Congress, now live on YouTube
April 30th, 2013 | by Google Public Policy Blog | published in Uncategorized
Robert Kyncl, Vice President, Global Head of Content Partnerships for YouTube
April 30th, 2013 | by Google Public Policy Blog | published in Uncategorized
Robert Kyncl, Vice President, Global Head of Content Partnerships for YouTube
April 30th, 2013 | by Adam Singer | published in Uncategorized
April 30th, 2013 | by Jane Smith | published in Uncategorized
With easy personalization and built-in security, Chrome devices were made for sharing. The new Managed Public Sessions feature delivers a highly customizable experience for both customers and employees without requiring a login.
Because Chromebooks are low cost, easy to set up and manage, and require virtually no maintenance, Chromebooks with Managed Public Sessions make perfect shared kiosks. You could use a Chromebook with Managed Public Sessions to:
Administrators can easily customize any Chrome device to be a public session device using the web-based management console. The features that you’ll find in the console include the ability to set the default sites and apps a user sees at login, custom brand the homepage, block sites and apps that shouldn’t be accessed, configure device inputs and outputs, and set timed log-out sessions. For security reasons, public session data is cleared on logout so the next user starts fresh.
We’ve tested public sessions with a few customers and here’s the initial feedback:
Learn more on the Chromebook site or contact us if you have any follow up questions.
April 30th, 2013 | by Inside AdSense Team | published in Uncategorized
For those learning a new language or just wondering how words are pronounced in different parts of the world, Forvo provides a solution. Launched in 2008, the online pronunciation guide offers recordings of over 1.5 million words in 36 languages, uploaded by native speakers. A team of four based in Guipúzcoa, Spain maintains the site, which has 250,000 registered users and receives around nine million visits a month.
According to CEO Félix Vela, “the income from AdSense has allowed me to take on two new employees over the past couple of years.” Félix has been happy with the quality and relevance of the ads, and regularly uses other Google tools like Analytics to understand the site’s visitors.
Looking ahead, Félix plans to continue improving the site and increasing the number of pronunciation examples available. “There’s absolutely no doubt that AdSense will continue to play a fundamental role in this growth,” he says.
Read Forvo’s full story, and join us here again next week to meet our next publisher.
Posted by Arlene Lee – Inside AdSense Team
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April 30th, 2013 | by Google Students | published in Uncategorized
As part of our ‘A Day in the Life of a New Grad @ Google Dublin’ series we’re highlighting the work of 8 Googlers in our Google Dublin Office who joined straight after graduating! Today we’re featuring one of our Danish Googlers, Anna, one of our newest sales rockstars who joined Google in 2012, to give you an inside look into the Associate Account Strategist, SMB Sales role. If you’re interested in applying for an SMB Sales position, check out our open opportunities at the bottom of this post.
Tell us about your path to Google?
I was born in Luxembourg, the country that my Danish mother and Swedish father called home back in 1983. Since then I have lived in Sweden, Denmark, Chile and now in Dublin. My “home” hasn’t got latitude and longitude coordinates, it’s more like a state of mind – I feel at home when I’m surrounded by cultural diversity and inspiring people. I guess I’ve always seen the world as a playground, and I’ve had a strong desire to live abroad. I studied Business, Language & Culture (English and Spanish) at Copenhagen Business School, and in 2011. I went on exchange for a semester at Trinity College Dublin, and I completed an internship at Google Ireland. I was thrilled when Google offered me a full-time job, and I returned to Dublin in July 2012.
Me in the office |
What is your role at Google?
I’m a sales rockstar in the Nordic SMB Sales team, and I help Small and Medium sized businesses grow their business with AdWords. Most of the time it feels like I am consulting my clients rather than selling to them – I educate them and share my knowledge about online consumer behaviour and show them how they can use AdWords features and products to reach consumers at different stages in the buying process. I have targets I need to reach each quarter, but it’s really an enjoyable task to be selling Google AdWords! Google is a strong brand, and it’s easy for clients to measure the ROI they get from AdWords.
Photography is one of my passions |
How would you describe the Nordic SMB Sales team?
We are small but mighty, and we work smarter, not harder! My colleagues are Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish, and each of us work on growing our respective markets – at the same time we are one Nordic team with a strong sense of unity.
Do you wanna walk a day in my shoes? Lace up! Here we go:
My beauty sleep ends at 07:30am
I cruise to work on my red grandma bike, which I brought with me from Denmark. It takes about 15 minutes to get to work – and all the way I am longing for my breakfast at Google!
Breakfast at 08:30am
Every morning I take a trip down memory lane as I eat my breakfast at Google – the delicious oatmeal porridge with almond flakes and fresh berries totally reminds me of my childhood in Sweden. My adult self craves a steaming hot and creamy cappuccino, and now I’m ready to start my day.
Sales pitching 09:00am – 12:00pm
I usually have 3 calls scheduled before lunch – talking to clients gives me energy, and that’s how I like to start my day. The clients I talk to work with diverse business models, and sometimes I speak to the owner of the company, and other times it’s a staff member. It varies a lot how savvy the clients are, and I adapt to their level to ensure that we are speaking the same “language”. The sales job is really about communicating with people and understanding how they conduct their business to be able to help them get the best possible ROI from AdWords. I believe my work has a real impact – I share my knowledge in online advertising and that helps my clients grow their businesses.
Culinary Delights 12:00pm – 13:00
My lunch time is often equal to networking time. I like scheduling lunch dates with inspiring Googlers from other teams and nationalities. When the weather is good, I take the chance to have lunch on the rooftop terrace, or I visit the local food market close to the office.
Optimizations 13:00 – 15:00
After lunch it’s time for some hands-on work. I’m not only talking to the clients on the phone, I also help them optimizing their AdWords accounts. This involves improving the basic structure of the account, analyzing the data in their account to optimize performance and increase ROI. By analyzing the account I can also identify new opportunities, such as Mobile campaigns, Display Network campaigns, and Remarketing campaigns.
Best practice sharing 15:00 – 15:30
I hang out with some teammates in the “microkitchen”. It’s a very casual meeting where we can snack and recharge energy while we share our best practices.
Constant development 15:30 – 18:00
In the afternoons I like to attend trainings that are arranged by the Google Learning & Development team. These are trainings that are designed to help me improve my sales skills and ensure personal development.
After work: “What’s the Craic?”
That’s Irish for “What’s happening?” – Well typically I go to Bikram Yoga, go out with friends, or dance salsa. I’m a passionate salsa dancer!
What’s your favourite Google memory or ‘Magic Moment’?
During my internship in 2011, Eric Schmidt visited Google Ireland and I had the opportunity of attending a presentation where he shared insights about Google’s future business strategy. That is truly a memorable moment in my Google career!
It was a Magic Moment for me when Nikesh Arora announced that Google would bring all sales teams to Las Vegas for a Google sales conference in 2013 – I almost couldn’t believe it!
What career advice would you give to a new grad embarking into the world of work?
Nurture your curiosity, never stop learning, and remember that sky’s the limit!
Interested in working for Google Dublin? Check out our new grad positions today and apply!
EEA work authorization is required for roles supporting EEA markets.
Posted by Anna Nordkvist, Associate Account Strategist.
April 29th, 2013 | by Ken Hoetmer | published in Uncategorized
Over the past 3 years we’ve added numerous additional features to v3, such as elevation, cycling and transit directions, and symbols, and we’ve seen fantastic adoption, but we also recognize that a number of long-standing sites have not yet migrated their applications to v3.
Therefore, we’re extending the deprecation timeline for JavaScript Maps API v2 by six months, to November 19, 2013. On that date, we will attempt to automagically turn remaining v2 maps into v3 maps, by way of a JavaScript wrapper we will deploy. We expect this wrapper to work for most simple maps, but to avoid any last minute surprises we strongly encourage sites to complete their migration to v3 ahead of this date. We have prepared an upgrade guide to help make the migration process as painless as possible.
If you have questions about these changes, Google and the broader Google Maps developer community can help. Please refer to our forum for ways that you can seek support, including the JavaScript Maps API v3 mailing list for non-code related questions or Stack Overflow for code-related questions.
Posted by Ken Hoetmer, Product Manager, Google Maps API
April 29th, 2013 | by Jane Smith | published in Uncategorized
Editor’s note: Our guest blogger is Tom Muraca, Director of Marketing at Katz Americas, the largest manufacturer of beverage coasters in North and South America. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.
Katz Americas may not be a household name, but when you put a drink down at a tavern or restaurant, our product is probably under your glass. We’re one of the biggest manufacturers of drink coasters in the United States, with over 100 employees across our two facilities in Buffalo, New York and Johnson City, Tennessee.
We weren’t always such a large company – we grew quickly through a handful of mergers over the last few years – and when we finally had a chance to come up for air, we realized our technology hadn’t kept up with us. We were stumbling along with a fractured email and collaboration platform built around Microsoft Exchange 2003 and a few file-sharing servers. It was expensive and unreliable, especially for a company without a dedicated IT department. Upgrading our hosted system didn’t make financial sense, and Microsoft Office 365 didn’t win our team over. Google Apps did both, and its stability and security features were especially attractive. We decided to make the switch to Google Apps in September of 2011, and with help from Dito, our Google Apps Reseller, we were up and running by January of 2012.
Google Apps has helped us streamline and modernize our day-to-day work. By using Google Drive, we’ve cut the average time it takes to deliver an estimate and mocks to a customer from one week to just three days. Instead of sending different versions of huge files around by email, we create a single shared folder on Drive and house each proof there. That way, we can easily share, edit and collaborate on our work as a team in less than half the time it took before.
The Gmail and Google Drive mobile apps have changed how we interact with potential customers and sell our product when we’re on the road. Now, I can pull up a design on my phone while I’m speaking to a customer at an industry event or even create a rough prototype on the spot. I can also add their information to my contacts, get a quote started for them immediately, and follow up via email within minutes of finishing our conversation. Google Apps lets us give our customers on-the-spot, personal service, and that gives us a huge advantage over the competition.
Google Apps has been the keystone of our revamped company strategy at a time of significant change. The way I see it, it’s also just the beginning: our employees are constantly finding new features and sharing their favorite use cases, so I can only imagine the benefits we’ll see a year from now. In the meantime, we’ll get back to focusing on our core business – protecting tabletops from condensation and spills with surfboard-shaped coasters (and some normal shaped coasters, too).
April 29th, 2013 | by Emily Wood | published in Uncategorized
Today is International Dance Day, a celebration of a universal art form that spans cultures and countries. But dancing isn’t just limited to holidays. Since 2003, Matt Harding has famously been dancing his way across the globe with people from all walks of life and sharing to millions on his YouTube channel. His mission is simple: Dance. Dance with everyone. Dance everywhere. Dance to spread joy.
Matt’s journey began with a serendipitous, single dance step in Hanoi. While traveling through Southeast Asia, his friend encouraged him to dance for the camera—and he just kept dancing. At first, he was amused by the idea of capturing himself dancing in front of famous landmarks and in famous cities around the world. Since then, Matt’s videos have evolved beyond a single man dancing; his videos now focus on individuals that gather together to share in the fun of dance, as you can see in his 2012 YouTube film.
The joy that goes into Matt’s work is apparent—and well documented. However, there’s also a fair amount of planning involved to choreograph his efforts. Matt relies on Google Maps for comprehensive, accurate and useful tools to execute and track his steps.
Before he sets off on each adventure, Matt uses Google Maps to scout various locations. Using Street View and photos in Google Maps, he finds landmarks and points of interest around the globe that are prefect dance spots. For instance, he came across Piazza del Popolo while exploring Rome with Street View. These tools come in handy to help Matt choose a backdrop to highlight his assembly of exuberant, local dancers.
Scouting is only part of the process. Once Matt has coordinated a group in a city, he helps everyone get to the designated destination by creating a customized My Map and sharing it with the participants so they can easily navigate to the planned meetup location. The end result is something everyone around the world can relate to.
Follow Matt as he continues to travel the world on his site www.wherethehellismatt.com.
Keep dancing!
Posted by Dave Kim, Google Maps Marketing Manager
April 29th, 2013 | by Lat Long | published in Uncategorized
Today is International Dance Day, a celebration of a universal art form that spans cultures and countries. But dancing isn’t just limited to holidays. Since 2003, Matt Harding has famously been dancing his way across the globe with people from all walks of life and sharing to millions on his YouTube channel. His mission is simple: Dance. Dance with everyone. Dance everywhere. Dance to spread joy.
Matt’s journey began with a serendipitous, single dance step in Hanoi. While traveling through Southeast Asia, his friend encouraged him to dance for the camera—and he just kept dancing. At first, he was amused by the idea of capturing himself dancing in front of famous landmarks and in famous cities around the world. Since then, Matt’s videos have evolved beyond a single man dancing; his videos now focus on individuals that gather together to share in the fun of dance, as you can see in his 2012 YouTube film.
The joy that goes into Matt’s work is apparent—and well documented. However, there’s also a fair amount of planning involved to choreograph his efforts. Matt relies on Google Maps for comprehensive, accurate and useful tools to execute and track his steps.
Before he sets off on each adventure, Matt uses Google Maps to scout various locations. Using Street View and photos in Google Maps, he finds landmarks and points of interest around the globe that are prefect dance spots. For instance, he came across Piazza del Popolo while exploring Rome with Street View. These tools come in handy to help Matt choose a backdrop to highlight his assembly of exuberant, local dancers.
Scouting is only part of the process. Once Matt has coordinated a group in a city, he helps everyone get to the designated destination by creating a customized My Map and sharing it with the participants so they can easily navigate to the planned meetup location. The end result is something everyone around the world can relate to.
Follow Matt as he continues to travel the world on his site http://www.wherethehellismatt.com.
Keep dancing!
Posted by Dave Kim, Google Maps Marketing Manager
April 29th, 2013 | by Emily Wood | published in Uncategorized
Many of us can no longer imagine life without our smartphones. We use them for all sorts of things, like getting reminders of important calendar appointments (say, a first date), and driving directions to the Italian restaurant where your table for two awaits. Today, with the launch of Google Now on iPhone and iPad, your smartphone will become even smarter.
Google Now is about giving you just the right information at just the right time. It can show you the day’s weather as you get dressed in the morning, or alert you that there’s heavy traffic between you and your butterfly-inducing date—so you’d better leave now! It can also share news updates on a story you’ve been following, remind you to leave for the airport so you can make your flight and much more. There’s no digging required: cards appear at the moment you need them most—and the more you use Google Now, the more you get out of it.
Google Now for iPhone and iPad is available as part of the updated Google Search app. Together, Google Now and voice search will make your day run a little smoother.
In addition to the handy cards in Google Now, the Google Search app still gives you instant answers to all your questions. Try tapping the microphone and speak to your phone—you’ll get quick answers spoken back to you. For example, ask Google, “Do I need an umbrella this weekend?” and you’ll get the forecast. Or ask “Who’s in the cast of ‘Oblivion’?” to decide if you want to see it. Voice Search is particularly handy on the go—try “Show me nearby pizza places” and you’ll see a map of restaurants around you with directions, phone numbers, ratings and hours.
Get the Google Search app with Google Now from the App Store. Drag it to the tray, open it, sign in and you’re ready to go.
Posted by Andrea Huey, Engineer
April 28th, 2013 | by Jane Smith | published in Uncategorized
Note: Disabling chat in the Admin panel will disable it in Docs.
Release track:
Rapid release
Editions included:
Google Apps for Business, Education, and Government
For more information:
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/bringing-people-together-in-drive.html
whatsnew.googleapps.com
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April 26th, 2013 | by Stephanie Taylor | published in Uncategorized
On March 23rd a Google Summer of Code meetup was held in Romania as part of the GDG Cluj-Napoca meeting with almost 50 students in attendance. The event featured a couple of experienced open source developers, Stas Suşcov and Attila-Mihály Balázs, who were interested in inspiring university students to participate in open source development. Stas is a former Google Summer of Code student and Attila-Mihály is an open source enthusiast. They discuss their experiences in open source and some of the benefits of participating in the Google Summer of Code program below.
I participated twice as a student in Google Summer of Code, in 2010 and 2011, for the WordPress Foundation. For my first summer project I worked on a social learning platform called Courseware for BuddyPress social network. Two years later, together with my friend David, we launched our own startup based on my Google Summer of Code experience, The Courseware Project. Before becoming a student in the program, I had already been involved in a lot of local and global open source communities (Ubuntu, Mozilla, WordPress) and being part of Google Summer of Code was a natural outcome which greatly improved my professional abilities and relationships with people involved in these projects.
During the meetup I tried to share my experiences and answer as many questions as possible about being a Google Summer of Code student and give helpful tips on how actions to take so the organization will want you for another year as a participant or mentor once you finish your current project.
By Stas Sușcov – former Google Summer of Code student and Developer/Operations at Coursewa.re
—-
As a user and creator of open source technology I’m a big believer in its benefits. That’s why when I saw this year’s Google Summer of Code announcement I thought: I need to promote it to as many students as possible. My presentation was a very quick introduction to the concept of open source, the possible reasons for contributing and what steps somebody should take when starting to work on an open source project. The slides used in the presentation are available under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.
In my opinion the main benefits for students who contribute to an open source project through the Google Summer of Code program are:
- learning how to use tools like IDEs, VCSs, issue/bug trackers, build systems, etc. – these are integral parts of a programmer’s daily life but rarely mentioned in studies at universities
- learning how to work with an existing project and its infrastructure – most of the projects people end up working on already exist, but in university most of the projects students are taught about are described as being created from-scratch
- learning how to communicate with others, especially remotely – as much as 80% of a programmer’s job is communication and working on an open source project is a great way to practice this
- having something tangible to show on one’s resume
- and finally the monetary benefits are also nice
By Attila-Mihály Balázs, developer at Udacity
I would like to thank again the organizers (GDG Cluj-Napoca) and my co-presenter, Stas. My goal is to make Romania the number one contributing country to Google Summer of Code.
By Attila-Mihály Balázs, developer at Udacity and open source enthusiast
April 26th, 2013 | by Mano Marks | published in Uncategorized
April 26th, 2013 | by Inside AdSense Team | published in Uncategorized
nanapi.jp is a Japanese site which provides helpful tips for everyday life. From tips on romance to how to use web services, it has all sorts of advice for everyone.
Recently, nanapi started using AdSense and has seen a steady revenue increase. We spoke to Mr. Furukawa, the CEO, and Mr. Saito, the Director of Ads, and asked them about their experiences with AdSense.
■ Inside AdSense (IA): Please tell us the history of nanapi and how you built your site.
We established nanapi in September, 2009. We realized that there was a need for an information site where people could find tips for everyday life, so we decided to provide this content in the form of articles on various topics.
Initially, we only had a desktop site but now we’ve created a mobile site for smartphones too. As of August 2012, we receive 42 million page views and 9 million unique users per month. The number of unique users is bigger on the desktop site, but the smartphone site receives more page views.
■ IA: How and why did you start using AdSense?
When we first established the site, we decided not to implement ads as we wanted to focus on creating quality content first. After our number of monthly visitors reached 10 million, we implemented a medium rectangle (300×250) in the upper right corner of the site. As a result, we earned higher revenue than we’d anticipated.
We were surprised by the quality of the ads and how well they matched the content of our site. We’d been concerned that ads might damage the design or usability of our site, but we didn’t feel that way about the site post-implementation. That’s why we decided to use AdSense more.
■ IA: What results did you see after implementing AdSense?
We started to use AdSense more after the pilot in April 2012. More specifically, we switched from another ad network to AdSense, and increased the number of ads per page. Our revenue increased more than ten times in just three months!
nanapi covers a lot of topics, and it can be difficult to show relevant ads, but with AdSense’s contextual targeting, relevant ads are shown automatically. People visit nanapi before they take action, and that’s why it’s natural for our visitors to click relevant ads and leave the site. We implemented 336×280 ads below our articles to capture this kind of user behavior.
■ IA: Did you have any issues after implementing Google AdSense?
We didn’t have any difficulty in implementing or setting up AdSense. Compared to the ad network we used before, AdSense’s account interface is easy to use. It was also very easy to implement AdSense on our smartphone site. We pasted the ad code from the account interface, just as we’d done for the desktop site. It’s very good that AdSense allows us to check performance by platform too.
As for resources, we only need one person to manage AdSense. The account interface is very easy to use. For example, when we experiment with changing an ad format, we can check its performance immediately.
We were concerned that ads would deteriorate the usability of our website. However, ad quality was very good and we didn’t have to worry. Since the ads match our content, they enhance the information on the site and we haven’t received a single complaint from our users
■ IA: Please tell us about your plans for the future.
We plan to keep adding more and more articles to our site. Our goal is to make users think that “if you visit nanapi, you’ll find answers for all kinds of topics.” From an ads perspective, we’re considering using DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) to manage our ad units more easily.
Posted by Ayaka Sakakibara – Strategic Partner Manager
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April 26th, 2013 | by Google Public Policy Blog | published in Uncategorized