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Book info where you need it, when you need it

Posted by Frances Haugen, Associate Product Manager and Matthew Gray, Software Engineer, Book Search Here at <a href="http://books.google.com/" target="_blank">Google Book Search</a> we love books. To share this love of books (and the tremendous amount of information we've accumulated about them), today we've released a new <a href="http://code.google.com/more/" target="_blank">API</a> that lets you link easily to any of our books. Web developers can use the <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/books" target="_blank">Books Viewability API</a> to quickly find out a book's <a href="http://books.google.com/intl/en/googlebooks/screenshots.html" target="_blank">viewability</a> on Google Book Search and, in an automated fashion, embed a link to that book in Google Book Search on their own sites. As an example of the API in use, check out the <a href="http://catalog.dpls.lib.or.us/record=b1022758" id="rx3l">Deschutes Public Library</a> in Oregon, which has added a link to "Preview this book at Google" next to the listings in their library catalog. This enables Deschutes readers to preview a book immediately via Google Book Search so that they can then make a better decision about whether they'd like to buy the book, borrow it from a library or whether this book wasn't really the book they were looking for. We think this API will be useful to all sites that connect readers with information about books, from <a href="http://nov9.scriblio.net/search/history?subj=20th+century&open_sesame=1" target="_blank">library catalogs</a> to <a href="http://catalog.dpls.lib.or.us/record=b1022758" target="_blank">public libraries</a> to <a href="http://catalog.lib.utexas.edu:2082/search/X?SEARCH=Landscapes+and+Communities+on+the+Pacific+Rim&searchscope=28" id="w4ew">universities</a>. To see more implementations in action, <a href="http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2008/03/preview-books-anywhere-with-new-google.html" id="x1:g">read this post</a> on the Book Search blog.

Book info where you need it, when you need it

Posted by Frances Haugen, Associate Product Manager and Matthew Gray, Software Engineer, Book Search Here at Google Book Search we love boo...

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Our solutions for ad serving

Posted by Rohit Dhawan, Senior Product Manager Earlier this week, we <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/weve-officially-acquired-doubleclick.html">completed</a> our acquisition of DoubleClick. Together, we're now focused on building a full suite of products and tools that help publishers of all sizes improve productivity, manage their inventory, generate additional revenue opportunities and save time so they can focus on what they do best -- creating great content and delivering an exceptional experience to their users. First, let us address the options that publishers have when it comes to selling and managing ad space on their websites. Some publishers use ad networks like <a href="https://www.google.com/adsense/login/en_US/?gsessionid=KDKfga-9mk0" title="Google AdSense" target="_blank">Google AdSense</a> to fill their ad space. Still others employ a direct sales force to manage and sell their ad inventory with solutions like the <a title="DoubleClick Revenue Center" href="http://www.doubleclick.com/solutions/publishers/index.aspx" target="_blank">DoubleClick Revenue Center</a>, and partner with third-party ad networks to fill in any unsold space. Regardless, it is a challenge for publishers to effectively manage their available inventory and ensure all of their clients' campaigns serve on time without a sophisticated ad management and ad serving solution. Today, we're announcing a new tool for publishers with the beta launch of <a href="http://www.google.com/admanager">Google Ad Manager</a>. Directed at addressing the ad management and serving needs of publishers with smaller sales teams, Google Ad Manager is a free, hosted ad and inventory management tool that can help publishers sell, schedule, deliver and measure their directly-sold and network-based ad inventory. It offers an intuitive and simple user experience with Google speed and a tagging process so publishers can spend more time working with their advertisers and less time on their ad management solution. And by providing detailed inventory forecasts and tracking at a very granular level, Ad Manager helps publishers maximize their inventory sell-through rates. Google Ad Manager effectively complements the DoubleClick Revenue Center, which is focused on publishers with larger sales teams. We're excited to add DART for Publishers to our suite of products, and we're committed to the continued development and enhancement of DoubleClick's offerings. Today's announcement demonstrates this promise, and at the same time furthers our goal of creating new opportunities for publishers of all sizes. Dozens of publishers have been using Google Ad Manager successfully in early trials. To hear what those publishers have to say check out some <a href="https://www.google.com/admanager/login/en_US/index.html#successstories" title="Ad Manager Success Stories" target="_blank">Ad Manager success stories</a> or take a product tour to learn more. As we are still in beta, Google Ad Manager is available to publishers by invitation only. If you're interested in learning more about it or would like to be considered for the program, visit the <a href="http://www.google.com/admanager">Google Ad Manager</a> site. Existing DoubleClick customers are not affected by this announcement. As we expand the Google Ad Manager beta program, we will be in touch again to include additional publishers and offer updates on our progress.

Our solutions for ad serving

Posted by Rohit Dhawan, Senior Product Manager Earlier this week, we completed our acquisition of DoubleClick. Together, we're now focu...

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The most wonderful time of the year

Posted by Ben Lewis, Product Manager ... for fans of college basketball, that is. We're only days away from <a title="March Madness" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Men%27s_Division_I_Basketball_Championship" id="x6jp">March Madness</a>, and the question is: who's going dancing? Will a Cinderella team pull the upset or will we see a number one seed team as the champion again? These questions and more will be answered over the next few weeks as we watch one of the greatest tournaments in American sports unfold. I'd like to invite you to join the madness of this year's NCAA tournament. Some of our engineer-sports fans and I have developed the <a title="Basketball Bracket Battle gadget for iGoogle" href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/igoogle/basketball.html#utm_source=en-et-googleblog&utm_medium=et&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=googleblog" target="_blank">Basketball Bracket Battle gadget</a> for iGoogle to help you track your picks as the tournament progresses. Use it to compete against your friends and coworkers in a pool, or compete with other Bracket Battle gadget users. You'll be able to make your picks and track your progress without ever leaving your homepage. You can pick your bracket and invite friends to your pool starting on Selection Sunday (March 16th), but feel free to add the gadget to your page anytime starting today. And the madness officially begins on March 20th, so make sure you're all set by then. Come join us for the battle and <a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/igoogle/basketball.html#utm_source=en-et-googleblog&utm_medium=et&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=googleblog">add</a> the Basketball Bracket Battle to your iGoogle. We'll see you at the dance! <div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/igoogle/basketball.html#utm_source=en-et-googleblog&utm_medium=et&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=googleblog"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176610975386820946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOV6rjXm17yr2DOys2E3A1qPVvg8De3lYQ6QWNtv3RsQuYE67Br7xlDxS0cpnY6UZmpGCk42r7hnXrRlBzBZFU3bY93qWftit1ga6IZQzj86vhKeC6NEU7wEC2RYKQyQfuDX4_jPXODD2W/s320/March+Madness.gif" style="cursor: pointer;" /></a> </div>

The most wonderful time of the year

Posted by Ben Lewis, Product Manager ... for fans of college basketball, that is. We're only days away from March Madness , and the ques...

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ARIA For Google Reader: In praise of timely information access

Posted by T.V. Raman, Research Scientist 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. The advent of RSS and ATOM feeds, and the creation of tools like <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/axs" target="_blank">Google Reader </a> for efficiently consuming content feeds, has vastly increased the amount of information we access every day. From the perspective of someone who cannot see, content feeds are one of the major innovations of the century. They give me direct access to the actual content without first having to dig through a lot of boilerplate visual layout as happens with websites. In addition, all of this content is now available from a single page with a consistent interface. Until now, I've enjoyed the benefits of <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/axs" target="_blank">Google Reader</a> using a <a href="http://emacspeak.blogspot.com/2007/03/emacs-client-for-google-services.html" target="_blank">custom client</a>. Today, we're happy to tell you that the "mainstream" Google Reader now works with off-the-shelf screenreaders, as well as <a href="http://www.clcworld.net/" target="_blank">Fire Vox</a>, the self-voicing extension to Firefox. This brings the benefits of content feeds and feed readers to the vast majority of visually impaired users. Google Reader has always had complete keyboard support. With the accessibility enhancements we've added, all user actions now produce the relevant spoken feedback via the user's adaptive technology of choice. This feedback is generated using Accessible Rich Internet Applications (<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-wai-aria-20080204/" target="_blank">WAI-ARIA</a>), an evolving standard for enhancing the accessibility of Web-2.0 applications. WAI-ARIA is supported at present by Firefox -- with future support forthcoming in other browsers. This is one of the primary advantages of building on open standards. We originally prototyped these features in Google Reader using the <a href="http://code.google.com/p/google-axsjax/">AxsJAX</a> framework. After extensive testing of these enhancements, we've now integrated these into the mainstream product. See the <a href="http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2008/03/reader-and-aria-new-way-to-read.html">related post</a> on the Google Reader Blog for additional technical details. Looking forward to a better informed future for all!

ARIA For Google Reader: In praise of timely information access

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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Google I/O: Advancing the web as a platform

Posted by Tom Stocky, Senior Product Manager, Developer Products We spend a lot of time, especially within our Developer Products team, talking about how to build applications for the web. After all, Google was born on the web, and over time we've gained tons of experience with AJAX and other technologies to build apps like Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendar and Google Docs. Along the way, we've seen the power of collaborative web apps and become very familiar with the pain points of building them. To share that knowledge, we <a href="http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2008/03/announcing-google-io.html">just announced</a> Google I/O -- a two-day developer gathering to be held May 28-29 in San Francisco. We want to move the web forward as a platform, and continue to invest in projects like Google Gears, OpenSocial, and the Google Web Toolkit to further that effort. If you're a developer, we hope you're interested in learning more about Google APIs and joining this conversation about moving the web forward. For details and registration, please visit the <a href="http://code.google.com/events/io/">Google I/O</a> site.

Google I/O: Advancing the web as a platform

Posted by Tom Stocky, Senior Product Manager, Developer Products We spend a lot of time, especially within our Developer Products team, talk...

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YouTube finds its way into Spore

Posted by Eric Mauskopf, Sales Engineer, YouTube Partnerships It's no secret that YouTube has embraced user generated video since its inception. Armed with a video camera and an Internet connection, anyone is able to contribute. We're seeing more and more videogames starting to incorporate user generated content into the gaming experience -- so we often ask ourselves, why not similarly empower gamers to share their experiences with each other? Enter Spore, the much anticipated game from Electronic Arts and Maxis, which lets players create their own alien creatures, import their creations into the game world, and upload video of their creatures' moves directly to YouTube from within the game. Additionally, all of the YouTube community can enjoy: Spore's own <a href="http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=57960">YouTube Channel</a>, which will showcase the most popular videos of creatures fans and gamers create. <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO_pcECV4Ure-NQd6xYptuPjriwiVUJKSlxwebROZk9r8ufDsNOnUOZHmINXhiDsS8TM8dRhSh7mcVfnbue-Ml-kyMZvnv07bRC3BqNSVhrOHxLmBMfV3b1XLOSaVSNNtsu8p41aKa3Ske/s1600-h/YT_Spore1.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176488616063525170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO_pcECV4Ure-NQd6xYptuPjriwiVUJKSlxwebROZk9r8ufDsNOnUOZHmINXhiDsS8TM8dRhSh7mcVfnbue-Ml-kyMZvnv07bRC3BqNSVhrOHxLmBMfV3b1XLOSaVSNNtsu8p41aKa3Ske/s320/YT_Spore1.gif" style="cursor: pointer;" /></a> </div> The creature creator is core to the Spore game experience, and seamlessly integrates with YouTube. It will be released within the commercial game and as a standalone free download for PCs prior to the game’s launch. We anticipate that millions of creatures will be created, many of which will be cropping up on YouTube. <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIsqA4PCqLgX8-Scw7b5w57Lp34-_iOIv7GaEZzC_lgxfhClRXBhNeR35Qo5K9GT7tNaj291Pr4nm3fLFvjbYPNBOQRTeBhOwET0LLif7tT4B-TILsw9G80F1m9cZV9GhCQfdyLHbctAq8/s1600-h/YT_Spore2.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176488817926988098" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIsqA4PCqLgX8-Scw7b5w57Lp34-_iOIv7GaEZzC_lgxfhClRXBhNeR35Qo5K9GT7tNaj291Pr4nm3fLFvjbYPNBOQRTeBhOwET0LLif7tT4B-TILsw9G80F1m9cZV9GhCQfdyLHbctAq8/s320/YT_Spore2.gif" style="cursor: pointer;" /></a> </div> Spore’s integration with YouTube was made possible using the latest release of the <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/youtube">YouTube Data API</a>, which is now publicly available and open to all developers. Here's a glimpse of what you can create: <object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WGJOlq6-upY&hl=en"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WGJOlq6-upY&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object>

YouTube finds its way into Spore

Posted by Eric Mauskopf, Sales Engineer, YouTube Partnerships It's no secret that YouTube has embraced user generated video since its in...

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International development & technology: What's working and what's new

Posted by Sonal Shah, Head of Global Development Initiatives, Google.org and Bob Boorstin, Washington Director of Policy Communications Last month, Google and Google.org hosted more than 80 technology decisionmakers from international development non-profits for an interactive discussion at our Washington D.C. office. Over lunch, case study presentations and hands-on sessions, participants discussed the ways technology is changing the landscape of international development -- and how to take advantage of new tools for fundraising, communication, data visualization, and online collaboration. Speakers highlighted the benefits of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing" id="h9x4">cloud computing</a> and demonstrated how to display data on maps and interactive graphs with products like <a title="Google Earth" href="http://www.google.com/earth/outreach/" id="um5h">Google Earth</a> and <a title="Trendalyzer" href="http://www.gapminder.org/world/" id="zj2i">Trendalyzer</a>. A representative from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum discussed how the Museum created a <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/maps/projects/darfur/" id="k5to" title="Darfur Layer">Darfur layer</a> on Google Earth that gives "publicly accessible evidence of destruction to help visually refute claims of minimal collateral damage from war." The YouTube breakout session explored how cheap video cameras paired with an on-the-ground presence can help document and spread awareness of ongoing crises abroad. Participants even made their own videos to talk about how the Internet is changing the development world: <object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5v02QS69F1w"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5v02QS69F1w" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object> Special thanks to our friends at the <a href="http://www.theirc.org/" id="ycg4" title="International Rescue Committee">International Rescue Committee</a>, <a href="http://www.mercycorps.org/" id="m-do" title="MercyCorps">MercyCorps</a>, and the <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/" id="homs" title="US Holocaust Memorial Museum">U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum</a> for sharing stories of their experiences in taking advantage of new technologies. For those who are interested, we're posting the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0C7A75D936163C8C" id="pafl">presentations on YouTube</a>. We hope that this event will be the first of many discussions, workshops, and other public events we hold with non-profits in our new D.C. space.

International development & technology: What's working and what's new

Posted by Sonal Shah, Head of Global Development Initiatives, Google.org and Bob Boorstin, Washington Director of Policy Communications Last...

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