Saturday, September 25, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] Updated Keyword Tool: Out of Beta

Posted: 25 Sep 2010 01:47 AM PDT

Inside AdWords: Updated Keyword Tool: Out of Beta

In early August, we announced that the updated Keyword Tool was nearing the end of its beta phase. Today, we wanted to let you know that we've fully launched the updated Keyword Tool.

What does that mean for you? It means we've combined the best features from two previous keyword tools into one. The previous Keyword Tool and Search-based Keyword Tool are no longer available in AdWords. The updated Keyword Tool is now the only Keyword Tool available in AdWords, so you can now simply call it "The Keyword Tool."

The Keyword Tool's benefits include:
  • Flexible search options: Search by any combination of keyword, website/URL, and category (where available) and receive a single set of results.
  • Easy Keyword Refinement: Filter results by word or keyword match type.
  • Negative keywords: Easily add keyword ideas as negatives right from your keyword list. Just click on a keyword and use the drop-down menu to select and save your negative keyword.
  • Advanced options: View statistics for mobile search and use data filters based on local searches, search and ad share, and more.
In addition to these improvements, we've also changed how we calculate Global Monthly Searches and Local Monthly Searches. Statistics in these columns are now based on Google.com search traffic only. Previously, they also included traffic from search partners. We've updated these statistics based on advertiser feedback, and hope you find them more helpful for keyword selection.

While we recommend using the Keyword Tool while signed in to AdWords, you can also access the tool without signing in. We hope you like the new streamlined version of the tool and we look forward to bringing you more features soon.

Posted by Jason Shafton, Inside AdWords crew
URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/09/updated-keyword-tool-out-of-beta.html

[G] Known Issue: Socialize service not posting updates

Posted: 25 Sep 2010 12:27 AM PDT

The FeedBurner Status Blog: Known Issue: Socialize service not posting updates

Issue: Since early this morning, the Socialize service has not been posting feed updates to Twitter. The source of the problem has been identified, and should be fixed soon, at which point updates will start being posted again.

Update (9:14pm PST 24-Sep): The Socialize issue has been resolved and Twitter updating is fully resumed.
URL: http://feedburnerstatus.blogspot.com/2010/09/known-issue-socialize-service-not.html

[G] Chrome 6 Issue Corrected

Posted: 24 Sep 2010 10:31 PM PDT

Google Analytics Blog: Chrome 6 Issue Corrected

Chrome version 6.0.472.55 was an incremental update to a new version of Chrome released on September 7 and announced here. There was a bug in the JavaScript engine that reported the wrong type of some JavaScript objects in a very specific case. This caused Chrome to incorrectly execute Google Analytics' JavaScript, providing an artificially high visitor count for some websites, for their visitors using that particular version of the Chrome browser. Note, not all Google Analytics accounts were affected. The affected period will vary for accounts but would not have appeared before September 7.

A fix was released for all versions of Google Chrome on Wednesday, September 22. Chrome users were automatically updated to version 6.0.472.63 over the last few days.

You can determine whether a profile was affected by comparing visit data from September 7 to approximately September 22 with a previous date range. If you think your account was affected and want to segment out visits from that date range from the affected Chrome release, you can create an advanced segment similar to this one.

We are working closely with the Chrome team to ensure that an issue like this does not happen again. While we believe this issue is fixed, we'll be closely monitoring this issue over the weekend and beyond.

Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team
URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/09/chrome-6-issue-corrected.html

[G] New! Status Dashboard

Posted: 24 Sep 2010 10:31 PM PDT

Google Analytics Blog: New! Status Dashboard

Google Analytics processes huge volumes of data for websites around the world everyday, thanks to Google's globally renowned infrastructure. While we never stop focusing on system reliability and scalability (here's an example), we also want to make sure our users have an easy way to get the latest updates from us should there be a problem.

Today, we're pleased to announce that we have launched the Google Analytics Status Dashboard. Now anyone can visit this Status Dashboard to check on the current status of components of the Google Analytics system.

The dashboard reports on the three main components of Google Analytics:
  • Data Collection (whether data from websites are being collected by the Google Analytics servers correctly)
  • Web Report (whether users can view the reports correctly when they sign in to their Google Analytics accounts)
  • GData API (whether the Google Analytics APIs are working properly)
The Google Analytics Status Dashboard represents an additional layer of transparency that we believe will benefit all Google Analytics users, from Fortune 500 companies to personal websites. The Status Dashboard is the best place to check for service availability of Google Analytics anywhere in the world. You can also get the updates pushed to you by subscribing to the RSS feed. And of course, you can always get updates from us here at this blog or by following us on Twitter (@googleanalytics) and get help from the Google Analytics Help Center or the User to User Forum.

Posted by Yi Wang, Google Analytics Product Team
URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-status-dashboard.html

[G] On recruiting “cold calls”

Posted: 24 Sep 2010 08:49 PM PDT

Google Public Policy Blog: On recruiting "cold calls"

Posted by Amy Lambert, Associate General Counsel, Employment

Google grew by more than 16,000 people between 2005 and 2009 -- a five fold increase in the size of our company. In fact, we were hiring so fast that on average 40 new recruits were joining every day by 2007. At the same time, we were also building partnerships with other technology companies to help improve our products and services.

In order to maintain a good working relationship with these companies, in 2005 we decided not to "cold call" employees at a few of our partner companies. Our policy only impacted cold calling, and we continued to recruit from these companies through LinkedIn, job fairs, employee referrals, or when candidates approached Google directly. In fact, we hired hundreds of employees from the companies involved during this time period.

A number of other tech companies had similar "no cold call" policies -- policies which the U.S. Justice Department has been investigating for the past year. Earlier today, the Justice Department announced a settlement with several of these companies -- including Google -- which brings the investigation to a close. While there's no evidence that our policy hindered hiring or affected wages, we abandoned our "no cold calling" policy in late 2009 once the Justice Department raised concerns, and are happy to continue with this approach as part of this settlement.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/09/on-recruiting-cold-calls.html

[G] Product Ideas Submissions: Coming to a close

Posted: 24 Sep 2010 07:46 PM PDT

Google Finance Blog: Product Ideas Submissions: Coming to a close

Posted by Laura Hughes, Consumer Operations

Here on the Google Finance team we are committed to adding valuable new features with every launch. Six weeks ago we launched a 'Product Ideas page for Google Finance' push in which we invited you to submit and vote on feature ideas for our site. During the series, over 5,000 of you submitted 3,700 ideas and 38,000 votes. Now, as the series is winding down, here's a look at some of your top ideas and what we have implemented so far.

What you voted for:

Launched! New Mobile Interface: A new mobile interface was the top idea on the Product Ideas page before we launched it.

Launched! Big Charts : Bigger charts have always been a top feature request and since launching this feature in August it's become one of our favorite tools.

Top Ideas
The top ideas are a mix of portfolio charting, data/market requests, and education tools. Although we don't have these yet we're always working on new ideas.
  • Portfolio Charting: "Show historical graph of portfolio, complete with dividends, splits, etc." "A chart to see how your earnings fluctuated in your portfolio's investments..."
  • Alerts: "Generate alerts based on stock, option, indices events. For e.g. change in volatility,"
  • Institutional and Insider Ownership: "Show % of outstanding stock held by institutional investors, and insider holdings/transactions."
  • Dictionary: "The ability to click on different financial terms (like p/e, market cap, etc) and get background on them"
  • Economic Indicators: "Add historical data for CPI, GDP, unemployment rate, etc. (Ability to compare graphically vs. the S&P500)"

You have a few more days before this series of Google Finance Product Ideas is closed, so jump in and vote now.

Thank you for all the valuable feedback and Ideas. Stay tuned as we implement your top ideas on Google Finance and catch the latest from the Google Finance team by following us on Twitter.
URL: http://googlefinanceblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/product-ideas-submissions-coming-to.html

[G] Finding your hidden treasure: international campaigns with AdWords

Posted: 24 Sep 2010 07:42 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Finding your hidden treasure: international campaigns with AdWords

(Cross-posted on the Google Small Business Blog)

In 2000, Antoine Assi founded Middle Eastern export website www.aldoukan.com—it was one of the first e-commerce business in the Middle East. He was just 20 years old and he made time to develop the business in between computer science classes at his university. He needed a way to advertise his website from the comfort of his own dorm room, so he decided to test out Google AdWords.

His friends didn't believe him when Antoine said he was going to sell and advertise traditional Middle Eastern foods and goods online. However, by 2004, his business had grown so rapidly that he decided to take leave from school to run it full-time. He then started his second company, www.mosaicmarble.com, which sells handcut decorative tiles online internationally.

Antoine believed there was a gap in the mosaic market and he wanted to share these artistic and historic decorations abroad. He knew there was a market for these tiles internationally—he just didn't quite know where the opportunity existed. To identify these international growth opportunities, Antoine built on his knowledge of AdWords: He ran several AdWords campaigns, each targeted at the location and language of the test country.


From there, Antoine measured sales and percentage of website traffic from each country and campaign. He ended campaigns for countries with low sales volume and invested in campaigns for countries with higher sales volume and greater return on investment. Where he saw steady product sales, Antoine even had the company website translated into the language of the successful host country. As you can imagine, translating the site to the language of a country in which he'd already seen success only further promoted sales in that location.

Antoine refers to his AdWords campaigns as his hidden treasure, telling us that "the second month we started advertising on Google, we started feeling overwhelmed by the orders and the inquiries... We had to hire new employees on a weekly basis."

Mosaic Marble quickly grew from two employees and eight artists to more than 40 employees and 120 artists. And the company's website is now available in seven languages: Arabic, English, Finnish, German, Italian, Portuguese and Swiss.


In addition to helping him expand his business, these international campaigns helped Antoine and his colleagues share these cultural icons with a larger part of the world. There are now homes and public spaces adorned with these ancient Greek creations in more than 50 countries worldwide. "Due to Google," says Antoine, "we have customers such as the President of Congo, the Dubai Minister of Internal Affairs, the Princess of Jordan, and the Royal Music Academy of London."

Posted by Elias Darwish, Account Manager, Dublin
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/finding-your-hidden-treasure.html

[G] Google Apps highlights – 9/24/2010

Posted: 24 Sep 2010 07:42 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Google Apps highlights – 9/24/2010

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label "Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

This week, our updates include a better Gmail experience for Android devices, an option for businesses and schools to strengthen their security, and dozens of new applications for customers from third-party developers and from all across Google. We also reached a big new milestone: more than 3 million businesses are now using Google Apps!

Updated Gmail app for Android
On Tuesday we rolled out an improved Gmail app for Android devices, now available in the Android Market for devices running Froyo (Android version 2.2). The new Gmail app keeps the most common actions like replying and starring handy at the top of the screen, even if you scroll down through a long message. You can view content from earlier messages more easily with embedded links to "Show quoted text," and bring a limited version of Priority Inbox with you on the go with an "Important" label for messages flagged as important.


New fonts in Google Docs
Also on Tuesday, we added many new fonts to Google Docs for you to customize the look and feel of your documents. Thanks to the Google Web Font API, Google Docs can now take advantage of fonts hosted on the web, not just the limited set of fonts that most people have installed on their computers. Give Droid Serif, Droid Sans, Calibri, Cambria, Consolas and Corsiva a try, and keep an eye out for our next batch of new fonts!


Added security with two-step verification
Google Apps Premier, Education, and Government Edition customers can now boost the security of Google Apps by letting users take advantage of two-step verification. With this feature, signing in requires a password (something you know) and a one-time verification code provided by a mobile phone (something you have). In the coming months, we'll be bringing the option for two-step verification to Google Apps Standard Edition users as well as hundreds of millions of individual Google users.


App Tuesday: 12 new additions to the Apps Marketplace
With the help of third-party software developers around the world, we were able to continue to increase the number of applications available in the Google Apps Marketplace. This month, we added 12 new applications to the now more than 200 installable apps available, making the Apps Marketplace an even more useful resource for organizations using Google Apps to find new functionality that complements what we offer our customers ourselves.

More apps for Google Apps accounts
Speaking of new applications for our customers, we're making good on our commitment to allow dozens of additional Google applications to work with Google Apps accounts. This means that businesses, schools and organizations can start using services like Google Voice, Picasa, Blogger, Google Reader and much more. Most Google Apps customers can begin transitioning their organization's Google Apps accounts immediately, and those who don't meet the current eligibility requirements will be able to start converting soon, too.


Who's gone Google?
This week we hit some big customer milestones: more than 3 million businesses—and 30 million people within those businesses and other organizations—are using Google Apps to communicate and collaborate with Gmail and our other web-based tools.

Newcomers include Baird & Warner, allnurses.com, MSaven.com, StraighterLine, St. Thomas University, School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Mallone University. Our largest new customer is Ahold, an international food retailer that's bringing more than 55,000 employees into the cloud with Google Apps. Welcome to all!

We hope these updates help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-apps-highlights-9242010.html

[G] $10 million for Project 10^100 winners

Posted: 24 Sep 2010 07:42 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: $10 million for Project 10^100 winners

Two years ago today, we began Project 10^100 by asking you to share your ideas for changing the world by helping as many people as possible. Your spirit and participation surpassed even our most optimistic expectations. People from more than 170 countries submitted more than 150,000 ideas. We selected 16 big ideas and asked the public to vote for their favorites. The five ideas that received the most votes are the winners of Project 10^100. Over the past 12 months, we've reviewed concrete proposals to tackle these ideas, and today we're pleased to give a total of $10 million to five inspiring organizations working on solutions to each of these global challenges:

Idea: Make educational content available online for free
Project funded: The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization that provides high-quality, free education to anyone, anywhere via an online library of more than 1,600 teaching videos. We are providing $2 million to support the creation of more courses and to enable the Khan Academy to translate their core library into the world's most widely spoken languages.

Idea: Enhance science and engineering education
Project funded: FIRST is a non-profit organization that promotes science and math education around the world through team competition. Its mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders by giving them real world experience working with professional engineers and scientists. We are providing $3 million to develop and jump start new student-driven robotics team fundraising programs that will empower more student teams to participate in FIRST.

Idea: Make government more transparent
Project funded: Public.Resource.Org is a non-profit organization focused on enabling online access to public government documents in the United States. We are providing $2 million to Public.Resource.Org to support the Law.Gov initiative, which aims to make all primary legal materials in the United States available to all.

Idea: Drive innovation in public transport
Project funded: Shweeb is a concept for short to medium distance, urban personal transport, using human-powered vehicles on a monorail. We are providing $1 million to fund research and development to test Shweeb's technology for an urban setting.

Idea: Provide quality education to African students
Project funded: The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) is a center for math and science education and research in Cape Town, South Africa. AIMS' primary focus is a one-year bridge program for recent university graduates that helps build skills and knowledge prior to master's and Ph.D. study. We are providing $2 million to fund the opening of additional AIMS centers to promote graduate level math and science study in Africa.

Here's a short video celebrating the inspiring work of these organizations:



We've learned that it takes quite a bit of effort and time to move from 150,000 ideas to five funded projects, but are excited about the potential of the ideas and projects you helped us choose. We're happy to conclude Project 10^100 with today's announcement of five winning ideas and encourage you to follow the progress of these projects on the organizations' websites.

Posted by Lorraine Twohill, VP of Marketing
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/10-million-for-project-10100-winners.html

[G] Discussing innovation and democracy in 2010

Posted: 24 Sep 2010 07:42 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Discussing innovation and democracy in 2010

Over the past few U.S. election cycles, Google and YouTube have have become catalysts for a more engaging, meaningful dialogue between citizens and government leaders. From asking questions of candidates to finding your polling place, our tools are helping to make elections and politics more personal and more democratic, and have opened up Washington, D.C. in exciting new ways.

With less than six weeks until the midterm elections, we wanted to hear from some of politics' most creative minds about what innovation and democracy mean in 2010. So on Monday we're joining forces with POLITICO to host an event at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., where we'll discuss the increasing contributions of technology to democracy and the political process.

As part of the event David Axelrod and Ed Gillespie will answer questions and offer thoughts and predictions about the upcoming elections. Arianna Huffington will then moderate a panel about innovation in media, and will be joined by Becki Donatelli, Stephen Hayes, Nate Silver and Amy Walter. We'll also demonstrate tools built for citizens and government officials using YouTube and Google Maps, and will be joined by our friends on the politics team at Facebook.

The panelists want to hear from you, so if you'd like to submit a question for any of them, you can do so at youtube.com/citizentube. You'll also be able to watch the entire event live on YouTube on Monday.



As we approach the election homestretch, we'll continue to develop useful ways for voters and campaigns to engage one another around the important issues in 2010.

Posted by Ginny Hunt, Elections and Public Sector Programs
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/discussing-innovation-and-democracy-in.html

[G] Join Website Optimizer at eMetrics & Conversion Conference in Washington DC

Posted: 24 Sep 2010 05:44 PM PDT

Official Google Website Optimizer Blog: Join Website Optimizer at eMetrics & Conversion Conference in Washington DC

In less than two weeks, Conversion Conference East will take place in Washington DC. Google Website Optimizer will be there along with Google Analytics.

Conversion rate optimization is still a young discipline in the world of interactive marketing. The event was founded by Tim Ash, president of Site Tuners (a Website Optimizer Certified Partner). What's exciting about Conversion Conference is that the entire program is dedicated to the discipline. Experts in the field, as well as those who are just learning the art and science of conversion optimization, now have a forum to share best practices, network, and learn from each other.

If you are anywhere near Washington DC October 4-5, we hope you'll join us there. We have a coupon for $250 off for Website Optimizer blog readers. Enter the code CCE631 when registering at the Conversion Conference site.

Here's a taste of some of the presentations at Conversion Conference:

Monday, October 4th
The Four Pillars of Building Instant Trust Online (Tim Ash)
The Power of Split Testing (Brooks Bell and Lance Loveday)
Pay Per Click Landing Page Continuity (Lauren Vaccarello and William Leake)

Tuesday, October 5th
Getting Started with Google Website Optimizer (I'll be giving this one)
Multivariate Testing (Eric Hansen and Chris Duskin)
The Science of Pursuasion (John Whalen)

Be sure to stop by the Google booth and say "Hi" and grab a squishy HiPPO. Looking forward to seeing you.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Website Optimizer team
URL: http://websiteoptimizer.blogspot.com/2010/09/join-website-optimizer-at-emetrics.html

[G] GenMAPP’s Summer Harvest

Posted: 24 Sep 2010 05:39 PM PDT

Google Open Source Blog: GenMAPP's Summer Harvest

The GenMAPP organization's efforts focus on building software tools to analyze and visualize biological data. We joined forces with Cytoscape, WikiPathways, PathVisio and Reactome for this year's Google Summer of Code to offer students a unique opportunity to work at the intersection of biology and computing.

This was our 4th year participating in the program and we reached some new milestones. We mentored 10 excellent students (more than any prior year) with a 100% success rate. We integrated and released more code from this summer's harvest than in prior years. And most importantly, we continued to expand our development community, as many of this year's students are enthusiastic about continuing to work with us beyond the summer.

Our projects this year covered a broad range of topics:

• Alternative Splicing Analysis Plugin for Cytoscape, by Anurag Sharma
• CyAnnotator and CyAnimator Plugins, by Avinash Thummala
• User Interface Development in PathVisio, by Bing Liu
• Tools for Exploring Pathway Relations in WikiPathways, by Chetan Bansal
• Expression Data Reader plugin for Cytoscape, by Dazhi Jiao
• Improving Cytoscape's Labels Experience, by Gerardo Huck
• KEGG Global Map Browser, by Kozo Nishida
• Semantic Network Summary for Cytoscape, by Layla Oesper
• Reactome-WikiPathways Converter, by Leontius Pradhana
• Edge-Weighted Layout for Cytoweb, by Tomithy Too

As part of the open source experience, we invite our Google Summer of Code students to our annual Cytoscape Retreat. This is a great way to engage students in both our development and user communities. One student pointed out a truism that is rediscovered from time to time in our digital age, "face-to-face meetings turn out to be very efficient." Here are some other gems of reflection and advice from our students this year:

"The most rewarding part was when I was told that I should merge my changes back from my branch into the trunk"

"It has been the chance to meet and interact with wonderful people from various parts of the world, be it virtual or physical. I had a chance to physically meet another graduate student from my university and a professor from USA due to Google Summer of Code."

"They opened up my perspective about a lot of things — how the industry looks like, where people with similar skill domain as me put themselves in the society, how important the projects I am involved in are, and other subjects unimaginable if I were to not join Google Summer of Code."

"Got a taste of open-source development which is just amazing and I would like to keep attached with this project even after this GSOC ends."

"This program is a great initiative, I loved the amount of exposure the participating students get and it definitely is one of the most exciting summers someone can ever get."

"The most rewarding part is to be able to go to the cytoscape retreat. It is absolutely helpful to the project, and helpful to get to know the mentors and others."

"Be the best user of the software. If you are the best user, you write and participate [in] the software project spontaneously."

"At the beginning of the summer, I really had my doubts on whether or not I had gotten in too far over my head. So I very much enjoy being able to look back at what I was able to accomplish and realize that I was able to supersede my original expectations for myself."

"Don't be afraid to ask questions. Your mentors are an amazing source of information, and they are really interested in helping you in any way possible."

"Be cool."
This post is cross posted from my Next Nucleus blog, where you can read more about our previous years with Google Summer of Code.

By Alexander Pico, Google Summer of Code Mentor for GenMAPP
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/09/genmapps-summer-harvest.html

[G] A Digital Media Primer for Geeks

Posted: 24 Sep 2010 02:23 PM PDT

The WebM Open Media Project Blog: A Digital Media Primer for Geeks

Our friend Monty Montgomery (creator of the Vorbis audio codec used in WebM) has started a video series about digital media. The first episode is an excellent overview of "the technical foundations of modern digital media."

You can stream WebM versions of the video in your favorite WebM-enabled browser or download it to your desktop and watch it one of many WebM-enabled media players. Supported browsers and players are listed on our site.

There's also a companion Wiki.
URL: http://blog.webmproject.org/2010/09/digital-media-primer-for-geeks.html

[G] Going Google across the 50 States: Connecticut-based ice cream franchise decides to ‘gofer’ Google Apps

Posted: 24 Sep 2010 01:43 PM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Going Google across the 50 States: Connecticut-based ice cream franchise decides to 'gofer' Google Apps

Editor's note: Over the past couple months, thousands of businesses have added their Gone Google story to our community map and even more have used the Go Google cloud calculator to test drive life in the cloud. To highlight some of these companies' Gone Google stories, we decided to talk to Google Apps customers across the United States. Check back each week to see which state we visit next. To learn more about other organizations that have gone Google and share your story, visit our community map.

"It's always a good day to 'gofer' ice cream," according to Jay Ragusa, President of Gofer Ice Cream. Jay has opened five stores throughout Connecticut that provide high quality ice cream and unique treats such as razzles, smoothies, hand dipped ice cream, and soft serve ice cream with a flavor twist. Jay relies on Google Apps to keep his business running, and today he shares how it has helped him and his staff work more efficiently.

"Between our online accounting software and the use of Google Apps, which has become an integral part of our daily operations, we are gradually putting the entire company in the cloud.

Google Sites, part of the Google Apps suite, is used to create specific pages on our external website (gofericecream.com) so we can easily edit content without the use of a webmaster. Internally, we built multiple intranet sites including the Gofer Network where store managers and franchisees communicate, organize, and operate their part of the company. The Gofer Crew Portal is a site designed for the staff to access information such as contact numbers, store schedules and the internal Gofer Blog, and submit time card exceptions.

We rely heavily on Google Docs to update manuals, recipes, and employee schedules all of which are posted on the Gofer Network for store managers to access and share with employees at each store. For financial reporting, we created custom Google forms to efficiently collect data on point-of-sale purchases every night — store managers input their sales numbers into the form and everything is automatically populated in my spreadsheets. The forms are a great way to get the data quickly without having to expose sensitive revenue information across all the stores.

Whenever possible, we're developing business processes around the functionality in Google Apps. It's low cost and we get the security of knowing that Google is backing up our data. I'm looking forward to finding more ways that Google Apps can improve how we work."

Posted by Michelle Lisowski, Google Apps team
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/09/going-google-across-50-states.html

[G] Speed check: Visit us at Shop.org to test your e-commerce site

Posted: 24 Sep 2010 01:43 PM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Speed check: Visit us at Shop.org to test your e-commerce site

Did you know that a user spends an average of just eight seconds on a website before deciding whether to stick around (Marketing Sherpa)? If you're an e-commerce site, this means you have to be faster than Usain Bolt - the world record-holder for the 100m dash.

Next week, find out how Google can help you capitalize on those eight seconds and improve your online shopping experience. Visit the Google Commerce Search team at Shop.org's Annual Summit, held in Dallas, Texas from September 27 - 29.

If your organization plans to attend the show, be sure to visit Google in Booth #120 and attend the Big Ideas session Wednesday at 12:45 PM featuring Nitin Mangtani of Google Enterprise, who will be speaking about search insights for today's e-commerce technology.

The Google Commerce Search team will be joined by Product Search, AdWords, and the Google Affiliate Network. We can't wait to show you the many different ways we can help your business.

Posted by Guillaume De Zwirek, Google Commerce Search team
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/09/speed-check-visit-us-at-shoporg-to-test.html

[G] Discussing innovation and democracy in 2010

Posted: 24 Sep 2010 01:31 PM PDT

YouTube Blog: Discussing innovation and democracy in 2010

Over the past few U.S. election cycles, Google and YouTube have have become catalysts for a more engaging, meaningful dialogue between citizens and government leaders. From asking questions of candidates to finding your polling place, our tools are helping to make elections and politics more personal and more democratic, and have opened up Washington, D.C. in exciting new ways.



With less than six weeks until the midterm elections, we wanted to hear from some of politics' most creative minds about what innovation and democracy mean in 2010. So on Monday we're joining forces with POLITICO to host an event at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., where we'll discuss the increasing contributions of technology to democracy and the political process.



As part of the event, top strategists from both political parties—Democratic strategist David Axelrod and Republican strategist Ed Gillespie—will answer questions and offer thoughts and predictions about the upcoming elections. Arianna Huffington will then moderate a panel about innovation in media, and will be joined by Becki Donatelli, Stephen Hayes, Nate Silver and Amy Walter. We'll also demonstrate tools built for citizens and government officials using YouTube and Google Maps, and will be joined by our friends on the politics team at Facebook.



The panelists want to hear from you, so if you'd like to submit a question for any of them, you can do so at youtube.com/citizentube. You'll also be able to watch the entire event live on YouTube on Monday.







As we approach the election homestretch, we'll continue to develop useful ways for voters and campaigns to engage one another around the important issues in 2010.



Ginny Hunt, Elections and Public Sector Programs, recently watched " John Legend and The Roots."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/3uwa-pW_qe0/discussing-innovation-and-democracy-in.html
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