Monday, May 9, 2011

Googland

Googland

[G] Western Union now in available in 13 additional countries

Posted: 08 May 2011 06:29 PM PDT

Inside AdSense: Western Union now in available in 13 additional countries

Good news! We've expanded Western Union Quick Cash® as an AdSense payment method to 13 additional countries: Georgia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, Libya, Senegal, Mauritius, and Cameroon.

For those of you who aren't familiar with this form of payment, Western Union Quick Cash payments are free and will reach you faster than checks. Payments follow our normal payment schedule and are available for pickup in your local currency at your local Western Union agent the day after they're issued.

A couple of things to note: We can send Western Union payments only to publishers that have an individual account at this time. Also, the payee name on your account must exactly match the government-issued ID card that you'll use when picking up your payments. For more information on how to sign up for and pick up Western Union payments, please visit our Help Center.

For those of you who do not yet have Western Union Quick Cash as a payment method in your country, we appreciate your patience as we work to make this available. Keep checking in on the Inside AdSense blog for future launches!

Posted by Julia Peppiatt - AdSense Payments team
URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2011/05/western-union-now-in-available-in-13.html

[G] New Interface Wednesdays: Chart custom channels

Posted: 08 May 2011 06:29 PM PDT

Inside AdSense: New Interface Wednesdays: Chart custom channels

We understand that many of you analyze how ad units or channels perform compared to each other to help you decide whether you should make changes to improve performance. Now, in the new interface, we provide you a new way to analyze individual items against one another.

The chart feature will allow you to see custom channels or ad units as their own line on the graph, so you can easily identify spikes or dips. To see how your channels perform compared to each other, visit the Performance Reports tab, and click Custom channels. Depending on the number of channels you're using, you might be asked to filter the list and then click Update report. Once your selected channels are listed below the graph, you'll see the Combine and Chart buttons.

Select a few channels and hit 'Chart.' Now you can see each specific channel in it's own color on the graph. You can use the buttons next to the graph to change the metric for which you're comparing the channels. Using this feature, you might notice that discrepancies between channel performance are more obvious on the graph than they are just viewing the numbers in the table.


Try it now! Navigate to the Performance reports tab, and select any report for which you want to chart items.

Help us figure out what you need and want in your reports by sending your feedback through the 'Report issue' link in the upper corner of your account or joining the conversations in our forum.

Posted by Guillaume Ryder - AdSense Engineer
URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-interface-wednesdays-chart-custom.html

[G] Using the power of mapping to support South Sudan

Posted: 08 May 2011 06:08 PM PDT

Google Public Policy Blog: Using the power of mapping to support South Sudan

Posted by France Lamy, Program Manager, Google.org

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog.)

Last Thursday, the Google Map Maker team, along with the World Bank and UNITAR/UNOSAT, held a unique event at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C., and a satellite event in Nairobi at the same time. More than 70 members of the Sudanese diaspora, along with regional experts from the World Bank, Sudan Institute, Voices for Sudan, The Enough Project and other organizations gathered together to map what is expected to become the world's newest country later this year: the Republic of South Sudan. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the international community "to assist all Sudanese towards greater stability and development" during and beyond this period of transition.

South Sudan is a large but under-mapped region, and there are very few high-quality maps that display essential features like roads, hospitals and schools. Up-to-date maps are particularly important to humanitarian aid groups, as they help responders target their efforts and mobilize their resources of equipment, personnel and supplies. More generally, maps are an important foundation for the development of the infrastructure and economy of the country and region.

The Map Maker community—a wide-ranging group of volunteers that help build more comprehensive maps of the world using our online mapping tool, Google Map Maker—has been contributing to the mapping effort for Sudan since the referendum on January 9. To aid their work, we've published updated satellite imagery of the region, covering 125,000 square kilometers and 40 percent of the U.N.'s priority areas, to Google Earth and Maps.

The goal of last week's event was to engage and train members of the Sudanese diaspora in the United States, and others who have lived and worked in the region, to use Google Map Maker so they could contribute their local knowledge of the region to the ongoing mapping effort, particularly in the area of social infrastructure. Our hope is that this event and others like it will help build a self-sufficient mapping community that will contribute their local expertise and remain engaged in Sudan over time.

We were inspired by the group's enthusiasm. One attendee told us: "I used to live in this small village that before today did not exist on any maps that I know of...a place unknown to the world. Now I can show to my kids, my friends, my community, where I used to live and better tell the story of my people."


The group worked together to make several hundred edits to the map of Sudan in four hours. As those edits are approved, they'll appear live in Google Maps, available for all the world to see. But this wasn't just a one-day undertaking—attendees will now return to their home communities armed with new tools and ready to teach their friends and family how to join the effort. We look forward to seeing the Southern Sudanese mapping community grow and flourish.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/05/using-power-of-mapping-to-support-south.html

[G] Our testimony on how technology can aid crisis response

Posted: 08 May 2011 06:08 PM PDT

Google Public Policy Blog: Our testimony on how technology can aid crisis response

Posted by Pablo Chavez, Director of Public Policy

This morning Shona Brown, Senior Vice President of Google.org, was on Capitol Hill to testify before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on the use of technology in coordinating disaster relief efforts.

Google plays a modest role in crisis response compared to relief organizations and agencies, but we have found that the Internet can help users and relief workers quickly find the information they need during emergencies. For example, Google Person Finder – which helps loved ones reconnect during emergencies – managed more than 600,000 records following the earthquake in Japan, and there were more than 36 million page views within the first 48 hours alone.

During her testimony, Shona outlined three reasons how simple, standard and open Internet-based technologies are critical tools for emergency responders and affected populations: the Internet often remains available when other networks fail, people often turn to Internet services during emergencies, and the Internet scales and promotes openness.

You can read Shona's full testimony here or watch video of the hearing here.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/05/our-testimony-on-how-technology-can-aid.html

[G] Today is World Press Freedom Day 2011

Posted: 08 May 2011 06:08 PM PDT

Google Public Policy Blog: Today is World Press Freedom Day 2011

Posted by Bob Boorstin, Director, Public Policy

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted more than sixty years ago, but its words still ring true today – almost as though they were crafted with the Internet in mind:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." (Article 19)
Today is World Press Freedom Day 2011 – an event marking the central role that free and independent media play in building and maintaining democratic movements and nations.

This year's theme is digital media – a particularly appropriate focus in a year that has seen the Internet play a crucial role in helping people to organize against dictators in the Middle East and North Africa. A free and open Internet is just one tool, but it has proved itself to be truly powerful over the past few months.

World Press Freedom Day is a date to recognize those who strive to advance the cause of freedom of expression and keep the flow of information open and unfettered. That includes efforts by groups that aim to investigate and expose Internet filtering and surveillance practices, as well as those who work to protect journalists and measure press freedom around the world.

For our part, Google is committed to providing the information that citizens around the globe need to understand the world and participate in the governing of their societies. We're happy to join the UN Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy, UNESCO and all the other partners to mark today's occasion.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/05/today-is-world-press-freedom-day-2011.html

[G] A strong step for congressional openness and accountability

Posted: 08 May 2011 06:08 PM PDT

Google Public Policy Blog: A strong step for congressional openness and accountability

Posted by Ginny Hunt, Public Sector team

(Cross-posted from the Google Public Sector Blog.)

Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor took another strong step towards an open and accountable Congress, calling for better access to House legislative data in a letter to the Clerk of the House:
"...Openness, once a proud tradition of the House, is again the new standard. At the start of the 112th Congress, the House adopted a Rules Package that identified electronic documents as a priority for the institution. Towards that end, we are asking all House stakeholders to work together on publicly releasing the House's legislative data in machine-readable formats...Ultimately, legislative data is the property of the American public. It is our hope that these reforms will continue to rebuild the trust between Congress and the people we serve."
Open, standard data formats are fundamental to helping engineers, entrepreneurs and citizens access and use legislative information. We applaud Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor for their continued leadership on transparency.

Across industries, we've seen how well organized information can improve operations and reduce spending. In the same way that barcodes made merchandise easier to track and supply chains more efficient, using standardized machine-readable formats will be a large step in improving transparency around lawmaking.

And one day, it will be as simple for citizens to understand and track a bill as School House Rock makes it look:

URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/05/strong-step-for-congressional-openness.html

[G] New Ecommerce tracking and validation in the Analytics SDK for Android

Posted: 08 May 2011 03:24 PM PDT

Google Analytics Blog: New Ecommerce tracking and validation in the Analytics SDK for Android

Increasingly, mobile applications allow you to purchase products and virtual goods. For that reason, it's important to track these mobile transactions in order to understand which products perform well.

So today we've added Ecommerce tracking functionality to the Google Analytics SDK for Android.

Ecommerce Tracking
With Ecommerce mobile tracking, you can capture transaction and product information, send the data to Google Analytics, and then analyze which products performed best. Of course, because this is all within Google Analytics, you can also tie transaction data back to app usage behavior. For example, you can now compare the referral that generated an app download by the revenue it generated. See the Google Analytics SDK for Android developer docs to learn how to implement this feature.

Debug and Validation
In addition to Ecommerce, we've added new debug and dry run modes to make it easier to validate your Google Analytics implementation.

Debug Mode:

tracker.setDebug(true);

With debug mode, all data requests to Google Analytics are sent to the Android log, allowing you to validate that your app is sending data properly. You can view the Android log using the adb logcat command.

Dry Run:

tracker.setDryRun(true);

The dry run mode sends all tracking data locally so that you don't corrupt your production data.

See Us At Google IO
We'll be demoing all this new functionality this year Google IO, so stop by the Optimizing Android Apps With Google Analytics session on May 11, 12:30PM – 01:30PM / Room 9.

Posted by Jim Cotugno, Google Analytics Tracking Team
URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-ecommerce-tracking-and-validation.html

[G] Measure Page Load Time with Site Speed Analytics Report

Posted: 08 May 2011 03:24 PM PDT

Google Analytics Blog: Measure Page Load Time with Site Speed Analytics Report

This is part of our series of posts highlighting the new Google Analytics. The new version of Google Analytics is currently available in beta to all Analytics users. And follow Google Analytics on Twitter for the latest updates. This week we're sharing a new feature, the Site Speed report.

At Google, we are passionate about speed and making the web faster, and we are glad to see that many website owners share the same idea. A faster web is better for both users and businesses. A slow loading landing page not only impacts your conversion rate, but can also impact AdWords Landing Page Quality and ranking in Google search.

To improve the performance of your pages, you first need to measure and diagnose the speed of a page, which can be a difficult task. Furthermore, even with page speed measurements, it's critical to look at page speed in context of other web analytics data.

Therefore, we are thrilled to announce the availability of the Site Speed report in the new Google Analytics platform. With the Site Speed report you can measure the page load time across your site.

Uses for the Site Speed Report
  • Content: Which landing pages are slowest?
  • Traffic sources: Which campaigns correspond to faster page loads overall?
  • Visitor: How does page load time vary across geographies?
  • Technology: Does your site load faster or slower for different browsers?
One effective use of the Site Speed report is to measure speed for your most critical pages. For example, you might learn that the target audience of your site is located in a geographic region that experiences slower page speed. Or, you might learn that certain pages on your site run slower in some browsers. In addition to the Site Speed report, we've created a custom report that you can use to help answer these questions: view the Site Speed custom report.


Setting up the Site Speed Report
By default, page speed measurement is turned off, so you'll only see 0's in the Site Speed report until you've enabled it. To start measuring site speed, you need to make a small change to your Analytics tracking code. We have detailed instructions in the Site Speed article in the Analytics Help Center. Once you've updated your tracking code, a small sample of pageviews will be used to calculate the page load time.

We're excited to bring this important metric into Google Analytics as part of the new Google Analytics platform. Please continue to send us feedback on Site Speed and the rest of the new Google Analytics.

By Zhiheng Wang, Phil Mui on behalf of the Google Analytics team and the Make the Web Faster team.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Google Analytics Team
URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2011/05/measure-page-load-time-with-site-speed.html

[G] Updates and Fixes, May 5th

Posted: 08 May 2011 01:18 PM PDT

Blogger Buzz: Updates and Fixes, May 5th

Posted by Brett Wiltshire, Product Operations

April showers bring May flowers, and updates to Blogger! Here's the run down of the latest changes available to everyone right now:

Add location info to your posts with geotagging

Geotagging has been available for a while on Blogger in Draft, but is now available to all users with today's release. To add location information to your blog posts, simply click the Add Location button in the bottom right of the new post editor. This will bring up a new window that displays the familiar Google Maps interface and you can search, drag, zoom, and drop markers for the location of your choice.

Once you've settled on the location you want to add to the blog post, just click Save and the information will automatically be added to the footer section of your published post (if you don't see it, you'll probably have to enable the Location option in the Blog Post widget which is normally defaulted to 'on'.)




We've made a few small updates and bug fixes since the original Draft release, most notably the ability to remove location information after publishing and the addition of a placemarker for pinpointing location info.


Refreshed interface for image and video upload

Clicking the "photo" or "video" upload buttons will now display a sleeker, updated picker. We've also made it draggable so you can look back at the post editor if you need to.



A pair of Known Issues are now fixed
  • Users posting comments from non-Google accounts should no longer see the intermittent bX errors that occurred last week.
  • The intermittent errors which were preventing the browsing of archives via Newer / Older navigation links has been fixed.
URL: http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/05/updates-and-fixes-may-5th.html
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