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Insights from Googlers into our products, technology, and the Google culture
Introducing our official search blog
May 18, 2011
(Cross-posted from the
Inside Search Blog
)
The thirst for knowledge is as old as humanity. It's only in the past decade that the Internet has made knowledge ubiquitous, and we want to help you find the answers you’re looking for, whether it’s the best price on a new microwave, where to find a great bike ride—or even information about the Internet itself.
Generally, we help you answer questions by refining our algorithms, but today we’re taking a slightly different approach: we’re starting a blog—“Inside Search.” Here you’ll find regular updates on our algorithms and features, as well as stories from the people who work to improve Google every day.
In the past we’ve published information about search on the
Official Google Blog
(more than 400 posts about search and more than 50
weekly wrap-ups
), and webmaster-oriented posts on the
Webmaster Central Blog
(more than 300 posts). We also operate a
help center for search
and another
for webmasters
. That’s not to mention the
search help forums
which have more than 50,000 discussions, and the
webmaster central help forums
with more than 90,000. Combine this with
YouTube channels
and search conferences, and it’s safe to say we talk a lot about search.
Even with all these channels, we still felt we were missing something. We didn’t want to flood the Official Google Blog with smaller stories and announcements, and the
Webmaster Central Blog
is really meant for, well, webmasters. We started our series “
This week in search
” to provide a way to share information about some of the smaller updates we’re making, but we got feedback that people wanted their search news and information as it happens, not just weekly. So, we’re starting Inside Search as a place where you can find regular updates on the intricacies of search and our team. We have more
engineers working on search
than any other product, and each one of us has stories to tell.
A glimpse inside the weekly search "quality launches" meeting, during which we approve the roughly 500 improvements we make to search every year.
On behalf of the team, welcome!
Posted by Amit Singhal, Google Fellow
Bringing Google Apps educators together through regional user groups
May 18, 2011
From
grading math quizzes
with Google forms to
plotting plant growth
in a motion chart, teachers around the world are constantly generating new, creative ways Google Apps can improve instruction.
To make it easier for educators to share great ideas beyond their school walls, we’re introducing
eight Google Apps Regional K-12 User Groups
across the U.S. and Canada. These groups will enable educators and administrators to learn from one another and collaborate through community discussion forums, shared resources, events and webinars.
If you’re an educator interested in sharing and learning new ways to use Apps in your classroom, visit the
Enterprise Blog
for more information and to sign up.
Posted by Dana Nguyen, Google Apps for Education Team
YouTube Town Hall: where your views count
May 18, 2011
(Cross-posted from the
YouTube Blog
)
How would you vote if you focused purely on the ideas needed to make our country and our world a better place, rather than on the parties putting them forward? That’s a question that the new
YouTube Town Hall
seeks to answer.
YouTube Town Hall is an online platform for members of Congress to virtually debate and discuss the most important issues of the day. You can select an issue, watch two short videos of members of Congress expressing different perspectives on how to tackle this issue, and then support the one you agree with most. The most supported videos will be tracked on the
YouTube Town Hall Leaderboard
. After you watch the video, you’ll find out which party the representative comes from—and sometimes you might be surprised.
The first issues up for debate—budget, economy, energy, Afghanistan, education and healthcare—are those that were among the most popular on Google News and Google search over the past year. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask the questions you want members of Congress to answer. Every month, members of Congress will add new videos to the site answering a selection of the top-voted questions. So if you’re interested in lowering gas prices, reforming the tax system or making college more affordable,
ask now
!
Posted by Will Houghteling, YouTube News and Politics
Google Translate: the remix
May 17, 2011
When we built
Google Translate
we thought it was a cool tool, but we have to admit we had fairly straightforward ideas about what it would be useful for (lowering language barriers and making more web content available to people around the world). As with many inventions, though, it turns out people have found uses for the tool that we never imagined. Recently, two clever Translate trends caught our eye—perhaps one of them will inspire you to come up with a fun Translate trick of your own.
First, some creative folks translated strings of consonants into German to create a new beatboxing tool. The phrase “pv zk bschk” didn’t initially make much sense to us, but a quick listen got us nodding our heads along to the beat.
Now it seems there’s a similar trend in Taiwan: using the spoken output of Google Translate as the vocals for self-composed songs or video spoofs. Recently, a video called “Google Translate Song” ratcheted up over half a million views and became one of the
most popular YouTube videos
in Taiwan this month.
Whether you’re laying down your next track,
ordering take-out
or
communing with animals
, we hope you’re having as much fun using Translate as we have building it.
Posted by Jeff Chin, Product Manager, Google Translate
Future female engineers come together in the Technovation Challenge
May 17, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Students Blog
)
I was only 12 years old when I was introduced to
BASIC
, my first programming language, and it influenced my entire career path. Now working as a female engineer in a male-dominated industry, I recognize the importance of getting women interested in science and technology at a young age. In March, I decided to get involved as a mentor in the
Technovation Challenge
—an outreach program that gives high school girls a chance to explore computer science and engineering as well as grow their confidence and entrepreneurial skills while being guided by women mentors in the field.
The Technovation Challenge is a nine-week course for teams of high school girls to design a mobile app prototype, write a business plan and pitch their proposal to a panel of judges—which includes tech leaders and VCs—at one of many events held around the country.
One of the biggest obstacles in getting students involved in computing is the technical expertise that’s usually needed to program software. So I was excited to learn that
App Inventor for Android
, which makes it easy for anyone to create mobile apps for Android-powered devices, would be part of the Challenge this year. Rather than reading about CS, the girls were able to directly participate in engineering to quickly prototype mobile apps, without getting bogged down by the nitty-gritty of programming. Whether the girls were brainstorming ideas for their apps, fleshing out their business plans or hacking away at their prototypes, I was inspired by their creativity and determination.
A team of girls build their mobile prototype using Android App Inventor
At the regional pitch night in Mountain View in April, I was floored by not only my team’s presentations, but by all 50 girls competing. It was hard to believe that these confident young women—with their solid business plans and app prototypes—had joined the program just nine weeks ago with no background in entrepreneurship or programming. My team pitched a social education app—a chemistry-based game like
Jeopardy!
that students can play with friends in order to prepare for tests.
This Saturday, May 21, marks the culmination of the program, when the regional winners will convene on our
Mountain View campus
for the national pitch night. Here, they’ll compete to have their app professionally developed and distributed on the Android Market by demoing their prototypes, presenting their business plans and ultimately convincing industry leaders that their startup is worth investing in.
The Technovation Challenge tackles the computing world’s gender gap head on, giving girls early exposure to tech in a fun, engaging environment that develops their skills and confidence. I’m proud to mentor high school girls interested in engineering and technology, and I hope their experience in this program today will inspire them to become the tech leaders of tomorrow.
Posted by Shubhie Panicker, Software Engineer and Technovation Challenge mentor
Google’s 2010 U.S. Economic Impact
May 16, 2011
This week is
National Small Business Week
, an opportunity to celebrate the spirit and ingenuity of small businesses like
Everblue
, a start-up in North Carolina.
Everblue was founded in 2008 by veterans Chris and Jon Boggiano along with fellow entrepreneur Grant McGregor. The brothers’ goal was to make the U.S. more energy independent by helping people get certified in sustainable building practices. With old-fashioned hard work and some help from
Google AdWords
, their business has quadrupled in size. They now have 80 full time employees and instructors, and this year alone they’ll train tens of thousands of people—architects, engineers, electricians and others—to build smarter and greener.
Chris and Jon Boggiano, veterans and co-founders of Everblue, a training institute for sustainable building.
Today we’re announcing that Google provided $64 billion of economic activity to businesses, website publishers and non-profits in 2010. This is an 18% increase from the
economic impact total in 2009
. Here’s how it works: for every $1 a business spends on Google AdWords, they receive an average of $8 in profit through Google Search and AdWords.
We’re proud that Everblue and over one million American businesses use our advertising services to tell consumers about their products and services. Learn more at
google.com/economicimpact
.
Posted by Claire Hughes Johnson, Vice President, Global Online Sales
Expanding Google News for more variety and multimedia
May 16, 2011
(Cross-posted from the
Google News blog
)
Every day,
Google News
crawls through thousands of news articles to present you with the most relevant and recent stories. For a long time, we’ve realized that bringing relevant news to the surface is only part of the puzzle—it should also be easy to scan for stories of interest and dig deeper when you find them.
The newly expandable stories on Google News in the U.S., released today, give you greater story diversity with less clutter.
Now you can easily see more content, see less of what you don’t use and have a more streamlined experience:
Click-to-expand:
Each story cluster is collapsed down to one headline with the exception of the top story. When something grabs you, click nearby anywhere but the title to expand the story box.
Labeled diversity:
For stories you’ve expanded, you’ll see genre labels for some of the additional articles that explain why they were chosen and how they add value. For example, you might see something labeled as an “Opinion” piece or an indication that an article is “In Depth.”
Multimedia and more:
Within each expanded story box, you’ll find a sliding bar of videos and photos, links to related sections and easier-to-use sharing options, so you can quickly digest the sights and sounds of a news story, dig into different types of publications and share what you find interesting with one click.
Personalized top stories:
The Top Stories section is expanded to six or more stories from three to give you more topic diversity. The first three stories remain unpersonalized and the same as before. The rest may be personalized based on your interests. To personalize your Google News experience you can click on “Edit” under “News for you.” You can choose the “Standard Edition” if you don’t want personalization.
Less is more:
The default view is now the popular “One Column” (formerly “Section”) view. We merged List View into Top Stories, as described above. You can still switch to “Two Column” view, which resembles classic Google News.
We hope you like these changes—please share your
feedback
and visit our
Help Center
to learn more.
Posted by Chase Hensel, Associate Product Manager, Google News
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