Kirkland calling

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Narayanan Shivakumar, Director, Seattle-Kirkland R&D Center</span><br /><br />When we set up an R&D shop in downtown <a href="http://maps.google.com/?q=720+4th+Avenue,+Kirkland,+WA+%28Google+Kirkland%29">Kirkland, Washington</a> two years ago, we hoped to attract the best talent in the Pacific Northwest -- folks who are serious about their coffee and don't especially want to move to Silicon Valley. Since then we've attracted many engineers who were tickled silly about working on large clusters of several thousands of machines, not to mention shipping web and client-based consumer apps used by millions of people. In the last two years, our Kirkland engineering team has conceived and launched a dozen products ranging from core search product improvements to Ads Optimization, Sitemaps and Webmaster Central, plus such consumer applications as Google Talk, Chat, Pack, Video, Music Trends, and mobile SMS. (<a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/google_wa_product_listing.pdf">Here's a summary</a> of what we've done out of the Kirkland office.)<br /><br />But it's not all work -- there's the food. Like a single day's lunch menu this week: roasted turkey breast, chili red bean patties, scalloped potatoes, roasted cranberry & Satsuma orange salad, classic clam chowder, carrot and coriander soup. You really can't operate in the Seattle area without offering good food, of course, so we offer as much good fuel -- fresh, healthy, and, whenever possible, locally-grown -- as it takes!<br /><br />So if you're an engineer, UE expert or product manager who loves coffee (not to mention the mountains and the sea) -- and you want to have a great time while you're building world-changing products, please consider our <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?loc_id=1123&dep_id=1173">Northwest outpost</a>. <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?loc_id=1123&dep_id=1173"><br /></a>

Kirkland calling

Posted by Narayanan Shivakumar, Director, Seattle-Kirkland R&D Center When we set up an R&D shop in downtown Kirkland, Washington t...

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Latin American Code Jam opens

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Berthier Ribeiro-Neto, Engineering Site Director</span><br /><br />Programmers from Latin America and the Caribbean ready to test their coding skills against the region's best can register now for <a href="http://www.google.com/codejamlatinamerica">Google Code Jam Latin America</a>. The top 50 contestants win an all-expenses-paid trip to our Brazilian engineering office in <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Belo+Horizonte,+Brazil&ie=UTF8&amp;amp;z=5&ll=-19.932041,-43.945312&spn=27.286788,29.970703&om=1&iwloc=addr">Belo Horizonte</a> to compete in the finals. Registration is open until January 23, when the first round of the competition begins -- spread the word! <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/900/1600/813636/CodeJam_LatAm.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/900/320/465501/CodeJam_LatAm.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a>

Latin American Code Jam opens

Posted by Berthier Ribeiro-Neto, Engineering Site Director Programmers from Latin America and the Caribbean ready to test their coding skill...

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A year in Google blogging

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog team </span><br /><br />The <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=hxh&q=define+googol&btnG=Search">definition of "googol"</a> is a number, and Google lives by numbers. So how else should we look back over the year but with numerical bits? Here goes: This post marks the 294th time this year you're reading a post from us -- that's nearly 100 more posts than in 2005. In the last 12 months, we unveiled 24 new products here. We wrote up 128 product upgrades, new features and how-to-use-it items. We told you about 7 acquisitions. We blogged about policies or issues 23 times, on subjects including Google in China, how Book Search works, click fraud, and Net Neutrality. Google.org yielded 7 posts, and 29 times we said various services are available in many countries and languages. Then there was a <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/pug-speak.html">pug</a>, Google's custom <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/i-scream-for-google-ice-cream.html">It's It</a>, our compelling <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/cupids-algorithms.html">matchmaking service</a>, and a nearly-cosmic <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/stardate-081706.html">Stardate</a>.<br /><br />More for the numerically inclined: 7.6 million unique visitors generated nearly 15 million pageviews this year. Aside from the U.S. and UK, readers come from India, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and the Netherlands. Which sites send us the most readers? The top non-Google referrers this year are the influential <a href="http://www.digg.com/">Digg.com</a> and <a href="http://www.slashdot.org">Slashdot</a>.<br /><br />But we didn't just hope that readers would come to us. We also launched company blogs in <a href="http://googlechinablog.com/">China</a>, <a href="http://googlejapan.blogspot.com/">Japan</a>, <a href="http://googleitalia.blogspot.com/">Italy</a>, <a href="http://googlebrasilblog.blogspot.com/">Brazil</a>, <a href="http://googlemexicoblog.blogspot.com/">Mexico</a>, <a href="http://googlepolska.blogspot.com/">Poland</a>, and <a href="http://googlerussiablog.blogspot.com/">Russia</a> (and more are coming in 2007). We also launched AdSense-specific blogs for publishers who speak <a href="http://adsense-nl.blogspot.com/">Dutch</a>, <a href="http://adsense-de.blogspot.com/">German</a>, <a href="http://adsense-pt.blogspot.com/">Portuguese</a> and <a href="http://adsense-es.blogspot.com/">Spanish</a>. Product teams also started up quite a roster of new blogs covering everything from <a href="http://googlecustomsearch.blogspot.com">Custom Search Engines</a> to <a href="http://booksearch.blogspot.com/">Google Book Search</a> to our <a href="http://googlemac.blogspot.com/">Mac</a> and <a href="http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/">Enterprise</a> endeavors. If you want to keep current with nearly 40 corporate blogs we now publish, here's the <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/public/atom/user/10949413115399023739/label/officialgoogleblogs">Atom feed</a>, the <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/shared/user/10949413115399023739/label/officialgoogleblogs-all?c=CPXP5cj_rIkC">Google Reader share</a> option, and the <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/public/subscriptions/user/10949413115399023739/label/officialgoogleblogs">OPML file</a> (English language blogs only).<br /><br />Which posts caught your eye? Apart from the front page, these were among the most popular:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/google-earth-in-mac-world-pc-too.html">Google Earth for Macs </a></li><li>our (classic?) 2005 explanation of <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/googlebombing-failure.html">how "Googlebombing" works</a></li><li><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/download-classics.html">downloading public domain books</a></li><li><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/08/sign-up-for-gmail.html">Gmail open signup</a> (from August 2005, but apparently word kept spreading)</li><li>the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/writely-so.html">Writely acquisition</a> (now part of Google Docs & Spreadsheets)</li></ul>It wasn't all fun, though; there was the time the blog <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/and-were-back.html">disappeared</a>. (Of course, that was before the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/bloggers-new-bag-of-tricks.html">recent Blogger revamp</a>.) But even if real-time, all-too-human goof-ups make it a bit harrowing on occasion, the fact is a company blog is the fastest way to reach out. So we hope you continue to enjoy the rich stew we aim to serve. And before long, perhaps you can begin leaving comments directly. We're working on that. Meanwhile, our very best for a satisfying 2007 to you and yours.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><span style="font-style:italic;">Update:</span></span> Clarified the fact that the number of posts increased by 100 over a year.

A year in Google blogging

Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog team The definition of "googol" is a number, and Google lives by numbers. So how else should ...

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How we came up with year-end Zeitgeist data

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Artem Boytsov, Software Engineer</span><br /><br />The <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist.html">Zeitgeist</a> is "the spirit of time." This is why when we come up with the <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2006.html">lists of top searches on Google.com for 2006</a>, we do not simply retrieve the most frequently-searched terms for the period -- the truth is, they don't change that much from year to year. This list would be predominated by very generic searches, such as "ebay", "dictionary", "yellow pages," "games," "maps" -- and of course, a number of X-rated keywords. These are constants, and although unquestionably popular, we don't think they actually define the Zeitgeist.<br /><br />Instead, we looked for those searches that were very popular in 2006 but were not as popular in 2005 -- the explosive queries, the topics that everyone obsessed over. To come up with this list, we looked at several thousand of 2006's most popular searches, and ranked them based on how much their popularity increased compared to 2005. ("Bebo", for example, had very little traffic in 2005.) We also gave a bit higher score to searches with more traffic. Similarly, our "what is" and "who is" lists are not necessarily the absolute most frequent searches, but rather those that best represent the passing year.<br /><br />A final note: there was some confusion over the use of descriptors like "most popular" and "fastest-gaining" in <a href="http://www.techmeme.com/061219/p49#a061219p49">media reports</a> about our Zeitgeist. We've edited the <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2006.html">2006 Year-End Zeitgeist</a> description to be more accurate on this point: "we compared frequent queries this year against 2005 to see what sorts of things were top of mind."<br /><br />We hope you enjoyed our year-end Zeitgeist as much as we enjoyed working on it!

How we came up with year-end Zeitgeist data

Posted by Artem Boytsov, Software Engineer The Zeitgeist is "the spirit of time." This is why when we come up with the lists of t...

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Speech-friendly textual directions from Google Maps

<span class="byline-author">Posted by T.V. Raman, Research Scientist</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">From time to time, our own <a href="http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/raman/">T.V. Raman</a> shares his tips on how to use Google from his perspective as a technologist who cannot see -- tips that sighted people, among others, may also find useful. - Ed.</span><br /><br />Google Maps and its associated local search is a quick and easy means of locating businesses and obtaining directions. Most people who use it already seem to enjoy the graphical interface with its extremely reactive GUI. But when using spoken output, this visual richness can get in the way of quickly listening to the results of a maps query.<br /><br />As an alternative, Google Maps also provides a simple to use a textual interface that serves up directions very efficiently when working with a screenreader or a Braille display. This alternative view into Google Maps is here, at the <a href="http://maps.google.com/?output=html">Textual Maps UI</a> (<span style="font-style:italic;">http://maps.google.com/?output=html</span>). It's extremely useful for blind and visually impaired users, as well as an effective solution for those times when you're at a non-graphical display and need to quickly look up a location.<br /><br />Just type a simple English query of the form <b>start address to end address</b> and quickly get the information you're looking for. Though we added this option to enhance the accessibility of Google Maps for blind and low-vision users, perhaps others will find this alternative view a useful addition to their maps arsenal.

Speech-friendly textual directions from Google Maps

Posted by T.V. Raman, Research Scientist From time to time, our own T.V. Raman shares his tips on how to use Google from his perspective as...

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Where on Earth is Santa?

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Melissa Crounse, Chief Elf</span><br /><br />As you know, every Christmas Eve Santa Claus gets busy on his tricked-out sleigh, soaring around the globe to deliver presents to (presumably deserving) children the world over. This year, even if you don't have a reindeer team of your own, you can use the <a href="http://earth.google.com/santa/">Google Earth Santa Tracker</a> (That's <a href="http://earth.google.com/santa/">earth.google.com/santa</a>.) Follow along on every step of Santa's travels with Donner, Blitzen, and of course Rudolph, in all their 3-D satellite glory. And to all a good flight -- er, night!

Where on Earth is Santa?

Posted by Melissa Crounse, Chief Elf As you know, every Christmas Eve Santa Claus gets busy on his tricked-out sleigh, soaring around the gl...

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Blogger's new bag of tricks

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Lexi Baugher, Software Engineer</span><br /><br />Blogger has always been the easiest-to-use blogging software around, but it just got <i>way</i> more powerful. We've added a bunch of new features, which you can check out in the <a href="http://www2.blogger.com/">new version</a>:<br /><ul><li>You can <a href="http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=43708">add stuff to your blog</a> (cute cat photos, lists, feeds) without needing to know HTML.</li><li>You can also make a <a href="http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=43709">completely unique template</a> that has just the color scheme you want, without knowing any CSS.<br /></li><li>Don't want your mom to read your thoughts? Make a <a href="http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42673">private blog</a>. </li><li><a href="http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=44498&topic=10275">Label</a> your posts, to group related ones together. </li><li>Use one of our new templates. </li><li>You can now sign in to Blogger using your <a href="http://www.google.com/accounts">Google Account</a>.</li></ul>Naturally, this is still a work in progress, and more exciting features are in the pipeline. Try it out and send <a href="http://www.blogger.com/problem.g" title="your feedback">your feedback</a>!

Blogger's new bag of tricks

Posted by Lexi Baugher, Software Engineer Blogger has always been the easiest-to-use blogging software around, but it just got way more pow...

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