Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Googland

Googland

[G] Celebrating the Google Photography Prize Finalists

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 06:42 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Celebrating the Google Photography Prize Finalists

Back in November we announced the Google Photography Prize 2012, a competition offering student photographers a chance to share their best photographs with the world.

Groundbreaking photographer Ansel Adams once said, "There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs," so we left the themes for submission suitably broad, with 10 categories that combined classic photography genres with online photography trends including "Night," "Travel," "Sound/Silence" and "Me."

We were thrilled by the interest in the contest: nearly 20,000 students from 146 countries took part, of which 100 were shortlisted. You can see these in the gallery on our website.

Our judging panel of seven leading photography experts chose the 10 finalists whose work will be shown in our exhibition in the Saatchi Gallery. Today we're announcing the finalists: Collin Avery (U.S.), Viktor Johansson (Sweden), Kyrre Lien (Norway), Alexandra Claudia Manta (Romania), Balázs Maté (Hungary), Adi Sason (Israel), Oliver Seary (UK), Dana Stirling (Israel), Sasha Tamarin (Israel), Zhao Yi (China). Here are examples of the finalists' work—you can see their full albums on their Google+ profiles.



If you're in London, come to the Saatchi Gallery to see the work of our finalists displayed alongside a new exhibition of international photography, Out of Focus, starting April 25. The overall winner of the Google Photography Prize will be announced on April 24, and will go on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to a location of their choice with a professional photographer as their mentor.

We hope you enjoy these fantastic photos as much as we did.

Posted by Obi Felten, Director of Consumer Marketing EMEA
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/celebrating-google-photography-prize.html

[G] Save the date! Announcing Geo Teachers Institutes for Ireland and England

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 02:41 PM PDT

Google Lat Long: Save the date! Announcing Geo Teachers Institutes for Ireland and England


Educators all over the world have used Google's geo products to help students conceptualize, visualize, share and communicate information about the world around them.

This summer, we will host two Google Geo Teachers Institutes: June 13 and 14, 2012 in Dublin, Ireland and June 20 and 21, 2012 in London, England. Both events will be held at the local Google office.

This two-day event is a free professional development experience designed to help educators get the most from Google's geography-related products and technologies. Participants receive hands-on experience and learn best practices and tips for using Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google SketchUp, including a focus on features like Ocean, Mars, Moon and Sky in Google Earth.

Attendees will also learn about innovative instructional strategies, theoretical foundations, and receive resources to share with colleagues. Speakers will share real life examples of how they are using these tools in their classrooms across all subjects. We hope this event will empower educators to bring the world's geographic information to students in a compelling, fresh, and fun way.

Educators at the 2011 Google Teachers Institute

If you are interested in joining us, please complete this application by April 30, 2012. We will send out invitations based on availability by May 11, 2012. Even if you can't make it to this event, we have many online resources available on the Google Earth for Educators and SketchUp for Education websites. Check back often for updates!

Posted by Tina Ornduff, Geo Education Program Manager
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2012/04/save-date-announcing-geo-teachers.html

[G] A bird’s eye view of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee procession

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 02:41 PM PDT

Google Lat Long: A bird's eye view of The Queen's Diamond Jubilee procession


Following the royal wedding in 2011, the eyes of the world will again be on London as we celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. As part of her Jubilee celebrations, The Queen will take part in a procession along some of London's most famous landmarks. We've created a 3D aerial view video of the procession route, providing a virtual tour of the landmarks that The Queen will pass.

The procession starts with a view of New Palace Yard, leading up through Whitehall, past the Cenotaph war memorial, a focal point for Remembrance Sunday. It then moves on to pass Downing Street, home of the British Prime Minister and around Trafalgar Square. The route then goes through Admiralty Arch before heading up the Mall and ending at Buckingham Palace.



The summer of 2012 is set to draw in millions of visitors to the UK. With this massive influx of people unfamiliar with the area, many would need to find their bearings. Both Google Earth and Google Maps can help people to plan their trips and learn about the places they are visiting, whether they're on a mobile or a desktop computer. In addition to the Diamond Jubilee procession route, you can view thousands of buildings, landmarks and areas across London with the 3D buildings feature in Google Earth.

To explore London landmarks in Google Earth, check the 3D buildings box in the left-hand panel under "Layers," then type "London" in the search bar on the top left and use the navigation controls in the upper right to zoom in, spin around and tilt the view. Alternatively, you can go to Earth View on Google Maps in your browser.

Whether you're hoping to catch a real glimpse of The Queen celebrating 60 years on the throne from one of London's vantage points, or you're viewing this on a television, we know that seeing the procession route in 3D will bring the Diamond Jubilee to life.

This video and further information about the Diamond Jubilee is available on the official website.

Posted by Phil Verney, Google Earth Program Manager
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2012/04/birds-eye-view-of-queens-diamond.html

[G] Mobile Mondays: Setting goals for mobile monetization

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 02:41 PM PDT

Inside AdSense: Mobile Mondays: Setting goals for mobile monetization




This is the first post in our 'Mobile Mondays' series. Throughout the next couple of months we'll highlight best practices to help you get the most from your mobile content. From time to time, we'll also share stories directly from publishers who have recently gone mobile.



We recently announced our 11 billionth app download from Android Play. Given the consumer movement towards the small screen, it's important to consider how much of this consumed media was created specifically for mobile. Once you've successfully taken your business mobile, you can capitalize on this with some key optimization steps. Below, we'll outline ways you can get the most out of your mobile content. Before any optimization can take place, you'll need a clear view of your business goals on mobile.



The importance of goals

There are no rules around mobile strategies, but mobile businesses need clearly defined goals  in order to be successful. If you're an online-only publisher, your goals might revolve around engagement and visits. If you have location-specific content, you may want to incorporate local elements into your mobile offering. Your business goals should align with the needs of your users.



Prioritization is a key element in goal-setting. You might think that all publishers have acquisition goals around new users prioritized most highly -- after all, who wouldn't want to reach new audiences? Consider a mobile forum and message board website. They'll want new users discovering and using their online discussion site, but this should occur organically if their existing user base creates discussions with sufficient breadth and depth. In this instance, it could be beneficial for the forum owners to focus on website optimization (driving engagement), rather than new user acquisition.



With these possible goals in mind, here are some tips to help you optimize your content for a mobile audience:


Goal #1: Drive traffic and new customer acquisition


  • Cross-promotion: This is an easy and cost-effective way to leverage your existing user base to drive users to your mobile site.

  • Advertising: Mobile website optimization now factors into mobile search ads quality. To find out more about advertising on mobile devices, visit our Mobile Ads site.

  • Localize: China, Korea, Japan, and the U.S. represent some of the biggest markets for mobile media consumption. Track your usage in regions and consider building out a localized app for regions where it's most popular. 

  • Create new, unique mobile content for new mobile audiences. Men's Health understood that their target audience used smartphones in the gym to listen to music. As a result, they created a mobile app with workout exercises -- handy for when their users have the phone with them in the gym.


Goal #2: Drive engagement


  • Website optimization: If one of your goals is to retain users who want access to content on-the-go, use Google Analytics to help you choose the most effective content for your site. A recent survey (Omniture, 2010) found that Mobile- friendly web experiences have produced an average 75% higher rate of engagement (revenue, page views, etc.) per visit for mobile users, than desktop websites viewed through a mobile device.

  • Brand engagement: Make use of the extended functionality of a mobile device (GPS, Camera, SMS).


Goal #3: Maximize revenue


  • When designing a mobile-optimized site, it's key to focus on the overall user experience and what you want to achieve as a publisher. This is especially true if your core business model is built around advertising revenue or if it's a strong contributor of profit. Consider the type of ad units and formats that you plan to incorporate, which will help you make the most of monetization opportunities without compromising content. To find out more, download our publisher guide or our Android app to explore the range of our mobile ad formats.


We've placed "publisher goals" into three categories using broad brush strokes above. In reality, it's unlikely your ambitions will be as narrow in scope. We hope you'll be able to pick an optimization step (or a combination of steps) tailored to your particular site.



Posted by Robbie Wetherell, Mobile Publisher Advocate


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tuAm/~3/zfpVol8Ina8/mobile-mondays-setting-goals-for-mobile.html

[G] Get A Free Mobile Site With GoMo ...And Measure It With Google Analytics

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 02:41 PM PDT

Google Analytics Blog: Get A Free Mobile Site With GoMo ...And Measure It With Google Analytics


According to a survey from Limelight Networks, 80% of customers abandon a mobile site if they have a bad user experience. You might be seeing this yourself if you look at your mobile reports within Google Analytics and notice a high bounce rate from visitors using mobile devices. Here at Google, we're very conscious of the shift to mobile and want to make it easy for you to provide a great mobile experience to customers, and of course measure the results.





That's why we're pleased to announce that GoMo (a Google-led initiative dedicated to helping businesses "Go Mobile") and DudaMobile have joined forces to make it easy for small businesses to create a mobile-friendly website at howtogomo.com. This do-it-yourself site builder, customized specifically for GoMo users, easily converts regular websites into mobile-friendly sites in five simple steps. And it allows you to add features like a click-to-call button, mobile maps and Google AdSense. Sites that are created with the GoMo-DudaMobile tool will be hosted free for one year. 






















































And of course, your mobile site traffic will be measured for you to analyze in Google Analytics. If you sign up for the DudaMobile service offered on the GoMo site, you can easily add your existing GA tracking code via "site settings" option. 





Please note that DudaMobile's technology is best for converting simple sites. If your site uses a lot of Flash content, framesets or e-commerce, we suggest that you Go Mobile by talking to your agency or working with one of the developers here.





Many people think mobile is the future of computing. It's actually the present. We live in a multi-platform, multi-device world and continue to be trending to an "always on" society where users expect to be able to access information, websites and apps wherever they go. Ready to get started? Find out more by visiting the GoMo website.



Posted by Adam Singer, Google Analytics team


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tRaA/~3/2OdKCGk0oUM/get-free-mobile-site-with-gomo-and.html

[G] Celestica embraces Google Apps to improve global collaboration

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 09:34 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Celestica embraces Google Apps to improve global collaboration

Posted by Mary Gendron, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, at Celestica

Editors note: Today's guest blogger is Mary Gendron, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, at Celestica, a Toronto-based innovative supply chain solutions company that provides end-to-end product lifecycle solutions from design and manufacturing through to delivery and after-market support.

Our talented global team is dedicated to delivering innovative supply chain solutions to our customers – helping them to stand out in their markets. This requires our employees to work together effectively and increase the sharing of knowledge and ideas across functions and geographies.

After piloting Google Apps, we quickly realized it would enable our global workforce to work more collaboratively, and as a result, we have recently decided to move 19,000 of our employees to Google Apps. Now my team can meet spontaneously using the video chat feature in Gmail or draft our team strategy simultaneously in a Google Doc. That type of collaboration allows us to build on everyone's ideas to develop better solutions. Also, by sharing a document where all team members have the opportunity to contribute, everyone is invested in the project because we did it together.

Because we're no longer tied to different time zones or other people's schedules, we can work together where we want, when we want, and we can all edit a document together in real time. With Google Apps, the stress of compiling edits in time for a meeting or ensuring you are presenting the final version of a deck are gone. Recently, I was working on a strategy document with my team. I could close my laptop in the evening and know that, when I woke up, those in a different time zone or who preferred to work at night would have added their comments and input directly in the document. Overall, we're accomplishing more together and faster than before.

We're in the early stages, but I believe Google Apps will help us achieve our objectives faster, more efficiently and with greater success.
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2012/04/celestica-embraces-google-apps-to.html

[G] MGM Titles Roar onto YouTube and Google Play

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 09:34 AM PDT

YouTube Blog: MGM Titles Roar onto YouTube and Google Play

If there's one consistent opening image moviegoers around the world know and equate with great cinema, it's Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Roaring Lion (a clip that has over 1 million views on YouTube). For nearly 90 years, MGM has brought some of the best and most memorable films to the silver screen. Today, through a new partnership with MGM, we've started adding more than 600 titles for rent to YouTube and Google Play users in the U.S. and Canada. MGM joins five of the six major studios and over ten independent movie studios, currently offering movies for rent on YouTube and Google Play.

According to a recent IHS Screen Digest study, online movie watching in the U.S. will double this year and will make up the majority of people's home entertainment viewing. Thanks to MGM, you'll be able to join in this trend and grab its movies online and on the go. From timeless love stories like West Side Story and Moonstruck, to sci-fi action films like The Terminator and Robocop, to modern classics like Rain Man and Rocky, you can now rediscover MGM's moviemaking magic on Google Play and YouTube.

Thanks to our new partnership, you can now discover, share and watch MGM's classic films on YouTube and Google Play. And keep checking back as more MGM titles will be added in the weeks ahead.

Jonathan Zepp, Manager of TV/Film Content Partnerships, recently rented "Hoosiers"


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/f5AAZcO_XZk/mgm-titles-roar-onto-youtube-and-google.html
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