Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Googland

Googland

[G] Who's Being Schooled?

Posted: 31 Oct 2011 02:15 PM PDT

Google Open Source Blog: Who's Being Schooled?


We've been busy compiling some more cool statistics from this year's 7th iteration of the Google Summer of Code program: enjoy!

This year we had a total of 595 different universities participating in the program, 160 of which were new to the program. The 13 universities with the highest number of students accepted into this year's Google Summer of Code account for 14.5% of the students. These universities are listed below.

University Of Moratuwa (Sri Lanka) - 27
Polytechnic University Of Bucharest (Romania) - 23
Indian Institute Of Technology, Kharagpur (India) - 14
State University Of Campinas (Brazil) - 14
Vienna Technical University, Tu Wien (Austria) - 13
National University Of Singapore (Singapore) - 11
Birla Institute Of Technology And Science, Pilani (India) - 10
Gdansk University of Technology (Poland) - 9
Manipal Institute Of Technology, Manipal (India) - 9
Bejing (Peking) University (China) - 8
Chinese Academy of Sciences (China) - 8
Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (India) - 8
Graz University of Technology /Erzherzog Johann University/ Technische Universität Graz (Austria) - 8

The breakdown of college degrees for the 2011 Google Summer of Code program was as follows: 55% of the students were undergraduates, 23.3% were pursuing their Masters degrees, 10.2% were working on their PhD's and 11.5% did not specify which degree they were working toward.

For the first time since starting Google Summer of Code in 2005, we asked the participants their gender. (Previously we had "guess-timated" based upon the style of tee shirt they requested). This year we had 7.1% female, 89.3% male and 3.6% that declined to state their gender. In previous years of the program the percentages of women based upon t-shirt requests was as follows: 7% in 2010, 6% in 2009, 5% in 2008, 4% in 2007, 3% in 2006 an 6% in 2005.

Thank you to all of the students for another great "summer" filled with code!

By Stephanie Taylor, Open Source Programs Office


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleOpenSourceBlog/~3/xJJcVR1VKOE/whos-being-schooled.html

[G] Bringing the benefits of TrueView to our video publishers

Posted: 31 Oct 2011 02:15 PM PDT

DoubleClick Publisher Blog: Bringing the benefits of TrueView to our video publishers

(Originally posted on the Inside AdSense blog)



It's no secret that I watch a lot of video ads. It's one of the perks (or pains!) of working in the video advertising business. And yet, I was surprised to see that my younger cousins were gathered around a laptop showing each other their favorite ads over the weekend. Maybe it runs in the family. More likely, people just love watching great content and engaging ads. Every statistic we've seen shows that sharing and watching online videos has become a part of everyday life, and that the gap between video ad spend and audience attention is slowly narrowing. At Google, we're always trying to improve the experience of watching video ads. With that in mind, we're rolling out a new ad format called TrueView to our network of video publishers.



TrueView ads, pioneered on YouTube, differ from traditional video ads in two main ways. First, they give viewers choice - for example, the ad may be skippable or present a choice of ads to watch. Second, TrueView ads are sold through a Cost Per View (CPV) basis. You may be familiar with Cost Per Click (CPC) where the advertiser pays when someone clicks on their ad; similarly with CPV ads, advertisers are charged when a viewer chooses to watch the ad.



For example, say you're about to watch an interview with the makers of a new movie on The Hollywood Reporter. A TrueView in-stream video ad will start to play and a counter will appear giving you the option, after five seconds, to skip the ad and continue watching the video.







We believe TrueView is a win for users, publishers and advertisers. Users have more control over the ads they see. Advertisers get to combine the engagement of video with the precision of online advertising. And publishers see higher returns, since advertisers value a truly engaged audience.



A small group of our AdSense for video publishers are already using TrueView ads on a portion of their video inventory, and have seen RPMs equal or better than standard pre-roll ads, while dramatically improving the user experience. TrueView video ads also help to decrease audience drop-off rates by 40% on YouTube Partner sites when compared to regular in-stream ads, which means more viewers are continuing to watch videos.



One of our partners The Hollywood Reporter has been experimenting with TrueView ads and has already seen a significant increase in viewer retention. Product Manager Reed Halstrom tells us, "We've seen video views increase by 21% and viewed minutes increase by 17% since we started using TrueView ads."



If you have existing video content on your site and are interested in gaining access to TrueView video ads through AdSense for video, please leave your details by completing our online form. We're committed to improving the overall online video viewing experience and will continue to work with our publishers and advertisers to make that happen - which should come as no surprise.



Posted by Payam Shodjai, Lead Product Manager, Video Monetization
URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DoubleclickPublisherBlog/~3/xKJC8hOmV6Q/bringing-benefits-of-trueview-to-our.html

[G] Happy Halloween from the AdSense Team

Posted: 31 Oct 2011 02:15 PM PDT

Inside AdSense: Happy Halloween from the AdSense Team

We hope you have a spooktacular day!


Posted by Jamie Firkus - Inside AdSense Team
URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2011/10/happy-halloween-from-adsense-team.html

[G] Life in a Day now available on YouTube

Posted: 31 Oct 2011 02:15 PM PDT

YouTube Blog: Life in a Day now available on YouTube

On July 24, 2010, thousands of people around the world recorded videos of their lives to take part in Life in a Day, a cinematic experiment to document a single day on earth. From more than 4,500 hours of footage recorded and uploaded to YouTube, Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald and executive producer Ridley Scott created a 90-minute feature film that offers an entertaining, surprising and moving view of life on earth.



After a theatrical release in countries around the world including appearances at the Sundance, Berlin, SXSW and Sydney film festivals, Life in a Day is finally coming home to YouTube—in its entirety, for free.



Starting today you can watch Life in a Day on YouTube, available with subtitles in 25 languages. So if you haven't seen it yet or want to relive the experience that The Times of London considers "a thrilling piece of cinema" and the Washington Post called "a profound achievement," now's your chance.







If you'd like to own Life in a Day, a DVD is also available. You can find more details about this, and the whole project, on the film's official YouTube channel.



Tim Partridge, Marketing Manager, recently watched "One Year Later: Cathy and Bob Linginksi."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/I9iQd6Mfu-o/life-in-day-now-available-on-youtube.html

[G] Bringing the benefits of TrueView to our video publishers

Posted: 31 Oct 2011 02:15 PM PDT

Inside AdSense: Bringing the benefits of TrueView to our video publishers

It's no secret that I watch a lot of video ads. It's one of the perks (or pains!) of working in the video advertising business. And yet, I was surprised to see that my younger cousins were gathered around a laptop showing each other their favorite ads over the weekend. Maybe it runs in the family. More likely, people just love watching great content and engaging ads. Every statistic we've seen shows that sharing and watching online videos has become a part of everyday life, and that the gap between video ad spend and audience attention is slowly narrowing. At Google, we're always trying to improve the experience of watching video ads. With that in mind, we're rolling out a new ad format called TrueView to our network of video publishers.

TrueView ads, pioneered on YouTube, differ from traditional video ads in two main ways. First, they give viewers choice - for example, the ad may be skippable or present a choice of ads to watch. Second, TrueView ads are sold through a Cost Per View (CPV) basis. You may be familiar with Cost Per Click (CPC) where the advertiser pays when someone clicks on their ad; similarly with CPV ads, advertisers are charged when a viewer chooses to watch the ad.

For example, say you're about to watch an interview with the makers of a new movie on The Hollywood Reporter. A TrueView in-stream video ad will start to play and a counter will appear giving you the option, after five seconds, to skip the ad and continue watching the video.


We believe TrueView is a win for users, publishers and advertisers. Users have more control over the ads they see. Advertisers get to combine the engagement of video with the precision of online advertising. And publishers see higher returns, since advertisers value a truly engaged audience.

A small group of our AdSense for video publishers are already using TrueView ads on a portion of their video inventory, and have seen RPMs equal or better than standard pre-roll ads, while dramatically improving the user experience. TrueView video ads also help to decrease audience drop-off rates by 40% on YouTube Partner sites when compared to regular in-stream ads, which means more viewers are continuing to watch videos.

One of our partners The Hollywood Reporter has been experimenting with TrueView ads and has already seen a significant increase in viewer retention. Product Manager Reed Halstrom tells us, "We've seen video views increase by 21% and viewed minutes increase by 17% since we started using TrueView ads."

If you have existing video content on your site and are interested in gaining access to TrueView video ads through AdSense for video, please leave your details by completing our online form. We're committed to improving the overall online video viewing experience and will continue to work with our publishers and advertisers to make that happen - which should come as no surprise.

Posted by Payam Shodjai, Lead Product Manager, Video Monetization
URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2011/10/bringing-benefits-of-trueview-to-our.html

[G] Happy hollowing!

Posted: 31 Oct 2011 02:15 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Happy hollowing!

When I was a little kid, Halloween seemed like the most grown-up holiday of all. For one thrilling night of the year, I got to stay up late trick-or-treating, watch scary movies with my friends, and wield sharp and pointy objects (safety first, of course!) while carving a macabre face into a pumpkin.

Now that I'm older, my perspective on Halloween has shifted a bit. It's now the holiday that most celebrates a childlike sense of wonder and amazement. Ordinary people and places are temporarily transformed into creepy and whimsical versions of their former selves: a zombie rises with the aid of corn syrup and some red food coloring, your everyday home becomes a haunted house with eerie lights and a spooky soundtrack, and a pumpkin—an otherwise plain-looking squash—is a grinning ghoul, with the help of only a candle, a knife and some elbow grease.



To celebrate Halloween this year, the doodle team wanted to capture that fascinating transformation that takes place when carving a pumpkin. Instead of picking up a few pumpkins from the grocery store, however, we decided to work on six giant pumpkins, specially delivered from nearby Half Moon Bay (some weighing well over 1,000 pounds). What you see is a timelapse video of the approximately eight hours we spent carving in the middle of our Mountain View, Calif. campus.

Googlers got into the Halloween spirit as well—you can see their costumed cameos if you have a quick eye. Many thanks to Slavic Soul Party! and composer Matt Moran for providing a fitting soundtrack for our Halloween hijinks.

For an inside look at how we set up the shoot, watch our behind-the-scenes video:



From all of us at Google, take care, be safe and have fun this Halloween!

Posted by Sophia Foster-Dimino, Doodler
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/happy-hollowing.html
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