Tonight, watch the Google Science Fair final event live
July 11th, 2011 | by A Googler | published in Google Blog
The young scientists of the world have proven themselves truly impressive people—inventing technologies to improve the accuracy of prosthetic devices, developing video-audio memory aids for dementia patients and improving switch designs to prevent tr…
Tonight, watch the Google Science Fair final event live
July 11th, 2011 | by Google Docs | published in Google Docs
Cross posted on the Official Google Blog and the Google Students BlogThe young scientists of the world have proven themselves truly impressive people—inventing technologies to improve the accuracy of prosthetic devices, developing video-audio memory …
July 11th, 2011 | by Vivek Tata | published in Google Merchant
Updated 7am PST to include updates on China and Australia.
In 2011, we are committed to making Google Product Search an even better shopping experience for our users. Our goal is for shoppers to quickly and easily find the information they need on Google Product Search – and in turn to send more shoppers to our merchants.
To support this effort, we’re announcing a number of changes to the Google Product Search Feed Specification and Policies. Starting on September 22, 2011 we will be taking action against accounts with feeds targeting the United States, France, United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany that do not comply with the new specification and policy requirements. We will be sending emails to those accounts with feeds targeting China, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, with more information about changes in those countries.
Summary of Changes
We are confident that the new feed specifications will have a strong impact on the user experience. Below are several examples of how the feed spec is changing in the United States; please note that other countries have slightly different requirements:
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Availability: We’d like a user to be able to find your products even when they are out of stock. For this reason, the [availability] status of all your items will be required.
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Google Product Category: We have added a new required high-level attribute called [google product category] that contains the category of the item in Google’s taxonomy (currently only required for a select number of categories). This is in addition to the current [product type] attribute.
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Images: We’re making [image link] required and we encourage you to submit up to 10 additional product images through [additional image link]. This way, you can improve the visual representation of your products.
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Apparel: In order to create a better experience for product variants such as dresses or shoes that are available in multiple colors or sizes, we ask you to include information like [size] and [color] in your product feed. In addition, we require you to provide [gender] and [age group].
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Data Freshness: We will continue to regularly check feeds for accuracy of pricing, availability, and general product information, and take action against accounts that violate our standards.
Merchant Resources
Below you’ll find the new feed specification and policies and resources to help you prepare for these changes.
- New Google Product Search feed specification
- Summary of attribute requirements in table form
- New Google Product Search merchant policies
- Tips for submitting apparel products
- List of changes to feed specification
We will also provide a video with a more in-depth look at the changes soon. Check back for more information.
Enforcing the new Product Search Feed Requirements and Policies
After September 22, 2011, we will be taking action against accounts with feeds targeting the US, UK, Germany, Japan, and France that do not comply with our policies (please review the policy document referenced above for details). Note these changes only apply to Google Product Search – not to Google product ad formats or Google Commerce Search.
Posted by Mayuresh Saoji, Product Manager, Google Merchant Center
The first Google eBooks-integrated e-reader: iriver Story HD
July 11th, 2011 | by A Googler | published in Google Blog
(Cross-posted from the Inside Google Books Blog and the Google Commerce blog)Starting this coming Sunday, July 17, the iriver Story HD e-reader will be available for sale in Target stores nationwide and on Target.com. The iriver Story HD is the first e…
July 11th, 2011 | by Inside Google Book Search | published in Google Books
Posted by Pratip Banerji, Product Manager, Google Books(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog and the Google Commerce blog)Starting this coming Sunday, July 17, the iriver Story HD e-reader will be available for sale in Target stores nationwide an…
July 10th, 2011 | by Google Students | published in Google Student Blog
Hi again!Right after my last blog post, I switched teams from Image Search Ads User Interface to Social Ads User Interface. The team’s main goal is to use social data to improve the ads experience. For example, when you search for local hair salons, …
July 8th, 2011 | by Google Apps Team | published in Google Apps
We are releasing several new inbox styles to help you manage your mail. You can now choose from the following:- Classic – the default inbox style with messages ordered chronologically – Priority Inbox – important and unread messages appear at the top, …
July 8th, 2011 | by Jonathan LeBlanc | published in Google OpenSocial
On June 20th, SXSW Interactive announced that they have opened their panel picker for submissions to the 2012 SXSW Interactive festival.
With all of the community efforts going on around OpenSocial 2.0, this would be a perfect time to submit a panel or talk on the wonderful efforts going on for OpenSocial and we ask that, as a community, we get involved in spreading the word around the integrated technology that are revitalizing the landscape of social application and container development.
An official panel will be submitted to discuss the new standards and technologies that are being integrated within OpenSocial 2.0. This will cover much of the work done on the specification, the future of OpenSocial, our enterprise involvement and the technology backbone that the new specification is being built around.
We would also love to see other members of the community submit talks about some of their involvements with OpenSocial. For instance, we’d love to see submissions about some of the following, just to name a few:
- How OpenSocial foundations and techniques can be applied in a mobile strategy.
- How new authorization models like OAuth 2 are fostering adoption of open standards.
- How standardization of activities through Activity Streams are building a foundation for social sharing across platforms.
- How OpenSocial is driving the socialization and communication channels of enterprise platform solutions.
If you submit a panel or talk, please respond to this thread to let us know (with a link to that talk) and I will work on compiling a list of the “OpenSocial community talks” for a future blog post. This will allow us to all vote as a community and show each other some support.
You can submit your talks here.
I look forward to hearing from all of you.
Jonathan LeBlanc (@jcleblanc)
Jonathan LeBlanc is a principal developer evangelist with X.commerce. Jonathan has been a member of the OpenSocial community for over three years and is the author of O’Reilly’s “Programming Social Applications“.
Seeking the Americas’ brightest young minds for a spot at Zeitgeist Americas 2011
July 8th, 2011 | by Google Students | published in Google Student Blog
Cross-posted from the Official Google BlogThis year, we’re mixing up our annual Zeitgeist conferences with the launch of Young Minds, a competition hosted by youth engagement agency Livity, supported by Google and hosted on YouTube. Starting this wee…
Who’s New in Google Summer of Code: Part 6
July 8th, 2011 | by Stephanie Taylor | published in Google Open Source, Uncategorized
This is our sixth post in our summer series featuring new organizations participating in their first Google Summer of Code. The organization administrators and mentors explain their projects in more detail and highlight the tasks the students are worki…
July 8th, 2011 | by Lat | published in Google Earth, Google Maps
Last week the spotlight was on Monaco for the royal wedding between Albert II, Prince of Monaco, and Charlene Wittstock. Today we are excited to announce that we are bringing Street View in Google Maps to the glamorous principality.Monaco may be the se…
Explore America’s diplomatic efforts around the world
July 8th, 2011 | by Google Public Policy Blog | published in Google Public Policy, Uncategorized
Posted by Will Houghteling, YouTube News and Politics Throughout the past year American embassies, consulates, and ambassadors around the world have uploaded hundreds of videos to YouTube across a wide array of topics. Some are informative, like U.S. …
July 7th, 2011 | by Google Apps Team | published in Google Apps
Google Apps Migration for Lotus Notes R3.1.2 is now available for download.- Improved calendar coexistence during pilots/migrations. – Ability to override out of office agent checks. Useful when migrating calendars/contact only.Editions included: Goog…
July 7th, 2011 | by Research Admin | published in Google Research
Posted by Daniel Ford and Josh BatsonThe web is vast and infinite. Its pages link together in a complex network, containing remarkable structures and patterns. Some of the clearest patterns relate to language.Most web pages link to other pages on the s…
July 7th, 2011 | by The Gmail Team | published in Gmail (Google Mail)
Posted by Andrew Moedinger, Software Engineer Ever felt like there should be a better way to manage your inbox? There are already lots of different ways: some people read everything, some mark messages they need to take action on with stars, and others…