Friday, February 18, 2011

Googland

Googland

Googland

[G] Happy Valentine's Day

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 04:39 AM PST

Google Analytics Blog: Happy Valentine's Day

As this author thinks about what to get his significant other for Valentine's Day (a little late), he reflects on the myriad of businesses that have improved their game with Google Analytics, including the following example recently highlighted on The JAPAC Conversion Room Blog by our very own Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Senior Conversion Specialist, Google Southeast Asia. If only Vinny had told me about this earlier so I could've been ready for Valentine's Day: online shoe retailer Shoes of Prey, where you or your honey can custom-design a pair of women's shoes and Shoes of Prey will make it and send it to you. So fun! Sweeter than chocolates, and cooler than flowers for sure. And the great thing is, they're using a combination of Google Analytics and their Intelligence Alerts to keep tabs on which blogs and websites are writing about them. (Just like you keep track of the love notes that you're sweetie sends you.) Check out their technique:

As a newly-formed startup, Shoes of Prey rely heavily on positive buzz about their products, so staying up-to-date on these sites is crucial. One of the ways they keeps up with online buzz is by regularly checking their traffic sources and Google Analytics Intelligence Alerts to see which blogs are sending them the most valuable converting traffic. They constantly monitor the Intelligence Alerts reports to look for unusual spikes in overnight traffic from referring sites. Since the web moves at light speed, Shoes of Prey wants to ensure that they are speaking to people writing about them as soon as they publish and not a week or two later.

Check out more specifics over at post on the JAPAC Conversion Room Blog to learn more about how Shoes of Prey took advantage of the insights gleaned through Intelligence Alerts to increase traffic to and sales on their site.

About Intelligence Alerts: For the time-poor analyst, Google Analytics Intelligence Alerts are as good as having a personal assistant. Analytics Intelligence constantly monitors your website's traffic. Anytime your traffic patterns change significantly, such as a dip in traffic from a particular country, it adds an automatic alert to your Intelligence reports.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team and Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Senior Conversion Specialist, Google Southeast Asia

URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2011/02/happy-valentines-day_15.html

[G] Promoting Innovation and Collaboration in Government with Google Apps

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 03:54 AM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Promoting Innovation and Collaboration in Government with Google Apps

Editor's Note: Today's guest blogger is Paul R. Verkuil, the tenth Chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent federal agency whose mission is providing expert advice and recommendations to improve the federal government. He was sworn in by Vice President Biden on April 6, 2010. ACUS has just launched a brand new website, acus.gov, which takes advantage of the collaboration capabilities of Google Apps for Government.

The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) is an independent federal agency dedicated to creating a public-private partnership designed to make government work better. ACUS has had a long history of saving the government and taxpayers money. In 2009, ACUS was revived by Congress after a 15-year hiatus to bring creative thinkers together to focus on how innovative technology, transparency, and collaboration can help us improve the operations of our federal government.

To build a 21st century agency, we need 21st century technology. To that end, ACUS has recently developed a new website designed to engage the public and solicit ideas from citizens across the county, using video, social media tools, and more. We have integrated Google Calendar into our site to make information about our public meetings readily accessible.

Bringing together multiple perspectives and a wide variety of ideas in order to arrive at the best solutions is another key to our success. The conference itself includes representatives from 50 federal executive departments, agencies, and independent regulatory boards and commissions, as well as 40 members of the public. We also have a nimble team of 15 staff, who bring their own innovative ideas to our mission.

This week, ACUS just launched a collaborative workspace for members and staff using Google Apps for Government to share documents, calendars and websites. We chose Google Apps because of its intuitive, easy-to-use interface. What's more, Google Apps' FISMA certification and accreditation gave us confidence it could meet our security needs.

We're excited to be delivering new ideas for how to improve government efficiency and to make government less intrusive and costly. The collaboration capabilities from Google Apps will allow us to be a model of effectiveness for those we hope to help.

Posted by Paul R. Verkuil, Chairman, Administrative Conference of the United States
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/02/promoting-innovation-and-collaboration.html

[G] A window of opportunity: Hunter Douglas goes Google

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 03:54 AM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: A window of opportunity: Hunter Douglas goes Google

Editor's Note: We're pleased to welcome guest blogger Brian Hobbs, IT Director of Hunter Douglas. Headquartered in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Hunter Douglas is the leading manufacturer of custom-made window fashions in North America. Learn more about other organizations that have gone Google on our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google Cloud Calculator.For more than 60 years, starting with our invention of the aluminum venetian blind in 1946, we have been designing custom window fashions for our customers, based on personal consultations and measurements. At Hunter Douglas quality and innovation are very important to us. We knew when we started looking at Google Apps that we'd be getting both.

Prior to moving 3,000 employees to Google Apps, we were using Novell Groupwise for email and calendar services, but this presented numerous challenges. First, Groupwise didn't integrate easily with other applications. To continue to grow and work in more than 30 offices and plants across North America, we needed a platform that we could build on. We were also lacking the access and mobility that a good web application provides. Our employees wanted to easily access their email and calendars while on the road and out of the office with no disruption. Providing mobile access was a priority for us. Reliability and business continuity were also a concern. We were managing email servers at each of our locations and we knew if a server went down, business would stop until we were able to bring it back up. That wasn't something we wanted to worry about. Finally, total cost of ownership was far less with Google Apps. Our return on investment is just over one year. The money we were able to save by switching to Google's secure, web-based products combined with the value of Google Apps makes for a real win.

We're just getting started with Google Apps, but already our employees have so much more flexibility now that all of their information is on the web. Because so many employees were already Gmail users, the transition has been extremely smooth. Plus, we've had the help of Google Apps reseller, Cloud Sherpas, to assist with deployment and provide materials and documentation for employees who are a bit less savvy when it comes to new technology.

Our IT Department is happy because now they can focus on more strategic projects instead of just maintaining servers, and our employees are happy because Google Apps is easy to use and accessible from any computer or mobile device. We're happy to say that Hunter Douglas has gone Google.


Posted by Brian Hobbs, IT Director, Hunter Douglas
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/02/window-of-opportunity-hunter-douglas.html

[G] Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks is going Google to improve collaboration and remote access

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 03:54 AM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks is going Google to improve collaboration and remote access


Today our guest blogger is Ron Kaufman, Director of Information Services for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. We'll hear from Ron on the benefits his department enjoys by migrating 420 users to Google Apps.

The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP) oversees 26 state parks and a variety of wildlife areas, nature centers, and state fishing lakes with roughly 420 employees. The department supports multiple offices and remote employees such as natural resource officers, field biologists, various biological technicians and others that rely on mobile devices quite frequently to manage state lands and patrol state lakes, survey species and help improve habitats for wildlife. Because many of these employees work in the field, from their homes or vehicles, they are not always in areas where they can plug in a computer and access the Internet easily.

Having used Microsoft Exchange for many years, and then switched to an open source solution for five years, KDWP decided to test a cloud-based solution to improve collaboration and efficiency. We picked Google Apps for its broad capabilities and simplicity to deploy and use. The initial 45 test users were very pleased with the availability of the cloud tool suite. Being able to access files from any web browser and the additional calendaring and global directory functionalities played a big part in the department's ultimate decision to go Google. Working with Google Apps Partner SADA Systems, KDWP was able to migrate 420 users to the production environment last summer in just two months.

We started to see immediate benefits, even while employees were still learning about Google Apps' full capabilities. People working from different locations are now able to collaborate easily on the same document or spreadsheet online. We no longer need to mail copies of our budget spreadsheet back and forth by snail mail or as an attachment in email. Using Google Docs and video chat, employees 200 miles apart are able to collaborate as though they're meeting in person. Since the applications now live in the cloud, meaning they are delivered over the Internet and accessed in a web browser, we worry much less about file size limitations, server downtime, technology upgrades or maintenance issues.

Before the migration, our network administrator was spending 20% of his time on maintaining email servers and clients. That has been cut down to roughly 5%, a considerable time savings. Our IT can now focus on more meaningful initiatives.

Posted by Ron Kaufman, Director of Information Services for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/02/kansas-department-of-wildlife-and-parks.html

[G] Google Earth Pro Data Layers: Refresh Everything

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 03:54 AM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Google Earth Pro Data Layers: Refresh Everything

Since we launched data layers in Google Earth Pro, we've seen strong and steady growth in use. To make the data even more valuable to our users, we're providing an update that greatly expands coverage for all layers. We hope you enjoy the data refresh!

If you're new to Google Earth Pro, watch a video about the layers or download a free trial and explore the layers first-hand.

Here's what's new:
U.S. Parcel Data from DataQuick:
  • Greater geospatial coverage: 6% increase in the number of parcels attributes available country-wide
  • 8 new parcel attributes, including lot size, roof type, and tax information.
  • Ability to purchase additional data from DataQuick from within Google Earth Pro


U.S. Daily Traffic Counts from Market Planning Solutions Inc.:
  • New: Traffic counts now available for 2010
  • Update: 14x more traffic counts available for 2009
  • Update: 2x more traffic counts for 2008

U.S. Demographic Data from The Nielsen Company:

  • Current year demographics data updated to 2010
  • Five-year demographics data updated to 2015


Happy travels!

Pete Giencke, GIS Data Engineer, The Google Earth Team
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/02/google-earth-pro-data-layers-refresh.html

[G] SAP StreamWork and Google Docs integration help Manna on Main Street support the community

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 03:54 AM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: SAP StreamWork and Google Docs integration help Manna on Main Street support the community

Editor's Note: This is a guest blog post from Tom Allebach, Executive Director for Manna on Main Street, a community service organization that serves the needy in the greater North Penn community outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA).

Manna on Main Street was founded in 1981 and provides a soup kitchen, food cupboard, and a variety of other programs to help individuals in need. Our vision for Manna on Main Street is "that everyone might be fed." As we need to have every dollar possible directed to helping people, software to support our organization needs to be affordable, work with our existing applications, and be easy to access and use for our staff and 1000 volunteers.

Two solutions that have changed the way we work with our volunteers are Google Docs for creation and sharing of documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and SAP StreamWork, a collaborative decision making application available from the Google Apps Marketplace. They have access whether they're in a soup kitchen, the office, home, or on the go. These tools have helped Manna on Main Street to work more efficiently and collectively, thus allowing us to create and deliver more programs to help those in need.

After experiencing the value of Google Docs, we learned about the integrations with SAP StreamWork through the Google Apps Marketplace. With SAP StreamWork, we can apply structure to our discussions including tracking activities, pro/con tables, SWOT analyses, send out e-mail alerts and polls to drive fast, meaningful results. It provides a way for our staff to connect with the board of directors and supporters for key committees, and has many features for managing private, directed activities that drive participation, planning, and decisions with our volunteers. Like Google Docs, it's easy to use and has been adopted by participants with varying levels of technology experience.

Google Docs is integrated directly into SAP StreamWork, making it even easier for Manna on Main Street and its volunteers to work seamlessly, collectively, and from anywhere. With these new capabilities our board of directors and building and resource committees are now driving a fundraising program to help Manna move to a new facility, dramatically increasing our ability to feed and serve more people in need.

We realize that much work remains to be done to continue to serve those in need, and we continue to give thanks to all of you who help in that service. We also thank Google and SAP for helping small organizations with big goals such as ours.

Posted by Tom Allebach, Executive Director for Manna on Main Street
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/02/sap-streamwork-and-google-docs.html

[G] Family-owned Pithy Little Wine Co. runs on Google Apps

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 03:54 AM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Family-owned Pithy Little Wine Co. runs on Google Apps

Editor's Note: Since today is one of the more popular days for wining and dining, we invited Jeff Munsey, co-owner and Vice President of Pithy Little Wine Co., to tell us about his company's move to Google Apps. Learn more about other organizations that have gone Google on our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google Cloud Calculator.

Together with my wife, Felicia, we started Pithy Little Wine Co. a couple of years ago with the goal of crafting great tasting wines that represented the diversity of California's wine country. We've worked in the wine industry for more than 20 years combined and my wife is a third-generation California farmer, giving us a great foundation on which to build a small family winery. We chose the name Pithy because its definition, concise and forcefully expressive, sums up our business and winemaking philosophy. Since then we have grown our business to include other brands - Fortuity, Pithy Little Soda Works and Wino Brand.

Our focus is dominated by our passion for great customer service and compelling products. Managing servers and worrying about email outages aren't on that list. Knowing our email is always under control allows us to focus more on what's important - our customers.

Gmail's reliability gives us the peace of mind that we'll always be able to respond to our customers right away. We live on the California Central Coast where the occasional bad storm or high winds can cause power outages. Additionally, our winery tasting room is located in a historic building in the heart of Downtown San Luis Obispo. Between bad weather and old wiring we can't always rely on our server battery back up to keep our email and website up and running when the power goes out. Our ecommerce orders flow through our email. When we receive an online order or a customer submits a contact form, we get an email alerting us to areas where attention is needed. Running email downtime could delay a response to a customer order or question. With Google Apps' record for reliability and no planned down time, we don't worry about servers going down and disrupting our business.


We are days away from launching a whole new part of our business called Drinkwell Creative, a designer wine label program that develops custom wine labels for individuals and businesses. Prospective client inquiries are sent instantly from our website to our corporate Gmail account. Gmail services provide us with the security of knowing that no leads will be lost or delayed due to downtime.

What we enjoy most about Google Apps is not being tied down. It is really important to us as small business owners to be able to contact people from any device, wherever we are. We travel a lot for business, often working at hotels or events. With Google Apps, we know we can get our email, calendar and documents on any of our phones or devices from wherever our business takes us.

Google Apps is always there, even when we're not looking. During a week like this, when we are shipping wine club orders, Valentine's Day gifts, and preparing to launch a whole new segment of our business, email, calendar and document sharing are the last thing on our minds.

Posted by Jeff Munsey, Co-founder, Pithy Little Wine Co.
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/02/family-owned-pithy-little-wine-co-runs.html

[G] 5 tips for using Blogger on your Android phone

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 02:45 AM PST

Official Google Mobile Blog: 5 tips for using Blogger on your Android phone

Earlier this month, we announced the first version of the Blogger app for Android on the Blogger Buzz blog. Today, we'd like to share some tips on how you can use the Blogger app to quickly publish posts when you're on the go.


1. Attach photos as you compose
Take photos using your phone's camera and instantly add them to your post while you draft. You can also insert photos from your phone's gallery, all within the Blogger app.

2. Include your current location
With your phone's GPS, you can let your readers know where you're blogging from by selecting your current location, no additional typing needed.

3. Share to Blogger
Share videos, products, photos, links and other interesting things you would like to include in your blog via the share button that's available in many apps, including Google Maps for mobile, YouTube, and your web browser. After you share an item to your Blogger, it will be inserted into new post that's automatically created for you so that start can composing right away.

4. Switch across multiple Blogger accounts
If you're an author of more than one blog, you can easily switch between your different accounts by tapping on the orange arrow next to the title of your blog. That way, you can publish articles for each of your blogs to keep your all of your readers up to date.

5. Keep track of published posts and saved drafts
See what you've composed in an easy to read list by tapping the list icon located on the top right-hand corner.


We hope that you enjoyed these blogging tips. If you haven't done so already, you can download the free Blogger app for Android 2.1+ devices from Android Market or scan the QR code below. As always, we would love to hear what you think so please feel free to share your thoughts with us through our feedback form.


Happy blogging!


Posted by Shaun Seo, Product Manager, Blogger
URL: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/02/5-tips-for-using-blogger-on-your.html

[G] Act locally in Sudan with new imagery & maps

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 02:35 AM PST

Google Public Policy Blog: Act locally in Sudan with new imagery & maps

Posted by France Lamy, Program Manager, Google.org

(Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long Blog.)

After years of conflict, Southern Sudan overwhelmingly opted to secede from the country's north. Many challenges lie ahead as the newly independent state negotiates the rocky path towards independence. We believe that access to high-quality, up-to-date and locally relevant maps will assist humanitarian organizations working in the region.

We are encouraging users to add their local knowledge to this mapping effort through a campaign to build a better map of Sudan. Recent satellite imagery is key to building up-to-date maps, and we are continuously acquiring fresh and historical imagery of Sudan. Our latest imagery update is now live on Google Map Maker, Google Earth, and Google Maps, with nearly fifty percent of the UN priority areas over Southern Sudan covered with high resolution imagery. Thanks to our satellite partner GeoEye, we will continue to acquire and publish high resolution imagery of the remaining UN priority areas, as well as to refresh areas that we have previously covered as the need arises. This new imagery, such as the one over Melut, will directly benefit the many organizations working in Sudan and ultimately support the building of a solid basemap of Sudan to achieve long-term socioeconomic objectives.


Town of Melut (before 2/16/2004, after 1/30/2011). In Melut, there is a humanitarian hub where many services are delivered to at risk populations, including food, water, health care, education, and more. Given the varying needs of each of these services, maps can provide a variety of planning benefits for expansion, staff safety, and emergency procedures.

Google is also contributing to various humanitarian efforts, including the Satellite Sentinel project, by helping to build an active and self-sustained Sudanese mapping community -- locally and among the Sudanese diaspora. This community will help improve maps of Sudan by using Google Map Maker, a product that combines the power of mapping with community engagement.

Dedicated mappers have started building the foundation for a Sudan mapping community, resulting in high quality maps of Sudan. But this is a long term process that requires deep commitment from various stakeholders and community groups. To join the Sudan mapping efforts, and offer feedback, please join our Sudan community mailing list or visit our team site.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/02/act-locally-in-sudan-with-new-imagery.html

[G] Query Language Modeling for Voice Search

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 01:07 AM PST

Official Google Research Blog: Query Language Modeling for Voice Search

Posted by Ciprian Chelba, Research Scientist

About three years ago we set a goal to enable speaking to the Google Search engine on smart-phones. On the language modeling side, the motivation was that we had access to large amounts of typed text data from our users. At the same time, that meant that the users also had a clear expectation for how they would interact with a speech-enabled version of the Google Search application.

The challenge lay in the scale of the problem and the perceived sparsity of the query data. Our paper, Query Language Modeling for Voice Search, describes the approach we took, and the empirical findings along the way.

Besides data availability, the project succeeded due to our excellent computational platform, the culture built around teams that wholeheartedly tackle such challenges with the conviction that they will set a new bar, and a collaborative mindset that leverages resources across the company. In this case we used training data made available by colleagues working in query spelling correction, query stream sampling procedures devised for search quality evaluation, the open finite state tools, and distributed language modeling infrastructure built for machine translation.

Perhaps the most satisfying part of this research project was its impact on the end-user: when presenting the poster at SLT 2010 in Berkeley I offered to demo Google Voice Search, and often got the answer "Thanks, I already use it!".
URL: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2011/02/query-language-modeling-for-voice.html

[G] YouTube Highlights 2/17/2011

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 11:27 PM PST

Official Google Blog: YouTube Highlights 2/17/2011

This is the latest in our series of YouTube highlights. Every couple of weeks, we bring you regular updates on new product features, interesting programs to watch and tips you can use to grow your audience on YouTube. Just look for the label "YouTube Highlights" and subscribe to the series. – Ed.

A lot has happened since our last update, including protests in Egypt, a major U.S. sporting event, the launch of the Google Art project and the Grammy Music Awards—all portrayed in different ways by YouTube and our global community.

Footage of protests in the Middle East on YouTube
Thousands of videos of the protests in Egypt earlier this month were uploaded to YouTube, giving people access to raw footage shot by Egyptians on the ground. People around the world could access these videos by visiting CitizenTube, YouTube's news and politics channel, or watching live coverage on Al Jazeera's Arabic and English YouTube channels, as well as Fox News' and Arabic broadcaster Al-Arabiya's YouTube channels. We've also been working with news curation group Storyful to curate videos from the protest movements in Bahrain, Iran, Yemen, Algeria and Libya—you can check out highlights on CitizenTube.

This week's trends on YouTube
Each weekday, YouTube Trends takes a look at the most interesting videos and cultural phenomena on YouTube. Here's a sampling from the past two weeks:



2011 Nonprofit Video Awards
For the second year in a row, we're working to help nonprofits succeed through the DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards, a celebration of the best nonprofit video on the site. Submit your nonprofit's video at www.youtube.com/nonprofitvideoawards. Prizes include $2,500 grants from the Case Foundation, Flip cams, free admission to the Nonprofit Technology Conference and a spotlight on the YouTube homepage.

Showtime's "SHORT stories" recruits short filmmakers
Showtime wants to feature cutting-edge web filmmakers through its "SHORT stories" series. If you're a filmmaker interested in the project, find out more from Showtime's Trevor Noren.

The big game: find out which ads garnered the most views
The halftime ads during the U.S.'s biggest sporting event, the Super Bowl, are notoriously popular—and this past game was no exception. YouTube Trends analyzed which ads were the most-searched commercials in the hours following the big game and compiled the top 10 most-viewed ads the day after.
 We also discovered some fun facts about the big game: Did you know that an estimated 69.6 million pounds of avocados were consumed on that Sunday? Or that this time was the first Super Bowl with no cheerleaders? Check out YouTube AdBlitz to watch any ads you may have missed.

Events worth watching
In case you missed them live, you can still catch up on some of the big happenings of the past few weeks on YouTube:



We'll update you again in a few weeks. In the meantime, visit the YouTube Blog for more on ongoing programs such as On the Rise and YouTube Trends.

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Marketing Manager, The YouTube Team
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/youtube-highlights-2172011.html

[G] Mapping favourite romantic movie scenes

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 09:10 PM PST

Google LatLong: Mapping favourite romantic movie scenes

Last weekend, I was enjoying my favourite movie, Love Actually, which is a very appropriate movie to watch during the most romantic week of the year! The majority of this movie was filmed in and around my hometown of London, and as the ending film credits started rolling up the screen, I had a "eureka" moment. "I love this movie and I love Street View and Google Maps, so why not combine the two?" My virtual voyage of discovery began.

For those who like this movie, join me in this film tour across London. For those who haven't seen the movie, I hope this blog post will help show how geography can help you to feel connected to something you are passionate about, such as places mentioned in your favourite songs or poems.

You may recognise this location as the London area home of the character "Jamie", played by Colin Firth, who meets his true love Aurelia while working on his novel in the south of France.


This next location is where Juliet, played by Keira Knightley, marries her husband Peter at the The Grosvenor Chapel‎ in Mayfair. Mark, Peter's best friend and a long suffering holder of unrequited love for Juliet, videotapes the ceremony.


When Juliet watches the video of the ceremony, focused entirely on her, she realises that Mark has feelings for her. Mark needs to get some fresh air, and this My Map I created shows the actual route Mark took for his walk.


This next spot, in Notting Hill, is where my favourite scene of the movie takes place. Yes, that's the one - where Mark holds up a series of cards to communicate his deepest feelings for Juliet.


This is where the film begins to build. The film's British Prime Minister David, played by Hugh Grant, finally finds the courage to declare his feelings for Natalie, played by Martine McCutcheon. Knowing only the name of her street, her arrives to find what "must be the longest street in the world." Driven by his desire to be with Natalie he starts to knock on every door, and eventually finds Natalie at number 102.


I hope this tour has inspired you to go and geographically organise what matters to you, just as this Jane Austen enthusiast did when she created a Google Earth project to geographically organise locations mentioned in Austen's novels.

Posted by Phil Verney, Program Manager, Google Earth & Maps
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2011/02/mapping-favourite-romantic-movie-scenes.html

[G] Using My Maps for your summer sublet

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 09:10 PM PST

Google LatLong: Using My Maps for your summer sublet

[Cross-posted from the Google Student Blog]

Today's guest author is Katie Corner, an Electrical and Computer Engineering student at University of Colorado, Boulder and a Google Student Ambassador. Check out more tips from students on the Google Student Blog, or submit your own to share.

The spring semester ends, and the frenzy begins: Quick, everyone find someone to sublet your apartment for the summer!

Hundreds of students in your university town will be simultaneously advertising their apartments to potential summer subletters. How can you help your apartment stand out among the crowd? Bring in Google Maps to save the day. Google Maps has a feature known as My Maps, which enables you to quickly and easily build a personalized map highlighting the locations you care about -- all on one map! Simply share the map link with your family or friends to let them see it too.

Everyone knows that when looking for a summer sublet, it's all about location, location, location. Where are the closest grocery stores? What's fun to do nearby? There's a running path along the creek just two blocks away? And the local bus picks up on the corner? Nothing sells these points better than an easy, personalized map.

It only takes minutes to create your own My Map. To start, sign in to your Google account and go to maps.google.com. Click on the link in the upper-left corner labeled "My Maps." By clicking the "Create new map" link, you can pick a title and get to building your housing map.

To start finding locations of interest and placing them on your new My Map, search for those places in Google Maps, for example "park in boulder co." After finding the location you are interested in, simply click on the red pin on the map, followed by the "Save to..." link. From here you can easily select the new My Map you created.


After adding a number of specific locations to your map, you can also customize and edit the map to fit your style preferences. To access your map thus far, click on the "My Maps" link in the top left corner of the page, and select the map you are interested in editing. By clicking the "Edit" button, you are now in editing mode on the map and can easily make changes to the names of locations or the style of icon. To make a change to a specific place, just click on that location. On the map, an editable box appears where you can easily make changes, such adding as some notes about the place.


The end product is a unique map showcasing why your sublet is the right option to pick. Here's an example I used for an apartment in Boulder, Colorado.

Stand out in your next apartment rental posting with My Maps today!

Posted by Katie Corner, University of Colorado
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2011/02/using-my-maps-for-your-summer-sublet.html

[G] Act Locally in Sudan with New Imagery & Maps

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 09:10 PM PST

Google LatLong: Act Locally in Sudan with New Imagery & Maps


After years of conflict, Southern Sudan overwhelmingly opted to secede from the country's north. Many challenges lie ahead as the newly independent state negotiates the rocky path towards independence. We believe that access to high-quality, up-to-date and locally relevant maps will assist humanitarian organizations working in the region.

We are encouraging users to add their local knowledge to this mapping effort through a campaign to build a better map of Sudan. Recent satellite imagery is key to building up-to-date maps, and we are continuously acquiring fresh and historical imagery of Sudan. Our latest imagery update is now live on Google Map Maker, Google Earth, and Google Maps, with nearly fifty percent of the UN priority areas over Southern Sudan covered with high resolution imagery. Thanks to our satellite partner GeoEye, we will continue to acquire and publish high resolution imagery of the remaining UN priority areas, as well as to refresh areas that we have previously covered as the need arises. This new imagery, such as the one over Melut, will directly benefit the many organizations working in Sudan and ultimately support the building of a solid basemap of Sudan to achieve long-term socioeconomic objectives.



Town of Melut (before 2/16/2004, after 1/30/2011). In Melut, there is a humanitarian hub where many services are delivered to at risk populations, including food, water, health care, education, and more. Given the varying needs of each of these services, maps can provide a variety of planning benefits for expansion, staff safety, and emergency procedures.

Google is also contributing to various humanitarian efforts, including the Satellite Sentinel project, by helping to build an active and self-sustained Sudanese mapping community -- locally and among the Sudanese diaspora. This community will help improve maps of Sudan by using Google Map Maker, a product that combines the power of mapping with community engagement.

Dedicated mappers have started building the foundation for a Sudan mapping community, resulting in high quality maps of Sudan. But this is a long term process that requires deep commitment from various stakeholders and community groups. To join the Sudan mapping efforts, and offer feedback, please join our Sudan community mailing list or visit our team site.

France Lamy, Program Manager, Google.org
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2011/02/act-locally-in-sudan-with-new-imagery.html

[G] A simple way for publishers to manage access to digital content

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 08:22 PM PST

Google News Blog: A simple way for publishers to manage access to digital content

Posted by Lee Shirani, director, business product management, Google Commerce

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

At Humboldt University in Berlin today, Eric Schmidt announced Google One Pass, a service that lets publishers set their own prices and terms for their digital content. With Google One Pass, publishers can maintain direct relationships with their customers and give readers access to digital content across websites and mobile apps.

Readers who purchase from a One Pass publisher can access their content on tablets, smartphones and websites using a single sign-on with an email and password. Importantly, the service helps publishers authenticate existing subscribers so that readers don't have to re-subscribe in order to access their content on new devices.

With Google One Pass, publishers can customize how and when they charge for content while experimenting with different models to see what works best for them—offering subscriptions, metered access, "freemium" content or even single articles for sale from their websites or mobile apps. The service also lets publishers give existing print subscribers free (or discounted) access to digital content. We take care of the rest, including payments technology handled via Google Checkout.

Our goal is to provide an open and flexible platform that furthers our commitment to support publishers, journalism and access to quality content. Like First Click Free, Fast Flip and Living Stories, this is another initiative developed to enable publishers to promote and distribute digital content.

German publishers Axel Springer AG, Focus Online (Tomorrow Focus) and Stern.de joined Eric at Humboldt University today as some of our first Google One Pass partners. Other publishers already signed up include Media General, NouvelObs, Bonnier's Popular Science, Prisa and Rust Communications.

Google One Pass is currently available for publishers in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S. If you're a publisher in one of these countries and want to learn more, please reach out to the Google One Pass team or submit your information on our website. For interested publishers in other countries, we'd love to hear from you too as we plan to expand to other countries in the coming months.
URL: http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/simple-way-for-publishers-to-manage.html

[G] Use Google Apps APIs without writing a program

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 04:20 PM PST

Google Open Source Blog: Use Google Apps APIs without writing a program

Today we are releasing the Google Apps Shell Interface (GASI), a graphical user interface for administrators working with Google Apps APIs.

Google Apps administrators work with the APIs for a variety of reasons. First, there are a number of features that are only exposed to the administrator through the APIs. Second, the administrator may wish to save time by automating a task instead of repeating it for thousands of users. Traditionally, you'd write a program directly using the Google Apps APIs, use libraries such as gData, or write a shell script using third party scripts such as the Google Apps Manager (GAM).

Now you can also use the user interface in GASI to issue commands. GASI allows Google Apps administrators to make certain API calls through a graphical user interface without having to write a program. You can also execute commands dynamically generated with variables from a CSV file, for batch execution.

The commands available in GASI are listed in the documentation page for the Google Apps Shell (GAS), a library that comes with GASI. GAS can also be called from a command line interface. The current version of GAS contains commands to configure email settings, Google Groups, user nicknames, user accounts, and domain organizations. For example, there is a GAS command to move a user to an organization in the control panel. With GASI, you can programmatically run this command for a number of users listed in a CSV file. Other common use cases include renaming usernames or creating user nicknames.

If you're looking for other ways to use Google APIs through a command line, check out the Postini EZCommand Shell and Google CL, two other open source projects from Google.

By Jeff Pickhardt, Enterprise Sales Engineering Team
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2011/02/use-google-apps-apis-without-writing.html

[G] Designing award-winning video games with SketchUp

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 03:43 PM PST

Official Google Blog: Designing award-winning video games with SketchUp

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was the biggest video game of 2009. It sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide, was identified by Metacritic as the most critically acclaimed game of the year, racked up more than 50 Game of the Year awards and set a new bar for artistry and storytelling in a video game. I spent more Saturday nights than I care to admit playing this game, so I was pretty excited when I found out that Robh Ruppel, Art Director at Naughty Dog Studios, used Google SketchUp to help design the game's look and feel.

We sat down with Robh to hear how he used SketchUp to visualize Uncharted 2's environments.



To hear more of our conversation with Robh and see some of his work, check out the Google SketchUp blog.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp Marketing team
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/designing-award-winning-video-games.html

[G] Transliteration Gets an Upgrade

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 12:44 PM PST

Blogger Buzz: Transliteration Gets an Upgrade

Today we're happy to expand our set of supported languages for the transliteration feature, that converts Roman characters into the corresponding alphabet of your choice. The nine newly-added languages brings the total to fourteen supported languages: Amharic, Arabic, Bengali, Greek, Persian, Gujarati, Kannada, Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Punjabi, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbian, Tamil, Telugu, Tigrinya, and Urdu.


To enable this feature, go to the Settings | Basics tab, select Enable for the transliteration option, and select your preferred language. The new language offerings will only be available on the new post editor, so make sure you upgrade to access the full set. This setting will affect all blogs on your account, similar to the Compose Mode setting. 

For more detailed information, please take a look at out transliteration article in our Help Center.
URL: http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/02/transliteration-gets-upgrade.html

[G] An update to Google Social Search

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 12:28 PM PST

Social Web Blog: An update to Google Social Search

Today we're doing a little bit more to bring you all the goodness of Google, plus the opinions of the people you care about. As always, we want to help you find the most relevant answers among the billions of interconnected pages on the web. But relevance isn't just about pages—it's also about relationships. That's why we introduced Google Social Search in 2009, and why we've made a number of improvements since then. Today we're taking another step forward—enabling you to get even more information from the people that matter to you, whether they're publishing on YouTube, Flickr or their own blog or website.

First, social search results will now be mixed throughout your results based on their relevance (in the past they only appeared at the bottom). This means you'll start seeing more from people like co-workers and friends, with annotations below the results they've shared or created. So if you're thinking about climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and your colleague Matt has written a blog post about his own experience, then we'll bump up that post with a note and a picture:



Social search results can rank anywhere on the page, and you'll see who shared the result in the annotation underneath

Second, we've made Social Search more comprehensive by adding notes for links people have shared on Twitter and other sites. In the past, we'd show you results people created and linked through their Google profiles. Now, if someone you're connected to has publicly shared a link, we may show that link in your results with a clear annotation (which is visible only to you, and only when you're signed in). For example, if you're looking for a video of President Obama on "The Daily Show" and your friend Nundu tweeted the video, that result might show up higher in your results and you'll see a note with a picture of Nundu:



Now Social Search includes links people share on Twitter and other services

Third, we've given you more control over how you connect accounts, and made connecting accounts more convenient. You can still connect accounts publicly on your Google profile, but now we've added a new option to connect accounts privately in your Google Account. (After all, you may not want everyone to know you're @spongebobsuperfan on Twitter.) In addition, if our algorithms find a public account that might be yours (for example, because the usernames are the same), we may invite you to connect your accounts right on the search results page and in your Google Account settings:



The new setting enables you to choose whether or not to show your connected accounts publicly on your Google profile

For an overview of Google Social Search and our new features, check out the explanatory video:



As always, you'll only get social search results when you choose to log in to your Google Account. We're starting to roll out the updates today on Google.com in English only and you'll see them appear in the coming week. With these changes, we want to help you find the most relevant information possible, personalized to your interests and the people you care about. To learn more, check out our help center.

Posted by Mike Cassidy, Product Management Director, and Matthew Kulick, Product Manager
URL: http://googlesocialweb.blogspot.com/2011/02/update-to-google-social-search.html

[G] An update to Google Social Search

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 08:39 AM PST

Official Google Blog: An update to Google Social Search

Today we're doing a little bit more to bring you all the goodness of Google, plus the opinions of the people you care about. As always, we want to help you find the most relevant answers among the billions of interconnected pages on the web. But relevance isn't just about pages—it's also about relationships. That's why we introduced Google Social Search in 2009, and why we've made a number of improvements since then. Today we're taking another step forward—enabling you to get even more information from the people that matter to you, whether they're publishing on YouTube, Flickr or their own blog or website.

First, social search results will now be mixed throughout your results based on their relevance (in the past they only appeared at the bottom). This means you'll start seeing more from people like co-workers and friends, with annotations below the results they've shared or created. So if you're thinking about climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and your colleague Matt has written a blog post about his own experience, then we'll bump up that post with a note and a picture:

Social search results can rank anywhere on the page, and you'll see who shared the result in the annotation underneath

Second, we've made Social Search more comprehensive by adding notes for links people have shared on Twitter and other sites. In the past, we'd show you results people created and linked through their Google profiles. Now, if someone you're connected to has publicly shared a link, we may show that link in your results with a clear annotation (which is visible only to you, and only when you're signed in). For example, if you're looking for a video of President Obama on "The Daily Show" and your friend Nundu tweeted the video, that result might show up higher in your results and you'll see a note with a picture of Nundu:

Now Social Search includes links people share on Twitter and other services

Third, we've given you more control over how you connect accounts, and made connecting accounts more convenient. You can still connect accounts publicly on your Google profile, but now we've added a new option to connect accounts privately in your Google Account. (After all, you may not want everyone to know you're @spongebobsuperfan on Twitter.) In addition, if our algorithms find a public account that might be yours (for example, because the usernames are the same), we may invite you to connect your accounts right on the search results page and in your Google Account settings:

The new setting enables you to choose whether or not to show your connected accounts publicly on your Google profile

For an overview of Google Social Search and our new features, check out the explanatory video:



As always, you'll only get social search results when you choose to log in to your Google Account. We're starting to roll out the updates today on Google.com in English only and you'll see them appear in the coming week. With these changes, we want to help you find the most relevant information possible, personalized to your interests and the people you care about. To learn more, check out our help center.

Posted by Mike Cassidy, Product Management Director, and Matthew Kulick, Product Manager
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/update-to-google-social-search.html

[G] Sixteen demos enter. One demo triumphs. Welcome to the Demo Slampionship.

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 08:39 AM PST

Official Google Blog: Sixteen demos enter. One demo triumphs. Welcome to the Demo Slampionship.

Last October, we introduced Demo Slam based on one simple idea: nobody knows Google tech better than our users. So we asked all of you to submit tech demo videos that showcase our technology in fun ways.

Four months and many tech demos later, Demo Slam has reached people all over the world. Thanks to students, musicians, filmmakers, scientists, athletes, animators and even a toddler, demoslam.com has become a hub of creativity and technology. We've seen voice searches 20 feet off the ground, a living replica of Mt. Rushmore and a transcontinental Street View road race.

It's been tons of fun, but now it's time for Demo Slam to get serious: ladies and gentlemen, the first-ever Demo Slampionship begins today. Sixteen of Demo Slam's finest slams will go head to head in a single elimination tournament. Each round, your votes decide who advances to final Slampionship. Voting for the first round of 16 begins today, followed by the quarter finals, semi finals and the Final Slampionship. Although there can be only one Slampion, every demo will do its part to help millions understand technology a little better.

Go to demoslam.com to check out the competition and start voting on the first round. Let the Slampionship begin!

Posted by Michaela Prescott, Group Product Marketing Manager
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/sixteen-demos-enter-one-demo-triumphs.html

[G] Visualize your own data in the Google Public Data Explorer

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 08:39 AM PST

Official Google Blog: Visualize your own data in the Google Public Data Explorer

(Cross-posted on the Google Code Blog)

Over the past two years, we've made public data easier to find, explore and understand in several ways, providing unemployment figures, population statistics and world development indicators in search results, and introducing the Public Data Explorer tool. Together with our data provider partners, we've curated 27 datasets including more than 300 data metrics. You can now use the Public Data Explorer to visualize everything from labor productivity (OECD) to Internet speed (Ookla) to gender balance in parliaments (UNECE) to government debt levels (IMF) to population density by municipality (Statistics Catalonia), with more data being added every week.

Today, we're opening the Public Data Explorer to your data. We're making a new data format, the Dataset Publishing Language (DSPL), openly available, and providing an interface for anyone to upload their datasets. DSPL is an XML-based format designed from the ground up to support rich, interactive visualizations like those in the Public Data Explorer. The DSPL language and upload interface are available in Google Labs.

To upload a dataset, click on the "My Datasets" link on the left-hand side of the Public Data Explorer. Once imported, a dataset can be visualized, embedded in external websites, shared with others and published. If you're an official provider, you can request that your datasets appear in the Public Data Explorer directory; please contact us to discuss this process.


With this new capability, we hope more datasets can come to life through Public Data Explorer visualisations and enable people to better understand the world around them and make more informed, data-driven decisions. Stay tuned for more datasets, visualization features and DSPL extensions in the future.

Posted by Omar Benjelloun, Technical Lead, Google Public Data Team
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/visualize-your-own-data-in-google.html
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