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Building an amazing mobile shopping experience with Google Commerce Search
October 12, 2011
Mobile usage in retail is on the rise—every year we see an
increasing number of shopping queries
originate from mobile phones. As mobile continues to proliferate, it’s also fundamentally changing the way people shop. Mobile and shopping are made for each other.
Knowing this, we’re sharing a secret with you: it’s not too late to get your e-commerce site ready for the mobile surge this holiday shopping season. In fact, our newest customer, Timberland, just went live with their mobile-optimized website powered by
Google Commerce Search
in a matter of days.
Chris Hardisty, director of Timberland Global E-Commerce, told us: “Our first priority in developing our mobile website was making sure customers had the best experience possible. Shoppers today expect fast and relevant results especially on mobile, where speed and interactivity matter most. Since we launched our mobile-optimized website, we have seen mobile sales grow 20 times faster than our desktop site sales.”
Today we’re growing the Google Commerce Search family by opening up our new
Google Commerce Search Reseller Program
, and welcoming Branding Brand and Perficient as our inaugural resellers. We wanted to make it easier for retailers to adopt Google Commerce Search to help them achieve amazing results and meet their customers’ needs. Through this new program, resellers can work with us to bring the unique capabilities of Google Commerce Search to their retail clients.
Branding Brand has worked with Timberland and—earlier this year—GNC to turn their mobile visions into reality. Before GNC optimized their mobile website, 10 to 15 percent of their e-commerce traffic came from mobile. Since launching it this summer, there are twice as many visitors using search, and mobile search conversions are up 50 percent.
If you decide that building a mobile application is the best choice for you, it’s still important to build a powerful search experience that will help shoppers find exactly what they’re looking for and engage with your brand. In August,
Westfield launched a mobile shopping app
powered by Google Commerce Search for its 55 malls throughout the U.S. Alan Cohen, Executive Vice President, Management and Marketing for Westfield, told us “Whether the shopper is looking for a very specific product or general holiday gift items, the ability to search retailer products effortlessly is of real benefit.”
Ready to get started with your mobile commerce site? With the big holiday shopping season coming soon, we wanted to share some tips based on our relationships with our merchant customers:
Every millisecond counts:
You can’t deliver an amazing mobile shopping experience to your customers by wasting their time. Shoppers should be able to find the products without unnecessary clicks, typing or other steps.
Engage your audience:
Search has become highly interactive with suggestions and auto-complete, while mobile allows consumers to touch and engage with their devices in new and fun ways. Combining the two allows you to intrigue your potential customers for instant gratification.
Get to the point:
Whether someone’s looking for a high-resolution digital camera or orange khaki trousers, you want to make sure that it’s easy to find—with minimal keystrokes, of course. Space is limited on those 3- or 4-inch screens, so make the most of it by providing relevant search results.
Bridge the gap:
According to our holiday retail user survey
, 65 percent of high-end device users report they have used their device to find a business and then made a purchase at that business in person. In other words: mobile provides a great opportunity to drive foot traffic and bridge online and offline sales. You can delight shoppers by showing them when a product is also available in a store nearby—in-line with the search results.
We built Google Commerce Search just under two years ago to help retailers provide a great shopping experience to their customers, and we’ve had
positive feedback from our retail customers
on how they’ve been able to increase search revenues, site searches and online conversions while increasing customer satisfaction. Get started now with
Google Commerce Search
to build a great mobile experience in time for this year’s shopping season.
Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Group Product Manager, Google Commerce
Two days in D.C. for the winners of the Google Science Fair
October 11, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Google Student blog
and the
Google Science Fair blog
)
Last week, 17-year-old Shree Bose from Fort Worth, Texas, the grand prize winner of the Google Science Fair, visited Washington, D.C. at the invitation of the White House. We invited Shree to write about her experience in the capital. - Ed.
Adrenaline. I turned around as the brilliantly polished door behind me opened, and suddenly I was face to face with a man I’d seen so many times on television. The President of the United States calmly extended his hand to shake mine and those of Naomi and Lauren, the other two winners of Google’s first-ever
Science Fair
. He knew about our projects and was genuinely excited to talk with us.
The Oval Office is more than just a room. It has a palpable aura of grandeur, with the presidential seal in the center of the deep blue carpet and a portrait of George Washington hanging on the wall. The desk, where presidents of the past have contemplated some of the most important decisions in the world’s history, was polished to a gleam. President Obama leaned against it as he talked to us.
He asked us how we became interested in science, what our plans were for the future and which colleges we were interested in. Smiling, he told us to stick with science. We left the Oval Office feeling like our individual futures were important to the nation’s future; like we could change the world.
Our trip to Washington, D.C., also included visits to the National Institute of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Over our two days, we were given the opportunity to sit down and talk with many of our country’s leaders who have not only been extraordinarily successful in the fields we wish to go into in the future, but who also encouraged us to follow our own dreams. It was more than just meetings; it was inspiration.
Naomi Shah, Shree Bose and Lauren Hodge meet President Obama in the Oval Office
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
Posted by Shree Bose, Google Science Fair winner
Coming to a universe near you: YouTube Space Lab
October 10, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
YouTube blog
)
Can plants survive beyond Earth? Can proteins observed in space reveal the mysteries of life? Science experiments aboard the
International Space Station
(ISS) could unlock the answers and now we're giving you a chance to ask the questions. Today, we’re launching
YouTube Space Lab
with Lenovo, in cooperation with Space Adventures, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Space Lab is a new galactic channel on YouTube that will lift off from your laptop, taking you to interesting and awesome videos from around the world... and beyond.
Interested students are invited to come up with an idea for a science experiment that can be conducted in space and upload a video explaining it to YouTube by December 7, 2011. The YouTube community and a panel of distinguished scientists, astronauts and expert judges, including
Professor Stephen Hawking
, will pick the best ones. If your video is selected, it will be performed aboard the ISS and live streamed on YouTube to the world in 2012.
We'll also throw in some out-of-this-world prizes for the winners: like
ZERO-G flights
, Lenovo IdeaPad laptops and your choice of either a trip to Tanegashima Island, Japan, to watch your experiment blast off in a rocket bound for the ISS, or—once you’re 18—a one-of-a-kind astronaut training experience in
Star City, Russia
, the training center for Russian cosmonauts. For more information on how to enter, including eligibility requirements and experiment guidelines, check out the competition page on the
channel
or the
official rules
.
All future astronauts and space enthusiasts can find inspiration in the space related content on
YouTube.com/SpaceLab
. Space Lab is just one of many educational channels available under
YouTube.com/EDU
. Educators can also visit
YouTube.com/Teachers
to learn how to better incorporate video into the classroom. We're developing a YouTube for Schools pilot aimed at making YouTube accessible in more schools. If you want to be notified when it's ready, sign up
here
.
Blast off now and be part of a global experiment where your teacher is an astronaut and your classroom, space!
Posted by Zahaan Bharmal, YouTube Space Lab lead
Answering Obama's call to action with STEM 100Kin10
October 7, 2011
Last January, U.S. President Obama challenged the nation to train 100,000 high-quality science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers in 10 years.
Google in Education
decided to answer his call to action and became one of the founding members of a community of action called
100Kin10
.
We shared our plan with U.S. Secretary of Education,
Arne Duncan
, and his staff in April, who gave us their full support. With this backing, we were able to announce 100Kin10 in June at the
Clinton Global Initiative
(CGI) America meeting in Chicago. CGI also identified STEM education as one of its focus areas for its new branch of
U.S. Initiatives
.
This past week,
100Kin10 officially kicked off
with 80 partner organizations, all contributing to a threefold mission: to reverse the United States’ decades-long decline in STEM subjects, to ensure that all children have the basic STEM literacy to be full participants in our economy and democracy and to enable U.S. students to address the most pressing national and global challenges.
Google has made commitments to increase the supply of high quality teachers and retain excellent STEM teachers. Specifically:
Working with
The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT
to create a high-profile recognition program for the top 5% of STEM teachers nationwide and are well on our way to this.
Inviting districts nationwide to join us at Google for talent academies that will facilitate and fund HR pilot strategies for education.
Working with university faculty training future teachers throughout California to integrate educational technology across curriculum and scale the practice by funding research on the topic. To that end, we established the
Google Faculty Institute
this August and have already funded nine pilots across the state.
We believe every student should have access to high quality teaching and educational opportunity. We also recognize that as a collective, we can better measure our progress and take significant strides toward fulfilling the commitments the Department of Education has made around STEM teaching.
We welcome big challenges and look forward to helping achieve great success with 100kin10 in the months and years to come. For more information on Google’s efforts in education, please visit our
education website
.
Posted by Jordan Bookey, Manager, K-12 Education Outreach Team
Twenty award winners blaze their way into our Zurich office
October 7, 2011
Last week in our Zurich office, we held a celebratory event for the 20 winners of the second annual European Google Trailblazer Awards, intended to recognize students that exhibit great potential in science and engineering. The eight girls and 12 boys aged 16-19 were selected for their work in national science, informatics and engineering competitions that took place in Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Romania, Switzerland and the U.K. over the past year. Partnering with each of these competitions, Google engineers awarded “Trailblazer” status to the participants who demonstrated an outstanding use of computing technology in their projects. The aim of the distinction is to reward and encourage these students’ achievements, bring talented students to experience life at Google and show them what a career in computer science can look like, with a special emphasis on how computer science touches every discipline.
Every Trailblazer winner this year was truly worthy of the title. Ciara, Ruth and Kate, three of the winners of the the
BT Young Scientist competition
in Ireland, taught themselves to code in order to develop a mobile app for teens to measure their carbon footprints, looking at their use of typical teenage appliances like MP3 players, hair straighteners and computer games. Joszef, one of the winners of the
Scientific and Innovation Contest for Youth
in Hungary, developed a portable heart monitor combined with GPS that would alert medical services instantly if you were having a heart attack, and include your location so they could respond quickly. Tom and Yannick, winners of the
Junior Web Awards
in Switzerland, learned HTML and CSS in order to build an interactive health website—and made it available in French, German and English. These are just a few examples.
While at Google Zurich, the Trailblazers covered a wide swath of material, learning about data centers, security and testing, hearing from the Street View team on managing operations in multiple countries and from recruiters on how to write a strong resume. Google engineers chatted about careers in computer science and then tasked the group to solve problems like a software engineer: imitating how a software program might work, the participants lined up in groups of six and had to create an algorithm to reorder themselves without speaking to each other during the re-arranging. For their most in-depth challenge, the students developed and pitched their own award-winning product with guidance from product managers. In just 20 minutes, each student had to come up with product ideas and a pitch—delivered to the product managers—that would convince even Larry Page that their tech product would be the next big thing.
The students left Zurich buzzing about the pathways a career in tech can lead them down, and we can’t wait to see how these young entrepreneurs develop over the next few years.
If you’d like a shot at becoming a Google Trailblazer in 2012, enter one of our partner competitions in
Germany
,
Hungary
,
Ireland
,
Romania
,
Switzerland
or the
U.K.
(you need to be at high school in one of these countries to be eligible for entry). More countries and partner competitions will be added each year, so keep an eye on
google.com/edu
for further details.
If you’re the organizer of an pre-existing national science and engineering competition in Europe, the Middle East or Africa (EMEA) and would like your competition to be considered for a Trailblazer prize from Google, please complete this
form
.
Posted by Alison Daniel-Cutler, Pre-University Education Outreach, EMEA
National Cyber Security Awareness Month 2011: Our Shared Responsibility
October 7, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Public Policy Blog
)
On the Internet, as with the offline world, the choices we make often have an impact on others. The links we share and the sites we visit can affect our security and sometimes introduce risk for people we know. Given how quickly our collective use of technology is evolving, it’s useful to periodically remind ourselves of practices that can help us achieve a more secure and enjoyable online experience.
This month, Google once again joins the
National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA)
, government agencies, corporations, schools and non-profit organizations in recognizing
National Cyber Security Awareness Month
. It’s a time for us to offer education that increases online security for everyone.
It’s fitting that the theme of this year’s Cyber Security Awareness Month is “Our Shared Responsibility.” With ever-increasing ways to access the web and share information, we need to focus on keeping our activities secure. In that spirit, and to help kick off Cyber Security Awareness Month, we’re introducing a new
Google Security Center
. The Security Center is full of practical tips and information to help people stay safe online, from choosing a secure password to using 2-step verification and avoiding phishing sites and malware.
We also continue to develop products and services that help people protect their information online. Examples that have stood out so far this year include the
Chromebook
,
2-step verification in 40 languages
, and Chrome browser warnings for
malicious downloads
and
out-of-date plugins
, among others. We develop free products and tools such as
DOM Snitch
, a Chrome extension that helps developers identify insecure code.
We recognize the importance of security education and are committed to helping make your online experience both exciting and safe to use. We all have a responsibility to take steps to protect ourselves and together develop a culture of security. We encourage everyone to
Stop. Think. Connect.
Posted by Eric Davis, Public Policy Manager, Security
Map Maker Graduation Part V: from Afghanistan to Antarctica
October 6, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Lat Long blog
)
Google Map Maker
enables local experts to create maps and share their local knowledge with the world. These citizen cartographers help keep maps of their areas accurate and up to date. They add missing roads and new businesses—and even map areas that have little to no data yet on Google Maps.
Today, our latest crop of countries, territories and an entire continent are
graduating
from Map Maker—meaning the user-generated maps of these countries will now appear on Google Maps: Afghanistan, Antarctica, Ecuador, Georgia, Guatemala, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Honduras, Iraq, Norfolk Island, Saint Pierre & Miquelon and Saudi Arabia.
Here are some before and after pictures that highlight how much detail Map Maker users have added to Google Maps for these regions (as well as some
time-lapse videos
):
Baghdad, Iraq
Kabul, Afghanistan
Tbilisi, Georgia
Each region has an impressive mapping story—from the Georgian Government’s initiative to improve their country’s map, to the group led by six students in
Herat, Afghanistan
who mapped their entire city in a matter of weeks.
Thank you to the Google Map Maker contributors who create better maps for these regions and others; their ongoing efforts can be seen at
Map Maker Pulse
. We encourage all local mappers to continue improving the maps of these areas and the
more than 180 other regions
of the world on
Google Map Maker
.
Posted by Anjali Joshi, Director of Product Management, Google Maps
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