "Thank you, Steve". There was one with a job posting for AOL, complete with a Twitter account to contact. Best of all was a set of four iPads spelling W - W - D - C, with the C taking a little extra time to get ready, and the audience cheering when it did. Perhaps presaging the mobile device emphasis of the keynote, one laptop screen just said "MACS TOO!".

Steve walked on to the usual wild applause and camera frenzy. He looked very thin, but very happy. As he usually does, he began with numbers: the number of developers attending and how many countries they're from (5,200 and 57) and the number of days it took to sell out the conference (8 despite the fact that "this is the biggest place we can get!"). He talked about the iPad working its magic on sales numbers, and the large numbers of iPad-native apps, as opposed to iPhone apps which work on the iPad in a compatibility mode.

You've probably read a lot about the keynote already, so here are some moments that stood out for me:

Steve talked about the App Store. He indirectly addressed complaints about apps being rejected or waiting for approval, listing various good reasons that apps have problems, although some in the audience thought the list of reasons provided might be incomplete.

He invited three iPhone developers up to talk about their products: NetFlix, Zynga (the Farmville folks), and Activision, whose Guitar Hero demo was slick. He wrapped up by telling us that the App Store has hit 5 billion downloads, and has paid $1 billion to developers. Carl Sagan would have been right at home with this billions and billions statistic.

Steve quickly moved to introducing iPhone 4. I was impressed by lots of things, especially the promise of apps that use the new gyroscope hardware. There'll be some great virtual reality and augmented reality apps coming out of that. I was also intrigued by putting cellular, wifi, and other antennas into the metal around the edge of the case. I hope that'll improve reception.

iMovie for iPhone looks cool, too, although as a cousin to Final Cut, I wish they had called it Final Tap. It could have gone to 11.

And then came the classic "One more thing": FaceTime video calls. This is going to be huge. It'll go viral, selling itself, because it's so noticeable when someone is using it in public. Plus it'll drive sales of nose-hair trimmers (note to self: invest now).

Steve showed a video of people talking with FaceTime. This included a very moving moment when a soldier saw his baby on ultrasound via FaceTime. Steve said something I've heard him say before: "This is one of those moments that reminds us why we do what we do".

The keynote conspicuously lacked any mention of Mac OS X. Apple may be looking toward the "post-PC era" and even hastening it, but let's hope they don't forget "MACS TOO" any time soon.

For the rest of the day, sitting in darkened lecture rooms was proving too much of a challenge for my jet lag, so I left before the last session. As I walked out, I saw an attendee with a t-shirt reading: "AppKit is the new Carbon". For the non-geek among you, Carbon is an older system that developers used to program the Mac, and AppKit is the current system. You could say this was another way of declaring "MACS TOO!".
URL: http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2010/06/wwdc-2010-journal-day-1.html
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