Friday, April 1, 2011

Googland

Googland

[G] +1 to great web content

Posted: 01 Apr 2011 05:22 AM PDT

Inside AdSense: +1 to great web content

Most successful AdSense publishers have something in common: users who are passionate about their content. Today we're making it easy for the users who love your content to recommend it to their friends and contacts with the +1 button.

We think sharing on the web can be even better -- that people might share more recommendations, more often, if they knew their advice would be used to help their friends and contacts right when they're searching for relevant topics on Google. The +1 button is an easy way for users to recommend your content right from the search results pages. The +1 button doesn't affect the AdSense ad units on your site, but it can improve the way your pages appear in Google search.



+1 is a simple idea. Let's use Brian as an example. When Brian signs in to his Google Account and sees your site in the organic search results on Google (or search ads if you're using AdWords), he can +1 it and recommend your page to the world.

The next time Brian's friend Mary is signed in and searching on Google and your page appears, she might see a personalized annotation letting her know that Brian +1'd it. So Brian's +1 helps Mary decide that your site is worth checking out.

We expect that personalized annotations will help sites stand out by helping users see when your Google search results are personally relevant to them. As a result, +1's could increase both your quality and quantity of Google search traffic.

But the +1 button isn't just for search results. We're working on a +1 button that you can put on your pages too, making it easy for people to recommend your content on Google search without leaving your site. If you want to be notified when the +1 button is available for your site, you can sign up for email updates at our +1 webmaster site.

Over the coming weeks, we'll add +1 buttons to search results and ads on Google.com. We'll also start to look at +1's as one of the many signals we use to determine a page's relevance and ranking. For +1's, as with any new ranking signal, we'll be starting carefully and learning how those signals affect search quality over time. At first the +1 button will appear for English searches only on Google.com, but we're working to add more languages in the future.

We're excited about using +1's to make search more personal, relevant and compelling. We hope you're excited too! If you have questions about the +1 button and how it affects search on Google.com, you can check the Google Webmaster Central Help Center.

Posted by David Byttow - Software Engineer, +1 Button
URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2011/03/1-to-great-web-content.html

[G] Word of Mouth: Introducing Voice Search for Indonesian, Malaysian and Latin American Spanish

Posted: 01 Apr 2011 04:41 AM PDT

Official Google Research Blog: Word of Mouth: Introducing Voice Search for Indonesian, Malaysian and Latin American Spanish

Posted by Linne Ha, International Program Manager

Read more about the launch of Voice Search in Latin American Spanish on the Google América Latina blog.

Today we are excited to announce the launch of Voice Search in Indonesian, Malaysian, and Latin American Spanish, making Voice Search available in over two dozen languages and accents since our first launch in November 2008. This accomplishment could not have been possible without the help of local users in the region - really, we couldn't have done it without them. Let me explain:

In 2010 we launched Voice Search in Dutch, the first language where we used the "word of mouth" project, a crowd-sourcing effort to collect the most accurate voice data possible.The traditional method of acquiring voice samples is to license the data from companies who specialize in the distribution of speech and text databases. However, from day one we knew that to build the most accurate Voice Search acoustic models possible, the best data would come from the people who would use Voice Search once it launched - our users.

Since then, in each country, we found small groups of people who were avid fans of Google products and were part of a large social network, either in local communities or on online. We gave them phones and asked them to get voice samples from their friends and family. Everyone was required to sign a consent form and all voice samples were anonymized. When possible, they also helped to test early versions of Voice Search as the product got closer to launch.

Building a speech recognizer is not just limited to localizing the user interface. We require thousands of hours of raw data to capture regional accents and idiomatic speech in all sorts of recording environments to mimic daily life use cases. For instance, when developing Voice Search for Latin American Spanish, we paid particular attention to Mexican and Argentinean Spanish. These two accents are more different from one another than any other pair of widely-used accents in all of South and Central America. Samples collected in these countries were very important bookends for building a version of Voice Search that would work across the whole of Latin America. We also chose key countries such as Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia to bridge the divergent accent varieties.

As an International Program Manager at Google, I have been fortunate enough to travel around the world and meet many of our local Google users. They often have great suggestions for the products that they love, and word of mouth was created with the vision that our users could participate in developing the product. These Voice Search launches would not have been possible without the help of our users, and we're excited to be able to work together on the product development with the people who will ultimately use our products.
URL: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2011/03/word-of-mouth-introducing-voice-search.html

[G] BAVC Open Source Software class visits Google

Posted: 01 Apr 2011 03:48 AM PDT

Google Open Source Blog: BAVC Open Source Software class visits Google

The continuing mission of the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) is to inspire social change by enabling the sharing of diverse stories through art, education and technology. One of the ways they pursue this goal is by offering classes to youth, such as their Digital Pathways: Open Source class. This program offers intensive media training for young people who want to learn skills related to careers in technology and the media arts.

Earlier this month the class was treated to lunch and a tour of Google's headquarters in Mountain View, CA. During lunch, the students had a chance to sit down with members of the Open Source Programs Office and ask questions about working in open source. They talked with Junio C Hamano, maintainer of the GIT project, Ian Hickson, writer for the HTML5 spec, and Carol Smith, administrator for Google Summer of Code and Google Code-in.

The students range in age from 13 to 19 years old and most had never coded in any language before they started. If you know someone in the San Francisco Bay Area who wants to learn more about open source, this class is a great introduction. More photos and information about the class are available on the BAVC Digital Pathways: Open Source blog.

By Ellen Ko, Open Source Team; Photo by kingobie1
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2011/03/bavc-open-source-software-class-visits.html

[G] Introducing the Voice-alyzer

Posted: 01 Apr 2011 12:27 AM PDT

Google Voice Blog: Introducing the Voice-alyzer

Ever wake up after a long night and see you called a bunch of exes but don't remember what you said? We're sure you haven't, but, well, we've heard it happens. Quite a bit.

That's why we're excited to announce that today we're launching the Voice-alyzer setting to hopefully prevent this from ever happening again.

The next time you know an eventful night is in store, head to the Calls tab in Google Voice Settings. Check the "Enable Voice-alyzer" box, and set the hour that you want the feature to go into effect.

With Voice-alyzer enabled, our IVR will prompt you to spell everyday words with your keypad, like "embarrassed", "dizzy" or "Czechoslovakia", before we connect your call.

If the Voice-alyzer determines that you are not in a fit state to be having a conversation, it will prevent the call from connecting and send you a text message with contact info for 3 local cab companies instead.

Concerned about sending poorly thought out texts? Don't be, we've got you covered there as well. All text messages sent while Voice-alyzer is enabled are scanned for accuracy and held in your outbox if fat-fingered words or more than 2 exclamation points or question marks are detected.

This new feature will be rolling out gradually to all Google Voice users over the next 24 hours.

We hope that you find it to be helpful, and as always, recommend dialing responsibly.

Posted by Tina Donaldson, Anti-Embarrassment Enforcement Officer
URL: http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/introducing-voice-alyzer.html

[G] Coming soon! Google Docs Motion BETA

Posted: 01 Apr 2011 12:16 AM PDT

Docs Blog: Coming soon! Google Docs Motion BETA

From the beginning, Google Docs has been built with collaboration in mind. Everyone edits the same document and there's no need to worry about attachments. While we've been very satisfied with Google Docs' ability to facilitate collaboration between people working at different computers in different locations, we've always felt that there was a huge potential to push collaboration with Google Docs even further.

Today, we're extremely excited to announce that Google Docs Motion BETA is in development and will be available later this year. Google Docs Motion will let you use your body to control Google Docs and will launch with a number of key features:
  • Gesture recognition - over 10,000 supported gestures
  • Emotion detection - writing tone corresponds with emotions
  • In-depth tutorial - start being more productive in a few minutes
Work together on business proposals
Whether you are letting your creativity flow in drawings, creating a business proposal in documents, working on charts in spreadsheets or uploading files to the document list, Google Docs Motion increases collaboration and speeds up productivity. Ada Wong, Google Docs Motion Head Tester, has uncovered that there are incredible health benefits associated with using Motion. In her words, "It's become an important part of keeping myself fit."


Check out our informational site to learn more about Google Docs Motion. If you're itching to try out this technology today, Gmail Motion BETA is rolling out over the course of the day to everyone.

Posted by: Ronald Ho, Product Manager
URL: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2011/04/coming-soon-google-docs-motion-beta.html

[G] Chrome warns users of out-of-date browser plugins

Posted: 01 Apr 2011 12:11 AM PDT

Google Online Security Blog: Chrome warns users of out-of-date browser plugins


Posted by Panayiotis Mavrommatis and Noé Lutz, Google Security Team

The new version of Google Chrome is not only speedier and simpler but it also improves user security by automatically disabling out-of-date, vulnerable browser plugins.

As browsers get better at auto-updating, out-of-date plugins are becoming the weakest link against malware attacks. Thousands of web sites are compromised every week, turning those sites into malware distribution vectors by actively exploiting out-of-date plugins that run in the browser. Simply visiting one of these sites is usually enough to get your computer infected.

Keeping all of your plugins up-to-date with the latest security fixes can be a hassle, so a while ago we started using our 20% time to develop a solution. The initial implementation was a Chrome extension called "SecBrowsing," which kept track of the latest plugin versions and encouraged users to update accordingly. The extension helped us gather valuable knowledge about plugins, and we started working with the Chrome team to build the feature right inside the browser.

With the latest version of Chrome, users will be automatically warned about any out-of-date plugins. If you run into a page that requires a plugin that's not current, it won't run by default. Instead, you'll see a message that will help you get the latest, most secure version of the plugin. An example of this message is below, and you can read more about the feature at the Chromium blog.

URL: http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2011/03/chrome-warns-users-of-out-of-date.html

[G] Introducing Gmail Motion

Posted: 01 Apr 2011 12:05 AM PDT

Official Gmail Blog: Introducing Gmail Motion

Posted by Paul McDonald, Product Manager

In 1874 the QWERTY keyboard was invented. In 1963, the world was introduced to the mouse. Some 50 years later, we've seen the advent of microprocessors, high resolution webcams, and spatial tracking technology. But all the while we've continued to use outdated technology to interact with devices. Why?

This is a question that we've been thinking about a lot at Google, and we're excited to introduce our first attempts at next generation human computer interaction: Gmail Motion. Gmail Motion allows you to control Gmail — composing and replying to messages — using your body.



To use Gmail Motion, you'll need a computer with a built-in webcam. Once you enable Gmail Motion from the Settings page, Gmail will enable your webcam when you sign in and automatically recognize any one of the detected movements via a spatial tracking algorithm. We designed the movements to be easy and intuitive to perform and consulted with top experts in kinestetics and body movement in devising them.



We've been testing Gmail Motion with Googlers over the last few months and have been really excited about the feedback we've been hearing. We've also done some internal tests to measure productivity improvements and found an average 14% increase in email composition speed and 12% reduction in average time in inbox. With Gmail Motion, Googlers were able to get more done and get in and out of their inboxes more quickly.


To use Gmail Motion, you'll need the latest version of Google Chrome or Firefox 3.5+ and a built-in webcam. If it's not already enabled on your account, sit tight — we'll be making it available to everyone over the next day or so.

For more information, visit gmail.com/motion.
URL: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/introducing-gmail-motion.html

[G] Looking back...

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 09:15 PM PDT

YouTube Blog: Looking back...

It's hard to believe that just a century ago, YouTube was a fledgling video site for paupers and presidents alike. Today, we celebrate 100 years of YouTube, and we thought we would reflect on our inaugural year with a re-print of our first blog post from 1911. In honor of this milestone, today's homepage is a reproduction of how you might have viewed it 100 years ago. Check out some of the most popular videos of the time and be sure to try out our new upload mode which summons a horse-drawn carriage to pick up your video submission from your home. Here's to another epoch of great video!



April 1911

Editor's note: Welcome to YouTube! Today we're honored to have President William Howard Taft as our guest blogger to celebrate our official site launch.

Ladies and gentlemen of these United States. We are living in an age in which, by exaggeration of the defects of our present condition, by false charges and responsibility for it against individuals and classes, by holding up to the feverish imagination of the less fortunate and the discontented the possibilities of a millennium, a condition of popular unrest has been produced.


Due to advancements in modern technology and the advent of the Edison kinetoscope, there is hope. And I venture to say that there is no other destination on the web which has taken more real steps of such progress than the YouTubes, making its debut today. Here, instantaneous expression of the people may be upheld. Great feats of strength may be honored! Here, industry may thrive and cinema appreciated in its rightful form.

I should be untrue to myself, to my promises, and to the declarations of the party platform upon which I was elected to office, if the incoming Congress is not aware of the importance of boxing cat videos and our shared human moments of folly. We should encourage this in every way feasible.


It is a very enterprising time in America. The Pedro Miguel Locks have just been completed as part of the Panama Canal, there are Nobel Prize rumors circulating around regarding Ms. Curie's so-called "radium discovery", and J.P. Morgan is building a steamship they say is unsinkable. Very enterprising times, indeed. One can only imagine what events will be recorded for all the world to see.

William Howard Taft, President of the United States of America, recently watched "Histeria! William Howard Taft - Theme From Taft."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/0Y7_3uCPA_g/looking-back.html

[G] Put optimization ideas to the test—run AdWords Campaign Experiments in your Opportunities tab

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 07:02 PM PDT

Inside AdWords: Put optimization ideas to the test—run AdWords Campaign Experiments in your Opportunities tab

Many of you have used the Opportunities tab to find keyword, bid, and budget ideas for your account. With each optimization idea, we provide estimates for how these ideas may affect your impressions, clicks, and cost. Now you can test these optimization ideas on your own campaigns when you run experiments in the Opportunities tab.

This new feature uses AdWords Campaign Experiments to run experiments on the keyword and bid ideas in your Opportunities tab. Experiments run on 50% of your AdWords traffic for thirty days, during which time you'll have the chance to compare your original campaign setup with your test setup. You can decide at any time whether you want to apply your experiment settings to 100% of your traffic. If you take no action after thirty days, your experimental changes will be applied to your campaign automatically.

The ability to run experiments in the Opportunities tab has already launched in some English-language accounts and will be available to all English-language accounts over the next few days.

Start an experiment in just a few clicks:
  1. Select keyword or bid ideas you want to test.
  2. Select the checkbox for "Evaluate this idea for up to 30 days."
  3. Click "Apply now."

Keyword experiment setup in the Opportunities tab

Monitor your experiment performance:
When your experiment is running, you'll be able to monitor your experiment performance from the Ideas page of the Opportunities tab.

Monitoring experiment performance in the Opportunities tab

You'll also be able to view performance statistics for individual keywords and bids on the Keywords tab when you segment by "Experiment."

For those of you who have wanted to try ACE but didn't know what to test, this should help get you started. This is also a great feature for those of you who want to see a positive performance improvement before making changes to all of your traffic.

No matter how your new keywords and bids perform relative to your original setup, you'll leave your experiment with more knowledge than you had previously, which means every experiment is a good experiment.

Posted by Lisa Shieh, Inside AdWords crew
URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/put-optimization-ideas-to-testrun.html

[G] Searching for a Cinderella story

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 03:24 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Searching for a Cinderella story

Like everyone else in the U.S. who fills out a bracket for their office pool, I always have a strategy going into the NCAA Men's and Women's basketball tournaments. It's a mix of alma mater pride, light research, some guessing and a lot of crossing my fingers. And, like almost everyone, my bracket always gets busted.

With both the Men's and Women's Final Four being played out on the hardwood in the United States this weekend, we thought it would be a good time to check in with what American sports fans are searching for around the web.

Almost ever year, an unknown team comes out of nowhere to end up in the Final Four. Back in 2006, that team was [george mason] and last year it was [butler university]. In the men's bracket this year, there's not just one, but two "Cinderellas," in the form of the VCU Rams and the return of the Butler University Bulldogs. These underdogs have captured the attention of the nation's sports fans; searches for [vcu] have climbed lately and currently outpace searches for each of the other three teams in the Men's Final Four.


When the women take the court in Indianapolis, Indiana, for their Final Four this weekend, I'll be rooting on my Notre Dame Fighting Irish in what looks to be an even field of four teams. But in search query volume, there's a runaway favorite: [uconn] leads the way against the other three teams in the bracket. The Stanford Cardinal are trying to break through this year, having played in the previous three Final Fours, but have to get to the finals first against a tough Notre Dame team. Having both the UConn Men and Women playing in the Final Four is clearly a strong reason for this search volume lead, but so is having arguably the best player in the women's game!


Great coaches can get their teams to dig deep and come together to succeed in the difficult field of 64. In the women's tournament, the coaching match-up that hoops fans across the country were hoping for unfortunately won't take place: we're not going to be seeing a head-to-head battle between two giants of the coaching profession in UConn's [geno auriemma] and Tennessee's [pat summitt], thanks to my Fighting Irish of Notre Dame besting the Lady Volunteers of Tennessee. While Coach Auriemma's team is still alive, Coach Summitt is winning the search query volume contest off the floor. I'm sure if I were Coach Summitt, I'd rather still have my team playing this weekend—but maybe her lead in search can be some small consolation!


On the men's side, there's a nice mix of seasoned veteran coaches as well as two young coaches emerging as rising stars. As we near the end of the tournament, it's not Coach [jim calhoun] or Coach [john calipari] capturing the attention of U.S. searchers—it's the young head coach at VCU, [shaka smart], and Butler's equally young coach [brad stevens] who currently take the top spots in search query volume.


Each year, new stars emerge as the tournaments unfold. In 2010, Duke's [kyle singler] captured the Final Four MVP, and in 2006 Florida's [joakim noah] captured the nation's attention. This year, Butler's [matt howard] has risen to take the top spot as the most searched player of the tournament.


Finally, I know that I get a little basketball-crazy during this time of year, but looking at some of our data, I discover that I'm not alone. In the state of Indiana—the home of Hoosiers and some of the most vocal hoops fans, home-state [butler bulldogs] have pulled ahead of pop music star [katy perry] in search query volume. Now that's dedication to basketball!


This tournament is always one of the most unpredictable sporting events in the country, so it's comforting to know that the tournaments end the same way every year: with the champions cutting down the nets. While we can't predict which team will be up on the ladder cutting the nylon, the search data does provide a glimpse into what we U.S. sports fans are interested in—and perhaps who we're cheering for in the waning seconds of the games.

Like you, I'll be sitting on the edge of my couch this weekend with my busted bracket in hand. Of course, in my case, I'll be rooting on my alma mater. Go Irish!

Posted by Jim Lecinski, Managing Director, U.S. Sales and Service and Notre Dame class of '87
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/searching-for-cinderella-story.html

[G] YouTube highlights 3/31/2011

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 03:24 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: YouTube highlights 3/31/2011

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.

In the past two weeks, we saw online video swing into action in a few very powerful scenarios. Video helped connect people with loved ones affected by tragedy while at the same time, uniting musicians from around the world to create art.

YouTube Person Finder
The YouTube Person Finder (消息情報) channel aggregates video messages from those affected by the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan. You can search for videos within the module or browse videos in Japanese. Our hope is that the power of video and the access to YouTube will help victims and their families find each other and make sure they're safe.


YouTube Symphony Orchestra dazzles from Sydney
One hundred and one musicians from 33 countries were selected via online auditions to come together as an orchestra and celebrate music, creativity and collaboration. Well-known YouTube stars joined the show in Sydney to collaborate, including Pogo and Ukrainian sand artist Kseniya Simonova. A week of events and seven sold-out concerts captured on youtube.com/symphony culminated in a Grand Finale event on March 20. The event was streamed 33 million times around the world to 189 countries, including an incredible 2.8 million mobile live-streams.



Lights, YouTube—Action
Owning a video camera is no longer a prerequisite to joining the YouTube community. youtube.com/create, just launched in beta, enables anyone to use video creation sites Xtranormal, Stupeflix and GoAnimate to make personal videos using images, music and animations and then share them by posting to YouTube.

If you do own a video camera, we have some good news for you too. Nine months ago we introduced our cloud-based video editor, with basic tools, at www.youtube.com/editor. This week, we've made two major enhancements to our video editor—image stabilizer and 3D capabilities. Now, you can smooth unsteady video footage with the click of a button or create a composite of two side-by-side videos to produce your very own 3D action flick—all for free.

Baby, she was "Born this way"
Lady Gaga stopped by Google's headquarters last week and wowed a packed auditorium of Googlers and YouTubers. Gaga answered questions from fans via Twitter and Moderator as well as the audience, dishing on fashion, her larger-than-life persona and upcoming album. Watch the entire Q&A now on YouTube.



This week in trends
Some quick highlights from YouTube Trends:
  • We're seeing new video coming from Syria, where demonstrations have reportedly escalated. CitizenTube, in partnership with StoryFul, is curating that footage on its channel.
  • We looked at how popular cartoonists in Jordan have reacted to the major events taking place in North Africa and the Middle East.
  • We looked at some of the most popular viral clips from around the world, including a proposal gone wrong, a musically-inclined baby and masked flash mobbers in Korea. Check them out for yourself.
Until our next update, keep up on what's going in the world of video via the YouTube Blog.

Posted by Neha Mandal, Marketing Manager, The YouTube Team
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/youtube-highlights-3312011.html

[G] Two new Google domains: Iraq and Tunisia

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 03:24 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Two new Google domains: Iraq and Tunisia

We offer search on different regional domains, such as google.fr for France and google.dj for Djibouti, in order to provide the most locally-relevant results. We've steadily brought Google to many of the world's domains, and today we announced on our Google Arabia Blog that we're adding two more: google.iq for Iraq and google.tn for Tunisia. This brings the number of local Google search domains worldwide to 184, with 15 domains in Arab countries.

The new domains will help people in Iraq and Tunisia find locally relevant information, faster. For example, a search for [central bank] on the Iraq domain yields results relevant to someone in Iraq, such as the Central Bank of Iraq. On the other hand, the same search on the Tunisia domain returns slightly different results.

The new domains also make it easier for people in Iraq and Tunisia to access search in their preferred languages. In Iraq, people can now easily access Google search in local languages like Arabic and Kurdish; while in Tunisia, people can find the Google interface in Arabic and French. In the past, people in these regions would need to visit the domain for another country to use Google in an interface they were comfortable with. And when they did, the results would be relevant to a different region.

Local domains are a first step towards making the web more accessible and relevant for people around the world. They're also an integral part of our vision to make all of our products available in the world's top 40 most spoken languages covering 99 percent of Internet users worldwide. We plan to add more domains in the coming months, so stay tuned!

Posted by AbdelKarim Mardini, Product Manager, Middle East & North Africa
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/two-new-google-domains-iraq-and-tunisia.html

[G] Stay connected to the market, wherever you are

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 03:21 PM PDT

Official Google Mobile Blog: Stay connected to the market, wherever you are

Mobile phones are great for keeping in touch with the latest information, but when there's a lot of data to look at, a small screen can be a drawback. For financial queries, where you might want to see stock quotes, the latest news, a market overview or portfolio details, we've just launched a new approach in Google search.

To try it out, go to google.com on your iPhone or Android-powered device (2.1 or later) and search for your favourite stock ticker symbol.

The first thing you'll see is an interactive graph shown on a card - you can switch views to different date ranges by tapping on the buttons below the graph.




If you swipe the card from right to left, you'll get the latest financial news for the company.

Swipe again for a market overview, and if you're logged in to your Google account and have created a Google Finance portfolio, a further swipe will show a summary of your stock portfolio. Give it a try on your mobile device now to see how it works.

This feature is available in English with support for more languages coming soon. We hope you enjoy it and find it useful.

Posted by Yu Chen, Software Engineer and Robert Hamilton, Product Manager
URL: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/03/stay-connected-to-market-wherever-you.html

[G] Georgia Department of Corrections Improves Case Management with Google Maps

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 09:13 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Georgia Department of Corrections Improves Case Management with Google Maps

Editor's Note: Providing a safe and secure environment for the citizens is the mission of U.S. law enforcement agencies. Today we invited Jeff Smith, Enterprise Systems Manager from the Georgia Department of Corrections, to share how it improved offender management by using Google Maps.

The Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) is the largest law enforcement agency in the state. Our team of over 13,000 Corrections professionals strives everyday to manage the offenders effectively while helping to provide a safe and secure environment for the citizens. With a growing number of probationers to supervise - now more than 150,000 - this challenge was becoming increasingly more difficult and we needed modern technology to help us.
With the massive number of probationers in the GDC system, it's fundamental that we have accurate mapping tools in order for probation officers to manage their caseloads appropriately. Believe it or not, for decades we had been plotting the probationers on paper maps and manually drawing the routes we took to supervise them. More recently, our officers turned to publicly available mapping tools to make their job easier on their own. In spite of that, accuracy was still a problem, and we came to realize the urgent need to equip our officers with accurate, interactive maps.

We implemented a solution that integrates large amounts of offender management data that we collected into Google Maps API Premier in October 2010. Google Maps gives us the flexibility to send large amounts of data to draw a single map and customize the data icons. We can easily map the address of each offender and color-code it based on the offender's supervision level. Probation officers are now able to access customized Google Maps both from their desk computers and on their netbooks when they are on the road. An officer can quickly see on a map all the offenders he supervises, their addresses, identification information, supervision levels, and the probation office supervising the offenders' cases. Officers can optimize caseloads based on real geographic boundaries so each of them can focus just on a sector of the city and reduce the amount of time spent navigating through Atlanta. We can also run a search by officer, office, or by radius to identify the cases. If an offender reports a home address change, we can tell if he or she moves out of the region and needs to be reassigned to another officer or office. We no longer have to rely on the offenders' self-reported data for the city or county their residence is in. Google Maps has helped advance our case management and collaboration significantly.

With the capability to visualize where the offenders live, Executive Management also realized Google Maps would be a valuable tool in deciding where to establish new offices. These new ways to look at managing offenders and officer caseloads were hard to imagine with our previous systems.

Google Maps has helped us improve collaboration and optimize resource allocation intelligently. We can now focus more on our core agenda, which is to protect our citizens and provide effective opportunities for offenders to achieve positive change.

Posted by Jeff Smith, Systems Manager, Georgia Department of Corrections, Office of Information Technology
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/03/georgia-department-of-corrections.html

[G] Our Gone Google Story: The Phoenix of New Orleans uses Google Apps to work together to rebuild neighborhoods after Hurricane Katrina

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 09:13 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Our Gone Google Story: The Phoenix of New Orleans uses Google Apps to work together to rebuild neighborhoods after Hurricane Katrina

Editor's note: Recently we announced the winners of our global Gone Google ad contest. Today's featured winner is Jim Coningsby, Director of Operations at The Phoenix of New Orleans.

The Phoenix of New Orleans (PNOLA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the recovery of Lower Mid-City New Orleans and its surrounding neighborhoods after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Since 2006, we've rebuilt quality affordable housing and helped develop the community assets necessary for vital neighborhoods by leveraging construction expertise and using Google Apps to coordinate and collaborate on efforts.



PNOLA has a very small staff of 5-10 people per year, but we've been able to leverage hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours, grant funds and donated materials to rebuild over 70 homes. As a result we have saved homeowners over $4 million dollars in rebuilding costs. We were able to accomplish so much with such a small staff due to the efficiency enabled by Google Apps. We like to think of Google as being part of our team.

We estimate that Google Apps allows us to do the same work with a staff of 7 as we could with 8. While that may not seem like much, adding another staff member would be prohibitively costly to our organization so we rely on web-based tools, like Google Apps, to make up that difference.

Prior to using Google Apps, we had been using a webmail service through our website host, but our team found the interface confusing, so they often just opted to use their personal Gmail accounts. Having multiple email addresses made us appear less professional to our community partners and funders, and also made it difficult to collaborate without a standardized set of tools.

Migrating to Google Apps took less than an hour to set up. We immediately improved the professional appearance of our organization and began working smarter together through the collaboration tools. We now track all of our upcoming volunteers and project tasks through Google Calendar so everyone is able to stay up to date with what is happening. We are also able to stay on track with our projects which typically saves us up to two weeks on each house. This in turn saves our homeowners from paying extra rent, and saves us about $300 a week on project delivery costs.

In addition, our team works together to create marketing material using Google Docs and our entire team uses Google Voice as our office phones, which not only saves us hundreds of dollars a month, but greatly improves our ability to track our communication with volunteers, clients and donors. We have our entire training manual on our intranet built on Google Sites, which is constantly updated so that new team members can get up to speed quickly. We think we're an example of a small non-profit that can do big things with the power of the cloud and Google Apps.

Posted by Jim Coningsby, Director of Operations, The Phoenix of New Orleans
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/03/our-gone-google-story-phoenix-of-new.html

[G] Coming soon to Google Apps: +1 button and Google Profiles

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 09:13 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Coming soon to Google Apps: +1 button and Google Profiles

Last year we made more than 60 additional Google services available in Google Apps, including Blogger, YouTube and Picasa. Soon we'll be bringing two of the newest Google features to our Google Apps customers: enhanced Google Profiles and the +1 button.

The +1 button lets you put your stamp of approval on content on the web. When you click the +1 button, your social connections will see your public recommendation when that page appears in their Google search results. Today, some Google search users – including a small number of Google Apps users – will begin seeing the +1 button, and over the coming weeks this will roll out to more users. You can read more details about the +1 button on the Official Google Blog.

The +1 button will appear next to each search result


With +1's, you will be able to share your recommendations with the world, but there is one catch: the +1 button will only work if you have a Google Profile, which is not available in Apps yet. We're going to bring Google Profiles to you in a few weeks. Your organization will need to be set up to use additional Google applications to get Google Profiles when it's available, so this is a great time for administrators to start the transition if they haven't already!

Google Profiles is an important companion to +1's, but your profile is also a place for you to manage your online identity. Once it's ready, Google Profiles can be turned on by your organization's administrator. You might choose to use a Google Profile if you're a freelance writer, personal accountant or hairstylist, for instance, and you want to create your professional presence on the web to interact with potential clients and colleagues. Your profile will be public, so anyone on the web will be able to view it and your profile and +1's will show up in search results.

Later this year, we'll also be providing administrator options to keep profiles and +1's for Google Apps users private within an organization, so that this information will only be viewable by your colleagues.

Stay tuned for updates, or sign up to be notified when Google Profiles is available for Google Apps.


Posted by Gaurav Jain, Product Manager, Google Apps
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/03/coming-soon-to-google-apps-1-button-and.html

[G] The Power of the Apps Marketplace: A Webinar with CloudLock and Boise State

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 09:13 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: The Power of the Apps Marketplace: A Webinar with CloudLock and Boise State

Thousands of institutions have adopted Google Apps for Education and already enjoy the tremendous collaboration boosts and cost savings that come along with it. Many, however, may be less familiar with the Google Apps Marketplace (not to mention the recently launched Education category in the Marketplace which includes applications for student tools and teaching aids). As the Apps Marketplace celebrates its first birthday, we invite you to learn how one Google Apps customer has deployed an innovative Google Docs management app from the marketplace and how it has impacted the visibility of collaboration and sharing within their organization.

Join us for a webinar on April 7th at 11am PST to hear Boise State University's Brian Bolt, the Office for Information and Technology Team Lead, share how they are using Google Apps and CloudLock from the Google Apps Marketplace. Brian will share his lessons on rolling out Google Apps and demonstrate how CloudLock addresses some of the core IT control and visibility requirements they faced when moving increasing amounts of their organization's data to the cloud. Specifically, Brian will cover how CloudLock helps to address:
  • Governance - Managing access to data to mitigate unauthorized access
  • Protection - Define and enforce document ownership and sharing policies
  • Analytics - Understanding how to effectively make sense of data
CloudLock's Co-Founder, Tsahy Shapsa, will also share how their app has made it possible for organizations to extend their Google Docs repositories in order to begin to retire their legacy on-premise file servers, effectively producing a significant ROI with real hard and soft cost savings. We hope you'll tune in to hear more about how Boise State has leveraged CloudLock.

The Power of the Apps Marketplace: A Webinar with CloudLock and Boise State
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT
Register here

Posted by Jordan Pedraza, Google Apps for Education Team
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/03/power-of-apps-marketplace-webinar-with.html

[G] Our Gone Google Story: Just Salad leverages Google Apps across global restaurant chain

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 09:13 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Our Gone Google Story: Just Salad leverages Google Apps across global restaurant chain

Editor's Note: Recently we announced the winners of our global Gone Google ad contest. Today's featured winner is Matt Silverman, CIO of Just Salad from New York, NY.

Just Salad is a casual restaurant chain with six locations in Manhattan, and two locations in Hong Kong. Founded in 2006 by two recent college graduates Nick Kenner and Robert Crespi, Just Salad caters to health conscious customers looking for a fresh and fast meal.


We implemented Google Apps in 2008, and we have been extremely pleased with the results. While we originally made the switch for the robust email functionality that Gmail offers, the other applications in the Google Apps suite ended up being an invaluable toolset for all of our staff. In the restaurant business, the corporate staff are always on the run, visiting our different stores. Having all of our email, calendar, contacts, and documents available in Google Apps allows us to make our information accessible wherever our staff may be, which greatly improves our work efficiency.

The collaboration tools within Google Docs allow us to quickly and efficiently fill out our expense reports, brainstorm new ideas for our menu and operations, and maintain comprehensive training documents that can be printed by our staff in the stores at any time. We also use shared calendars to help with labor schedules, and to keep track of tasks on a store-by-store basis.

The scalable nature of Google Apps has also allowed us to seamlessly implement email in each store we open, with virtually no time spent on setting up email clients and office applications. Our network security has also improved, by moving the bulk of our virus checking to the cloud instead of managing it on premise, we are able to avoid most of the dangerous attachments that seem to plague Microsoft® Outlook email clients.

Out of all of the time saving features that Google Apps offers, the search function in Gmail is above and beyond the greatest feature. To give one quick example, we can enter transaction totals into Gmail to pull up various receipts for web purchases. This allows us to do our expense reports incredibly efficiently, without having to hunt through printed receipts to reconcile our purchases.

Finally, Google spreadsheets has allowed us to collaborate on in-depth nutrition analysis to help keep track of nutrition values for our 70+ salad ingredients. Keeping up on nutrition is hard work when you carry as many ingredients as we do, and allowing multiple staff members to work in tandem via Google Spreadsheets has proven to be incredibly useful. We look forward to continuing to work with Google Apps as we rapidly expand our restaurant concept throughout New York City, Hong Kong, and beyond.

Posted by Matt Silverman, CIO, Just Salad
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/03/our-gone-google-story-just-salad.html

[G] A fun and interactive shopping experience with Google Commerce Search 3.0

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 09:13 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: A fun and interactive shopping experience with Google Commerce Search 3.0

As we announced on the Official Google Blog, we've just launched the third-generation of Google Commerce Search – our search solution for e-commerce websites. With the new release, we're making online shopping more interactive, connecting local and mobile product discovery, and providing sophisticated tools to help retailers manage the shopping experience on their site.



Search is evolving, smartphone sales are already outpacing PC's, and the entire retail landscape is on the verge of a transformation. We believe that these new features will help shape the future of online shopping, and allow retailers to provide the best possible experience on their site (and on any mobile device).

  • Search As You Type: Search is quickly becoming a more interactive experience. Search As You Type provides instant gratification to shoppers – returning product results with every keystroke, right from the search bar.
  • Local Product Availability: This year, 46% of retail sales will be influenced by online research – but more than 90% of total retail transactions will occur in-store (eMarketer, June 2010). Local Product Availability helps retailers bridge online and offline sales by showing shoppers when a product is also available in a store nearby – in-line with the search results.
  • Enhanced Merchandising: Retailers need to be agile to effectively respond to shopping trends and market dynamics – for example ramping up certain underdog basketball team apparel going into the Final Four! Our new merchandising tools allow retailers to easily set query-based landing pages, and to create promotions that display alongside related search queries in retailer-designated banner areas.
  • Product Recommendations (Labs): To help consumers discover related products, Product Recommendations show shoppers what other people viewed and ultimately bought.

With this release we're also welcoming three new retail partners: Forever21, General Nutrition Company (GNC) and L'Occitane. GNC implemented Google Commerce Search in less than a week on their mobile website, while Forever 21 and L'Occitane are currently working to implement various new features of GCS, such as Search as You Type and Local Product Availability. Here is what Jeff Hennion, EVP & Chief Branding Officer at GNC had to say about the rise of smartphone adoption, and how Google Commerce Search has helped his business adapt to this new shopping medium:


"The velocity of smartphone adoption has made the mobile channel increasingly important for retailers. GNC wanted a flexible solution that would provide the best in e-commerce search while allowing us to develop a unique mobile experience. Google Commerce Search allowed us to upgrade our mobile search solution in less than a week and deliver a faster, more targeted experience for our smartphone users."

And Christine Burke, VP of International E-Commerce at L'Occitane is looking forward to implementing GCS 3.0 on her company's new, re-designed websites worldwide:
"L'Occitane is unique in that our beauty products center around ingredients - such as lavender, shea butter and verbena. As our customers visit our re-designed website to shop and research our products, we are excited about the speed and accuracy of on-site search results that will be provided to us through Google Commerce Search. We are also very excited about the possibility of the new local inventory feature, which can help us connect our customers with their favorite products in one of our 170 US boutiques."

Learn how you can provide the latest in retail technology on your website with Google Commerce Search. Sign up for our upcoming webinar (details below). You'll hear from Nitin Mangtani, Group Product Manager, in conversation with Google Commerce Search customers about how these new features are transforming retail for the better.

Google Commerce Search 3.0: Driving user engagement and cross-channel coordination in retail
Wednesday, May 5, 2011
2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT

Posted by Naveen Viswanatha, Product Manager, Google Commerce Search
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/03/fun-and-interactive-shopping-experience.html

[G] Fresh new perspectives for your blog

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 07:31 AM PDT

Official Google Blog: Fresh new perspectives for your blog

(Cross-posted from Blogger Buzz)

Today we're previewing five new dynamic templates in Blogger that you'll soon be able to customize and use for your blog. These new views use the latest in web technology, including AJAX, HTML5 and CSS3, to deliver a host of benefits to you and your readers:
  • Infinite scrolling: read more posts without having to reload or click to a second page
  • New layouts: different views suited to different types of blogs
  • Speed: download images as you view them, not all at once in advance
  • Interactivity: there are now more ways to experience and engage with blog content



Click on any of these links to take the new dynamic views for a spin on a few of our favorite blogs: Flipcard, Mosaic, Sidebar, Snapshot and Timeslide.

Flipcard

Snapshot

Mosaic

To try these views on your own blog, simply add "/view" to the end of the blog URL—for example, http://buzz.blogspot.com/view. These new views are available on all public Blogger blogs with feeds fully enabled—to learn more, including how to disable these views for your blog if you wish, please see our help center article.

We're previewing these templates early on so we can incorporate your feedback for a wider launch soon. At that time you'll be able to customize these templates and select one for your blog. Please let us know what you think!

Posted by Antin Harasymiv, Software Engineer, Blogger
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/fresh-new-perspectives-for-your-blog.html
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