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:

http://play.blogger.com/

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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