Saturday, February 5, 2011

Googland

Googland

[G] This week in search 2/4/2011

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 05:31 PM PST

Official Google Blog: This week in search 2/4/2011

This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs on Fridays. Look for the label "This week in search" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

This week it got just a bit faster to find the right things to buy and the right places to go, with a little help from Google—and your friends. Simply type a few characters and get Google Instant results in the "Shopping" view, and find recommendations from your friends with Hotpot in search results.

Instant results in the "Shopping" view
Now you can shop faster than ever and get the speed of Google Instant when comparing prices, looking for nearby stores and learning about products you want to buy. For example, if you're searching for a cast iron skillet, we'll start showing you relevant pans as you type [cast iro...]. Click "Shopping" in the left-hand panel and try searching for [sweater wrap shawl], [android phone] or anything else.

Now results will appear as you type in the "Shopping" view and in Google Product Search

Hotpot recommendations in search results
Earlier this week we added Hotpot recommendations to regular search results on Google. So now, if you're looking for restaurants in San Francisco, you can simply search Google for [restaurants sf]. If a friend has rated a particular place, you might see her opinion right beneath the listing. We also expanded Hotpot to 38 new languages so people can share their favorite places around the world.

Hotpot recommendations from your friends now appear right in your usual search results

Whether you're cooking at home or dining out, we hope this week's updates help you find what you're looking for just a little bit faster.

Posted by Johanna Wright, Director, Search Product Management
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/this-week-in-search-242011.html

[G] This Week's Trends: The President, Egypt, and 90s Hip Hop

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 03:07 PM PST

YouTube Blog: This Week's Trends: The President, Egypt, and 90s Hip Hop

Each weekday, we at YouTube Trends take a look at the most interesting videos and cultural phenomena on YouTube as they develop. We want take a moment to highlight some of what we've come across recently:







Check back every day for the latest about what's trending on YouTube at www.YouTube.com/Trends



Kevin Allocca, YouTube Trends Manager, recently watched "Taxista canta igual que Michael Jackson"


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/u46hvDluNOo/this-weeks-trends-president-egypt-and.html

[G] One million books scanned and returned to CIC university libraries

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 01:22 PM PST

Inside Google Books: One million books scanned and returned to CIC university libraries

Posted by Kim Armstrong, Deputy Director, Center for Library Initiatives, Committee on Institutional Cooperation

Today we're celebrating an important milestone: Google has digitized one million books from member libraries of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC). The CIC is the consortium of the Big Ten member universities and the University of Chicago.

Each of these volumes has been scanned, translated from image to text with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology and added to the Google Books index. Once digitized, the books are shipped back to our originating libraries to resume their journeys from bookshelves to backpacks.

While Google preserves library books in digital form, and makes them more accessible to more people as a result, it also sends participating libraries (at no cost to us) digital copies for our own archives or other non-commercial use. Accordingly, the CIC libraries are making hundreds of thousands of the recently digitized public domain volumes accessible through their partnership with the HathiTrust Digital Library.

We became Google's 16th Library Project partner in June 2007. Google Books has now partnered with more than 40 libraries and scanned more than 15 million books worldwide. Books that have only been available for use within the walls of our libraries have found new readers now that they are open to the world. Some examples of CIC titles available for reading include: An Unwritten Account of a Spy of Washington, published in 1892; The 1901 Pipe and Quid: An Essay on Tobacco; and The Sun: a familiar description of his phaenomena, published in 1885.

While we are pausing to celebrate this moment with Google today, we're not resting on our library laurels. We have a long way to go to digitize all of our books. In fact, CIC libraries have agreed to provide as many as 10 million volumes to this ambitious project, out of total collections approaching 85 million volumes. -- so this is just the beginning.
URL: http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2011/02/one-million-books-scanned-and-returned.html

[G] Showtime’s “SHORT stories” recruits YouTube finest to make short films

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 10:01 AM PST

YouTube Blog: Showtime's "SHORT stories" recruits YouTube finest to make short films

For "SHORT stories," Showtime contacted cutting-edge creators from across the Web and asked them to tell a tale in an innovative way. The series sports the work of some of YouTube's top creators, so naturally we're interested in learning a whole lot more about how "SHORT stories" came to be. Showtime's Trevor Noren tells us more.




1) What gave you the idea to use YouTube stars in this way?
YouTube has become a venue for animators and filmmakers to explore new ways to communicate a narrative. Whether it's an established artist like Don Hertzfeldt or a talent the community has discovered, like Cyriak or Levni Yilmaz, YouTube has offered an opportunity for artists to experiment and find out what people respond to. That spirit of innovation seemed like a natural fit for our brand. Unique storytelling is the hallmark of what we do as a network: our shows challenge viewers with characters they haven't seen before. "SHORT stories" is a way for us to bring our brand to a new audience while at the same time showing the work of these amazing artists to our subscribers.

2) What was the process of working with them?
Our mission statement to the artists was pretty simple: "Tell a story in a way people haven't seen before." We figured a directive that open-ended would create a huge range of results. They didn't disappoint. Don Hertzfeldt made up a language. Michael Langan employed thousands of still images to show a run around his block. Cyriak used his hands to tell the story of evolution. Whether acquiring a film already in the works or commissioning something entirely new, we did not interfere with the artists' creative process. The filmmaker explained what they planned to do and we let them run with it. As a result, we ended up with an incredibly diverse collection of films.

3) What have you learned about the YouTube community over the course of this project?
How much they embrace the bizarre. It doesn't matter if they know exactly what the filmmaker is trying to say with their video. They recognize the dedication that goes into creating the piece and they recognize the personality and vision behind it. It's really amazing and inspiring how open-minded the community is to new ideas.

4) Will you pursue more of these and if so, how are you finding the filmmakers?
"SHORT stories" will be ongoing. We've identified a few potential candidates. We'd like to keep who they are a surprise. That said, the YouTube community is already helping us identify potential filmmakers. Names pop up all the time in comments on the videos. Everyone from Czech great Jan Svankmajer to Mystery Guitar Man. The best way for us to find new talent is to watch and listen to the YouTube community.

5) What's something no one would know about these videos by looking at them?
The sheer amount of time that went into the creation of some of the films. Inspired by a vintage nutcracker that looked like a fish, it took PES five years to find all of the objects that went into "The Deep." For Michael Langan, stitching together all of the still images for "Dahlia" took one month for every minute of the film. "Pretty, Dead" by Jeff Scher consists of more than 3,000 individual drawings. The final products themselves are incredible, but when you really start to understand what went into creating them, it's remarkable. 



Trevor Noren, Creative Director, Digital Content, Showtime, recently watched "Shameless Trailer and Behind the Scenes."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/jkVD6PlrTHs/showtimes-short-stories-recruits.html

[G] Super Bowl XLV: fun facts about food, football, and ads

Posted: 04 Feb 2011 09:49 AM PST

YouTube Blog: Super Bowl XLV: fun facts about food, football, and ads

You may notice the streets will be exceptionally quiet this superb 'ol Sunday afternoon, with perhaps only a few pizza delivery vehicles passing by, as Americans gather en masse around the big screen to watch our annual football, food and advertising spectacular: Super Bowl XLV. Two storied teams from the heartland - the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers - will take the field to conclude an exciting and, at times, controversial NFL season. We can only hope the quality of the game will live up to the stage and hype.



A few fun facts to keep in mind for this Sunday's big game (6:30pm ET on FOX, btw):



  • The Steelers have played in seven Super Bowls, winning six of them, while the Packers have been four times, winning three. (It should be noted that the Packers have won 12 total "World Championships" of professional football, eight coming before the modern NFL's playoff system)

  • The Super Bowl attracts a ginormous television audience that, according to Nielsen Co. peaked last year at 106.5 million viewers, topping the 1983 finale of "M-A-S-H" to become the most-watched show in U.S. television history

  • Nine out of 10 of the most-watched television shows of all-time were Super Bowls, but according to The Wall Street Journal, of the several hours of Super Bowl programming including the game itself, only about 11 minutes will have game action, when the ball is actually in-play

  • According to the Hass Avocado Board, an estimated 69.6 million pounds of avocados are expected to be consumed during the Super Bowl, and in general, Americans will eat more on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day besides Thanksgiving, spending over $55 million dollars on food

  • Sunday will be among the top five pizza-ordering days of the year, with some chains accepting pre-orders for pies. Papa John's is estimating they'll travel 300,000 miles in total for deliveries.

  • This will also be the first Super Bowl with no cheerleaders (!), as neither the Packers nor Steelers have squads



And of course, the Super Bowl is an advertising bonanza, with many people tuning in to see the celebrity-laden ads with absurdly high production values as much as to see the game. Besides paying to produce the ads themselves, advertisers are buying airtime from FOX at a rate of around a whopping $3 million for every 30 seconds, according to MSNBC.



Is it worth it? This is a question that you can help settle, by going to our Ad Blitz channel on Super Bowl Sunday to watch and vote on Super Bowl commercials. We'll be adding commercials from participating in-game advertisers to the channel as-close-as-possible after they air, so you can watch, compare, and vote on ads to your heart's content. Your voting will help determine the champion ad, which will be rewarded with a placement in our homepage masthead ad unit, along with the four runners-up, on February 19.



If you're looking for last-minute, Super Bowl party planning tips or recipes, you can check out the channel now for a variety of Super Bowl coverage, including this awesome recipe for Clams Casino Dip, from Foodwishes:





You can also access the channel and commercials from your web-enabled mobile device: go to m.youtube.com/adblitz from your mobile browser (or enter "youtube.com/adblitz" and you should be redirected).



Enjoy the game!





Andrew Bangs, Sports Manager, recently watched "Queensryche - Silent Lucidity."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/N8361mPMN6s/super-bowl-xlv-fun-facts-about-food.html
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