Google announce the FTC has approved of their acquisition DoubleClick. This great news for Google in to ongoing on line advertising business.
I am glad to see that it can continue. The FTC had no issues, so hopefully this is a done deal.
Congratulations to both Google and DoubleClick.
I have been using FlightStats.com for a well a over a year and become very dependent on them. I had even added their Co-Op search to my Google Account.
Google apparently did to. Google announced the inclusion of FlightStats.com data with out the subscribing to FlighStats Co-Op Search.
Congratulations FlightStats, nice to see you received such great recognition. You deserve it.
I still have not seen the much talked about update to GMail. The GMail blog mentions it. The Google Operating System guys have screen shots in their blog. So I guess it's true.
The only thing I can't figure out is the roll out schedule. I'm not a patient person. So I keep checking for the new features link. To no avail.
Any one else seen it?
Gmail is in the process of rolling out IMAP. This is big news for you Outlook and other fat client users. Will do a much better of keeping everything in sync.
When you label in Outlook, or your phone, or your GMail web client all the others will follow. No more put resorting on multiple devices.
Last week I blogged about GMail increasing their storage quotes. I was expecting a 5% increase or something like that.
I was way off. We are going to 6 GB by January! I noticed that my standard GMail account was growing very rapidly.
So I Googled and found a Blog entry on the Google Operating System blog that really sum it all up and what we can expect.
Keep in mind these increases also will be seen by the Google Apps standard and Education editions. That role out has start from what I see and read. I have few domains on Google Apps standard and the oldest and most heavily used, has started to grow.
The one on the Education Edition, has not start to grow yet. From what I have read there is no obvious rime or reason to who grows first, except GMail users. I am sure Google will get us all caught up though.
Gmail has announced today that they will be help the hard drive producers meet their projections on sales. How, you might ask. By adding even more storage to GMail.
The counter is going move faster. Plus, they are going to match GMail storage quotas for Google App users. Or at least the Education and Standard editions. That's a lot of big mailboxes to support.
As to the enterprise customers, they go from 10 GB to 25 GB at the same cost. That is amazing.
I don't know how they do it. I know most don't use nearly as much space as their quota. But Google App users must be racking up the space. My company uses it and I don't throw away much. So my usage keeps going up. Same with all the accounts in my domain. In a few years that will be a lot of storage.
Oh well, so far so good. Google keep up the great work.
I love Google Alerts I have a couple terms that I like to watch. Like tlaughlin so I know when my content makes it to Google. I also love Google Reader, it organizes my worlds information.
So my questions why doesn't alerts allow me to subscribe to an RSS feed of my alerts. Would be a great feature in my humble opinion.
It been a since we have seen an update to Alerts, can we get the team back together and expand the service? Please!
Thanks
Tim
Okay, so today is my official blog everything day. Promise last one for today.
You got to see the Maps Street view video.
Good night.
No, I didn't solve the worlds problems. Instead I added Adsense Video Units to this blog, why? I am not exactly sure.
I don't spend much time a YouTube, So guess I can now catch some video here. Besides, I said I would.
Enjoy the videos.
Later
Those Google Map folks have been busy with their digital cameras again. They added 5 more cites.
And you can look toward sky!
Enjoy finding your way with real pictures of the intersections. If only my TomTom had that!
Google AdSense has added Video Units to their offerings. Basically a really nice YouTube player with some ads around it and across the bottom of the screen.
Here is their video.
At this time my AdSense account wasn't updated, so I was not able to create my own player. I will post again when it works. We can see how easy it is.
Bye for now
Google has always been very giving to Non-Profits. In last couple of weeks they have expanded that even more. There three services that 501(c)3 organizations should be looking at, in my opinion.
Google Checkout - Donation made easy from the Checkout team. Plus Google has waived all processing fees on donations through 12/31/08.
Google Apps for Domains - Non-Profits qualify for the Google Apps for Domains Educational Edition. If you already use Google Apps for Domains Standard Edition and are 501(c)3 you can upgrade.
YouTube Nonprofit program - You can setup a channel dedicated to your cause. Add to that Google Checkout donations and a great combination for the video oriented web user.
Over all, Google is very generous to Non-Profits, as the webmaster of myself I am very appreciative.
Thanks Google!
Mediascape has done an amazing mashup of Google Maps and video! Very slick interface with a ton of video. This is great example of what the web is becoming!
Nice job!
Wow! Google has add Presentation to the Google Docs suite.
In a word Wow!
Try it for yourself it's free and it's cool. If you user Google Apps for Domains you have access well.
Google Reader has left the lab and become a non-beta product. At the same time multi-Language support was added.
Hopefully reader will continue to grow and expand. I have found the addition of search to be a huge asset.
Keep up the good work Reader Team
The Webmaster Tools group has added subscriber counts to the set of tools.
This will give you a count of how people are using Google Reader to subscribe to you sites RSS Feeds. Would seem pretty cool, but not super inclusive.
Two big problems.
Only shows Google Reader subscriptions.
If you user FeedBurner, which Google owns, you feeds loose their association to your site.
Oh well, nice try needs some work. I would suggest to use FeedBurner and their stats are pretty inclusive.
Maybe version 2 will be a little more accurate.
Google is sponsoring the Lunar X-Prize. Why you might ask? I sure did.
But with some thought I realized Google is a bunch of science and math geeks. So why not try and instill science and math into our youth? We going to need more Googlers!
Space was of big interest in the 70, but not so much any more. Well, looks like Google wants to change that.
Good luck to all participants.
Duplicate content bad. But the Webmaster team has given the content developers of the world a few guidelines.
Nothing new of shocking here, or at least not me. Having worked on a few commerce sites this has bitten me before and made think.
So listen to warnings, watch your Query Strings and code away.
Enjoy and have a good day.
Okay so this one baffles me. Google has done some custom results for Cricket! I ask, why Cricket? Or I guess really ask why not Baseball, Football, Hockey, Basketball, and Cricket?
Equal opportunity sports here please.
All kidding aside, cool stuff, but why start with cricket. Maybe it's just the self centered American attitude, but wouldn't a more world popular sport be a good place to start. In that case, why not Soccer?
Oh well in time it will all come together.
First off a disclaimer. In this blog I try to keep my readers up to date about the latest Google Announcements and my thoughts.
However, today I am requesting a feature from Google and the Google Alerts team. Ready Drum roll please...
RSS feeds instead of emails! - Original I doubt it, I am sure someone has thought or requested this already, but I'm adding my name to the list.
Now that Google Reader has search, what a great place to keep track of all the latest info on my areas of interest, with out filling up my mail account.
I'm sure there are issues around the amount of processing power needed for so many RSS feeds, etc. But hey, it's Google, they don't care about no stinking process limitations! That where the fun of engineering comes from.
Google Alert Team - RSS feeds for our alerts please!
In advance, thank you!
The Google Reader team has finally added search to the the Reader Interface. It looks and works great!
No more throwing stars on things I think might want later or the Maybe Later label I have been applying. Surprised it took so long for search, but very happy to finally have it.
Well, I am off to find all those lost blog entries I have been missing.
Enjoy!
The AdSence blog had an entry about AdSence on Commerce Site. They showcased Zlio.com. I must admit and nice integration of AdSence and Zlio.
This was my first introduction to Zlio. An interesting concept. I am not sure how successful anyone can be at building these Zlio sites, I suppose like AdSense you can make a few dollars.
The concept behind Zlio, best I can tell, is that the site advertises products available by other online retailers. The retailers pay commission on sales. I just don't know how likely you are to drive traffic to the Zlio sites to encourage people to purchase from your site.
Would a non-profit be able to ask their members to use the site? Thus the organization could raise some money. I suppose that is an approach. However, to build a store with Zlio that would have to use that broad range products would take quite some time to add to the store.
I am going to play with this some more and see what happens. I will try and report back.
Have a nice weekend.
I have blogged a couple of times about the Gmail Video. While the editing and judging is done.
Check out the Final Product! Pretty funny.
YouTube has be integrated into the Google Data API. That will make for some interesting applications I am sure. The YouTube folks are pretty creative and strange bunch (strange in a good way).
Give them a nice API and they will go crazy. Lets see what comes of this.
Stay toned!
Want a map in Blog? If so Google Maps My maps can help you out. Google Maps is really coming out with some cool stuff. Of course the Geo DieHards are making some really cool Mashups
Google Map Mania, is really keeping on top of it. Check them out if you get chance.
So here is how to get Google My Maps into your blog.
Happy Mapping
AdSense and Blogger have added an new in line ad feature for Blogger users.
This feature allows Blogger users to include ads between posts with out having to edit the template. After doing that with limited success I for one am happy to see this point and click way of adding inline ads. Check out the Inside AdSense: Get inline for all the great screen shots on how to set this up on your blog.
Happy blogging.
The great folks over at Google have given us webmasters an improved Robots.txt validation tool. The tool now understands the sitemap: directive and informs you of syntax errors.
I also discovered it informs you that one exists. Which is way cool. I decided to check all my sites while I was there. I discovered that one of the larger community sites I manage didn't have the sitemaps: directive in the robots.txt file.
Of course I quickly corrected that problem. The tool is there, use it. It might just get you some more traffic.
Have you produced you Gmail video? If not the Gmail video deadline extended! You have two days to get er done!.
This pretty funny stuff. Check it out, get involved. Enjoy
Well here is one I missed. Apparently there is a Gmail T-Shirt design contest going on. Luckily some talented designers where paying closer attention than me.
No chance that I am entering a design, we would all just laugh at how bad it would be. Wait here is my design.
Sorry, that's all I got, can't even make it red.
However, you and I can go vote for what we like. If unlike myself, you have design talent, submit a design, don't forget to tell tlaughlin sent you. Like they will have any idea what you are talking about.
Enjoy, it's fun to be involved.
It seems Google will be notifying webmaster's if they are the victims of Malware, via the Webmsters Tools As well we can requests a review. At the time of writing my Webmasters Tools site didn't seem to include the new features.
In my opinion this is great. Google sends an awful lot of time looking at our sites. If then can warn us when it appears we are victims of Malware than all the better. Obviously not a solution to safe hosting, but at least it tells when something went wrong. An once of prevention is still worth a pound of cure, but even Google can't change that.
Hopefully they will show up shortly and I will report back on them then. Thanks Google,
Google is very respectful of the robots.txt file. As such they have produced many Blog entries about best practices, tutorials and extensions to the protocol. So in my own hope of organizing the worlds information. Or at least Google's information on robots.txt. I have links.
If you unsure of what a robots.txt file does then check out The Web Robots Pages at robotstext.org. They give some down to earth explanations of the standards.
As to Google. Here a few places they mention robots.txt and how they use them.
Webmasters overview All about robots
Okay not really robots.txt, but Robots meta tags, yes Google respects them to.
I am sure there are more and I will try and post them here.
Thanks for reading.
Google has announce the ability to buy more storage for Picas and GMail. I don't use all the give me for free, but I know people who do. You can get Google's Scoop on storage.
This is great and should be helpful. Now that we can buy storage. I would like to make a humble request. That we could be additional storage for individual user account in Google Apps standard edition. I know you can get more storage for the entire domain by subscribing to the Premium addition. By way of example, I work with a non-profit who uses Google Apps. They have about 30 accounts, so to pay $50 a year per account is within their means. However, the really only need that additional storage for the admin and the president. So they would happily pay $75 year for each of them to get added storage. Just another humble request.
Thanks for reading.
The Gmail team has started a video of Gmail behind the scenes. I hope this isn't what happens to my Gmail messages, but the videos are really funny. If you need a little brain candy, check them out.
Here is a nice blog entry from the Adsense folks on ad placement and design for community sites. Also a with the blog is a link to Section Targeting which I didn't even know existed. The idea targeting section, like the post portion of a forum makes great sense.
If you run a community and use Adsense take the 2 minute read, it's well worth it.
Google has finally create a Site Search that is ad free and allows the site owner to pay for the service rather than having ads.
Furthermore, they allow you to get your search results as XML. Then the site owner can format it however the want it to appear with in there site.
Thanks Google, I am sure I have customer who will want this ability. See there is more to life than server ads.
Check out the Google Blog for Details
This is so cool, yet so simple and so overdue.
The Google Map guys have done it again. You can now get driving directions via the API. That is just way to cool. Check out the Maps API Blog.
This will make for a lot of great new features for many sites. I have great ideas on using it. Just wish I had the time to play with it more.
As I continue to set up this Blog I realized I needed to submit my site map, but how?
I didn't find any immediate resources, just pieces here and there. In the end I submitted the ATOM.xml document which seemed to work. This was done by adding http://eyeongoogle.blogspot.com/atom.xml as the site map verification.
In my humble opinion blogger should produce as robots.txt file with the new sitemap autodiscovery syntax. Add that to the feature list.
Also, I had to add the verify-v1 Meta tag directly in to the HTML template as well. Again should be a feature of Blogger.
Google has announce they have acquired FeedBurner. That will be a huge addition for context aware advertising.
Being a FeedBurner subscribe I have noticed they have been slow in get ads into the feeds. I guess this explains why. Congratulations to Feedburner. There has to be some big celebrations going on in the Windy City today!
Plus we will get better integration of FeedBurner in to our Blogger blogs, I am sure.
So I spent a little time tweaking my Blogger template today. I did three things.
I changed the Template, a little lighter in color easier of the eyes, so I think.
I added my del.icio.us links, with the Google label. If you are Google Junkie and want to add me to your del.icio.us Network, feel free. A lot going on with Google, the more eyes watching the better.
I changed how AdSense is included in the the template. I did the ad set ups in my AdSense account and added channels. I then used the HTML/Javascript element to include it in the side bar. For the top and bottom of the template I had to edit the HTML. Not to bad pretty straight forward template so the right place to paste was easy to find.
Thanks for reading and have a great day.
I created the Blog on the 5/30/07. At that time I added my Analytics tracking code. I still have nothing in my reports.
Analytics did verify the and stated it was waiting for data for the next 2 days. I now says data is being collected, so hopefully we will have reports soon. Then I will know if I am blog for my own entertainment, or if someone else is at least found it.
Take care
I was reading Scott's blog other day he posed a very good question. Where is the API for Google Analytics? Google has done a great job of providing access most everything via their API's. But not Analytics. I know they purchased Analytics, but it's been a while. In Google time it's been a long while. So why isn't there an API? Think about you create your blogger blog and add an Analytics profile as part of the process.. Only makes sense, right. To Scott thanks for asking the obvious.
For the rest of us, let's ask in our own Blogs "where is the Google Analytics API?'
Please Google can we have one? We promise to use it responsibly and not leave it out in the rain.
I have a 1+ bus ride home everyday. So when I heard I can take Google Reader off-line my curiosity was peaked. So how does this work? What is this Google Gears thing?
So clicked on the Google Gears link blindly choose the download button. Okay, so I trust Google a little to much sometimes. Gears installed and then I restarted Firefox.
Okay so now what? Then I open on up Google Reader and get little pop window asking me if I trust www.google.com? Sure I do. Click yes and lets see what happens.
A new Icon in my Google Reader menu. Pretty green isn't it? New menu item, better click on it.
Oh, look at the great Web 2.0 UI! Two thousand item, that should cover the ride home. Have to try it tonight. See what happens. I will try and report back tomorrow.
If you are like me and your directions have to include statements like “Turn right at the big castle”. Then I have some great news for you; and me.
Putting this blog on Blogger was intentional. If I am writing about Google then I should use Google to do so. As Google has said they eat their own dog food . So shall I, so far tasting pretty good.
Well, back to setting up Blogger. Overall, very quick and easy. The longest part of the process was choosing a name that wasn’t already in use. With that obstacle behind me on to the template. Again very easy, though I want to tweak it;. why, because I can. Blogging for another day on that one.
For today I had three goals.
I have found that I have become a Google Junkie. I find that a large percentage of my blog entries on my primary blog are related to Google. So instead of a 12 step program I decided embrace my addition.
I will try and share my opinions on the forever changing world of Google and what I find interesting.
A little about me, I am a cooperate software developer by trade. I tinker with Google API's and other technologies. Most of these tinkering are to satisfy my curiosity.
Hope this blog grows and the readers find my insight useful. Enjoy.
