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Searching for a Cinderella story
March 31, 2011
Like everyone else in the U.S. who fills out a bracket for their office pool, I always have a strategy going into the
NCAA Men’s and Women’s basketball tournaments
. It's a mix of alma mater pride, light research, some guessing and a lot of crossing my fingers. And, like
almost everyone
, my bracket always gets busted.
With both the
Men’s and Women’s Final Four
being played out on the hardwood in the United States this weekend, we thought it would be a good time to check in with what American sports fans are searching for around the web.
Almost ever year, an unknown team comes out of nowhere to end up in the Final Four. Back in 2006, that team was [
george mason
] and last year it was [
butler university
]. In the men’s bracket this year, there’s not just one, but two “Cinderellas,” in the form of the VCU Rams and the return of the Butler University Bulldogs. These underdogs have captured the attention of the nation’s sports fans; searches for [
vcu
] have climbed lately and currently outpace searches for each of the other three teams in the Men’s Final Four.
When the women take the court in Indianapolis, Indiana, for their Final Four this weekend, I’ll be rooting on my Notre Dame Fighting Irish in what looks to be an even field of four teams. But in search query volume, there’s a runaway favorite: [
uconn
] leads the way against the other three teams in the bracket. The Stanford Cardinal are trying to break through this year, having played in the previous three Final Fours, but have to get to the finals first against a tough Notre Dame team. Having both the UConn Men and Women playing in the Final Four is clearly a strong reason for this search volume lead, but so is having arguably the
best player in the women’s game
!
Great coaches can get their teams to dig deep and come together to succeed in the difficult field of 64. In the women’s tournament, the coaching match-up that hoops fans across the country were hoping for unfortunately won’t take place: we’re not going to be seeing a head-to-head battle between two giants of the coaching profession in UConn’s [geno auriemma] and Tennessee’s [pat summitt], thanks to my Fighting Irish of Notre Dame besting the Lady Volunteers of Tennessee. While Coach Auriemma’s team is still alive, Coach Summitt is
winning the search query volume contest
off the floor. I’m sure if I were Coach Summitt, I’d rather still have my team playing this weekend—but maybe her lead in search can be some small consolation!
On the men’s side, there’s a nice mix of seasoned veteran coaches as well as two young coaches emerging as rising stars. As we near the end of the tournament, it’s not Coach [jim calhoun] or Coach [john calipari] capturing the attention of U.S. searchers—it’s the young head coach at VCU, [shaka smart], and Butler’s equally young coach [brad stevens] who
currently take the top spots
in search query volume.
Each year, new stars emerge as the tournaments unfold. In 2010, Duke’s [
kyle singler
] captured the Final Four MVP, and in 2006 Florida’s [
joakim noah
] captured the nation’s attention. This year, Butler’s [
matt howard
] has risen to take the top spot as the most searched player of the tournament.
Finally, I know that I get a little basketball-crazy during this time of year, but looking at some of our data, I discover that I’m not alone. In the state of Indiana—the home of Hoosiers and some of the most vocal hoops fans, home-state [butler bulldogs]
have pulled ahead
of pop music star [katy perry] in search query volume. Now that’s dedication to basketball!
This tournament is always one of the most unpredictable sporting events in the country, so it’s comforting to know that the tournaments end the same way every year:
with the champions cutting down the nets
. While we can’t predict which team will be up on the ladder cutting the nylon, the search data does provide a glimpse into what we U.S. sports fans are interested in—and perhaps who we’re cheering for in the waning seconds of the games.
Like you, I’ll be sitting on the edge of my couch this weekend with my busted bracket in hand. Of course, in my case, I’ll be rooting on my alma mater. Go Irish!
Posted by Jim Lecinski, Managing Director, U.S. Sales and Service and Notre Dame class of ‘87
YouTube highlights 3/31/2011
March 31, 2011
This is the latest in our series of YouTube highlights. Every couple of weeks, we bring you regular updates on new product features, interesting programs to watch and tips you can use to grow your audience on YouTube. Just look for the label “
YouTube Highlights
” and subscribe to the series. – Ed.
In the past two weeks, we saw online video swing into action in a few very powerful scenarios. Video helped connect people with loved ones affected by tragedy while at the same time, uniting musicians from around the world to create art.
YouTube Person Finder
The
YouTube Person Finder (消息情報)
channel aggregates video messages from those affected by the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan. You can search for videos within the module or browse videos in Japanese. Our hope is that the power of video and the access to YouTube will help victims and their families find each other and make sure they’re safe.
YouTube Symphony Orchestra dazzles from Sydney
One hundred and one musicians from 33 countries were selected via online auditions to come together as an orchestra and celebrate music, creativity and collaboration. Well-known YouTube stars joined the show in Sydney to collaborate, including
Pogo
and Ukrainian sand artist
Kseniya Simonova
. A week of events and seven sold-out concerts captured on
youtube.com/symphony
culminated in a
Grand Finale
event on March 20. The event was streamed 33 million times around the world to 189 countries, including an incredible 2.8 million mobile live-streams.
Lights, YouTube—Action
Owning a video camera is no longer a prerequisite to joining the YouTube community.
youtube.com/create
, just launched in beta, enables anyone to use video creation sites
Xtranormal
,
Stupeflix
and
GoAnimate
to make personal videos using images, music and animations and then share them by posting to YouTube.
If you do own a video camera, we have some good news for you too. Nine months ago
we introduced
our cloud-based video editor, with basic tools, at
www.youtube.com/editor
. This week, we’ve made two major enhancements to our video editor—image stabilizer and
3D capabilities
. Now, you can smooth unsteady video footage with the click of a button or create a composite of two side-by-side videos to produce your very own 3D action flick—all for free.
Baby, she was “Born this way”
Lady Gaga stopped by Google’s headquarters last week and wowed a packed auditorium of Googlers and YouTubers. Gaga answered questions from fans via Twitter and Moderator as well as the audience, dishing on fashion, her larger-than-life persona and upcoming album. Watch the entire Q&A now on YouTube.
This week in trends
Some quick
highlights
from
YouTube Trends
:
U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama
addressed the issue of bullying
early this month at the White House and since then, we’ve seen
anti-bullying videos
appear on YouTube by the hundreds each week.
We're seeing new video coming from Syria, where demonstrations have
reportedly escalated
. CitizenTube, in partnership with
StoryFul
, is curating that footage on its channel.
We looked at how popular
cartoonists in Jordan
have reacted to the major events taking place in North Africa and the Middle East.
We looked at some of the most popular
viral clips
from around the world, including a proposal gone wrong, a musically-inclined baby and masked flash mobbers in Korea.
Check them out for yourself
.
Until our next update, keep up on what’s going in the world of video via the
YouTube Blog
.
Posted by Neha Mandal, Marketing Manager, The YouTube Team
Two new Google domains: Iraq and Tunisia
March 31, 2011
We offer search on different regional domains, such as google.fr for France and google.dj for Djibouti, in order to provide the most locally-relevant results. We've steadily brought Google to many of the world's domains, and
today we announced
on our Google Arabia Blog that we're adding two more:
google.iq
for Iraq and
google.tn
for Tunisia. This brings the number of local Google search domains worldwide to 184, with 15 domains in Arab countries.
The new domains will help people in Iraq and Tunisia find locally relevant information, faster. For example, a search for [central bank] on the Iraq domain yields
results
relevant to someone in Iraq, such as the Central Bank of Iraq. On the other hand, the same search on the Tunisia domain returns
slightly different results
.
The new domains also make it easier for people in Iraq and Tunisia to access search in their preferred languages. In Iraq, people can now easily access Google search in local languages like Arabic and Kurdish; while in Tunisia, people can find the Google interface in Arabic and French. In the past, people in these regions would need to visit the domain for another country to use Google in an interface they were comfortable with. And when they did, the results would be relevant to a different region.
Local domains are a first step towards making the web more accessible and relevant for people around the world. They’re also an integral part of
our vision
to make all of our products available in the world's top 40 most spoken languages covering 99 percent of Internet users worldwide. We plan to add more domains in the coming months, so stay tuned!
Posted by AbdelKarim Mardini, Product Manager, Middle East & North Africa
Fresh new perspectives for your blog
March 31, 2011
(Cross-posted from
Blogger Buzz
)
Today we’re previewing five new dynamic templates in Blogger that you’ll soon be able to customize and use for your blog. These new views use the latest in web technology, including AJAX, HTML5 and CSS3, to deliver a host of benefits to you and your readers:
Infinite scrolling: read more posts without having to reload or click to a second page
New layouts: different views suited to different types of blogs
Speed: download images as you view them, not all at once in advance
Interactivity: there are now more ways to experience and engage with blog content
Click on any of these links to take the new dynamic views for a spin on a few of our favorite blogs:
Flipcard
,
Mosaic
,
Sidebar
,
Snapshot
and
Timeslide
.
Flipcard
Snapshot
Mosaic
To try these views on your own blog, simply add “/view” to the end of the blog URL—for example,
http://buzz.blogspot.com/view
. These new views are available on all public Blogger blogs with feeds fully enabled—to learn more, including how to disable these views for your blog if you wish, please see our
help center article
.
We’re previewing these templates early on so we can incorporate your feedback for a wider launch soon. At that time you’ll be able to customize these templates and select one for your blog. Please
let us know what you think
!
Posted by Antin Harasymiv, Software Engineer, Blogger
New imagery of Japan after the earthquake
March 30, 2011
(Cross-posted from the
Lat Long Blog
)
It’s now the third week after the devastating 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck northeastern Japan. Aid organizations have been hard at work and cities are starting to show signs of recovery, but the damage is beyond imagination and there are still thousands of people at shelters grappling with daily challenges. As a native of Sendai city, I’m still speechless seeing the destruction and damage that has been done to the places I love and care about.
We’ve been looking for ways we can assist in the relief efforts using Google’s map-related tools. A few days after the quake, we published
updated satellite imagery
of northeast Japan in Google Maps and Google Earth, which illustrated the massive scale of devastation in the affected areas.
Today, we’ve published imagery of the Sendai region at even higher resolution, which we collected on Sunday and Monday. The new Sendai imagery, along with satellite imagery from throughout the area, is now live in the base imagery layer of Google Earth and will soon be visible in Google Maps. We hope to continue collecting updated images and publishing them as soon as they are ready.
We hope our effort to deliver up-to-date imagery provides the relief organizations and volunteers working around the clock with the data they need to better understand the current conditions on the ground. We also hope these tools help our millions of users—both those in Japan and those closely watching and sending their support from all over the globe—to find useful information about the affected areas.
A riverside neighborhood in Sendai from our newly released imagery
Posted by Keiichi Kawai, Senior Product Manager, on behalf of Google Japan and international Crisis Response teams
+1’s: the right recommendations right when you want them—in your search results
March 30, 2011
Our goal at Google is to get you the most relevant results as quickly as possible. But relevance is about relationships as well as words on webpages. That’s why we
recently
started to include more information from people you know—stuff they’ve shared on Twitter, Flickr and other sites—in Google search results.
Today we’re taking that a step further, enabling you to share recommendations with the world right in Google’s search results. It’s called
+1
—the digital shorthand for “this is pretty cool.” To recommend something, all you have to do is click +1 on a webpage or ad you find useful. These +1’s will then start appearing in Google’s search results.
The +1 button will appear next to each search result
After pressing the +1 button, you have the option to undo the action immediately
Say, for example, you’re planning a winter trip to Tahoe, Calif. When you do a search, you may now see a +1 from your slalom-skiing aunt next to the result for a lodge in the area. Or if you’re looking for a new pasta recipe, we’ll show you +1’s from your culinary genius college roommate. And even if none of your friends are baristas or caffeine addicts, we may still show you how many people across the web have +1’d your local coffee shop.
The beauty of +1’s is their relevance—you get the right recommendations (because they come from people who matter to you), at the right time (when you are actually looking for information about that topic) and in the right format (your search results). For more information about +1, watch this video:
So how do we know which +1’s to show you? Like social search, we use many signals to identify the most useful recommendations, including things like the people you are already connected to through Google (your chat buddies and contacts, for example). Soon we may also incorporate other signals, such as your connections on sites like Twitter, to ensure your recommendations are as relevant as possible. If you want to know who you're connected to, and how, visit the “Social Circle and Content” section of the
Google Dashboard
.
To get started +1’ing the stuff you like, you’ll need to create a
Google profile
—or if you already have one,
upgrade it
. You can use your profile to see all of your +1’s in one place, and delete those you no longer want to recommend. To see +1’s in your Google search results you’ll need to be logged into your
Google Account
.
We’ll be slowly rolling out +1’s, starting in English on Google.com. If you can’t wait to start seeing +1’s, we’ll soon let you opt-in to the launch by visiting our
experimental search site
. Initially, +1’s will appear alongside search results and ads, but in the weeks ahead they’ll appear in many more places (including other Google products and sites across the web). If you’re an advertiser and want to learn more about how the +1 button works on search ads and websites, visit our
AdWords blog
.
We’re confident that +1, combined with all of the social content we’re now including in search, will mean even better, more relevant results than you get today.
Posted by Rob Spiro, Product Manager
Ultra high-speed broadband is coming to Kansas City, Kansas
March 30, 2011
As part of our overall goal to make the web better for users, last year we
announced
a new project: to provide a community with Internet access more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have today. The response was overwhelming—nearly 1,100 cities felt the
need for speed
—and we were thrilled by the enthusiasm we saw across the country for better and faster web connections. Thank you to every community and individual that submitted a response, joined a rally, starred in a YouTube video or otherwise participated.
After a careful review, today we’re very happy to announce that we will build our ultra high-speed network in
Kansas City, Kansas
. We’ve signed a development agreement with the city, and we’ll be working closely with local organizations, businesses and universities to bring a next-generation web experience to the community.
Later this morning we'll join Mayor Reardon at Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas, for an event we’ll carry live on the
Google YouTube channel
—be sure to tune in at 10am PDT to watch.
In selecting a city, our goal was to find a location where we could build efficiently, make an impact on the community and develop relationships with local government and community organizations. We’ve found this in Kansas City. We’ll be working closely with local organizations including the
Kauffman Foundation
,
KCNext
and the
University of Kansas Medical Center
to help develop the gigabit applications of the future.
Pending approval from the city’s Board of Commissioners, we plan to offer service beginning in 2012. We’ll also be looking closely at ways to bring ultra high-speed Internet to other cities across the country.
Over the past decade, the jump from dial-up to broadband has led to streaming online
video
, digital music sales,
video conferencing
over the web and countless other innovations that have transformed communication and commerce. We can’t wait to see what new products and services will emerge as Kansas City moves from traditional broadband to ultra high-speed fiber optic connections.
Now it’s time to get to work.
Update
4:15PM
: We’ve heard from some communities that they’re disappointed not to have been selected for our initial build. So just to reiterate what I've said many times in interviews: we're so thrilled by the interest we've generated—today is the start, not the end the project. And over the coming months, we'll be talking to other interested cities about the possibility of us bringing ultra high-speed broadband to their communities.
Posted by Milo Medin, Vice President, Access Services
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