Lots to Talk about!

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Mike Jazayeri, Google Talk Product Manager</span><br /><br />The rainy season and short days are back in full swing in the Pacific Northwest and the Google Talk team, based here in Kirkland, Washington, has been making the best use of all this time indoors. Thanks to their hard work, there are a lot of exciting things in store for <a href="http://www.google.com/talk">Google Talk</a> in the coming months, and we thought the best way to tell you about them was to create <a href="http://googletalk.blogspot.com/">a blog</a> (powered by <a href="http://www.blogger.com/">Blogger</a>, of course!). We'll keep you posted on new features, happenings in the community, and progress toward our goal of <a href="http://www.google.com/talk/developer.html">enabling customer choice</a> in Internet communications through open standards and interoperability. From time to time we might even tell you about some of our favorite Seattle hangouts and traditions, too.

Lots to Talk about!

Posted by Mike Jazayeri, Google Talk Product Manager The rainy season and short days are back in full swing in the Pacific Northwest and th...

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Thanks Victoria doodlers!

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Dennis Hwang, Webmaster and <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2004/06/oodles-of-doodles.html">Google Doodler</a>.</span><br /><br />Last week Google opened our new office in the Victoria area of London, and to mark the occasion we invited students from nearby schools to create their own Google Doodles from our logo. My fellow judges and I were basically considering three qualities: the originality of the doodle idea or topic; integration of the design with the Google logo; and sheer creativity. We received hundreds of entries with all sorts of themes, ranging from serious topics like the Asian tsunami and the Battle of Trafalgar to an entire logo transformed into a bunch of eyes staring at each other. In the end, we chose <a href="http://www.google.com/events/doodle4google.html">these five finalists</a>. And our winner, which graced our <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/">U.K. home page</a> for a full day, was this charming doodle from 11-year-old Lisa Waiwaina:<br /><br /><img alt="" border="0" src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/uk_doodle4google-772374.gif" style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left;" /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />In the end, I was simply blown away by the amazing quality of the work, especially from younger artists up to around age 11 (the bunnies drawn by 5-year-olds were simply awesome). It was a good reminder that staying in touch with one’s inner child can be a key to creativity. Now, back to my secret agenda of searching for a young apprentice...

Thanks Victoria doodlers!

Posted by Dennis Hwang, Webmaster and Google Doodler . Last week Google opened our new office in the Victoria area of London, and to mark th...

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Don't drop while you shop

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Jessica Lee, Associate Product Manager</span><br /><br />There's bravery, and then there's hitting the mall the day after Thanksgiving, also known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_%28shopping%29">Black Friday</a>. Which is one reason we just launched a feature on Froogle that helps you to shop locally -- and that in turn might help you through the upcoming shopping ordeal(s). Now you can search over the product inventory of brick & mortar stores in your neighborhood to compare online deals and local sales all at the same time. Instead of wandering aimlessly through crowded malls looking for that elusive perfect gift (not to mention a parking spot), just find it on Froogle, call the store to reserve it and go pick it up.<br /><br />Froogle local shopping is also useful for finding items that you want to try before you buy (<a href="http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=+dress&addr=san+francisco%2C+ca&btnG=Search+Froogle&lmode=unknown">clothing</a>), or where shipping is expensive (heavy things like <a href="http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=sofa&addr=new+york&btnG=Search+Froogle&lmode=unknown">sofas</a> or <a href="http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=ford+mustang&addr=oklahoma+city&btnG=Search+Froogle&lmode=unknown">cars</a>). Just add a location to your Froogle query and we'll look for products in your area.<br /><br />Right now we have local content from hundreds of merchants across the U.S., but we encourage any merchant with a website to upload their own inventory (did we mention that it's free?) via Google Base. Get started by going to <a href="http://www.google.com/sellonfroogle">www.google.com/sellonfroogle</a>.<br /><br />Besides finding stuff closer to home, Froogle now offers more options for refining your searches, including brand names and related search suggestions. If you search for <a href="http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=home+theater+system&btnG=Search+Froogle&lmode=unknown"> [home theater system]</a>, we suggest brands like Bose and Kenwood, as well as queries that will help narrow your results, like [wireless home theater system].<br /><br />Hope you find these features useful during this holiday shopping season. And have a happy Turkey Day!

Don't drop while you shop

Posted by Jessica Lee, Associate Product Manager There's bravery, and then there's hitting the mall the day after Thanksgiving, also...

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Wi-Fi in Mountain View

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Minnie Ingersoll, Google WiFi Product Manager </span><br /><br />There have been <a href="http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,1093558,00.html">reports</a> that Google plans to unwire the world with free Wi-Fi. In fact, though, our plan is a lot simpler: to provide free Wi-Fi to the city of Mountain View, where we're headquartered. Inside Google, people think this is a plot to make sure our Mountain View employees never stop working -- but it's actually a community outreach program.<br /><br />To this end, I am proud to be working with the City Council, the city librarian, the police department, numerous neighborhood associations, both of the school superintendents, and (of course) the bookmobile driver. And huge thanks in particular to Ellis Burns at the City of Mountain View.<br /><br />We plan to build something exciting here now that the city has <a href="http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/11/17/googlewifi/index.php">approved our proposal</a>. As I wrote in my <a href="http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2005/11/10/more_on_googles_mountain_view_wifi_proposal.html">letter</a> to the City Council, wireless broadband has huge potential to provide inexpensive access to the Internet. Instead of trenching fiber, wireless broadband requires a bucket truck, a lamppost, and 5 minutes of installation. So look for me in a bucket truck soon!

Wi-Fi in Mountain View

Posted by Minnie Ingersoll, Google WiFi Product Manager There have been reports that Google plans to unwire the world with free Wi-Fi. In f...

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Get News in Portuguese

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Bruno Fonseca, Software Engineer</span><br /><br />We've just launched two different editions of <a href="http://news.google.com/">Google News</a>: one for <a href="http://news.google.com.br/">Brazil</a> and one for <a href="http://news.google.pt/">Portugal</a>. Google News gathers stories from more than 200 news sources in Portuguese worldwide, and automatically arranges them to present the most relevant news first. We're very pleased to be able to help Brazilian and Portuguese readers stay informed about the issues that matter most to them. <a href="http://news.google.com.br/intl/pt-BR_ALL/about_google_news.html">Read more (in Portuguese)</a> about this launch.<br /><br />For a group of Google Engineers, it's especially exciting, because in July, we <a href="http://www.google.com.br/press/pressrel/akwan.html">opened an engineering office in Brazil</a>. These Google News Portuguese editions are the first launches our team in Belo Horizonte has participated in. Here's to many more!<br /><br />Of course, Google News Brazil and Google News Portugal are small steps towards our mission. You can help by sending your <a href="http://www.google.com/support/news?hl=pt_BR">feedback, thoughts and ideas</a>. Divirta-se!

Get News in Portuguese

Posted by Bruno Fonseca, Software Engineer We've just launched two different editions of Google News : one for Brazil and one for Portu...

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Judging Book Search by its cover

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Jen Grant, Product Marketing Manager</span><br /><br />What's in a name? Quite a bit, actually; what you call yourself says a lot about what you think you are. And we've been thinking lately that Google Print should really be called <a href="http://books.google.com">Google Book Search</a>.<br /><br />Why the change? Well, one factor was all the comments we got about how excited people were that Google Print would help them print out their documents, or web pages they visit -- which of course it won't. <br /><br />More important, the change reflects our product's evolution. When we launched Google Print, our goal was to make it easier for users to discover books. Now that we're starting to achieve that, we think a more descriptive name will help clarify what our users can do with it: namely, search the full text of books to find ones that interest them and learn where to buy or borrow them.<br /><br />No, we don't think that this new name will change what some folks think about this program. But we do believe it will help a lot of people understand better what we're doing. We want to make all the world's books discoverable and searchable online, and we hope this new name will help keep everyone focused on that important goal.

Judging Book Search by its cover

Posted by Jen Grant, Product Marketing Manager What's in a name? Quite a bit, actually; what you call yourself says a lot about what you...

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Knowledge is power

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Grace Kwak, Google Sitemaps team</span><br /><br />We launched <a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/siteoverview">Google Sitemaps</a> this past summer as a way for webmasters to give us information we could use to better crawl their sites. Since then, we've been adding to the kinds of information we give back. In our latest release, we provide even more interesting statistics that webmasters can use to improve the way their pages work with web crawlers, which will ultimately benefit their visitors.<br /><br />I think the most fun are the new "query stats" -- they show top Google search queries that return pages from a site, as well as the top search queries that led users to click on a site. We've also enhanced the crawl errors we show, like specific HTTP errors Google runs into when crawling a page.<br /><br />If you're a webmaster and you haven't used the Sitemaps program yet, you can now create a Sitemaps account and add a site to it even before you create a Sitemap. Once you verify ownership of the site, we'll show you all of these statistics and error details. You can always add a Sitemap later. Read more on the <a href="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2005/11/more-stats.html">Sitemaps blog</a> or just <a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login">log in</a> to get going.

Knowledge is power

Posted by Grace Kwak, Google Sitemaps team We launched Google Sitemaps this past summer as a way for webmasters to give us information we c...

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