Googland |
- [G] Let the games begin!
- [G] One more present under the tree—custom video messages from Santa
- [G] Scribbles for Gmail for mobile - a creative way to email
- [G] Music Tuesday: Songs of the Season and more
- [G] Advanced Segments for Holiday campaigns
- [G] One more present under the tree—custom video messages from Santa
- [G] One more present under the tree—custom video messages from Santa
- [G] New 45° imagery for Detroit and 4 other cities
- [G] What were we watching this year? Let’s rewind 2011.
- [G] Google Docs and Sites 2011: A Year in Review
- [G] Smarter default font settings
- [G] Ending the year with another clean energy investment
- [G] What were we watching this year? Let’s rewind 2011.
| Posted: 21 Dec 2011 04:36 AM PST Google Chrome Blog: Let the games begin!Every year, lots of people have fun tracking Santa as he takes flight around the world to deliver gifts. This year, Santa is getting some help from the Chrome Web Store elves who have already started delivering the gifts of gaming to more than 200 million Chrome users.The first gift of the season is Bejeweled. Bejeweled is one of the most successful online games of all time; the brand new Chrome edition features Classic and Speed modes and flaunts impressive new visual effects created with HTML5.  For those of you who love action games, we have another special gift: Bastion, the award winning role-playing game (RPG) is now available exclusively in the Chrome Web Store. Featuring stunning hand-painted artwork and action-packed combat, Bastion has already destroyed the productivity in our office.  Bastion is part of a set of new games coming to the web for the first time, thanks to Native Client - a new technology that enables console-quality games on the web. You can check out Sleepy Jack, Pocket Legends, and more of these new and upcoming games in the video below. Finally, several other Chrome Web Store favorites have holiday updates of their own. Angry Birds features many new holiday-themed levels and Cargo Bridge has released a special Christmas level edition. Discover these and thousands of other games in the Chrome Web Store. Posted by Christos Apartoglou, Product Marketing Manager  URL: http://chrome.blogspot.com/2011/12/let-games-begin.html       |
| [G] One more present under the tree—custom video messages from Santa Posted: 21 Dec 2011 04:36 AM PST The Google Apps Blog: One more present under the tree—custom video messages from SantaPosted by Trevor Claiborne, Product Marketing ManagerLast Friday Santa opened up the Ho Ho Hotline and teamed up with Gmail to send personalized holiday phone calls to anyone you know who has been nice (or naughty, for that matter) in the U.S. or Canada. In just a few days Santa has made hundreds of thousands of calls to your friends, family and loved ones, and received many a message from you at his Google Voice number (855-34-SANTA). Santa has one more surprise in store. Starting today, anyone in the world can create and send a personalized cartoon video message (in English only) from Santa to anyone you know, anywhere in the world, and share them through email and Google+. Watch our sample video below and create your own at SendaCallFromSanta.com. The Gmail team wishes you a happy holiday!   URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleAppsBlog/~3/x-h0hVDqjyI/one-more-present-under-treecustom-video.html   |
| [G] Scribbles for Gmail for mobile - a creative way to email Posted: 21 Dec 2011 04:36 AM PST The Google Apps Blog: Scribbles for Gmail for mobile - a creative way to emailPosted by Donna Dupuis, Software EngineerFrom prehistoric humans etching in caves to the modern-day thinker sketching a stroke of genius on a napkin, scribbling is a natural form of human expression. Not constrained by formatting or font styles, scribbling is a versatile outlet for expressing individuality and creativity. Not to mention it's a lot of fun. Now you can quickly convey that eureka moment to a colleague, or simply brighten a loved one's day with a personal scribble in Gmail for the mobile web browser and the Gmail app for iOS. In the compose view, click on the scribble button to open up the drawing window. A lightweight interface makes it easy to get your idea down. Need a bit of inspiration to get started? With the holidays just around the corner, it's a great time to send a handmade, festive greeting:  Or, perhaps your wit is better-expressed pictorially than textually. Use scribbles to send original comics to your friends, or generate a new meme:    Simple requests are that much more appealing from someone who puts in a bit of effort:  It's also great for simply emoting beyond the limitations of plain text:  At the end of the day, it's a blank canvas. What do you want to share? To get started, head to mail.google.com on your iOS 4+, Android 3.1+ or Playbook device, or download the Gmail app for iOS from the App Store today. We want to see what you can do! Send your scribbles to gmailscribbles@google.com and then share them with the world using #GmailScribbles.* Brought to you by the Gmail team. Happy Holidays!  *By emailing your scribble to gmailscribbles@google.com, you give us your permission to upload, share or reproduce your scribble both digitally and physically. Unfortunately, we will not be able to showcase all submitted scribbles, and will have to pick and choose amongst the ones that we receive. Remember: have fun and be cool about it - nothing offensive and nothing that violates the law. Thanks!   URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleAppsBlog/~3/n3mA9612eNc/scribbles-for-gmail-for-mobile-creative.html   |
| [G] Music Tuesday: Songs of the Season and more Posted: 21 Dec 2011 04:36 AM PST YouTube Blog: Music Tuesday: Songs of the Season and moreWe have two early presents for you this week—a playlist of seasonal songs, and a retrospective from Daptone Records first fantastic 10 years. Plus don't miss Common performing from our New York office as part of YouTube Presents.Songs for the Season We celebrate the holidays by showing off the best performers in the world: you. These are your videos, your songs, your unique (and sometimes hilarious) takes on how to make this season bright. We've got four-part harmony how-to videos, acoustic greatness, joyful animation and even a dubstep take on "Carol of the Bells." Thanks for all you do. Daptone Records 10 Year Anniversary In the ten years since Daptone Records opened its creaking doors, retromania has gone from a marginal concept to one that has a book named after it. Daptone was founded on love: love for the warm, organic sound of analog recording equipment and love for the funk and soul music that America produced in the 1960s. From those twin passions emerged a label devoted to classic sounds that somehow do not seem anachronistic in our digital age -- on the contrary, they're warmly welcomed. Artists like Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley and the Budos Band have become critical darlings and festival favorites. But the label perhaps had its biggest impact on the culture when it loaned its house band, the Dap-Kings, to Amy Winehouse for one fateful album. Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched "XMAS SWAGGER by Princess Superstar."     URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/x6NzQmcFDkY/music-tuesday-songs-of-season-and-more.html   |
| [G] Advanced Segments for Holiday campaigns Posted: 21 Dec 2011 04:36 AM PST Google Analytics Blog: Advanced Segments for Holiday campaignsWith only a week before the holiday gift season is over, it's time to shut down your online ads and turn off the lights at your e-store, right? Not so fast, not if you want to ride the final shopping wave!Holiday shoppers are still out in full force, and "dollars per buyer" are up 12% this year, so you're likely to get even more bang for your advertising buck. Since Christmas is on a Sunday this year, that means last-minute gift-givers could be shopping up until Thursday the 22nd if you offer 2-day shipping. However, you also have visitors looking for physical stores where they can buy your product, and (if you offer it) those willing to "pick up in store". With Advanced Segments, you can find these visitors and help them get their gift on time! The first thing to research is who were these last-minute shoppers last year? If you had goals or e-commerce tracking installed back then, shrink your date range from December 18th, 2010 to December 24th, 2010. Next, select the "Visits with Transactions" default advanced segment:  (if you don't have e-commerce tracking, you may want to create a custom advanced segment like this one:  where the goal# that you select is your most valuable goal). Then, go to the organic keywords report by navigating to Traffic Sources > Search > Organic. What keywords were these buyers searching on? Were there any good generic terms like "last minute gifts" or "gifts before christmas"? Were there any long-tail terms that are still relevant this year? If so, make sure you're bidding on these terms in your paid search accounts so you get maximum coverage on keywords that brought in revenue last season. Also be sure to check out the paid search report to see if there were any converting paid keywords from last year that you have been missing this time around. (Also try repeating this process for December 26th 2010 through January 1st 2011 to find trends during the post-Christmas week). Next, find out if there is any crossover between your online store and physical store. If you have a store locator for your physical stores (or that lists stores who sell your products), then create the following advanced segment:  With this segment applied, shrink your date range to the past seven days and go to the Pages report (under Content > Site Content) to cross-list those products against any that are out of stock (one reason why they could be checking for stores). Then, call around to make sure the physical locations have the items that these visitors are searching for. If you only sell products online, then create similar advanced segments to the one above for people who visit your most popular holiday promotional pages. Then, go to the Pages report to see what other products those visitors are viewing (and the transactions report to see what people are buying) and feature that content on the landing page to make it easy to find! One more advanced segment tip for you: It's estimated that half of online shoppers will use their mobile phone while shopping this year. This could be to locate stores, find better deals, or find coupons. This connection to shopping in the physical world will be critical for these final seven days, when shipping costs are high. Check your AdWords report, and make sure you try out the new "non-mobile", "high-end mobile" and "tablet" default segments.  You might be surprised at how your paid traffic behaves differently, so be sure to consider the device when running analysis and set up goals that make sense for them! Happy analyzing and happy holidays! Posted by Jesse Nichols, Google Analytics team     URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tRaA/~3/E2nuGToz53E/advanced-segments-for-holiday-campaigns.html   |
| [G] One more present under the tree—custom video messages from Santa Posted: 21 Dec 2011 04:36 AM PST Official Google Blog: One more present under the tree—custom video messages from SantaLast Friday Santa opened up the Ho Ho Hotline and teamed up with Gmail to send personalized holiday phone calls to anyone you know who has been nice (or naughty, for that matter) in the U.S. or Canada. In just a few days Santa has made hundreds of thousands of calls to your friends, family and loved ones, and received many a message from you at his Google Voice number (855-34-SANTA).Santa has one more surprise in store. Starting today, anyone in the world can create and send a personalized cartoon video message (in English only) from Santa to anyone you know, anywhere in the world, and share them through email and Google+. Watch our sample video below and create your own at SendaCallFromSanta.com. The Gmail team wishes you a happy holiday! Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Product Marketing Manager (Cross-posted from the Gmail blog)  URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/one-more-present-under-treecustom-video.html   |
| [G] One more present under the tree—custom video messages from Santa Posted: 21 Dec 2011 04:36 AM PST Official Gmail Blog: One more present under the tree—custom video messages from SantaPosted by Trevor Claiborne, Product Marketing ManagerLast Friday Santa opened up the Ho Ho Hotline and teamed up with Gmail to send personalized holiday phone calls to anyone you know who has been nice (or naughty, for that matter) in the U.S. or Canada. In just a few days Santa has made hundreds of thousands of calls to your friends, family and loved ones, and received many a message from you at his Google Voice number (855-34-SANTA). Santa has one more surprise in store. Starting today, anyone in the world can create and send a personalized cartoon video message (in English only) from Santa to anyone you know, anywhere in the world, and share them through email and Google+. Watch our sample video below and create your own at SendaCallFromSanta.com. The Gmail team wishes you a happy holiday! URL: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/one-more-present-under-treecustom-video.html   |
| [G] New 45° imagery for Detroit and 4 other cities Posted: 20 Dec 2011 03:27 PM PST Google LatLong: New 45° imagery for Detroit and 4 other citiesEarlier this month we highlighted 21 new cities with updated 45° imagery on Google Maps. In our last 45° imagery update of the year, we have 5 new cities from the Midwestern and Southern regions of the US.Detroit, Michigan is one of those cities I'm particularly excited to share with you. Growing up nearby this great international city, I've gotten to know its beauty, character and deep history. Recently Detroit has attracted much international attention for its auto sector and changing urban landscape. With this 45° imagery update, and also using the Street View feature of Google Maps, you can now explore for yourself the wonderful revival that has happened in Detroit's downtown core. Here at the corner of Montcalm and Woodward you can see the historic Fox Theatre and the famed Hockeytown Cafe, with the home of the Detroit Tigers and Lions just a short walk away: (If you're feeling nostalgic, you can even have a look at what the site of the old Tiger Stadium now looks like!) You can also view some of Detroit's stunning architecture, among the most beautiful in North America. The GM Renaissance Center standing proudly among many of the majestic 1920s era office buildings is a poignant contrast of Detroit's history and progress: While you're at it, be sure to take a look at other new updates in these US cities: Fayetteville, AR, Nashville-Franklin, TN, Baton Rouge, LA, Huntsville, AL Posted By Mike Pegg, Google Marketing  URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-45-imagery-for-detroit-and-4-other.html   |
| [G] What were we watching this year? Let’s rewind 2011. Posted: 20 Dec 2011 03:27 PM PST Official Google Blog: What were we watching this year? Let's rewind 2011.One hundred years into the future, when our great-grandkids look back to what was capturing the world's imagination on YouTube in 2011, what will they make of us? Will they still be delighted by babbling babies? Will they still be "so excited" about the weekend? And will they be any closer to understanding the mystery of the space-traveling toaster pastry cat?Check out YouTube.com/Rewind for a timeline of this year's most popular videos and events and to see what the world watched in 2011. Today, we rewind through the videos and channels that absorbed our collective global attention this year. To compile these lists, we looked at global view counts of popular videos uploaded throughout this year, and, in some instances, we aggregated views across multiple versions of the same video. 2011 was a year of amazing new channels and new stars being discovered, awesome creativity, and of course, Rebecca Black. It was also a year of powerful news stories playing out on YouTube, as people witnessed and documented uprisings and natural disasters, touching personal moments and moments of protest. In total, there were more than 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) playbacks on YouTube this year (yep, count 'em, 12 zeroes). That's about 140 views for every person on the earth. More than twice as many stars as in the Milky Way. And if I had a penny for every … OK, you get my drift, it's a big number. So to all of you who picked up a guitar and sang a love song, held your camera phone high above a protesting crowd, danced along to "Friday" or just forgot the webcam was on, thank you. You make YouTube what it is, and we can't wait to hear your stories next year. Without further ado, your most-viewed videos of 2011. Most-viewed YouTube videos globally (excluding videos from major music labels) (playlist)
Posted by Kevin Allocca, YouTube Trends Manager (Cross-posted from the YouTube Blog)  URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-were-we-watching-this-year-lets.html   |
| [G] Google Docs and Sites 2011: A Year in Review Posted: 20 Dec 2011 03:27 PM PST Docs Blog: Google Docs and Sites 2011: A Year in ReviewThis year, we introduced over 100 new features to Google Docs to make creating, sharing, and collaborating in the cloud an even better experience.In addition to the features you asked for the most, like page numbers and vertical merge, here are our team's favorite improvements of 2011:
Our team also loved hearing from you throughout the year: We had you ask us anything in a Reddit AMA, met our Docs and Sites Top Contributors, and held our first Docs Office Hours Google+ Hangout. Our interactions with you were constant reminders of why we build these products. Let us know in the comments what your favorite features of 2011 were -- and what you're wishing for in the new year. Thanks for following along -- we look forward to bringing you more in 2012. Happy holidays from the Google Docs team! Posted by: Jonathan Rochelle, Product Management Director  URL: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2011/12/google-docs-and-sites-2011-year-in.html   |
| [G] Smarter default font settings Posted: 20 Dec 2011 03:27 PM PST Inside AdSense: Smarter default font settingsWhen it comes to customizing the appearance of AdSense text ads, we've heard from many publishers that they aren't always sure what combinations to pick. As a starting point, we offer a set of default options for ad colors, font size and font face, which are based on positive performance across all publisher sites. Today, we're announcing an exciting improvement to our default font settings, which will optimize your ad units for your unique site and users. For each ad unit that's set to show the default font face and font size, our system will now automatically select and show the best-performing option. This best-performing option will depend on a variety of factors, including the user's viewing environment (operating system, browser) and the ad unit itself (language, size, number of ads, etc). We've tested the effects of these factors on our AdSense fonts and incorporated the best combinations into our default font settings. Our aim with this update is to help improve ad performance on your site by automatically applying optimal font settings to your ad units. Please keep in mind that this change will only affect ad units which have "AdSense default font family" and "AdSense default font size" selected. You won't be affected if you've previously set your ads to a specific font face or size, but we encourage you to give our new settings a try. To change the font settings of any existing ad unit, simply edit it under the My ads tab. If you'd like to change the preferences for future ad units you'll create, visit the Account Settings page under the Home tab, and edit the "Default ad display preferences" section. We hope you're as excited about this development as we are -- we'll continue to bring you the latest in our research around text ad options. Posted by: Stephen Yuan, AdSense Engineering    URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tuAm/~3/1zlqjHAK0zM/smarter-default-font-settings.html   |
| [G] Ending the year with another clean energy investment Posted: 20 Dec 2011 03:27 PM PST Official Google Blog: Ending the year with another clean energy investmentWe've made a new $94 million investment in a portfolio of four solar photovoltaic (PV) projects being built by Recurrent Energy near Sacramento, California. This brings our portfolio of clean energy investments to more than $915 million. We've already committed to providing funding this year to help more than 10,000 homeowners install solar PV panels on their rooftops. But this investment represents our first investment in the U.S. in larger scale solar PV power plants that generate energy for the grid—instead of on individual rooftops. These projects have a total capacity of 88 MW, equivalent to the electricity consumed by more than 13,000 homes.We're investing alongside global investment firm KKR and Recurrent Energy, a leading solar developer. Google will provide a $94 million equity investment and SunTap Energy, a new venture formed today by KKR to invest in solar projects in the U.S., will provide the remaining equity. We're joining KKR on their first renewable energy investment in the U.S. We believe investing in the renewable energy sector makes business sense and hope clean energy projects continue to attract new sources of capital to help the world move towards a more sustainable energy future.  Solar panels at one of the Recurrent projects The energy produced by these projects is already contracted for 20 years with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). SMUD recently created a feed-in tariff program (FIT) to help green the grid for Sacramento-area residents. We're excited that these projects are the first to be built under the program. We've had a busy year at Google. Since January, we've invested more than $880 million in clean energy projects. We believe the world needs a wide range of solutions—from wind, to transmission, to solar PV and concentrated solar—and we look forward to new opportunities next year to further expand our portfolio of clean energy investments. Posted by Axel Martinez, Assistant Treasurer, Google Treasury  URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/ending-year-with-another-clean-energy.html   |
| [G] What were we watching this year? Let’s rewind 2011. Posted: 20 Dec 2011 03:27 PM PST YouTube Blog: What were we watching this year? Let's rewind 2011.One hundred years into the future, when our great-grandkids look back to what was capturing the world's imagination on YouTube in 2011, what will they make of us? Will they still be delighted by babbling babies? Will they still be "so excited" about the weekend? And will they be any closer to understanding the mystery of the space-traveling toaster pastry cat?Check out YouTube.com/Rewind for a timeline of this year's most popular videos and events and to see what the world watched in 2011. Today, we rewind through the videos and channels that absorbed our collective global attention this year. To compile these lists, we looked at global view counts of popular videos uploaded throughout this year, and, in some instances, we aggregated views across multiple versions of the same video. 2011 was a year of amazing new channels and new stars being discovered, awesome creativity, and of course, Rebecca Black. It was also a year of powerful news stories playing out on YouTube, as people witnessed and documented uprisings and natural disasters, touching personal moments and moments of protest. In total, there were more than 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) playbacks on YouTube this year (yep, count 'em, 12 zeroes). That's about 140 views for every person on the earth. More than twice as many stars as in the Milky Way. And if I had a penny for every … OK, you get my drift, it's a big number. So to all of you who picked up a guitar and sang a love song, held your camera phone high above a protesting crowd, danced along to "Friday" or just forgot the webcam was on, thank you. You make YouTube what it is, and we can't wait to hear your stories next year. Without further ado, your most-viewed videos of 2011. Most viewed YouTube videos globally (excluding videos from major music labels) (playlist)
Most viewed YouTube channels globally (excluding channels from major music labels)
Most watched videos from major music labels globally (playlist)
Some highlights from other categories:
You can also check out the most-viewed videos of the year in fashion, beauty, sports, gaming, travel, fitness, food, science, tech reviews, family, pets, and wedding proposals. Kevin Allocca, YouTube Trends Manager, recently watched "Miracle on 42nd Street."    URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/EamsAWJyXAE/what-were-we-watching-this-year-lets.html   |
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