Thursday, June 17, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] Properties, now on Google Maps in the UK

Posted: 17 Jun 2010 01:06 AM PDT

Google LatLong: Properties, now on Google Maps in the UK

Good news today if you're house-hunting in Camden Town or Kew Gardens - property search has come to maps.google.co.uk. From today, visitors to maps.google.co.uk will be able to click "Properties..." on the More menu in Maps to see a little red dot on the map showing every house or flat for sale or rent.

The search can be refined by choosing features like sale or rent, bedrooms, bathrooms, and price. The map will update to show the properties matching those criteria - and also dynamically update as you scroll and zoom around the map until you've found your dream spot.



Other maps layers and features like Photos, Videos, Satellite, and Earth view can be turned on as well, helping you to explore the property results geographically and get an even better sense for your new neighbourhood.

In a survey conducted just before Google Street View launched across the entire UK, a fifth of those surveyed said they had used the service for househunting [source: YouGov Plc February 2010]. We hope they'll find this new feature really useful for exploring what's available in neighbourhoods right across the UK.

The feature is showing hundreds of thousands of listings, from PropertyLive, Zoopla, Ezylet, SmartNewHomes, Vebra, Property Pal, Spicer Haart, Countrywide, and Zoomf. If you're an estate agent, take a look at maps.google.co.uk/propertytools for information on how to have your property listings show up on Google Maps.

So have a go today - it's as easy as typing in "property for sale camden town" and then scrolling around the map to see what meets your criteria. You can find contact details for the estate agent on the 'Place Page' that pops up for each listing - you can even add any scheduled open homes to your Google calendar with one click of the mouse. Just don't try making an offer on London's most famous home ... we don't think that one's for sale.








Posted by Name, Title
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/06/properties-now-on-google-maps-in-uk.html

[G] Edit video online with the YouTube Video Editor

Posted: 16 Jun 2010 10:26 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Edit video online with the YouTube Video Editor

With software installations and complicated instructions, editing video can be a hassle—but we think it should be easy. Today, we're introducing YouTube's new online video editor, which makes editing your video a cinch. It's available in TestTube, where YouTube engineers and developers test out new tools and get feedback on how they're doing.

With this new editor, you can:
  • Combine multiple videos you've uploaded to create a new longer video
  • Trim the beginning and/or ending of your videos
  • Add soundtracks from our AudioSwap library of tens of thousands of songs
  • Create new videos without worrying about file formats and publish them to YouTube with one click—no upload necessary
All that, and you don't need to install any extra software. Here's a video from YouTube user rewboss that gives you a glimpse of how it works:



Check out the YouTube Blog for more details. And once you've given the editor a whirl, let us know what you think by leaving a comment on the YouTube Blog.

Posted by Rushabh Doshi, Software Engineer
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/edit-video-online-with-youtube-video.html

[G] Edit video in the cloud with the YouTube Video Editor

Posted: 16 Jun 2010 08:47 PM PDT

YouTube Blog: Edit video in the cloud with the YouTube Video Editor

Video editing usually requires installing software packages and having a fair amount of technical savvy. But we think video editing should be fun and easy, so we're introducing a new tool that anyone -- even this guy -- could figure out: it's an online video editor, now available in TestTube, our ideas incubator.



Without installing any software, it allows you to:


  • Combine multiple videos you've uploaded to create a new longer video

  • Trim the beginning and/or ending of your videos 

  • Add soundtracks from our AudioSwap library of tens of thousands of songs

  • Create new videos without worrying about file formats and publish them to YouTube with one click -- no upload necessary


Watch this video from powerposter rewboss to get a sense of how it works:























See? Pretty easy. The editor is ideal for merging single, short clips into a longer video. For example, you can transform clips from your vacation into a video travel diary set to music, or create a highlights reel from footage of your last basketball game.



It's also great for trimming a long video down to the moments you really care about. Say you've uploaded a wedding ceremony -- beautiful event, but do you really need to see all the guests shuffle in? The video editor lets you easily remove unwanted footage so you can capture just the moment when they say, "I do."



See what some of our early experimenters have done with (or said about) the tool -- live2tivo even wrote a little ditty for it:



























Please play with it and let us know what you think in the comments below and/or check out more info about it in our Help Center. We're looking forward to adding new features based on your feedback to make the video editor more powerful while still retaining its simplicity. In the meantime,



Rushabh Doshi, Software Engineer, recently created "gnome tricks," and Joshua Siegel, Product Manager, recently created "Meet the YouTube Video Editor."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/CuTB6NvI-fQ/edit-video-in-cloud-with-youtube-video.html

[G] Unlocking our shared cultural heritage: Google partners with the Austrian National Library

Posted: 16 Jun 2010 08:10 PM PDT

Inside Google Books: Unlocking our shared cultural heritage: Google partners with the Austrian National Library

Posted by Annabella Weisl, Strategic Partner Manager, Google Books

Gregor Mendel, the nineteenth century Austro-Hungarian scientist, is an ancestor of modern genetic studies. His paper, Experiments on Plant Hybrids, helped early twentieth century scientists make new discoveries about genetics and hybridity. Several of Mendel's works now reside in the original in the Austrian National Library, alongside other important works of European and human culture, science and history. Among the other treasures contained in the library are Martin Luther's first complete translation of the Christian bible, and several of the works of the Renaissance-era doctor and philosopher, Paracelsus.

Today we're announcing an agreement with the Austrian National Library to digitize works from the library, bringing its rare and unique collection to a global audience through Google Books. The library was founded in the fourteenth century, and it was intended to become the universal human library, containing books in German, Greek, Latin, French, and Italian, among other languages. It contains the first ever printed book in Slovene, the oldest known prints in Bulgarian and an extensive collection of Czech and Hungarian works.

Through this agreement, the library will select up to 400,000 public domain books from its collections. Google will then digitize these works, making them available to anyone in the world with access to the web. This is a great step in our aim to help make the world's books accessible to anyone with a connection to the Internet. We're not alone in this aim. Around Europe and the rest of the world, an increasing number of organizations are running ambitious and promising book digitization projects, including the European Union's own Europeana. We're very supportive of these efforts, because we want to see these books have the broadest reach possible. The books we scan are available for inclusion in Europeana and in other digital libraries.

Through a proliferation of projects such as these, and through more partnerships between private and public bodies, important works like those owned by the Austrian National Library can have tremendous reach. Earlier this year we announced a partnership with the Italian Ministry of Culture to digitize books. Today's announcement is the next step towards the goal of preserving and disseminating Europe's cultural heritage.

The Austrian National Library is our tenth library partner in Europe, and we look forward to working with more libraries and other partners. By working with these important institutions, we can help to unlock and democratize access to the world's cultural heritage.

(Cross-posted from the European Public Policy Blog)
URL: http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2010/06/unlocking-our-shared-cultural-heritage.html

[G] New Edition Of A Great Book

Posted: 16 Jun 2010 05:26 PM PDT

Google Analytics Blog: New Edition Of A Great Book

A few years ago, Brian Clifton was working at Google in London, leading our team in Europe. Since then, he's left to focus on growing his own Google Analytics Certified Partner called GA Experts From Omega Digital Media and written a fantastic book called Advanced Web Metrics With Google Analytics, which has just released a new edition. According to Brian, here's what's changed in the new edition:
"Since the first edition was published in 2008, a lot has changed - both for Google Analytics and the web as a whole. Remember two years ago hardly anyone had heard of Twitter. In that time Google Analytics has integrated with AdSense and Feedburner, launched event tracking, advanced segments, Intelligence alerts, motion charts, custom reporting, custom variables and the data export API. The new edition covers using all of these in detail from a practitioners point of view and with as many real-world examples as I could muster."
It's very well written and readable with screenshots - a great resource for all things Google Analytics. Ways to get the book:

Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team
URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/06/new-edition-of-great-book.html

[G] Tip: 5 things you may not know you can do with attachments in Gmail

Posted: 16 Jun 2010 04:46 PM PDT

Official Gmail Blog: Tip: 5 things you may not know you can do with attachments in Gmail

Posted by Arielle Reinstein, Product Marketing Manager

The more I use Google Docs, the less I have to deal with sending attachments back and forth. While attachments' days may be waning, they're still very much a part of most people's email experience. Here are five things you may not know you can do with Gmail to make sending, receiving, viewing, and finding attachments easier:

1. Drag attachments in
Simply drag files from your desktop right into the message you're composing and they'll upload from there. (Make sure you're using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox 3.6 for this to work.)



2. Select multiple attachments
Attaching multiple files one by one is no fun. Instead, just multi-select the files you want to attach by holding down the Ctrl key (or Command on a Mac) and clicking on each file you want to attach. Holding down the Shift key will select a continuous list of files.



3. Never forget an attachment again
Gmail looks for phrases in your email that suggest you meant to attach a file (things like "I've attached" or "see attachment") and warns you if it looks like you forgot to do so. Every day, this saves tons of people the embarrassment of having to send a follow up email with the file actually attached.



4. View attachments online
When you receive an attachment, sometimes you just want to view it and there's no need to download or save to your desktop. The Google Docs viewer allows you to view .pdf, .ppt, and .tiff files in your browser. Just click the "View" link at the bottom of the message.


5. Find that long lost attachment via search
If you're looking for an attachment someone has sent to you, Gmail's advanced search operators can help you find what you're looking for quickly and accurately.

A couple examples:
  • To find all messages containing attachments: has:attachment
  • To find all messages from your friend David that contain attachments: from:david has:attachment
  • To find all messages that have .pdf attachments: has:attachment pdf
  • To find a specific attachment called named physicshomework.txt: filename:physicshomework.txt
URL: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/tip-5-things-you-may-not-know-you-can.html

[G] Zurich Open Source Jam 8

Posted: 16 Jun 2010 12:25 PM PDT

Google Open Source Blog: Zurich Open Source Jam 8


After a period of careful consideration and planning, a new edition of the Zurich Open Source Jam took place on May 27th. This time, the focus was more on the social side of the Jam, but an Open Source Jam always includes a number of presentations so our guests have topics to debate.

William Candillion started the meeting with his lightning talk about cloud extensions for XQuery. His project has built a large set of tools to work with XQuery++ in a variety of APIs from a number of programming languages.


Yannick Stucki explained the design of his Android music player Music Queue. For example this player displays the current song playlist in various ways, rather than details about the current song, and provides novel ways to alter it with simple swipes, making it easier to use while walking.


Following Yannick, Cedric Staub told us about the modular UZBL browser (pronounced as "usable"). This browser follows the UNIX philosophy by consisting of a number of single-tasked components and scripts which interact with each other to display the web site and offer controls.

After a break to grab some food and drinks, Petr Pridal talked about his Google Sites Backup and Mirroring scripts. These scripts use the Google Sites API to dump and restore web sites from Google Sites, including the version history of each site.


If you missed this Open Source Jam, don't worry; there will soon be another one here in Zurich. If you have an interesting open source project you're working on, or if you would like to participate in one, you're very welcome to show up and get in contact with other people who share your interests!

Stay tuned and watch for announcements on the Open Source Jam Zurich Google Group!

By André Wienck, Site Reliability Engineering Team
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/06/zurich-open-source-jam-8.html

[G] Art Imitates Life: Re-enacting Prop 8 Trial on YouTube

Posted: 16 Jun 2010 12:04 PM PDT

YouTube Blog: Art Imitates Life: Re-enacting Prop 8 Trial on YouTube

In its January 13, 2010, ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the public broadcast of the proceedings in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, a U.S. District Court case challenging the constitutional validity of California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage. Not to be deterred, producers John Ainsworth and John Ireland from MarriageTrial.com took verbatim court transcripts and first-hand accounts from bloggers present at the trial to film complete re-enactments of the proceedings for their YouTube channel. With closing arguments slated for June 16, we caught up with the producers to learn more about the project.



What is the inspiration behind MarriageTrial on YouTube?

We realized on January 13, when the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the broadcast of California's Proposition 8 trial, that this was really significant. When the American public was actively prevented from accessing these public proceedings on YouTube — precisely because it is so accessible — well, that's a flat-out dare. We had to fill the void. We both believe that citizens should have access to the judicial process that will likely determine the future of marriage equality for our entire country.



First video in the series:






How has YouTube helped meet the goals of your project?


There is really no better venue for 60+ hours of film. Many blogs and news media websites have embedded our videos. Because of this, our coverage has become an integral part of the media's reporting on the trial. Ultimately, this serves our primary goal, which is to bring transparency to the court process.



We have followed behind the scenes of the trial, as well. When the Defendant-Intervenors filed Motions to Strike testimony, we were able to "red-line" the proposed strikes, guiding people to the excerpts the motion sought to exclude from the official record. In fact, our re-enactment will remain accessible, regardless of what may be redacted from the official transcript. That is an extraordinary victory for transparency in our judicial process.



YouTube's "time seek" functionality allows us to link evidence that is introduced in the trial. Most of our viewers are active consumers of the information, many of them reading along with the transcripts and searching for further references to each witness's testimony. Yet many others just run the videos in the background. One of our subscribers, who cranks up her speakers and cleans the house, told us she considers our channel better than the books on tape.



Has the amount of attention been a surprise?


We were astonished at the press coverage we received, from local and national media. The international press, too, took a great interest in our project. The fact that they could access our video on YouTube made it very easy to cover and most TV and radio outlets broadcast clips directly from our YouTube channel. In a way, our YouTube Channel served as an Electronic Press Kit (EPK), which saved us quite a bit of time and marketing money.



We were featured in the New York Times, then on Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. Other national and international coverage followed. These reports commented on the way we were getting this video out to the masses…that our effort signifies a new type of "citizen journalism," not only accessible to the world, but faster and cheaper to produce than traditional forms of media broadcast.



Describe the use of captions in your videos.


A few hours after we uploaded our first chapters, automatic captions miraculously appeared! We then formatted the official court transcripts and used YouTube's auto-alignment tool to produce accurate captions. Our actors followed the transcripts word-for-word and the captions make it clear what a great job they did. It was so easy to provide captions, which, traditionally, can be very expensive (often prohibitively) for filmmakers. The new Interactive Transcript feature is a great way for users quickly jump to specific parts of the video directly from the transcript.



Comprehension and retention of the concepts introduced by witnesses, for example, get a major boost when viewers can read along, without having to pull up the PDF transcript. And of course, the trial re-enactment is immediately available to people with hearing loss, as well as people whose native languages are not English. The auto-translate function makes these captions available in so many languages. We could never have even approached this level of accessibility as independent filmmakers.



If the ruling goes into appeals, will you continue with the re-enactments?


Yes. We plan to follow Perry v. Schwarzenegger to the U.S. Supreme Court. According to most experts, this court's ruling will be appealed to the U.S. Ninth Circuit, regardless of whether it repeals or confirms California's Proposition 8. From there, it will inevitably be appealed to the highest court. We expect the first appeal within six months or so, then for it to go to Washington, D.C. by next fall. We are already planning for those re-enactments. It's a bit early to cast the Supreme Court justices just yet, but we know that is in our future.



Bottom line, this case as a landmark in America's civil rights history. We are proud to have created this permanent record as a resource for generations to come. Its ultimate impact is tied to YouTube as an integral part in our country's political and cultural tapestry.



Interview by Obadiah Greenberg, Strategic Partnerships, who recently watched "NASA Team Captures Haybusa Spacecraft Reentry."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/gv093oBpNZ8/art-imitates-life-re-enacting-prop-8.html

[G] Opera Beta with WebM Available

Posted: 16 Jun 2010 11:57 AM PDT

The WebM Open Media Project Blog: Opera Beta with WebM Available

More exciting browser news. Opera has released a Beta build of their desktop browser with WebM playback support. They've even made their own WebM demo (about Norway, of course).
URL: http://webmproject.blogspot.com/2010/06/opera-beta-with-webm-available.html

[G] New features for drawings

Posted: 16 Jun 2010 10:35 AM PDT

Official Google Docs Blog: New features for drawings

We'd like to let you know about a few new features we've recently added to drawings. Go create a drawing to check them out.

Center on page
While it's possible to use alignment guides to center an object or group of objects on the page, now you can center an object on the page quickly using the context menu or Format menu.

Aspect-constrained canvas re-size
You'll often want to just shrink or expand your working canvas size without changing the aspect ratio, which is 4 x 3 by default. So, now you can hold shift while you re-size the canvas to preserve its current aspect ratio.


Thumbnails for drawings in the doc list
When you search for drawings it's really helpful to see the results. Now you can use the thumbnail view in your doc list to quickly preview all of the drawings in the results of your search.


Full text search for drawings
Some drawings may also contain text that you may want to search for. Now we let you search through all of the text in your drawings - within a text box, shape, or word art - so that when you search for that text from your private docs list, your drawing will show up in the results.



Pop-up keyboard shortcut help
We know there are a lot of tricky little keyboard modifiers you need to know about to use some of the most powerful features of drawings. Now these shortcuts be easily inspected at a glance by hitting Control / or Command / on a Mac which has the distinction of being the last keyboard shortcut you ever need to memorize. Kudos to the Gmail team for inspiring this design.


Let us know what you think in the forums.

Posted by: Chris Nokleberg, Software Engineer
URL: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/06/new-features-for-drawings.html

[G] Use Case: Twiddy & Company

Posted: 16 Jun 2010 10:32 AM PDT

Google Analytics Blog: Use Case: Twiddy & Company

We're excited to hear from users that are able to attribute some incredible growth to Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer, and many of the other tools we offer. Today, we're taking a quick look at Twiddy & Company, which uses Google Analytics on a daily basis to optimize their website. They are one of our best examples of using marketing tools from Google to generate skyrocket growth. If you run a business, we think you'll enjoy this story and be inspired - it's like a blueprint for using Google Analytics for a successful SMB that relies on their website. Make sure you read to the metaphor they use around bounce rate - we love it!

Also, Twiddy & Company was also recently featured in a CNN Small Business Article, where they shared their success in using Kampyle, which uses the Google Analytics API to analyze web analytics and user feedback.

Meet Doug Twiddy

Doug Twiddy started selling real estate in 1978 in the sleepy village of Duck, North Carolina. After selling a few oceanfront lots, the owners built a few homes and asked the question "can you rent out my home when I'm not using it?" Today, Twiddy & Company manages 860 vacation rental homes on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. These homes range from a 23 bedroom oceanfront on 20 acres to a 3 bedroom soundfront.

We sat and talked with Doug at length, and here's what's important to him, in his own words.

Favorite Reports

"Before Google Analytics, we only knew half of the working equation. Now that e-commerce tracking is installed, we can see the complete formula and it illuminates the true end result. Before we were following indicative numbers, now we can follow the most fundamental and necessary ingredient in all of business. Top Content is also especially useful at highlighting the exact exposure an individual home receives. This feature has created an all out addiction for home owners. Now their first question in relation to their performance is how many visitors their individual home has received.

Bounce rate is also a must-have for us. It's the online equivalent of the human senses. We know a higher bounce rate means that something on that page doesn't smell, look, or taste good."

How Analytics has changed their approach in analyzing the website

"Google Analytics is our compass in terms of allocating our resources. It allows an evolution of marketing. The more successful ideas draw more time and capital. Even the non productive ideas yield educational lessons. In many instances, we learn more from a quick failure than a slow success."

How they tested changes on the website

"We've recently started testing with Google Website Optimizer. How did we ever survive without this? Our old testing setup was an elementary A/B test but Google Website Optimizer engaged the hyper drive. David Booth at Webshare helped us get started and the results quickly produced the laughter of humility. The variables are now part of our secret sauce. Not only did it make it easier, it made it more successful in an exponential fashion."

How Google Analytics has changed their company

"Google Analytics gives Twiddy the tools to outperform the market; the metrics for successful marketing. One of the unforeseen benefits includes the hospitality of the phone calls. By examining what the visitors are looking for online, Twiddy is able to produce more relevant content online that decreases the redundancy of questions for the reservationists. The reservationists now can focus on the more personal side of the vacation experience and guests can fulfill their desire to research the choices and arrive at a very intelligent decision.

Google Analytics has had a very tangible impact on the success of the company. It's become ingrained into the daily routine and crucial to the marketing strategy. General Patton had the 3rd Army, Twiddy & Company has Google Analytics."


We congratulate Twiddy & Company on their success. If you find yourself in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, be sure to stop by their offices and say hello.


Posted by Ashish Vij, Google Analytics Team
URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/06/use-case-twiddy-company.html

[G] Using AdMongo to teach kids about the online marketplace

Posted: 16 Jun 2010 08:34 AM PDT

Google Public Policy Blog: Using AdMongo to teach kids about the online marketplace

Posted by Will DeVries, Policy Counsel

It's Internet Safety Month, and we've been on the lookout for creative ways to help users learn about best practices and responsible use of the Web. In addition to some tips from the YouTube team, we came across an interactive game from the Federal Trade Commission called Admongo where kids (and adults!) can learn about ads and commercial messages.

Everyone knows that young people spend a lot of time on the Internet, but the numbers are still eye-opening: Over 93% of teens go online, and 63% access the Internet to email, connect with friends, upload and view content, play video games, and use many other online applications. Recent studies show 73% of teens actively use social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace, and blogs -- a rate much higher than those of their parents' generation. Additionally, teens continue to create and share more online content than adults.

Interpreting marketing messages can be tough -- especially for young people or those new to online media. It's important that kids, teens, and adults alike all know how to decipher what the message of an ad is, whether or not it's true, and how beneficial it might be. Admongo walks them through the sleuthing process in an online video game that helps them to make better buying and browsing decisions.

This initiative, and others like it from the FTC, are extremely valuable when it comes to empowering consumers (even young ones) to become more informed and aware of what's out there on the Web. Check out their NetCetera guide for tips on how to talk with kids about protecting themselves when they go online.

URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/06/using-admongo-to-teach-kids-about.html

[G] Gooooaaal!

Posted: 16 Jun 2010 07:18 AM PDT

Google Chrome Blog: Gooooaaal!

Sore throats from yelling after every goal. Red eyes from waking up too early or staying up too late to watch a game. Sick leaves multiplying during important matches. It's official: Football fever has spread around the globe, as the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ is already underway.

For those of you who are football fans, kick your game-watching up a notch with the FIFA.com Chrome extension that will help you stay up-to-date with the latest news and scores from South Africa. Most importantly, the extension notifies you when a match is about to begin and displays goal alerts within the browser in real-time for the matches you care about.

From the extension, you can also access match schedules and easily share match scores and personal commentary about specific plays and calls on Facebook, Twitter and Google Buzz. To complement the FIFA.com Chrome extension, you can personalise your browser with one of 32 custom themes that shows your team colours.



You can find the FIFA.com Chrome extension and themes in the World Cup section of the Chrome Extensions gallery. While you're there, you can also try out more than 5,000 extensions -- you may not find one that helps your team perform better on the field, but you'll likely discover a few that can make your daily browsing more enjoyable. May the best team win!

Posted by Max Madile and Paola Veglio, Product Marketing Managers, Google London
URL: http://chrome.blogspot.com/2010/06/gooooaaal.html
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)