Show your total pageviews in blogger (gadget) from analytics

Brett Wiltshire (Blogger team) say's

Last month we released two new stats gadgets to the Blogger in Draft testing ground; after hearing your feedback and making a few tweaks, we're happy to announce that they are both now ready for the main stage. The new-and-improved Popular Posts and Blog's Stats gadgets can be added to your blog right now from the Gadget Directory by clicking Add a gadget from the Design | Page Elements tab.

Both of these gadgets take advantage of the traffic data that is being collected by Blogger Stats and provide an easy way for you to pass that info on to the readers of your blog.

The Popular Posts gadget will automatically find and display your blog's posts that have the most pageviews. You can choose whether to display image thumbnails or post snippets in addition to the post title. You can also choose the time window to be used for calculating pageviews and the number of posts you'd like to display.

The Blog's Stats gadget lets you show off pageview data for your blog, with a handful of configuration options that are easily controlled. You can choose from a variety of styles and display options to suit your blog. We also provide an option to let you select the time window to be used for calculating pageviews.

We hope you enjoy these new gadgets and want to thank you again for your feedback as we fine-tuned them to their current state.

Source: http://buzz.blogger.com/2010/09/stats-gadgets-graduate-from-draft.html
recent gmail blog update: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/turn-off-gmails-conversation-view.html

Its New! Turn off conversation view in gmail

Wiltse Carpenter, (Technical Lead) Say's

The way Gmail organizes mail into conversations is like cilantro. You either love it -- and, like me, enjoy the nice citrusy, herbal finish it gives to everything from salsa to curry -- or you hate it. And those of you who hate it hate it enough to launch sites like nocilantro.com and ihatecilantro.com ("an anti cilantro community"), where you can hate it together.

But my fondness for cilantro pales in comparison to my love for Gmail's conversation view, or message threading. I haven't had to wade through multiple messages to follow a conversation in years. A centithread hasn't filled up the entire first page of my inbox in almost as long as I can remember. Having all the replies to an email (and replies to those replies) grouped with the original message simply makes communicating so much easier.

It turns out not everyone feels the same way. And just as an outspoken minority has banded together in unison to declare their distaste of one of nature's most delicious herbs, some of you have been very vocal about your dislike of conversation threading. So just like you can order your baja fish tacos without cilantro, you can now get Gmail served up sans conversation view. Go to the main Settings page, look for the "Conversation View" section, select the option to turn it off, and save changes. If you change your mind, you can always go back.


This feature will be rolling out over the next few days so if you don't see it immediately, check back in a bit. And once you try it out, let us know what you think.

original post: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/turn-off-gmails-conversation-view.html

New! Status Dashboard in Google Analytics

Yi Wang, (Google Analytics Product Team) Say's

Google Analytics processes huge volumes of data for websites around the world everyday, thanks to Google's globally renowned infrastructure. While we never stop focusing on system reliability and scalability (here's an example), we also want to make sure our users have an easy way to get the latest updates from us should there be a problem.

Today, we're pleased to announce that we have launched the Google Analytics Status Dashboard. Now anyone can visit this Status Dashboard to check on the current status of components of the Google Analytics system.

The dashboard reports on the three main components of Google Analytics:

• Data Collection (whether data from websites are being collected by the Google Analytics servers correctly)
• Web Report (whether users can view the reports correctly when they sign in to their Google Analytics accounts)
• GData API (whether the Google Analytics APIs are working properly)

The Google Analytics Status Dashboard represents an additional layer of transparency that we believe will benefit all Google Analytics users, from Fortune 500 companies to personal websites. The Status Dashboard is the best place to check for service availability of Google Analytics anywhere in the world. You can also get the updates pushed to you by subscribing to the RSS Feed. And of course, you can always get updates from us here at this blog or by following us on Twitter (@googleanalytics) and get help from the Google Analytics Help Center or the User to User Forum.

 

Source of this post: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-status-dashboard.html
Recent update from gmail blog: Updated Gmail app in Android Market

Happy Birthday Google!

Original post by Stan Schroeder

It's Google's 12th birthday today, and Google's regular logo has been replaced by an image of a cake, created by the American painter Wayne Thiebaud.

Thiebaud is famous for his paintings of cakes and other everyday objects, and has been associated with the Pop art movement.

As far as Google's birthday is concerned, today's logo change solidifies the notion that Google's birthday is, indeed, September 27. Google had previously been unclear about the exact date, sometimes celebrating on September 7, although the Google.com domain was registered on September 15, 1997.

Although 12 years is a lot in the world of IT technology, the fact that a company has grown so huge in this time frame never fails to astound us. Happy birthday, Google!

Recent update from gmail blog: Updated Gmail app in Android Market

Orkut attacked by 'Bom Sabado' worm

In the second major XSS (cross-site scripting) attack on a major social networking service this week, Google owned Orkut was flooded with "Bom Sabado" scraps.

The word "Bom Sabado" means "Good Saturday" in Portuguese, which is the also the official language of Brazil, one of the last remaining Orkut bastions in the world.

The worm seems to be posting scraps with the text "Bom Sabado" and also adding affected users to new Orkut groups. Such XSS attacks have targeted Orkut in the past too.

Experts have advised users to avoid logging on to Orkut till Orkut engineers fix the hole and also not to click on any suspicious links. Orkut had just last month announced new updates to the website.

Earlier this week, the popular microblogging website Twitter was also at the receiving end of an XSS exploit. The attack, which emerged and was shut down within hours Tuesday morning, involved a XSS flaw that allowed users to run JavaScript programs on other computers.

Update(Sep 25, 6.50 pm IST) 

Solution for this issue? click here to go

- - -
Courtesy - IBNLive
- - -
Recent update from gmail blog: Updated Gmail app in Android Market

Access Your Business Documents from Your Android Device

Original post by Christina Warren (mashable.com)

About the author: Christina Warren is a writer, speaker, podcaster and video host. Before joining Mashable, Christina was the assistant lead blogger at Download Squad and The Unofficial Apple Weblog. She has also written for USA Today and for AOL's StyleList Blog. You can hear her dulcet tones on an assortment of podcasts at 5by5.tv. Read More

Cloud storage and collaboration platform Box.net has just released its Box for Android app to the Android Market.

Like the Box for iPhone and Box for iPad, Box for Android lets users access, share and manage business content on-the-go all from their Android device.

The app works on any Android phone running Android OS 2.0 or later. This includes most of the biggest sellers like the DROID, DROID X, Galaxy S, Nexus One and HTC EVO 4G.

The app is pretty similar to its iPhone and iPad cousina, allowing users to browse files and folders, preview documents, media and web documents and share links to a file or folder via e-mail.

However Box for Android includes the ability to search for files and sort your results directly from the app — a feature the iOS version doesn't currently support. Additionally, because Android has a more visible file system, it's a bit easier to upload files and folders that are already on your Android device directly to Box.net. You can do this in iOS, but it sometimes requires the use of external programs like GoodReader [...]

[Continue Reading]

Related post: Updated Gmail app in Android Market

Google Launches "Google New"

Ji Lee, (Google Creative Lab) Say's


If it seems to you like every day Google releases a new product or feature, well, it seems like that to us too. The central place we tell you about most of these is through the official Google Blog Network, where you’ll find more than 100 blogs covering all kinds of products, policy issues, technical projects and much more. 

But if you want to keep up just with what’s new (or even just what Google does besides search), you’ll want to know about Google New. A few of us had a 20 percent project idea: create a single destination called Google New where people could find the latest product and feature launches from Google. It’s designed to pull in just those posts from various blogs. We hope it helps you find something useful you’ve never tried before.




Source: One place to find everything new from Google
Recent post from gmail blog: Updated Gmail app in Android Market

New updated Gmail in Android!

Simon Arscott and Paul Westbrook, (Gmail for Android team) Say's

We just released a new version of the Gmail app in Android Market, so Gmail updates aren't tied to Android version releases anymore. Now you can get new Gmail stuff faster without having to wait for system updates. To start you off, we've improved message replies, access to quoted text, and more.

As you scroll through a conversation, your most important message actions will now stick to the top of the screen, one click away, no matter how long the email is.

Don't remember what prompted the most recent email in a thread? Now you can view previous message content more easily, just like in the desktop version of Gmail. Tap "Show quoted text" to reveal the previous message.

Finally, this updated version of the Gmail app has limited support for Priority Inbox. If you've enabled Priority Inbox via the desktop version of Gmail, you'll see an "Important" label that shows all messages flagged as important. You can even add a shortcut to "Important" to your home screen.

The Gmail update requires Froyo (Android version 2.2), so it's available if you have a Nexus One, HTC EVO, Motorola Droid 2 or Motorola Droid. (Not sure if your device is running Android version 2.2? Check here.)

Get the update from Android Market (just scan the QR code below, or click here if you're on a phone) and check out the new Gmail. We'd love to hear what you think at android-apps-support@google.com.



Update 9/21/10 12:26pm PDT: There is a known issue where the headers don't stick properly on some HTC phones like the EVO 4G and Droid Incredible. We are working to address this.

source: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/updated-gmail-app-in-android-market.html

Get more from AdWords, win cool prizes

Jo Hainsworth, (Google AdWords team) Say's

We're so excited to announce the first AdWords Train & Gain challenge. 

You've asked us for recommendations of things you should be doing with your AdWords account, so we've put together a series of simple steps to help you become more successful with your online advertising.

The AdWords Train & Gain challenge starts October 4th. You're invited to participate.  Simply sign up, and you'll receive a weekly list of simple steps for improving your AdWords account. Then, sign in to your account twice a week, and take the suggested actions on how to better manage your account.  At the end of four weeks, you'll have learned a lot of different ways that you could improve your AdWords account.  And if you completed all the steps and answered a short questionnaire to let us know what you learned, you could win an Android Phone. Or even a free consultation with an AdWords expert—in Sydney, Australia for you and a colleague.

Sign up for Train & Gain now

Here's a sneak peak of the fast and easy tips you'll get:

• Improve ad text: Stand out from your competition by writing ads that highlight your most competitive features: Low price, special services, free delivery, etc.
• Use negative keywords: Specify which search terms you don't want your ad to appear on. This will help you keep costs down because it prevents clicks from people looking for things you don't offer.
• Track sales and leads: See where your ad spend is working best and focus your money on the efforts that are generating business.     

We hope you'll sign up for AdWords Train & Gain, so you can see for yourself: it really doesn't take a lot of time to make a big difference for your business.  Learn more or see official rules for more details about the challenge, who's eligible to compete and how we're selecting winners. Terms and conditions can be found here.

Also, if you're ever looking to learn more about your AdWords account, you'll also want to check out our brand new AdWords Small Business Centre, which we announced last week.  The site is a central AdWords learning hub for small and medium businesses. It allows visitors to explore beginner, intermediate or advanced AdWords topics and connects you to the latest AdWords news and best practices.  All easy-to-find in one place.

Recent post on gmail blog: New in Labs: Video chat enhancements

Simply Super - New Blogger Templates (Simplicity)

Brett Wiltshire Say's

When it comes to design, sometimes less can be more. This is the mantra behind our newest variant Super Simple, freshly-released to the Template Designer this week. We've taken the original Simple variant and stripped it down to the bare essentials, putting your actual blog content front and center on the page.

As with all of our variants, you are free to tweak all of the individual elements and styles to your liking. And if you are looking to design a fancy blog template from scratch, the Super Simple variant is also a great frame to build upon.

You can check out the new variant right now in the Template Designer, under the Simple category. As always, our ears are open to your feedback, so please feel free to let us know what you think.

Orkut celebrating Oktoberfest :)

Ariel, (orkut operations team) Say's

Today is the kick-off ceremony of Oktoberfest, a traditional German celebration of food, drink, music, dance, and culture that has become so popular that it has spread all around the world.

The world's largest Oktoberfest celebration takes place in Munich, Germany during the last few weeks of September and beginning of October, and regularly commands millions of visitors.

Even if you're not able to make it to Munich this year or participate in any of the local celebrations going on near you, we wanted to offer you this special doodle to help you get into the spirit:

Hope you enjoy it!

-- source --
Orkut Blog: http://en.blog.orkut.com/2010/09/kicking-off-oktoberfest-on-orkut.html
Gmail Blog: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-in-labs-video-chat-enhancements.html

New page for orkut promotions

Koji Pereira, (user experience team) Say's

One year after launching orkut promote, we're happy to bring you a new page for your promotions. Now it's easier to create and to review all your promotions, 'coz they're all in a single page. Check how many people re-promoted them, how many clicks, views and trashes each of them received, and also preview your promotions on the fly:

Creating a new promotion is very easy. On your orkut homepage, click the "applications" drop-down menu, at the top of the page, and select "promote". Then just choose the kind of promotion you want (text, image or video) and directly type an accompanying message. Keep the text field empty to create an image or video-only promotion.

So what are you waiting for? Visit the new orkut promote page and spread your message to the world!

-- source --
Orkut Blog: http://en.blog.orkut.com/2010/09/new-page-for-your-promotions.html
Gmail Blog: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-in-labs-video-chat-enhancements.html

Try better video chat: New in Labs

Serge Lachapelle, (Product Manager) Say's

If you use video chat in Gmail, you might be interested in a new Labs feature we just rolled out that allows you to preview new video chat features before they're turned on for everyone. Visit the Gmail Labs tab under Settings, turn on "Video chat enhancements," and right away, you'll see higher resolution video and a bigger video chat window.

The higher resolution video uses a new playback mechanism which enables widescreen VGA and frees up valuable resources on your computer. For it to work, both you and the person you're chatting with will need to have the lab turned on. Remember that you can always revert to standard video chat by disabling the lab.

We plan to add more video chat enhancements to this lab in the future, so if you have it on you'll automatically get those too. Feel free to post your comments or report any issues you encounter in the video chat forum (we also follow #googlevideochat on Twitter).

-- source --
Gmail Blog: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-in-labs-video-chat-enhancements.html

TIP: Its Chrome, Its Easy to Paste only text

Peter Kasting, (Software Engineer) Say's

Has this ever happened to you? You're writing an email online and you try to copy some text from a webpage. But when you paste it in, you get all the original fonts, colors, and spacing. "Wait!" you say, "I just wanted the text!"

This happened to us so many times while building Google Chrome that we added a special shortcut to do just that. Alongside the common Ctrl-V keyboard shortcut for "paste", Google Chrome supports a similar shortcut, Ctrl-Shift-V, for "paste as plain text". (And it's Command-Shift-Option-V on a Mac.)



You can use this shortcut in any rich text editor (like Gmail's compose window, or when writing in Google Docs) to strip out all the presentation from the original source and just paste in a block of text.

-- recent posts from google --
http://chrome.blogspot.com/2010/09/tip-just-text-please.html
http://googleindia.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-india-celebrates-diversity.html
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-health-update.html
http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-you-say-is-what-you-search.html
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/09/increase-your-productivity-with-api.html
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/5-tips-for-using-priority-inbox.html

Share your photos as private in Buzz from Picasa

Jonathan Sposato, (Product Management - Photos Team) Say's

It used to be all or nothing when it came to sharing a new Picasa Web Album in Buzz. If you created a public album in Picasa Web Albums, it created a public Google Buzz post. That was great for when you wanted to share your photos broadly. But for those times when you wanted to share with a smaller circle — no Buzz.

Now when you create a private album, the select people you choose to share your photo album with will see a notification in Google Buzz as well.

Just make sure you have Picasa Web Album as one of your connected sites in Buzz to take advantage of this easy way to share your albums.

-- source / related --
http://googlephotos.blogspot.com/2010/09/posted-by-jonathan-sposato-product.html
http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2010/09/welcome-and-look-back.html
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/5-tips-for-using-priority-inbox.html

Can i track google instant using analytics?

Alden DeSoto, (Google Analytics Team) Say's

Since this week's launch of Instant Search, we've been asked how to track Instant Search in Google Analytics, and in particular, whether it's possible to see partial Instant Search queries in your reports.

You actually don't need to do anything to track Instant Search queries in Google Analytics. All search referrals are tracked just as they've always been.

We've seen several clever profile filters in the blogosphere that are designed to parse out the values of the "oq" parameter so that partial queries can be easily seen in Google Analytics. However, the "oq" parameter is not related to Instant Search and is often not passed in the request.

Some answers to your other questions:

Should I change my search advertising strategy to serve ads on to partial keywords (e.g. if I sell flowers, should I advertise on "flow")?
This is not a productive strategy. Please note that ads are triggered based on the "predicted query" and not the stem that the users types in. So, in this example, the partial query "flow" triggers results for the predicted query of "flowers". The only way someone can see your ad for "flow" is if they specifically searched for that word and hit enter or clicked search. And since you sell flowers, it's not likely that your ad for flowers will be served alongside such a generic and irrelevant word.

Does this change impact the ranking of search results?
No, this change does not impact the ranking of search results.

What term will I see in Google Analytics if a visitor comes on a partial query?
The keyword analytics sends is not the partial one but the predicted query. If a user was typing "web metrics" but got the search result she wanted at "web met" with the predicted term being "web metrics", then you will see "web metrics" in your Google Analytics reports.

How will this affect my AdWords impression count?
When someone searches using Google Instant, ad impressions are counted in these situations:

• The user begins to type a query on Google and clicks anywhere on the page (a search result, an ad, a spell correction, a related search).
• The user chooses a particular query by clicking the Search button, pressing Enter, or selecting one of the predicted queries.
• The user stops typing, and the results are displayed for a minimum of three seconds."

Many of your questions related to ads can be answered here.

-- source & recent --
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-on-instant-search.html
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/5-tips-for-using-priority-inbox.html
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/responding-to-fires-in-san-bruno.html

Google Analytics Support to Chrome Extensions

Original post by Chris Crum say's

If you have a Google Chrome extension, this news might interest you greatly. Google announced today that it has added support for Google Analytics to the Chrome Extension Gallery. 

The move, Google says, will "help you better understand how many people visit your extension pages, where they're coming from and more."

Users can specify a Google Analytics profile for each extension. This will start tracking the extension's page in GA like it was its own site.

 

 

"You can also use Google Analytics to track the usage of your extension once it's installed," says Google software engineer Qian Huang. "Check out this tutorial that explains how to integrate Google Analytics such that you can analyze how users interact with the features of your extensions."

 

Browser extensions can be a good way to keep customers engaged with your business, and being able to track that will no doubt help tremendously.

-- recent posts --
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/5-tips-for-using-priority-inbox.html
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behind-scenes.html

Are you using priority inbox? this tips may help you!

Kristen Lemons, (Gmail Support Team) Say's

It's been a week since we launched Priority Inbox, and now that you've hopefully had a chance to try it out, we wanted to share some tips to help you manage your email more efficiently. Here are five ways you can make Priority Inbox work even better for you:

1. Customize your sections
By default, Priority Inbox has three sections: "Important and Unread," "Starred" and "Everything Else." But that doesn't mean you have to leave them that way. You can make a section show messages from a particular label (like your "Action" or "To-do" label), add a fourth section, or change the maximum size of any section. Visit the Priority Inbox tab under Settings to customize your sections, or do it right from the inline menus.

2. Train the system
If Gmail makes a mistake, you can help it learn to better categorize your messages. Select the misclassified message, then use the importance buttons at the top of your inbox to correctly mark it as important or not important.

For those of you who can't live without keyboard shortcuts, don't worry, you can use the "+" and "-" keys to adjust importance as well.

3. See the best of your filtered messages
You can set up Priority Inbox to show you not just the best of your inbox, but also the best of messages you filter out of your inbox and might otherwise miss. Just change your Priority Inbox settings to "Override filters" and Gmail will surface any important messages that would otherwise skip your inbox.

With this option turned on, you can use filters to archive more aggressively and worry less about missing an important message.

4. Use filters to guarantee certain messages get marked important (or not)
If you read and reply to a lot of messages from your mom, Gmail should automatically put incoming messages from her in the "Important and unread" section. But if you want to be 100% sure that all messages from your mom (or your boss, boyfriend, client, landlord, etc.) are marked important, you can create a filter for messages from that sender and select "Always mark as important." Similarly, if you regularly read messages from your favorite magazine, they should automatically get marked as important. If you'd rather they end up in the "Everything else" section, you can create a filter to never mark them as important.

5. Archive unimportant messages quickly
One of the features that can help make you more efficient is the ability to archive all of the visible messages in the "Everything Else" section at once. Just click on the down arrow next to "Everything Else" and select the "Archive all visible items" option. If you want to be able to archive even more messages at once, you can increase the maximum number of messages that show in that section from the same drop-down.

-- recent posts --
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/5-tips-for-using-priority-inbox.html
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html

Google Instant can save 2-5 sec's : Overview

Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type.

 The most obvious change is that you get to the right content much faster than before because you don’t have to finish typing your full search term, or even press “search.” Another shift is that seeing results as you type helps you formulate a better search term by providing instant feedback. You can now adapt your search on the fly until the results match exactly what you want. In time, we may wonder how search ever worked in any other way.

Benefits

Faster Searches: By predicting your search and showing results before you finish typing, Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search.

Smarter Predictions: Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help guide your search. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need.

Instant Results: Start typing and results appear right before your eyes. Until now, you had to type a full search term, hit return, and hope for the right results. Now results appear instantly as you type, helping you see where you’re headed, every step of the way.

Did you know:

• Before Google Instant, the typical searcher took more than 9 seconds to enter a search term, and we saw many examples of searches that took 30-90 seconds to type.
• Using Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search.
• If everyone uses Google Instant globally, we estimate this will save more than 3.5 billion seconds a day. That’s 11 hours saved every second.
• 15 new technologies contribute to Google Instant functionality. 

To use Google instant click here

-- recent posts --
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/trimming-our-privacy-policies.html
http://buzz.blogger.com/2010/09/bloggers-11th-birthday-round-up.html
http://googleindia.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-basics-how-much-mobile-traffic_08.html

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html

Blogger's 11th B'day Celebration :)

Seth Shamban, (Blogger Consumer Operations) Say's

Last week we hosted Blogger's 11th bday celebration, and a huge thanks goes out to everyone who helped us celebrate! Since we were only able to attend a few parties in person (which was awesome!), we enjoyed watching tweets, videos, and photos stream in at #bloggerfiesta. From the four hour conference for 90 people in Manila, Philippines to the three person casual rendezvous at a restaurant in Duluth, Georgia, we heard great stories from around the world about bloggers meeting each other face-to-face.

Even though we're an internet company, we know the importance of meeting in-person. It provides a great opportunity to learn from others, meet new folks and share tips. We loved that one Fiesta attendee even learned how to set up a custom domain.

While we had some fun of our own last week (particularly in our Sydney office), our favorite stories are the ones you've shared. We've linked to some of our favorites below. If you have a story from your Blogger Fiesta that you would like to share with us, please send it along to blogger-fiesta@google.com.

Blogger Fiesta Sydney in Google's Sydney office

• Post about Blogger Fiesta Buenos Aires
• Sidewalk Safari's Photo from Blogger Fiesta Dublin
• Bronx Blogger Fiesta Photos
• Blogger Fiesta Manila Videos

-- recent posts --
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/trimming-our-privacy-policies.html
http://buzz.blogger.com/2010/09/bloggers-11th-birthday-round-up.html
http://googleindia.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-basics-how-much-mobile-traffic_08.html

Simpler entry for Y! users with OpenID

Eric Sachs, (Senior Product Manager, Google Security) Say's

How many times have you created a new account at a website and seen a message that said: "Thank you for creating an account. To activate your new account, please access your email and click the verification URL provided."

Even though you just want to start using the website, this lengthy process requires you to manually perform a whole bunch of steps—including switching to your mailbox, trying to find the message the website sent you (which might be in your Spam folder), opening the message, clicking the link, etc. Until recently, we also required people to follow these steps if they wanted to sign up for a Google Account using their existing email address, such as a @yahoo.com, @hotmail.com, or other address.

To make this process simpler, we're now using an Internet standard called OpenID which is supported by several email providers, including Yahoo!. Instead of the process above, Yahoo! users who sign up with Google see the page below with a button that sends them to Yahoo! for verification.

Once you click that button, Yahoo! shows you a page to get your consent to share your email address with Google.

After you agree, you're done and can start using any Google service, such as Google Groups, Docs, Reader, AdWords, etc. We have found that a much larger number of people complete the email verification process when this method is used.

In the future we hope to expand this feature to other email providers, and we also hope other website operators will read more on the Google Code Blog about how they can implement a similar feature.

-- related --

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/simpler-sign-ups-for-yahoo-users-with.html

http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/09/easier-site-organization-with-drag-and.html

http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-book-conversions-for-dummies.html

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/trimming-our-privacy-policies.html

Google Plans To Launch New Music Service

Original Post by Mike Sachoff (webpronews.com)

Google is planning to launch a mobile music download service that would allow users to access songs wherever they have access to an Internet connection.

According to Reuters, Google has been in discussions with the major labels about reaching licensing agreements.  Google has not yet signed any licensing deals but the major labels are reportedly interested in seeing a competitor to Apple's iTunes launch.

"Finally here's an entity with the reach, resources and wherewithal to take on iTunes as a formidable competitor by tying it into search and Android mobile platform," said a label executive who asked not to be identified.

"What you'll have is a very powerful player in the market that's good for the music business."

Andy Rubin, Google vice president of engineering hopes to have the music service launched by Christmas, according to "people familiar with the matter."

"We're cautiously optimistic because Google has great scale and reach but doesn't have a track record in selling stuff," said another label executive who declined to be named as the talks are still ongoing.
 
Read the original story

-- related / recent --
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-apps-highlights-932010.html
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/trimming-our-privacy-policies.html

New Themes for New Orkut

Sarah Nahm, (Google Chrome team)

Like you, the Google Chrome team was pretty excited last week to see all the new features debut on orkut. The improved page rendering and image loading on orkut really take advantage of the speed and functionality of modern web browsers like Chrome.

It got us thinking: how can we show how excited we are about these new features on orkut? And here's our answer! We're pleased to announce new themes for a new orkut:

We asked artists, hailing from all over the world, to design 6 themes inspired by today's digital lifestyle. Some designed beautiful patterns out of the gadgets that keep us connected. Others celebrated the communities we form and the emotions we feel when staying in touch with our friends and family online.

Just visit the orkut themes page and pick a new theme! Once you choose your favorite, you can get the same theme for Google Chrome, a fast web browser, and then browse the web with speed and style!

Download Google Chrome now and get the official orkut extension built right in. From anywhere on the web, you'll receive orkut updates and scrap notifications, and you'll be able to search on orkut or share the webpage you're viewing with your friends. There's no better way to stay connected!

Dress up your profile and your browser in a spiffy new theme and join us in celebrating the modern web.

- related -
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-apps-highlights-932010.html
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/trimming-our-privacy-policies.html
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/09/deep-dive-articles-for-data-export-api.html
http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/09/trimming-our-privacy-policies.html

New updated Privacy Policies

Mike Yang, (Associate General Counsel) Say's

Long, complicated and lawyerly—that's what most people think about privacy policies, and for good reason. Even taking into account that they're legal documents, most privacy policies are still too hard to understand.

So we're simplifying and updating Google's privacy policies. To be clear, we aren't changing any of our privacy practices; we want to make our policies more transparent and understandable. As a first step, we're making two types of improvements:

1. Most of our products and services are covered by our main Google Privacy Policy. Some, however, also have their own supplementary individual policies. Since there is a lot of repetition, we are deleting 12 of these product-specific policies. These changes are also in line with the way information is used between certain products—for example, since contacts are shared between services like Gmail, Talk, Calendar and Docs, it makes sense for those services to be governed by one privacy policy as well.
2. We're also simplifying our main Google Privacy Policy to make it more user-friendly by cutting down the parts that are redundant and rewriting the more legalistic bits so people can understand them more easily. For example, we're deleting a sentence that reads, "The affiliated sites through which our services are offered may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies," since it seems obvious that sites not owned by Google might have their own privacy policies.

In addition, we're adding:

• More content to some of our product Help Centers so people will be able to find information about protecting their privacy more easily; and
• A new privacy tools page to the Google Privacy Center. This will mean that our most popular privacy tools are now all in one place.

These privacy policy updates will take effect in a month, on October 3. You can see the new main Google Privacy Policy here, and if you have questions this FAQ should be helpful.

Our updated privacy policies still might not be your top choice for beach reading (I am, after all, still a lawyer), but hopefully you'll find the improvements to be a step in the right direction.

- related -
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/trimming-our-privacy-policies.html
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/trimming-our-privacy-policies.html

"Wave in a Box" Google's open source project

Alex North, (Software Engineer, Google Wave team) Say's

Since the announcement that we will discontinue development of Google Wave as a standalone product, many people have asked us about the future of the open source code and Wave federation protocol. After spending some time on figuring out our next steps, we'd like to share the plan for our contributions over the coming months.

We will expand upon the 200K lines of code we've already open sourced (detailed at waveprotocol.org) to flesh out the existing example Wave server and web client into a more complete application or "Wave in a Box."

This project will include:

• an application bundle including a server and web client supporting real-time collaboration using the same structured conversations as the Google Wave system
• a fast and fully-featured wave panel in the web client with complete support for threaded conversations
• a persistent wave store and search implementation for the server (building on contributed patches to implement a MongoDB store)
• refinements to the client-server protocols
• gadget, robot and data API support
• support for importing wave data from wave.google.com
• the ability to federate across other Wave in a Box instances, with some additional configuration

This project will not have the full functionality of Google Wave as you know it today. However, we intend to give developers and enterprising users an opportunity to run wave servers and host waves on their own hardware.

Since the beginning, it has been our vision that the Google Wave protocols could support a new generation of communication and collaboration tools. The response from the developer community to date has been amazing and rewarding. Even more so now, we believe that developers and other projects are a critical part of this story.

While Wave in a Box will be a functional application, the future of Wave will be defined by your contributions. We hope this project will help the Wave developer community continue to grow and evolve. We'll discuss more technical details of our plan on the Wave Protocol Forum, which is the best place to keep up with the latest progress on the open source project and learn how you can contribute.

--related--

Adwords - http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/09/adwords-editor-801-for-windows-and-mac.html
Gmail Blog - http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/email-overload-try-priority-inbox.html
Google Blog - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-future-two-years-of-google.html
Chrome - http://chrome.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-future-two-years-of-google.html
Googel Wave - http://googlewave.blogspot.com/2010/09/wave-open-source-next-steps.html

Source - http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/2010/09/wave-open-source-next-steps-wave-in-box.html

New Login page for Orkut!

Ariel, (orkut operations team), and Virginia Roman, (Google editorial team) Say's

We've all been having so much fun releasing exciting new ways to connect with your friends and share the things you're interested in, we've even made a new sign-in page to reflect all the wonderful newness of it all before you've even logged in:

Besides being brighter and more welcoming, it will have links introducing the latest news, so it'll be easier than ever to keep up with everything that's new on orkut.

We hope you enjoy it!

-- related --

Adwords - http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/09/adwords-editor-801-for-windows-and-mac.html
Gmail Blog - http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/email-overload-try-priority-inbox.html
Google Blog - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-future-two-years-of-google.html
Chrome - http://chrome.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-future-two-years-of-google.html
Googel Wave - http://googlewave.blogspot.com/2010/09/wave-open-source-next-steps.html
Orkut - http://en.blog.orkut.com/2010/09/new-sign-in-page-for-orkut.html

AdWords Editor 8.0.1 is Available for Win & Mac!

Jason Shafton, (Inside AdWords crew) Say's

In order to make it easier for you to manage your account and take advantage of location extensions, we're releasing a new version of AdWords Editor, 8.0.1, for Windows and Mac.

AdWords Editor 8.0.1 now supports location extensions, our new and improved way to run local ads. To support this change, we've transitioned the local business ads in your AdWords account to ads that are compatible with location extensions, added the Extensions tab in the AdWords Editor interface, and removed the Local Business Ads tab. This new Extensions tab should help make it easy for you to create and manage your location extensions. Learn more.

To help you focus on just what you need when you're managing your AdWords account, AdWords Editor 8.0.1 also introduces collapsible and expandable panels, progress bars for tasks that can take some time, improved adding of My Client Center accounts, simplified exception requests, and more helpful error messages.

To learn more about all of the new features in version 8.0.1, such as support for campaigns using target CPA and enhanced CPC bidding options, read the release notes.

If you're already using AdWords Editor, you'll be prompted to upgrade automatically, as soon as it's available for you. After you install the new version, you'll need to download your account again. To preserve your comments and unposted changes, select the 'Backup then Upgrade' option in the automatic upgrade prompt, then import the backup file after downloading the account. We're launching version 8.0.1 to all users over the course of the next few weeks, so don't worry if you don't get it right away.

If you're not using AdWords Editor, you can visit our website to download it. Find more information and answers to your AdWords Editor questions in our Help Center.

-- related --
Adwords - http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/09/adwords-editor-801-for-windows-and-mac.html
Gmail Blog - http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/email-overload-try-priority-inbox.html
Google Blog - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-future-two-years-of-google.html
Chrome - http://chrome.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-future-two-years-of-google.html
Googel Wave - http://googlewave.blogspot.com/2010/09/wave-open-source-next-steps.html

Happy Birthday Chrome :)

Brian Rakowski, (Product Manager) Say's

Watching the 1985 classic Back to the Future last night, I was struck by how much things can change with time. The main character Marty McFly travels 30 years back in time, only to find that his house hadn't been built yet, skateboards hadn't been invented and nobody had ever heard rock 'n roll.

Looking back today on Chrome's second anniversary, it's amazing to see how much has changed in just a short time. In August 2008, JavaScript was 10 times slower, HTML5 support wasn't yet an essential feature in modern browsers, and the idea of a sandboxed, multi-process browser was only a research project. All browsers have come a long way in the last two years and the web has become much more fun and useful.

Happy 2nd birthday, Google Chrome!
(Illustration: Mike Lemanski, click image to expand)

Since Chrome's first beta launch for Windows, we've brought our Mac and Linux versions up to speed, and continued to make the browser faster, simpler, and safer across all three platforms. We've also introduced a boatload of features, including a more customizable New Tab page, browser themes, side-by-side view, password manager, better privacy controls, built-in Adobe Flash Player, Autofill, automatic translation, HTML5 capabilities and synchronization of various settings such as bookmarks, themes, extensions and browser preferences—just to name a few. Finally, there are now more than 6,000 extensions in our gallery to enhance your browsing experience.

Behind the scenes, we continue to extend the security features that help you browse the web more safely. This includes Chrome's Safe Browsing technology—which serves as a warning system if you're about to visit a site suspected of phishing or hosting malware; Chrome's auto-update mechanism—which helps ensure that the browser is always up-to-date with the latest security updates; and the browser's "sandbox"—an added layer of protection which prevents malicious code on an exploited website from infecting your computer.

The old Chrome: our very first beta!

Chrome now: Our brand new release today

Today, we're releasing a new stable version of Chrome that is even faster and more streamlined. Chrome is now three times faster than it was two years ago on JavaScript performance. We've also been working on simplifying the "chrome" of Chrome. As you can see, we took the already minimalist user interface and stripped it down a bit more to make it easier to use. We combined Chrome's two menus into one, revisited the location of the buttons, cleaned up the treatment of the URL and the Omnibox, and adjusted the color scheme of the browser to be easier on the eyes.

Sliding back into Doc Brown's DeLorean and setting the dial ahead by a few months, we have more in store for Chrome. As always, we're hard at work on making Chrome even faster, and working on ways to improve graphics performance in the browser through hardware acceleration. With the Chrome Web Store, we hope to make it much easier to find and use great applications on the web. We also ratcheted up the pace of our releases so that we can get new features and improvements to everyone more quickly.

If you haven't tried Chrome recently, we invite you to download our new stable version today at google.com/chrome. For those of you who have been using Chrome, thanks for a great second year! We hope that Chrome has made your life on the web even better, and look forward to the next year.

Life on the web, in the browser.
(Illustration: Jack Hudson, click image to expand)

-- related --

Chrome : http://chrome.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-future-two-years-of-google.html
Google Blog : http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-future-two-years-of-google.html
Gmail Blog : http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/email-overload-try-priority-inbox.html
Docs : http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/09/drawing-out-ideas-in-documents.html
Wave : http://googlewave.blogspot.com/2010/08/quick-note-on-next-steps-for-google.html