Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] Safe Browsing Alerts for Network Administrators

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 02:57 AM PDT

Google Online Security Blog: Safe Browsing Alerts for Network Administrators

Posted by Nav Jagpal and Ke Wang, Security Team

Google has been working hard to protect its users from malicious web pages, and also to help webmasters keep their websites clean. When we find malicious content on websites, we attempt to notify their webmasters via email about the bad URLs. There is even a Webmaster Tools feature that helps webmasters identify specific malicious content that has been surreptitiously added to their sites, so that they can clean up their site and help prevent it from being compromised in the future.

Today, we're happy to announce Google Safe Browsing Alerts for Network Administrators -- an experimental tool which allows Autonomous System (AS) owners to receive early notifications for malicious content found on their networks. A single network or ISP can host hundreds or thousands of different websites. Although network administrators may not be responsible for running the websites themselves, they have an interest in the quality of the content being hosted on their networks. We're hoping that with this additional level of information, administrators can help make the Internet safer by working with webmasters to remove malicious content and fix security vulnerabilities.

To get started, visit safebrowsingalerts.googlelabs.com.
URL: http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2010/09/safe-browsing-alerts-for-network.html

[G] BazaarVoice Integration

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 12:08 AM PDT

Google Analytics Blog: BazaarVoice Integration

We always love to share news about integrations and applications built on the Google Analytics platform. Here's one from Bazaarvoice.

Bazaarvoice helps e-commerce sites become social by providing a platform for visitors to leave comments and reviews about products. It's user-generated content right on an e-commerce website. With this new integration, Google Analytics users can now see visitor interaction with their Bazaarvoice social content. Here's what Andy Wolfe, Product Manager at Bazaarvoice said about the integration:
"With this integration, Bazaarvoice clients can now see, in Google Analytics, the metrics on things like the number of visitors paginating through reviews, or sharing user-generated content with social networks, or clicking on related products found in reviews. Advanced Segments can then be used to compare the behavior of visits that interact with Bazaarvoice generated content vs. those that don't."
To illustrate how useful this can be, here's a screen shot showing the Bazaarvoice integration:



Users are raving about this integration. According to Paul Dempsey, E-Marketing Manager at Alternative Apparel, one of many clients using the Google Analytics - Bazaarvoice integration, "Now, it's really easy to see the influence of user-generated content on our conversion goals. Did they increase now that we've enabled reviews? We can find out."

And according to Kris Irizawa, Web Analytics Analyst, Logitech, "We love going into Google Analytics and, with a few clicks, segmenting out visits that interact with Bazaarvoice. I can look at all my reports to uncover additional value from user-generated content, such as location based stuff, new vs. returning, keywords, search terms, and more."

For more information on this integration, check out the Bazaarvoice site.


Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team
URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/09/baazarvoice-integration.html

[G] Learn AdSense optimization techniques with our new video series

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 11:11 PM PDT

Inside AdSense: Learn AdSense optimization techniques with our new video series

Did you know that a simple change like enabling both text and image ads can boost your eCPM and revenue? Or that a 300x250 medium rectangle typically performs much better in terms of revenue than a 250x250 square? Or that widening an AdSense search box can double the number of queries performed on your site, leading to higher earnings? If you didn't, don't sweat it -- the AdSense team and I have come up with a list of six top optimization tips and best practices that can help you earn more quickly.

Many of our publishers' sites and accounts aren't fully optimized for AdSense, which means that they're not earning as much as they potentially could. In these AdSense optimization videos, we walk you through some of the top optimization techniques and explain why they're helpful in boosting your eCPM and revenue. Incorporating these techniques into your website and AdSense ad layout can help you monetize your traffic like never before!

In the six-part video series, we talk about how to:
  1. Upgrade to high-performing units
  2. Monetize more content
  3. Optimize search box placement
  4. Opt-in to text and image ads
  5. Use link units
  6. Opt-in to placement targeting
Even if you consider yourself an AdSense expert, you'll probably learn a few new and exciting tips from this series. Take a look at the 'Upgrade to high-performing units' video below, check out all six videos on the official AdSense YouTube channel, and visit our optimization essentials center for more information.



Posted by Andrew Boni - AdSense Optimization team
URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/09/learn-adsense-optimization-techniques.html

[G] What does the future of display advertising look like?

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 07:30 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: What does the future of display advertising look like?

This afternoon, we gave a keynote address at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's MIXX Conference in New York, entitled "Display 2015: Smart and Sexy."

As you know by now, we're investing significantly to make display advertising better for users, advertisers and publishers. Display advertising really is at the heart of what we're doing at Google these days. 99 percent of our top 1,000 clients are now running campaigns on the Google Display Network. And last year, they increased their spending on display advertising by over 75 percent.

Today, we explained why we think display advertising is about to go through the biggest and most important revolution in its history. We made seven predictions about where display advertising will be in 2015:
  • 50 percent of ad campaigns will include video ads bought on a cost-per-view basis (that means that the user will choose whether to watch the ad or not, and the advertiser will only pay if the user watches). That's up from very little today.
  • Today, advertisers are starting to deliver ads that are tailored to particular audiences. Many are using real-time bidding technology, so that they can bid on the ad space that they think is most valuable. In 2015, 50 percent of these ads will be bought using this real-time technology.
  • With smartphone growth skyrocketing, mobile is going be the number one screen through which users engage with advertisers' digital brands.
  • Today, the "click" is the most important way that advertisers measure their display ad campaigns, but it's not always the best measure—especially if an ad campaign is designed to boost things like brand awareness or recall. With new measurement technologies emerging, in five years, there will be five metrics that advertisers commonly regard as more important than the click.
  • Just like most news articles on the web today can be commented on, shared, discussed, subscribed to and recommended, in 2015, 75 percent of ads on the web will be "social" in nature—across dozens of formats, sites and social communities.
  • Rich media formats work. They enable great creativity and interaction between users and advertisers, but today they only represent about 6 percent of total display ad impressions. That will increase to 50 percent, for brand-building ad campaigns.
  • All the investments that are making display advertising smarter and sexier will help publishers increase their revenues. Display advertising is going to grow to a $50 billion industry in five years.
We also wanted to visualize the face of the display advertising revolution, so we demonstrated four exciting new technologies:
  • We demonstrated some new video ad formats we've been testing on YouTube that we're calling "TrueView." These will roll out later this year. These ad formats give people the option to skip an ad if they don't want to watch, or to choose from multiple ads the one they want to watch. Importantly, advertisers only pay if the user chooses to watch their ad.
  • We showed some of the things that are becoming possible with our new Teracent technology. This technology can dynamically alter the creative elements of an ad in real-time to make it more relevant and effective, depending on factors like geographic location, language, the content of the website and the time of day.
  • You might be familiar with Google Goggles, a way to search the web on mobile devices just by taking a picture. We gave a preview of some experimental uses of Google Goggles that could one day enable advertisers to deliver great display ads to users. Imagine pointing your phone's camera at an ad for a car in a magazine, and having the car appear in 3D in your mobile device. Or pointing at a movie poster and having the movie trailer play in the device, right in your hand. No QR codes, no downloads!
  • We even showed a fun example of what rich media can do—our speech was broadcast live in a number of expandable ad units across the web, and was updated with tweets in real time.
We think that display advertising has a pretty exciting future and we'll continue our work to make it even better. Thanks to everyone who came along to watch in New York, or who tuned in online. If you didn't get a chance to see it, our speech will be available here later today.

Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President of Product Management and Barry Salzman, Managing Director of Media & Platforms - Americas
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-does-future-of-display-advertising.html

[G] What’s different about the new Google Docs: Working together, even apart

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 05:24 PM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: What's different about the new Google Docs: Working together, even apart

Earlier this year, we launched new editors for documents and spreadsheets on Google Docs, built on a code base designed to improve collaboration and take advantage of the latest advances in modern browsers. These applications support up to 50 simultaneous editors, and documents let you see other people's changes character-by-character as they type.

This week we wanted to share a series of posts on the Google Docs blog that dive into the collaboration technology behind Google Docs. In the first post, we look at the challenges encountered when building a collaborative application. The second post describes how Google Docs uses an algorithm called operational transformation to merge edits in real time. Lastly, the we end the series with a deep dive into the collaboration protocol for sending changes between editors in a document. Together, these technologies create the character-by-character collaboration in Google Docs.

These improvements to Google Docs are designed to help businesses like yours move to the cloud faster and be more productive than ever before. If you've never tried our web-based documents, spreadsheets and presentations, you can instantly take a test drive at docs.google.com/demo.

Posted by John Day-Richter, Software Engineer
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/09/whats-different-about-new-google-docs.html

[G] Google Apps Marketplace helps students’ minds thrive in the cloud

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 05:24 PM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Google Apps Marketplace helps students' minds thrive in the cloud

We started the Google Apps Marketplace with the goal of helping businesses find even more value in the cloud. Universities and schools are also moving aggressively into cloud computing for both internal infrastructure applications and apps for students. We have seen excellent uptake by education edition users of a wide range of apps, including Aviary, Manymoon, SlideRocket, SurveyMonkey, TripIt, OffiSync, and Sherpatools, just to name a few.

In addition to the many apps that have been used to enhance learning experiences, we recently introduced the first education-focused app, Grockit, to the Marketplace. We are excited to see the demand for these types of apps grow and we hope to build on the momentum created by apps that have been helping schools move to the cloud. Here are just a few examples of how Marketplace apps are currently being used in the classroom:
SlideRocket - Platform for creating, managing, sharing and measuring presentations
"You can see the impact [of cloud-based learning] in a research project some students did with the Glacier National Park in Montana. Students started by gathering their data through "building tools" such as Google Docs. Then students used that cloud-based data to collaborate with peers inside of SlideRocket, building a coherent presentation from scattered sets of data. Finally, they used Google Earth to embed the SlideRocket presentation into a place marker within the park, giving everyone access to their work. With this advancement in edtech, students across the school can discover various geo-referenced SlideRocket presentations as they virtually fly around the globe, learning and providing feedback… teachers are constantly wow'ed by the new capabilities…"
- John Kuglin, Senior Tech Consultant & Former Associate Dean, Univ of Montana 
Manymoon - Team collaboration and project management application
"At Le Moyne College... class assignments, relevant media, documents, student discussions and papers are all posted on Manymoon... All e-mails, documents, links etc are in one place and easy to find... which saves lots of time for me and my students. Manymoon and Google Apps are useful for connecting my students with others in the wider community. This semester, for instance, my Le Moyne College students are using Manymoon to work with college and high school students on a Juvenile Justice Experiential Education collaboration which involves more than 200 students from local universities and high schools. This is made possible by Manymoon and the suite of Google Apps."
-Jim Dessauer, Adjunct Associate Professor in Sociology at Le Moyne College

The introduction of Grockit is our most recent step to help schools and universities discover and deploy relevant applications from our Marketplace. Grockit is a social learning platform for students in K-12 and for college entrance exams. They were eager to join the Marketplace because of the 8 million students that currently use Google Apps. Through Grockit integrations with Apps, students can now easily access their Grockit account through the universal navigation bar, sync training sessions with Google Calendar and store critical documents in Google Docs.

"The response from School Administrators has been outstanding. Each day we are contacted by a new school that is thrilled Google has begun adding educational apps to the marketplace and they have access to Grockit's learning platform through it. They are already asking how they can make Grockit available to their students beyond this school year. We are stoked that educators see the additional value they provide their students when they are able to combine the benefits of Google and Grockit together."
-Farb Nivi, Founder and CEO of Grockit

We are constantly seeking to bring applications that our customers want to the Marketplace, so help us out by suggesting apps you think would be good for the Marketplace. In the meantime, check out the Google Apps Marketplace and get your head in the cloud:
Aviary, Manymoon, SlideRocket, SurveyMonkey, TripIt, OffiSync, and Sherpatools

Posted by Harrison Shih, Google Apps Marketplace Team
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-apps-marketplace-helps-students.html

[G] Revamping the Photo Layer in Google Maps

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 03:53 PM PDT

Google LatLong: Revamping the Photo Layer in Google Maps


Here at Google, we love the experience of browsing photos on a map, and today it just got a lot easier. We have launched an update to the design of the Photo layer in Google Maps to provide you with a better experience when browsing your favorite places:


There are three main improvements in this latest update:

Firstly, we have made improvements to the density of the photos on the map, making it easier to see clusters of photos in popular locations. On the screenshot above, you can now well see that there are a lot more photos taken on the coast than there are inland.

Secondly, we've made the small thumbnails partially transparent, making it easier to see the underlying map, and helping you to stay oriented. On the screenshot above, the city and neighborhood labels are now more legible.

Finally, we are showing more information when you hover over a photo. Now, you can see a large thumbnail and the title of each image, so you can get a fast preview of what any photo looks like.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on the new layer, so feel free to leave us your comments in the Panoramio forum.

Jonah Jones, User Experience Designer, Google Maps
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/09/revamping-photo-layer-in-google-maps.html

[G] Trouble accessing FeedBurner.

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 03:22 PM PDT

The FeedBurner Status Blog: Trouble accessing FeedBurner.

Issue:The FeedBurner front end is currently unavailable. Feed serving has not been affected during this outage. We are investigating the cause and expect to have the system back online shortly.

Update (8:01am PST 28-Sep): The issue causing the interruption of service has been resolved. The FeedBurner front end is fully accessible again.
URL: http://feedburnerstatus.blogspot.com/2010/09/trouble-accessing-feedburner.html

[G] More tools for viewing document revisions

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 01:14 PM PDT

Official Google Docs Blog: More tools for viewing document revisions

We're happy to announce that a new revision history interface is now available in Google documents. To see it, go to File > See revision history.

In the new revision history interface, you can see what changes were made at a glance.


Click on a time stamp in the right column to see what changes were made at a given time or use the arrow keys to quickly scan through many revisions.


Changes are color-coded based on each collaborator, making it easy to tell what has been added or deleted. For example, in the screenshot below, James (whose edits are highlighted in orange) deleted and added text while bmichael61 (whose edits are highlighted in green) removed a paragraph and added a comment.


Time stamps are also improved in the new interface. We've heard requests for time to always be listed, even for very old revisions and we're listening: you can now tell afternoon edits apart from all-nighters.

The interface also batches revisions into groups of changes to make it easier to understand how a document has changed over time. To see a finer-grained list of revisions, click Show more detailed revisions.


This is just a first step for the new revision interface for Google Docs. We're looking forward to more revision improvements in the future. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Posted by: Vance Vagell, Software Engineer
URL: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-tools-for-viewing-document.html

[G] Revamping the Photo Layer in Google Maps

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 09:05 AM PDT

Google Photos Blog: Revamping the Photo Layer in Google Maps

Posted by Jonah Jones, User Experience Designer, Google Maps Team

Here at Google, we love the experience of browsing photos on a map, and today it just got a lot easier. We have launched an update to the design of the Photo layer in Google Maps to provide you with a better experience when browsing your favourite places:



There are three main improvements in this latest update:

Firstly, we have made improvements to the density of the photos on the map, making it easier to see clusters of photos in popular locations. On the screenshot above, you can now well see that there are a lot more photos taken on the coast than there are inland.

Secondly, we've made the small thumbnails partially transparent, making it easier to see the underlying map, and helping you to stay oriented. On the screenshot above, the city and neighbourhood labels are now more legible.

Finally, we are showing more information when you hover over a photo. Now, you can see a large thumbnail and the title of each image, so you can get a fast preview of what any photo looks like.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on the new layer, so feel free to leave us your comments in the Panoramio forum.
URL: http://googlephotos.blogspot.com/2010/09/revamping-photo-layer-in-google-maps.html
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