Introducing Blogger App for iOS

So now you can use blogger app for write a new blog post and publish it immediately or save it as a draft right from your iOS device. You can also open a blog post you've been working on from your computer and continue editing it while you're on-the-go. Your blog posts are automatically synced across devices, so you'll always have access to the latest version.

Pictures are worth a thousand words, and the Blogger app makes it easy to add photos either by choosing from the gallery or taking a new photo right within the app. You can also add labels and location to provide more details about the post.

 

Download the Blogger app for iOS (versions 3.2 and above) in the App Store. 

If you're using an Android-powered device, you can download the Blogger app for Android from the Android Market.

related post: http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/09/announcing-blogger-app-for-ios.html

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Google shows how gmail is cooler in the web

Originally posted by David Jacobowitz, Program Manager, Green Engineering and Operation (from official gmail blog)
Cloud computing is secure, simple, keeps you productive and saves you money. But the cloud can also save energy. A recent report by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and Verdantix estimates that cloud computing has the potential to reduce global carbon emissions by millions of metric tons. And Jonathan Koomey, a consulting professor at Stanford who has led several studies on data center energy use, has written that for many enterprises, the cloud "is significantly more energy efficient than using in-house data centers."

Because we're committed to sustainability, we sharpened our pencils and looked at our own services to see how they stack up against the alternatives.

We compared Gmail to the traditional enterprise email solutions it's replaced for more than 4 million businesses. The results were clear: switching to Gmail can be almost 80 times more energy efficient (PDF) than running in-house email. This is because cloud-based services are typically housed in highly efficient data centers that operate at higher server utilization rates and use hardware and software that's built specifically for the services they provide—conditions that small businesses are rarely able to create on their own.

An illustration of inefficient server utilization by smaller companies compared to efficient utilization in the cloud.

If you're more of a romantic than a businessperson, think of it this way: It takes more energy to send a message in a bottle than it does to use Gmail for a year, as long as you count (PDF) the energy used to make the bottle and the wine you drank.

We ran a similar calculation for YouTube and the results are even more striking: the servers needed to play one minute of YouTube consume about 0.0002 kWh of energy. To put that in perspective, it takes about eight seconds for the human body to burn off that same amount. You'd have to watch YouTube for three straight days for our servers to consume the amount of energy required to manufacture, package and ship a single DVD.

In calculating these numbers, we included the energy used by all the Google infrastructure supporting Gmail and YouTube. Of course, your own laptop or phone also consumes energy while you're accessing Google, so it's important to choose an efficient model.

There's still a lot to learn about the global impacts of cloud computing, but one thing we can say with certainty: bit for bit, email for email, and video for video, it's more efficient in the cloud.

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Gmail is now works without internet connection

Originally posted by Benoît de Boursetty, Product Manager (from gmail blog)

The great thing about web apps is that you can access all of your information on the go, and we've introduced ways to use Google Apps on a variety of devices like mobile phones and tablets. But it's inevitable that you'll occasionally find yourself in situations when you don't have an Internet connection, like planes, trains and carpools. When we announced Chromebooks at Google I/O 2011, we talked about bringing offline access to our web apps, and now we're taking our first steps in that direction. Gmail offline will be available today, and offline for Google Calendar and Google Docs will be rolling out over the next week, starting today.

Gmail Offline is a Chrome Web Store app that's intended for situations when you need to read, respond to, organize and archive email without an internet connection. This HTML5-powered app is based on the Gmail web app for tablets, which was built to function with or without web access. After you install the Gmail Offline app from the Chrome Web Store, you can continue using Gmail when you lose your connection by clicking the Gmail Offline icon on Chrome's "new tab" page.

Google Calendar and Google Docs let you seamlessly transition between on- and offline modes. When you're offline in Google Calendar, you can view events from your calendars and RSVP to appointments. With Google Docs you can view documents and spreadsheets when you don't have a connection. Offline editing isn't ready yet, but we know it's important to many of you, and we're working hard to make it a reality. To get started using Google Calendar or Google Docs offline, just click the gear icon at the top right corner of the web app and select the option for offline access. 

IT administrators can deploy Chrome Web Store apps to users en masse by setting uporganizational policies for Chrome.

Today's world doesn't slow down when you're offline and it's a great feeling to be productive from anywhere, on any device, at any time. We're pushing the boundaries of modern browsers to make this possible, and while we hope that many users will already find today's offline functionality useful, this is only the beginning. Support for offline document editing and customizing the amount of email to be synchronized will be coming in the future. We also look forward to making offline access more widely available when other browsers support advanced functionality (like background pages).

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The +1 button for retailers

Originally Posted by Brian Lam, Strategic Partner Manager (from google commerce blog)

The people we know and trust have a big influence on our purchase decisions. I bought the chef's knife I use every day on the recommendation of my friend Eliot, who more than knows his way around the kitchen. And I always try to bring my friend Brian along when I'm music shopping, since he has a knack for pointing out great albums I've never heard of.

We're excited about the +1 button because it brings these personal recommendations to a place where many purchase decisions start -- the Google search results page.

Adding +1 buttons to your product pages makes it easy for your customers to recommend the products they love on your site with a single click. And thanks to recent improvements to the +1 button, they can take the conversation even further by sharing your products right away on Google+

From there, +1 annotations can help your products stand out. Potential customers might see +1's from their friends and contacts on your search ads, your organic Google Search results, or even on your page itself.

We've worked with Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews to make it even easier to get the +1 button on your pages. Both companies have extensive experience in social commerce, and can help you develop the right strategy for implementing +1 buttons on your site.

Looking for a couple examples of retailers using +1 to help their products stand out on Google search? Jockey (working with PowerReviews) and Golfsmith (working with Bazaarvoice) have already added +1 buttons to the product pages on their sites.

If you'd prefer to add the +1 button to pages yourself, it's easy to do. Just install a small snippet of code wherever you want the +1 button to appear. For advanced implementation FAQs and documentation, you can visit the +1 button page on Google Code.

As more retailers add +1 buttons to their sites, we're excited about how much more helpful search results will get. The next time I need a new frying pan, I won't need to call Eliot up -- his recommendation will be right there waiting for me. 

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