Calling all SketchUp fans

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Product Evangelist</span><br /><br />It's my great pleasure to announce the launch of the <a href="http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/">Official Google SketchUp Blog</a>. Fast-breaking news, tips and tricks, user stories and just the right amount of office intrigue await anyone who pays us a visit. Also, <a href="http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/2007/06/theres-something-living-under-our-noses.html">sexy mustache contests</a>.<br /><br />For those of you who have no idea what <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/">SketchUp</a> is, I'll start at the beginning: The world is three-dimensional. Designing a house, building a piece of furniture and navigating through a city all involve three-dimensional decisions. SketchUp is 3D modeling software that anyone can use to build models of whatever they like.<br /><p>Check out the <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse">3D Warehouse</a> to see models from people all over the world, and <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/sketchupblog/DenverInGoogleEarth/photo#5088327958889867554">turn on the 3D Warehouse layer</a> in Google Earth to explore cities with realistic 3D buildings made in SketchUp (<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/sketchupblog/DenverInGoogleEarth">Denver</a> is particularly impressive). If you like, you can <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/download.html">download the free version</a> and start building models yourself.

Calling all SketchUp fans

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Product EvangelistIt's my great pleasure to announce the launch of the Official Google SketchUp Blog. Fast-breaking news, tips and tricks, user stories and just the ri…

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Our commitment to open broadband platforms

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Chris Sacca, Head of Special Initiatives</span><br /><br />For several years now, many Googlers have been working to identify<span class="q"> the obstacles that prevent the Internet from being available to</span> everyone on the planet. It strikes us as unfair that some people<span class="q"> should enjoy such abundant access to this rich resource while billions</span> of others aren't so lucky. Though the technology exists today to provide access on a global scale, often we have learned technology isn't the problem. In this context, we have worked hard to advance a set of principles that will make Internet access for all a priority.<br /><br />For instance, we wrote <a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2007/07/promise-of-open-platforms-in-upcoming.html" title="last week">last week</a> on our Public Policy Blog about Google's interest in promoting competition in the broadband market here in the U.S., to help ensure that as many Americans as possible can access the Internet. However, it takes more than just ideas and rhetoric if you want to help bring the Internet to everyone.<br /><br />So today, we're putting consumers' interests first, and putting our money where our principles are -- to the tune of $4.6 billion. Let me explain.<br /><br />In the U.S., wireless spectrum for mobile phones and data is controlled by a small group of companies, leaving consumers with very few service providers from which to choose. With that in mind, last week, as the federal government prepares for what is arguably its most significant auction of wireless spectrum in history, we <a href="http://services.google.com/blog_resources/ex_part_via_efiling.pdf" title="urged">urged</a> the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt rules to make sure that regardless of who wins the spectrum at auction, consumers' interests are the top priority. Specifically, we encouraged the FCC to require the adoption of four types of "open" platforms as part of the auction:<br /><ul><li> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Open applications</span>: consumers should be able to download and utilize any software applications, content, or services they desire;<br /> </li><li> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Open devices</span>: consumers should be able to utilize their handheld communications device with whatever wireless network they prefer;<br /> </li><li> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Open services</span>: third parties (resellers) should be able to acquire wireless services from a 700 MHz licensee on a wholesale basis, based on reasonably nondiscriminatory commercial terms; and<br /> </li><li> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Open networks</span>: third parties (like Internet service providers) should be able to interconnect at any technically feasible point in a 700 MHz licensee's wireless network.<br /> </li></ul>As <a href="http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1104" title="numerous public interest organizations">numerous public interest organizations</a> noted earlier this week, all four of these conditions adopted together would promote a spirit of openness, and could spur additional forms of competition from web-based entities, such as software applications providers, content providers, handset makers, and ISPs. The big winners? Consumers. As choices increase, prices come down and more Americans have access to the Net.<br /><br />The FCC is currently considering draft rules for the auction, and the reports we've heard are that those rules include some -- but not all four -- of the openness conditions that we and consumer groups support. While any embrace of open platforms is welcome, only if the FCC adopts all four principles will we see the genuinely competitive marketplace that Americans deserve. In particular, guaranteeing open services and open networks would ensure that entrepreneurs starting new networks and services will have a fair shot at success, in turn giving consumers a wider choice of broadband providers.<br /><br />There are some who have claimed that embracing these principles and putting American consumers first might somehow devalue this spectrum. As much as we don't believe this to be the case, actions speak louder than words. That's why our CEO Eric Schmidt today sent a <a title="letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin" href="http://services.google.com/blog_resources/Google_Ex_Parte_Letter_Signed.pdf">letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin</a>, saying that, should the FCC adopt all four license conditions requested above, Google intends to commit at least $4.6 billion to bidding for spectrum in the upcoming 700 Mhz auction.<br /><br />Why $4.6 billion? While we think that a robust and competitive auction based on these four principles will likely produce much higher bids, and we are eager to see a diverse set of bidders competing, $4.6 billion is the reserve price that FCC has proposed for the auction. With any concerns about revenue to the U.S. Treasury being satisfied, we hope the FCC can return its attention to adopting openness principles for the benefit of consumers.<br /><br />In the meantime, thank you to those who have reached out to help with our efforts. It feels good to see how many of you support true competition for the benefit of consumers and we look forward to hearing from even more of you in the days to come.<br /><br />For now, and for all of us, the issue is simple: this is one of the best opportunities we will have to bring the Internet to all Americans. Let's seize that opportunity.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Note: We've cross-posted this to our <a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/">Public Policy Blog</a>.</span>

Our commitment to open broadband platforms

Posted by Chris Sacca, Head of Special InitiativesFor several years now, many Googlers have been working to identify the obstacles that prevent the Internet from being available to everyone on the pla…

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Your Campus in 3D winners announced

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Allyson McDuffie, Education Program Development</span><br /><br />The results are in for the winners of the Build Your Campus in 3D Competition, which we <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/show-us-your-university-campus-in-3d.html">announced</a> in January. The <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/sketchupblog/SketchUpBlogImagesJuly2007/photo#5088383789169748306">judges</a> chose 7 teams from among the dozens who submitted more than 4,000 buildings from <a href="http://contest.sketchup.com/schools.php">colleges and universities</a> all over North America. And the winning school teams who will be joining us in Mountain View are:<br /><br /><a href="http://www1.umn.edu/twincities/index.php">University of Minnesota</a> | Twin Cities, Minnesota<br /><a href="http://www.purdue.edu/">Purdue University</a> | West Lafayette, Indiana<br /><a href="http://www.concordia.ca/">Concordia University</a>, Montreal, Quebec<br /><a href="http://www.ipfw.edu/">Indiana University - Purdue University Fort Wayne</a> | Fort Wayne, Indiana<br /><a href="http://www.olin.edu/off.asp">Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering</a> | Needham, Massachusetts<br /><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/">Dartmouth College</a> | Hanover, New Hampshire<br /><a href="http://www.stanford.edu/">Stanford University</a> | Stanford, California<br /><br />Check out the <a href="http://contest.sketchup.com/">competition site</a> to see more details about the judges, the rules, the winners, and what they won. From there, you can follow a link to see the winning campuses in your copy of Google Earth. Again, congrats to the winning teams, and a big thank you to everyone who participated.

Your Campus in 3D winners announced

Posted by Allyson McDuffie, Education Program DevelopmentThe results are in for the winners of the Build Your Campus in 3D Competition, which we announced in January. The judges chose 7 teams from amo…

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Opening up Google Print Ads

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Andrew Chang, Product Marketing Manager, Google Print Ads</span><br /><br />Even with the growth of online news sites, Americans still read newspapers. Over the course of a typical week, nearly 3 out of 4 adults (115 million) in the top 50 markets read a copy of a daily or Sunday newspaper.* That's why thousands of businesses use print advertising every day to reach a local audience, and why we've <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20070718_printads.html">announced</a> that we're extending Google AdWords to newspapers for most U.S. advertisers. To learn more, visit the <a href="http://www.google.com/adwords/printads/#utm_source=awblog&utm_medium=0718_link%20">Google Print Ads</a>™ site, or read about it on the <a href="http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/07/google-print-ads-now-available-to.html">Inside AdWords blog</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">*</span><span style="font-size:78%;"><span><span style="font-style: italic;">Scarborough Research USA, Release 2, 2006.</span></span></span>

Opening up Google Print Ads

Posted by Andrew Chang, Product Marketing Manager, Google Print AdsEven with the growth of online news sites, Americans still read newspapers. Over the course of a typical week, nearly 3 out of 4 ad…

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Hosted site search for businesses

<span class="byline-author">Posted by </span>Nitin Mangtani, Product Manager, Enterprise Search and Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager, Search<br /><br />Businesses spend a lot of effort and energy creating and promoting great websites for their products and services, but quality search is often missing. As a result, businesspeople often ask us why they can't use Google to power search on their sites.<br /><br />Today we've released <a href="http://google.com/enterprise/csbe" title="http://google.com/enterprise/csbe">Custom Search Business Edition</a> (CSBE) to do just that. CSBE is a hosted site search solution that provides Google-quality results for your website. It's fast, relevant, reliable, and flexible, so that users can quickly find what they're looking for through search results customized and integrated into your business website.<br /><br />CSBE builds on the Google <a href="http://google.com/coop/cse/" title="http://google.com/coop/cse/">Custom Search Engine</a>, a hosted search solution we introduced last October that allows organizations to create a search engine and search results that are tailored to their point of view. All well and good, but businesses have asked us for greater flexibility and support -- and we're addressing these needs with CSBE. Businesses that want further control over results presentation and integration with their website can obtain results through XML. Now those of you with business sites have the option to turn off ads and have further control over branding. In addition, CSBE provides options for email and phone support. The pricing starts at $100 per year for searching up to 5,000 pages.<br /><br />This offering should be a great help to the millions of businesses that have a web presence but don't offer users any way to search the site. Instead of being left on their own to navigate content, visitors to CSBE-enabled sites will be able to navigate through search results without ever leaving the site. We hope an improved customer search experience will translate into more referrals, more opportunities for e-commerce, and more satisfied online customers for these businesses.<a href="http://google.com/enterprise/csbe">Here's more about CSBE</a>.

Hosted site search for businesses

Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Product Manager, Enterprise Search and Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager, SearchBusinesses spend a lot of effort and energy creating and promoting great websites for the…

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Cookies: expiring sooner to improve privacy

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel</span><br /><br />We are committed to an ongoing process to improve our privacy practices, and have recently taken a closer look at the question of cookie privacy. How long should a web site "remember" cookie information in its logs after a user's visit? And when should a cookie expire on your computer? Cookie privacy is both a server and a client issue.<br /><br />On the server side, we <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/taking-steps-to-further-improve-our.html">recently announced</a> that we will anonymize our search server logs — including IP addresses and cookie ID numbers — after 18 months.<br /><br />Now, we're asking the question about cookie lifetime: when should a cookie expire on your computer? For background: a <a href="http://www.google.com/privacy_faq.html#cookie">cookie</a> is a very small file which gets stored on your computer All search engines and most websites use cookies. Why? Cookies remind us of your preferences from the last time you visited our site. For example, Google uses our so-called "PREF cookie" to remember our users’ basic preferences, such as the fact that a user wants search results in English, no more than 10 results on a given page, or a SafeSearch setting to filter out explicit sexual content. When we originally designed the PREF cookie, we set the expiration far into the future — in 2038, to be exact — because the primary purpose of the cookie was to preserve preferences, not to let them be forgotten. We were mindful of the fact that users can always go to their browsers to change their cookie management settings, e.g. to delete all cookies, delete specific cookies, or accept certain types of cookies (like first-party cookies) but reject others (like third-party cookies).<br /><br />After listening to feedback from our users and from privacy advocates, we've concluded that it would be a good thing for privacy to significantly shorten the lifetime of our cookies — as long as we could find a way to do so without artificially forcing users to re-enter their basic preferences at arbitrary points in time. And this is why we’re announcing a new cookie policy.<br /><br />In the coming months, Google will start issuing our users cookies that will be set to auto-expire after 2 years, while auto-renewing the cookies of active users during this time period. In other words, users who do not return to Google will have their cookies auto-expire after 2 years. Regular Google users will have their cookies auto-renew, so that their preferences are not lost. And, as always, all users will still be able to control their cookies at any time via their browsers.<br /><br />Together, these steps — logs anonymization and cookie lifetime reduction — are part of our ongoing plan to continue innovating in the area of privacy to protect our users.

Cookies: expiring sooner to improve privacy

Posted by Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy CounselWe are committed to an ongoing process to improve our privacy practices, and have recently taken a closer look at the question of cookie privacy. How l…

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Nonprofits mix it up with Google Apps

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Matthew Glotzbach, Product Director, Google Enterprise<span><br /><br />Tonight I attended a social mixer co-hosted by Google and the <a href="http://www.nten.org/" target="_blank">Nonprofit Technology Network</a> (NTEN), a nationwide membership organization of several thousand nonprofit technology professionals who want to help nonprofits use technology more effectively.<br /><br />Not only did the event offer DJ Hey Man! -- Darian Rodriguez Heyman, Executive Director of the <a href="http://www.craigslistfoundation.org/">Craigslist Foundation</a> -- the opportunity to show off his skills as a DJ, but it brought together nearly 150 members of nonprofits to hear such speakers as Katrin Verclas of NTEN, and Ami Dar of <a href="http://www.idealist.org/">Idealist.org</a>, plus Camron Assadi, Partnerships Officer for <a href="http://www.mercycorps.org/">Mercy Corps</a>, and Daniel Heath, Network Administrator for the <a href="http://www.ebcrp.org/">East Bay Community Recovery Project</a>, discuss ways in which nonprofits can take advantage of the latest technology trends to support their programs, and their <a href="http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/customers.html#gov">experiences with Google Apps</a>.<br /><br />The gathering also gave us the chance to announce that we're extending the Google Apps Education Edition to registered nonprofits in the U.S. The idea for this program extension emerged from conversations we had with local nonprofits. We realized that the Education Edition of Google Apps, our hosted suite of communication and collaboration tools -- free for educational institutions -- fits well with the vital need among nonprofits for easy-to-use, flexible technologies requiring little or no investment. We hope such features as email migration, 24/7 assistance and integration APIs, in addition to the standard email, calendaring and online document collaboration tools will enable nonprofits to worry less about technology and focus more on fulfilling their mission -- in whatever field of advocacy, policy, civil, social or environmental welfare (to name a few) they may be.<br /><br />We're always looking for ways in which the technologies we develop can support education and action on the range of global and local issues affecting our world. <a href="http://www.google.com/a/npo">Find out more about Google Apps</a> or <a href="http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/education/new">apply for an account</a>.

Nonprofits mix it up with Google Apps

Posted by Matthew Glotzbach, Product Director, Google EnterpriseTonight I attended a social mixer co-hosted by Google and the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN), a nationwide membership organization …

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