Sunday Morning : jQuery + Google Translation

Sunday Morning is a jQuery plugin which allow site-owners to offer their visitors some easy and fancy ways to translate their content in more than 30 languages. It uses the Google translate API. You can have Inline translation with menu, Word translation or Translation with remote trigger. It is available as a Bookmarklet as well.

Using various triggers -like double-click, submitting forms, hovers..- the content can be translated instantly & optionally displayed in an integrated tooltip. Also, you can present a chic menu that asks the user "to which language the content will be translated".

You can visit Sunday Morning Here

Google Search based Keyword Tool - sktool

Sktoolsl generates keyword and landing page ideas highly relevant and specific to your website. In doing so, the tool helps you identify additional advertising opportunities that aren’t currently being used in your AdWords ad campaigns.

They can’t guarantee that these keyword suggeastions will improve your campaign performance, but anyway… I think it is a great additional tool to get new keyword ideas for your website and Adwords campaign. Hope you enjoy the tool and maybe you find some nice new keywords to target either for your next campaign or to improve you actual campaign.

Do you know where your kid is? Check Google's maps

With an upgrade to its mobile maps, Google Inc. hopes to prove it can track people on the go as effectively as it searches for information on the Internet. The new software released Wednesday will enable people with mobile phones and other wireless devices to automatically share their whereabouts with family and friends.

The feature, dubbed "Latitude," expands upon a tool introduced in 2007 to allow mobile phone users to check their own location on a Google map with the press of a button."This adds a social flavor to Google maps and makes it more fun," said Steve Lee, a Google product manager.

It could also raise privacy concerns, but Google is doing its best to avoid a backlash by requiring each user to manually turn on the tracking software and making it easy to turn off or limit access to the service.Google also is promising not to retain any information about its users' movements. Only the last location picked up by the tracking service will be stored on Google's computers, Lee said.

The software plots a user's location — marked by a personal picture on Google's map — by relying on cell phone towers, global positioning systems or a Wi-Fi connection to deduce their location. The system can follow people's travels in the United States and 26 other countries. It's left up to each user to decide who can monitor their location.

The social mapping approach is similar to a service already offered by Loopt Inc., a 3-year-old company located near Google's Mountain View headquarters. Loopt's service is compatible with more than 100 types of mobile phones.

To start out, Google Latitude will work on Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and devices running on Symbian software or Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile. It will also operate on some T-Mobile phones running on Google's Android software and eventually will work on Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iTouch. To widen the software's appeal, Google is offering a version that can be installed on personal computers as well.

The PC access is designed for people who don't have a mobile phone but still may want to keep tabs on their children or someone else special, Lee said. People using the PC version can also be watched if they are connected to the Internet through Wi-Fi.

Google can plot a person's location within a few yards if it's using GPS, or might be off by several miles if it's relying on transmission from cell phone towers. People who don't want to be precise about their whereabouts can choose to display just the city instead of a specific neighborhood.

There are no current plans to sell any advertising alongside Google's tracking service, although analysts believe knowing a person's location eventually will unleash new marketing opportunities. Google has been investing heavily in the mobile market during the past two years in an attempt to make its services more useful to people when they're away from their office or home computers.

Offline Gmail

Web-based email is great because you can check it from any computer, but there's one little catch: it's inherently limited by your internet connection. From public WiFi to smartphones equipped with 3G, from mobile broadband cards to fledgling in-flight wireless on airplanes, Internet access is becoming more and more ubiquitous -- but there are still times when you can't access your webmail because of an unreliable or unavailable connection.

Today we're starting to roll out an experimental feature in Gmail Labs that should help fill in those gaps: offline Gmail. So even if you're offline, you can open your web browser, go to gmail.com, and get to your mail just like you're used to.

Once you turn on this feature, Gmail uses Gears to download a local cache of your mail. As long as you're connected to the network, that cache is synchronized with Gmail's servers. When you lose your connection, Gmail automatically switches to offline mode, and uses the data stored on your computer's hard drive instead of the information sent across the network. You can read messages, star and label them, and do all of the things you're used to doing while reading your webmail online. Any messages you send while offline will be placed in your outbox and automatically sent the next time Gmail detects a connection. And if you're on an unreliable or slow connection (like when you're "borrowing" your neighbor's wireless), you can choose to use "flaky connection mode," which is somewhere in between: it uses the local cache as if you were disconnected, but still synchronizes your mail with the server in the background. Our goal is to provide nearly the same browser-based Gmail experience whether you're using the data cached on your computer or talking directly to the server.

Offline Gmail is still an early experimental feature, so don't be surprised if you run into some kinks that haven't been completely ironed out yet. We've been using offline Gmail internally at Google for quite a while (I've read thousands of messages and answered hundreds en route to visit my son and my daughter). And it's saved me more than once when my home network connection ran into issues (we have squirrels at home that love to chew through outside cable wires). Now we're ready to have a larger set of people try it out, so we're making it available in Gmail Labs for those of you who want to test out Gmail's latest and greatest and send us your feedback.

We're making offline Gmail available to everyone who uses Gmail in US or UK English over the next couple of days, so if you don't see it under the Labs tab yet, it should be there soon. Once you see it, just follow these steps to get started:

1. Click Settings and click the Labs tab.
2. Select Enable next to Offline Gmail.
3. Click Save Changes.
4. After your browser reloads, you'll see a new "Offline^0.1" link in the upper righthand corner of your account, next to your username. Click this link to start the offline set up process and download Gears if you don't already have it.

Google Updates Pagerank

Google PageRank (popularly known as PR) is a visual parameter to identify authority of website. Google updates Pagerank of Google Toolbar after every 4 month. Although importance of Google Pagerank is reduced over period of time still many webmaster aims to get higher Pagerank.

Google has updated Pagerank in September 2008 and I was hoping that google will start this Pagerank update after 20-25 December and it looks google has actually started Pagerank update from today. I have seen many blogs and websites with updated Pagerank.

Well all the blogs which I have seen got lowered PR which made me to think another Google nightmare of mass blog penalty but I think that’s not the case. Since this is just started we will see Pagerank fluctuations till 1^st week of January 2009.

Please keep in mind that Actual pagerank of website changes daily and this is just toolbar Pagerank update. So did you managed to get higher PageRank this time?? if not then you may read this article “18 Steps you should consider to get a higher page rank for your blog this update”

Google launches Cross-Language Enterprise Search (InfoWorld)

Google launched on Thursday an innovative cross-language search feature that is sure to be welcomed by any global organization. Cross-Language Enterprise Search works only with the Google Enterprise Search Appliance and will find internal documents written in any language, no matter what language was used to create the query.

With more and more companies linking their global systems, by simply pointing the search engine to each system the cross-language feature will find the documents in any one of 34 languages. Keep up on the latest tech news headlines at InfoWorld News, or subscribe to the Today's Headlines newsletter.

"Google Search Appliance is meant to mix 30 million documents, since the search appliance can do that all you have to do is point to all the servers," said Cyrus Mystry, product manager, Google Enterprise Labs[cq].

The cross-language tool also uses Google's machine translation technology to automatically translate the document if that feature is activated by the administrator through a dropdown menu. Otherwise, it can bring back the search results in the language they were written in.

While machine translation is notoriously inaccurate, Mystry noted that the Web has a vast amount of documents that are in multiple languages, and Google uses that along with statistical analysis to create a more accurate rendering of one language into another. Recently, Google also created a translation feature that allows users to enter text or a Web URL and have it automatically translated.

Mystry said the goal of the Enterprise Labs is to develop and launch a new feature every six to eight weeks by posting innovations from over 10,000 Google engineers, and then making it available to about 55,000 visitors who can test the feature.

MapMyPage.com - Add Google Maps To Your Site

This suitably-named initiative self-describes itself as “the fastest, easiest way to add Google Maps to any website”. Basically, MapMyPage enables any blogger or webmaster to add maps to all the locations mentioned in the webpage by simply copying and pasting one line of JavaScript.

Such a service clearly benefits both parties: webmasters add a touch of finesse and interactivity to their sites, whereas visitors can have immediate access to information that formerly would have been either laborious to get or simply unavailable. For instance, they can easily view a travel destination on their screens or get the directions to any local business straightaway, and even save addresses to a GPS.

The site comes complete with a FAQ and a wealth of live examples in case you want to see how this system is implemented, but the approach in itself is quite simple and this service is very easy to put into practice. Consult www.mapmypage.com for additional information. Besides, you can sign up for the free monthly newsletter and have updates delivered straight to your inbox.

Visit MapMyPage Here

Google's SEO Starter Guide

Webmasters often ask us at conferences or in the Webmaster Help Group, "What are some simple ways that I can improve my website's performance in Google?" There are lots of possible answers to this question, and a wealth of search engine optimization information on the web, so much that it can be intimidating for newer webmasters or those unfamiliar with the topic. We thought it'd be useful to create a compact guide that lists some best practices that teams within Google and external webmasters alike can follow that could improve their sites' crawlability and indexing.

Our Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide covers around a dozen common areas that webmasters might consider optimizing. We felt that these areas (like improving title and description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, anchor text, and more) would apply to webmasters of all experience levels and sites of all sizes and types. Throughout the guide, we also worked in many illustrations, pitfalls to avoid, and links to other resources that help expand our explanation of the topics. We plan on updating the guide at regular intervals with new optimization suggestions and to keep the technical advice current.

So, the next time we get the question, "I'm new to SEO, how do I improve my site?", we can say, "Well, here's a list of best practices that we use inside Google that you might want to check out."

Picasa bumped up to version 3

Google just upgraded its photo editor, Picasa, to version 3. This new version brings the following new features:

	Sync your Picasa 3 and Picasa Web Albums edits Tired of having to manually re-upload your photos after making further edits? By enabling 'Sync to Web,' edits made to your photos in Picasa 3 are automatically transferred to your corresponding online albums. You can sync the following changes: Picasa 3 edits (Basic Fixes, Tuning, and Effects) Photos added or deleted in Picasa 3 Captions, tags, or geotags Getting started The Sync to Web button is located on the right side of each folder or album header. When you click this button, you'll first be prompted to upload the photos in that folder or album to Picasa Web Albums. You can change the upload size, album privacy setting, or even add a watermark to your uploaded photos. When the upload is complete, any subsequent Picasa 3 edits to those photos will automatically transfer to your online album. Troubleshooting You can disable the sync feature at any time by clicking the Sync to Web button again, or by selecting Disable Sync in the drop-down menu to the right of the Share button in the folder or album header. All your photos and their edits up to this point remain online, but any new edits and changes will no longer be synchronized. The following changes don't transfer to your online albums: Reordering photos Changes made to folder or album properties Changes made to filenames
	Retouch your images Always want to be airbrushed? Use the Retouch tool to remove unsightly blemishes and improve photo quality. It can also help you to restore old photos with marks, water stains, and scratches to excellent condition. When editing any photo, just click the Retouch button on the 'Basic Fixes' tab. Adjust the size of your brush, and use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in and out of the photo for precise edits. Click once to highlight the area you'd like to retouch, and then find another portion of the picture that should take the place of your highlighted area. Hover over this replacement area and click a second time.
	Preview image files with Picasa Photo Viewer The photo viewer is a fast, lightweight application for viewing images on your desktop or through Windows Explorer. Installed with Picasa 3, it lets you to take a quick look at images without having to fully open the Picasa 3 program. What you can do with the photo viewer: Add stars, zoom in and out with your mouse scroll wheel, rotate, or proceed to Picasa 3 to make more extensive edits. Upload directly from the photo viewer to Picasa Web Albums or Blogger. Jump right into emailing or printing as well. From your computer desktop or from within Windows Explorer, just double-click any image file to launch the Picasa Photo Viewer. You can reconfigure the file types that the photo viewer will display by clicking the Tools menu in Picasa 3 and selecting Configure Photo Viewer. If you'd prefer to use a different application to view certain file types, deselect the file types that the photo viewer shouldn't open. To disable the Picasa Photo Viewer entirely, click the 'Don't use Picasa Photo Viewer' option.
	Create and edit movies Combine your photos, videos, and music into a movie or use the editing room to trim your existing movies. Creating movies Use the movie maker to combine your photos, videos, and music into a movie, and create a Windows Media file. Share it with friends by uploading it directly to YouTube. About the movie maker: You have complete creative control - change the music sync, the slide duration, and slide transition style, among other things. Supported audio formats include mp3 and .wma. Add text slides: Create a title slide or a divider to provide some context. You can choose to include your photo captions as well. There are two ways to launch the movie creation screen: Create a movie for all photos in a folder or album by clicking the Create Movie Presentation button in the folder or album header. If you'd like to pick and choose photos from different collections, place them in the Photo Tray and click the larger Movie button in the Photo Tray. Use the Movie, Slide, and Clips tabs to alter movie settings, add text to slides, and insert new images, respectively. When you're satisfied, click Create Movie. Once created, use the Upload to YouTube button to share your creation with family and friends. Depending on the number of images and size of your audio file, the movie creation process can take a significant amount of time. Can't create the entire movie in one sitting? No problem, just click the Close button, and you'll be prompted to Save Draft. You can pick up your work at any time in the 'Movies' folder in Picasa. Editing movies When playing any video in Picasa 3, explore these features: Use the In and Out buttons in the lower-right corner to trim a shorter clip. Rotate your video using the Rotate buttons in the Photo Tray. Click Export Clip to output a newly trimmed or rotated video. Use the Take Snapshot button to capture a single frame of the video. Use the Play full screen button in the lower-right corner to watch the large version. Or use the zoom slider to adjust the size of the video in the Picasa editing window. Use the . and , keys on your keyboard to step the video frame-by-frame.
	Capture your screen Instantly take and import your screen captures and webcam captures into Picasa 3. Screen captures Press PrtScn to capture a shot of your entire screen. Ctrl+PrtScn will capture the highlighted window. These images will be placed in the 'Screen captures' folder. If you're having trouble importing screen captures, make sure Picasa 3 is open. Screen captures won't be imported if the application is closed. Webcam capture This is webcam importing made simple: Capture video or stills from within Picasa 3, and import them in the same instant. Make sure your webcam is operational, and then click the Webcam Capture button on the top button bar. The Capture tool will let you take and import video and stills. If the Webcam Capture button is inactive, first make sure your webcam is set to go. Then try closing Picasa 3 and opening it back up.
	Add text or watermarks to your photos You can easily personalize your photos using the Watermark and Text tools. Watermarks Help protect your images by stamping a watermark on all images that you export or upload. The watermark signature will be placed in the lower right-hand corner. Upload photos with watermarks Click the Tools menu in Picasa 3, select Options, then click the Web Albums tab. Select the option labeled 'Add a watermark for all uploads.' Type the text for the watermark in the field below the option. Export photos with watermarks When you click the Export button in the Photo Tray, you can select the 'Add a watermark' checkbox to include a watermark on your exported images. Type the text for the watermark in the field below the option. Text Use the Text tool to add text quickly and easily to your photographs; you can even print the result. You can edit the style, size, color, and alignment of the text, as well as drag it to your desired location on the photo. When editing a photo, click the Text button on the 'Basic Fixes' tab to access the tool. Do you want to add the same text to multiple photos? From the main Library view, click the Edit menu and select Copy Text to copy the text you've placed on one photo. Then select Paste text to apply it to all other selected photos. The text change isn't permanent. Once you've added your text, you'll see a 'Show Text' checkbox on the 'Basic Fixes' tab for that image. Deselect the checkbox and the text will disappear.
	Print captions Your captions are about to see a little more action. You can now print your captions or photo file names on or below your photos. Control the style and color of your printed caption, in addition to the width and color of the printed photo border. After you've selected the photos you'd like to print, click the Print button in the Photo Tray. Click the Border and Text Options button to add borders and adjust the style and placement of your printed text. Click Apply to preview your work, and OK to accept the changes.
	Upload easily to Picasa Web Albums Use the Drop Box to hold quick uploads and upload throttling to multi-task during your upload. Drop-box upload The Drop Box is an online album that serves as a holding pen for your quick uploads. Click the Upload to your Web Albums DropBox button located above your photo on the 'Edit Photo' screen to upload a single picture directly to your Picasa Web Albums Drop Box. Upload throttling You can choose to have Picasa 3 reserve some of your Internet bandwidth for surfing the Web while you're doing large uploads to Picasa Web Albums. During your upload, the dialog box will have an option labeled 'Don't eat all my bandwidth.' Just select this checkbox, and then continue multi-tasking.
	Control your Picasa Web Albums settings If you have an online album in Picasa Web Albums, you can now control the online settings through the corresponding folder or album in Picasa 3. There are a few different controls located in the drop-down menu to the right of the Share button in the folder or album header: Adjust the privacy of your online album. Change the online image size. Delete an online album. Sync your edits to your online album. You can also choose to apply 'Sync to Web' to starred photos only. Use 'Refresh Online Status' to pull your captions, tags, and geotags that you've added in Picasa Web Albums down to your photos in Picasa. Troubleshooting The button's only available for folders or albums that have been uploaded to Picasa Web Albums. You must be signed in to your Google Account for Picasa Web Albums. You can sign in by clicking Sign in to Web Albums in the upper-right corner of Picasa 3. You will only be able to adjust the online image size if you have enabled 'Sync to Web.'
	Manage folders on your computer It's now possible to move entire folders around on your hard drive from within Picasa 3. From the folder list, right-click the folder you'd like to move, and select Move folder. Choose your desired destination or create a new folder altogether. These moves are permanent on your hard drive, so make sure you properly stow your folders.
	Get more information about your photos We've added new icons and tools to the Library view to quickly communicate useful information about your photos.

For more detailed list of new features, including Linux specific ones, please visit the download site.Just like the previous Picasa for Linux version, Picasa 3 is not *yet* a full, native Linux application.

Google Analytics Gets a Major Ugrade (AdSense, Custom Reports, API, Bubble Charts)

Google Analytics just got better. Google will begin rolling out a set of major upgrades today to the free Website measuring tool. The new features include the ability to create custom reports, better ways to look at audience segments, the ability to track and measure AdSense inside Google Analytics, an API (on it’s way), the introduction of cool bubble “motion charts,” and some user interface improvements. Let’s take these new features one at a time.

1. Custom Reports: Lets you create reports using any source of data (such as people who have bought something on your site, average number of pageviews, geography, visiting source) as the X and Y coordinates for a chart.
2. Audience Segmentation: Lets you look at custom slices of your Website’s audience (such as people who stay for more than two minutes, people who came from TechCrunch, people who came from the New York Times, people who bought something, people who came from Techcrunch and bought something).
3. AdSense integration: This was along time coming. You can already track how your AdWords campaigns impact traffic to your site. Now you can see data from your AdSense account as well. Marry that with Google Analytics data and you can get new insights into not only which ads you place through AdSense are doing the best, but from which referring sites. (Read more on the AdSense blog).
4. API: This will be rolling out “soon,’ but is also being announced today. Google will open up an API to Gogle Analytics that will allow developers to pipe all of the data in Google Analytics to other Websites, tools, widgets, or even mobile apps. So if someone wants to create a widget that will let people show their Google Analytics charts on their blog, that will be possible.
5. Bubble Charts: The new motion charts allow you to visualize data across five dimensions (x axis, y axis, size of bubble, color of bubble, and position over time). It lets you create an animation to show you what’s been happening with your Website’s key metrics. This feature comes out of the Trendalyzer software Google bought from Gapminder in 2007. (See video below).
6. User Interface Tweaks: You’ll notice some new subtle shading and highlighting. But the biggest change will be in the management dashboard. Now, if you track more than one Website with Google Analytics, you will be able to see trends across all of them at once.

Below is a video of the new “motion charts,” which let you track data across time. You can find more videos showing off these new features here.

Google's 10th Birthday Present: World-Changing Ideas

Google is marking its 10th anniversary by offering 10 million dollars to back world changing ideas. Google promises to divvy up the cash between the five best ideas that spring from its Project 10 to the 100th, a reference to the numerical sum "googol" from which the Internet powerhouse took its name.

"Our company's very name expresses our goal of achieving great results through smart technology that starts small and scales dramatically over time to have a tremendous long-term impact," Google said in a website posting. "Project 10 to the 100th is a similar attempt to produce those kinds of scalable results by harnessing our users' insights and creativity."

Winning ideas will get Google funding, while the people that submitted them will get "good karma and the satisfaction of knowing that your idea might truly help a lot of people," according to the Northern California firm.

The deadline for submitting ideas to Google is October 20. A panel of Google employees will pick 100 top submissions to be announced on January 27, 2009. Google users will then vote to determine 20 semi-finalists, from which a Google advisory board will select five winners. "At Google, we don't believe we have the answers, but we do believe the answers are out there," a message at an introductory project Web page said.

"Maybe the answer that helps somebody is in your head, in something you've observed, some notion that you've been fiddling with, some small connection you've noticed, some old thing you have seen with new eyes."

Information about the project is posted on Google 10th Birthday Web pages that also feature a company timeline featuring such tidbits as how co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met and the website originally being named "BackRub."

Save Flash Video? Just One Click - Flash Capture

Flash Capture, an Internet Explorer add-on, enables you to save Flash (.SWF) and video (.FLV) in just one click. A built-in player for Flash and video is also included.

With the latest version of Flash Capture, you can save flash videos of the following web site by a single click as well.

• www.youtube.com
• video.google.com
• www.myspace.com
• www.vidmax.com
• www.tetesaclaques.tv

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Key Benefits

• Spend Less Time on Capturing
  Save Flash and video by a single click, instead of digging into Temporary Internet Files folder, and struggling with thousands of cached items.
• Spend Less Time on Snapshot
  Taking snapshot of Flash and video by a single click, even without leaving IE.
• Keep Flash and Video Permanently
  Keep a local copy of Flash and video to prevent the web site from deleting it.
• Watch Flash and Video at Anytime
  Using the built in player to playback Flash and video at anytime, even offline.

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Key Features

• One-click save Flash (.SWF).
• Search and save Flash (.SWF) by visually browsing IE cache.
• Save multiple Flash in one batch.
• One-click save flash video (.FLV) for following web site:
• www.youtube.com
• video.google.com
• www.myspace.com
• www.vidmax.com
• www.tetesaclaques.tv
• Search and save flash video (.FLV) by visually browsing IE cache.
• Auto hide floating button after a specified time, to avoid covering the Flash content.
• Flick the board of the active Flash.
• Cleaning IE cache items.
• Built in player to playback the Flash and video.

Download Flash capture HERE

The Knol site has one goal: to help you share what you know.

The Knol project is a site that hosts many knols — units of knowledge — written about various subjects. The authors of the knols can take credit for their writing, provide credentials, and elicit reviews and comments. Users can provide feedback, comments, and related information. So the Knol project is a platform for sharing information, with multiple cues that help you evaluate the quality and veracity of information.

Knols are indexed by the big search engines, of course. And well-written knols become popular the same as regular web pages. The Knol site allows anyone to write and manage knols through a browser on any computer.

So what subjects can I write on?

(Almost) anything you like. You pick the subject and write it the way you see fit. We don't edit knols nor do we try to enforce any particular viewpoint – your knol should be written as you want it to be written. Of course, knols are subject to Terms of Service and Content Policy to ensure a good experience for all users and compliance with applicable laws.

What if someone else has already written an article on that subject?

No problem, you can still write your own article. In fact, the Knol project is a forum for encouraging individual voices and perspectives on topics. As mentioned, no one else can edit your knol (unless you permit it) or mandate how you write about a topic. If you do a search on a topic, you may very well see more than one knol in the search results. Of course, people are free to disagree with you, to write their own knols, to post comments and ratings.

Can I collaborate with other authors?

Of course. For each knol you can choose to write on your own or collaborate with other authors. It is up to you to find people to collaborate with. Some authors are organizing collaborative efforts using an unofficial list of knol authors organized by region.

Can I write knols in languages other than English?

Absolutely. Knol is now available in Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazilian) and Korean. It will take us some time to localize the interface into additional languages. In the meantime, feel free to create knols helping authors in your language.

Can I search for knols on a specific subject?

Yes, you can search on Google or other search engines to find knols, like any other web pages. You can also use the Search button found on the Knol homepage and on each knol to search. Some knol authors have started compiling lists of knols. Note that these are completely controlled by the particular authors, there is no oversight from the Knol team.

How do I get started writing my own knols?

Here are some links to knols that may be helpful to you:

Basics of Writing Knols

• Creating and publishing a new knol
• Entering text into a new or existing knol
• Using the formatting bar
  

Managing Knols

• Listing all of your knols
• Managing your author profile
  
• Managing versions of your knol
• Specifying settings for your knols

Advanced Knol Techniques

• Inserting Images
• Creating and formatting tables
• Creating links and references
• Working with the HTML source
• Changing your bio/profile

Best Practices: Writing Good Knols

• Things to do
• Things to avoid
• Publishing tips for authors

Knol Bugs and Current Issues

• Indexing and search
  
• Internationalization and localization
• Stability, reliability, latency
• Content Features
• Other Features

Where else can I discuss or get help on Knol?

There are several public forums for discussing Knol.

• Hosted by Google Groups
• Knol User Group (English)
  
• Knol User Group (German)
• Knol User Group (Français)
  
• Knol User Group (Spanish)

Google prepares to celebrate its tenth anniversary

As Google prepares to celebrate its tenth anniversary the company has an eye on its future and declared that for web users "the best is yet to come". "Internet search has just gotten started," Marissa Mayer, Google's head of search products, told the BBC.

"The best search engine would be your friend, with a photographic memory about you and know what you know. "It would have access to the world of information and retrieve facts from anywhere in the context of what you know already."

While employee number 22 admits that gazing into the future is an imprecise science akin to asking "Newton to predict Einstein", Ms Mayer said the one thing she does know is that the next 10 years for Google "are going to be really exciting with big advances in the world of search.

Ms Mayer told the BBC that she foresees cloud computing playing an important role in the lives of people in the next decade. Perhaps unsurprisingly it features high on Google's strategy map going into the next decade.

As its name implies cloud computing involves users storing data on the net and getting at it and the services they want anytime and anywhere thanks to ubiquitous high-speed networks.

"There is a real vision and real story developing around cloud computing and what it means in terms of how people should use their computers," said Ms Mayer. "We see the cloud as an amazing tool for everyone."

It was 10 years ago this month that Larry Page and Sergey Brin formed Google Inc to "organise all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" and do it better than anyone else. From humble beginnings in a garage in California's Menlo Park, the company is now one of the most recognised brands in the world. It boasts annual revenues of nearly $17bn (£9bn), profits of roughly $5bn (£2bn), growth of 35% and a worldwide workforce of over 19,000 full time employees.

Today it controls around 40% of online advertising as well as 70% of search. Its suite of products is ever expanding and this week it launched its own internet browser called Chrome to compete with Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox.

Google's code of conduct says "Don't be evil" but some fear its motives as it gathers extraordinary amounts of information on users habits, likes and dislikes. "Google is an incredible success story and has become the central nervous system for our digitally dependent lives but there is a price to pay for that," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the respected Centre for Digital Democracy.

"Google is not alone in invisibly structuring its operations so it can collect more and more information and data about all of us and deliver our online behaviour to a growing list of advertisers and fatten the Google bank account." Industry watchers maintain that in the last couple of years the tide has turned against Google which is "no longer taken for granted to be the good guy."

"To start with Google couldn't make any mistakes and was the favourite of everybody," said Laurent Lachal, an analyst at research firm Ovum. "Recently there has been a backlash with an element of paranoia developing against Google with some saying they are as evil as Microsoft. "The world is no longer at Google's feet and looking at the launch of Chrome there was a real deep scrutiny of the product and Google's motives which resulted in a change to the wording of its end user licence," he said.

Despite a change in attitude towards the company, Fortune Magazine reports that it tops polls of the most desired place to work. The firm is inundated with applications from people eager to sign up as a potential Googler. It is famed for its free lunches and dinners, onsite massages and softball games, but none of this is what persuaded Biz Stone to go and work at the famed Googleplex in 2003 to run the Blogger service that Google had bought.

He told the BBC: "I was attracted to the idea of working with a bunch of smart interesting people even though it meant moving from Boston to California and getting a new group of friends. It felt like a real adventure." Mr Stone left after two years for another start up which eventually resulted in the founding of micro blogging service Twitter. He left too early to turn his potentially lucrative share options into cash.

"Google was a great place to work because it was so brainy and it was like being at a college campus," he said. "Friends speak in alarming tones about Google having all this information about us, but I'm not worried because people are getting more and more open anyway and sharing their history, their photos, their opinions online more and more."

Google's rise to the top and its ability to maintain that position for so long is what analyst Laurent Lachal described as "no mean feat." But as it goes into its next decade with an eye to search and the world of cloud computing, he sees the world of enterprise as vital as the company goes forward. "Enterprise is crucial to the future success of the company because most of the applications and services they provide are used by the consumer market and not the enterprise market which represents millions in untapped potential." For Jeff Chester, privacy and security are dual issues, not just for Google, but for the industry as a whole.

"Google will be a digital king maker and it is possible the way it uses the information it has about us all might result in a privacy nightmare as it partners with business to monetise everything they do." In response Ms Mayer said that "everyday we strive to be the best and earn the trust of the user". But even amid all this sober assessment of Google's last ten years, Ms Mayer remembers the good old days of 120 hour weeks, fantastic cafeteria food and being interviewed while sitting at a ping pong table that doubled as a conference table.

Google Chrome Beta Now Available for Download

The new rival to Explorer and Firefox, now available for testing in Windows, makes up in exceptional speed for any minor shortcomings. And it's got a nice array of features. Google's much-anticipated Web browser, Chrome, arrived Tuesday like a shiny new sports car: It's streamlined, has some great new features and is very, very fast.

Chrome, the most talked-about new tech product since the iPhone, became available shortly before noon as a free download -- for Windows only -- in what is officially called a beta test version.

A short test drive shows that it could be a worthy contender for alpha browser.

Not that it won't take some getting used to. Unlike the familiar Internet Explorer and Firefox, which put functions such as Print and Save at the top, Chrome goes for a minimalist look, with controls hidden under the hood.

Its overall color scheme -- after-Labor Day white with sky-blue trim -- is a bit harsh on the eyes. Not everything worked right out of the showroom. Oddly, several of Google's own applications, such as Gmail, didn't function when we took the beta version out for a spin.

And although the company said it was working on Mac and Linux versions, no release dates were given. But Chrome's shortcomings and unfulfilled promises can be forgiven for one basic reason: This baby flies.

Even on a pedestrian Dell laptop, most pages popped up on the screen almost before the finger left the mouse.

If Explorer and Firefox are the Toyotas of browsers, Chrome is the sporty Mini Cooper.

Downloading the Chrome beta -- at www.google.com /chrome -- is painless and comes with a nice surprise for Firefox users. Their bookmarks, passwords and browsing history are automatically incorporated and ready for use.

Among the Chrome features:

* The standard home page is all about you. It includes links to the sites you visit the most and recent bookmarks.

* At start-up, you can pick up where you left off -- not just on the last page you visited but also on all the screens you had up when you shut down. Even better, you can tell Chrome which pages you want it to open every time you launch the program. This is especially handy for folks who regularly monitor numerous pages.

* The URL address bar at the top of the page doubles as the Google search field. For example, you could type www .latimes.com in the space to go directly to the site or type "Los Angeles Times" for a search.

It's a nice, streamlining touch, like the radio controls on the steering wheel.

* Functions such as Print and Save are hidden under a small pull-down window, thus giving the browser a cleaner look and more room for content.

If you don't like using the pull-down window, those functions can be reached with a right-click on the mouse.

* Like tinted windows, Chrome allows for privacy while cruising the Web. In incognito mode, sites are kept off the browsing history list.

* If you don't want to go to the same designated home page every time you start up, you can create several as shortcuts that live on your desktop. Click on one, and the browser opens up and takes you there.

All in all, a nice array of features.

But what's likely to make Explorer and Firefox especially nervous is Chrome's exceptional speed, which could leave the older browsers in rush-hour gridlock as it zooms on by.

Even problems can be amusing to discover.

An error page that cropped up in browsing resulted in this message:

"Aw, Snap! Something went wrong while displaying this webpage. To continue, press Reload."

Download Google Chrome

Google helping expand undersea cable infrastructure

Google is once again joining forces with foreign phone companies to help lay new undersea fiber-optic cables to bring faster Internet speeds to the far corners of the world.

On Tuesday, the Web site TeleGeography reported that Google has joined a consortium to build an intra-Asia undersea cable called the Southeast Asia Japan Cable to connect Japan, Guam, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Earlier this year, Google joined a group to build an undersea cable linking Japan to the United States. The consortium building the new intra-Asia cable has many of the same members as the consortium developed for the Japan-U.S. cable, including Google, Bharti, SingTel, KDDI, and Global Transit.

There is already a lot of competition along this Southeast Asia route, where several cables have already been planned. As a result, the new intra-Asia SAJC cable won't likely be ready until 2011, TeleGeography analyst Alan Mauldin said in the report.

In addition to helping new fiber under the ocean in Asia, Google is also supposedly looking for partners to help it build a new undersea cable to Africa. So far details have been scarce, but the South African Web site ITWeb reported earlier this month that Google recently met with South African ISP Internet Solutions, Telkom SA, MTN, and Vodacom in July.

The site also reported that Google supposedly met with two existing project leaders, South Africa's Broadband Infraco, which is trying to build a cable along the western coast of the continent to Europe, and Seacom, a privately owned system that will run along Africa's eastern coast, connecting Africa to India and Europe.

Google has been building fiber infrastructure domestically for the last few years. Most of this fiber infrastructure has been used to fuel internal network and data center growth. These new undersea cable investments could be an extension of this strategy. But it also is likely a way for Google to push more bandwidth and capacity into regions of the world where it sees the most growth potential for its services.

Google executives have said for a long time that developing markets offer the biggest opportunity for the company with billions of sets of new eyeballs in these regions poised to use Google's products and services in the future.

A Cuil reaction to new search engine

A new search engine launched yesterday. Cuil (that's "cool", phonetically) is today's buzz word on the web, primarily because the Cuil's founders - Tom Costello, Anna Patterson, Louis Monier and Russell Power - are respected search experts. Patterson, Monier and Power are former Google employees, and comparisons with the 300lb gorilla of internet search abound.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch compares sizes. At launch, Cuil boasted an index of 120 billion webpages. Cuil claims this makes it larger than Google, although Google begs to differ.

"Even if Cuil is bigger than Google, it doesn't mean Cuil is more relevant," points out Danny Sullivan on Search Engine Land. "Nor does it mean adding more documents in a "I'm bigger than you" game would improve the state of search overall."

Indexing is only part of the problem, says Om Malik at Gigaom. "Analysing and displaying all the information is extremely resource-intensive." Cuil claims to rank pages by content rather than the popularity rank. But this isn't a black and white issue, says Sullivan.

Google relies on more than just popularity to rank pages, and preliminary results suggest Cuil actually does use popularity to rank some sites - else a search for Harry Potter wouldn't bring up the official movie site at the top of the list.

That leaves a rather nice 'magazine style' results layout as one of Cuil's USPs - something that's likely to be loved or hated depending on the user.

But Cuil's real selling point might prove to be the privacy issue. It claims not to log IP information - something that Google, Yahoo and Teoma (the engine behind Ask) all do.

"That may be reassuring to some searchers, but to date, even scare stories about what Google could do (not that it does) hasn't kept searchers away from it," says Sullivan.

Cuil is no more than 24 hours old - Google has been with us for a decade. Clearly, it's too early to say whether the king of search is about to be usurped.

Visit Cuil

Italian Media Company Sues YouTube

Italian media conglomerate Mediaset Group has sued YouTube for €500 million (US$780 million), alleging the Google video-sharing site illegally hosts thousands of video clips that belong to Mediaset.

The suit, filed in civil court in Rome, names both YouTube and parent company Google. Mediaset operates television stations in Italy and Spain and produces films and TV shows. Its vice chairman, Pier Silvio Berlusconi, is the son of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is also a media tycoon.

The company claims that on June 10, there were 4,643 video clips on YouTube, totalling more than 325 hours of material, owned by Mediaset. The company believes that as a result, its three Italian TV stations have lost 315,672 viewing days. The €500 million claim does not include the loss of advertising revenues from the shows.

YouTube is already grappling with a $1 billion copyright lawsuit by U.S. media giant Viacom, which similarly claims its content is offered on YouTube without permission.

YouTube has said its policy is to remove infringing clips if media owners complain.

Google officials were not immediately available for comment.

Official Google Blog: Encouraging people to contribute knowledge

The web contains an enormous amount of information, and Google has helped to make that information more easily accessible by providing pretty good search facilities. But not everything is written nor is everything well organized to make it easily discoverable. There are millions of people who possess useful knowledge that they would love to share, and there are billions of people who can benefit from it. We believe that many do not share that knowledge today simply because it is not easy enough to do that. The challenge posed to us by Larry, Sergey and Eric was to find a way to help people share their knowledge. This is our main goal.

Earlier this week, we started inviting a selected group of people to try a new, free tool that we are calling "knol", which stands for a unit of knowledge. Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. The tool is still in development and this is just the first phase of testing. For now, using it is by invitation only. But we wanted to share with everyone the basic premises and goals behind this project.

The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors' names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors -- but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content. At the heart, a knol is just a web page; we use the word "knol" as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably. It is well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, and so on, and it will provide free hosting of the content. Writers only need to write; we'll do the rest.

A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read. The goal is for knols to cover all topics, from scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions. Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content. All editorial responsibilities and control will rest with the authors. We hope that knols will include the opinions and points of view of the authors who will put their reputation on the line. Anyone will be free to write. For many topics, there will likely be competing knols on the same subject. Competition of ideas is a good thing.

Knols will include strong community tools. People will be able to submit comments, questions, edits, additional content, and so on. Anyone will be able to rate a knol or write a review of it. Knols will also include references and links to additional information. At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with substantial revenue share from the proceeds of those ads.

Once testing is completed, participation in knols will be completely open, and we cannot expect that all of them will be of high quality. Our job in Search Quality will be to rank the knols appropriately when they appear in Google search results. We are quite experienced with ranking web pages, and we feel confident that we will be up to the challenge. We are very excited by the potential to substantially increase the dissemination of knowledge.

We do not want to build a walled garden of content; we want to disseminate it as widely as possible. Google will not ask for any exclusivity on any of this content and will make that content available to any other search engine.

As always, a picture is worth a thousands words, so an example of a knol is below (double-click on the image to see the page in full). The main content is real, and we encourage you to read it (you may sleep better afterwards!), but most of the meta-data -- like reviews, ratings, and comments -- are not real, because, of course, this has not been in the public eye as yet. Again, this is a preliminary version.

Google and Yahoo strike deal, Microsoft's out

Microsoft must be ticked. It didn’t get to buy Yahoo, or even just a slice of it. Instead, all its efforts only served to drive Yahoo into Google’s waiting arms. The Google/Yahoo deal, announced Thursday, doesn’t make a Goohoo (or would it be Yagle?) by any means. According to BusinessWeek, Yahoo will display some Google text ads for Yahoo search results. Yahoo will control when and how the ads show up, and says it stands to make up to $800 million from the deal.

It seems clear Yahoo will need to take further steps to get its house in order, but just what those steps might be is still up in the air. Also in question is what Carl Icahn will do now that Microsoft appears finished (again) with its attempts to bolster its own lackluster online offerings with a Yahoo purchase.

Icahn may still try to replace Yahoo’s board come August, but as his primary goal for the proxy battle was to push a Microsoft deal, it’s unclear if there would still be any point to such a move. The Wall Street Journal has him “studying the situation” but not giving any clues about where he’ll go.

Don’t assume anything is a done deal in this saga, though. According to the Silicon Alley Insider, there’s an escape clause in the search deal that allows Google to walk away if there’s a ‘change in control’ for Yahoo. Per the piece, that could mean Microsoft, News Corp., or Time Warner buying 35 percent of Yahoo’s voting stock, Microsoft picking up 5 percent of total equity, or other triggers. Looks like Google would get a $250 million parting gift from the purchasing company if that happens.

And then there’s the potential for government regulators to put the kibosh on the plan. BusinessWeek has Eric Schmidt arguing that the deal doesn’t require regulatory approval, but guesses that Microsoft will still push for close scrutiny.