<![CDATA[Google Watch]]> http://www.hubdog.com/c/2503 Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:25:11 GMT <![CDATA[Color Soup, a Collaborative Mosaic]]>

“Colorful soup” – BunteSuppe.de – is the name of a German collaborative art tool. Just drag & drop any tile on the screen to create a larger picture.

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Color Soup, a Collaborative Mosaic | Comments]


[Advertisement] Want to advertise here? Your ad will show in the blog and feed. ]]> 11/21/2008 6:35:27 PM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-22-n84.html <![CDATA[Google Now Lets You Upvote Results and Comment On Them]]>

Google has gone live with a big change to their result pages, at least for those of you who are logged in (if you’re not seeing it yet, it may still be rolled out for your Google Account). It’s called SearchWiki, and lets you edit the position of the results you’re getting, and add comments to them. SearchWiki was in experimental stage for some time now.

Specifically, you’ll be seeing three icons accompanying results, and further options below the listing:

  • Up vote: An up arrow, similar in functionality to what you may know from social sites like Reddit or Digg. Clicking it will turn the icon green and move this specific result up one position. Once upped, a down arrow appears as well, which will trigger the result to fly to the bottom of the listing. (At his blog, Ionut Alex. Chitu mentions: “[Y]our changes are available only when you repeat the query and, in some cases, for similar queries (e.g.: [google.com] in addition to [google]). That means you can’t remove a web page or a domain from all search results”.)
  • Remove: An X icon, which will make the result disappear in an animated puff. It won’t be completely gone for you, though; at the bottom of the page you’ll see the note “You have removed results from this page” with an option to hide them altogether, or restore them.
  • Comment: A Speech Bubble icon which lets you make a comment on the result. The comment will be public, Google disclaims. Once saved, you’ll still be able to edit or delete your comment later on. Others are now able to upvote your comment or flag it as innapropriate, like on the “All SearchWiki notes” page. (That page also serves as the next best thing to see the pure vote-based ranking.)
  • Add result: The plus icon is shown below the organic results, and it lets you add any URL at all to your result page.

Now, when you change something, you won’t immediately shift around the page for others. For now Google says it’s a mere customization on your end. (You can see all your customizations in one place at the “My SearchWiki notes” page.) However, Google indicates in statements provided to Search Engine Land that they won’t completely rule out the possibility of this impacting everyone’s rankings in the future:

<<I asked what would happen if 10,000 people all added “Matt McGee’s Widget Page” to their own results for the phrase [widget]. “We’re always looking at user data as a signal,” [Google’s Cedric Dupont] says. And in a situation like that? “We’re not closing any doors.">>

Also, once a result was upvoted, you’ll be seeing who else voted for this result, though it will only show compactly as e.g. “[up] 9 [x] 11 - Picked by Rat, Mr, yinan.wu, and others.” This may add a more social feeling to search results. (Google calls it a “community” in their announcement post on this, but we need to keep in mind how diverse this group is, even when they might have stumbled upon the same pages in results.) Note this field won’t show your full email address to others, but your nickname, which you can change on your account profile page.

It’s probably also not a huge jump to imagine that Google could one day extract keywords from the comments of a particular result to aid them in their results selection for exotic queries. And as opposed to a web index, which at least in theory anyone with enough servers could build, the upvotes, hides and comment data is something Google will exclusively own thanks to their (massive) user base.

Now, all these new features come with a certain amount of clutter, naturally. Ionut in the comments remarks, “Google should provide a separate wiki mode (placing a link like ’edit search results’, ’change the results’) that adds voting buttons, commenting options.” I guess doing so wouldn’t get as many people to participate though – which for Google could decrease the valuable crowd intelligence they may tap with this move.

[Thanks Russell O., Tony and Oradzuza!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google Now Lets You Upvote Results and Commen ... | Comments]


[Advertisement] Find the right keywords for your campaigns at KeywordDiscovery.com ]]> 11/21/2008 6:23:18 AM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-21-n48.html <![CDATA[EtherPad]]>

EtherPad is a collaborative, real-time text editor created by, among others, two ex-Google employees*. An EtherPad document is quickly set up without any need for registration. You can then share the URL of the document, and others who will visit that page will then be able to see, in real-time, whatever you’re typing**. This has an interesting feel to it because there’s no “security buffer” as in typical chat programs: every letter you write will be shown as you write it, including occasional errors before you fix them.

[Edit: I removed the link to the document now, but you can start your own EtherPad of course...] Please join this EtherPad to give it a try (note your IP will show to others). [Update: I’m told EtherPad allows only 8 users maximum at a time. Thanks Guruz, Rossisen and Kirby!]

Yesterday, EtherPad was temporarily down every now and then, but otherwise quite interesting to use. I only tried it for basic chat, but the creators list use cases like meeting notes, teleconferencing, drafting and editing prose, and phone interviews for developers applying for a job. The EtherPad creators write, “With EtherPad, anyone in a meeting can contribute to the notes, or watch them as they’re typed.” They also say, “For phone calls in general, EtherPad serves as both a communication channel and a shared record”.

But wait, doesn’t Google Docs already offer this functionality? The EtherPad makers think the answer is no:

<<Google Docs is a suite of products that do many things, from word processing to spreadsheets to document management. One thing that Google Docs does not do is real-time collaborative text editing. We think this is an important use case, so we built EtherPad with real-time collaboration as the focus.

For example, with Google Docs it takes about 5 to 15 seconds for a change to make its way from your keyboard to other people’s screens. Imagine if whiteboards or telephones had this kind of delay! In contrast, the EtherPad infrastructure is built to carry your every keystroke at the speed of light, limited only by the time it takes electrons to travel over a wire (such as an “ethernet” cable).>>

Also, the creators say, Google Docs doesn’t allow easy URL-based sharing of document that also can be edited, doesn’t allow undo for someone else’s changes, and won’t colorize edits by someone else. However, Google Spreadsheets, part of the Google Docs suite, does show colored cell borders (only during the time of editing, though), and it also has a document setting that allows anyone to edit without signing in, like for this document. Simlar to EtherPad, Google Spreadsheets also has a chat box next to the spreadsheet.

The company behind this product is called Appjet Inc., and EtherPad is built on top of the AppJet platform. The creators say, “We originally released AppJet as the easiest way to get a new web app online and hosted, starting with print("Hello world!"), and it has since expanded to support simple database-backed web apps. Over 2,500 apps have been built to date using the AppJet site.”

*David Greenspan, Aaron Iba, and J.D. Zamfirescu, the latter two previously at Google.

**Perhaps made possible due to the technique of Comet/ long-polling.

[Via Friendfeed/ TechCrunch.]

Update: I emailed the AppJet team some questions, and they got back with their answers.

Do you have more potential use cases than the ones [currently listed]? Could EtherPad be used for games, general chat, embedding into other sites or blogs ...?

I’m sure there are many more potential uses. Students come to mind. Today, people have been using it for chat. We’ve got reports of people writing short stories collaboratively (like the games you play as a kid where you alternate adding a word to build a narrative), and probably others we haven’t thought of.

The killer feature we use ourselves, which is why we built it originally, is for meeting notes and drafting prose. For example, we’re collaboratively writing the response to this email using etherpad right now.

Do you believe Google Docs could/ would want to catch up with you guys anytime soon in terms of things like speed and color coding? Are you worried about that?

Well, I care a lot about realtime collaboration, so if I were Google Docs, I would want to catch up. But they may have other priorities. As a user, I stil use Google Docs for some things, like opening up a word document as a web page, but it’s not really usable for realtime text sync. So I guess I see the two products as complementary right now.

Would you want to expand this into a series of tools, like spreadsheets?

Spreadsheets aren’t really on our radar right now. There’s so much that can be done with just plain text. We have one really exciting feature planned that no text editor that we know of (on the web or desktop) has ever done before, but I can’t talk about it yet :).

When did Aaron Iba, and when did J.D. Zamfirescu quit Google?

Aaron left march 2007. J.D. left october 2007.

Would it have been possible to develop EtherPad within Google (the company)?

I don’t know, I’d have to think about that more.

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: EtherPad | Comments]


[Advertisement] Want to advertise here? Your ad will show in the blog and feed. ]]> 11/20/2008 10:15:34 AM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-20-n42.html <![CDATA[Google Plans to Shut Down Lively 3D World]]>

Google announced that on December 31st they will shut down Lively, which was their 3D chat world, and somewhat of a potential competitor to Second Life. Room widgets embedded in other sites are then supposed to show an image but no more interaction, which would add Lively to the list of Google’s canceled products. Google’s post on this decision does not really give a detailed reasoning for this shut-down of a product which was just released this year, except that they’re saying “we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business.” In particular, this leaves some questions unanswered as a company could theoretically embed ads in this 3D world app.

Lively was a great-looking Google product. On the other hand from the beginning on it was riddled with regular program crashes for some users, though the situation improved over time. There were other oddities as well, like a flood of sex rooms almost kidnapping the Lively rooms directory, or custom images never quite fitting the object you’d put them on (and then being disabled altogether for a while). It was still a fun experience, with a fresh and intuitive interface that I found more beginner-friendly than Second Life. Building rooms was entertaining and casual, with features like integrating YouTube videos by pasting the video URL, leading to quickly shareable results.

Now, Google say they’ve “always been supportive of this kind of experimentation because we believe it’s the best way to create groundbreaking products that make a difference to people’s lives” but that they’ve also “always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off.” Google apparently made up their mind that this bet will never pay off, even if the product was only given the chance to grow for 4 months; a short time to make a good judgment on potential future success. Others feel like Lively was an odd release for Google to begin with; Andy Baio in the forum comments, “I never understood this product. It never seemed to fit Google’s worldview, and even the standalone domain and branding were weird. I wonder what the story behind it was.”

Google says current users of Lively are supposed to make “videos and screenshots” of their “hard work” to preserve some of it. They also mention that current members of the Lively team will move to other projects. In 2006, Niniane Wang, who headed the then-secret project at Google, quoted from an email a colleague sent to their team:

<<i realized today during the meeting that...

- if we’re working on the best project at google, and
- we’re working at the best company on the planet, then

we’re working on the Best Project in the World.>>

 

Already by now, a website by Lively users has sprung up protesting against the shutdown. On the homepage of Livelyzens.com, which is accompanied by a discussion group, the following is written:

<<Livelyzens are the proud and happy residents of Google Lively. Today we are saddened by Google’s decision to shutdown lively.

We are appealing through this website to keep Lively alive and will showcase all the great things about lively and why Google MUST revisit their decision.>>

Also, people are currently coming together in – where else – a Lively room set up for the purpose. Called “KEEP LIVELY ALIVE!”, this room plays the song “Staying Alive.” An image from South Park reads “Don’t Kill Kenny.”

[Thanks Andy and Niranjan B.!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google Plans to Shut Down Lively 3D World | Comments]


[Advertisement] Google books at eBay: background info on Google, AdWords, AdSense, Blogger and more... ]]> 11/20/2008 9:03:35 AM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-20-n69.html <![CDATA[China Tibet Information Center Google-Advertising Its Views On Tibet]]> The Shanghaiist reports:

<<With political arrows still being shot back and forth between Beijing and Dharamsala [home of the exiled current Dalai Lama], China has been panning out its efforts to win the propaganda battle over Tibet (...)

Lately we’ve been observing lots of Google ads pointing to the China Tibet Information Center appearing in places like Youtube ... and even our Google Reader. Given the massive reach of Google’s self-serve contextual ads, this means anytime you’re viewing something related to China or more specifically Tibet anywhere on the web, that ad may appear, pointing you to http://eng.tibet.cn/ where China’s version of the Tibet story is presented. You’d think these state behemoths are totally clueless when it comes to the Internet, but clearly these guys know their stuff>>

[Thanks Kenneth!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: China Tibet Information Center Google-Adverti ... | Comments]


[Advertisement] Google books at eBay: background info on Google, AdWords, AdSense, Blogger and more... ]]> 11/20/2008 7:44:01 AM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-20-n89.html <![CDATA[Gmail Rolls Out Themes]]> A couple of months ago it was mentioned here that Google’s web mail client Gmail might get themes, like a black-and-green terminal view, and the waiting time seems to be over soon – Google announced they’ve started to roll out this feature. While I don’t see it in my Gmail yet (the screenshots in this post are courtesy of Andris and Google), it’s supposed to be added to a Themes tab in your settings. Note some themes are dynamic and may change throughout different times of the day. “We’ve also done a minor facelift to Gmail’s default look,” Google adds.

[Thanks Hebbet, Manoj Nahar, Drewkadium, Andris, Leon, A., Louis V., Niranjan B. and David, with hat tip to Google OS and TechCrunch!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Gmail Rolls Out Themes | Comments]


[Advertisement] Find the right keywords for your campaigns at KeywordDiscovery.com ]]> 11/19/2008 6:25:12 PM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-20-n18.html <![CDATA[Let Me Google That For You]]> LetMeGoogleThatForYou.com allows you to enter any search query, then grab the resulting permalink to share it with someone else. For instance, if someone in a forum would ask “What does ’AFAIK’ stand for?”, you could (somewhat impolitely) point them to this search, which would then interactively perform a Google search for “afaik” for the visitor. (Kind of the next version of this even more impolite site... and nope, neither site is an official Google site...)

[Via Reddit.]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Let Me Google That For You | Comments]


[Advertisement] Find the right keywords for your campaigns at KeywordDiscovery.com ]]> 11/19/2008 11:22:11 AM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-19-n32.html <![CDATA[What Do People Search For?]]> [Google Spreadsheet]

Google released an app they call Search-based Keyword Tool. Google says this tool “generates keyword and landing page ideas highly relevant and specific to your website” and in doing so, “helps you identify additional advertising opportunities that aren’t currently being used in your AdWords ad campaigns.” (Google AdWords already has a keywords tool. Google says as opposed to the existing tool, this new one “generates keyword ideas based on your website, and identifies those currently not being used in your AdWords account”.)

You can enter the domain of a website, and Google then tries to return a set of search phrases that may be of relevance to your site. Next to the search query, you’ll see an approximation of the number of monthly searches for this, the level of competition, a suggested bidding price if you want to advertise in Google results using AdWords, and the target page from which the keywords were extracted. (Checking with one of my sites, the phrases listed were already showing the identified target page in the top or top 5 spots at google.com, so advertising that using AdWords would probably be redundant.)

Added to entering a domain, you can also just enter a keyword. The keyphrase “comic book" for instance returned “draft comic book confidential”, “draft comic book manager”, “draft comic book issues” and more.

Even if you’re not interested in finding specific data related to your own website, you might get something out of browsing the categories directory of this tool to find out what people search for. I’ve dropped a couple of these lists into a tabbed Google spreadsheet, for categories like computer, consumer electronics, apparel and more (in all countries, for English searches), as included above. For instance, Google says there are an average of around 1,200,000 searches per month for the query baby names, 540,000 for adobe photoshop, 280,000 for calorie counter, and 440,000 for guitar hero 3.

[Via Search Engine Land.]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: What Do People Search For? | Comments]


[Advertisement] Find the right keywords for your campaigns at KeywordDiscovery.com ]]> 11/19/2008 9:33:42 AM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-19-n40.html <![CDATA[Monty Python's YouTube Channel]]>

“For 3 years, you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them up on YouTube...” Genius comedy group Monty Python (from the BBC program Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which started in 1969) now have their own official YouTube channel. The channel aims to collect better organized, higher quality videos – like of Bicycle Repairman – than what was previously posted to the site. [Via Friendfeed.]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Monty Python's YouTube Channel | Comments]


[Advertisement] Google books at eBay: background info on Google, AdWords, AdSense, Blogger and more... ]]> 11/19/2008 6:18:37 AM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-19-n82.html <![CDATA[If Google PageRank Could Sing]]> ... it would probably sound like this.

[Thanks Dean!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: If Google PageRank Could Sing | Comments]


[Advertisement] Want to advertise here? Your ad will show in the blog and feed. ]]> 11/18/2008 2:22:53 PM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-18-n60.html <![CDATA[Google's Life Photo Archive]]>

Google together with Life magazine has published a photo archive of, according to Google, around 2 million photos (with around 8 million supposed to be released in the future). Many of these photos have never before been published, Google says. The actual search behind this is a regular Google image but with the parameter source:life in the query.

Colin in the forum writes “This is pretty cool to be able to browse through each decade of pictures” but notes you’re “limited to 200 results per search”. Colin adds:

<<Once you click on any photo result, it will load a landing page giving you more details about that photo and the chance to rate the photo with up to a 5 star rating. You can then click on the photo to view an even larger version. I hope over time they remove the 200 result limit. Otherwise you have to constantly tweak your search query to see any other photographs similar to your query. Besides photographs, they also scanned in TIME magazine covers.>>

As many photos are quite old, this also means many should have passed into the public domain zone, meaning you may be allowed to copy, edit, and republish that portion of the photos any way you like, including for commercial uses. Wikipedia says that “the copyright in a published work expires in all countries ... when ... The work was created and first published before January 1, 1923, or at least 95 years before January 1 of the current year, whichever is later”. However, Wikipedia also mentions some exceptions to these rules.

[Thanks Colin! Also see the official Google blog post.]

Update: On the subject of copyright, Mike Perry comments:

<<Keep in mind that the copyright clock starts ticking when a document or picture is published not when it is created. Google notes that many of these pictures have never been published, so the ’before 1923 is always public domain’ rule doesn’t apply to them.

A quick look at what Stephen Fishman’s The Public Domain says on unpublished works suggests we’d have to do a bit of work to figure out the copyright status. If the photographer is known and if the rights belong to him, it depends on when he died. One chart suggests if the photographer died before 1938, his unpublished photos are public domain. A chart for anonymous works or works for hire (which is what Life photos probably are) says a photo has to be before 1888 to be sure of being in the public domain.>>

(If you know more, your comment is appreciated.)

[Thanks Mike!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google's Life Photo Archive | Comments]


[Advertisement] Find the right keywords for your campaigns at KeywordDiscovery.com ]]> 11/18/2008 1:13:31 PM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-18-n90.html <![CDATA[Google Analytics for Flash]]>

Google Analytics tracking is now available for Flash as well. “This feature is a translation of the current Google Analytics tracking code into the ActionScript 3 programming language,” the Google Analytics blog says, adding that this is a “joint collaboration” with Adobe.

[Hat tip to Elisabeth and Vinoaj at Friendfeed.]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google Analytics for Flash | Comments]


[Advertisement] Find the right keywords for your campaigns at KeywordDiscovery.com ]]> 11/17/2008 7:28:19 PM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-18-n36.html <![CDATA[ConsumerWatchdog.org Criticizes Certain Gmail and Chrome Features (Video)]]>

ConsumerWatchdog released a video in which they criticize certain aspects of Google products which they consider to be privacy problems. Here are their points of focus:

  • Gmail’s auto-save features, which submits unsent drafts to Google’s servers
  • Chrome’s desktop shortcut feature, which removes the URL from your view
  • Google’s context-targeted ad-serving in Gmail
  • The inability of people sending email to Gmail users to opt-out of Google data storing

Your thoughts?

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: ConsumerWatchdog.org Criticizes Certain Gmail ... | Comments]


[Advertisement] Google books at eBay: background info on Google, AdWords, AdSense, Blogger and more... ]]> 11/17/2008 4:52:48 PM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-17-n90.html <![CDATA[Mirror's Edge Game Trailer]]>

Clive Thompson at Wired says “Playing Mirror’s Edge will make you vomit.” He argues that it’s because you can see your “own” (your avatar’s) body while moving – e.g. the feet when jumping, or the hands when running. The game’s available for the PS3 and the XBox360.

[Wired link via Reddit.]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Mirror's Edge Game Trailer | Comments]


[Advertisement] Google books at eBay: background info on Google, AdWords, AdSense, Blogger and more... ]]> 11/17/2008 3:01:20 PM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-17-n61.html <![CDATA[Google Advertises With Reportedly Wrong Directions]]> Nicholas Carlson at Silicon Alley Insider writes:

<<Google launched step-by-step public transportation directions for Google Maps in September. To advertise the feature, Google bought ads in New York’s subway cars.

The ads are cute. They give directions from Grand Central to Madison Square Garden.

The only problem: they’re wrong.>>

[Thanks Grega M.!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google Advertises With Reportedly Wrong Direc ... | Comments]


[Advertisement] Find the right keywords for your campaigns at KeywordDiscovery.com ]]> 11/17/2008 11:52:25 AM http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-17-n59.html <![CDATA[Sorting 1PB with MapReduce]]> MapReduce, a key component of our software infrastructure that allows us to run multiple processes simultaneously. MapReduce is a perfect solution for many of the computations we run daily, due in large part to its simplicity, applicability to a wide range of real-world computing tasks, and natural translation to highly scalable distributed implementations that harness the power of thousands of computers.

In our sorting experiments we have followed the rules of a standard terabyte (TB) sort benchmark. Standardized experiments help us understand and compare the benefits of various technologies and also add a competitive spirit. You can think of it as an Olympic event for computations. By pushing the boundaries of these types of programs, we learn about the limitations of current technologies as well as the lessons useful in designing next generation computing platforms. This, in turn, should help everyone have faster access to higher-quality information.

We are excited to announce we were able to sort 1TB (stored on the Google File System as 10 billion 100-byte records in uncompressed text files) on 1,000 computers in 68 seconds. By comparison, the previous 1TB sorting record is 209 seconds on 910 computers.

Sometimes you need to sort more than a terabyte, so we were curious to find out what happens when you sort more and gave one petabyte (PB) a try. One petabyte is a thousand terabytes, or, to put this amount in perspective, it is 12 times the amount of archived web data in the U.S. Library of Congress as of May 2008. In comparison, consider that the aggregate size of data processed by all instances of MapReduce at Google was on average 20PB per day in January 2008.

It took six hours and two minutes to sort 1PB (10 trillion 100-byte records) on 4,000 computers. We're not aware of any other sorting experiment at this scale and are obviously very excited to be able to process so much data so quickly.

An interesting question came up while running experiments at such a scale: Where do you put 1PB of sorted data? We were writing it to 48,000 hard drives (we did not use the full capacity of these disks, though), and every time we ran our sort, at least one of our disks managed to break (this is not surprising at all given the duration of the test, the number of disks involved, and the expected lifetime of hard disks). To make sure we kept our sorted petabyte safe, we asked the Google File System to write three copies of each file to three different disks.

Significantly improved handling of the so-called "stragglers" (parts of computation that run slower than expected) was a key software technique that helped sort 1PB. And of course, there are many other factors that contributed to the result. We'll be discussing all of this and more in an upcoming publication. And you can also check out the video from our recent Technology RoundTable Series.

Posted by Grzegorz Czajkowski, Systems Infrastructure Team
]]> 11/21/2008 7:57:05 PM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/-YGwVddZOF8/sorting-1pb-with-mapreduce.html <![CDATA[Our international approach to search]]> this series, you have read about the challenges of building a world-class search engine. Our goal is to make Google’s search be relevant to all people, regardless of their language or country. As my colleague Amit Singhal described, we use statistical data as the basis for making sweeping algorithmic changes. Many of these changes can be rolled out across all languages we support, but in some cases the unique characteristics of each language require some algorithmic considerations and tuning. And to make things really interesting, there are cases where the same language is different across countries. Obvious examples are "color" in the U.S. vs. "colour" in the U.K., or "camião" in Portugal vs. "caminhão" in Brazil.

My name is Daphne Dembo, and my focus is improving Google's international search. This is a tough challenge, since Google search is used in many countries and languages where our engineers have little personal knowledge. Initially, the international search improvements were done by Search Quality engineers who were passionate about their languages and countries: Lina from Sweden improved our parsing of compound words in German and Swedish; Dimitra from Greece introduced diacritical support; Ishai from Israel worked on transliteration corrections for Hebrew and Arabic; Trystan from Australia created methods for identifying local search results and ranking them together with foreign ones from the same language; Alex, a bilingual Ukrainian and Russian, introduced morphological understanding of these languages. As the importance of our international search grew, we solicited help from Googlers in all our offices. Finally, we are leveraging an international network of search specialists who help us understand search within the unique combination of their language and country.

Our first step in providing search support for a language is to train our language model on a large collection of documents in that language. This ensures that our language model is more precise and comprehensive — for example, it incorporates names, idioms, colloquial usage, and newly coined words not often found in static dictionaries. For instance, we recently started identifying Swahili, and used pages such as this one for the Parliament of Tanzania to train our system with the language's nuances. Having a trained language model helps to categorize documents during crawling and indexing of the web and to parse the user's query. Once this stage was complete, we launched Swahili search in countries such as Tanzania and Kenya, enabling local searches for the "Dar es Salaam stock exchange" [Soko la hisa dar es salaam], and "cure for Malaria" [Tiba ya malaria]. (As always, we are using square brackets to denote a search query. For example, you can search for "soccer" in Hamburg, Germany by clicking on [fußball in hamburg]).

We learn some things from our users, so as people start using our search engine, we can improve the way we rank in that language. Here are few examples:
  • Spell corrections: We recently launched spell corrections in Estonian. If your Estonian is rusty, and you don't remember how to spell "smoke detector," we can suggest a spell correction for [suitsuantur], leading to better search results.
  • Diacritical marks: Many languages have diacritical marks, which alter pronunciation. Our algorithms are built to support them, and even help users who mis-type or completely ignore them. For example, if you're a resident of Quebec, Canada and would like to know the weather forecast in Quebec City, we'll serve good results whether you type with diacritical signs [Météo à Québec] or without [meteo quebec]. Czech users can read the same excellent results for a popular kids' cartoon by searching for [krtecek] and [krteček]. On the other hand, sometimes diacriticals change the meaning of the word and we have to use them correctly. For example, in Thai, [ข้าว] is "rice," with completely different results than [ข่าว], which is "news"; or in Slovakia, results for "child" [dieťa] are different than results for "diet" [diéta].
  • Synonyms: A general case of diacritical support is the handling of synonyms in different languages. Korean searches showed that "samsung" can be viewed as a synonym of "삼성", so that when users search for [samsung], they find results which have the company's name in Korean.
  • Compounding: Some languages allow compounding, which is the formation of new words by combining together existing words. You can see a nice example in Swedish, where we return documents about a Swedish credit card for both compounded [Visakort] and non-compounded [visa kort] queries.
  • Stemming: Google has developed morphological models that can receive compound words as queries, and return pages which contain their stem, possibly as part of a different compound. For example, when searching for cars in Saudi Arabia, you can search for [سيارة] and [سيارات] because both are variants of the same stem, and both return many common results. A Polish user can search for "movie" [film], and get back results that contain other variants of the stem, such as "filmów," "filmu," "filmie," "filmy." A user from Belarus will find results for all word forms of the capital, Minsk [Мінск]: "Мінску," "Мінска," "Мінскага."
In addition to these semantic factors, Google does even more to parse documents and queries. Understanding the details of language usage in a country is important. Notation of acronyms is different across languages: In Hebrew it is double quotes before the last (left-most) character, as in "prime minister" [רה"מ]; in Thai — a dot at the end of the word, as in police station [สน. ]; while in the U.S. — dots after each character, as in [I.B.M.]. Chinese users quote works of art with a "《", as in: [《手机》剧情], and denote dates with a "日", as in: [2006年1月13日].

Beyond the linguistic elements of a language, we consider how people enter a query. For example, some languages that do not have Latin scripts require keyboards with dual alphanumeric keys. The user can switch between language input modes by typing special keystrokes. In case the user forgets to type this sequence, the queries end up being gibberish. You can see correct handling of these mistakes in Arabic ([hgsuv] corrected to [السعر]) and ([حقثسهيثىفهشم ثممثؤفهخىس ] corrected to [presidential elections]), Hebrew ([vdrk, kuyu] corrected to [הגרלת לוטו]), and Cyrillic ([rehc ljkffhf] corrected to [курс доллара]).

Another way of avoiding the inconvenience of switching keyboard modes is by typing the phonetic sounds of the query in Latin characters. Recreating the correct query in the target language isn't trivial, since there might be many possibilities. We can see several such examples in which we suggest the same query in the intended language for Russian ([biskvitnyi rulet] to [бисквитный рулет]), "movies" in Chinese ([dianying] to [电影]), and "Bank of Attica" in Greek [trapeza attikhs] returns good results for "Τράπεζα Αττικής". Users of 8 Indic languages (such as Hindi, Gujarati, Telugu) can type the phonetic sound of the query, and choose the words in Hindi script:


Ease of typing and reading is also influenced by the language used. Since every Chinese word requires several keystrokes on a standard keyboard, we provide category browsing by Images and related searches so that people don't need to type as much. Similarly, we are now launching Google Suggest, or real-time completion of queries, in many languages.

So far I described how we improve the quality of search in a language. However, there is a strong effect of the location of the user, even if it is only approximated to the country, since in many cases local content is more relevant than global information. For example, searching for Spanish Yellow Pages [Páginas Amarillas] will result in several documents of global interest and several local results in Peru, Mexico, and Spain. Similar to that, searching for [Côte d'Or] in France will return results for that region, whereas searches in Belgium will return results about the chocolate maker.

Note that the display of information should conform to the standards in that country, so we display "," as a decimal notation for Croatian users who want to know how many millimeters are in an inch [inč u milimetrima], or for Italian users who are interested in currency exchange rates [50 euro in dollari]. Similarly, temperatures in Norway [Været i Oslo] will be displayed in Celsius, while in the U.S. — in Fahrenheit [weather Boston].

If everything else fails, we provide cross-language translations based upon Google's translation technology described in this blog post. We will translate your query to English, search English documents on the web, and translate the returned results from English back into the original query language. For example, Japanese users who are interested in viewing Halloween illustrations (Halloween is a holiday which originated in Ireland) can search for [ハロウィン イラスト]. You can then request a Japanese translation of the English pages (at the bottom of the page), which will bring up the translation page in the screenshot below. Similarly, Korean users can search for the latest on Harry Potter [해리 포터], and Arabic readers can search for the opening of the Sydney Opera house [افتتاح دار الاوبرا في سيدني]. (Click on the image to see a larger version.)



All in all, Google Search is being actively developed for more than 100 languages, in 150+ countries, with dozens of improvements launched each month. So far I've covered the basics of how international search works, but this is just the surface of all the international work we do. There are many other interesting topics that impact international markets like usability, homepage and results page layout, and connectivity. An understanding of real cultural and human factors is essential to creating a search engine that resonates with the people who use it. (Click on the image to see a larger version.)



(Update: Replaced example in the 4th bullet point.)

Posted by Daphne Dembo, Engineering Director
]]> 11/21/2008 5:15:55 PM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/gsymlGXXDX8/our-international-approach-to-search.html <![CDATA[SearchWiki: make search your own]]>
Today we're launching SearchWiki, a way for you to customize search by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results. With just a single click you can move the results you like to the top or add a new site. You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don't feel belong. These modifications will be shown to you every time you do the same search in the future. SearchWiki is available to signed-in Google users. We store your changes in your Google Account. If you are wondering if you are signed in, you can always check by noting if your username appears in the upper right-hand side of the page.

The changes you make only affect your own searches. But SearchWiki also is a great way to share your insights with other searchers. You can see how the community has collectively edited the search results by clicking on the "See all notes for this SearchWiki" link.

Watch our lead engineer, Amay, demonstrate a few ways to use SearchWiki in this short video:



This new feature is an example of how search is becoming increasingly dynamic, giving people tools that make search even more useful to them in their daily lives. We have been testing bits and pieces of SearchWiki for some time through live experiments, and we incorporated much of our learnings into this release. We are constantly striving to improve our users' search experience, and this is yet another step along the way.

Posted by Cedric Dupont, Product Manager, and Corin Anderson, Software Engineer
]]> 11/20/2008 7:37:38 PM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/BxLiLruHQp0/searchwiki-make-search-your-own.html <![CDATA[Transgender Remembrance Day]]> We believe great ideas can come from anywhere and everyone. And we aspire to be an organization that reflects global diversity, because we know that a world's worth of perspectives, ideas and cultures leads to the creation of better products and services. We have more than a dozen employee-driven resource groups, from Gayglers to GWE (Google Women Engineers), that actively participate around the world in building community and driving policy at Google. The post below kicks off an occasional series, entitled Interface, about valuing people's similarities and differences in the workplace. For more information on how Google fosters an inclusive work environment, visit Life at Google on our Jobs site. – Ed.

November 20th marks Transgender Remembrance Day, which takes on a special significance in a world awakening to the need for unity among all people. In observing this day, the Gayglers — the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) group within Google — extend their wholehearted support to the LGBT community at large, as we reflect on the senseless violence perpetrated against transgender people around the world.

People who identify or express their gender differently than the one assigned to them at birth usually call themselves transgender or transsexual. All too often, they are subjected to a range of not-so-subtle prejudices and transphobia, from verbal abuse to physical violence. Imagine walking into a public restroom in a state of dread over a confrontation about your appearance. Imagine visiting a doctor and worrying about how far to "out" yourself to receive appropriate care. Studies suggest that transgender people are 16 times more likely to be killed than the general population -- earlier this month, in fact, a transgender woman in Tennessee was murdered -- and this is just the most recent of many such cases.

We're fortunate here at Google, where there are LGB and T people at all levels of the company, thanks to enlightened hiring and promotion practices that set aside sexual orientation or gender presentation. Ultimately, Google fosters a workplace where everyone has the ability to be themselves at work. For transgender employees in particular, that means everything.

On this Transgender Remembrance Day, take just a few moments to remember the trans siblings, parents, friends and lovers who lost their lives to gender-based intolerance and hatred. Let's all share in a future where tolerance and understanding transforms the world. And let's work to create a better place for everyone to live peaceably in an all-inclusive world community that merits our deepest pride.

Posted by Kai Johnson, Software Engineer
]]> 11/20/2008 1:02:51 PM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/6Pur3P-QyXQ/transgender-remembrance-day.html <![CDATA[Lively no more]]>
That's why, despite all the virtual high fives and creative rooms everyone has enjoyed in the last four and a half months, we've decided to shut Lively down at the end of the year. It has been a tough decision, but we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business. Lively.com will be discontinued at the end of December, and everyone who has worked on the project will then move on to other teams.

We'd encourage all Lively users to capture your hard work by taking videos and screenshots of your rooms.

Posted by The Lively Team
]]> 11/19/2008 8:56:42 PM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/d6IjeS_nuKA/lively-no-more.html <![CDATA[An invitation from the mayor of Rome: Come see Ancient Rome in 3D]]> Ancient Rome 3D layer in Google Earth. Thanks to Google and the Rome Reborn Project, everyone in the world, from Rome itself to Calcutta, can now travel through time and discover Ancient Rome as it was 1,688 years ago when it was ruled by Emperor Constantine.

The project includes more than 6,700 buildings of Ancient Rome rebuilt in 3D — a true record. This accomplishment demonstrates how technology can be helpful in promoting culture and disseminating knowledge. Ancient Rome 3D is a great opportunity to rediscover the importance of Ancient Roman culture, which is at the base of the Italian, European and, more generally, Western identities. The archaeological heritage and the artistic monuments of the Roman Empire have found their way to many continents, but it is in the capital city (known in Roman times as Caput Mundi, which is Latin for "Capital of the World") that we can still find most of it. For example, architectural masterpieces like the Colosseum (considered one of the seven wonders of the world) have managed to withstand the tests of time — resisting sacks, invasions and world wars over the centuries and proving, with the immortality of their stones, the grandness of one of the most majestic empires that has ever existed.

What fascinates me most about this project is the accuracy of the details of the three-dimensional models. It's such a great experience to be able to admire the monuments, streets and buildings of Ancient Rome with a virtual camera that lets you go inside and see all the architectural details. From the Colosseum to the Ludus Magnus, from the Forum Caesar to the Arch of Septimius Severus, from the Rostra to the Basilica Julia, you can get up close to them all. The idea that virtual technologies now let people experience the city that I guide as it appeared in 320 A.D. fills me with pride — a pride that I inherited from Rome's glorious past.

(To find out more about the new layer, visit http://earth.google.com/rome/, watch the video tour below, or check out the Google Lat Long Blog.)



Update @ 12:10 PM: Rome wasn't built in a day! The Ancient Rome 3D layer will be available soon. We're sorry for the delay, and we'll post here when it's live.

Update @ 6:50 PM: The layer is now live in Google Earth, in the Gallery folder of the Layers panel. When you zoom in on Rome, you will see yellow Ancient Rome 3D icons. To load the terrain and buildings, click on any icon and then click the links at the bottom of the bubble.

Posted by Gianni Alemanno, Mayor of Rome
]]> 11/19/2008 6:47:42 PM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/sP55AFUYH3o/invitation-from-mayor-of-rome-come-see.html <![CDATA[The Final Inch]]> (Cross-posted from the Google.org blog)

Early readers of the Google.org blog may recall us embarking on a film project portraying public health heroes working in the field to eradicate polio. Gone from the modern world, new cases of polio continue to afflict mostly children under age 3 in the poorest regions of just a few countries — India, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. When we first announced this project and the collaboration between Google.org and Vermilion Films, filming was underway primarily in India and Afghanistan, documenting the front lines of public health in some forgotten corners of our world.

David Heymann of the World Health Organization reminds us, "When you haven't seen a disease for quite a while, which is the case in the industrialized countries, you forget about the terrible disease that it really is." Polio is such a disease, as it can ruin the lives of children even before they are old enough to understand how to prevent it.

We're proud to announce The Final Inch, a 38-minute film about the historic global effort to eradicate polio. Here, the story told is as much about the messengers as the message. You'll meet Munzareen Fatima, one of the thousands of community "foot soldiers" across India working to sway reluctant families to vaccinate their children, and Dr. Ashfaq Bhat, who travels into the backwaters of India's Ganges Basin by boat and foot to detect emerging cases of polio. Martha Mason and Mikail Davenport bring us into their lives and describe the paralyzing challenges of childhood polio, reminding us how endemic polio once was in the United States.

Filmed in high-definition (HD) in cinematic style — wide open shots to give a strong sense of place — The Final Inch captures their stories, and we hope it is both a tribute and an inspiration of hope. With a final push, this is a disease that can, and should, be eradicated finally.

The Final Inch will air nationally on HBO in 2009. We invite you to check out TheFinalInch.org, where you can view clips from the film and learn more about the people and the organizations tirelessly working on this global effort. You can also check out the film trailer here:



Posted by Gregory Miller, Managing Director, Google.org, and Irene Taylor Brodsky, Vermilion Films, Producer and Director of The Final Inch
]]> 11/19/2008 2:18:19 PM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/ON7IY52lNjg/final-inch.html <![CDATA[LIFE Photo Archive available on Google Image Search]]>
We're excited to announce the availability of never-before-seen images from the LIFE photo archive. This effort to bring offline images online was inspired by our mission to organize all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. This collection of newly-digitized images includes photos and etchings produced and owned by LIFE dating all the way back to the 1750s.

Only a very small percentage of these images have ever been published. The rest have been sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints. We're digitizing them so that everyone can easily experience these fascinating moments in time. Today about 20 percent of the collection is online; during the next few months, we will be adding the entire LIFE archive — about 10 million photos.


It has been a thrill for us to explore this archive, filled with images captured by LIFE's famous photographers. See masters like Alfred Eisenstaedt and Margaret Bourke-White documenting pivotal world events, capturing the evolution of lifestyles and fashions, and opening windows into the lives of celebrities and everyday people.

One of our favorites is this classic Eisenstaedt image of children watching a puppet show.



Alfred snapped this in 1963, at the climax of Guignol's "Saint George and the Dragon" in the Tuileries Garden in Paris. Just as the dragon is slain, some children cry out in a combination of horror and delight, while others are taken aback in shock. Every child is consumed with emotion, masterfully captured by Eisenstaedt's camera. These amazing photos are now blended into our Image Search results along with other images from across the web.

Once you are in the archive, you'll also notice that you can access a rich full-size, full-screen version of each image simply by clicking on the picture itself in the landing page. If you decide you really like one of these images, high-quality framed prints can be purchased from LIFE at the click of a button. Think of the holiday gift possibilities! It doesn't get much easier than that.

So please take a look for yourself and experience these great photos. Your exploration will be limited only by your imagination and your desire to keep on clicking. Be sure to check back often as more photos from the LIFE archive will be added regularly to Google Image Search. We hope that you enjoy them as much as we do!

Posted by Paco Galanes, Software Engineer
]]> 11/18/2008 11:34:11 AM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/nyE7GCPT5MY/life-photo-archive-available-on-google.html <![CDATA[Now you can speak to Google Mobile App on your iPhone]]>
That's why we've added voice search to Google Mobile App for the iPhone — and made it super easy to use. Once the app is running, you don't have to tap any buttons. Just hold the iPhone to your ear, wait for the beep, and say what you're looking for. For instance, last week when I was arm wrestling with fellow product manager Robert Hamilton, I said, "official arm wrestling rules" to Google Mobile App to settle a little dispute about his elbow placement. (After all, the middle of an arm-wrestling match is no time to be typing.) Turns out we were both disqualified because we were not using elbow pads.

Our passion for making search faster and easier goes further. When you do local searches, Google Mobile App can now automatically use your location to make results more relevant to where you are. That was really useful when I was in San Francisco last weekend and my daughter got a paper cut. Having no familiarity with the neighborhood I was in, I just searched for "pharmacies" and I was quickly on my way to the nearest place to buy a bandage. The day was saved.

Check out this video to see what other Googlers from Chicago, London, New York, and Mountain View are searching for.



To get the latest Google Mobile App for iPhone, go to the App Store on your iPhone and search for "Google Mobile App." (Note that voice search will be enabled by default for U.S. English users only.) Then, if you have a great voice search query to share, send us a video response to our video.

Learn more about the new Google Mobile App for iPhone on the Google Mobile Blog and by watching this overview video.

Posted by Gummi Hafsteinsson, Product Manager and disqualified arm wrestler, Google Mobile team
]]> 11/17/2008 8:44:29 PM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/rQgLZlHl8Xc/now-you-can-speak-to-google-mobile-app.html <![CDATA[Ads in new places]]>
If you're based in the U.S. you may already have spotted or clicked on the different text and image ads we’re testing on the results pages of Google Image Search. And last week you may have noticed we launched Sponsored Videos on YouTube — a great example of matching ads to content.

In addition, we are today launching text ads on Google Finance in the United States. We're also looking at how best to show display ads on Google Finance. And later, in the very near future, we will start testing text ads on a small number of news refinements within Google Search — so if, for example, you type "iPod" into Google.com and then click on the news link on the upper left-hand side, you might see text ads alongside those results.

Whenever we make changes like these, we carefully evaluate users' reactions to ensure we're holding true to our basic principles: that ads by Google should always be relevant and useful. Of course, these experiments benefit Google because they generate revenue from new sources — but by ensuring that we show the right ads at the right time to the right people, we'll add value for users too.

Posted by Nick Fox, Director, Business Product Management
]]> 11/17/2008 6:27:52 PM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/_Ygc5mupbVE/ads-in-new-places.html <![CDATA[Introducing SketchUp 7]]> Google SketchUp 7. If you don't already know about the fun you can have with SketchUp, here's a quick recap:

SketchUp is software you can use to build 3D models of anything: your house, killer robots, furniture, trees, abstract art — anything. Architects and engineers use it to design buildings and other structures. Woodworkers use it to plan their projects. And lots of people use it to figure out where to put their furniture. SketchUp is easy to learn, it comes in free and Pro versions, and it's more fun than a houseful of clowns. Oh, and you can use it to build models for Google Earth, too.

So what's new in SketchUp 7? There's too much to list here, but we focused on three major areas for this release:
  • Making it even easier to get started – We've created a new class of "smart" objects called Dynamic Components, which are simpler to work with for new modelers. Take a look at this video to see what I mean:



  • Making it easier to share what you make and collaborate with other people – We built a better link between SketchUp and the rest of the 3D world, made it possible to "sign" your models, and added Google Docs–style collaboration and sharing to our 3D Warehouse.
  • Adding powerful features for experienced SketchUp Pro users – SketchUp is only half of the SketchUp Pro suite; the other half is all about sharing your work with your clients. LayOut 2 (which is now officially out of beta and rarin' to go) lets you create multi-page documents and presentations. Your models are linked to your LayOut file so that changing the former automatically updates the latter.
Take a look at the What's New in 7 page on the SketchUp website to get the whole scoop. There's a great video to watch, and it stars some of the more prone-to-sunlight members of our engineering team — in lab coats, no less. Don't miss it.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Product Evangelist
]]> 11/17/2008 9:00:01 AM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/936u77uUTgU/introducing-sketchup-7.html <![CDATA[It's Jam time]]> Google Code Jam finals, inviting 100 of the world's top programmers to flex their brains in a grand coding showdown. This is our fifth annual Global Code Jam competition, and thanks to a new platform created by a 20%-time team that includes previous Code Jam winners, more than 11,000 contestants tackled complex algorithmic challenges, programming in the language of their choice. After a series of online rounds in July and August, the top 500 semi-finalists competed in regional semifinals at 15 offices across Europe, Asia and the Americas to determine the final 100.

We're pleased to announce that after three hours of furious typing, debugging and problem-solving at the onsite finals in Mountain View. this afternoon, Tiancheng Lou of China took home the $10,000 Grand Prize. Zeyuan Zhu from China won second place, Bruce Merry from the UK came in third, and cash prizes went to the other finalists. Overall, the 100 finalists represented 23 different countries.

Congratulations to all the Code Jammers. We hope to see you at the next Jam. It's never too early to start practicing!

Posted by Jeanne Williams, Google Code Jam Program Manager
]]> 11/15/2008 12:00:00 AM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/uJVBetfMH6w/its-jam-time.html <![CDATA[Google Site Search gets more demanding]]> up to the minute news, get directions, and find the answers to our most pressing questions simply by entering them into a search box.

For a business running their own website, this means that visitors who turn to search expect to have access to the newest products, pages and announcements a site has to offer.

That's why today we're excited to bring you On-Demand Indexing for Google Site Search. On-Demand Indexing is like a turbocharger for Google Site Search, ensuring that your newest pages appear in search results on your website fast. Whether you're promoting a new line of products, sharing breaking news or reports, or updating your site in time for the holiday season, On-Demand Indexing puts businesses in control with an "Index Now" button, giving them the flexibility to quickly update search results whenever they have new content to update or add.

Google Site Search builds on the Google Custom Search Engine by adding business integration features, the option to turn off ads, a more customized look and feel, as well as email and phone support. Check out this video to learn more:



Anyone with a website can take advantage of On-Demand Indexing today by signing up for Google Site Search. For more information about On-Demand Indexing, and how Google Site Search can help your online business or website, check out the Google Enterprise Blog or visit www.google.com/sitesearch.

Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Lead Product Manager, Enterprise Search, and Tom Duerig, Software Engineer
]]> 11/13/2008 11:06:26 AM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/TqFYgC8FK6g/google-site-search-gets-more-demanding.html <![CDATA[How we help track flu trends]]> This post is the latest in an ongoing series about how we harness the data we collect to improve our products and services for our users. - Ed.

Google search isn't just about looking up football scores from last weekend or finding a great hotel for your next vacation. It can also be used for the public good. Yesterday, we announced Google Flu Trends, which uses aggregated search data in an effort to confront the challenge of influenza outbreaks.

By taking Google Trends — where you can see snapshots of what's on the public's collective mind — and applying the tool to a public health problem, our engineers found that there was a correlation between flu-related queries and the actual flu. They created a model for near real-time estimates about outbreaks, in the hopes that both health care professionals and the general public would use this tool to better prepare for flu season.

Since we launched yesterday, the response from the medical community has been positive. "The earlier the warning, the earlier prevention and control measures can be put in place," said Dr. Lyn Finelli of the influenza division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to The New York Times. "[T]his could prevent cases of influenza." You can check out the tool for yourself.

We couldn't have built this flu detection system without analyzing historical patterns. Because flu season is different every year, just a few months of data wouldn't have done the trick. For example, the 2003-2004 flu season was unusually severe in many regions. The data from that season was especially robust and allowed us to discover a more accurate, reliable set of flu-related terms. To learn more about how we built the system, see this page on how Flu Trends works.

Because we're committed to protecting your privacy, we made sure that the searches that we analyze for Google Flu Trends are not drawn from personally-identifiable search histories but rather from an aggregated set of hundreds of billions of searches.

In order to provide a rough geographic breakdown of potential flu outbreaks, we use IP address information from our server logs to make a best guess about where queries originate. To protect your privacy, we anonymize those IP addresses at nine months. And we don't provide this aggregated, anonymized data to third parties. For more information about the privacy protections for Flu Trends check out our FAQs and privacy policy.

This is just the first launch in what we hope will be several public service applications of Google Trends in the future. And as we continue to think of ways to use aggregated and anonymized search data in helpful ways, we're also committed to safeguarding our users' privacy.

Posted by Pablo Chavez, Senior Policy Counsel
]]> 11/12/2008 10:48:33 PM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/p8toO6b7k-I/how-we-help-track-flu-trends.html <![CDATA[Promote your video with YouTube Sponsored Videos]]>
But what if you could promote your video on YouTube and make it easier for people to find it?

Today, we are excited to announce a way to do just that. YouTube Sponsored Videos is our new advertising program that enables all video creators -- from the everyday user to a Fortune 500 advertiser -- to reach people who are interested in their content, products, or services, with relevant videos. Anyone can use Sponsored Videos to make sure their videos find a larger audience, whether you're a start-up band trying to break out with a new single, a film studio seeking to promote an exciting movie trailer, or even a first-time uploader trying to quickly build a following on the site.

So how does Sponsored Videos work? Easy-to-use automated tools allow content owners to decide where they'd like their videos to appear, place bids in an automated online auction, and set daily spending budgets. Then, when people search for videos, YouTube will display relevant videos alongside the search results. These videos are clearly labeled as "sponsored videos" and are priced on a cost-per-click basis. (You can learn more about these tools in the video below.)



We are constantly working to develop the right advertising format for the right content and experience on YouTube. That's why our primary focus with Sponsored Videos is to build a platform consistent with the site's search and discovery experience. Just as AdWords provides people with relevant, non-obtrusive advertising, we hope that Sponsored Videos will provide useful, engaging content, accessible to advertisers of all kinds.

We think this is a great first step for offering users, partners, and advertisers search marketing solutions on YouTube. Like Google, our philosophy at YouTube is continuous innovation, so we will work to improve Sponsored Videos by listening to your feedback and observing the auction as it takes time to fully develop. We hope that by leveraging much of the technology and insight of the AdWords team, we can make this transition as easy as possible.

We do not believe there is one advertising solution for YouTube, but lots of valuable ways for advertisers to engage with our audience. The scale of YouTube Sponsored Videos -- with the branding power of InVideo ads, the engagement of our contests, the analytics of YouTube Insight, etc. -- should create exciting opportunities for users, partners, and advertisers.

YouTube Sponsored Videos is currently only available in the United States, but we're working to bring it to other countries soon. If you're interested in running your own Sponsored Videos campaign, please visit ads.youtube.com.

Posted by Matthew Liu, Product Manager, YouTube
]]> 11/12/2008 4:20:21 PM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/62qps9_UwNw/promote-your-video-with-youtube.html