Entries from March 2010 ↓
March 31st, 2010 — Enterprise
Earlier this year we launched the ability to
store and share any file on Google Docs. Since then, we’ve received great feedback from our users and today we’re excited to announce the logical extension of this feature: the ability to store anything on Google Docs.
Just like files in Google Docs, you can easily access any physical object you’ve stored with Google and share it with anyone in the world. For example, you can save on business trip costs by avoiding baggage fees — just store your luggage in Google Docs before you travel! Forgot your cell phone at home? Have a friend post it on Google Docs and download it on the go. And now you never have to run out of business cards — store some online and you’ll be able to retrieve them whenever you meet someone!
We also make it easy to search and find what you need across your entire collection of objects, with automatic indexing of everything you store on Google Docs. And as with all your files, you can rest easy knowing your objects are securely stored in the cloud.
With competitive pricing starting at $0.10 per kg, along with free pickup and delivery from any location on the planet, now it’s easy to store everything on Google Docs. To learn more about this new feature and how to join the beta test, head on to the our
informational page. Only a fool would pass this up!
Posted by Hicham Alaoui, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Google Apps
March 31st, 2010 — YouTube
It’s great news that there are 24 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, we support 1080p and HD uploads are rising quickly, but that’s also meant increasing bandwidth costs cutting into our bottom line. And so, in our drive to keep expenses under control, we’ve decided that April 1 is the perfect day to take the important step of offering a new way to experience YouTube: text-only mode, or TEXTp.
TEXTp is the result of months of intense transcoding efforts by our engineers, who toiled for weeks to ensure that a large chunk of videos on the platform could be reduced to their most basic elements. By replacing the images in the video with a series of letters and numbers, the videos are far less taxing on our system — and have the added benefit of promoting literacy!
To give it a whirl, make sure you have the latest Flash player (10.0) and click here. Or you can select “TEXTp” from the pulldown menu on most videos, as so:
You can also append &textp=fool to most video URLs to test it out.
For every person who selects TEXTp and keeps it on while you watch a video, you save YouTube $1 a second, resulting in potentially billions of dollars of savings for us. So if you care about YouTube, you’ll use TEXTp today.
Patrick Pichette, SVP and Chief Financial Officer, Google
March 31st, 2010 — Mobile
Earlier this month on the Official Google Blog, we announced how
stars make search more personal by allowing you to mark and rediscover your favorite content. Today, we are extending this feature so that you can get to your favorite content on your phone, anytime, anywhere. For example, if you previously searched for “car reviews” and starred a few sites that were useful while researching cars on your computer, searching for “car reviews” on your phone will allow you to rediscover your starred items. If there are additional results that you want to star while on mobile, simply click the star marker beside the result, and you will be able to see it later when searching from your computer or phone.
To try this yourself, go to google.com on your phone’s browser, sign in to your Google Account and do a search. Star a few results and then do the search again to see your starred items appear at the top of your results. To see the same starred items between computer and phone, make sure you are signed in to the same account. The stars in search functionality is currently supported on Android phones, iPhones/iPods, and Palm WebOS devices in the US.
Posted by Zhen Wang, Google Mobile Engineering Team
March 31st, 2010 — YouTube
As you may know, we’re in the midst of one of the largest redesigns in YouTube’s history: we’re simplifying the look and functionality of the video page. That’s the page you see whenever a video plays, and this redesign is about going “back to basics,” focusing attention on the reason why you came to YouTube in the first place — the video — and all the ways you engage with content and creators.
We first unveiled the new video page two months ago and checked in four weeks later to tell you about the latest set of changes. Truth is, we’ve been thinking about this for a long time: what you see is the result of eight months’ worth of user research, feedback and data analysis. Now, after a few more additions based on your latest feedback, we are rolling it out to 100% of YouTube users.
Here’s what’s new about the page:
Overall look and functionality
- It’s cleaner, simpler and easier to use.
- Information about a video is now grouped together in one place and there’s a consistent way to get more detail when you need it. This way, unless something’s truly useful to you, it doesn’t clutter up your page.
- We’ve cleaned up the actions bar; you’ll see a streamlined presentation for sharing, flagging, and embedding controls.
Discovery
- The right-hand side of the page is devoted to the next video to watch. We’re smarter about suggesting the next videos to watch based on how you found the video you’re watching in the first place.
- The channel name and subscribe button are now both on top of the video. We found that you prefer having a quick peek at more videos uploaders have created before deciding whether to subscribe to their channels.
Playlists
- There’s a new playlist interface, with the next video in the list appearing consistently in the top right. You can easily expand that list or skip ahead using a new next button in the player controls.
- Saving to playlists is easier, and we’ve made Favorites the default option.
Ratings
- We’ve replaced the five-star ratings system with a simpler “likes / dislikes” model and introduced a new “Videos I Liked” list.
Comments
- Comments have a new highlights view which summarizes the best discussions and celebrates when creators communicate with their audiences.
We know this is a big change, but we hope you’ll find the new page to be an improvement to your YouTube experience and to be a reflection of what you’ve told us thus far through your usage of the site and your comments to us. We’ll be gathering in a conference room at our San Bruno, CA, headquarters at 6 p.m. PT today and tomorrow, and in London at 9 a.m. GMT tomorrow, to respond in near-real-time to your comments in the forums, on this blog and on Twitter. Of course, we’ll be listening at other times, too, but we wanted to make sure we were available when you might have the most questions about these changes.
Igor Kofman, Software Engineer, recently watched “Pantyraid – Beba,” and Shiva Rajaraman, Product Manager, recently watched “Chat Roulette Funny Piano Improv #2.”
March 31st, 2010 — Wave
We know that one painpoint for people using Google Wave is that sometimes they don’t know when others are trying to wave with them or whether anyone has responded to their waves. In designing notifications, we realized that people use lots of different tools on the web, but one system that is compatible with everyone is the physical world. So, today we are excited to roll out an early preview of Google Wave wave notifications.
You can enable Google Wave wave notifications through the drop down menu that appears when you mouse over the Inbox link in the Navigation panel.
You can set the volume for your notifications to Silent, Medium, Loud or Vibrate and pick your preferred notifier. We look forward to offering more advanced options like black-out hours, vacation mode and personalized, downloadable wavetones.
Known issues:
Remember, this is just a preview, so there are still some kinks in the system. Here are some we know about and are working on:
- At certain times of day, your first choice notifier may be unavailable. In this case, a substitute will be provided
- Genuine greetings may be confused for notifications. We are working on clearer signals to disambiguate these situations, but when in doubt we recommend you check your Google Wave inbox.
Check out our demo video to see Google Wave wave notifications in action:
March 31st, 2010 — Maps
The last day of March is typically the warmest day of the month. Today, scientists at Climate Central are launching a new interactive Google Map, which allows you to view areas of future freezing in the month of the March in the U.S.
The map shows high-resolution projections for future average March temperatures in the U.S. through the end of the century, focusing on where the average temperature is expected to be above or below freezing. You can use the time controls to scroll through the years, or click “play” to view an animation. You can also compare low vs. high carbon pollution scenarios.
While warm weather lovers may like the idea of warmer Marches, this would mean earlier snowmelt, which has been linked to drier rivers and forests later in the summer, and very much higher wildfire activity in the American West. We could also expect water shortages for farm irrigation and trouble for trout and other cold-water stream life. See how your area will fare by visiting the map now!
Posted by Karin Tuxen-Bettman, Google Earth Outreach
March 31st, 2010 — Webmaster Tools
Webmaster Level: Advanced
A few weeks ago, we introduced a new way of verifying site ownership, making it easy to share verified ownership of a site with another person. This week, we bring you another new way to verify. Verification by DNS record allows you to become a verified owner of an entire domain (and all of the sites within that domain) at once. It also provides an alternative way to verify for folks who struggle with the existing HTML file or meta tag methods.
I like to explain things by walking through an example, so let’s try using the new verification method right now. For the sake of this example, we’ll say I own the domain example.com. I have several websites under example.com, including http://www.example.com/, http://blog.example.com/ and http://beta.example.com/. I could individually verify ownership of each of those sites using the meta tag or HTML file method. But that means I’d need to go through the verification process three times, and if I wanted to add http://customers.example.com/, I’d need to do it a fourth time. DNS record verification gives me a better way!
First I’ll add example.com to my account, either in Webmaster Tools or directly on the Verification Home page.
On the verification page, I select the “Add a DNS record” verification method, and follow the instructions to add the specified TXT record to my domain’s DNS configuration.
When I click “Verify,” Google will check for the TXT record, and if it’s present, I’ll be a verified owner of example.com and any associated websites and subdomains. Now I can use any of those sites in Webmaster Tools and other verification-enabled Google products without having to verify ownership of them individually.
If you try DNS record verification and it doesn’t work right away, don’t despair!
Sometimes DNS records take a while to make their way across the Internet, so Google may not see them immediately. Make sure you’ve added the record exactly as it’s shown on the verification page. We’ll periodically check, and when we find the record we’ll make you a verified owner without any further action from you.
DNS record verification isn’t for everyone—if you don’t understand DNS configuration, we recommend you continue to use the HTML file and meta tag methods. But for advanced users, this is a powerful new option for verifying ownership of your sites.
As always, please visit the Webmaster Help Forum if you have any questions.
Posted by Sean Harding, Software Engineer
March 31st, 2010 — Photos
Posted by David Catmull, Software Engineer
We launched Picasa for Mac in Google Labs just over a year ago, and it’s grown up fast. With the 3.5 launch, Picasa for Mac matched the features of Picasa for PC, and today we’re excited to announce the next milestone: Picasa for Mac is now available in 35 languages. For the first time, Mac users who speak languages other than English can take advantage of Picasa’s free photo-editing and organization tools, plus lots of new stuff that’s been added recently: adding name tags, creating collaborative albums, and geotagging photos using Google Maps. For an in-depth overview of all the new features available, check out our launch blog posts for Picasa 3.5 and 3.6 or the Picasa Help Center.
To get Picasa 3.6 for Mac in your language, download the newest version from picasa.google.com/mac/ or from your local Picasa site. When you load Picasa for the first time, it displays in the same language as your operating system, and you can always easily change your language settings in System Preferences.
March 31st, 2010 — Google
The principle behind the advertising products we build at Google is simple: ads are information. But the type of information that ads provide is getting more varied and inventive all the time, and as a result ads are getting more interesting, social and useful.
As advertising evolves, we want to
build the tools that make it possible for marketers to connect with customers in meaningful, creative ways. We’ve found that the best way to do that is to focus on the user, test new approaches regularly and listen closely to the feedback of the advertisers using our products. To work closely with advertisers on what comes next, today we’ve launched
Google Ad Innovations, where we’ll show you some of our latest ideas around advertising technologies and get your feedback.
One of the new features we’re showcasing is a set of AdWords reports, launched last week, called
Search Funnels. These reports can help an advertiser understand whether there are keywords in her account that are helping to drive sales at a later date. At Google Ad Innovations, you can
read more about this feature, watch a
video walking you through how it works and send us your ideas on how to improve it.
If you’re interested in the future of advertising with Google, pay Ad Innovations a visit — we’ll regularly add tools and features to the site, and we hope you’ll check them out!
Posted by Susan Wojcicki, Vice President, Product Management
March 31st, 2010 — Enterprise
Google Postini security services work in the cloud to help prevent spam and viruses before they hit your servers. These services also make it easy for admins to fine-tune filtering options to get the right level of protection for their organization’s unique needs.
It can often be a delicate balance between protecting networks from attacks and allowing employees the flexibility to use email effectively. To help achieve this balance, today we’re introducing a new Google Message Security reporting feature: Health Check.
Health Check helps you maximize the effectiveness of your spam filters. Think of it as a self-service “tune-up” for your Postini filters. It gives admins a comprehensive report that will help them check how current configurations impact the effectiveness of antispam and antivirus filters.
This report also highlights deviations from our recommended best practices, so that you can see areas where more protection might be helpful and select the levels that best meet your needs. For example, reports can “flag” areas of risk in user-defined settings, help optimize Approved Sender Lists, and guide the way you set up firewalls.
In this snippet from a Health Check report, the Virus Outbreak Level for this account is set to “Normal” (see red outline over item “2″). Our guidelines suggest that admins set this to Very High to increase security against viruses and malware. Deviations from recommended best practices are highlighted in red text so you can easily identify where changes can be made to tighten security.
With Health Check, we hope to empower administrators to make the best use of Postini Services. Health Check is now available through the Postini service administration console to Postini and Google Apps Premier Edition customers.
Posted by Gopal Shah, Google Postini team
