Since we launched Google Buzz for mobile, we've been working on ways to make it quicker and easier to share your thoughts and experiences while you're out and about.
Today, we're excited to release a Google Buzz widget for Android phones that lets you post text and photos with a single tap. Like other mobile access points for Google Buzz, the widget lets you choose to tag your post with the location or place from which it was posted. You can post buzz about a great meal you had and share photos of the new restaurant. To save time, your posts will upload in the background, letting you get back to your scrumptious dessert without a wait.
The widget is initially available in English for Android phones running v1.6 and later. Search for 'Google Buzz' in the Android Market to download it now. Once installed, you can add it to your home screen: tap "Menu" while on the home screen and select "Add > Widgets > Google Buzz".
We plan to add support for other languages soon. Visit our Help Center to learn more, ask questions in our Help Forum, or give us suggestions and vote on other people’s on the Mobile Product Ideas page.
Scheduling meetings is tough, but rescheduling is even harder. We all know how frustrating it can be to try to find just the right time that accommodates everyone's availability and preferred working hours. Throw in different time zones and conference rooms and it goes from painful to excruciating. We'd rather schedule dental appointments.
On the Google Calendar team, we've noticed that when people talk about scheduling they say things like "I'm trying to find a time" or "let's search for a new date." We wondered what would happen if we treated calendaring more like a search problem. Just as Google search applies ranking algorithms to return the most relevant results from the web, we hoped we could rank meeting times based on criteria important to the person scheduling the meeting.
Today we're launching the result of that experiment, a gadget called Smart Rescheduler, in Google Calendar Labs. Once you enable the Lab, you can find a new time for an event simply by clicking on a link. Our schedule search algorithm will return a ranked set of the best candidate dates and times based on the calendars others have shared with you. You can read more about it on the Gmail Blog.
. .
In part two of our series on mobile ads best practices, we'll focus on carrier and device targeting.
We recently launched the ability to target specific carriers and devices on mobile devices with full Internet browsers. How can this benefit you and your clients?
1. Match the App
One of the new assets of device targeting is the new automatic device targeting for applications. Now, when you are advertising an application for Android-based phones or iPhones, the ad will automatically display a "Download" link instead of a URL.
To use this feature, include either 'itunes.apple.com/' or 'market.android.com/' followed by the app name in the ad's visible URL, and it will automatically display as 'Download iPhone App' or 'Download Android App.'
Let's say your clients sell both and iPhone and Android application. You can now set up three campaigns, one only targeting iPhones with language specific to that application and phone, one targeting Android-based phones with language specific to those users, and a third targeting all mobile devices to drive more general traffic to your clients' websites.
2. Device or Carrier specific language
With Device and Carrier targeting, you can now speak to clients' potential customers even more specifically in the ad text. Does the client sell ringtones? Target mobile carriers in separate campaigns and mention the customer's phone or cell phone carrier in the ad text. Does the client sell mobile accessories? Set up campaigns focused on specific mobile devices in separate campaigns and mention the phone the customer has in the ad text.
Note: If you want to target Blackberry users, you will have to set up a WAP mobile ad within your account. While there is no way to specifically target Blackberry phones right now, you can reach those users through a mobile specific ad type. Find out more about how WAP ads differ from mobile ads for Internet-capable devices.
For more mobile tips and resources, visit the Google Mobile Ads site, as well as the Go Mobile! Series on the Inside AdWords Blog, and check back in a few weeks for more mobile tips to help your clients.
Last week we shared some tips for getting the most out of Google Buzz for mobile. We're back with more ways to help you become a power buzz poster and find the most interesting buzz while you're on the go. Try these 5 tips for the Google Buzz for mobile web app (buzz.google.com) on your iPhone or Android 2.0+ device.
1. Post buzz with your voice.
You can post your public buzz simply by speaking it. From the Google Mobile App for iPhone or Quick Search Box on Android, select the voice search icon, say "post buzz" followed by the text you'd like to post, and watch your words appear. Before your post is sent, you'll be able to edit it or change its tagged location.
2. Filter the Nearby tab for a specific place.
From the Nearby tab, you can easily filter buzz by a specific place, such as a sushi restaurant you're about to walk by, to only see posts from that place. Open the menu showing nearby places, for example "Tartine Bakery and 20+ other locations nearby," and then select a specific place from the list. Now, you'll see all the public buzz anyone's ever posted from that place or you can quickly create a post that is tagged with the place. To go back, just open the same menu and select your current location shown with the blue dot. You'll once again see all the recently posted buzz around your location.
3. Search!
As you'd expect from any Google product, Google Buzz for mobile has a powerful search feature that lets you search all public buzz for topics that interest you. Open the menu or just select the magnifying glass icon to see the search bar. You can also search specifically for nearby posts by checking the "Search nearby" box before submitting your search (it's already checked if you're in the Nearby tab). Now you can find out what people around you are saying about the closest pizza spot or a traffic jam.
4. Post from your city-level location.
Tagging a post with your location is easy and adds context to your buzz posts. Sometimes, your post isn't about a specific place or you'd rather not share your exact location. You can easily show your city-level location, so your post has a general city location tagged and will be browsable in the Nearby view and Maps Buzz layer. When posting, just select the ">" in the location box, scroll down, and select the city-level location option.
5. Refresh your location.
On the other hand, sometimes you really want your location to be exact. When you visit the Nearby tab or want to tag your post with a location, Google Buzz will try to get your location using your phone's GPS. If you're not happy with the location accuracy, you're moving, or you're just stepping outside to get a GPS signal, hit the 'refresh' icon to tell the Google Buzz web app to get your location again. You can also learn more about troubleshooting location problems.
Stay tuned for more tips! Visit our Help Center to learn more or tell us your feedback and questions in our Help Forum. You can also give us suggestions and vote on other people’s on the Mobile Product Ideas page.
. .
This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label "Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.
Today’s update includes a handful of experimental features, a bunch from third-party developers and one that lets you build new features yourself. Enjoy!
Fast new windows in Gmail
Working with email in a single window can slow you down, so throughout Gmail there are places where you can launch what you’re doing into a new window and accomplish two things at once. For example, you can search your inbox and compose a new message at the same time. While this has been part of Gmail for a while now, we’ve just made it better by dramatically speeding up how quickly new windows open. No more waiting for the new window “Loading...” bar to finish — now you can do what you do in Gmail faster!
Gmail Labs updates
We’ve made a handful of updates in Gmail Labs, our experimental testing ground where Google engineers can quickly launch new Gmail features and get feedback from users. Based on usage and user feedback, six Labs have graduated to become full-fledged Gmail features: Search Autocomplete, Go To Label, Forgotten Attachment Detector, YouTube Previews, Custom Label Colors and Vacation Dates. We also retired five Labs that weren’t as popular. Finally, we introduced one new Lab: Refresh POP Accounts. If you use Gmail to retrieve messages from another email account with POP, this Lab immediately checks your other account for new mail when you click the “Refresh” link in Gmail.
Calendar Labs updates
We also have Labs in Google Calendar, and we’ve cooked up a few new experiments there as well. Event Flair lets you add custom icons to appointments, Gentle Reminders prevents event reminders from interrupting your flow in the browser and Automatically Declining Events blocks people from double-booking time on your calendar when you’re already busy.
Apps Script Gallery
Google Apps Script is a flexible system that lets you add custom menus, buttons and functions to spreadsheets, as well as make the components of Google Apps work together in new ways. For example, you can trigger a set of automated Gmail messages and add appointments to your calendar based on changes in a spreadsheet. On Wednesday, we made Google Apps Script available to everyone — not just businesses, schools and organizations — and we launched the Apps Script Gallery to share script examples and help you get started scripting.
DocVerse joins Google
We’re always looking for ways to help people transition smoothly to the cloud. With this in mind, last week we acquired DocVerse, a small team that’s built a powerful set of add-ons to help teams work together more efficiently with Microsoft Office. With DocVerse, people can begin to experience some of the benefits of web-based collaboration using the traditional Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint desktop applications that they’re familiar with. Stay tuned for more information about our plans with DocVerse.
More apps for Google Apps
Google Apps customers often decide to move even more of their technology into the cloud, but it hasn’t always been easy for them to find good web-based solutions that meet their needs and to integrate those solutions with Google Apps. This Tuesday, we launched the Google Apps Marketplace to help customers find technology from trusted providers and give developers a platform where they can sell their products. When Google Apps administrators find something they like in the Marketplace, it takes just a few clicks to integrate a developer’s application with Google Apps. Authentication to third-party applications can be handled automatically by Google Apps, and developers’ applications can integrate with and securely share data among services like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Calendar. There are more than 50 applications available in the Marketplace today, ranging from accounting and project management apps to graphic design and customer relationship management tools.
Who's gone Google?
We’re pleased to welcome another crop of new businesses and schools to Google Apps. More than 11,000 crew members at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines took flight with Google Apps, and the Sports Basement switched teams from Microsoft Exchange. National Geographic is exploring the world of real-time collaboration, and Hamilton College is learning a few new tricks with Google Apps, too.
Hope you're enjoying the latest round of new features, whether you're using Google Apps with friends and family, with colleagues or with classmates. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.
. .
Last week, we announced that we're turning down uploads to Google Video, and refocusing our attention on building a more comprehensive video search engine (in case you're wondering, Google Video search algorithms power YouTube as well as "universal search" from Google.com). We want to make it possible for people searching Google.com or Google Video to find any video, at any time, from any site. But indexing video presents some unique challenges, and if you have videos on your site, you're probably wondering how to make sure your videos are discoverable through Google.
We want video publishers to know that we've made it easier to submit your videos to Google. First, we've simplified the process that allows you to submit Sitemaps to Google. Second, we also extended our Video Sitemaps support to include Media RSS feeds. You do not have to specify the Sitemap file type—we'll determine the type of data you're submitting automatically.
The more information you make available, the easier it is for us to crawl your videos. Here are a few simple things you can include in your Sitemaps to make your videos easier to find:
1) Landing page URL: This is the page where the video is hosted. It's better to have a unique landing page for each video on your site.
2) Video thumbnail URL: Thumbnails provide a strong visual cue to the user. Your video thumbnail should be representative of a snapshot from the video, and should not be misleading in any way.
3) Title & Description: If these are accurate and descriptive, they not only help Google understand your video, but also help users choose the best video search result. Providing information about category, keyword tags and duration is always helpful.
Whether or not you have Video Sitemaps or MRSS feeds, of course, it's important that you make sure that Google can crawl and index your video sites correctly. Make sure you understand how Google crawls, indexes and serves the web. Review the Webmaster Guidelines that will help Google find, index and rank your site. We've also updated the Google Video Help Center to include more information for video publishers. While there's no guarantee that our spiders will find a particular site, following these guidelines should increase the chances of finding videos from your site in the search results.
Platforms like Google TV Ads and YouTube are making it easier for business of all sizes to connect with consumers via video. But for many businesses, creating an ad can be an expensive hurdle to advertising on national television, radio, and online video. That's why we built the Ad Creation Marketplace (ACM), a tool that connects businesses with talented production specialists who can produce a professional TV, online video or audio ad across a range of budgets starting as low as $250.
Creating high quality ads has never been easier or more affordable. While the ACM has been available for some time through Google AdWords, we've completely redesigned it to make it easier for you to browse sample work and connect with specialists who best fit your needs.
To get started, visit the ACM and specify your budget range and ad category using the filters at the top. Then browse through sample videos created by ACM vendors in the past which will give you a sense of the style and price you can expect from each vendor.
After you've found the specialist(s) you like, click the "Contact vendor" button to start a conversation and discuss terms and project details. Make sure to tell the vendor up front that you're new to TV Ads and that you want to use the Google promotional credit. Once the vendor has completed your ad, you will receive an email with the finished ad. In just a few clicks, you can put this ad on television or online through Google TV Ads and other YouTube ad formats like Promoted Videos.
To celebrate the launch of the new ACM, Google TV Ads is offering a limited time discount on any ad created through the ACM that has an initial invoice price of $300 or more. That means you can create a video ad for as little as $100! (View promotion terms and conditions here).
We hope you'll find the Ads Creation Marketplace a useful tool that makes it easier for your business to produce professional quality ads.
.Now there is a faster and easier to use company comparison page on Google Finance! Many of you query multiple companies at the same time, so we have worked to make the results better. Let us take a look at this comparison of HP & DELL.
First, the comparison chart displays price changes for all the companies you include. Next to the chart, you will see news related to all of those companies. You can navigate the chart, zoom in and out, and click on news stories just as you can on the chart on a regular stock page.
You will find a table of key metrics such as price or market cap right below the chart, and can customize the metrics by adding or removing columns from the table. Your configuration will be saved and applied to future comparisons as your personal setting.
You can also add more companies to the page. Enter the ticker in the input box above the price chart and click! You will find the new company's price, news and table metrics have been added.
Last but not least, Google Finance now supports cross-country stock comparison. Compare any public stocks from across the world. For example, you can compare Apple with HTC Corporation. .
If you programmatically create and manage custom search engines, you are probably familiar with the XML format for Custom Search. The context file, which includes the specifications for the search engine, now has a richer look and feel section that lets you define the style of the search box and search results of your custom search engine. You can choose different types of result presentation—from Google hosted results to the Custom Search element—and retrieve the code for the search box that you insert into your webpages.
The Custom Search element gives you the greatest level of control, enabling you to match the look and feel of your search results to the rest of the rest of your website. As shown in the following screenshot, gdgt uses the Custom Search element to match the style of its website.
You can control many attributes in the look and feel. The following is a sample snippet that shows the new LookAndFeel XML element in the Custom Search context file. You can either select a design from a set of predefined themes or control the attributes individually.
We're really excited to see how companies can grow their businesses around the Google Analytics API. Today, we're publishing a case study that illustrates how Shufflepoint, Inc. has used the Google Analytics API to build an innovative product offering which has helped Dolby Laboratories become more productive.
ShufflePoint uses the the API to provide enterprise integration tools, and they've developed a SQL-like query language for Google Analytics. Dolby Laboratories uses GAQL and other ShufflePoint tools to simplify their web analytics workflow, one that incorporates spreadsheets with complex rollups, filters, and intermediate table calculations as well as annotated presentations.
The Challenge:
"Our [analysis] process gives us a lot of flexibility between analysis and presentation," explains Dolby's web analyst. "But, manually consolidating site data into the spreadsheets was time and labor intensive." To streamline the process, the team at Dolby turned to tools from ShufflePoint.
The Results:
"With GAQL and Excel Web Queries, we solved our immediate need for our reports to be updated dynamically" said Dolby. "Our team’s learning and decision making process has really sped up since engaging Shufflepoint. They improved our custom reports, which we used to do manually within Google Analytics, by combining it with the automation and flexibility of using Google Analytics’ Data API.”
A New Business Opportunity
"ShufflePoint has its roots in Excel and PowerPoint, and our capabilities here are a true differentiator in the marketplace," says Chris Harrington, CTO at ShufflePoint. "It's great to take something like the Google Analytics API and develop unique solutions that hit a home run for clients like Dolby. The Google Analytics Data API has opened up new possibilities for us -- there are so many kinds of value-adds that you can create for companies out there. It's a new business opportunity.
Here are some screenshots of the Shufflepoint product using the API.
We continue to be impressed by the new solutions developers are bringing to market by leveraging the Google Analytics Platform. If you have developed a useful new tool or integration on top of Google Analytics, drop us an email at analytics-api@google.com. If it's innovative and useful we'll highlight it to our readers on this blog.
In addition to theextended shopping cycleandincreased online research, we've also found that purchases were concentrated around key promotional periods such as the Black Friday, Cyber Monday, last minute, and post-holiday time periods.
Taking a look at when consumers completed the majority of their purchasing in the graph below, we find that almost one quarter of consumers completed the majority of their purchasing over the 4-day Thanksgiving Weekend (Black Friday - Cyber Monday), while another 14% completed the majority of their purchasing at the last minute.
Likewise, though few completed the majority of their purchasing during the post-holiday season, 64% of consumers did shop during this period.
What's driving the concentrated shopping around these time periods? When asked, consumers said they were taking advantage of sales, making additional purchases for themselves and others, and shop for upcoming occasions.
With record e-commerce sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday and 44% of consumers identifying promotions as a key driver of their shopping decisions, consumers have remained deal-seekers through the end of 2009 and into 2010.
Headed into Mother's Day, Father's Day, and graduation seasons, ensure you are attracting the price conscious consumer through your marketing efforts.
Source: Google/OTX Post-Holiday Consumer Study, January 2010. Q3 [1] And, when did you do the majority of your holiday purchasing? n=1850. [2] Q1 Which of the following retail (non-grocery) purchases, if any, do you plan to make this week? n=2757 [3] Q7 For which of the following reasons did you shop after Christmas/Holiday Season (during post-holiday sales or markdowns) or are you still doing your Holiday shopping? Select all that apply. n=819.
As mobile phones become increasingly powerful and can store more data, we've introduced new methods of search to get you to your content faster, such as search suggestions or search by voice. But sometimes, typing to get to the right search suggestion takes too long, and you may be in a quiet environment where speaking a query is inappropriate. Today we're pleased to announce Gesture Search, a new Google Labs application for Android-powered devices running Android 2.0 or above in the US. Gesture Search lets you quickly find a contact, an installed application, a bookmark or a music track from hundreds or thousands of items, by simply drawing alphabet gestures on the touch screen.
Say you want to call your friend Anne. Just open Gesture Search and draw letter “A”, and Gesture Search returns a list of items that have words starting with “A”. If your handwriting isn't all that neat, that's okay. If the "A" you draw looks a bit like an "H", as seen in the bottom left corner of the screenshot, "H" results will be brought up as well. If needed, you can also erase a query by crossing it horizontally: left to right erases the entire query, and right to left removes the last letter or space in the query. Now you can either scroll down the list to find Anne or write more letters to refine the search.
Additionally, Gesture Search improves search quality by learning from your search history, so Anne's contact info will jump to the top of the list the next time you write "A".
To download Gesture Search, search for it in Android Market. You can get more information on our Google Labs page. And as this is a Labs launch, we are particularly eager to get your thoughts and feedback in the comments below!
Most people love taking pictures and sharing them with their friends, and Google is always trying to improve the photo managing experience in our products such as Picasa and orkut. (If you haven’t heard about Picasa yet, the free photo editing tool by Google, you should definitely give it a try!)
The problem is that, sometimes, the photos we take aren't quite ready for sharing. So we have to transfer them to a computer for editing, and then return later to orkut to upload them to an album. That's too much work! So, we're making life easier by giving you a way to upload photos to orkut directly from Picasa.
To get started, you just have to install an orkut button on your Picasa program by downloading the free 'Share photos on orkut' plugin. This plugin (for Windows or Mac) makes sharing your photos with your friends as easy as clicking a button.
If your Internet browser asks your permission to launch the Picasa software, say "yes." Once Picasa opens, simply add the orkut button. (If you need more help, check our Help Center article). Once you're done, you will see a new button with the familiar orkut logo at the bottom of your Picasa screen. It'll look like this:
Next, just select the photos you want to upload to orkut and click the orkut button you've added to Picasa. You can upload your photos to an an existing orkut album, or create a new one.
The photo uploads will begin, and a slider bar will show the progress of your upload. Once it's complete, you'll be redirected to your orkut album page where you can share your photos with your friends, or set privacy levels for your new album.
So start up Picasa, browse through your pictures and share some of your photographic gems with your friends with just a few clicks. We're betting your photos will start plenty of conversations!
Posted by Sandesh Tawari and Arijit De, software engineers
Back in December, we invited you to submit and vote on product ideas for AdSense. Thanks for participating and voicing your opinions! We received over 600 ideas, and now, we'd like to follow up on what we're doing with them.
We've sorted through and categorized your ideas, which ranged from suggestions such as additional ad format types to new payment methods, and we recently shared them with the Product Management team. Our product managers are now looking into a number of these ideas and are evaluating whether they can be incorporated within our current product roadmap. We're focused on responding to your feedback, but it might take a little time before you see the features we choose to include because product changes require time to build and test across all the accounts and languages we support. We appreciate your patience in the meantime.
Also, we noticed a few ideas on the Product Ideas page that relate to existing features in AdSense, so we'd like to take a moment to highlight some of them here:
You suggested: Show a list of sites displaying ads from a specific publisher ID to prevent malicious activity.
We recommend: Try the Allowed Sites feature to protect your account. You can enter the URLs of sites you own, and earnings from only those sites will be recorded in your account. When you opt in to this feature, we'll also show you a list of URLs that haven't been added to the Allowed Sites list, but where your ad code is appearing. Please keep in mind that if you create additional sites in the future and would like to earn from them, you'll need to add the URLs to the Allowed Sites list in order to be credited for valid activity.
To get started with this feature, visit the 'Allowed Sites' page under your AdSenseSetup tab. You can also find more information in our Help Center
You suggested: Create an index of AdSense sites so AdWords advertisers can easily find sites to target.
We recommend: Try the Publisher Center within Google Ad Planner to provide advertisers with information about your sites. You can claim sites you own, customize their descriptions, and add categories that describe your content. In addition, you can share your Google Analytics data to provide advertisers with insight into your traffic levels. Recently, we added the ability to display a clickable badge on your site that will take interested advertisers directly to your Ad Planner profile. Any publisher can use this feature, but please note that the interface is currently only available in English.
You suggested: Enable more flexible Custom Search options.
We recommend: Try the Google AJAX Search API or the new Custom Search Themes feature for additional customization options. These features will allow you to control the branding of the search box and change or enhance the look and feel of your search results to match your site.
When you need an answer to a very specific question, sometimes the information just isn't online in one simple place. For example, let's say you want to know if there's snow on Skyline Boulevard on a given day or the best time of year to plant beans in the Bay Area. You might find weather reports and planting guides on many different sites, but for these kinds of questions, a person with the right expertise can be a lot more useful than a webpage.
That's why we're excited to announce that we've acquired Aardvark, a unique technology company that lets you quickly and easily tap into the knowledge and experience of your friends and extended network of contacts. Aardvark analyzes questions to determine what they're about and then matches each question to people with relevant knowledge and interests to give you an answer quickly.
We're very impressed with the Aardvark team and the technology they've worked hard to build, and we're looking forward to collaborating to see where we can take it. You can learn more about Aardvark's underlying technology and premise by reading this paper recently co-authored by founder Damon Horowitz.
The festivities begin this Friday in Vancouver, and we're all holding our breath to see who brings home the gold. Perhaps you're rooting for Lindsey Vonn or Shaun White or Sven Kramer. No matter who your favorite athlete is, you can keep up with the latest news on your phone.
Just do a search for the name of your favorite sport, and you can see the latest info about game results, schedules, medal count, and more right above the search results. On Android and iPhone devices, our Real Time Search feature will also reveal the latest updates related to the games within the same search results. (We're offering the same info and more for people searching on computers.) Looking for something more in-depth? Follow along using Google News for mobile. You can find quick links by going to google.com/games10/m on your phone.
Already sensing that too many potential users were attributing the "evil" moniker to Google (in the absence of actual evil in the world), the company yesterday made adjustments to its Google Buzz sign-up procedure. In Betanews tests, we found Google's altered dialog box is much more descriptive about the repercussions of setting up a public profile. It uncovers a critical choice about what you share with others publicly, that had been buried beneath an Edit link, by copying it up front where everyone can see it.
The danger involved with a new user setting up Buzz without being mindful of its default consequences, is that her public profile can be automatically filled with the names and profile links of Gmail contacts she communicates with most. Betanews tests this morning indicate that changes Google has made to Buzz setup appear to reduce that danger somewhat:
When a Gmail user logs in from the Web and is invited to try Buzz for the first time, a dialog box gives that user an opportunity to find people to explicitly follow by default. We noticed that when the user starts typing in names, Buzz does attempt to auto-complete those names, using a list of contacts from the Gmail account. However, at this point in the process, Buzz did not gather those same names into a list of people to be automatically followed, and that's a big difference. Here, the user is effectively creating a new default list of people to follow that is devoid of automatic references from Gmail. If she starts her Buzz setup by accepting this invitation, she may be able to avoid inadvertently publishing her list of followed members to the world right away.
The dialog box for editing one's new Buzz-compliant profile now appears the first time the user tries to enter a comment into Buzz (the equivalent of tweeting). But at this point in time, the user's Google profile is not public. That's significant, because it means information the new user is just now entering into Buzz isn't being broadcast to Google's search caches, before she has an opportunity to make it private.
The revised dialog box at this point now includes the Show the list of people I'm following and the list of people following me on my public profile check box -- which had been buried behind an Edit link -- up front, as well as behind the Edit link where it was before.
Although Buzz urges the new user to create something called a public profile, the degree to which Google publicizes that profile to the world depends on two factors: 1) the amount of information the user includes in it; 2) whether the user opts to give her profile a public URL. Although signing up for Buzz does result in the creation of a "public profile" of sorts, it is only directly viewable to Buzz users (and perhaps, through a circuitous route, to other Google social services, such as Google Talk). That profile page will include a list of entries shared via Buzz, which does include tweets made using Twitter. It will also include links to the Buzz user's lists of followers and followed contacts, but only if the user allowed them to be visible to others. Yes, visibility is the default choice, but that choice is no longer buried. And until the user fills in profile details such as career, location, and a list of one's superpowers (yes, that's one of the blanks provided in Google Profile), it cannot be searched from the Web.
Google Profile pages created by Buzz are only "public" by default in a limited sense. Specifically, for a Google profile to be searchable, one still has to edit her profile page manually, outside of Buzz. Checking the option at the very bottom enables anyone to browse to http://www.google.com/profiles/Gmail_name, thus giving everyone -- even non-Buzz users -- access to what the user is buzzing. Although this isn't stated explicitly, enabling this option is what makes the profile searchable like a public Web page, with results that show up in Google searches. Buzz does not check this option by default. Until the user checks this option, the profile page's URL does not include the user's Gmail name, but rather a large integer at the end. So although it is technically public, it's not something that's designed to be given away, and no one is likely to be able to guess that integer's 21-digit value.
Google's changes do set up a few new speed bumps along the way to creating a Buzz profile, which new users will notice, and many may not appreciate. We know from experience how folks reacted to the abundance of security warnings shouted out by Windows Vista. But when making folks aware of the security risks inherent in doing things automatically, this is a good thing. And the fact that one's Google profile page is not broadcast to Google's searchable caches by default, gives Buzz users an important safeguard.
4:50 pm EST February 12, 2010 · Today on his personal blog, a white-hat hacker who only goes by the name theharmonyguy announced that he had discovered how one can use Picasa to learn the Google username -- the Gmail name -- of any Google user (who is, unofficially, a Picasa user) using the long-integer numeric profile address. With this method, a person whose "public Buzz profile" is only public in a limited sense, could become public in the literal sense.
"With the introduction of Buzz, Google is encouraging users to take advantage of Google profiles," he wrote. "But in the process, Google is tying together services that many users may have treated quite distinctly in the past. If you want your Gmail address to remain private, you need to manage properly the other Google services you use to avoid one of them exposing your Gmail username."
Advertising is a bubble. If that’s a true statement, Google is a bubble too. And if that’s true, many of the goods we take for granted on the Web are at risk. Let’s run down some evidence ...
Google has more than a million servers ... Google’s data centers are already public utilities on the scale of coal-fired power plants ...
Think of advertising as oil and Google as one big emirate. What happens when the oil runs out? ...
The free rides won’t go on forever. There are better ways than advertising for demand and supply to find each other (including search, which is free), and more will be found. Google will be in the middle of that discovery process, no doubt. But it’s an open question whether Google will make the same kind of money in a post-advertising marketplace. I’m betting they won’t.
Google announced a couple of further changes to Gmail Buzz, in relation to the privacy concerns people voiced in the past days. Following people will now require a more explicit, not so easy to miss opt-in action. Furthermore, Google Reader and Picasa sites won’t be auto-connected to your Buzz account now (even though they’re public). Third, Gmail will also include a new Buzz settings tab, in which you can (among other things) completely disable your Buzz account. Google in their post says sorry because they feel they “didn’t get everything quite right”.
One setting I’m not sure is easy to find at the moment though is to disable yourself from showing in the “follows” lists of profiles of others... does anyone know more about this? I’ve heard this can be changed by the setting “Display my full name so I can be found in search” in your profile, but if that’s true then it doesn’t seem to be very obvious. Something else I’m not sure about is which settings exactly stop you to be suggested to others to be followed.
[Google] is developing software for the first phone capable of translating foreign languages almost instantly – like the Babel Fish in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
By building on existing technologies in voice recognition and automatic translation, Google hopes to have a basic system ready within a couple of years.
Google’s head of translation services, Franz Och, is quoted saying “We think speech-to-speech translation should be possible and work reasonably well in a few years’ time ... Clearly, for it to work smoothly, you need a combination of high-accuracy machine translation and high-accuracy voice recognition, and that’s what we’re working on.”
. .
