Google Q3 conference call

After a little bullshitting about deals in the first, canned part of the call, Google's top execs made some great points in the Q&A section of their latest investor conference call.

• The first questioner asks why Google doesn't use its cash for future purchases, rather than the $1.65 billion in stock it spent on YouTube. The assumption is that Google's stock is undervalued, so using cash would make a better deal for Google. CFO George Reyes says, "Going forward we're going to use cash."
• Co-founder Sergey Brin explains about consolidating products: if Google keeps launching new products, users will have to search for a product to use it -- "you will have to search before you can do a search." Instead he wants to integrate what Google already made. Thus the combined image/web page results for some searches.

• A senior VP says Google's video ads are doing great. No mention of whether they're coming to YouTube.
• Schmidt won't say whether YouTube will be profitable. "We don't give [financial] guidance."
• Schmidt also stonewalls on the reaction of MySpace (which recently signed a near-billion-dollar deal with Google) to the purchase of YouTube.
• Why did Google have such a great quarter, unlike its competitors? A senior VP chalks it up to "incredible" product improvements, geographic expansion, and the success of new ad formats.
• Brin stretches that annoying "low-hanging fruit" metaphor: "In a sense, you might imagine that the low-hanging fruit have been picked. But in fact, we have at the same time built ladders and are reaching for perhaps even larger, higher-hanging fruit."
• Schmidt closes by wishing senior VP Omid Kordestani a happy birthday. Cute.

Google Q3 2006 Earnings Call Transcript

Hackers Taking Too Much Advantage Off Google Code Search?

Security watchers from both sides of the fence have been testing Google's Code Search service to determine whether it can be misused.

Experts at Beyond Security's advisory arm, SecuriTeam, have already discovered that the tool can be used to unearth a treasure trove of vulnerabilities in open source software.

"Like most of Google's tools it can easily be abused for hacking," the SecuriTeam researchers wrote in a blog on the site.

Google Code Search has indexed several billions lines of code from archives hosted on the Web, as well as software control repositories from services like SourceForge and Google Code which host open source projects.

Tom Stocky, a product manager with Google, said at the tool's launch: "We will try to make this useful for everyone from computer science students to serious programmers and even hobbyists and code enthusiasts."

It seems that he forgot to mention hackers. The search tool is also proving to be a source of humour for the geek community.

A number of blogs frequented by coders have already posted a litany of amusing search terms which resulted in comic hits, usually amounting to criticism of coders or 'notes to self' that were presumably never meant to be seen.

Some of the less offensive search terms that return hits on the Google Code Search database include 'In Case Some Idiot', 'The Guy Who Wrote This' and 'I am drunk'.

The Official Google Mac Blog

We like Google as much as the next guy (unless the next guy works for Microsoft or Yahoo!) but sometimes their Mac support let's us down. It looks like things could be changing since Google just launched the Google Mac Blog. At the moment the blog is pointing to http://www.google.com/mac.html, which lists all the Mac related Google products that are available in one place.

Here's hoping we see support for Macs out of the gate with future Google products.

The Google And YouTube Story May Be A MIstake!

Everybody's buzzing about Google and YouTube. Stocks went up on the news. Commentators are writing about why it makes so much sense. I'm not so sure.

Mark Cuban points out one big problem: Lawsuits. As if Google weren't being sued enough already (at the last Google Shareholder's meeting, someone asked what the company was being sued for, and head lawyer David Drummond responded, "How much time do you have?") Cuban, who founded the the Web's first popular audio broadcast site, Broadcast.com, and sold it to Yahoo, knows what he's talking about.

What happens when thousands of people who create their own videos start suing Google/YouTube because others keep downloading their videos, which are automatically copyrighted as soon as they're posted? YouTube does downloads, not streams. Most pundits seem to think Google will have blocking technology to deal with that problem. I don't have that much faith in technology, especially when it's attacked by hackers.

Perhaps Google will switch to a streaming model. But unlike Cuban, I also worry strongly about the media companies suing. People are going to be creating mashups of videos, and will post pirated works. It's the direction of the Internet. When there's a copyright violation, who you gonna sue? The company with the deep pockets.

This whole concept of being a content site that lets people post their own stuff is great in theory (that's what blog sites are all about.) But man, you enter into a quagmire when anyone can post anything. Just because Internet companies are now trying to work with established media companies, it doesn't mean they will sit back quietly while their familiar business models disappear. The spirit of Napster still lives in the Internet.

It's going to be bad enough that Google Search will find pirated video all over the Internet. When the stuff is on its own site, the lawsuits will fly. I'm certain there are a lot of lawyers salivating over these trends like drunken sailors on the shores of Tahiti after five years at sea.

I also have a problem with google being in the video posting space for other reasons. It's something that strikes me, finally, as a move that violates Google's original mandate. Google used to avoid being a "media company," instead vowing to send people to other sites to find their content. I think Google may actually manage to keep sending people offsite if the best videos don't reside at home. but why set up the conflict of interest?

People don't seem to get it. Media sites are a great service. But monetizing them is a huge problem. Let/Yahoo be the media/portal. It can't compete with Google, so it may as well step into its own quagmire.

BUT im wrong
look
http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/google_youtube.html

Digg Runs Zune Ads

Take a look at these screenshots of Microsoft Zune ads at the top and side of Digg.com, I didnt think they would run them but they did... I thought they where more of Mac fans than MS.

10 Ways To Be a Better Blogger

I have seen many articles listing how to become a better blogger, and the latest one on Tech Republic is a little too common sense, but if you are not doing most if not all of these, you better get your act together.

Define your purpose
Create visual appeal
Use the proper tools
Make it easy to navigate
Stay in one place
Engage your readers
Establish a blogging schedule
Keep it concise
Proofread before publishing
Go syndicate yourself

I need to work on a being better at a few of these myself. A good reminder to those that think the are in “the know” when it comes to blogging.

Google Code Search

Google Code Search is a new search engine created by Google that "helps you find function definitions and sample code by giving you one place to search publicly accessible source code hosted on the Internet". You can restrict your search to a certain language, license, file or package. You can also use regular expressions, so don't forget to escape characters like space (for example, for\ \(;;\)).

Google does a good job at finding duplicates, and locating a file in a package.

Google Gadgets For Your Webpage

Google has launched a collection of "Google Gadgets for your webpage" that allows users to browse a gallery of small, web-based devices that display information ranging from calculators to maps to photo galleries.

Upon selecting a Gadget and adjusting the settings, users are then given a string of HTML code to place onto their pages. The Gadgets are distributed free of charge and hosted remotely, so users would not need to upload any data to their web pages other than the widget code.

End users aren't the only target of the expanded Google Gadgets. The company is also attempting to lure developers.

"We're working to connect developers with enthusiastic consumers and to make information universally accessible and useful to the individual user," said Google developer Adam Sah.

Several of the currently available Gadgets offer content from non-Google sites, including Wikipedia and Whitepages.com.

Google hopes that by releasing the Gadgets to users, they can greatly expand the reach of Google Gagdets and bring in more interest from developers.

http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open&num=24

Whats SearchMash ?

SearchMash is a low-profile search tool created by Google that mixes normal search results with Google Images. As shown in this screenshot, the idea is similar to an older version of A9. The Google Operating System has the run-down:

Search results are numbered and you can reorder them. Clicking on the green URL, you'll see a list of options like "cached copy", "similar sites". You don't have click on the search box to type your query. There is no search button, you just have to type enter. Google shows the number of visible search results in the top right corner. Clicking on the "more" link, Google loads a new set of results using Ajax and scrolls to the first result of the new set using a nice animation (this seems broken in Firefox). Actually the entire site uses a lot of JavaScript and Ajax, and it can't be used if you disable JavaScript.

For now, Google will use SearchMash as a place to play around with their technologies, and might be the foundation for a redesigned version of Google's search results.

Blogger Makes 35k A Year?

indeed is a new site focused on job searches, but they also have a handy tool to let you know the average wages for a job. I put in things like Blogger, Journalist, Reporter, Computer Support Technician, Writer among others and got some interesting figures. I will tell you right now, I make way less blogging than $39,000 a year.

An interesting tool but I question its accuracy. Though it might also be a good way to ask for a raise…

Don't Do It Yourself - Please

How quickly things can go wrong.

video.google.com/videoplay?docid···=plumber

Get paid to test Google products

Google is soliciting people to use its products and get paid to provide feedback. As part of Google User Experience Research, people will typically be paid $75 an hour for time spent with Google researchers. Participants can also fill out surveys online or answer questions over the phone.

"You'd be helping us to improve Google products, both existing ones and those that are still in development. For example, we might ask you to try out a prototype and give us feedback on it, or we might interview you to help us plan a new product," the Web site's frequently asked questions page says.

Google used to have a "Trusted Tester" program for friends and family of Google employees to test products before they were launched, but the new program may be replacing that one, Garett Rogers speculated in a ZDNet blog.

Google representatives did not return an e-mail seeking comment.

New Google Reader!

Google Reader got a HUGE update! With a new interface, whole bunch of new features, and a new favorite icon. :D Below is a list of changes,

• Expanded view and list view
• Simplified sharing functionality
  
• Improved read-state management
  
• Infinite scrolling
  
• Unread counts
  
• Mark all as read
  
• and a bunch more...
  

Other than the ones listed above, you can now see the number of new updates in the title bar, like the one Gmail has, and from the number next to the "folders" under "Updated Subscribtions". Also, checkout the (new?) Google Reader for Mobile.

read more | reader for mobile | other goodies | "Something looks... different."

Google's Birthday!

This week we celebrate Google's 8th birthday, and I hope you like the commemorative logo that appears on today's homepage

Google & Saturn Ad

New Features: Google Calendar

Google's rolling out a lot of new stuffs and updates today, Google Maps Update, Google Transit Update, New Features for Google Notebook, and now, new features for Google Calendar. :D "You can now get some extra information directly in your calendar view — like the upcoming weather, the phases of the moon, and even a heads up when a new Google Doodle appears on Google.com."

The upcoming weather feature is disabled by default, you can enable it in the Setting page, by entering your location and choose either Celsius or Fahrenhe it for "Show weather based on my location".

read more | GCal

Steve Irwin's Last Swim

»youtube.com/watch?v=q1DiCyui1uA

Blog Search

Exerpts from a recent article i wrote in my blog....At present there is a lot of talk about blogs. About blogs being used in marketing, customized advertising, customer feedback, customer reviews, “word of mouth” marketing, etc. We are all seeing an increase in the number of blogs being created everyday, hundreds of them just cluttering the web space, like remains of past satellites or spacecrafts cluttering space. They don’t have anything significant to say, no contribution, a great majority of them have been “under construction” since years. When I m searching about some topic, blogs come very low in the list, what comes first are established sites like wikipedia, news sites, etc. When I look at blogs many of them are just about a person’s personal life, his/her daily life, now how useful is that? Yes, it’s a medium of expression for the person, but apart from that what else. In this whole clutter of personal, under construction or just blank blogs how do I find something that I m looking for. It’s only by chance that I’ll land up at the right blog at the right time. So how much can the companies advertising on a particular blog actually make? Yes, I know they are paying only per click. But doesn’t that mean all that talk about blogs being a good medium for internet marketing. Blogs are no doubt a good source of information provided we spot the right one when we actually need it. So what’s the future of blogging? I think they are not going to last for long, till someone somewhere comes out with a way to make available all the information at one place. Our own blogger.com does give us a way to search the blog space for a particular topic, but how many of us actually go to blogger.com to search for anything. What if Google adds blogsearch to it main page, just like image search, video search etc. This will give a lot of blogs a new lease of life, and thus blogging a new lease of life. So happy blogging!!!

OHHHHHHHHHHH..............so i m a little late...there is already google blog search...ya ya who can beat those minds.........but i have a question why isnt it on the home page, as blogs are becoming more and more important, the blog search can have a place one the home page...well thats for Google to decide...

Become a Google Lab Rat

Google has a form up for you to request to become a "User Experience Research" at. Google is "currently looking for Google Page Creator users to participate in a user study to improve our product."

So if you love Google, like to test things, and enjoy Page Creator, then fill out the form.

Regina of Google, posted this request in the Google Groups forum.

She adds,

Just to let you know, filling out the survey doesn't guarantee you'll be contacted.

The Form | Google Groups Discussion

Create Multiple Sites on Google Pages

You can now create multiple sites on Google Pages, like what you can do in Blogger. Just click on “Create a site with a different address” on the top of the page, and enter the subdomain you want, choose layout and theme, then click on “Create Site”. With this, you can have more than 100 MB on Google Pages without creating a new account.

Google is actually giving wrong examples on how to create a new site… The subdomain should be longer than 6 characters, and the examples are showing “eve” and “frogs”.

Google Pages | via GoogleOS

New on AdSense

Inside AdSense let us know that the AdSense team has revamped your Channel page under your AdSense Setup tab.

Besides cleaning up the design by housing each product on its own sub-tab, we’ve also made it easier for you to take action on your channels. Just select the checkbox next to a channel and then choose to activate, deactivate, remove, or rename the channel you’ve selected.

AdSense also launched the small square, a 200 * 200 size ad format. It will support text, image and video ads.

read more | suggestions? | image by Google

Google Video Updates

Google Video added two links to the end of every videos that played on Google Video site. The links are "Send link to a friend" and "Post to Blog/Myspace". For posting to blog, you can choose either Blogger, LiveJournal, or TypePad, the embed HTML is no longer there. :( [InsideGoogle]

Also, Google has added a new page for you to find captioned videos, "Selected videos with captions", and videos that with captions will have a icon when you search. The caption feature isn't new, but people rarely use it, you can learn more about how to use it here.

Google AdSense Running in Newsletters

Google AdSense, according to a DigitalPoint thread covered by Barry Schwartz, seems to be letting select publishers serve Google AdSense ads in newsletters and mass commercial emailings. I’ve tried (as a test) placing Google AdSense in Constant Contact powered emails and the ads were served and targeted almost perfectly.

So, if Google AdSense does work in HTML emails and Google has figured out ways to adjust AdSense click costs via Smart Pricing, why not just allow all email publishers the right to run AdSense ads?

Possibly because email spam is more out in the open on the Internet than AdSense powered Splogs and the public backlash against Google Ads in spam mails could be crippling.

On the other hand, a trusted email publisher working with the AdSense team to throw out some targeted mailings could lead to a new revenue stream for both Google and their Premium Publisher mail partners.

Oh yes, Google’s normal stance on AdSense in emails?

Digital Point Thread | Barry Schwartz

Syndicate Search Is Coming?

Google registered thirty variations of a "syndicated search" domain on the September 15th that hint at an upcoming "syndicated search" feature. When I think syndication, I automatically envision blogs but Google already has Google Blog Search. There are a few possibilities for the meaning of these domains. Google Blog Search could be the recipient of a new name (something similar to Google Syndicated Search), or they are working on a separate service to aggregate all RSS/Atom feeds it can find not necessarily just blogs.

Another possibility (and the one I think is more likely) is support for the OpenSearch format created by A9. The official site for OpenSearch describes it as the following:

OpenSearch is a set of simple formats for the sharing of search results. Any website that has a search feature can make their results available in OpenSearch™ format. Other tools can then read those search results.

OpenSearch basically allows developers to syndicate search results to be consumed by aggregators (like A9 Search or Google if I'm right). Currently, there are over 400 search providers that publish their results using this format they include sites like flickr, New York Times, Wikipedia, imdb and more. If this is what is happening, it would be interesting to see if the feeds integrate with organic search results or if they would be a part of Google Co-op.

Yes, this is all speculation, but when Google registers domains, they are usually getting pretty close to announcing something. If the recent past has any weight, we will be seeing what these domains mean very soon.

Add MSN Cotacts to Gtalk

GTalk2VoIP is a site that promises to transform Google Talk into a full VoIP application, so you can call from Google Talk to a phone number or from a phone number to Google Talk. Another interesting thing you can do is to talk to a MSN Messenger user and even create a voice conference with users from Google Talk and MSN Messenger (Windows Live Messenger).

You don't need to install a software, you just have to add a contact (service@gtalk2voip.com) and use it as a gateway.

The creator of this service seems to have a lot of interesting ideas, but I hope it won't take too long before Google starts to offer similar features.

Google and Baidu

The Chinese search engine Baidu continues to be far more popular in China than Google, despite the huge amounts of money spent on market research. As a Chinese company started by Chinese people, Baidu seems to cater better to the culture. Yet all of the results returned are paid for by advertisers, unlike Google, which provides “organic” results and shows advertisements only a clearly-marked sponsored links. It seems to have a very similar interface, must be a difference in the search results.

25 Things Danny Sullivan Hates About Google

Danny Sullivan wrote an article on SEW (Search Engine Watch)where he named 25 things he hated about Google, here are a few that I really would like to comment on.

3.Stop confusing people. Pick a user interface and go with it!
Google keeps testing and testing various UIs. If I had the time and energy, I'd take all the screenshots people have posted and put them into a single "Google of the future" page. Then again, they probably wouldn't commit. Enough with the testing! Decide on something and go with it, then change it later if you need to.

Well, if we see this in Google's eyes, it means more people talking, blogging and posting about their new update, and more people going to google and trying out the new style. But, I do agree with you that it is confusing, although I think they should have a few styles in your settings and you choose the way your search interface looks.

5.Easier access to all your tools.
Life at Google is more than web, images, groups, news, Froogle and local. Maybe I want to switch to mobile search, book search, catalog search or yes yes yes blog search with an easy click from the existing query I've done. I can't. I can't even if I use your toolbar. Many of these services remain in "visit directly" mode.

Jesus, I could not agree with you more! going to that service page, to then click on labs, to then get to Google Reader and they have services that aren't even there, like Analytics, its a trip, thats why I love saving Links, but whatever, people don't like to bother going to every link and then looking for what they want. Lets face it, people are lazy, like me, and they want things digested and given to them, so do it Google!

7.RSS feed for web search
OK, I know the results don't change much, and I know that RSS feeds of web search that Yahoo and MSN offer are hardly winning over mass numbers of users. Still, why not? Since you offer RSS for news search results and other things, let me monitor web search the same way.

Again, I agree, I do so with news searches of Google in Google News, and it works, why not give it a little update and do so with the plain Web Search.

11.Stop giving away Blogger for free.
It's just full of junk. Junk, junk, junk. If you let anyone have it with no barriers, surprise, some are going to take it and do bad things with it. Problems With Splogs & Time-Based Searching covers how you've reinvented free home page spam that sucked in the 90s. Why are you allowing it again now? Charge people even a token amount ($1 even), and that will be a big barrier. Who's going to ding you for charging a $1 start-up fee that you can levy through Google Payments?

I agree with you on the part of that Blogger is full of junk junk junk, because it is, mostly just dead blogs. But why make it have to be paid, then all you would get is a bunch of angry people, if you just want the junk off Blogger, just start a cleaning process with all the old blogs and set a new barrier for current blogs.

19.Let Gmail display more than 100 items.
After archiving 50,000 messages 100 items at a time, I really wished for the ability to view more than 100 items per page. I still want that when I'm having to review about 300 spam items per day. This can't be that hard. Can't we have it?

100 items is more than enough, and they aren't going to change their product, which is free, because if it was paid it would be another story, because a portion of their users get spammed each day.

21.Give me a list of all my referring pages in Google Analytics and make them clickable.
C'mon. WebTrends has offered stuff like this since, I dunno, WebTrends 1.0? But in Google Analytics, I have to go to Referral Conversion, then see individual URLs rolled up under sites, then cut and paste things if I want to go to the page that sent me traffic. It could, and should, be much easier.

Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes! PLEASE!, analytics is an awesome utility, but without referring links is something most Page Tracking utilities have, why cant Google have it too?

These are just some of the things Danny Sullivan mentioned in his post at SEW.

Danny Sullivan's Full SEW Post | Danny's FAQ on The Topic | Digg This Article

Snakes On A Google!

From Googler Niniane Wang’s blog about a strange day about the Google campus. Following a massive roadway backup caused by a Cisco meeting down the road, and then a network outage (related? Cisco is a network company), an email was sent around Google warning that a snake had been spotted at the Googleplex. Was Microsoft responsible? Or was it Yahoo? Or even Sam Jackson? Either way, Google’s got a different type of problem to tackle, one I don’t think they covered in CS classes at Stanford.

Okay, the headline is a bit over-the-top, but so is the idea of snakes and search engine companies…

Original Post | Digg This Article

Flavor Falve + Google

Three Six Mafia has sponsored Google!

Google Video Views

Google Video now shows the number of views for each video I’d love to see this “views” or “yesterday’s views” feature being rolled out on many different Google tools; views of a particular newsgroup posting through Google Groups, clicks on a specific result in web search, views of a thumbnail of an image in Google image search, views of a Sketchup 3D model, views of a Picasa image and so on.

No Index Meta Tag Problem

Please Listen to this Podcast from Webmaster Radio and Danny Sullivan said something very interesting about the "No Index" meta tag or Robots.txt file which he said that if you put a no index meta tag the Google Bot will not index your page. Please listen from 18:00-20:03 so you see what I mean


powered by ODEO

"A meta no index tag is an easy way to keep a particular page out of the index"..."if you use the no index meta tag google will not show your page in any way shape or form."

So using the no index meta tag will hurt your ranking in the Google Directory, as he says "even if they know about your site, apparently through the open directory or because they can see people linking to it, they still will not list it". So I just wanted to get people who use a free service like Blogger or Wordpad, to not use the no index meta tag because as soon as the Google Bot sees this, it will not index the page. A more effective way to do this is to get the Robots.txt file into your page, but unless you have a site with FTP access you cant.

"they got two different behaviors even though your telling them the same thing, dont index this particular part of my site"

Daily Search Cast Post | Danny Sullivan's Blog | Digg This Article

Riding Over Google

I found this video in which a guy rides a dirtbike over google, pretty cool



Digg This Article

8 Years ago on September 7, 1998, two guys name Sergey Brin and Larry Page incorporated Google in Susan Wojcicki's garage. And it turned out to be the most used search engine in the world. Let's take a look at how Google looks like 8 years ago.

This was one of Google's first logos, created using GIMP, download the original file here. Well, you know the rest, they are history. ;) "Google celebrates their birthday depending on when people feel like having cake." -Hopefully Google will out of beta tomorrow. *Smile*!-

Winners of the Google Desktop Gadget contest!

As the Inside Google Desktop blog promised, they have posted the winners of the Google Desktop Gadget contest today. ;)

First place is diGGGadget by Marius and Yannick Stucki, second place is Multiplayer Reversi Game by Turhan Aydin, and Beatrix Gottanka's Day/Night World Clock as the third place.

Inside Google Desktop also listed eight Honorable Mention gadgets, and they are 10x10 News by Turhan Aydin, Carrier by Petar Petrov, Gate2Home Virtual Keyboard by Ilan Bar-Magen, Hot or Not by Ron Huang, Weather forecasts of Japan by IT Design BitWiz, Memory Smiley by Bijoy Thangaraj & Nirmal Jose, RSS to Speech by Alexey Polkovnikov, and Shortcut Gadget by Teodor Mihai Filimon.

read more | Google Blog | Google Code Blog

Google News Archive Search

Google launched a News Archive Search site to allow you to explore historical archives. So now people can search to confirm something or maybe just to look up something for history class.

Google News Archive

A Pretty Error Page

The Google OS Blog posted this cool new Extension for Firefox which replaces the old HTTP error page with a new cool twist.

An error page page is an error page, but replace it with some pizazz.

Google OS Blog Post | Download ErrorZilla | More FireFox Extensions

More Info On When The GoogleBot Visited Your Page

Vanessa Fox posted some more information about the Google Bot, this time she explained how do you know when the Google Bot successfully crawled your site. Here are some of the highlights.

if Googlebot accesses a page and gets a 304 (Not-Modified) response to a If-Modified-Since qualified request, Googlebot doesn't download the contents of that page. This reduces the bandwidth consumed on your web server.

Which is very good to know because I had a little problem with bandwith in our forums which was the google bot over crawling the forum and taking up all my bandwith.

When you look at Google's cache of a page (for instance, by using the cache: operator or clicking the Cached link under a URL in the search results), you can see the date that Googlebot retrieved that page.

So now you know thta your cache updates every time the Google Bot crawls your site SUCCESSFULLY, because the crawler can come to update a few things but wont deep crawl sometimes.

Vanessa Fox's Entry | Google Sitemaps | Google's Add URL Page | Digg This Article

New AdWords Terms & Conditions

After their small update on Tuesday, August 29, 2006, the Google AdWords team wanted their "account holders or their managers to physically “click to accept” the new Google Advertising Program Terms and Conditions."

Affected AdWords account holders will have until November 27, 2006 to log in to their accounts and either accept or reject the new Google Advertising Program Terms & Conditions. If an account has not accepted these new Google Advertising Program Terms and Conditions by this deadline, API access will be blocked until the user accepts.

We recommend that you speak with your advertisers/clients in order to determine who should review and accept/decline these terms.

Account managers (MCC users) can automatically accept these new Google Advertising Program Terms and Conditions for all affected accounts under their My Client Center by logging into the MCC, navigating to an affected child account, and accepting the Google Advertising Program Terms & Conditions. This action will then instantaneously accept the new Google Advertising Program Terms and Conditions for all other accounts under that MCC. If you maintain a nested/hierarchical MCC structure, please be sure that you login to your top-most MCC when you accept the changes. This will ensure that all of your sub-accounts will automatically accept the Google Advertising Program Terms and Conditions.

Unfortunately, we're unable to interpret the meaning of changes in our legal documents for you. If you have questions or you need legal advice on interpreting the terms, we encourage you to consult counsel to help you understand how these changes may affect you.

Again, please note that in order to ensure uninterrupted access to your accounts, the new Google Advertising Program Terms and Conditions must be accepted before November 27, 2006.

-- Jon Diorio, Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Google AdWords | AdWords API Official Blog Post | New AdWords Terms & Conditions | Digg This Article

Google Eavesdropping On You

In the Register: Google developing eavesdropping software, we see the suggestion that Google is going to hijack the microphone on your computer, listen to what TV show you are watching in the other room, and serve you customised ads.

The idea appeared in Technology Review citing Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, who says these ideas will show up eventually in real Google products - sooner rather than later.

The idea is to use the existing PC microphone to listen to whatever is heard in the background, be it music, your phone going off or the TV turned down. The PC then identifies it, using fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that's adverts or search results, or a chat room on the subject.

As a result, we now have a heated discussion at DSL Reports News Forum: Google Using Your Mic to Listen In?

Looks like Google the Good is turning into Google the spy. Can George Orwell's 1984 nightmare world be far off if Google continues to expand their tentacles into the home. LOL, and people worry about the NSA and AT&T. So look at who the real threat may be.

And a really fun subthread

• Personally, I'd start saying really suspicious things, like airliner, bomb, death to America, etc... and see what happens.
  
• The TSA/FBI will be at your door and you can watch what happens on CNN from jail.
  
• This is Google, not NSA. You will start getting ads for fertilizer, fuel oil, detonators, terrorist training, legal services.

LOL.

Google AdWords Big Change

Google surprised many AdWords advertisers by raising the minimum bid of certain keywords from $0.1 to $0.5 a click to as high as $5 -$10 a click. Google used to determine the minimum cost the advertiser needs to pay to have the ad displayed for a particular keyword, is based on Google's assessment of the 'Quality Score' of a keyword. Relevance of your ad text, historical keyword performance on Google, the quality of your ad's landing page, and other relevancy factors."

According to Google, the lower the minimum bid price, the higher the quality score. And in the latest round of changes in their Quality Score algorithm, Google tweaked it to weigh heavily on the "quality of the ad's landing page". The impact of Google's new landing page algorithm can affect an entire AdWords campaign, but for those affected impact is mainly felt at the Ad Group and individual Keyword level.

Google AdWrods | Digg This Article

Google Scholar in Spanish

Google launched Scholar in Spanish now, since they JUST launched it they are inviting editors and librarians to participate, since, if they sell their papers online, this is a damn easy way to drive traffic while sacrificing nothing. So lets see how this does, at least I know ill be using it. I think that collecting the world’s information isn’t enough, if only parts of the world can understand parts of the information. So I think Google will soon be adding more languages to the list

Google Scholar, [Spanish] | Digg This Article

A Note Of Google

While looking for some videos I stumbled upon this Spanish news video about google, which had a few lines that caught my eye, since the video is in Spanish I will translate what the voice says since im from Puerto Rico and know Spanish.


"Its the most used search engine in the world. It indexes about eight thousand million pages all over the planet. If it would exist in other places, im sure it would do it to. The Definition of the word google comes from the mathematic term designed to 1 continued by 100 zeros, its to say, that this company symbolizes the objective to organize the immense information that is available on the web. Google is used by everyone in every corner of the world. With an index of more than 85 thousand million pages of websites this search engine organizes all the information pertinent to everyone in all the parts of the world, and makes them accessible to who is searching for them. In 1998 comes the Google.inc company. Its founders never thought they would make a monster of a search engine on the web. These college students, while locked in their basements, created a machine of information never doubted from their ignorance that they would merdge with one of the best administrators of companies, Eric Schmidt . Like this, these three united to make the idea of these college guys to make one of the biggest companies of our time. Their starting page invites people of ALL languages to search the web without having to comfort to another person's style. Google is one of the most recognized trademarks in the world, this has been made possible by the "word of mouth". But business is business, google makes profits off advertisers that want to appear in google and Sponsoring Links. Without a doubt this has become an indispensable tool for every day life."

I highlighted some of the notes that caught my eye.

The Definition of the word google comes from the mathematic term designed to 1 continued by 100 zeros
Googl comes from that phrase in Latin, they changed the name to Google so it would make more sense and look better.

In 1998 comes the Google.inc company.
This is a big shocker because it is a very big deal for a company to have this much success in 9 years, on a Global scale, they have made a lot of advancements over these 9 years but they also have made some enemies like Microsoft, for more on that read This Article

Google makes profits off advertisers
Which they made a new revolution in advertising because AdWords and the Ads they put in their searches are not really Ads, they are "Sponsored Links" which they fool the user into thinking its not an Ad when it really is. You can read more about that here.

I watched this video and thought it was worth a mention, hope you liked it.

Digg This Article

Click-To-Call in the UK

Google has now implemented Click-To-Call features in the UK. A search on the word jet2 at Google.co.uk brings up this ad.

If you click on the green phone icon, it opens the ad up to enter your phone number. According to Google’s Click-To-Call FAQ “Google foots the bill for all calls, both local and long-distance“

It was only last week that Google and eBay announced plans to integrate and launch a “click-to-call” advertising functionality within eBay’s U.S. & international marketplaces and on Google’s search platform. So this implementation is pretty rapid!

“The click-to-call capability will allow a user to click on a link or icon within a product or service advertisement to initiate an Internet voice call to participating eBay merchants or Google advertisers directly from either company’s respective sites, using Skype or Google Talk.”

Click-To-Call Info | Digg This Article

Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts Printable

Gmail has had Keyboard Shortcuts for a while now, but Evan Williams has made a Printable list of shortcuts so you dont have to change the browser window or tab to look at the shortcuts. All you have to do is print the page and activate your Keyboard Shortcuts in your Gmail settings.


Source | Gmail | Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts [Printable] | Digg This Article

The Women Of The Googleplex

This video is a little insight at the Googleplex, this is mostly of the engineering women at Google.



Pretty Cool huh? I wish I could work there! :)

Multi-touch interface

This video is not really from google, BUT, it is a col new idea people are working with to make available, its sort of a new interface in which they try to combine touch mouse pad with the screen.

A Video:


Another Video:

Google Page Creator Beyond The Beta

While I was working on my Google Page I found that they had added a "More..." part which is more utilities you can add to your page, however, these are Beta in the Beta, so there are risks, here is what google has to say about this.

The Google Page Creator team is always busy developing cool new features. Some of these are at the point where they're usable for the most part, but not quite ready for prime time. The astute reader will point out that all of Google Page Creator may be described as not-ready-for-prime-time. But the experimental features we're talking about here are the beta of the betas, designed for early adopters among early adopters, pushing the envelope inside the envelope — you get the idea.

If you turn on experimental features, sometimes you might not see anything special. Other times you might see an entirely new user interface, or new toolbar buttons that will disappear a week later. What you get may have bugs or usability problems — if you find them, please tell us so that we can weed them out before the features go live to the rest of the Google Page Creator population. If you decide later that you don't want these features anymore, you can always go back to the Settings page and disable experimental features, but if you've created pages in the meantime that relied on experimental features, it's possible that those pages will now behave oddly.

Which means that there are risks depending on what utilities you choose.

There are hundreds of them to choose from, because not all of them are from google, which can be a disadvantage or advantage. Here is how to activate them.

1. Go to your Account Page and look for "Page Creator" and hit the "Settings" button.

2. After pressing the "Settings" button click on "Enable Experimental Features" and click Ok on the form given.

3. Go to your google page creator and click on "Manage (Title)" and you will see a button named "More..."

4. Click the button that search the new Gadgets.

1. 2. 3. 4.

Google Page Creator | "Your Account" | Digg This Article

Custom Start Pages for Companies

Dell, after Teaming Up With Google, got a Personalized Homepage for them.
Google Said

"The personalized start page is a syndicated version of the Google personalized homepage, allowing you to set up dynamic homepages for your users that bring together your content, Google services, and the best of the web.

The personalized start page uses the same technology as the Google's personalized homepage, but lets you create a customized version of the page that is tailored to your users. Combine your own content with additional external content and modules of your choice, and tailor the look and feel of the page with different logos, colors, and fonts. End users of the page still have the ability to incorporate any content from the web, or any Google Gadget, enabling them a degree of customization over the content of the page."

It seems that you don't have to be a big partner with Google to create a shared personalized page. Google will add to its newly-launched corporate package a personalized start page.

The start page could be the one-stop place for all the members of an organization: it will mix personal information (mail, news) with corporate information (news, resources) and Google search. A really useful fusion.

Dell's Google Start Page | Digg This Article

Blogger Beta: Improvements In Silence

Blogger Beta is getting better. The improvements, though, are being rolled out in silence.

Blogger has 4 avenues for reporting changes to its unpaid staff.

1. Blogger Buzz.
2. Blogger Status.
3. Google Blogger Help - pinned posts.
4. Google Blogger Help - ongoing discussions.

In rolling out two badly needed improvements, during the past week, they used none of the above to let Bloggers know.

Lets Make Google Better

Ok guys, I have some great ideas for Google, but, unfortunately one person requesting a feature is not enough, so have I read in the replies I have gotten from the Google Teams, so I decided to grease the wheels a little and see if any of my readers would compel to submit the same feedback and see if we can get some ideas up and in development. Here are some of my ideas for some Google services, I will give the link to the feedback page and you guys can e-mail them and say what I have said here as well as give some of your ideas.

Google Reader:
Mix Google Base With Google Reader
Ok now this idea is to mix Google Reader with Google Base, as in a person can subscribe to a specific author or category in Google Base.
For feedback e-mail them at labs+reader@google.com

Google Pages
More Contact With The Owner
What I mean is to make some sort of Comment Box or something along those lines, because Google Pages has no interaction between the guest and the webmaster
To send them feedback leave them a message here

Google Music Trends
More Than 20 Songs
As you all know, Music Trends only gives the top 20 songs, how about more?
Still looking for the e-mail or request page :(

Google Analytics
Referring Link
As in a link back to the place the guest clicked that lead to your site, easier to track Google Search Hits.

More Conversion Goals
I dont know about you, but 4 is not enough for me, 6-10 would be better.
To send them feedback leave them a message here

Picasa Web Albums
Hotlink Page
Hotlink means that it is a page with nothing else but the picture, which means you can post your picture as a thumbnail and link back to it.

Upload From Web Albums
As you all know you can only upload pictures if you have Picasa, I suggest they make a little upload box on Web Albums making it easier and faster to upload images.
To send them feedback leave them a message here


My purpose for this post is to get people to submit feedback to google and get motivated, please comment on this post and pass the link on, so we can Make Google Better! If you want your idea added here please e-mail me at and I will add it :)

Google Adds Yahoo to Their Toolbar?

Ok while trying out the new Googling Domains feature by googling "google.com" I landed on the Google Toolbar button gallery and found out that they have added Yahoo! as a button for their toolbar. Now, someone correct me if im wrong but isnt Yahoo one of Google's rivals?


On the face, this would appear to be a mistake on Google's part. If you think about it, though, this makes sense. Users of Google's toolbar now have no need for Yahoo's competing product. All of the users needs can be met with this one product. Genius.

Gallery Page | Google Toolbar | Digg This Article

Google Products in 2020, Part III

"Where's Part 1 and 2?" You might ask, it's over at Googlified where I originally posted. You might want to checkout Part I and Part II before continue reading this post, but it's your choice. ;)

As you might noticed, I wasn't so often lately, because I was having a field trip to the future, the Year of 2020, just got back. ;)

In the previous two part of the Google Products in 2020, I mainly write about the 2020-version of the now existed products, but haven't write about any products that Google will launch in the future, so Part III and IV will be about these not yet available products/services. "Google Account is required".

Google Space Travel: Google Lunar Station(The Googlunaplex) is no longer a April joke. Unlike Google describe it as a station for scientists, it's a 4 star hotel for the Space travelers, free foods are available. Codename: MadeByLego

Google Operating System: Not this blog I am talking about, it's a real OS like OS X, Linux, and Windows. Using this OS is free and doesn't require high-end computer to process difficult task, all you need is a Internet connection to communicate with the Google Servers, they do the job, and send back to data. Codename: ThinkHuman.

Web π or Web Pi: Web 1.0(1991 to 2004) -> Web 2.0(2004 to 2013) -> Web 3.0(2013 to 2020) -> Web π (2020 to ?) Google in 2020 released the standards of Web Pi, which represents the web is non-stop like the decimals behind 3 in Pi.

Google Video, How To Fix Your iPod

I was looking through the Google Blogs and I found this post on the Google Video Blog where they had posted 2 videos on how to fix you iPod, LCD Screen and Battery. Very cool, considering Apple does not replace cracked or damaged LCD Screens or batteries.

Fixing Your iPod's LCD Screen:


Replacing Your iPod's Battery:

If you dare yourself to do this by yourself, then this is a great tutorial, but if wouldnt like to mess with your iPod then you can ship it to them and they will repair it for you for a nominal fee.

ifix ipods fast Home Page | Links to Videos 1st One, 2nd One | Digg This Article

Give Google Base Some Feedback

Preeti Uberoy wrote in the Google Base Blog that they are looking for new ideas and feedback on their current ones

As a member of the Google Base Support Team, one of the things I enjoy is watching Google Base improve according to the feedback that we get from content providers like you. One of my main job responsibilities is to report your suggestions and comments to our engineers, and make sure that we make the changes that you recommend.

Most of the recent developments of Google Base, in fact, are responses to requests from users. For example, people used to write in asking for a way to track the success of the items they submitted to Google Base. We worked hard to develop this functionality, and the reporting statistics that you can now see in your account are a direct result. We've made more minor adjustments in response to your suggestions as well. The sample Excel files that are now available with the bulk upload instructions for standard item types, for instance, were the idea of people like you, to make the upload process as easy as possible.

So, imagine being the guy that wanted to upload a PowerPoint to his post, then submitting feedback and then getting the "bulk upload" feature. I bet people have some good ideas and they should be shared. Especially with the people who can develop them.

Google Base | Google Base Blog Post | Digg This Article | Give Them Feedback here

Googoling Domanins

Found on Google Blogoscoped by way of Barry Schwartz, Google has changed their method of serving search results for domain specific queries. For example, if one was to search for 'googolians.net’ on Google a week ago, they would have been served links to the domain, info on the domain such as sites linking to it and its cache, along with similar co related sites.


Given the high search volume of well branded domains, it only makes sense that Google would change to a more user friendly result option for these searches. I imagine this will be a breath of fresh air to all of those out there who search for ‘ebay.com’ in their Google toolbar as opposed to entering the URL in their browser address bar.

The new format displays the intended site at the top of the results, along with sub-domains of that site or sites related to it.

Google Blogscoped Post | Example Google Search for Googolians

Google Image Labeler

Google Image Labeler is a place where you can help Google improve Google Image Search by tagging images.

It's similar to what you do in Google Video. But Google transformed this boring activity into a nice interactive game. Every time you login, Google finds you a partner and shows you the same images for 90 seconds. The first label found by both of you is considered a good answer and brings you 100 points (while two people can both fail in finding a good label, the probability is much smaller than for one person). After the time expires, you can see where the images came from and what were your partner's labels. And then you can start again, as the game is addictive.

The same images will be shown to other people, so, in the end, the images will keep only the best labels. This way, when you search for "car", you'll only find pictures of cars. I wonder if Google will use this approach or it's just a test for their recently acquired object recognition system

You can see an intriguing demonstration of this game, called the "ESP Game" in the tutorial discussed in Captchas and Online Games.

Google Image Labeler | Digg This Article

FireFox Beta2 Improvement of The Theme

The second beta of Firefox 2 includes a slick redesigned chrome, in addition to the features already available in beta 1.

Mozilla hired Radiant Core, a company from Toronto, to design the new theme. IT Business says that the "criteria for the [theme] proposals included that they respect native OS look and feel (Firefox runs on Windows, Macintosh and Linux platforms), that the themes appear modern and contemporary with current Web and client apps and appear consistent across platforms."


So now we have translucent buttons, an improved search box and new tab strip that shows the active tab prominently. There's also an arrow next to the last tab that hides a list of all the open tabs.

Update:
After Downloading, I found that this saves itself as another browser, in other words, it doesn't update your old FireFox, but it does save your links (pheww). It has a spell check for when typing which underlines in read, then right click and choose the correct word, pretty cool. They also added a little Close Button on every tab so you don't have to right click.

Source | Download FF Beta2 Windows, Mac | Digg This Article

Picasa's 503 Message Error

Picasa's little problem with Webalbums is now fixed, it was a problem with their server, but no content of anyone was lost. Just alot of pissed off people when they couldnt get into Web albums. Allthough it was strange that I uploaded pics when Web Albums was down and they uploaded fine. But hey, its fixed now so no worries :)

Picasa Web Albums

Creating Image Spam Filter For Gmail

The new groovy thing for spammers is not to e-mail text with spam, ohh no, they have to go the extra mile. Now they attach images with text in them so they can fool you. So I tried this, it is working for now, but some spam is getting in through anyway. So I need to see this in more deeply. But try this filter, it does block SOME image spam.

Has the Words | multipart/related .gif
X Has attachment

And to forward everything to the trash (which will automatically clear after 15 - 30 days.)

I tried that, since I check my e-mail various times a day it did work, but I dont know about people that dont check their e-mail for a long time if this tactic will work, ill post more comprehensive image spam filters once I get to test them all.

Blogger BETA, Template Editing

Blogger beta now has activated the Raw Template Editor! as in the HTML edit, so now you can add all the meta tags and descriptions you like :D

PChuck's Tips on Raw HTML Editing In Blogger BETA Template

Blogger Beta | Google Groups Blogger Help Group

Analytic's Tips For Optimization

Google Analytics recently gave a few tips in their blog about optimizing your results and your site in general using analytics. Here are 2 that cought my eye.

Create a funnel path and goal that mimics the expected navigation
You designed your site, so you know how you expect your users to navigate through it. Create a funnel and goal that mimics the expected path that your site is designed for.

So this means for you to Goal Track your main portals of your site. So, this way you where people are going, gives you a better idea of your visitors.

Give it a few days
Give your site a little while to perform, and let Analytics collect at least 3 or 4 weeks of data. Weekends, special events, and holidays may lead to skewed results so giving your site some time to perform enables you to get more reliable, indicative metrics.

So dont expect to put in the code and GET results a day after, let it sit and wait a while, this way you get more comprehensive stats

Google Analytics is a very good utility, but, as all things, it takes time to settle and take impulse.

Official Google Analytics Blog Post | Analytics | Digg This Article

Google Earth, New Layers

Last night Google published and announced an update to the Google Earth Community (GEC) layers. These layers show blue "i" icons in Google Earth which show placemarks posted in the forums when turned on in the Layers pane on the lower left of GE. For those of you who posted in appropriate forums (some of the forums are not included in the layer) before August 18th, your placemarks should appear now. You may have to zoom down lower heights to see more of the placemarks. Since it's been a few months since the last update to this layer there are probably tens of thousands of new placemarks now available. Fortunately, the layer has sub-layers broken down by category (based somewhat on the forums at the GEC). This can help you eliminate unwanted placemarks.



In addition, Google has added a new layer called the "Featured Content" layer. Right now this includes the following: Turn Here, Jane Goodall's Gombe Chimpanzee Blog, and Discovery Channel's National Parks Tour (links point to earlier stories about these collections at GEB). My guess is that Google will rotate featured content from the GE Showcase web page through this new layer.

Written By Frank Taylor,
"Google Updates"

Google Earth Showcase | Google Earth | Digg This Article

Adding HTML to Gmail Messages

The Digital Inspiration weblog has a step-by-step for adding HTML to Gmail messages.

For those of you who have tried inserting an image or table in Gmail, you've probably noticed that Gmail won'tt really allow embedded HTML (at least not in a traditional sense). In order to embed HTML, you actually need to copy the rendered HTML from either an existing web page or WYSIWYG HTML editor and then paste it into Gmail. Doing so allows you to insert your own tables, divs, images, etc. into Gmail pretty easily.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of embedded anything in emails (give me plain text, please!), but for those of you who have been missing HTML in Gmail, Digital Inspiration's method should do the trick. If that method isn't your cup of tea, you might also want to try the Gmail Skins Firefox extension, which allows you to embed HTML directly in Gmail.

The Tutorial | Gmail | Digg This Article

Download Books From Google

Starting today, you can go to Google Book Search and download full copies of out-of-copyright books to read at your own pace. You're free to choose from a diverse collection of public domain titles from well-known classics to obscure gems. They made it a PDF download so you could not copy paste. So you can go to google books and download books :)

Here are some Classics:
* Ferriar's The Bibliomania
* A futurist from 1881's 1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century
* Aesop's Fables
* Shakespeare's Hamlet
* Abbott's Flatland
* Hugo's Marion De Lorme
* Dunant's Eine Erinnerung an Solferino

Official Google Book Search Blog Post | Google Book Search