2007 Roundup

2007 has been Blogger's most amazing year yet! As you'll remember, we began it just after we had taken the new version of Blogger out of beta. Here's a quick run-down of many of the fun things we did since then:
If you're not using any of these on your blog, click through to the various Buzz posts and Help articles that explain them, and check them out — they're really nifty. And many thanks for sticking with Blogger through the transition to the new version earlier this year — it's a powerful and scalable platform on which we'll be building lots of exciting new features in 2008!

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You Blog, We Listen

Two fixes just went live, before we sign off for a brief holiday break:
  • Unregistered commenters can once again provide an auto-linked URL [Help Group Thread]
  • Images in the Header page element will no longer be cropped vertically [Help Group thread]
We apologize for having broken these features for you. Your blogs and Help Group posts showed us the true extent to which you used and cared about these features, so please let us know if they're still being problematic.

Thanks for your patience!

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Google vs eBay Netball Challenge: The Re-Mix

Posted by Christine Knight, Creative Maximiser (retail, media and entertainment team)

After our crushing defeat to the advanced netball forces of eBay in May, we were keen to challenge the eBayers to a rematch to prove our supremacy on the netball court.

With new team members recruited since the last event, and the will to get back our trophy, we threw down the gauntlet once more.

The big rematch took place on December 12. eBayers turned out in large numbers to support their team, including Simon Smith, eBay VP. (Simon was also kind enough to run our half-time auction of a Google Doodle signed by the Google Doodler, Dennis Hwang). In addition to the Doodle auction, we held a half-time shooting competition, with the money raised from both events (over $2000) going to the RSPCA.

The eBay team started the game hard and fast, trying to wear us down with their superior fitness. They took an early advantage of four points while we Googlers were still finding our feet.

Further into the quarter though, we made our comeback, gaining a small lead and keeping it for the rest of the game.

Finally, victory and a large shiny trophy were ours. A fitting end to 2007!

Google centre, Foxy, and eBay centre, Phuong, try intimidation tactics before the game.



Action close-up!
Wrestling the trophy back from eBay

Smiling, happy Googlers and eBayers

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A change is as good as a holiday

Posted by Carl Sjogreen, Group Product Manager, Australia & New Zealand

With summer holidays coming up, I regret to say that we aren't slowing down - we continue to work on finding the best ways to make your experience on Google as easy and useful as possible. To this end, you might have noticed a slight change to the Google Australia homepage to help you better navigate our site and find the information you're looking for.

We have introduced a new navigation bar at the top of the page to provide easier navigation to your favorite Google products, such as Google Maps and our popular email product, Gmail.

As well as being able to use this bar to navigate to your favourite Google products, using this navigation bar, you can "drill down" to specific types of information when you search. For instance, if you search for [Great Barrier Reef], you can click on the links for "web," "images", "maps, "news", "video" and "more" (under which you can see results in books, blogs, scholarly articles and more) to immediately find more results.

This is part of our vision of consistent navigation across all Google search properties. We recognise that the search result you are looking for may not be a web page - it may be a geographic location, a news article, an image, a blog post, a video or in a book. The new navigation bar makes it easier for you to find exactly what you want with a single click of the mouse.

Hope you find the new look and feel useful and, as always, feedback is most welcome!

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OpenID Commenting

After just two short weeks of testing on Blogger in draft, OpenID commenting is now available for all Blogger blogs. This means that your friends and readers can leave authenticated comments on your blog using their blog URLs from OpenID-enabled services such as WordPress.com, LiveJournal, and AOL Journals, or with their AOL/AIM accounts.


We've chosen a few popular OpenID providers to highlight on the comments form, but OpenID is, well, "open"! You can use any OpenID service to post a comment by choosing "Any OpenID" and filling in your OpenID URL.

You'll see the OpenID icon (OpenID icon) next to the names of commenters who posted with their OpenID. This icon assures you that the person who posted the comment is the same person blogging at the URL their name links to. Say goodbye to comment spoofing!

Turning on OpenID commenting on your blog

If you've set your "Who Can Comment?" setting to "Anyone," OpenID will be enabled on your comments pages right now! To change your comments settings, go to your blog's Settings | Comments tab in Blogger, and select "Registered Users" or "Anyone" in the Who Can Comment setting:


Getting an OpenID URL for your site

Blogger provides helpful shortcuts to WordPress.com, LiveJournal, TypeKey, and AOL, but you can use any URL that you control as your OpenID URL by using delegation.

For example, say you have a LiveJournal account with the username "brad." This gives you an OpenID URL at http://www.livejournal.com/users/brad/. You could comment with this URL, but you'd rather have your comments link to your homepage at http://bradfitz.com/.

By copying two lines of HTML into the <head> tag of http://bradfitz.com/, you can turn it into an OpenID URL. Then, you can use http://bradfitz.com/ to sign your comments, while logging in to LiveJournal when you do so.

Delegation gives you complete control over what URL you use to represent yourself online, and complete control over what service you want to use to login with. Sam Ruby wrote a great article about OpenID delegation that we recommend if you're interested.

LiveJournal, AOL, WordPress.com, and TypeKey aren't the only OpenID providers out there. If you need an OpenID account, you can also get one from myOpenID, Verisign, or any other service that implements OpenID.

The "Other" URL field

Right now, the only way to add a URL to your name when commenting is to sign your comment with OpenID. We apologize for removing the URL field from the comments form prematurely two weeks ago. That was a mistake on our part that came from launching OpenID support on Blogger in draft.

Ironically, our testing of OpenID, a feature that lets you use accounts from all over the web to comment on Blogger, made it appear that we were trying to force you into getting a Google Account. We regret this appearance, since we're strong supporters of OpenID and open web standards in general.

If you haven't set up OpenID, you can still link to your blog — or any webpage, for that matter — by using the standard <a> tag inside the comment form.

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Doodle 4 Google: The winner is...

Posted by Ashley Gorringe, Doodle 4 Google Team

We were thrilled on Wednesday to announce the winners of Doodle 4 Google, our initiative for young Australians to draw their own version of the Google logo around the theme of 'My Australia'.

All four age group winners were decided by the Australian public in an online vote over the past month and Dennis Hwang, the original Google Doodler, selected the overall winner from these. Dennis said, "Choosing the successful entry was not easy. I was blown away by the creativity of all the doodles and wide array of Australian imagery which was used."

The national winner was Janelle San Juan, a 12 year old student from The School of the Good Shepherd in Victoria. The title of her drawing was 'A scene of sheer formality' and among other things, incorporated the distinctive beach sheds found at Brighton Beach in Victoria. Janelle's doodle will appear on the Google Australia homepage on Australia Day 2008. Dennis noted: "Her design was both unique and at the same time instantly recognisable as being Australian. The depiction of the sun, the kangaroo sign in the outback, the bathing box at the beach and the people relaxing in the shade of the tree make this the perfect doodle for Australia Day."

Congratulations Janelle! (She also wins $10,000 of technology equipment for her school and a MacBook Pro).


The other age group winners were Clayton Rowlings from Tasmania (Years 1-3), Madeline Spooner from South Australia (Years 7-8) and Angela Jones from South Australia (Years 9-10). Brilliant job by these guys who all win an interactive whiteboard for their schools.

To acknowledge the huge achievement on the part of our 32 finalists, we brought them to Sydney from all over Australia for our grand finale. The culmination of the event was our prizegiving, when Dennis announced the overall winner.

I'm sure many of you are already familiar with the various doodles, but we'll be putting the winners up on our site in the next couple of days. And don't forget to visit the Google Australia homepage on Australia Day next year to see the winning doodle taking centre stage.


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Engineers should not wear suits

Posted by Raul Vera, Engineering Manager - Geo

It's against the laws of nature. If God had wanted engineers to wear suits, he would have given us social skills and motor coordination. I violated this law on Tuesday night, and woe befell me.

Google Maps won the Australian PC Authority Magazine award for Best Web Application (we were co-winners with Facebook). We were naturally thrilled to get this recognition. Our Head of Engineering, Alan Noble and I attended the awards ceremony.

The invite made it clear that this was a gala event, in the Grand Ballroom of the Star City Casino, for which the attire was "Suited and Booted" for men, and "Dressed to Impress" for women. In a fit of conformity, I chose to wear a suit. Once wearing the suit, I couldn't bring myself to take my grotty old backpack, as it really would ruin the look. Bad move.

The awards ceremony was great. The wine hit the spot, the food good, and the people at our table friendly. When the Google Maps award was announced, I went up to accept it and was photographed with the magazine editor, just as I was meant to, then came back and sat down.

So the whole thing was winding down just fine, when I noticed that some of the other award recipients had been given protective boxes to put their heavy, pointy lucite awards into. I looked around for someone distributing the boxes, but the room was emptying. So I picked up the award and my umbrella, and headed out the door. Outside, the issue of PC Authority featuring the award winners was available. So I grabbed one and headed down to the Star City light rail station. I caught the train, put the award, magazine, and umbrella on the seat next to me, and pulled out my book to read. When we reached my station, I plopped the book onto the pile and picked up the lot by basically wrapping it all up in the magazine, then got off the train.

Except the award is heavy, the magazine is slick, and the book was one thing too many. The award slid out the front and fell, pointy end down, onto the train platform, which is made of concrete. Oops. Not so pointy any more. The photo shows the award, with a severely dented corner in front, a rather mangled hole of missing lucite at the back, and grotty scratches on the front right edge.


Why do I blame the suit? Because if I hadn't worn one I would have taken my backpack, and the award would have been safely tucked inside it next to the laptop, not tumbling onto a train platform. Geekiness was conserved, because only a clumsy geek would try to walk while carrying that pile of stuff wrapped in a magazine.

So the suit goes back into the closet until the next funeral.

Ed: Last awards ceremony you get sent to....;)

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Blogging from YouTube

As you videobloggers already know, you can upload your videos directly to Blogger. But for the rest of the video watchers out there, did you know you can just as easily post YouTube videos to your blog?

All you need to do is set up your YouTube account to post videos to your blog using the "Share" button. You'll enter your Blogger information once, and from then on it's one-click sharing from any YouTube video page!



See our help article for full instructions.

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Show off your photos with the new Slideshow

Take a look at our latest tool for your blog: the Slideshow page element. This feature lets you add a slick little slideshow of your photos from Picasa Web Albums, Flickr, Photobucket, or any site that supports Media RSS.

The photos will show up in your blog’s sidebar, gently fading into one another. Your readers will be able to go forward and backward, pause, and click through to the photo’s web page.

You can also make a slideshow of public photos based on a tag or label.

Like all page elements, Slideshow requires that your blog is using Layouts templates. Still need to switch? Read our help article on the topic.

In case you missed it: Want to see everyone’s photos? Watch Blogger Play.

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Great to be on board...

Posted by Karim Temsamani, General Manager, Google Australia and New Zealand

It's clear that the volume of online content is increasing at an incredible rate - Google's core job is to find needles in an ever-growing haystack. So I thought there's no better way to start my time as the new GM of Google Australia and NZ than to contribute to that haystack with a post on our blog.

The online ecosystem in Australia is buoyant at present, and I'm buoyant about its growth in the coming years. As you know, Australians are spending more time online, purchasing products, reading blogs, starting websites, running businesses, and using technology to find and share information.

To match this, Google is investing significantly in our team in Australia, as Australian consumers and businesses navigate the growing online world.

We want to provide you with more of those "aha!" moments - whether it's finding the exact search result you want, finding driving directions and local businesses on Google Maps, getting instantaneous news feeds on your iGoogle page, or collaborating in real time with friends in other countries through Google Docs. Behind the scenes, there's a large team here that is working to ensure that you get access to the latest Google products, and that we continually improve our existing products.

At the same time, we want to continue providing small and large Australian businesses with the opportunity to connect with customers, and use our range of technology and products to grow their businesses.

So as Christmas parties and the festive season in Australia are just starting to kick off, my work is just beginning. It's a thrill to start at Google and I promise to grow that haystack a little more, with more posts here.

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Australians care for humanity….and the election!

Posted by Karina Wells, AdWords Team

In the month of October, Australians had a great interest in humanitarian issues. Searches varied from charities that aim to help women and children all over the world to concern about bushfire and floods. The Australian October Zeitgeist reflected the top fifteen gaining Google search queries for the month of October.

It seems Australians have a strong social conscience, with Unicef coming in as the number one gaining search query. Interest in floods and bushfire was also prevalent with the bushfire season approaching.

The election was playing on peoples minds. Labor leader Kevin Rudd’s website Kevin 07 proved to be of interest, while Parliament house entered the minds of many.

Always a favourite with free home delivery, Krispy Kreme doughnuts were desired by many. While munching on Krispy Kremes, what better to do than watch Evan Almighty or the preview of the Sex and the City movie, or perhaps sample the latest album from alternative rock band 30 seconds to Mars to be released in November.

Upcoming Christmas school holidays brought about interest in Movie World. Although daylight savings got people searching - do we turn our clocks forwards or backwards?

Australians in the market for a new car looked for Toyota Australia for more information, however those after something more compact went for the scooter option instead.

With Christmas on the way and lots of presents to buy, job hunters looked for the Jobs NSW website.

For breaking news and obscure information alike, people around the world search on Google. What follows is a summary of Google Zeitgeist results for the top gainers on Google.com.au in the month of October.

For more information, visit the Google Zeitgeist and Google Trends.

October's top gainers:

Unicef
Scooter
Floods
Jobs NSW
Toyota Australia
Bushfire
30 seconds to Mars
Evan Almighty
Movie World
Daylight savings
Krispy Kreme
Parliament house
Sex and the City movie
Kevin 07
Election

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To-Do List (the book)

Sasha Cagen’s To-Do List blog (which you may recognize as a blog of note) has just been released as a book! Both blog and book are collections of, well, to-do lists, mailed or emailed in by people. Think PostSecret meets Getting Things Done.

Watch the trailer, read the blog, buy the book, and make sure that you have an awesome screen name.



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The Generosity of Bloggers

The results are in from the Blogger Challenge on DonorsChoose.org. Over 100 blogs and their readers helped to raise $420,000 for classroom projects benefitting more than 75,000 students in low-income communities. For more details and a list of some of the top blogs involved, check out the Official Google Blog.

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New from AdSense: video units

AdSense recently introduced a feature called video units, that lets you include relevant YouTube video on your blog, and make money from ads on it. Here’s what they have to say about it:
"We're excited about the launch of video units -- a new way to enrich your blog with quality, relevant video content in an embedded, customizable player. Simply embed a snippet of code and have relevant YouTube partner content streamed to your blog. You can choose categories of video to target to your site, select content from individual YouTube partners, or have video automatically targeted to your blog's content. Companion and text overlay ads are relevant and non-intrusive. To further blend the YouTube player into your blog, you can also customize the color scheme and layout as well as choose from three different player sizes."
AdSense Help has some more information about video units. Once you’ve created the code for a video unit, you can easily add it to your blog’s template using an HTML/JavaScript page element.

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Female IT students: A different type of Google Scholar

Posted by Will Blott, University Programs Manager

Google Sydney was recently taken over by emerging female leaders in computer science and related fields as the second annual Google Australia Anita Borg Scholarship retreat was held. 17 female students attended this year – as well as several female Googlers from both Australia and overseas - for two days of networking, discussions, learning and of course socialising.

Topics covered many areas from the technical – including user experience, software engineering and product engineering – to more broader discussions on the choices and challenges facing women in computer science. This year’s retreat was capped off by a celebratory private dinner cruise around Sydney Harbour.



The Google Anita Borg Scholarship started in the United States in 2004 in association with the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology to honor the legacy of Anita Borg and her efforts to encourage women to pursue careers in computer science and technology. Australia became the first country outside of the US to launch the scholarship in 2006 and this year was extended to students studying in New Zealand also.

Each scholarship recipient is awarded a $5,000 scholarship plus an expenses paid trip to the Grace Hopper conference in the US and the retreat in Sydney. Every finalist is awarded $1000 plus an expenses paid trip to the retreat also. To be eligible, students had to have had at least one year of undergraduate study remaining and be enrolled in study for the 2007 - 2008 academic year at an university in Australia or New Zealand. The scholarship this year received applications from students at 18 different universities across Australia and New Zealand.

Most finalists arrived at Google for the retreat as strangers. All left as friends.

We are pleased to announce this year’s scholarship recipients as Eva Cheng, University of Wollongong and Tracy Footitt, University of Western Australia .

We are pleased to announce this year’s finalists as:
  • Anita Rahman, Monash University
  • Barsha Karki, University of Technology, Sydney
  • Flora Salim, Monash University
  • Gauri Pradhan, University of Technology, Sydney
  • Janet Saw, Monash University
  • Jessica Manea, University of Western Australia
  • Jette Viethen, Macquarie University
  • Li Sun, RMIT University
  • Nandika Thapar, University of Wollongong
  • Nandita Sharma, Australian National University
  • Valentina Haziri, Monash University
  • Valerie de Silva, RMIT University
  • Vineetha Menon, University of Technology, Sydney
  • Wai Yau, RMIT University
Congratulations to all!

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REA Group and Google Maps

Posted by Richard Suhr, Enterprise Team

You probably know a lot about Google Maps, our free online Australian mapping service. We've written about the many great new features on this blog.

But did you know that we also have an enterprise version of Google Maps, for businesses that want to use Google Maps on their websites, with full enterprise-level support? A great example is when you visit a real estate site - by using Google Maps, the website owner can show you the property location, with the ability to zoom in or see satellite views.

We're thrilled to announce a new Enterprise Agreement with REA Group, which runs www.realestate.com.au and 16 other sites in 9 countries. REA Group uses Google Maps on its property details pages to show home hunters where properties are located. See an example here (nice property - we can all dream!)

Under the new agreement, the REA Group will begin using Google Maps in all its websites around the world (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Hong Kong, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom) and will continue to use Google Maps in Australia and New Zealand.

We're looking forward to developing our relationship with REA Group and to playing a small part in helping home-hunters find (literally) the house of their dreams.

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Vote 1 Your favourite doodle!

Posted by Ashley Gorringe, Doodle4Google Team

We're very excited that the top 32 entries from Doodle 4 Google My Australia can now be viewed online on the official website.

If you're not familiar with the initiative, we asked students across Australia to do their own version of the Google logo around the theme of 'My Australia'. Students from Years 1 to 10 were divided up across four age groups for each of the eight Australian states and territories. The ultimate winner, as chosen by Dennis Hwang, the original Google Doodler, will have their drawing shown on the homepage on Australia Day 2008, while the national age group winners will receive technology prizes for their schools.

We received thousands of entries, from which our expert judging panel had the challenging job of selecting the top 32, one from each age group in the eight states and territories. Our judges included Dare Jennings, cofounder of Mambo Surfwear, Geoff Buckley, managing director of Tourism Australia and Michael Grose, parenting and educational expert.

The drawings we received ran the gamut of Australian symbols. These included the beach, barbqecues, native animals and indigenous art.

You'll be able to vote for your favourite doodle over the next four weeks. We encourage you to check out the amazing creativity of Australian students and choose your favourite in each age category.

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Subscribe to Comments - by email!

Last night we pushed a small-but-crazy-useful new feature for all Blogger blogs: subscribing to comments via email. This makes it a lot easier to stay in the conversational loop after you’ve commented on a post somewhere. For example, you could follow along with these discussions from some recent Blogs of Note:
You'll notice the new checkbox at the bottom of the Comment page, in the identity box:
In order to receive follow-ups via email, you’ll need to post your comment using your Google Account. We only send comments to your verified Google Account so that someone else can’t use this feature to send you email you didn’t sign up for.

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Lads Mags and Education: September Zeitgeist

Posted by Mel-Ann Chan, AdSense Team

[Zoo mag] came in as the top gaining search term on Google Australia in September. The website (which is also a weekly men’s magazine) claims to showcase “sex, sport and stupidity from around the web” – no wonder it was so popular! Those after a dose of more cerebral news looked up the [Herald Sun] and tuned into [2UE] radio.

The new television show [Summer Heights] High was a favourite for many in September. Chris Lilley’s creation features the antics of Ja’mie, Jonah and Mr G, in a “typical” Australian school. Another popular show in September was SBS’s [Mythbusters], the show that uses science to test myths about everyday life, often with unpredictable and hysterical outcomes.

Amongst all the stress of end of year 12 exams, many teenagers from Sydney have been considering the [University of Western Sydney] as a possible university selection, with some even trying for [scholarships].

Footy is always important in Australia, so it was no surprise that many people wanted to know more about the [Manly] team that made it to the NRL final. Swimming fans checked out what retired world champion [Ian Thorpe] was up to.

Out of water and onto the track, those with a need for speed checked out the latest [sports cars] online, while gamers built up the hype for the latest release of the strategic war game from Xbox 360, [Halo Wars].

Some people may not have been too happy in their jobs, and needed some inspiration on writing a [resignation letter]. What better thing to do after resigning than go on a holiday? [New Caledonia] was a popular option, with its unique blend of French and Asian culture.

Victorians looked forward to celebrating the fifth birthday of [Federation Square] and the nuclear disaster in [Chernobyl] from 1986 was remembered.

For breaking news and obscure information alike, people around the world search on Google. What follows is a summary of Google Zeitgeist results for the top gainers on Google.com.au in the month of September.

For more information, visit the Google Zeitgeist and Google Trends.

September's top gainers:

1. Zoo mag
2. University of Western Sydney
3. New Caledonia
4. 2UE
5. Herald Sun
6. Resignation letter
7. Federation Square
8. Ian Thorpe
9. Chernobyl
10. Manly
11. Scholarships
12. Mythbusters
13. Sports cars
14. Summer Heights
15. Halo Wars

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Environmental Blog Roundup

In honor of Blog Action Day, we wanted to highlight some of the many Blogger-powered blogs that are focused on the environment, climate change, and sustainability. Want to see more Blog Action Day participants from around the web? Find them on Blog Search.
  • Cleantech Blog - Commentary on technologies, news, and issues relating to next generation energy and the environment.
  • The Conscious Earth - Earth-centered news for the health of air, water, habitat and the fight against global warming.
  • Earth Meanders - Earth essays placing environmental sustainability within the context of other contemporary issues.
  • Environmental Action Blog - Current environmental issues and green energy news.
  • The Future is Green - Thoughts on the coming of a society that is in balance with nature.
  • The Green Skeptic - Devoted to challenging assumptions about how we live on the earth and protect our environment.
  • Haute*Nature - Ecologically based creative ideas, art & green products for your children, home and lifestyle, blending style with sustainability.
  • The Lazy Environmentalist - Sustainable living made easy.
  • Lights Out America - A grassroots community group organizing nationwide energy savings events.
  • The Nature Writers of Texas - The best nature writing from the newspaper, magazine, blog and book authors of the Lone Star State.
  • Rachel Carson Centennial Book Club - Considering the legacy of Rachel Carson's literary and scientific contributions with a different book each month.
  • Sustainablog - News, information and personal meanderings related to environmental and economic sustainability, green and sustainable business, and environmental politics.
  • These Come From Trees - An experiment in environmentalism, viral marketing, and user interface design with the goal of reducing consumer waste paper.

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Blogger Play, in Gadget Form

Have you been enjoying Blogger Play? We introduced it here last month and so far it’s been mesmerizing viewers across the Internet with the latest photos as they’re uploaded to Blogger blogs.

Today we’re letting you take Blogger Play with you to your iGoogle homepage with the Blogger Play Google Gadget:

Add to Google
Click the button to get Play on your homepage!

We also took the opportunity to add keyboard control to the big version of Blogger Play: spacebar plays and pauses, and the left and right arrow keys move backwards and forwards.

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PostSecret: A Lifetime of Secrets

Congratulations to Frank Warren, whose 4th PostSecret book, A Lifetime of Secrets, comes out today and is climbing up the Amazon bestseller charts (it’s #50 as of this writing)!

Take a look at its trailer:

PostSecret is by far one of the most interesting blogs, a showcase of tiny, beautifully-presented personal stories. It has become a favorite Sunday read for many of us on the team. Read it!

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Blogging for the Environment

Bloggers Unite - Blog Action Day October 15, a week from today, is Blog Action Day, and the theme this year is the environment. If you have a blog and want to join in, all you have to do is use that day to post something related to the environment, in whatever way, shape, or form you prefer. You can pick an environmental issue that has meaning for you and let us know why it's important. Organize a beach or neighborhood cleanup and tell us about it. If you're into fiction writing, give us a story with an environmental theme. Have a podcast, videoblog, or photoblog? Join the fun! The idea here is to have a mass effect on public awareness by sharing as many ideas in as many ways as possible.

If you're game for participating, go register your blog with the 7,000+ other blogs (with 5 million readers!) that are already signed up. Also, see the Blog Action Day blog for more on how bloggers can change the world.

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DonorsChoose and your blog

From the Google Blog, a post you should all check out:
When it comes to philanthropy, everyone’s got something different to give – some people have money, others have time, and bloggers have devoted readers. The creative folks at DonorsChoose have a few ideas about how bloggers can help students and teachers.

In case you’re not familiar with DonorsChoose, it’s a site where teachers post needs they have for their classrooms, and donors fund those projects directly. If you’ve got a blog, a website, or even an email account, you can help by creating what’s called a challenge. Just pick some of your favorite projects and challenge your family, friends, and readers to fund them. If you’ve got a Blogger account, it’s easy to add your challenge to your blog in just a few clicks.

To support their recent expansion to schools all across the U.S., the DonorsChoose team is holding a little competition, keeping track of which bloggers and webmasters drive the most funding to schools.

We think this is a cool idea, so we want to help it succeed. We’re going to reward the winning bloggers with exactly what they gave to DonorsChoose, students, and teachers: traffic. The competition will remain open until the end of October - we'll then take a look to see who has helped raise the most money in each of the eight DonorsChoose challenge categories. We’ll post links to the winners’ blogs here, and we’ll also throw in a $500 gift certificate for each winner to spend on DonorsChoose.

So here’s our challenge to you: go create a challenge on DonorsChoose.

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Get your cricket scores here

Posted by Deepak Ramanathan, Business Marketing Manager

With Australia facing a do-or-die game against Sri Lanka in the Twenty20 world championship, cricket fever is upon Australia agan. To make it easier to keep up to date with the latest scores, we've simplified your search for cricket scores. Just type cricket in a Google search box and you'll see a brief score of all the current cricket matches. A single click will also give you access to a detailed cricket score card.

Type [australia cricket] or [cricket score australia pakistan] to get results for Australian matches. Of course, feel free to replace Australia with the country of your choice for country-specific results.

We hope Australian cricket fans will find this feature useful; we think it's absolutely maaaaarvellous.

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On the hustings

Posted by Julian Sonego and Rob Shilkin, Google Australia election team

You can be sure this year as the parties get out on the hustings, babies will be kissed, doors knocked and hands vigorously shook. But this Australian election campaign is already a lot different to others, with digital media playing a new and important role.

At Google, we believe that democracy on the web works, and also that the web can work for democracy.

Today, we proudly announced the launch of Google Australia's election website, allowing Australian voters to have an intimate look at the parties, candidates and election issues all in one Google location. We were delighted to have Joe Hockey and Peter Garrett in attendance, as well as video messages from the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition.



These products, spanning across our Search, Maps, News, video, Earth, Trends, and iGoogle properties, will allow Australians to organise and digest election information more easily than ever. You can see the political landscape in Google Maps. You can access the latest news and information on your personalised Google homepage. Or you can have your say at Google's Australia Votes channel on YouTube. And much more.

Here's a demo of the new tools.

A world first for Google, these products were developed right here in the Australian office. We hope you enjoy them and that they help you make your vote all the more informed.


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Blogger Play: Watch the blogs go by

Today we’re pleased to launch Blogger Play, a neat little toy we’ve cooked up to show you photos and blog posts as you’ve never seen them before.

Image credit: kiwisweden

Shortly after Blogger launched photo uploading two years ago, one of our engineers whipped up a web page that would show us the pictures that were being uploaded in real time. The result was fun, often beautiful, but above all, compelling. We couldn’t stop watching.

Over the years we’ve kept this photo scroller as part of the Blogger offices, on a monitor or projector, as an interesting (distracting?) slideshow, and a reminder of the diversity and vivaciousness of Blogger blogs. The fame of the scroller spread within Google, until one day we were asked, “so, when are you launching this?”

“Um...,” we replied. But we knew a good idea when we heard one. We got our UI people to come up with buttons and fadey effects and we got our engineers to make the whole thing fast and robust. A bit of work later, and now we can share it with all of you:


Blogger Play will show you a never-ending stream of images that were just uploaded to public Blogger blogs. You can click the image to be taken directly to the blog post it was uploaded to, or click “show info” to see an overlay with the post title, a snippet of the body, and some profile information about the blogger who uploaded it. We also wrote a Blogger Play FAQ with more information.

A caveat: we use many techniques, including Google’s SafeSearch technology, to keep the images clean. Nevertheless, on rare occasions an image that you may find vulgar or obscene will slip through our algorithmic filters. Google does not pre-screen the images that appear in Blogger Play, nor is it responsible for their content. To report a terms of service violation, you may fill out this contact form.

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FoxyTunes adds Blogger support

Hey Firefox users! The folks at FoxyTunes just added Blogger support to their Firefox plugin, which you can use to do a number of things, such as:
  • Control your favorite music-playing app from your browser
  • See what you’re currently listening to
  • Append your current song to the bottom of new blog posts
Check it out!

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August's top gaining queries

Posted by Diana Starmer, AdWords Associate

Well it’s plain to see, Aussies just want to have fun! The top gaining searches on Google for the month of August reflected an interest in the arts, entertainment and travel.

It’s time to start planning that summer holiday! Australian Google users got right into it in August, planning for school holidays, searching for travel agents on Google and checking out what deals Flight Centre had to offer.

Entertainment is always an important part of Australian life. Art buffs were interested in Van Gogh and the recent discovery that “Head of a man” – which has been on display in the National Gallery of Victoria for over sixty years and thought to be worth $20 million – was in fact not painted by Van Gogh as previously thought. Still on art, sculptor and artist Andy Goldsworthy’s trip to Australia sparked interest in his work on Mount Victor Station.

Marilyn Monroe is still managing to capture the hearts of Australian Google users, coming in as the second top gaining query; with the sassy UK model/actress, Kelly Brook taking out the number one spot for August.

Many Australian’s were keen to freshen up their eyesight with some new glasses from OPSM perhaps to read Bram Stoker’s terrifying classic, Dracula or to watch Randwick Girls’/Boys’ high schools take out first place at the Sydney Rock Eisteddfod.

Jackass star Johnny Knoxville and his crazy antics are always a source of interest for, well, most people really! Survivor fans were desperate to find out when the new season was starting and Dr Who fans wanted to know more about star Billie Piper.

Human rights were on the minds of many. And shareholders' rights were also probably top of mind for people searching for the Coles Group.

For breaking news and obscure information alike, people around the world search on Google. What follows is a summary of Google Zeitgeist results for the top gainers on Google.com.au in the month of August.

For more information, visit the Google Zeitgeist and Google Trends

Top Google.com.au Gainers for August:

Kelly Brook
Marilyn Monroe
Andy Goldsworthy
Van Gogh
Human rights
OPSM
School holidays
Flight Centre
Dracula
Travel agents
Johnny Knoxville
Coles group
Rock Eisteddfod
Billie Piper
Survivor

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Rugby World Cup on iGoogle

Posted by James Toepfer, Industry Marketing Manager - Technology

As you've read below, we have a large contingent of Wallabies fans at Google Australia.

For rugby fans, we have great news. With the World Cup underway (and a crushing victory over Japan in the books), you can follow all the action by visiting www.google.com.au/rugby2007.

Gadgets containing live scores, team information, rugby news, stadium locations, local information, rugby fan videos, results and rankings are all available by clicking on the link to add the “Rugby 2007” tab to your personalised homepage. The Rugby 2007 tab then becomes a part of your personalised iGoogle page, which will appear whenever you visit Google.


There's also a gadget called “Make some noise”. It lets you encourage your team (and makes your allegiances clear to your co-workers) by clicking on its flag. The winning team is the one that scores the greatest number of clicks.

So make some noise for the Wallabies and keep up with the latest on the Rugby World Cup with Google!

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Agency newsletter launched

Posted by Guy Gibbs, Head of Agency Relations

Google has a growing Agency team in Australia that is focused on growing online advertising in conjunction with Australia's advertising agencies. Online advertising is a dynamic, growing and very competitive sector and we're excited to be part of it.

This week, Google launched the first edition of our Australian and NZ Agency Newsletter.

The newsletter will be a fortnightly update of all things Google, which we hope will keep agencies informed about new product launches, new policies and Google advertising solutions in general. Comments or suggestions can be sent through to us here.

Some of the other things we help out agencies with include:
  • providing in-depth training;
  • helping agencies with client pitches;
  • providing technical tools and support;
  • market and industry education; and
  • GAP accreditation.
The tools that we provide give agencies more insight into their clients' campaigns which ultimately benefits agencies, their clients and helps Internet users get more relevant and useful advertisements.

Agencies are a huge part of Google's business and we hope that the newsletter will help strengthen our ties with them and continue to build our mutually beneficial relationship.

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Last week to get Doodles in!

Posted by Ashley Gorringe, Doodle 4 Google Team

Entries for Doodle 4 Google are about to close this Friday 7 September and I wanted to give you an update on the initiative.

We were overwhelmed by the response - over 2400 Australian schools from across the country registered, which is amazing!

We've sent out certificates for the students who created each school's top 8 entries, plus bookmarks for all students who participated. In addition, we've been filming students from schools around Australia as they discuss their drawings and what Australia means to them. We've managed to get out to schools in Perth, Darwin, Alice Springs as well as Melbourne and Sydney. This video will be up on the Doodle 4 Google mini-site in time for the online voting in mid-October.

Students at Mt Lawley Primary School, Perth

In terms of next steps, our expert judging panel will be getting together in the next few weeks to assess all the entries and arrive at our state and territory winners.

We're really looking forward to seeing everyone's entries at the end of this week.

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Wallaby coach John Connolly speaks to Google

Posted by Christine Knight, Creative Maximiser (Retail, Media and Entertainment team)

The Sydney Speaker Series at the Sydney Googleplex recently kicked off with John Connolly, coach of the Australian Wallabies.

With the Rugby World Cup starting this weekend, it was great timing to have the Wallabies coach speak with us. John took time off from his hectic schedule to speak to Australian Googlers on topics such as team work and strategy and how he intends to lead the Wallabies to victory in the World Cup in France.



As a player, John played hooker with the Brothers club in Brisbane for more than a decade as well as a stint in Darwin where he also began his coaching career at Casuarina, leading the Cougars to a premiership. Returning to Brisbane in 1983, he coached Brothers Reserve Grade for three seasons and two premierships and then was appointed as the Queensland coach from 1989 to 2000. In February 2006, with more than 15 years coaching experience, John took on the role as the Australian Wallabies coach.

John spoke about his personal philosophies and gave us some insight into his approach to coaching and life. There was a big turn out for the talk, no doubt due to the many rugby fans in the office who are excited about the World Cup.



John - thanks for speaking to us and go the Wallabies!

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Blogger and malware

You may have seen stories in the news recently about malware on Blogger, such has this one from the BBC or this one from Committee to Protect Bloggers. Blogger was not compromised. Instead, the blog posts are from bloggers whose machines were compromised by a Trojan horse. These bloggers had their mail2blogger email addresses in their computers' address books (a perfectly legitimate use case), so when the malicious software spammed every address in their address book with its content, a copy of that email was posted to their blog.

We are in the process of notifying impacted bloggers and recommending that they scan their computers and run current anti-virus software, available in the Google Pack. This is also good advice for all computer users, especially those who may have clicked the links in the emails sent by the virus. For more information about computer security, check out upenn.edu and us-cert.gov.

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Lights, camera, Gmail!

Posted by Julian Sonego, Consumer Marketing Manager

Last month, we invited you to join the Gmail collaborative video, pull out your video cameras and help us imagine how an email message travels around the world.

Two Rubik's cubes, a few jaunts in a bottle, beautiful sand animation, and one dog's trip to the Southernmost point of the continental US later, we'd received more than 1,100 fantastic clips from Gmail fans from more than 65 countries.

We're delighted to have received 4 clips from Australia and 2 from New Zealand.

It was impossible to fit all of the great submissions into one cut, but after hours of fun watching jugglers, firemen, camel-riders, and original animation, the edited highlights were spliced together into this video and the Google Maps API was used to put together a map showing where many of the clips came from.

You can see the final video and the Aussie /Kiwi contributions here.




A big thank you to everyone who participated!

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Get more out of your AdSense!

Mel Ann Chan, AdSense Account Associate

Web publishers and bloggers - when was the last time you took a look at your Google AdSense performance? The AdSense team here in Sydney is really excited to be holding its first ever optimisation webinar for existing AdSense publishers on the 19th of September. It will be streamed live online.

We'll be sharing our most up-to-date, revenue-enhancing tips, as well as giving you the opportunity to ask questions of our optimisation specialists on all aspects of AdSense performance. We're also inviting a special guest, Richard Tribe, from www.ski.com.au who will be presenting his experience on how AdSense has helped him develop his website.

As a taster, here are the top three tips for getting the most out of your AdSense:

  1. Knowledge is power - Look at your channel data to find what layout works best for your site. If you don't know what channels are, get some!

  2. Size does matter – Our medium rectangles (300 x 250) and wide skyscrapers (160 x 600) are easy on the eye and attract a lot of natural attention, so maximise their beauty and add them to your site! Advertisers are in love with these formats too.

  3. Integrate and conquer – Don't hide your ads - make them part of your site and you'll see your AdSense performance soar. By placing ads where they are relevant and useful to your website's community, you'll find their experience with your site actually improves.

To attend the webinar or for further details, simply drop us a line with your AdSense publisher ID here.

We hope to see you there!


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AdSense update: Inline Ads

Just wanted to bring your attention to a small yet nifty (and long-requested!) feature we recently added to Blogger's AdSense integration: inline ads

You can now show AdSense ads inside your block of blog posts, up to 3 times on your main blog page. This should definitely improve monetization for those of you using AdSense on your blogs, as this places the ads inline with your blogs' actual content. The AdSense blog shows how it works, and here are a few example blogs using the feature:

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Agreement with News Digital Media

Posted by Julian Persaud, Head of Business Development

Google Australia has formed partnerships with a lot of great Australian websites, large and small. Today, we're excited to announce a significant agreement with News Digital Media.

Under the agreement, News Digital Media properties (including NEWS.com.au, dailytelegraph.com.au, theaustralian.com.au, heraldsun.com.au, couriermail.com.au, perthnow.com.au, adelaidenow.com.au, themercury.com.au and regional and community newspaper websites) and FOXSPORTS.com.au will have web and site search powered by Google.

Google will also provide keyword and contextual text ads on these sites, through our AdSense program.

This means that our AdWords advertisers can now have their ads appear on News Digital Media's range of websites, contextually matched to relevant articles. Having so many of News’ assets from across the country join our Content Network in Australia is another great step for our advertisers.

We look forward to working with News Digital Media in the years ahead.

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3, 2, 1, Action!

Today we are releasing video uploading to Blogger! This feature allows you to upload videos and create a video podcast with the same ease that we currently provide with photo uploading.

When you go to the Blogger post editor, you'll see a new button () next to the image uploading one. Just select a video from your computer, wait a few minutes for the upload and processing to occur, and voila! Now when you visit your blog, you will see something like this (of course without Tomo, the Blogger Akita):


To learn more about video uploading and see an instructional video on how to create a video podcast, go here.

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