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More eye candy for iGoogle

In case you're looking for some more personality to add to your iGoogle page, we've just launched a fresh collection of iGoogle artist themes -- an ongoing project we launched in April for which we invited world-class artists to design dynamic themes for your iGoogle homepage. The new collection features designs from 28 leading artists from the worlds of fashion and music. This group is amazing, spanning a wide range of styles and genres: <a href="http://www.google.com/help/ig/art/artists/radiohead.html" id="w.x3" title="Radiohead">Radiohead</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/help/ig/art/artists/barkley.html" id="m4cc" title="Gnarls Barkley">Gnarls Barkley</a> used radiant colors; <a href="http://www.google.com/help/ig/art/artists/gucci.html" id="hfiz" title="Gucci">Gucci</a>, <a href="http://www.google.com/help/ig/art/artists/burberry.html" id="f_ek" title="Burberry">Burberry</a>, and <a href="http://www.google.com/help/ig/art/artists/wang.html" id="p_uy" title="Vera Wang">Vera Wang</a> illustrated beautiful patterns; and <a href="http://www.google.com/help/ig/art/artists/dylan.html" id="h3o:" title="Bob Dylan">Bob Dylan</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/help/ig/art/artists/dion.html" id="q4os" title="Celine Dion">Celine Dion</a> created an iconic look (of course). So depending on what you're interested in, there's lots of great art to choose from to suit your personality, taste or mood. Why did we focus on musicians and fashion designers this round? It's often the clothes we wear and the music we listen to that help express our personality and style. And when we first unveiled iGoogle artist themes, we heard that many of you wanted even more themes in these areas. We hope this new collection gives you more choices so that your iGoogle page reflects your personal style. So check out the <a href="http://www.google.com/help/ig/art/" id="oko5" title="new collection of themes">new collection of themes</a> and pick one that appeals to you. Changing it up is easy and requires only a few clicks. If you have a hard time selecting just one, add the <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/directory?type=themes&sort=popular&url=skins/sampler.xml" id="pu_l" title="sampler theme">sampler theme</a>, which displays a different artist every day. Stay tuned as we continue to collaborate with more artists from around the world. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqY5Z3N30t0zkYLwsv9OxZO1n-Z7VMbQFvGlxr68rY616QzdFqBuVEbuCphA1sKVtKCuH_KkJ_mkijUOTIHX1VwwOBAMbJ2pjS36w31ocXFoRifV-uGYECWMsreWXRhyjOJuUujwB9LxQ4/s1600-h/BlogImage.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244193384303668290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqY5Z3N30t0zkYLwsv9OxZO1n-Z7VMbQFvGlxr68rY616QzdFqBuVEbuCphA1sKVtKCuH_KkJ_mkijUOTIHX1VwwOBAMbJ2pjS36w31ocXFoRifV-uGYECWMsreWXRhyjOJuUujwB9LxQ4/s320/BlogImage.JPG" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a> Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience and Michaela Prescott, Product Marketing Manager

More eye candy for iGoogle

In case you're looking for some more personality to add to your iGoogle page, we've just launched a fresh collection of iGoogle arti...

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At the Republican Convention: Politics in the cloud and on the ground

After <a href="http://www.google.com/gustav_sept08.html">Hurricane Gustav</a> blew through and Americans started <a href="http://www.google.com/trends?q=sarah+palin&date=mtd&geo=usa&ctab=0&sort=0&sa=N">searching for Sarah Palin</a>, the Google and YouTube teams got down to business at the Republican Convention. A large part of Google's work with the convention lived in the clouds. Delegates registered and stayed informed through a <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10031540-38.html">cloud-based system</a> that combined SalesForce and Google technology. The new system means simpler, faster communication with delegates when it mattered most - as the convention had to quickly inform large delegations about the latest updates on Hurricane Gustav. Members of the media were able to search schedules, speeches, releases, bios and video put out by the Convention on their <a href="http://portal.gopconvention2008.com/">News and Media Portal System powered by Google</a>. The site put a range of Google tools to use - from Picasa to Calendar to Site Search - to give reporters fast access to information coming out of the Xcel Center. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFEZ3kn-bsLhKAk5p8EQfUTovVCZ5FxNGfwX_wAensmL4tMjAznWENHPZn0ntnvIwrhnGx-vZ6zMTIlz9kGx1BpvsuFaoRFXF-PtdjsiWiAfRjFsUSPLFaeWZ2OOKH7sUgJxCH351be1GI/s1600-h/Picture+1.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244158863994124370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFEZ3kn-bsLhKAk5p8EQfUTovVCZ5FxNGfwX_wAensmL4tMjAznWENHPZn0ntnvIwrhnGx-vZ6zMTIlz9kGx1BpvsuFaoRFXF-PtdjsiWiAfRjFsUSPLFaeWZ2OOKH7sUgJxCH351be1GI/s320/Picture+1.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a>Google hosted two blogger brunches with <a href="http://www.redstate.com/">RedState.com</a>. At the first, Fred Thompson gave a rousing talk the morning of his convention speech about the changes that needed to be made in Washington, conservative values and strengths of both Senator McCain and Governor Palin. At the second, Google CEO Eric Schmidt emphasized the importance of conservative bloggers and rise of new media this election cycle. Meanwhile, the YouTube team was quite busy collecting videos throughout the week. At upload booths stationed in the Xcel Energy Center, and on a mobile camera roving through the Convention hall, nearly 500 RNC attendees took the opportunity to post their thoughts onto YouTube. Among those to upload from the Convention were actor <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl6MhewYuLk">Jon Voight</a>, former congressman <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9InmUZRsyI">Tom Delay</a>, and former House Speaker <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW_novhtDqo">Dennis Hastert</a>, CNN's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_vG1cK30l8">Jon King</a>, and former Virginia <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-bc3mtj_d0">Senator George Allen</a>: <object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/y-bc3mtj_d0&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/y-bc3mtj_d0&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object> In addition, the GOP staff uploaded all of the major <a href="http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=E26B7114760B5BA0">speeches</a> from the Convention to their <a href="http://www.youtube.com/gopconvention">YouTube Channel</a>, including both <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrlkcMOMhrQ">McCain</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKgNrb3baNM">Palin's</a> acceptance speeches, as well as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_v804KtRQ">behind-the-scenes footage</a> and videos from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAv5XaqYDgk">events</a> around the Convention center. To celebrate the closing night of the convention, <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/anneschroeder/0908/The_Last_Party.html?showall">we partnered with Vanity Fair to throw a party</a> for press, celebrities, political leaders and executives in attendance. Guests grabbed a few treats from the open candy bar and enjoyed catering from Wolfgang Puck at the Walker Art Center. If both conventions were any indication of the general election, the Republicans and Democrats will go head to head in their use of technology and the Internet to reach voters, spread their message and bring more Americans into the election. You can stay up to date on the Google's election efforts on our <a href="http://www.google.com/2008election/">US Election page</a>. Posted by Niki Fenwick and Jake Parillo, Republican Convention Team

At the Republican Convention: Politics in the cloud and on the ground

After Hurricane Gustav blew through and Americans started searching for Sarah Palin , the Google and YouTube teams got down to business at ...

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Update to Google Suggest

There's been quite a bit of comment in the last few days about Google Suggest, particularly how it's used in Google Chrome. Google Suggest is actually built into a number of different products including Google Search, Google Toolbar, browsers like Google Chrome and Firefox, and the Google Search application on the iPhone. But what is <a href="http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=106230&hl=en">Google Suggest</a>? It's a feature designed to make searching both faster and easier. Whether you are typing into the search box on Google Toolbar or Google.com, or the Omnibox in Google Chrome, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time. So for example, if you type "bass," Google Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include "bass fishing" or "bass guitar." Similarly, if you type in only part of a word, like "prog," Google Suggest might offer you refinements such as "programming," "programming languages," "progesterone," or "progressive." Again, these suggestions allow you to enter your searches faster, but also in a way that will more likely get you the results you're looking for. That's what occurs on the surface of Google Suggest. Here's what happens under the hood. To provide its recommendations Google Suggest needs to know what you've already typed, so these partial queries are sent to Google. For 98% of these requests, we don't log any data at all and simply return the suggestions. For the remaining 2% of cases (which we select randomly), we do log data, like IP addresses, in order to monitor and improve the service. However, given the concerns that have been raised about Google storing this information -- and its limited potential use -- we decided that we will anonymize it within about 24 hours (basically, as soon as we practically can) in the 2% of Google Suggest requests we use. This will take a little time to implement, but we expect it to be in place before the end of the month. All data retention is a balance between user privacy and trust on the one hand, and security and innovation on the other. In the case of Google Suggest we decided it's possible to provide a great service while anonymizing data almost immediately. But in other cases - such as our core web search - storing data like IP addresses for a time is crucial to make <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/making-search-better-in-catalonia.html" target="_blank" title="improvements to search quality">improvements to search quality</a>, <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/using-log-data-to-help-keep-you-safe.html" target="_blank" title="improve security">improve security</a>, <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/using-data-to-help-prevent-fraud.html" target="_blank" title="fight fraud">fight fraud</a> and <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/using-data-to-fight-webspam.html" target="_blank" title="reduce spam">reduce spam</a>. You can read more about our privacy policies on the <a href="http://www.google.com/privacy.html" target="_blank" title="Google Privacy Center">Google Privacy Center</a>, check out the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLgJYBRzUXY" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank" title="Google Search Privacy: Plain and Simple">Google Search Privacy: Plain and Simple</a> video for more information about how our server logs work. Update May 21, 2013: We have updated our Autocomplete (formerly known as Suggest) and Instant logging policies. For the most recent information about these policies, see the <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/privacy/whitepaper.html">Chrome Privacy Whitepaper</a>. Update October 5, 2010: We launched Google Instant last month, and we now store Google Instant's partial query data for up to two weeks in unanonymized form, at which time we will delete 100 percent of it. These data retention changes apply only to queries made when Google Instant is active. Posted by Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations

Update to Google Suggest

There's been quite a bit of comment in the last few days about Google Suggest, particularly how it's used in Google Chrome. Google S...

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Another step to protect user privacy

Today, we're announcing a new logs retention policy: we'll anonymize IP addresses on our server logs after 9 months. We're significantly shortening our previous 18-month retention policy to address regulatory concerns and to take another step to improve privacy for our users. Back in March 2007, Google became the first leading search engine to <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/taking-steps-to-further-improve-our.html" id="v087" title="announce">announce</a> a policy to anonymize our search server logs in the interests of privacy. And many others in the industry quickly followed our lead. Although that was good for privacy, it was a difficult decision because the routine server log data we collect has always been a critical ingredient of innovation. We have published a <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/why-data-matters.html" id="ven6" title="series">series</a> of blog posts explaining how we use logs data for the benefit of our users: to make <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/making-search-better-in-catalonia.html" id="ixci" title="improvements to search quality">improvements to search quality</a>, <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/using-log-data-to-help-keep-you-safe.html" id="pq9f" title="improve security">improve security</a>, <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/using-data-to-help-prevent-fraud.html" id="d3kn" title="fight fraud">fight fraud</a> and <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/using-data-to-fight-webspam.html" id="vksr" title="reduce spam">reduce spam</a>. Over the last two years, policymakers and regulators -- especially in Europe and the U.S. -- have continued to ask us (and others in the industry) to explain and justify this shortened logs retention policy. We responded by <a href="http://services.google.com/blog_resources/Google_response_Working_Party_06_2007.pdf" id="u8i6" title="open letter">open letter</a> to explain how we were trying to strike the right balance between sometimes conflicting factors like privacy, security, and innovation. Some in the community of EU data protection regulators continued to be skeptical of the legitimacy of logs retention and <a href="http://www.cbpweb.nl/downloads_int/Opinie%20WP29%20zoekmachines.pdf" id="gtak" title="demanded detailed justifications">demanded detailed justifications</a> for this retention. Many of these privacy leaders also highlighted the risks of litigants using court-ordered discovery to gain access to logs, as in the recent Viacom suit. Today, we are filing <a href="http://services.google.com/blog_resources/Google_response_Working_Party_06_2007.pdf">this response</a> (PDF file) to the EU privacy regulators. Since we announced our original logs anonymization policy, we have had literally hundreds of discussions with data protection officials, government leaders and privacy advocates around the world to explain our privacy practices and to work together to develop ways to improve privacy. When we began anonymizing after 18 months, we knew it meant sacrifices in future innovations in all of these areas. We believed further reducing the period before anonymizing would degrade the utility of the data too much and outweigh the incremental privacy benefit for users. We didn't stop working on this computer science problem, though. The problem is difficult to solve because the characteristics of the data that make it useful to prevent fraud, for example, are the very characteristics that also introduce some privacy risk. After months of work our engineers developed methods for preserving more of the data's utility while also anonymizing IP addresses sooner. We haven't sorted out all of the implementation details, and we may not be able to use precisely the same methods for anonymizing as we do after 18 months, but we are committed to making it work. While we're glad that this will bring some additional improvement in privacy, we're also concerned about the potential loss of security, quality, and innovation that may result from having less data. As the period prior to anonymization gets shorter, the added privacy benefits are less significant and the utility lost from the data grows. So, it's difficult to find the perfect equilibrium between privacy on the one hand, and other factors, such as innovation and security, on the other. Technology will certainly evolve, and we will always be working on ways to improve privacy for our users, seeking new innovations, and also finding the right balance between the benefits of data and advancement of privacy. Posted by Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel; Jane Horvath, Senior Privacy Counsel; and Alma Whitten, Software Engineer

Another step to protect user privacy

Today, we're announcing a new logs retention policy: we'll anonymize IP addresses on our server logs after 9 months. We're signi...

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Bringing history online, one newspaper at a time

For more than 200 years, matters of local and national significance have been conveyed in newsprint -- from revolutions and politics to fashion to local weather or high school football scores. Around the globe, we estimate that there are billions of news pages containing every story ever written. And it's our goal to help readers find all of them, from the smallest local weekly paper up to the largest national daily. The problem is that most of these newspapers are not available online. We want to change that. Today, we're launching an initiative to make more old newspapers accessible and searchable online by partnering with newspaper publishers to digitize millions of pages of news archives. Let's say you want to learn more about the landing on the Moon. Try a search for [Americans walk on moon] on Google News Archive Search, and you'll be able to find and read an <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=w0sNAAAAIBAJ&dq=pittsburgh&sjid=D20DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6256,2864141" id="jmpk" style="color: rgb(85, 26, 139);" title="original article">original article</a> from a 1969 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=w0sNAAAAIBAJ&dq=armstrong&sjid=D20DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6256%2C2864141" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243518421966384850" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Q0zqD7OidCXGWRVxse42vMKqJuBJ8eW_oWAgftQEaLql81qfQhaIRtyZYFkv0XDQ7H3WUFeDIgGi29IhscjNt4MaSBBppuZs5VDSApaPD6BmE4u64FEtsAbXwZG965plA-y14ynIAmfn/s320/News_archive_1969.JPG" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a>Not only will you be able to search these newspapers, you'll also be able to browse through them exactly as they were printed -- photographs, <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=KNIIAAAAIBAJ&dq=nineteenth%20amendment%201920&sjid=CC8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4694%2C1907026" id="fr1h" title="headlines">headlines</a>, <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=758KAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jk0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5233,4059827&dq=clark+gable+army" id="rr1." title="articles">articles</a>, <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6oQLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6lMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2092,2577195&dq=ford+model+t" id="o_sm" title="advertisements">advertisements</a> and all. This effort expands on the contributions of others who've already begun digitizing historical newspapers. In 2006, <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/history-as-it-unfolds.html">we started working</a> with publications like the New York Times and the Washington Post to index existing digital archives and make them searchable via the Google News Archive. Now, this effort will enable us to help you find an even greater range of material from newspapers large and small, in conjunction with partners such as ProQuest and Heritage, who've joined in this initiative. One of our partners, the <a href="http://www.qctonline.com/" id="otku" style="font-style: italic;" title="Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph">Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph</a>, is actually the oldest newspaper in North America—history buffs, take note: it has been publishing continuously for more than 244 years. You’ll be able to explore this historical treasure trove by searching the <a href="http://news.google.com/archivesearch">Google News Archive</a> or by using the timeline feature after searching <a href="http://news.google.com/">Google News</a>. Not every search will trigger this new content, but you can start by trying queries like [Nixon space shuttle] or [Titanic located]. Stories we've scanned under this initiative will appear alongside already-digitized material from publications like the New York Times as well as from archive aggregators, and are marked "Google News Archive." Over time, as we scan more articles and our index grows, we'll also start blending these archives into our main search results so that when you search Google.com, you'll be searching the full text of these newspapers as well. This effort is just the beginning. As we work with more and more publishers, we'll move closer towards our goal of making those billions of pages of newsprint from around the world searchable, discoverable, and accessible online. Posted by Punit Soni, Product Manager

Bringing history online, one newspaper at a time

For more than 200 years, matters of local and national significance have been conveyed in newsprint -- from revolutions and politics to fash...

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Making terms of service clearer

Last week's <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html" target="_blank" title="launch of Google Chrome">launch of Google Chrome</a> generated some discussion over the legal language in our new browser's terms of service (TOS). As we noted in a <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/update-to-google-chromes-terms-of.html" target="_blank" title="we noted in this post">subsequent post</a> on Google Chrome's terms of service: <blockquote>"... Under copyright law, Google needs what's called a "license" to display or transmit content. So to show a blog, we ask the user to give us a license to the blog's content. (The same goes for any other service where users can create content.) But in all these cases, the license is limited to providing the service."</blockquote>We've also seen some discussion on a few blogs about how our universal terms of service apply to other products, with some users worried that Google is trying to claim ownership of the content they generate. To be clear: our terms do not claim ownership of your content -- what you create is yours and remains yours. But in lawyer-speak, we need to ask for a 'license' (which basically means your permission) to display this content to the wider world when that's what you intend. This issue is not unique to Google; it applies to lots of other Internet companies that display and transmit user content. You can see some other terms of service here from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=508088">Amazon</a>, <a href="http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html" target="_blank" title="eBay">eBay</a>, and <a href="http://www.new.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf" target="_blank" title="Facebook">Facebook</a><a href="http://www.new.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf" target="_blank" title="Facebook">.</a> In some of our products, such as <a href="http://www.google.com/mail/help/terms_of_use.html" id="f0ru" title="Gmail">Gmail</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/google-d-s/addlterms.html" id="oy_e" title="Google Docs">Google Docs</a>, we have included additional terms to make it clear that we do not claim ownership of the content. But even without those additional clarifications, we still wouldn't be claiming ownership of your content -- just a license that gives us your permission to use the content to provide the service. The additional terms are there to reassure our users that they still own their own content, even after giving us the permission we need to help them share and collaborate with others, whether via Gmail, Blogger, YouTube, Google Docs, or other services. Because, in the end, that's what's most important: making sure you're comfortable using our services to share, publish, and store your stuff. We'll continue to look at our terms of service to make them as clear and user-friendly as possible, because at the end of the day if you're not comfortable, our products won't succeed -- and we know it. Posted by Mike Yang, Senior Product Counsel

Making terms of service clearer

Last week's launch of Google Chrome generated some discussion over the legal language in our new browser's terms of service (TOS). ...

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Running Hood to Coast

When I woke up at 4:00 AM in a dark field, after just a half hour of sleep, I wondered if I was crazy. When I put on my headlamp and running shoes for a six-mile run—my second of three runs that day—I knew that I was crazy. But I was happy about it because I knew that my teammates were just as crazy. I was running Hood to Coast with the Google relay team. That's a 197-mile Oregon race that starts at Mount Hood, travels through Portland, and finishes on the beach in the town of Seaside. More than 1000 teams participate in the race, with 12 runners on each team running three legs each. The 12 runners on our team were all Googlers from different parts of the company: AdSense, AdWords, Google.org, Engineering, Search and Analytics, Search Quality, and more. We had runners from a number of offices: <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=why-ma-cam.html" target="_blank"> Cambridge</a>, <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?loc_id=1120&dep_id=1173" target="_blank"> Chicago</a>, <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=why-ca-mv.html" target="_blank"> Mountain View</a>, <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=why-ny-ny.html" target="_blank">New York</a>, <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=why-ca-sfo.html" target="_blank">San Francisco</a>, and <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=why-wa.html" target="_blank">Seattle </a>. Many of us had <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/08/powered-by-google.html" target="_blank">run Hood to Coast</a> before and even <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/running-relay-del-sol.html" target="_blank">won similar races</a> for Google; some of us were rookies to all-night relay races. What brought us all together was a love of running and a desire to get Team Google to the finish line as fast as possible — even if that meant that we wouldn't get much sleep. We started last Friday night with fresh legs, fresh clothes, and lots of enthusiasm. Over the next 197 miles we wore out our legs, made our running clothes and vans smell terrible, and generated even more enthusiasm by coming together as a team and cheering each other on. We had a lot to cheer about, because everyone contributed great performances and because we ran faster than we expected. We finished in 19 hours and 45 minutes, which meant that we averaged 10 miles per hour for the race. That was good enough to finish in <a href="http://www.racecenter.com/results/2008/htc08.htm" target="_blank">9th place overall</a> and in 3rd place in the corporate division—behind a couple of running shoe companies that you might have heard about. We were more than happy with the result. As we gathered on the beach near the finish line, we enjoyed the sun, the sense of accomplishment, and the camaraderie of our teammates. I smiled and thought back to when I woke up at 4:00 AM in that dark field. Considering all that we had accomplished, maybe I wasn't so crazy after all. Here's a picture of the Team Google runners and drivers, enjoying the beach at the finish. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeU8ZjD0awzb2iyzFa7IBeTW2gpxzKFQpgHhGKP6IECjqJjBJ5CegzRwFeUHZ4VbA3fGhbZJOgqXIh0jDIjmW42qt1WNsT9ZGsMgYrvYBM134lBnjslb_Q4DEhqYsgtASB8UxyzKahsSsf/s1600-h/Hood+to+Coast.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5241531579562690626" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeU8ZjD0awzb2iyzFa7IBeTW2gpxzKFQpgHhGKP6IECjqJjBJ5CegzRwFeUHZ4VbA3fGhbZJOgqXIh0jDIjmW42qt1WNsT9ZGsMgYrvYBM134lBnjslb_Q4DEhqYsgtASB8UxyzKahsSsf/s320/Hood+to+Coast.JPG" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;"></a> Posted by Chris Holstrom, Technical Writer

Running Hood to Coast

When I woke up at 4:00 AM in a dark field, after just a half hour of sleep, I wondered if I was crazy. When I put on my headlamp and running...

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