Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Googland

Googland

[G] Changing information density in Gmail’s new look

Posted: 08 Nov 2011 04:24 AM PST

The Google Apps Blog: Changing information density in Gmail's new look

Posted by Jason Cornwell, User Experience Designer

When our design team looked at tackling a redesign across Google properties, responsive design was high on our list of priorities. Responsive design implies that a page or application should dynamically re-adjust itself based on the your environment. The specifics of the device that a user is using, and in particular the size of their browser window, should have an impact on the way the application presents itself. To put it simply, Gmail needs to look and feel great on a tiny netbook screen, on a high resolution 30" monitor, or anything in between.

You can try this out yourself if you are using Gmail's new look. Open up Gmail and make your browser window much smaller. Everything should crunch down as you adjust to give you a better experience in a smaller window. No matter what size your browser window is, Gmail should look and feel great out of the box.

We also thought quite a bit about the density of the information on the screen in the new design. Gmail's old design packs a huge amount of information into a small space. While this is perfect for some, many people appreciate a more airy design with more whitespace between lines and elements on the page. This is especially true on larger monitors.

We wanted Gmail to be more attractive and easier to read by default, so if you're on a larger monitor you will see that the items in your inbox are spaced farther apart than they were in the old design. We believe that this results in a better overall experience, but it does take some getting used to. In our internal testing we found that most of us adjusted to the new spacing after about a week and found the old spacing cramped and uncomfortable when they looked back at the old design.

Others, however, found the original spacing to be ideal and wanted to see as much information as possible without scrolling, even on a large monitor. We added a density setting to the gear menu in the toolbar to make sure that everybody can find a setting that works for them: Comfortable, Cozy, or Compact.

Comfortable is the spacing that we recommend for most people. With your density set to Comfortable, the display adjusts fluidly based on screen size.


Compact is the densest setting and matches the line spacing that existing Gmail users are used to. With your density set to Compact the display will stay dense no matter what size your window is.


Cozy is somewhere in the middle. With your density set to Cozy the display will get a little denser when you make your window small but the changes aren't as dramatic.

Mathletes among you may recognize that the density setting is really a ceiling function.

We think Gmail should be smart enough to always make itself look good on your screen, so we incorporated responsive design. We also think you should be able to see what happens when you change your settings, so we put the density settings in the gear menu right next to your inbox. When you make a change, you can immediately see what it looks like. Our density settings reflect our design philosophy that Gmail's new look should be more responsive, personal, and beautiful.

You can switch to the new look today by clicking on Switch to the new look in the bottom-right of Gmail.
URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleAppsBlog/~3/ChqCOPBv9mg/changing-information-density-in-gmails.html

[G] A new way to connect with Gmail and friends

Posted: 08 Nov 2011 04:24 AM PST

The Google Apps Blog: A new way to connect with Gmail and friends

Posted by Sarah Price, Community Manager

Today, the Google+ team launched Pages, a new way for you to build relationships with the things you love. We're looking forward to connecting with you on our new Gmail page on Google+.


When you add the Gmail page to your Google+ Circles, you'll see updates from our team, including launches, tips and tricks, and more. You'll be able to discuss those updates with other Gmail users in the comments on the posts. Mention +Gmail when you share your own tips -- if we see a really stellar tip, we might reshare it. We're also planning to hold regular Hangouts, so you can shoot the breeze with Google community managers, engineers, product managers and designers.

In addition to Gmail news, we'll feature some of your other favorite Google products, including Google Calendar, Google Voice, Google Chat and Google Tasks. Be sure to add the Gmail page to your Circles and let us know what you think.
URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleAppsBlog/~3/JWdS_1ooL4Q/new-way-to-connect-with-gmail-and.html

[G] Powering a new job search engine for military veterans

Posted: 08 Nov 2011 04:24 AM PST

Google Public Policy Blog: Powering a new job search engine for military veterans

Posted by Christina Chen, Product Manager, Search

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog and Inside Search blog)

Earlier today, President Obama spoke about the importance of helping returning military veterans find work. Thousands of businesses have committed to hiring military veterans and families and as part of this nationwide effort, starting today, job seekers can visit the National Resource Directory (NRD) to search more than 500,000 job openings from employers around the country.


We have been working with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide a customized job search engine for the NRD, using Google Custom Search technology. This custom search engine uses the power and scale of Google search to constantly crawl the web, looking for JobPosting markup from Schema.org on sites like simplyhired.com to identify veteran-committed job openings. An employer can easily add a job posting to NRD simply by adding that markup to their own web page. As pages are updated or removed from the web, they're automatically updated and removed from the system, keeping the available job postings on NRD fresh and up to date.

If you're an employer, you can find more information on how to participate on nationalresourcedirectory.gov. In addition, organizations such as local veterans' groups can help people find jobs by adding a veteran-committed jobs search box to their websites.

We're happy to contribute to this important initiative and hope businesses use this opportunity to connect with veterans seeking employment.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/11/powering-new-job-search-engine-for.html

[G] Recognizing 20 years of the Magic Johnson Foundation

Posted: 08 Nov 2011 04:24 AM PST

YouTube Blog: Recognizing 20 years of the Magic Johnson Foundation

On November 7, 1991, Magic Johnson told the world he'd been diagnosed with HIV and promised that "I plan on … living for a long time." 20 years later, Magic proves that you can be an entrepreneur, talk show host, successful businessman, educator and more, living with HIV.



To show our support for all the work Magic and the Magic Johnson Foundation have done, we teamed up with Warner Bros. to donate a portion of the proceeds anytime you rent a movie on YouTube from the Magic Johnson Collection presented by WB. During the month of November 2011, proceeds from your rental will be donated to the Magic Johnson Foundation, and the collection includes Sandra Bullock's Blind Side, classic inspirational movie Chariots of Fire, family movies like Lean on Me, and more coming in daily.



For more information on the Magic Johnson Foundation, its programs on college access, digital literacy, and its local centers in the US, please visit here. We'd also like to recognize YouTubers giving inspiration to the HIV community like Christopher, Rebekkah, Andre, Ben and others. To find out how you can learn more or get tested for HIV/AIDS please visit http://aids.gov/locator/.



Elizabeth Ferdon, YouTube Content Partnerships, just rented the movie "Space Jam."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/193jEPggtOA/recognizing-20-years-of-magic-johnson.html

[G] Changing information density in Gmail’s new look

Posted: 08 Nov 2011 04:24 AM PST

Official Gmail Blog: Changing information density in Gmail's new look

Posted by Jason Cornwell, User Experience Designer

When our design team looked at tackling a redesign across Google properties, responsive design was high on our list of priorities. Responsive design implies that a page or application should dynamically re-adjust itself based on the your environment. The specifics of the device that a user is using, and in particular the size of their browser window, should have an impact on the way the application presents itself. To put it simply, Gmail needs to look and feel great on a tiny netbook screen, on a high resolution 30" monitor, or anything in between.

You can try this out yourself if you are using Gmail's new look. Open up Gmail and make your browser window much smaller. Everything should crunch down as you adjust to give you a better experience in a smaller window. No matter what size your browser window is, Gmail should look and feel great out of the box.

We also thought quite a bit about the density of the information on the screen in the new design. Gmail's old design packs a huge amount of information into a small space. While this is perfect for some, many people appreciate a more airy design with more whitespace between lines and elements on the page. This is especially true on larger monitors.

We wanted Gmail to be more attractive and easier to read by default, so if you're on a larger monitor you will see that the items in your inbox are spaced farther apart than they were in the old design. We believe that this results in a better overall experience, but it does take some getting used to. In our internal testing we found that most of us adjusted to the new spacing after about a week and found the old spacing cramped and uncomfortable when they looked back at the old design.

Others, however, found the original spacing to be ideal and wanted to see as much information as possible without scrolling, even on a large monitor. We added a density setting to the gear menu in the toolbar to make sure that everybody can find a setting that works for them: Comfortable, Cozy, or Compact.

Comfortable is the spacing that we recommend for most people. With your density set to Comfortable, the display adjusts fluidly based on screen size.


Compact is the densest setting and matches the line spacing that existing Gmail users are used to. With your density set to Compact the display will stay dense no matter what size your window is.


Cozy is somewhere in the middle. With your density set to Cozy the display will get a little denser when you make your window small but the changes aren't as dramatic.

Mathletes among you may recognize that the density setting is really a ceiling function.

We think Gmail should be smart enough to always make itself look good on your screen, so we incorporated responsive design. We also think you should be able to see what happens when you change your settings, so we put the density settings in the gear menu right next to your inbox. When you make a change, you can immediately see what it looks like. Our density settings reflect our design philosophy that Gmail's new look should be more responsive, personal, and beautiful.

You can switch to the new look today by clicking on Switch to the new look in the bottom-right of Gmail.
URL: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/changing-information-density-in-gmails.html

[G] Google Catalogs: More brands, more categories, more fun

Posted: 07 Nov 2011 01:50 PM PST

Official Google Mobile Blog: Google Catalogs: More brands, more categories, more fun

(Cross posted on the Google Commerce Blog)

Since our launch in August, we've been hard at work to bring more great content to Google Catalogs. Today we're excited to announce that we've doubled our collection of catalogs to include more than 100 brands and 300 individual issues from the catalogs you love, like Williams-Sonoma, Sephora and Nordstrom.

Thanks to our ever-growing list of partners, we've expanded the app to include six new catalog categories for you to shop. Love gadgets or the great outdoors? Looking for that perfect holiday treat to send to a friend? Well, look no further than our newly launched catalogs and categories:

Google Catalogs lets you create a collage of your favorite items from across many catalogs. You can even share your collages with friends and family - a visual way to show them what's on your list this holiday season!

We've also added a number of great brands to our existing categories, including: Barneys, Tory Burch and Trina Turk (Fashion & Apparel); BeautyBar (Beauty); Blu Dot, FLOR, and Ballard Designs (Home); Hanna Andersson, CWDkids, and Serena & Lily (Kids); and Garnet Hill, Uncommon Goods, and Wine Enthusiast (Gifts).

In the mood to kick off your holiday shopping? Visit the App Store to download the free Google Catalogs app for iPad.

Posted by Abigail Holtz, Business Product Manager, Google Catalogs Team
URL: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-catalogs-more-brands-more.html

[G] Web Analytics TV #22 - The Automation episode

Posted: 07 Nov 2011 01:50 PM PST

Google Analytics Blog: Web Analytics TV #22 - The Automation episode

Welcome to another delightful episode of Web Analytics TV! Web Analytics TV, as you well know by now, is powered by your amazing questions. In this wonderful episode we had questions from Australia, Denmark, India, Sweden, Germany andThe Netherlands.



If you're new to this show, our process is simple.





Step 1: You ask, or vote on, your favorite web analytics questions. Vote on next week's questions using this Web Analytics TV Google Moderator site.



Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer them. :-)


In this episode we award the "Ninja of the Episode" and award it to Niklas in Sweden, for a great question about the difference between events and custom variables. Niklas, just email us and we'll send you a signed copy of Web analytics 2.0.


OK. Here is the list of last episodes questions.


In this action packed episode we discuss:
  • (0:23) Best practices for rollup reporting across multiple sites (See answer below)

  • (0:53) Reporting secure search in Google Analytics

  • (3:27) Troubleshooting funnel navigation reports

  • (4:31) Comparing using event tracking and session level custom variables.

  • (6:28) Measuring how visitors who interact with a video influence conversions

  • (7:35) When data in Google Analytics updated

  • (9:55) Representing multiple date ranges by column

  • (11:04) Best practices for tracking widgets

  • (11:40) Exporting greater than 500 rows from Google Analytics

  • (13:43) Comparing days to purchase by medium

  • (15:20) Using multiple tracking codes on the same page (see answer below)

  • (16:25) Best practices using custom variables to track multivariate test information

  • (18:10) Reporting across multiple currencies in Google Analytics

  • (19:10) Segmenting 'serious' visitors by loyalty and engagement metrics

  • (21:32) Measuring click to call buttons in your mobile websites

  • (22:45) The best and most time efficient way to put Google Analytics data into a powerPoint

  • (23:47) Tracking cross-sells or up-sells on a product page

  • (26:05) Tracking multiple ids or paths per page

  • (26:45) Why single page website show time on site metrics

  • (28:27) Using the reverse page path report for analysis

  • (30:21) Do profile filters impact site search reports

  • (32:39) How to get fast traffic in your reports





Here are the links to the topics we discuss:
There was one question asked which we needed to get more information. 


"What is your recommendation to simultaneously track data for a local site & having a roll-up profile to track aggregate data across all sites of a company."


What we learned was that there are 25+ sites on different domains split across 2 business units. A simple solution is to pull out data using the API to create any rollup reports you need. Another option is to have multiple tracking codes on the same page, and have one code be the same across all the sites. That way all the data is sent into a single report which you can view.


One thing to keep in mind, is that each site will track visitors separately. So visitor numbers will not be accurate across all the sites.


So hopefully this helps you out. As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.


If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.


This series would not be possible without your awesome questions. Please submit them on our public Google Moderator site, and while you're there don't forget to vote for your favorite questions.  Avinash and I will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.




Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics team


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tRaA/~3/waXSKvEVL50/web-analytics-tv-22-automation-episode.html

[G] Scilab reaches for the sky

Posted: 07 Nov 2011 01:50 PM PST

Google Open Source Blog: Scilab reaches for the sky


In France we say "Jamais deux sans trois" (everything comes in threes, if it's happened twice, it'll happen a third time). Scilab (free and open source software for numerical computation) was happy to keep this saying alive this year as we participated in our third year as a Google Summer of Code mentoring organization. Each year we have been impressed by the growing quality and diversity of projects submitted to us, the involvement of the selected students and the pleasure they have in working in the open source community. Our experience as a mentoring organization in Google Summer of Code shows us that even professional software raises interest amongst students yearning to contribute to its development both on a technical and professional level. For us, this is an acknowledgment of success in our daily work.

We consider our experience this year to be a very positive one as of the 9 selected Scilab projects, 7 have been successfully completed. We chose to focus here on the experience and work of two of our students that seem to be very representative of our Google Summer of Code experience.

CGLAB Module (a CGAL-based extension) by Edyta Przymus
Edyta's work consisted in providing a binding of CGAL available from Scilab to offer to users of advanced computational geometry functions. Edyta got involved in the Google Summer of Code following the advice of a friend of hers who was one of our students in the 2010 edition of the program. She chose to work on Scilab because she considers it to be essential software in her domain of study: control theory and robotics. Edyta told us that participating in Google Summer of Code was a unique and wonderful experience that gave her a lot of satisfaction. She considers herself a more confident programmer (she wrote her first lines of code only 2 years ago) and has learned to organize her work process and correct her own bugs. She is continuing to work on her project in response to users' demand and improving her code along the way.

A release of Edyta's project (tagged as 2.0) has been published in ATOMS (the Scilab module packaging system).

Introduce a Scilab backend to Cantor by Filipe Saraiva
The goal of Filipe's project was to provide the power of Scilab to Cantor software, a Qt/KDE front end for numerical computing software. Filipe Saraiva worked on the introduction of Scilab and its capabilities as a backend computing engine. Filipe was fond of Scilab since he began using it as an undergraduate. He considers it to be the best free tool available for numerical programming and is proud to have been able to help further its development. He summarizes his experience in the program by saying he learned how important communication is in development work, and that Google Summer of Code was an unique program to learn programming and management in free software communities that he could not find at university.

To achieve his project with success, Filipe worked very progressively. He began by studying the other back ends implemented in Cantor to see how they worked and how he could do the same for Scilab in enabling communication between the two software environments. In the midst of developing all the new needed features, he encountered some difficulties, which pushed him to consider and learn the specifics of the whole ecosystem of his application like kcfg and the processing of XML files in Q.

Since Filipe needed to modify some piece of code in Scilab itself, the Cantor/Scilab connector will not be released until Scilab 5.4.0.

The complete descriptions of all Scilab projects including the five other projects, Binary patching by Stefan Mihaila, Dakota module by Yann Chapalain, Mexlib from Scilab by Luri de Silvio, Accurate and Portable Elementary Functions by Shashank Sahni and .net called from Scilab by Igor Gridchyn are available on the Scilab website.

One of our students told us that working with technology and software used by thousands of people was rewarding. On the same note, having the opportunity to work with such passionate students each year thanks to the Google Summer of Code program is rewarding for us too, and we are thankful to Google for this opportunity.

By Julie Paul & Sylvestre Ledru, Scilab Mentors


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleOpenSourceBlog/~3/ywAELOmXWtg/scilab-reaches-for-sky.html

[G] Grow your audience with Google+

Posted: 07 Nov 2011 01:50 PM PST

Inside AdSense: Grow your audience with Google+


At Google, we help grow your audience by connecting you with new users. We introduced the +1 button so your site would stand out on search and your users could easily share your content on Google+. But, sometimes you want to join the conversation and post content directly to where people are sharing.

Today we're introducing Google+ for Business, a collection of tools and products that help you grow your audience. At the core of this is Google+ Pages, your site's identity on Google+.

Google+ Pages: Have real conversations with the right people
To get your site on Google+, you first need to create a Google+ Page. On your page, you can engage in conversations with your visitors, direct readers back to your site for the latest updates, send tailored messages to specific groups of people, and see how many +1's you have across the web. Google+ Pages will help you build relationships with your users, encouraging them to spend more time engaging with your content.




Google+ Pages are at the heart of Google+ for Business


Hangouts





Sometimes you might want to chat with your users face-to-face.  For example, if you run a food blog, you may want to invite a chef to talk about her favorite recipe, or if you manage a fashion review site, beauty specialists might want to hold how-to sessions with makeup tips. Hangouts make this easy, by letting you have high-quality video chats with nine people with a single click. You can use Hangouts to hold live forums, break news or simply get to know people better, all in real time.






Hangouts let you meet your customers, face-to-face



Circles





Circles allow you to group followers of your Page into smaller audiences. You can then share specific messages with specific groups. For example, you could create a Circle containing your most loyal readers and offer them exclusive content.





The Google+ badge: Grow your audience on Google+

To help your users find your page and start sharing, there are two buttons you can add to your site by visiting our Google+ badge configuration tool:






The Google+ icon, a small icon that directly links to your Page.





The Google+ badge, which we're introducing in the coming days. This badge lets people add your page to their circles without leaving your site, and allows them to get updates from your site via Google+.

 





Extend the power of +1, stand out in Google search
You can also link your site to your Google+ page so that all your +1s -- from your Page, your website, and search results -- will get tallied together and appear as a single total. Potential visitors will be more likely to see the recommendations your site has received, whether they're looking at a search result, your website, or your Page, meaning your +1's will reach not only the 40 million users of Google+, but all the people who come to Google every day. You can link your site to your Page either using the Google+ badge or with a  piece of code. To set this up, visit our Google+ badge configuration tool.

Bringing Google+ to the rest of Google






Our ultimate vision for Google+ is to transform the overall Google experience -- weaving identity and sharing into all of our products. Beginning today, we're rolling out a new experimental feature to a small group of eligible publishers, Google+ Direct Connect -- an easy way for your audience to find your Google+ Page on Google search.  If you've linked your Page to your site and you qualify, when someone searches for your website's name with the '+' sign before it Direct Connect will send them directly to your Page. For example, try searching for '+YouTube' on Google. Users will also be prompted to automatically add Pages they find through Direct Connect to their circles. 






Direct Connect suggestions start populating as you type on Google.com


Just the beginning
We want to help you get your site on Google+ as soon as possible, so we're opening the field trial for Google+ Pages to everyone today. Creating a Google+ Page only takes a few minutes. To get started, you'll need a personal Google+ profile. If you don't have a Google account, it's very quick and easy to join. And if you're looking for inspiration, check out some of the sites that are already starting to set up their Pages:


Partner LogosBurberryHMMacysPepsiABC NewsAmazonAssassins_CreedATTBreaking_NewsOrangeDC_ComicsDellNBC_NewsGol_Linhas_aerasKiaLOrealMarvelNYTimesPiagetShadyTmobileToyotaUniqloVirgin



To learn more about how Google+ works for your site, check out the Google+ Your Business site. We're just getting started, and have many more features planned for the coming weeks and months. To keep up to date on the latest news and tips, add the Google+ Your Business page to your circles. If you have ideas on how we can improve Google+ for your site, we'd love to hear them.



Posted by Dennis Troper, Product Management Director, Google+ Pages


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tuAm/~3/dkhh642YTas/grow-your-audience-with-google.html

[G] A new way to connect with Gmail and friends

Posted: 07 Nov 2011 01:50 PM PST

Official Gmail Blog: A new way to connect with Gmail and friends

Posted by Sarah Price, Community Manager

Today, the Google+ team launched Pages, a new way for you to build relationships with the things you love. We're looking forward to connecting with you on our new Gmail page on Google+.


When you add the Gmail page to your Google+ Circles, you'll see updates from our team, including launches, tips and tricks, and more. You'll be able to discuss those updates with other Gmail users in the comments on the posts. Mention +Gmail when you share your own tips -- if we see a really stellar tip, we might reshare it. We're also planning to hold regular Hangouts, so you can shoot the breeze with Google community managers, engineers, product managers and designers.

In addition to Gmail news, we'll feature some of your other favorite Google products, including Google Calendar, Google Voice, Google Chat and Google Tasks. Be sure to add the Gmail page to your Circles and let us know what you think.
URL: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-way-to-connect-with-gmail-and.html

[G] Welcoming you to +YouTube

Posted: 07 Nov 2011 01:50 PM PST

YouTube Blog: Welcoming you to +YouTube

This morning the Google+ team launched Google+ Pages, making it easier for you to connect with things you care about like businesses, brands and products. To help you find more of what you're into at YouTube, we're kicking off +YouTube to share news and start conversations from all areas of YouTube. We're bringing you the latest from news to music and live streamed events, as well as partners and everyday people doing amazing things with video.









Expect to discuss and experience the many ways you're changing the world through video, and we hope you'll join us by adding us to your circles. Tell us what you think is awesome, what you want featured and, like YouTube, you can help make this page your own.



You can read more about Google+ Pages and see other brands involved at the Official Google Blog here, and if you don't have a Google+ account yet you can sign up here.



Danielle Paquette, Social Media Manager, recently watched "YouTube Challenge - I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Halloween Candy."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/iHm3aiW-6wc/welcoming-you-to-youtube.html

[G] Google+ Pages: connect with all the things you care about

Posted: 07 Nov 2011 01:50 PM PST

Official Google Blog: Google+ Pages: connect with all the things you care about

In life we connect with all kinds of people, places and things. There's friends and family, of course, but there's also the sports teams we root for, the coffee shops we're loyal to, and the TV shows we can't stop watching (to name a few).

So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people. But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we're rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.



People + pages, better together
Google+ has always been a place for real-life sharing, and Google+ Pages is no exception. After all: behind every page (or storefront, or four-door sedan) is a passionate group of individuals, and we think you should able to connect with them too.

For you and me, this means we can now hang out live with the local bike shop, or discuss our wardrobe with a favorite clothing line, or follow a band on tour. Google+ pages give life to everything we find in the real world. And by adding them to circles, we can create lasting bonds with the pages (and people) that matter most.

For businesses and brands, Google+ pages help you connect with the customers and fans who love you. Not only can they recommend you with a +1, or add you to a circle to listen long-term. They can actually spend time with your team, face-to-face-to-face. All you need to do is start sharing, and you'll soon find the super fans and loyal customers that want to say hello.

A number of pages are already available (see below), but any organization will soon be able to join the community at plus.google.com/pages/create.
* You can join Kermit and Ms. Piggy for a live Hangout on the Muppets' Google+ page today at 4:30pm PT!

Direct Connect from Google search
People search on Google billions of times a day, and very often, they're looking for businesses and brands. Today's launch of Google+ Pages can help people transform their queries into meaningful connections, so we're rolling out two ways to add pages to circles from Google search. The first is by including Google+ pages in search results, and the second is a new feature called Direct Connect.

Maybe you're watching a movie trailer, or you just heard that your favorite band is coming to town. In both cases you want to connect with them right now, and Direct Connect makes it easy—even automatic. Just go to Google and search for [+], followed by the page you're interested in (like +Angry Birds). We'll take you to their Google+ page, and if you want, we'll add them to your circles.

Direct Connect works for a limited number of pages today (like +Google, +Pepsi, and +Toyota), but many more are coming. In the meantime, organizations can learn more about Direct Connect in our Help Center.



With Google+, we strive to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. Today's initial launch of Google+ Pages brings us a little bit closer, but we've still got lots of improvements planned, and miles to go before we sleep. So stay tuned.

Posted by Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-pages-connect-with-all-things.html

[G] Powering a new job search engine for military veterans

Posted: 07 Nov 2011 01:50 PM PST

Official Google Blog: Powering a new job search engine for military veterans

(Cross-posted on the Inside Search blog and the Public Policy blog)

Earlier today, President Obama spoke about the importance of helping returning military veterans find work. Thousands of businesses have committed to hiring military veterans and families and as part of this nationwide effort, starting today, job seekers can visit the National Resource Directory (NRD) to search more than 500,000 job openings from employers around the country.


We have been working with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide a customized job search engine for the NRD, using Google Custom Search technology. This custom search engine uses the power and scale of Google search to constantly crawl the web, looking for JobPosting markup from Schema.org on sites like simplyhired.com to identify veteran-committed job openings. An employer can easily add a job posting to NRD simply by adding that markup to their own web page. As pages are updated or removed from the web, they're automatically updated and removed from the system, keeping the available job postings on NRD fresh and up to date.

If you're an employer, you can find more information on how to participate on nationalresourcedirectory.gov. In addition, organizations such as local veterans' groups can help people find jobs by adding a veteran-committed jobs search box to their websites.

We're happy to contribute to this important initiative and hope businesses use this opportunity to connect with veterans seeking employment.

Posted by Christina Chen, Product Manager, Custom Search Team
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/powering-new-job-search-engine-for.html
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