Give them a hand

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Debbie Jaffe, Product Marketing Manager</span><br /><br />The product marketing team is currently experimenting with some new ideas for <a href="http://local.google.com/">Google Local,</a> and I just went to Kansas City to beta-test some of them with my colleagues Resmi and Samantha. Our first order of business was to visit mall kiosks. Since my poor sense of direction has inspired my family to invoke “The Debbie Rule” (the listener travels in the opposite direction from what Debbie says), before arriving in Kansas City I used Google Maps to print out driving directions from <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=325+ward+parkway,+kansas+city,+mo&daddr=5000+W+119th+St,+Leawood,+KS+66209&hl=en">Rafael Hotel to Town Center Plaza</a>, and from there <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=5000+W+119th+St,+Leawood,+KS+66209&daddr=11461+W+95th+St,+Overland+Park,+KS+66214&hl=en">to the Oak Park Mall.</a><br /><br />Aside from <a href="http://www.arthurbryantsbbq.com/">Arthur Bryant’s barbeque</a>, a highlight of the trip was a <a href="http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/wrapup.jsp?ymd=20050520&content_id=1056432&vkey=wrapup2004&fext=.jsp&c_id=kc">ball game</a> between those major rivals, the Kansas City Royals vs. the St. Louis Cardinals. Not only did the Royals rally in the 8th inning to come within one run of the Cards, but it was pretty cool to see fans wave big foam hands from Google.<br /><br /><img src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/media/KC_foamhands.jpg" /><br /><br />(If it's too hard to read, one side says “Know your city like the back of your hand. In this case, a big foam hand. Google Local.” The other side says “Go Royals.”)<br /><br />Some Cardinals fans also enjoyed the hands - but none of those photos are suitable for posting (the hands we provided all started out with five fingers, I swear).

Give them a hand

Posted by Debbie Jaffe, Product Marketing Manager The product marketing team is currently experimenting with some new ideas for Google Local...

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No scraping necessary

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Brian Singerman, Software engineer</span><br /><br />My friends have been asking me for something that could add Gmail and news headlines to the Google homepage. I saw a Slashdot post requesting the same thing, and someone wrote back: if you want that feature, do it yourself and whip up some code or scrape the data. Of course, why would my friends spend any time hacking this together when they could just get me to do it for them?<br /><br />So I got involved with the 'fusion' initiative by joining the team working on a <a href="http://www.google.com/ig">personalized homepage</a>. We launched today, so now I can return the Python books I bought my lazy friends. Check it out and <a href="http://www.google.com/support/fusionph/bin/request.py">tell us</a> what else you want to see. We just might code it up.

No scraping necessary

Posted by Brian Singerman, Software engineer My friends have been asking me for something that could add Gmail and news headlines to the Goo...

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A method to our madness

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web Products, and Jessica Ewing, Product Manager</span><br /><br />Does Google have a strategy, or are we just a bunch of mad computer scientists running around building whatever we want? Today this question gets an answer: we've launched our personalized homepage via <a href="http://labs.google.com">Google Labs</a>. It's part of a strategic initiative we refer to as 'fusion' to bring together Google functionality, and content from across the web, in useful ways.<br /><br />The personalized homepage is a complement to the existing Google homepage - not a replacement. Keep using the original Google homepage if you want to. (We expect many people will.) But if you're keen to organize and customize your information, take a stab at designing your own homepage. You can add Gmail, news, stocks, weather and more. Plus you can add great content from websites like the BBC and Wired. We're incorporating feeds from just a few other sites today, but we envision being able to accept any standardized feed very soon.<br /><br />Enjoy, and <a href="http://www.google.com/support/fusionph/bin/request.py">let us know</a> what you think!

A method to our madness

Posted by Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web Products, and Jessica Ewing, Product Manager Does Google have a strategy, or are we just a...

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Tomorrow, work that bike

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Joe Gross, System Ops Manager </span><br /><br />So many Googlers commute by bike every day that you can't easily look down a hallway and not see a bicycle or two leaning against the wall. Some people bike in from just a few miles away while others combine their commute with other training. I ride 40 miles from San Francisco to Mountain View (and back!) twice a week. Somehow, I'm much more awake and refreshed than I would have been if I sat in my car on 101 for an hour. Or more...<br /><br />Google is a huge supporter of bike commuting, and <a href="http://www.bikemonth.com/">Bike to Work Day</a> is a <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2004/05/pedal-power.html">real party</a> in Mountain View. Cyclists can get Google-branded bike goodies, monthly onsite bicycle tune-ups, and classes on basic commuter skills, bike maintenance, touring - even how to ride your first century. But it doesn't matter what or how far you ride. Biking to work is a great way to get some exercise, save some gas, improve the environment, and most importantly of all, have fun!<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">this just in from Aparna Brown, Commuting Coordinator:</span><br /><blockquote>Since he was just named <a href="http://bayareabikes.org/btwd/commuter.html#sanfrancisco">San Francisco County's Bike Commuter of the Year</a> by the <a href="http://bicycling.511.org/">Bay Area Bicycle Coalition</a>, Joe is the perfect Googler to write about bike commuting. As someone who only bikes 2.5 miles to work, I'm pretty darn impressed with his dedication to regular rides to work. To encourage others to bike to work, Joe and others will be leading rides to Mountain View from all over the Bay Area on Thursday. Watch for bikers with Google shirts and give them a friendly wave (from your bike, natch).<br /><br /></blockquote>

Tomorrow, work that bike

Posted by Joe Gross, System Ops Manager So many Googlers commute by bike every day that you can't easily look down a hallway and not see...

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Search for the enterprise

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Matthew Glotzbach, Product Manager</span><br /><br />Looking for a crucial file you lost somewhere on your computer? At home you’d use Google Desktop Search - and at work, you’d start updating your resume. Not anymore. Check out Google <a href="http://desktop.google.com/enterprise">Desktop Search for the Enterprise</a>: fast, secure (and free!) desktop search that you can actually use from 9 to 5.

Search for the enterprise

Posted by Matthew Glotzbach, Product Manager Looking for a crucial file you lost somewhere on your computer? At home you’d use Google Deskto...

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A Video Uploader for the rest of us

<span class="byline-author">Posted by R.P. Hughes, Software Engineer</span><br /><br />As a Mac user, my heart sank a little when I first saw the <a href="http://www.google.com/googleblog/2005/04/google-wants-your-video.html">post</a> about the Google Video Upload Program. Clearly, the concept is cool. It was just that all-too-ubiquitous .exe file you must run to upload your videos. Of course I know that something like 90% of the desktop/notebook computers sold today run Windows. But in my circle of friends (admittedly a small one -- I blame the caffeine), almost everyone uses a Mac, and the rest use Linux or some other UNIX-like substance. Anyhow, this Video announcement inevitably led to a lot of flak (again) from my friends about how Google was shipping yet another Windows-only application. "I thought Google has lots of smart developers." "Doesn't Google know how to write platform independent software?" Blah, blah, blah.<br /><br />But this time, I took it as a personal challenge. I shoot a lot of video, and I edit it on my Mac. How hard could it be to write a compatible video uploader that would run everywhere? As I soon discovered, not very hard at all. After all, I have access to the C++ source code for the existing Windows-specific uploader, and I can spend my <a href="http://www.google.com/googleblog/2004/12/ive-got-suggestion.html">20% time</a> working on whatever I want. And I have plenty of experience writing portable code, given that I program in Java.<br /><br />Java comes pre-installed on the vast majority of operating systems in use today, or it's available as a <a href="http://www.java.com/en/download">free download</a> from Sun. And software written in Java really, really does work across all those platforms, as a decade of work by software developers can attest. The Java mantra "Write once, run anywhere" is a reality -- it just works. Java programs also tend to be less buggy than their C/C++ counterparts, and programmers working in Java are a lot more productive - but these are topics for another post.<br /><br />Anyway, now you can sign up for the <a href="https://upload.video.google.com/">Google Video Uploader for Macintosh, and ditto for Linux </a>(and UNIX and Solaris and HP-UX and AIX and lots of other platforms). The same sign-up page goes to to the Windows version too. So now I can ponder a different problem - namely, which of my videos I want to share with the world.

A Video Uploader for the rest of us

Posted by R.P. Hughes, Software Engineer As a Mac user, my heart sank a little when I first saw the post about the Google Video Upload Prog...

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Feed me

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Shuman Ghosemajumder, Product Manager, AdSense for Feeds</span><br /><br />If you're like many savvy web users, you may be reading this via a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_aggregators">feed reader</a>, along with all the other blogs, newspapers, and other content that interests you. Whether a feed is <a href="http://www.atomenabled.org/">Atom-enabled</a> or <a href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss#whatIsRss">RSS</a>, it offers great flexibility for users and additional distribution for publishers. As with many promising technologies feeds haven't quite hit the mainstream yet, nor are the business models entirely sorted out.<br /><br />Enter <a href="https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=20012">AdSense for feeds</a>, launching today in beta. The idea is simple: advertisers have their ads placed in the most appropriate feed articles; publishers are paid for their original content; readers see relevant advertising - and in the long run, more quality feeds to choose from. Given the great flexibility that feeds can offer, it's essential to get the model right, especially so that readers are satisfied. Towards this end we have outlined what we believe are some <a href="http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=20134">best practices</a> for advertising in feeds. Publishers who want to participate in the public beta can <a href="http://services.google.com/ads_inquiry/aff">apply here</a>.

Feed me

Posted by Shuman Ghosemajumder, Product Manager, AdSense for Feeds If you're like many savvy web users, you may be reading this via a fe...

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