[G] Changes to reporting in My Client Center

Inside AdWords: Changes to reporting in My Client Center

For those of you who use My Client Center (MCC) to manage your client accounts, we’re introducing a new interface for the Client Reporting tab. Over the last few months, we’ve developed a new reporting interface to help you get your reports faster, easier, and more securely.

These changes will only affect reporting for MCC users. If you use the AdWords Reports Center in an individual AdWords account, see our earlier post to learn about the reports that have moved to the Campaigns tab.

Key features of the new interface

• No more templates: We’ve removed templates. Each report today can be the basis for a different report. Just click ‘Create Similar’ next to the report, and you’ll create a new report based on the one you just selected.
• Faster report generation: We’ve built new infrastructure that allows you to create complex reports more quickly and easily.
• More reports: We’ve increased the number of reports you can store from 15 to 100. Now you can build many customized reports to meet your unique needs.
• Increased security: To allow you to better control who receives your reports, we’ve changed the level of access for emailed reports. With the new interface, only email addresses that were invited to the account can receive emailed reports. You can modify the access levels by clicking ‘Account Access’ in the My Account tab. Learn more.

To learn more about all of the new features, visit the Help Center.

Migrating from the old interface:

Over the coming weeks, you’ll see a message in the old interface inviting you to switch over and experiment with the new interface. The old interface will still be completely functional, and all of your previous reports will continue to work.

When we start migrating your reports, you’ll be redirected to the new reporting interface when you click on the Client Reporting tab. Once this happens, you’ll be able to see your reports in the old interface, but you won’t be able to create new reports or modify scheduled reports. You’ll also notice that your scheduled reports will be generated twice – in both the old and new interface. You can delete reports from the old interface to stop seeing duplicate reports.

If you send scheduled reports to email recipients, we’ve introduced a way to give you more control over who receives your new reports via email. Only email address invited to the account will be able to receive emailed reports.

At the end of the transition to the new reporting interface we’ll remove the link to the old interface, reports scheduled through the old interface will no longer run, and you’ll need to schedule emailed reports using the new interface.

How to prepare

We recommend experimenting with the new reports available in the Campaigns tab of any individual AdWords account. You can also take a tour of these new reporting tools in the AdWords Online Classroom. Once the new reporting interface is available in your MCC, you can try out the new features and start creating reports. To learn more, visit the Help Center.

To let us know what you think of these changes, click the ‘Send feedback’ link in your account.

Posted by Omry Pruzan, Product Manager, My Client Center

URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/09/changes-to-reporting-in-my-client.html

[G] Thousand Parsec HackWeek at the Googleplex

Google Open Source Blog: Thousand Parsec HackWeek at the Googleplex

On the 7th of August, the Thousand Parsec core developers congregated for the first time at the Googleplex. We arrived in Mountain View, CA from six locations around the world for a week long hackathon including coding, frivolity and fun!

The Thousand Parsec project was started in January 2002 and is a framework for creating a specific group of games, often called 4X games (from the main phases of gameplay that arise: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate). You might be familiar with some of the games that Thousand Parsec draws ideas from such as Reach for the Stars, Stars!, VGA Planets, Master of Orion and Galactic Civilizations. The ultimate goal of Thousand Parsec is to allow multiple different 4X games be playable in a single client.

A primary focus of the week was to increase the playability of the “rulesets” (different game implementations). We spent plenty of time playing games, especially the Risk and Minisec games. While tempted to spend a week just playing games, we also fixed numerous bugs, cleaned up obsolete code, made lots of client improvements and reviewed Google Summer of Code students’ work.

By having many of the core developers in one location, changes could be made significantly quicker. An example is the new “Who is ready?” feature, which lets players know who is holding up the game and hence they are now able to guilt them into hurrying up! You can check out all the improvements that we made during the hack week by cloning out our latest git repositories and following setup instructions on our wiki.

Thousand Parsec still has a long way to go before it is as polished as the games which it draws ideas from, but hopefully with the continuing work by the contributors on line and in person at additional meetups, we have a bright future ahead.

Google Summer of Code was instrumental in making the hackfest happen. The event was primarily funded though the mentor payments, and the majority of the developers consisted of former Google Summer of Code students. Stay tuned to this blog for a wrap up of our 2010 Google Summer of Code student projects coming soon!

In the above photo you can see,

• Alan ‘alanp’ Laudicina (from Canada), a Google Summer of Code student in 2009, working on MTSec ruleset.
• Lee ‘llnz’ Begg (from New Zealand), project co-founder who wrote majority of the C++ Code.
• Kornel ‘Epyon’ Kisielewicz (from Poland), a Google Summer of Code student in 2009 and again this year. Working on refactoring the C++ server.
• Tim ‘mithro’ Ansell (me, from Australia), project founder who wrote the majority of the Python Code.
• Vincent ‘Iwanowitch’ Verhoeven, (from Belgium), a Google Summer of Code student in 2008, created our premier AI, daneel-ai.
• Eugene ‘jmtan’ Tan Jie Ming (from Singapore), a Google Summer of Code student in 2008, working on 3d client.

By Tim Ansell, Technical Solutions Engineering Team

URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/09/thousand-parsec-hackweek-at-googleplex.html

[G] Meet the Rauch Brothers, StoryCorps animators

YouTube Blog: Meet the Rauch Brothers, StoryCorps animators

Today on our homepage, we’re featuring a new batch of StoryCorps videos animated by the Rauch Brothers. If you want to be moved by the human experience, watch them now.

StoryCorps is a massive oral history project during which 50,000 everyday people have already interviewed friends and family. A handful of these are transformed by the Rauch Brothers, who look to animate universal stories that capture the joys, struggles and extraordinary lives of regular people. Here, in our ongoing series of Creator’s Corner posts, the animators take you along their creative journey and name the YouTube users who in turn inspire them.


1) What is your process? 

We receive an edited voice track from StoryCorps' Peabody Award-winning production team, which we then research. Time, place and personality of the main characters are all important. After digesting what we've learned, we determine which details to leave in, and which to take out in order to tell the story in a clear, engaging, and honest way.


After the initial research, we create character designs, a storyboard, and rough background layouts. When those stages are complete, we move on to animation and final background layouts. The last step is to paint everything and pull it all together in the computer.

2) Sounds like “Danny & Annie” was the first time you met your subjects in person. Was that unusual?

Whenever possible, it's very important to us to meet the storytellers in our animation. It gives us a chance to get input from them, and helps add authenticity to the final piece. "Danny & Annie" wasn't the first time we met one of our storytellers — we met the Littmans while working on "Q&A." Seeing them interact was important for Tim (who draws all the animated characters), because it helped him capture some of their mannerisms in animation.


"Danny & Annie" was the first time we had the opportunity to actually visit the home of one of our subjects. It was particularly important to get good reference photos of their Brooklyn apartment because the majority of the story takes place there. We also referenced some of their wedding photos in the final animation. Through that process, we were able to add authenticity that reflects the documentary nature of the original recording.



3) How close do you try to get to the person's true likeness?
We use photos for reference as we work on character designs, but we find that people are more than just the face one sees on the surface. They have a personality and a spirit that isn't necessarily captured in a photograph. Luckily, StoryCorps' terrific recordings of these voices and stories help tell us a lot about what we can't see in a photo. As StoryCorps founder Dave Isay says, the voice is like a window to the soul. Focusing on that aspect of the people in these stories has been the most effective way for us to capture something that feels honest and real.

4) What do you hope your work conveys?
We would like this work to serve as a reminder and a celebration of our shared humanity.

5) Who on YouTube is making great animation?
Pes - Pes uses everyday objects in unique and unexpected ways to tell short, funny stories that leave you wanting more.
Blu - Animated graffiti takes over the world!
Fran Krause - The quirky characters and stories that Fran develops with his brother, Will, are always fun.
Nina Paley - Nina tells entertaining stories and makes them freely available to watch, download, and remix. She is an animator perfectly suited for the age of YouTube.
Bill Plympton - The King of Indie Animation still reigns supreme.


Mia Quagliarello, Community Manager, recently watched “‘Germans in the Woods’ from StoryCorps.”

URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/RMQmQeW4LRQ/meet-rauch-brothers-storycorps.html

[G] Simpler sign-ups for Yahoo! users with OpenID

Official Google Blog: Simpler sign-ups for Yahoo! users with OpenID

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.

Posted by Eric Sachs, Senior Product Manager, Google Security

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

[G] New Book: Conversions For Dummies

Google Analytics Blog: New Book: Conversions For Dummies

Are you eager to optimize your conversion rate, but feel a little bit overwhelmed by all of the tools available to help you? Introducing ‘Improving Online Conversions for Dummies’!

We have just released a simple, easy to follow mini book, in conjunction with John Wiley Publications, to help you get a better grasp of the conversion improvement tools offered by Google. Improving Online Conversions for Dummies explains how you can make sure your ads show on searches that are most likely to convert into sales. Understand which ad clicks and impressions lead to conversions, better apportion your marketing spend and even develop your own conversion attribution model. Discover the secrets to getting more bang for your buck with this ebook!



For more information, visit www.google.com/conversion/fordummies

Posted by Alan Wrafter, Google Analytics Team

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

[G] Easier site organization with drag and drop

Official Google Docs Blog: Easier site organization with drag and drop

Page organization is an important part of using Google Sites, especially when you want to make a lot of changes to your Site’s structure. To make it easier and save you time, we just enabled drag and drop functionality in the Pages area of site management. Site owners and collaborators can try it out on via Manage site > Pages in the tree view.

We hope you like this little time-saver.

Posted by: Santos Cordon, Software Engineer

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

[G] New VP8 Test Vectors Available

The WebM Open Media Project Blog: New VP8 Test Vectors Available

Our collection of VP8 test vectors has grown from 17 to 56. You can download the complete set from our Downloads page or clone our git repository:

git clone git://review.webmproject.org/vp8-test-vectors.git

URL: http://webmproject.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-vp8-test-vectors-available.html

[G] A few updates on reporting in AdWords

Inside AdWords: A few updates on reporting in AdWords

If you think AdWords reporting is looking a bit different these days, you’re right! Since we announced some important changes to reporting in late June, we’ve been regularly adding statistics and features into the Campaigns tab that were previously only accessible through the Report Center (with many more additions to come).

At the same time, we’ve begun to move reports out of the Report Center entirely. In fact, new Account, Campaign, and Ad Group reports can no longer be created from the Reports tab. Now that the transition is in full swing, we thought it would be a good time to address the feedback we’ve gotten so far, point out available help resources, and highlight a few new features we’ve recently released.

What we’ve heard from you

We believe that reports can be faster and more powerful in the Campaigns tab. You get the flexibility to quickly switch views when you want to dig deeper into performance trends, and to act on the insights you discover by making changes on the same pages where you run your reports.

That being said, we’ve heard that the changes have created issues for some of you. We’ve gotten feedback that it’s been difficult to find all the reporting features you used to access through the Report Center, and that some statistics and segmentation options aren’t available in every place you’d like to use them.

Your input on this first set of changes has been incredibly helpful, and we’re acting on the feedback we receive. For example, in the next few weeks we plan to add “Total” rows to every report you download from the Campaigns tab, and new options to view overall search network traffic (Google search + search partners). We’ll keep making changes based on your requests, so please continue to send us your thoughts.

Help resources

If you’re having trouble finding a specific statistic or reporting feature in AdWords, we’ve created materials that we think will help you out.

• Download our PDF guide for a handy and comprehensive resource you can consult if you're wondering where to find particular metrics.
• We also have a recorded webinar and extensive FAQs available on a regularly updated page in the AdWords Help Center.

New features

While we’ve focused most of our energies adding Report Center options to the Campaigns tab, we’ve also added some new reporting features to campaign management. In fact, some advanced reporting options are only available in the Campaigns tab, such as segmenting statistics by device and click type. Additionally, you can now use the Dimensions tab to view and segment performance by the dimension of your choice.

click for full size image

This new reporting feature lets you quickly see reports such as:

• Your campaign statistics segmented by hour of day (answer questions like “how much shopping do my customers do on their lunch break?”)
• Your account statistics segmented by quarter (get an executive summary of how your performance has changed since your account started running)
• Your account statistics segmented by Destination URL (see which pages on your site are getting the most AdWords traffic, or which pages are the most profitable)

Over the coming weeks we’ll add even more reporting functionality to AdWords, and we also plan to continue removing reports from the Report Center as they become supported on the Campaigns tab.

Thank you for all the work you’ve put into the transition already, and for bearing with us throughout this ambitious set of changes. We think you’ll find the new integrated reporting even more valuable once you've had a chance to get used to the changes and the full transition from the Report Center is complete. Until then, please keep letting us know how we’re doing by submitting feedback as any issues arise.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew

URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/09/few-updates-on-reporting-in-adwords.html

[G] Missed call notifications delivered to your inbox

Google Voice Blog: Missed call notifications delivered to your inbox

Google Voice lets you take charge of your telephony experience, giving you one number that rings all your phones. But what if you’re not around to answer any of them?

Starting today, whenever you miss a call, you can see a notification in your Google Voice inbox, or receive an email notification, or both.

This setting can be turned on and off from the Calls tab in the Settings menu.

We’re excited to add this new feature that’s been a common request from Google Voice users. So keep those suggestions coming, we’re listening!

Posted by Brian Peterson, Google Voice Software Engineer

URL: http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/missed-call-notifications-delivered-to.html

[G] Introducing our most monstrous YouTube interview yet

YouTube Blog: Introducing our most monstrous YouTube interview yet

We’ve had a lot of famous folks sit down for interviews in the past year, like President Obama, Shakira and Katy Perry, but our next subject, with his tony address and instant name recognition, may have celebrity status that tops all the rest.



Through a partnership with Sesame Street, Elmo will answer your burning questions right here on YouTube. So, moms and dads, if your family has ever wondered, “How exactly do you get, do you get, to Sesame Street?” or whether Oscar’s really as grouchy as he seems, here’s your chance to ask. More details from Elmo himself here:







And if you need some extra inspiration thinking up questions, take a spin through some of these Elmo classics:







Upload your video question to the Moderator gadget on Sesame Street’s YouTube channel and vote on the ones you think Elmo should answer by September 15. He’ll answer the top-voted ones in a few weeks.





Ramya Raghavan, Nonprofits Manager, recently watched “Monster in the Mirror”

URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/wm2NvR01aeI/introducing-our-most-monstrous-youtube.html

[G] Explore the Life in a Day video gallery

YouTube Blog: Explore the Life in a Day video gallery

On July 24, people around the world made history by capturing glimpses of their lives on camera and submitting the videos to Life in a Day, an experiment to create a documentary about a single day on Earth. In total, 80,000 videos were submitted from 197 countries, making this the world's largest user-generated film. Now, you can explore many of these videos in the gallery on the Life in a Day channel .

To make browsing easy, you can sort videos by geography, time of day, mood and more. The film's Academy Award-winning director, Kevin Macdonald, and his team are adding more videos to the Life in a Day gallery as they are reviewed, so check back soon for more content. You'll also find updates from Macdonald and editor Joe Walker as they lead a team of researchers in reviewing and cutting the footage down to the final feature-length film. Remember to subscribe to the channel for more news on the film's progress as Kevin and producer Ridley Scott gear up for the world premiere in January at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Congratulations again to all of the participants. Thanks for making history.

Nate Weinstein, Entertainment Marketing, just watched Dancing Merengue Dog

URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/D1GUm-vG3A8/explore-life-in-day-video-gallery.html

[G] Hot off the Satellite: Burning Man 2010

Google LatLong: Hot off the Satellite: Burning Man 2010

For all you “Burners” out there (or those of us who wish we could go this weekend), we’ve just published imagery from Burning Man 2010, captured Wednesday, September 1st by GeoEye’s GeoEye-1 satellite. This annual event, taking place in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, celebrates both human individuality and togetherness, highlighted by the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy (“The Man”) Saturday evening. You can find the location of the “The Man” in the center of the annually-built tent city, shown below.


Black Rock Desert tent city (left)
Location of “The Man" (right)


To view this great new Burning Man imagery in Google Earth, select the 'GeoEye Featured Imagery' button located in the Google Earth 'More' folder:

Also, if you’re headed out to Burning Man this weekend, be sure to check out this KML from Google Earth Community user “Portaplaya,” which provides a Burning Man street map.


Posted by Pete Giencke, GIS Data Engineer

URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/09/hot-off-satellite-burning-man-2010.html

[G] Interviews from GUADEC, Part 3

Google Open Source Blog: Interviews from GUADEC, Part 3

For the past two weeks, we’ve been sharing Jeremy Allison’s video interviews from his trip to GUADEC. Today we have a third video where he talks to Lennart Poettering, creator of PulseAudio. Jeremy and Lennart talk about PulseAudio features, how Lennart got started improving audio on the linux desktop, and how to be successful in free software. Enjoy!

Thanks to Fabian Scherschel of Sixgun Productions for operating the camera.

URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/09/interviews-from-guadec-part-3.html

[G] Deep Dive Articles For The Data Export API

Google Analytics Blog: Deep Dive Articles For The Data Export API

On the Google Analytics API Team, we’re fascinated with what people create using the Data Export API. You guys come up with some really amazing stuff! Lately, we’ve also been paying a lot of attention to how people use it. We looked at whether the API has stumbling points (and where they are), what common features every developer wants in their GA applications, and what tricky areas need deeper explanations than we can give by replying to posts in our discussion group.

As a result of identifying these areas, we’ve written a few in-depth articles. Each article is meant as a “Deep Dive” into a specific topic, and is paired with open-source, sample reference code.

In no particular order, the articles are as follows:

Visualizing Google Analytics Data with Google Chart Tools
This article describes how you can use JavaScript to pull data from the Export API to dynamically create and embed chart images in a web page. To do this, it shows you how to use the Data Export API and Google Chart Tools to create visualizations of your Google Analytics Data.

Outputting Data from the Data Export API to CSV Format
If you use Google Analytics, chances are that your data eventually makes its way into a spreadsheet. This article shows you how to automate all the manual work by printing data from the Data Export API in CSV, the most ubiquitous file format for table data.

Filling in Missing Values In Date Requests
If you want to request data displayed over a time series, you will find that there might be missing dates in your series requests. When requesting multiple dimensions, the Data Export API only returns entries for dates that have collected data. This can lead to missing dates in a time series, but this article describes how to fill in these missing dates.


We think this article format makes for a perfect jumping off point. Download the code, follow along in the article, and when you’re done absorbing the material, treat the code as a starting point and hack away to see what you can come up with!

And if you’ve got some more ideas for areas you’d like us to expound upon, let us know!

Posted by Alexander Lucas, Google Analytics API Team

URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/09/deep-dive-articles-for-data-export-api.html

[G] Location extensions with multiple addresses available on mobile devices

Inside AdWords: Location extensions with multiple addresses available on mobile devices

Cross-posted from the Google Mobile Ads Blog

Do you have several business locations in one city? For example, are you a national retailer of consumer electronics who wants to increase foot traffic to your Los Angeles area stores?

Every day, consumers are using their high-end mobile devices to find directions to local businesses, making mobile an ideal way to reach this audience. We’re excited to streamline this experience by announcing a new enhancement to the location extensions ad format: location extensions with multiple addresses. This new feature will ensure that your customers connect with the right location of your business at the right time.

Now available on Google Maps for Mobile (GMM) versions 4.4 and above on Android devices, location extensions with multiple addresses allow consumers to find the most relevant location of your business on a Google mobile map.

Featuring your business location alongside your mobile ad is a powerful method to drive foot traffic and in-store sales. For instance, if a potential customer is looking for a wireless communications store like Sprint, an ad within GMM can display all Sprint locations near them. This not only delivers a relevant search experience, but also enables customers to visit the closest and most convenient Sprint store location.

click for full size image

Here’s how location extensions with multiple addresses work:

1. Based on a user’s search and location signals, AdWords can display a clickable banner with the option to show all locations for a particular business in Google Maps for Mobile.
   
   
2. When the “Show all” banner is clicked, the map displays just the locations of your business as indicated by your business icon. Using your business logo as the icon is a great opportunity to build awareness and loyalty for your brand.
   
   
3. Clicking on a specific business location leads the user to a page with more details about the business -- including ad text, business address with directions and the ability to call or visit the website.
   
   
4. After the search is completed, the business icon and location are automatically saved as a GMM Layer and will continue to appear on the map in subsequent search results until turned off by the user.

To take advantage of this enhancement, you must be a primary business owner and have enabled location extensions within your Google Places account. Additionally, your campaigns must target the iPhone and other high-end mobile devices with full mobile browsers. You will only be charged when users click on the website URL or the phone icon displayed on the details page of a particular business location.

Location extensions with multiple addresses launched for desktop earlier this summer and we’ve worked hard to bring it to mobile. For now, this feature is only available on Android devices, but we hope to expand to other platforms in the near future.

Location extensions ad formats can show in the United States as well as a number of other countries. To learn more about location extensions with multiple addresses, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Google Mobile Ads Product Manager

URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/09/location-extensions-with-multiple.html

[G] Google Apps highlights – 9/3/2010

Official Google Blog: Google Apps highlights – 9/3/2010

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.

Recently we introduced powerful, time-saving features in Gmail: Priority Inbox and the ability to call phones right from Gmail. Google spreadsheets added new features, and many more businesses and schools moved to the cloud with Google Apps.

Cut through the clutter with Gmail Priority Inbox
Since its beginning, Gmail has been helping people cope with large amounts of email, whether it’s with more than seven gigabytes of storage, really fast search, great spam filtering or automatically organized conversations. This Monday we launched Priority Inbox, which helps you get through your inbox even faster by automatically putting important messages front and center. The more that you use Gmail, the better Priority Inbox will become at categorizing the email you receive. Our research suggests that the typical information worker can save a whole week of work time each year with this feature!



Call phones from Gmail
People in the U.S. can now call any phone right within Gmail. If you have a Google Voice account (it's free! and open to everyone in the U.S.), you can also receive calls to your Google Voice number right within Gmail. Calls to the U.S. and Canada are free at least until the end of the year, and international rates start at just $0.02 per minute. Google Apps customers won’t see this feature quite yet, but Google Voice and call phones in Gmail are coming soon with the new infrastructure for Google Apps accounts.


Improved scheduler in Google Calendar
Last Thursday we made it easier to set up new events in Google Calendar. The interface for repeating events is now more intuitive, and we’ve improved how we help you find a good time for your event, even if you’re coordinating a large group of people with busy schedules.


In-cell drop-down with validation and more in Google spreadsheets
We added two helpful features in spreadsheets last week as well. In-cell drop-down with validation allows you to configure cells to display a drop-down menu of accepted values. For example, you can require a cell’s value to be selected from a list of specific cities. We also introduced the ability to easily see which cells have formulas, which can come in handy when you’re working on a complicated mode. You can turn this feature on from the formula bar by selecting the “Show All Formulas” button, selecting “Show All Formulas” in the View menu or hitting Ctrl `.


Who’s gone Google?
The pace of organizations saying goodbye to legacy on-premises technology and moving into the cloud continues to accelerate. Read more about why The Richmond Group, Box.net, Bowerly Lane Bicycles and EPS Communications selected Google Apps for their messaging and collaboration needs.

I hope these updates help you or your organization get even more from Google Apps. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-apps-highlights-932010.html

[G] Trimming our privacy policies

Official Google Blog: Trimming our privacy policies

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.

Posted by Mike Yang, Associate General Counsel

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

[G] Texas inquires on our approach to competition

Google Public Policy Blog: Texas inquires on our approach to competition

Posted by by Don Harrison, Deputy General Counsel

We've always worked hard to ensure that our success is earned the right way -- by building great products, not locking in our users or advertisers. That said, we recognize that as Google grows, we’re going to face more questions about how our business works.

As Search Engine Land first reported, we've recently been approached by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office, which is conducting an antitrust review of Google. We look forward to answering their questions because we’re confident that Google operates in the best interests of our users.

Occasionally, we’re asked about the “fairness” of our search engine -- why do some websites get higher rankings than others? The important thing to remember is that we built Google to provide the most useful, relevant search results and ads for users. In other words, our focus is on users, not websites. Given that not every website can be at the top of the results, or even appear on the first page of our results, it’s unsurprising that some less relevant, lower quality websites will be unhappy with their ranking.

The Texas Attorney General’s office asked for information about a number of companies whose cases have been well publicized. Here is some background on them:

• Foundem -- the British price comparison site that is backed by ICOMP, an organization funded largely by Microsoft. They claim that Google’s algorithms demote their site because they are a direct competitor to our search engine. The reality is that we don’t discriminate against competitors. Indeed, companies like Amazon, Shopping.com and Expedia typically rank very high in our results because of the quality of the service they offer users. Various experts have taken a closer look at the quality of Foundem’s website, and NYU professor James Grimmelmann concluded, “I want Google to be able to rank them poorly.”

• SourceTool/TradeComet - SourceTool is a website run by parent company TradeComet, whose private antitrust lawsuit against Google was dismissed by a federal judge earlier this year. The media have noted that TradeComet is represented by longtime Microsoft antitrust attorneys, and independent search experts have called SourceTool a “click arbitrage” site with little original content.

• myTriggers - Another site represented by Microsoft’s antitrust attorneys, myTriggers alleges that they suffered a drop in traffic because Google reduced their ad quality ratings. But recent filings have revealed that the company’s own servers overheated, explaining their reduced traffic.

We work hard to explain our approach to search and how our ranking works, and we also listen carefully to people’s concerns. We’re looking forward to working cooperatively with the Texas Attorney General’s office, and we strongly believe our business practices reflect our commitment to build great products for the benefit of users everywhere.

URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/09/texas-inquires-on-our-approach-to.html

[G] Going Google Across the 50 States: Maryland start-up hopes to level the playing field in education

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Going Google Across the 50 States: Maryland start-up hopes to level the playing field in education

Editor’s note: Over the past couple months, thousands of businesses have added their Gone Google story to our community map and even more have used the Go Google cloud calculator to test drive life in the cloud. To highlight some of these companies’ Gone Google stories, we decided to talk to Google Apps customers across the United States. Check back each week to see which state we visit next. To learn more about other organizations that have gone Google and share your story, visit our community map.

This week we head to Maryland where StraighterLine is trying to level the playing field in education. StraighterLine’s mission is to disrupt the high cost of online education courses by directly partnering with colleges and vetting courses through national clearing houses. Joseph Thibault, Course Manager at StraighterLine, shares their story.

When we jumped into the world of online education head-first, our small staff was spread across the US. As a result, we decided to use Google Apps because of its ability to facilitate this virtual office. The ability to share docs, communicate synchronously, and work collaboratively on docs provided us with a quick and easy way to improve courses, our brand and website.


Google Apps has sped up the rate at which we collect information and communicate internally and with students. By using forms in Google Docs we can easily collect survey data from new students to help us focus our marketing efforts. We also use forms to collect course evaluations so that we can improve our courses and services quickly. Creating a form in Docs only takes a few minutes and the summary and charting features allow us to do a quick analysis with just a few clicks.

Gmail has also been a huge benefit to StraighterLine. Students can easily get in touch with us through Gmail and chat, allowing them to get help and continue learning in seconds rather than hours. At StraighterLine we’re happy to say we’ve gone Google!

Posted by Ashley Chandler, Google Apps team

URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/09/going-google-across-50-states-maryland.html

[G] Trimming our privacy policies

Official Google Docs Blog: Trimming our privacy policies

Cross posted on the Gmail Blog and the Official Google Blog

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.

Posted by Mike Yang, Associate General Counsel

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

[G] Stay keen and start to Screen

Google Finance Blog: Stay keen and start to Screen

Posted by Brian Shih, Product Manager

The Google Finance Stock Screener is one of the most powerful tools for financial research on the site. Save yourself some research time by letting the Stock Screener tell you exactly what you want! The Google Finance team has been listening to your feedback on Product Ideas, and we see a strong interest in this feature so we want to share our best practices for getting the most out of this tool.

The Stock Screener allows you to sort using a wide range of criteria - including a number of options you may not be familiar with yet. So even if you already use it, keep reading to learn new tips and tricks.

Getting Started

The Stock Screener can be accessed in two ways:

1. From the left hand navigation bar on the homepage, or
2. From a company page. Scroll down to ‘Key stats and ratios’ along the right hand side and click the ‘Screen stocks with similar metrics’ link. This will automatically fetch companies with similar P/E Ratios and Returns on Equity (TTM) (%)

So how specific can one really get?!... VERY

First, you can specify by the Exchange and/or Sector that you want, before narrowing down the financial metrics.

Don’t be afraid to ‘Add criteria’

Why stop at Market cap or P/E Ratio? The Google Finance Stock Screener is a comprehensive tool that lets you add valuation ratios, operating metrics, margins and many more. Simply click and choose from a variety of metrics including operating and stock metrics, price, margins, and growth. You can set a minimum and maximum for each metric or use the sliders to set your range. The Company Distribution shows you the relative frequency of stocks for the criterion but please note that this graph is a visual aid, not an analytic tool.


What about dividends? Perhaps you’re looking for a company that will only return a dividend next quarter. Select Div next quarter and the Screener will let you select a forecast value of the next quarterly dividend, per share, to be paid.

If you’re not sure what some of the criteria are, just click on them and a definition will appear in the Add Criteria wizard, as well as a help icon next to each line. And remember the search is live -- no buttons to press. As you make changes to your Screener criteria, the companies will update automatically!

Try these tips out and let us know what you think or submit your Stock Screener suggestions on our Product Ideas page. Stay tuned for more as we keep adding new features to Google Finance. To catch the latest from the Google Finance team you can follow us on Twitter.

URL: http://googlefinanceblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/posted-by-brian-shih-product-manager.html