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对比Google和Caffeine搜索结果排名的工具

webmaster@eryi.org (散人) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:05:15 -0700

号称为Google“秘密武器”，代号为“Caffeine(咖啡因)”的新一代搜索引擎已经上线测试有几天了，想必很多Google重度用户都已经进行过新旧的对比。这里有几个在线工具，也许可以帮你在测试的时候提高效率。

Carter Cole 与Comparecaffeine
现在可以看得到很多将谷歌和百度搜索结果放在一起对比的工具，这两个工具的的工作模式也基本一样。输入一次关键词进行搜索，可以在一个窗口同时看到普通的Google和Caffeine的搜索结果。Comparecaffeine稍微强大一点，还可以按地区查询。

Ranking Checker
不会直接给出新旧搜索引擎的搜索结果页面，但可以让你知道网站里的关键词分别在Google和Caffeine里的排名。

Firefox插件
如果你在使用Firefox的话，可以去这个地址安装一个搜索插件，将Google Caffeine添加到Firefox搜索引擎列表中。此外，还可以使用以前介绍过的Add to Search Bar来添加。

据Google介绍，Caffeine将比现在的Google搜索在索引速度、规模、准确度和全面性等方面有较大的提升。至于Google努力数月的成果如何，还是留待用户去评判（via Google Tutor）。
版权所有，转载时必须以链接的形式注明以下声明：
原载于搜索引擎周边
链接地址 http://www.eryi.org/SearchEngines/google-caffeine-ranking-tools.html
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Google 更改“更多搜索结果”的显示方式 (2009-8-1 14:3:39)
Google为什么要缩短长网址 (2009-6-30 10:10:58)
Google的多项服务依然无法访问 (2009-6-25 8:54:33)
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What's cooking with iGoogle...

A Googler — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:05:00 -0800

We're both huge foodies, and we always love spending time in the kitchen with friends and family, especially around the holidays. Particularly during this season, many of us turn to Google when searching for recipes. But, in addition to spicing up your recipe repertoire, Google can be a huge resource in the kitchen. From helping you with sugar measurements, to jump starting ideas for unique Thanksgiving table settings, the web has made becoming a culinary master much easier.

Since many of us love to celebrate great food, we're excited to announce that we've partnered with a variety of top chefs and food industry experts to bring you some elegant new, food-focused iGoogle themes and gadgets. iGoogle is all about personalization and freshness, and in that spirit, these unique themes are sure to delight the chef in all of us. Be sure to check out our iGoogle gallery, where you'll find some tasty new themes from chefs like Alton Brown and Paula Deen, food artists like Carl Warner and James Parker and even famous bakeries like New York City's Crumbs Bake Shop and Magnolia Bakery.

In addition to these taste bud tantalizing themes, we've also partnered with many top food industry names to build a suite of new gadgets for your iGoogle page. For example, Supercook lets you input various ingredients you have on hand, then gives you some great recipes you can whip up. And if you're feeling like a night out at a new restaurant, Urbanspoon will help you pick a restaurant on the fly — all from your iGoogle page.

We hope this new element of gourmet iGoogle personalization will get you even more interested in enhancing your cooking and dining experiences. Here's to some great new food with family and friends this holiday season!

Posted by Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience and Brittany Bohnet, Product Marketing Manager

Templates now available in Google Sites

A Googler — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:30:00 -0800

I'm pleased to announce we just added a stocked gallery of site templates in Google Sites. Anyone can browse the public template gallery, and businesses using Google Apps each have a private area where employees can share site templates with coworkers.

The rate that businesses are adopting Google Sites has surpassed our expectations, and templates will make Sites even more useful by dramatically reducing the time it takes to set up collaborative workspaces like employee intranets, project tracking sites, team sites and employee profile pages. Templates let you quickly start a new site with pre-built content, embedded gadgets, page layouts, navigation links, theming and more.

You can find more about what's new and read stories from customers about why they switched to Google Sites from on-premises collaboration solutions on the Google Enterprise Blog.

And because many of you are managing personal projects with Google Sites, we also added templates for family sites, weddings, neighborhood associations, clubs, charitable causes and more to the public gallery. Check out the Google Docs Blog for other examples and details, and if you have a personal site that others could use as a template, please submit your work to the public gallery!

Posted by Scott Johnston, Product Manager

Google翻译改版增加新功能

noreply@blogger.com (joydandan) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:22:00 -0800

发表者：谷歌上海工程研究院工程师梁基

Google翻译可以将文字、网页自动翻译成各种语言方便用户访问全世界的信息。Google翻译目前提供51种语言，包含全世界98％的互联网用户。随着Google翻译新的界面，我们增加了一些新的功能可以帮助用户更快、更好地使用Google翻译。

实时翻译：现在再也不必按翻译按钮了。随着输入，Google翻译将实时显示翻译结果。

英语语音朗读：如果翻译结果是英语，可以点击左侧的小喇叭将英语朗读出来。

拼音：对于非罗马语言（例如：中文、日文、韩文）的翻译结果，可以点击“显示拼音”，获得翻译结果的发音。

原文和翻译一一对应：当翻译一大段文字时，将鼠标移动到翻译结果的任何一句句子上，可以看到与该句子对应的原文。

根据发音输入：对于阿拉伯语、波斯语、印地语，如果你无法在键盘上输入这些语言，你只需输入它们的发音，Google翻译将帮助你转换成对应的语言。

希望Google翻译的这些新功能可以帮助用户更方便地阅读、学习其他语言。如果你有任何意见或建议，欢迎来Google翻译的网上论坛讨论。

Google网站翻译工具：帮您扩大全球受众群

noreply@blogger.com (joydandan) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:44:00 -0800

发表者：Jeff Chin，Google翻译产品经理
原文：Translate your website with Google: Expand your audience globally
发表于：2009年9月30日，周三，下午2:54

将世界上所有网上内容翻译成50种语言，要花多长时间？即使世界上所有翻译夜以继日的工作，根据目前在线内容的增长速度以及庞大的网上数据量，就算只翻译其中的一小部分，也要花费数百年时间。

今天，我们很高兴地宣布推出一款由Google翻译（Google Translate）支持的新型网站翻译工具，使您能够将自己的网站内容转换成51种语言。现在，当人们访问您的网页时，如果他们使用的语言（由他们的浏览器设置决定）不同于您的网页语言，他们就会被提示，将网页自动翻译成他们自己的语言。如果访问者的语言与您的网页语言相同，就不会出现翻译栏。


点击“翻译”按钮后，自动翻译后的内容就会直接显示在您的网页上。



安装很简单——您所要做的只是将一小段代码复制并粘到您的网页上，然后就可以通过谷歌网站翻译器提高您的博客或网站的全球影响力。



自动翻译很方便，可以帮助人们快速了解网页内容。不过，它不是专业翻译的完美替代品。我们也想借此机会感谢全球各地的翻译工作者的贡献。这些译者为促进全球化的沟通和交流发挥了必不可少的作用，而随着“数字内容”的快速发展和互联网访问的便捷，如今对翻译的需求更是空前高涨。我们希望，结合Google翻译工具包（Google Translator Toolkit）、网站翻译工具这样的翻译工具，以及专业翻译，可以更方便地帮助全世界的人们轻松获取网上信息。

Google搜索结果出现位置导航链接

webmaster@eryi.org (散人) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:02:41 -0800

此前，我们曾经介绍过Google搜索结果页面的一些特殊元素，如sitelinks、、onelinks单行链接等。
细心的用户这几天会发现，在Google搜索结果中出现了一种新型的链接：在部分搜索结果的网址部分，出现了中文文字链接，点击她们可以进入到网站的不同栏目（如下图所示）。

很容易地，我们可以发现，这些链接是具有层次的。进一步打开该条搜索结果的网页，可以看到在目标网页中有一处地方跟上面的链接“长”得很相似。没错，它就是当前位置导航，也即“您现在的位置”后面的那一串链接。

也就是说，Google搜索结果页面出现的上述链接是从网页的当前位置导航提取而来的。因此，要想自己的网站也在Google中出现类似的链接，你知道应该怎么做了：）
版权所有，转载时必须以链接的形式注明以下声明：
原载于搜索引擎周边
链接地址 http://www.eryi.org/SearchEngines/current-position-links.html
-----
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李开复创办创新工场的发言稿及最新简历 (2009-9-7 11:3:34)
对比Google和Caffeine搜索结果排名的工具 (2009-8-15 0:5:15)
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Google推出内容联盟网络“浏览型转化”数据

noreply@blogger.com (joydandan) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:17:00 -0700

发表者：Google AdWords Product Specialist张钰东

今年早些时候，我们曾经对外公布一项计划，准备改进对 Google 内容联盟网络多媒体广告系列转化情况的衡量方式。现在，我们正式向您介绍这项针对 Google 内容联盟网络的另外一个新数据：“浏览型转化”。该功能可帮助您更好地衡量多媒体广告系列的价值。

多媒体广告在提高品牌知名度和推动用户产生购买意向方面效果卓著，而凭借“浏览型转化”报告功能，您可以更好地衡量多媒体广告系列的作用，了解那些看到了您的广告但没有立刻点击的用户的具体情况。具体来说，“浏览型转化”功能可统计以下转化的次数，即在展示后的 30 天内未产生任何点击次数的多媒体广告的转化。

通过“浏览型转化”功能，您可以更轻松地比较您的 Google 内容联盟网络广告系列与其他多媒体广告系列的效果。此功能还可以帮助您确定投放广告的最佳方式和位置、如何最有效地优化多媒体广告系列，以及最终确定如何让您的广告投入物有所值。

以下举例说明了“浏览型转化”功能的工作原理：假设您在网上销售宠物食品，并使用此功能来衡量您网站的电子邮件简报注册和购物车“感谢您购物”页面的转化情况。如果某个用户看到了您的多媒体广告但并未点击，然后又在此后的 30 天内访问了您的网站，订阅了电子邮件简报并购买了几十罐有机猫粮；此时，您将会在 AdWords 帐户的“广告系列”标签中看到两次“浏览型转化”。

从今天开始，您还可以访问 AdWords 帐户中的“广告系列”标签并启用可选的“浏览型转化”。要在广告系列中获得“浏览型转化”数据，您需要先安装 AdWords 转化跟踪。

要详细了解 Google 内容联盟网络“浏览型转化”的信息，请访问帮助中心。希望此功能可让您更好地了解自己的广告系列，并帮助您通过多媒体广告系列获得最理想的收益。

Google开始通过RSS/Atom feeds发现新网址

webmaster@eryi.org (散人) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 07:11:01 -0800

看到Google Webmaster Central Blog的介绍，我着实吃惊了一把。因为我一直想当然地认为Google早已通过RSS/Atom feeds来发现新网址了。

跟Google爬虫抓取网站上的内容然后再进一步索引内容中的链接相比，直接索引feeds供稿中的URL将可以增强索引的即时性，使得新内容更容易被发现。借助于Google Reader平台中庞大的feeds供稿源，同时利用PubSubHubbub机制，Google的即时搜索想必又将更前进一步。

有趣的是，就在前几天，微软宣布了Bing必应搜索引擎的索引信息中将会加入Twitter和Facebook网站的更新信息，而且专为twitter打造的页面（bing.com/twitter）也已开始上线测试。Google在这个时候宣布这一“迟到”的决定，颇有在即时搜索领域与微软较劲的味道。
链接地址 http://www.eryi.org/SearchEngines/google-crawl-url-in-rss-atom-feeds.html
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相关文章：

李开复创办创新工场的发言稿及最新简历 (2009-9-7 11:3:34)
对比Google和Caffeine搜索结果排名的工具 (2009-8-15 0:5:15)
Google中国搜索框的变迁 (2009-8-7 11:29:23)
Google 更改“更多搜索结果”的显示方式 (2009-8-1 14:3:39)
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Google办公室大变身 iGoogle推出个性化校园生活

noreply@blogger.com (joydandan) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:08:00 -0700

近日，在北京和上海分别有一群大学生被邀请来到谷歌办公室，利用丰富多彩的iGoogle主题和小工具帮谷歌办公室来了个大变身，亲身体验了由个性做主的iGoogle精神！

事实上，为了给大学生朋友提供更加个性化的服务，iGoogle推出了全新的专为中国大学生定制的个性化首页。其中不仅包括“课程表”、“校园BBS热门话题”和“学外语超级小帮手”等由谷歌工程师专门开发的小工具，还有来自iGoogle中国大学生创新设计大赛的众多入围作品供你选择！

这就来看看活动的盛况吧！不用为没能来参加而遗憾，赶快来体验iGoogle大学生个性化首页g.cn/ig，或者为同学们的创新作品投票吧！别忘了，你的iGoogle首页你做主！

用画笔来描绘心目中最美的iGoogle主题，其实真正的iGoogle主题完全可以由你自主选择甚至创作哦！


iGoogle小工具大比拼！精彩的小游戏、便捷的学习工具、丰富的RSS资讯……一个都不能少！


打造真正美丽又实用的个性化首页，可要从上千个主题和小工具中细细选择~ 对自己的作品很满意？那还不快快利用分享功能把它推荐给你的同学！

Google中国搜索框的变迁

webmaster@eryi.org (散人) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:29:23 -0700

自2005年Google中国网站（google.cn）上线以来，其首页历经了多次变化。从栏目设置、到版式风格，都进行过好几次大变脸。而这期间，唯独保持不变的就是搜索框。

先回顾一下各个时期Google中国首页。

2005年5月9日的页面（在此之前，google.cn一直掌握在别人手里，并指向一个名为“Google创可贴”的网站，直到2005年4月份Google在当时以天价买回这个域名。）

2006年元旦

2007年元旦

2008年元旦

是否注意到，多年以来，Google首页的搜索框大小都保持为398×21像素？直到昨天，这个大小终于改为448×28像素，不再像之前那么细长细长的了。而Google英文版的首页依然维持之前的大小。

2009年8月7日的Google中国首页

要知道，Google首页的任何一项改动都会给用户带来很大的影响，Google作出这个改动的原因何在？
用户体验！还是用户体验！以下几个因素也许被纳入考虑中：
1、搜索框长一点对用户的心理障碍会小很多。
2、使用宽屏显示器的用户比例越来越多，长的搜索框能占据更多的屏幕，看起来更加饱满、大方。
3、中文的特性使然。方块字嘛，大一点的字体看起来才不会显得那么挤。
4、百度搜索框高度也是28像素。记得百度当时改版的时候，他们说过中国用户喜欢大一点的搜索框（真的么？）。

那为什么不干脆跟百度使用一样的大小（356×28像素）呢？
我想原因得从百度上找了。由于百度的搜索按钮是在搜索框后面，所以太长的搜索框会导致用户输入完内容之后鼠标要跨越很长的距离才能够得着“百度一下”那个按钮。而Google的搜索按钮是在搜索框下面，即使搜索框长一点用户也很容易点击到下面的“Google搜索”按钮。一言以蔽之：Google有条件使搜索框更长，而百度则不能。
版权所有，转载时必须以链接的形式注明以下声明：
原载于搜索引擎周边
链接地址 http://www.eryi.org/SearchEngines/google-search-box-changed.html
-----
相关文章：

Google 更改“更多搜索结果”的显示方式 (2009-8-1 14:3:39)
Google为什么要缩短长网址 (2009-6-30 10:10:58)
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Googlers receive prestigious ITOJUN Service Award

A Googler — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:10:00 -0800

Googlers Lorenzo Colitti and Erik Kline have received the ITOJUN Service Award while attending the 76th Internet Engineering Task Force meeting in Hiroshima, Japan.

The Itojun Service Award honors the memory of Dr. Jun-ichiro "itojun" Hagino, who passed away in 2007 at the age of 37. The friends of itojun and the Internet Society (ISOC) came together to establish this award last year. The award recognizes and commemorates the extraordinary dedication exercised by itojun over the course of IPv6 development.

Lorenzo and Erik have been the spark plugs and workhorses of Google's implementation of the IPv6 protocol that will help to carry the Internet beyond the anticipated exhaustion of the IPv4 address space in mid-2011. The two undertook, at their own initiative, to analyze the requirements and begin implementation of IPv6 throughout our networking infrastructure. Their leadership has placed us in the forward ranks of companies prepared for this important expansion. They are role models for others around the world, in the spirit of Itojun Hagino who was, himself, a model leader in this domain.

We're all proud to be associated with Lorenzo, Erik and the others at Google who recognized this challenge and took it head on.

Posted by Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist

Google's movie showtimes, digitally remastered

A Googler — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:45:00 -0800

Did you know you can immediately discover movie times and locations by typing a simple search on Google? For example, search for [where the wild things are] and you'll see times and places to watch the film, or try [glendale 18 los angeles] to see movies playing at your local theater. You can also click on the showtimes search result to get more complete movie listings and information.

Today, we're making a few improvements to movie results on Google, including more detailed movie pages, genre filters and a new map view.

Click "showtimes" in your search results for more detailed information.

When you visit google.com/movies, you'll discover a new, more comprehensive resource with all the information you need to decide what movie to see and where to see it:

Comprehensive movie pages: Deciding what movie to see can take a few searches: What's it about? How are the reviews? Where is it playing near me? Our new detailed layout brings together all the basic information you need with a plot synopsis, trailer, reviews and photos in the same page.
Genre filters: The new movie pages also give you new ways to explore films by genre and find one you're in the mood for. Sometimes, you might feel like seeing a sci-fi flick or a romance, but you're not sure what's out in theaters. With genre filters you can start browsing right away and quickly find the right movie for you.
Map view: After you've chosen a movie, the new map view shows you nearby theaters playing that exact film. You no longer need to do a separate search to find out where you're going.

We hope these improvements will help you spend more time at the movies and less time researching. Visit google.com/movies or click through a "showtimes" result to try them out, and treat yourself to a movie!

Posted by Dan Stokeley, Associate Product Manager

Google 更改“更多搜索结果”的显示方式

webmaster@eryi.org (散人) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:03:39 -0700

在Google上搜索某个关键词时，如果某个网站上的多个页面都含有这一关键词，Google在搜索结果中通常会只会显示来自该网站的一条结果，然后在这条结果的下面提供一个“显示来自××的更多搜索结果”的链接以方便用户进行站内查询。

现在，Google改变了这一做法，点击“显示来自××的更多搜索结果” 的链接将不会进入到某个网站的站内搜索页面，而是通过AJAX技术以plus box的形式将前五条站内搜索结果直接在当前页面展开（如下图阴影部分所示），在AJAX盒子的顶部才提供“显示来自××的所有搜索结果 »”的链接。

以“Google Earth”进行查询的结果（展开前）

点击链接加号链接展开后

这种plus box的处理方式我们在以前在Google搜索结果中已见过多次，如股票信息，地图等，其好处在于用户无需离开当前搜索结果页面即可查看某个网站的相关内容，节约了用户查询的时间成本。
版权所有，转载时必须以链接的形式注明以下声明：
原载于搜索引擎周边
链接地址 http://www.eryi.org/SearchEngines/more-results-in-serps.html
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Google dashboard信息中心开通

webmaster@eryi.org (散人) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:29:20 -0800

在Google accounts个人帐户管理页面，现在可以看到一个新增的服务——查看该帐户所存储的数据（View data stored with this account），通过这个链接，将进入到Google信息中心，即Google dashboard。

据Google介绍，开通这个服务的目的，就是为了帮助用户知道“Google了解我的哪些信息”。在这里会列出你使用的最受欢迎的Google产品或服务，以及这些产品或服务相关的数据、设置页面以及产品帮助中心的入口。相当于一站式的Google产品数据统计和控制页面。

目前信息中心的英文版和中文版已同时开通，两者在产品排列顺序上会略有不同。

Google dashboard中文版界面

Google dashboard英文版界面

需要注意的是，Google信息中心并没有提供全部产品或服务的数据。在信息中心底部，可以看到目前尚未被包含在其中的几十款产品。由此进入：
https://www.google.com/dashboard/
版权所有，转载时必须以链接的形式注明以下声明：
原载于搜索引擎周边
链接地址 http://www.eryi.org/SearchEngines/google-dashboard.html
-----
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Google Sidewiki: The first 50 days of valuable entries and new API features

A Googler — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:20:00 -0800

It's been just under 2 months since we launched Google Sidewiki and we've already seen a great number of valuable entries that have been written worldwide.

From product tips to online petitions and from expert health advice to programming help, Sidewiki users are finding many useful and creative ways to help others. We've been really excited by these uses of Sidewiki and wanted to share 10 of these great entries with you:

Jason Young speaks from personal experience and gives detailed insight into tuning a bass guitar on EMG's Bass Tips site.
Antony Carthy, a programmer in South Africa, wrote tips on how to find latitude and longitude coordinates on Google Maps.
Google's own Matt Cutts warns visitors about a deceptive website.
Shalin Gala of PETA calls on readers to sign a petition next to an article about animal mistreatment.
Ron Burk suggests a missing reference for a medical article.
The Mayo Clinic uses Sidewiki to welcome visitors with a special webmaster entry on its homepage (this one requires Sidewiki to view).
Jesse Poe from New York offers up great insights in a review of an iPhone app by Daniel Johnston, one of his favorite musicians.
Alfonso Grandis from Italy talks about his eye-witness account of a recent earthquake.
David Davis, a software engineer from California, improves a snippet of code in a programming tutorial.
Michael Roizen from the Cleveland clinic adds his advice about H1N1 vaccinations.

If you haven't used Sidewiki yet, you can download it at google.com/sidewiki as part of the Google Toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer. If you're using Google Chrome, Safari or other browsers without the Google Toolbar, simply install the Sidewiki bookmarklet.

We're also releasing a top-requested feature for our API today that makes it easy to retrieve all Sidewiki entries for an entire domain. With this addition, you can look for new entries created on any page of a website and also subscribe to them via RSS (such as this RSS feed for all Sidewiki entries on the Google Blog). See our Sidewiki API documentation for all of its details.

We look forward to seeing many more great entries and keeping you posted with new features — follow us on Twitter for the latest news and highlights. Try using Sidewiki right now to add your feedback to this blog post and read what others are saying!

Posted by Ario Jafarzadeh, Sidewiki User Experience Designer

Google Apps highlights – 11/20/2009

A Googler — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:57:00 -0800

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label "Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

Over the last two weeks, we've made improvements across Google Apps, some geared for individuals, others meant for business customers.

Green Robot icon in Gmail Labs
The green, orange and red chat bubbles in Gmail signal if your contacts are online, idle or unavailable, but as more people sign in from mobile devices, it's becoming harder to tell when someone is actually online at a computer or just connected with their phone. The Green Robot feature in Gmail Labs helps you spot when you might want to tailor your exchanges with more succinct messages for people who are signed in with Android-powered devices. Look for the green beaker icon at the top of Gmail to enable Green Robot and other Labs features.

Site templates
On Tuesday we launched templates for Google Sites. The templates gallery is filled with useful example sites ranging from wedding websites to corporate intranets, which you can copy and customize so they're just right. This lets you create a useful, visually appealing collaborative workspace in seconds. And if you have a great site other people would find useful, you can submit it to the gallery. If your business uses Google Sites, templates you submit stay private within your company.

More overflow storage for less
If you're using Google Apps to store photos and manage large volumes of personal email, you'll be happy to hear we're now offering more extra storage for less. Our new overflow storage plans start at $5 per year for 20 GB. For the most avid shutterbugs, the 16 TB plan is enough space for roughly 8 million high resolution pictures!

Improvements to Sync for Outlook
Last week, we released an update to Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, our tool that lets companies stop running Microsoft Exchange while still letting some employees use the familiar Outlook interface. Now, employees can sync multiple calendars between Outlook and Google Apps, and look up free/busy information from Exchange for co-workers who haven't migrated to Google Apps yet.

Google Apps Premier Edition innovation – Year in review
Businesses using Google Apps not only save money compared to running their own email systems, but also their employees get access to innovation at a much faster pace than with conventional business technologies. We've launched over 100 improvements to Google Apps in the last year, and on Thursday I hosted a webcast to recap noteworthy recent updates for businesses, including push email, contacts and calendar support for BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Android, Sync for Microsoft Outlook, offline access and more. If you missed the webcast, you can watch it on YouTube.

Who's gone Google?
This week I'm pleased to welcome a new crop of companies, schools and public agencies that have recently switched to Google Apps, including Delta Hotels, Michigan State University, the City of Orlando and the Office of the New Mexico Attorney General. The Motorola Mobile Devices Division deployed Google Apps to its employees this week, and the Los Angeles City Council recently voted unanimously to move 30,000 city employees to Google Apps.

We hope these updates help you get even more from Google Apps. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Gone Google at EDUCAUSE 2009

A Googler — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:13:00 -0800

Last week the Google Apps for Education team headed to Denver for EDUCAUSE 2009 where the higher education community meets annually. It was at this conference three years ago that we first unveiled Google Apps for Education. Since then, we've witnessed staggering growth in the world of cloud computing in education. Lots has happened over the past year especially: more than 100 new features have rolled out in Google Apps, we've engaged well over six million students and faculty (a 400% increase since this time last year), launched free Google Message Security for K-12 schools and have integrated with other learning services such as Blackboard and Moodle.

These developments are just the beginning. According to the newly-released 2009 Campus Computing survey statistics, 44% of colleges and universities have converted to a hosted student email solution, while another 37% are currently evaluating the move. Of those that have migrated, over half — 56% precisely* — are going Google.

To toast the students and faculty that are shaping this movement, we hosted our customers and EDUCAUSE conference attendees at the Denver Public Library. Check out the photos to see what these schools have to say:

We also did something different this year and invited some student ambassadors from schools using Google Apps to come to Denver and share how using Apps on campus helps make their lives easier. Daniel Miller who works at University of Washington's Ethnic Cultural Center uses Calendar to let students on campus know about his organization's events. Sociology major Robin Brown uses forms in Docs to collect data for her class surveys at Notre Dame. Taylor Bell at Boise State relies on Gmail's filters and gadgets to seamlessly access to his Calendar, Docs, Tasks and Chat. After losing his journal, Vaughn Parker at Temple University created a Calendar to keep track of his assignments and share them with his classmates and professors. (There are many more of these student stories, too).

Every year, more schools move to Google Apps so they can spend their time focusing on students, not servers; on higher learning, not higher costs. If you're a school, you can go Google, too. Check out www.google.com/appsatschool to learn more.

*Update on 11/20: Among 4-year universities and colleges, the number is slightly higher, with 59% choosing Google Apps.

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Product Marketing Manager

Explore images with Google Image Swirl, now in Labs

A Googler — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:17:00 -0800

Back in 2001, to give people a new, quicker way to find images, we launched Image Search. When you do a search for [eiffel tower] you'll find an array of images of the tower in the daytime, in black and white, at sunset and more. With Similar Images, which recently graduated from Google Labs, you can click "Find similar images" to narrow your search to, say, pictures of the Eiffel Tower lit up at night. Today, we've launched an experimental feature in Labs called Google Image Swirl, which builds on new computer vision research to cluster similar images into representative groups in a fun, exploratory interface.

For example, if you search on Image Swirl for [washington], you'll see 12 image thumbnails including President Washington, the Washington Monument, a map of Washington D.C. and the Capitol Building:

Once you find the group of images you're interested in, you can click on the thumbnail and a cluster of images will "swirl" into view. For example, here's what you'll see if you click the image of the Washington Monument:

You can then further explore additional sub-groups within any cluster. The interface may look familiar to those of you who have tried Google's Wonder Wheel available in the Search Options panel, which enables you to explore related search queries.

Image Swirl expands on technologies developed for Similar Images and Picasa Face Recognition to discern how images should be grouped together and build hierarchies out of these groups. Each thumbnail on the initial results page represents an algorithmically-determined representative group of images with similar appearance and meaning. These aren't just the most relevant images — they are the most relevant groups of images.

Image Swirl currently works for more than 200,000 queries and we plan to include more queries in the future. Available queries will auto-complete as you start to type in the search box, similar to Google Suggest.

You can try out Google Image Swirl in Google Labs today. The feature is experimental and the underlying technology is a work in progress, so please share your feedback and let us know how we can make it more useful.

Posted by Aparna Chennapragada, Product Manager, and Yushi Jing, Google Research

Easy holiday shopping with Google Product Search

A Googler — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:13:00 -0800

This holiday season, whether you're shopping for a new sweater for Fido, a Lego set for young builders, or that fancy camera you've been eyeing all year, Google Product Search can help you find what you're looking for at a great price. You can compare products and prices from merchants across the web, from popular retailers like Amazon and Best Buy to places to buy unique gifts like eBay and Etsy.

Check out some of the recent improvements we've made to Google Product Search:

Our new gallery view shows larger, higher-resolution images to help pick the style or model that is right for you. Check out some [digital cameras] or [sweater boots].

Check the Reviews section of our product pages before you buy — we're now including review summaries to help you see what people are saying at a glance.

We've recently integrated video product reviews from YouTube, which appear right on the product pages so you can get an in-depth look at items before you buy.

If you want to see or purchase an item in person, click nearby stores to see a map of nearby store locations for that seller.

Product Search works great on mobile phones, so you can compare prices, read reviews and even find coupons from the Local Business Center while you're shopping. You can also use the nifty barcode scanner on your phone to compare prices quickly and easily.

We hope these new features help you find the perfect gifts for your friends and family (and maybe even something nice for yourself) this holiday season.

Happy shopping!

Posted by Sameer Samat, Product Management Director & Jeff Bartelma, Senior Product Manager

Cool. Even Batman uses Google.

A Googler — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0800

When I first started at Google, Craig Nevill-Manning, engineering director here in New York, said to me: "The Google homepage doesn't belong to us. It belongs to the millions of people who use it." Besides the fact that Craig can make one of those insanely cool leaf patterns in his latte, I find the simple truth of his statement inspiring. I often refer to it as a guidepost for our work.

So when we got together with the search team to brainstorm ways to talk about our latest innovations (like music in search results), we decided to feature them through stories inspired by our users. Because while we're proud of the innovations we're making in search, we're proudest of the things people use search to accomplish. In other words, the best search results don't show up on a webpage — they show up in somebody's life.

So in that spirit, we made a bunch of videos. There's one about grandma dipping her toe into technology. One about friends taking a Kerouac inspired road trip. And yes, there's even one about Bruce Wayne.

Here's the first one:

You can see them all here.

As they say in the movies, all the characters in these videos are fictional, any resemblance to persons alive or dead are purely coincidental.

We hope you enjoy them.

Posted by Robert Wong, Google Creative Lab

And the Google Code Jam 2009 champion is...

A Googler — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:18:00 -0800

Last week, we hosted the the final round of Google Code Jam 2009, the sixth iteration of our annual global programming competition. From almost 23,000 registrants in the beginning, we winnowed down the contestants to the fastest and most fervent coders. On Friday, we brought the top 23 competitors to our Mountain View headquarters for four concentrated hours of thinking, testing and trouble-shooting. The competition platform, built as a 20% project by a group of Google engineers, was powered by Google App Engine and allowed the contestants to use the programming language of their choice. These diverse finalists represented 15 different countries across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

The contestants were confronted by six puzzles. In one, they had to take on the role of a telecommunications company upgrading some of its equipment. The company wants to upgrade its most profitable cell towers; however, doing so might force them to upgrade less profitable towers as well — at a high cost. The contestants were charged with figuring out which towers to upgrade, to maximize gains and minimize costs. The competitors used their coding skills to figure out the most efficient solution as quickly as possible.

Last year's champion, Lou Tiancheng of China, code-named ACRush, once again took top honors and the $5,000 grand prize. Qi Zichao of China won second place, and Iwata Yoichi of Japan came in third.

For a glimpse into this year's Code Jam take look at the video below, courtesy of NBC. And to all the coders out there, we hope to see you next year — start practicing now!

Posted by Bartholomew Furrow, 20% Tech Lead for Google Code Jam

A new look for Google Translate

A Googler — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:07:00 -0800

Today, we've launched three new features as well as a new look and feel for Google Translate — a service that helps people access information throughout the world by enabling them to automatically translate text and and web pages into their own language. Google Translate offers 51 languages, representing over 98% of Internet users today.

Along with our shiny new layout, these new features should make it faster and easier for you to translate text between our 2550 language pairs:

Translate instantly: Say goodbye to the old "Translate" button. Google Translate now translates your text right as you type.

Read and write any language: Want to say "Today is a good day" in Chinese, but can't read Han characters? Click "Show romanization" to read the text written phonetically in English. Right now, this works for all non-Roman languages except for Hebrew, Arabic and Persian.

We also have a new input transliteration feature for Arabic, Persian or Hindi. If you want to translate from one of these languages, but can't type the script on your keyboard, our input transliteration feature will allow you to type words as they sound and convert them to native script.

--->

Text-to-speech: When translating into English, you can now also hear translations in spoken form by clicking the Speaker Icon.

Watch Josh, an engineer on our team, give a quick demo of the new Google Translate:

We hope these improvements will make reading, learning and communicating in foreign languages easier and more fun. As we continue to improve the precision of our automatic translation system, we're also always looking for ways to evolve and improve our interface. Let us know if you have any feedback on these changes in our discussion group.

Posted by Awaneesh Verma, Product Manager