Sunday, October 31, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] Handy tools to help Americans vote

Posted: 30 Oct 2010 07:19 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Handy tools to help Americans vote

As Americans gear up for the midterm elections on November 2, we wanted to share a few tools that make it easier to gather voting information.

When you search on Google for [polling place] or [where to vote], you'll see a search box to help you find your polling place, candidates, and local election office. Just type in the home address where you're registered to vote. The search looks like this:



This feature is powered by the Google Election Center, an experimental service that lets election officials provide data directly to Google in order to create a set of search tools. Anyone with a website can also provide this same functionality by embedding the open source Election Center gadget on your site, or use the gadget code or API to build your own.



And you don't need to be at your computer to easily find this information. If you'd rather get it on your mobile device, we've also created a mobile landing page: m.google.com/elections.



As for election news, you'll find a special Google News section with stories for each state so you can easily catch up on the latest headlines.


We hope all of these tools help you get and stay informed throughout the election season.

Posted by Dan Berlin, Public Sector Engineering Manager
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/handy-tools-to-help-americans-vote.html

[G] A Halloween hello

Posted: 30 Oct 2010 03:02 PM PDT

Inside AdSense: A Halloween hello

Happy Halloween from the Google AdSense Team!




Posted by Katrina Kurnit - Inside AdSense Team
URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/10/halloween-hello.html

[G] Release Notes: Community-designed Doodle, global Halloween films, easier bug reporting, virtual keyboard...

Posted: 30 Oct 2010 02:47 PM PDT

YouTube Blog: Release Notes: Community-designed Doodle, global Halloween films, easier bug reporting, virtual keyboard...

With it being Halloween season and all, we've got an especially spoooooky edition of Release Notes for you.


First-ever user-designed Doodle: You may have noticed that once in a while, we change our homepage logo to match a special occasion -- for example, we've done it for Earth Day, the finale of YouTube Play, and yesterday's one billionth subscription milestone. But this Halloween we're especially jazzed because the Doodle you'll see on the homepage was designed by xperpetualmotion, a YouTube community member and Rhode Island School of Design student. Here's how she came up with the icon you see below: "I tried out a lot of different Halloween imagery before deciding on the classic 'holes cut out of a white sheet' ghost. It makes me smile every time, because what else could this kid possibly have under there that makes him that shape? I wanted the logo to be something fun and clever, and I hope everyone loves it as much as I do!" We certainly do! Thank you, Karen.






YouTube's first user-designed Doodle, by xperpetualmotion



Global Halloween films: If you're in the U.S., U.K., Canada or Australia, we've got some exciting news to add to your seasonal mirth: our friends at Crackle made sure their Halloween offerings could be viewed by horror fans around the world, marking the first time a studio's made several full-length movies simultaneously available in multiple territories on YouTube. Click here for regional viewing dates for Underworld: Evolution, Idle Hands, Mary Reilly, The Blob and The Bride.



Report a bug: No, we don't mean the creepy crawly kind, but the kind that may indicate something's broken. If you come across a problem on the site, scroll down to the new "report a bug" link at the bottom of any YouTube page. Clicking it will allow you to take an easy screenshot of the page and add further details in the pop-up box:






New "Send feedback" form



African language launches: YouTube's now available in Amharic and Swahili. Click on the language link at the bottom of the page to change your language settings.



Type non-English text with the virtual keyboard: We've made it easy for people to find videos in non-Latin script-based languages; the on-screen keyboard is available in 26 languages (Amharic, Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Korean, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Swahili, Swedish, Vietnamese, Slovenian, Romanian, Ukrainian). To use the virtual keyboard, switch the language of the site to one of the supported languages and click on the keyboard icon in the search box.






Here's where you can turn on the virtual keyboard



More efficient 3D player: Our new player for 3D videos is much faster than the previous player, especially for HD resolution. Try enjoying your favorite 3D clips in high resolution and full screen with no lag.



The BooooooTube Team


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/O-K1PmziYcA/release-notes-community-designed-doodle.html

[G] Handy tools to help Americans vote

Posted: 30 Oct 2010 10:11 AM PDT

Google LatLong: Handy tools to help Americans vote

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

As Americans gear up for the midterm elections on November 2, we wanted to share a few tools that make it easier to gather voting information.

When you search on Google for [polling place] or [where to vote], you'll see a search box to help you find your polling place, candidates, and local election office. Just type in the home address where you're registered to vote. The search looks like this:



This feature is powered by the Google Election Center, an experimental service that lets election officials provide data directly to Google in order to create a set of search tools. Anyone with a website can also provide this same functionality by embedding the open source Election Center gadget on your site, or use the gadget code or API to build your own.



And you don't need to be at your computer to easily find this information. If you'd rather get it on your mobile device, we've also created a mobile landing page: m.google.com/elections.



As for election news, you'll find a special Google News section with stories for each state so you can easily catch up on the latest headlines.


We hope all of these tools help you get and stay informed throughout the election season.

Posted by Dan Berlin, Public Sector Engineering Manager
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/10/handy-tools-to-help-americans-vote.html

[G] Going Google across the 50 States: Texas brothers convert 30% more leads by staying on track with Google Apps

Posted: 30 Oct 2010 05:18 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Going Google across the 50 States: Texas brothers convert 30% more leads by staying on track with Google Apps

Editor's note: Over 3 million businesses have adopted Google Apps. Today we'll hear from David Bullock, CFO of YETI Coolers based in Austin, Texas. To learn more about other organizations that have gone Google and share your story, visit our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google cloud calculator.


YETI Coolers, co-founded in 2005 by brothers Roy and Ryan Seiders, offers durable, super-insulated ice chests for serious outdoor enthusiasts. Roy first recognized the potential of a premium cooler during an early entrepreneurial endeavor and decided to design his own. He recruited his brother to help and the two settled on YETI for the company name – a new brand that consumers could easily associate with frigid toughness. Today, YETI coolers are "certified grizzly-proof" and distributed through over 500 dealers across the country.


When Roy and Ryan started the company, they recognized the value of Google's free email service, Gmail, and started with one email address – yeticoolers@gmail.com. However, fast forward three years and the company had grown to 10 employees. We hit a tipping point where we needed to expand and create a more professional look with @yeticoolers.com email addresses. The question was how to retain three years of information and still offer the entire office the same easy-to-use interface and access to remotely-stored email history. The solution was Google Apps.

Soon after implementing Google Apps, we hired our first National Sales Director who resides in North Carolina. Despite the geographical barrier, Google Docs has allowed us to collaborate with him and other remote employees in real time, and has became a critical component of our sales process.

Our goal is to increase the number of dealers that sell YETI coolers but for a long time, our volume of dealer inquiries was unmanageable and we missed out on sales opportunities. This is where a Google spreadsheet saved us. We created a "Potential Dealer Tracker" to track, prioritize, and, most importantly follow up with potential YETI dealers. By capitalizing on dealer inquiries in an organized, methodical way, we've been able to convert 30% more leads just this year. The profit from the new accounts nearly pays our National Sales Director's salary!

We also use Google Calendar to track internal and external meetings and even non-work events like Red Raider and Longhorn football games. More recently, we started using Google Sites and launched our company's first intranet. We look forward to adding even richer content to the site as the company continues to expand.

Given the rapid growth we've experienced over the last few years, it has been extremely difficult to stay on top of all areas of the business. Google Apps has changed this, providing the tools we need to succeed. It's low cost, secure and easy to use – from our standpoint, Google Apps is the perfect solution for any small business.

Posted by David Bullock, YETI Coolers
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/10/going-google-across-50-states-texas.html
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