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Insights from Googlers into our products, technology, and the Google culture
Send a video message with Google Latitude
April 9, 2009
If you're like us, you never tire of finding fun ways to send a simple message (what's the challenge, after all, in just flipping open your phone?). Here's our latest idea: spell out the words with Google Latitude.
After you watch the video, feel free to send your own Latitude message by creating
a custom video
for a friend. You can also check out the
Google Mobile Blog
to learn about some of the other creative ways people are using Latitude.
Posted by Heaven Kim, Product Marketing Manager
Designing lean, green, energy-saving machines
April 9, 2009
Last week Google hosted a
Data Center Efficiency Summit
, bringing together approximately 160 industry leaders to share insights and best practices. Since it was April Fool's Day, we threw in a few jokes to keep the atmosphere fun (
oil-cooled data center
, anyone?), but the topic is serious: How can the IT industry keep growing while also exercising good environmental stewardship?
We disclosed for the first time details about the design of our
ultra-efficient data centers
. We also provided a first-ever video tour of a Google
container data center
as well as a
water treatment facility
. We detailed how we measure data center efficiency and discussed how we reduced our facility energy use by up to 85%. The engineers who developed our efficient battery backup solution even brought an actual
Google server
to the event.
By the end of the day, we narrowed in on a recurring theme: Reducing resource use through efficiency efforts is not just good for the environment, it saves money too. And it is this economic advantage which makes efficient data centers not just green, but truly sustainable.
For a tour of a Google container data center check out the video below or watch the entire summit:
part 1
,
part 2
, and
part 3
.
Posted by Jimmy Clidaras, Principal Engineer
Click-to-Buy expands to 8 new countries
April 8, 2009
Whether you come to YouTube to watch a specific video, discover related content, or engage and interact with people and videos from all around the world, our goal is to put you in control of your online video experience. This means making it easier for you to find what you're looking for (like dedicated channels for
music
or
HD
videos) and offering you new and innovative ways to engage with that content.
One way we already offer you this kind of deeper experience on YouTube involves music videos on the site:
Click-to-Buy
, our eCommerce platform, helps you find products (like songs and DVDs) related to the videos that you're watching.
A recent study
found that after watching a music video on YouTube, 50% of adult users in the U.K. then go on to purchase music from that artist. And we've seen these results for ourselves — three of the four major music labels are Click-to-Buy partners and are already selling millions of songs a year from these links on YouTube.
We're excited to announce that today we're rolling out Click-to-Buy links on music videos in 8 additional countries: Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, and Sweden. Now Click-to-Buy partners can offer music downloads to hundreds of millions of people around the world.
We enjoy working with our music partners to provide them with these kinds of opportunities, and we look forward to further expanding the program in the coming months.
Posted by Thai Tran, YouTube Product Manager
Search the rainbow
April 8, 2009
No one likes to take work home, but lately I've been looking forward to it. That's because I've been working on our new color filter in
Google Image Search
, and my daughter and I have been having a great time together looking at all the colorful animals that we've seen in the tide pools. "Papa, do the
green noodle fish
."
"Papa, now do the
red one
."
She loves it.
Today, I'm happy to announce that you too can use our color filter in your own image searches. Just search for something the way you normally would, such as [
tulips
]. On the results page, click on the "All colors" drop down in the blue bar and choose a color. For example, try restricting your results to [
yellow tulips
]. Want to see purple tulips instead? Simply click on the color filter again, select purple, and
voila
— you have pages of beautiful images!
You can also combine the color filter with any other image filter to further refine your search. For example, if you're looking for an image of an orange butterfly, try restricting to
photos
or
clip art
.
Color is one of the basic visual elements of an image. Whether you're browsing through photos of sea creatures and flowers or searching for the perfect orange butterfly, we hope you like our new color filter. We've been rolling this out gradually, but it will be available to everyone soon.
Posted by Donald Tanguay, Software Engineer
New features and an early look at Java for App Engine
April 7, 2009
Scarcity brings clarity, and many companies are taking important steps to adjust to today's economic climate. At Google, we've started changing the way we build and release products.
In the past six months alone we've launched nearly 50 projects and small products on
Google App Engine
-- from
Google Moderator
and
Labs for Google Apps
to internal-facing tools for both our Ads and Web teams. In all cases we found it quicker, easier, and more cost-effective to leave the infrastructure to App Engine, and the actual product-building to our engineering teams.
Running our internal and external apps on App Engine isn't without difficulty, however, and we've learned a lot in the process. Tonight at
Campfire One
we released a new set of features -- based on community and internal feedback -- that helps App Engine interface more easily with businesses' existing technologies:
App Engine's
early look at Java™ language support
includes a Java runtime, integration with the new
Google Web Toolkit 1.6
, and a
Google Plugin for Eclipse
The
Google Secure Data Connector
enables centrally-managed access to on-premise data from Google Apps
The
database import tool
makes it easier to move gigabytes of data into App Engine (and export functionality is coming within the month)
Cron support
can execute scheduled tasks like report generation and DB clean-up at regular intervals
By reducing the administrative headaches that come with scaling and distributing an application, we hope that App Engine will continue to let developers do what they do best: launch services that delight users.
Take a look at videos from tonight's Campfire One below:
To learn more about Google App Engine or today's announcements, feel free to check out the
Google Code Blog
or
online docs
. You can also register for our annual developer conference,
Google I/O
, as the App Engine team will be there to answer any questions you might have, as well as unveil a few surprises.
Java is a trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
Update at 10:44 pm PDT:
We've just added the videos from tonight's Campfire One.
Posted by Kevin Gibbs, Tech Lead, Google App Engine
Enhanced Gmail and Calendar web app for iPhone and Android
April 7, 2009
Today we're happy to announce a new and improved experience when you access Gmail and Calendar through the browser of your iPhone and Android-powered devices. What's new? For Gmail, we've improved the user interface to make it easier to message on the go, and we've introduced "Floaty Bar," which makes sure common actions such as archive and delete are only a click away (check out the video tour below). You can also start the application, compose mail, and open recently read messages even when you're offline. With the new Calendar, you can edit or respond to an event and, like Gmail, the app is accessible even without a network connection. To quickly navigate between Gmail, Calendar, and other mobile applications, you can use the classic links that now always appear across the top of the screen. The "more" menu provides easy access to the full list of applications. To read more about what's new, take a look at the
Gmail
and
Calendar
posts on the Mobile blog.
So you may be asking, "Why web apps?" Well, from a product perspective, web apps allow us to iterate quickly, so users benefit because they will see new features appear in the browser without having to download anything. We can experiment rapidly by learning how people use the features and then choose whether to invest further in that direction or move on. Using the browser as a delivery platform also means that users will see new feature releases happening more frequently because we can maximize our engineering efficiency by sharing code across device families. Looking at this release of Gmail, there is 90%+ code share between the Android and iPhone experience. As new devices come on the market with high-end browsers, most of the work is already done. (Hint to OEMs: you provide a world-class browser, we'll make sure Gmail and Calendar for mobile works on your platform.)
To give it a try, visit
gmail.com
in your mobile browser. To access Calendar, click on the Calendar link at the top of the Gmail page. To make it easy to access Gmail and Calendar, we recommend creating a
home screen link
. Please note, these web-based mobile products are only available on iPhone OS 2.2.1 or higher and on all Android-powered devices. We love feedback, so please
let us know what you think
.
For more technical information on how we implemented these web apps using HTML5, check out the
Google Code blog
, and come visit us at
Google I/O
, our upcoming developer conference (May 27-28 in San Francisco).
Posted by Shyam Sheth, Product Manager, Google Mobile
Google becomes more local
April 6, 2009
If you're like us, you're constantly looking for things in your neighborhood, whether it's [
restaurants in zurich
] or a new [
dentist in houston
]. If you specify your location in your query, we often show your results on a map. But we've noticed that much of the time users make simpler searches, like [
restaurants
] or [
dentist
].
We like to make search as easy as we can, so we've just finished the worldwide rollout of local search results on a map, which will now appear even when you don't type in a location. When you search on Google, we will guess where you are and show results near you. (Click on the image to view larger.)
How do we guess your location? In most cases, we match your IP address to a broad geographical location. You can also specify your likely location using the "Change location" link on the top right corner, above the map. We try to make our guesses as good as they can be so that whether you're shopping for [
groceries
], [
sporting goods
] or [
flowers
], or looking for your [
bank
], your [
gym
], or the [
post office
], you can just say what you want, and we'll try to find it right where you are. You can also search for specific stores or street addresses near you, like [cornelia st cafe] in New York, for example.
Or [
111 8th ave
] in New York.
We hope this new feature will make it just a little bit easier for you to get where you're going.
Posted by Jenn Taylor and Jim Muller, Software Engineers
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