Google joins the 2011 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras

We were in the mood for dancing. Along with a lot of other people!

This year, a group of Googlers joined hundreds of others in marching (and dancing) along Oxford and Flinders Streets as part of the 2011 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. It was the first time we’d had a float in the parade, and the first time we had been a major sponsor of the Mardi Gras Festival.

We also presented a panel session on workplace diversity at Queer Thinking, and joined 70,000-odd picnickers at the Mardi Gras Fair Day.

Google is a company that supports its LGBT employees, taking a public stand on issues that are important to our community. This is not the first year that Google has been involved in major LGBT events, and it will certainly not be the last.

We're already looking forward to next year's festival!

Posted by Verne Smith, Mardi Gras Coordinator, Google Australia & New Zealand.

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Blogger in the Down Under

Posted by Brett Wiltshire

click for the larger version!

Last week was special for all of us who work on Blogger. For the first time, our entire team came together from around the globe to sit down in one room and talk about our vision for Blogger in 2011 and beyond. We came from five different Google offices spanning four continents, many of us meeting team members in person for the first time. And since we've come to truly appreciate the value of face-to-face time with each other, we also wanted to share a photo of the team behind Blogger.

While many of us were meeting in Sydney for the first time, we left as a family closer than ever, excited about the year to come and fueled by all of the engaging conversations and innovative ideas exchanged. The future of Blogger is bright, and it has been an exercise in willpower trying to keep from spilling the beans too early on what we have in store. The good news for you and all of us though is that with SXSW on the horizon, we'll soon be making some very exciting announcements. So please stay tuned, and once again thanks for using Blogger!

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Digitising The Dawn

We’ve been commemorating International Women’s Day for a century, recognising the struggle for women’s rights in Australia and around the world. It’s a proud history, well worth discovering.

A century ago, women discovered the movement for women’s rights through publications like The Dawn. Edited and published by Louisa Lawson, The Dawn was Australia’s first journal produced solely by women, employing ten women at its height, including women printers to run its printing presses. Louisa Lawson was a pioneer for women’s rights. Close to our hearts here at Google, she was also an innovator in information technology, patenting a mailbag fastener.

Today, we discover this rich history in slightly differently ways - we search. This is what Donna Benjamin did, when researching her talk on women in technology for linux.conf.au this year. But she couldn’t find The Dawn anywhere online - she knew it was preserved in libraries around Australia, but it couldn’t be easily accessed and browsed by most Australians. So she decided to do something about it.

By the end of the conference, and with the help of the Australian Women's Archive Project, Donna had launched the #digitisethedawn campaign. Through the campaign, Donna has campaigned to raise the funds to digitise The Dawn - so that it will be preserved electronically in the National Library’s collection and accessible and able to be searched by all.

From Louisa Lawson’s descendants, to Senator Carol Brown from Tasmania, to the Chifley Research Centre, Calyx and WikiMedia, to us here at Google Australia and many others in the community, people around the country have recognised the importance of this project - and donated.

This afternoon, a chapter in this history was opened up to the world. The funds have been raised to digitise The Dawn, and make it accessible and able to be searched by the world.

Through Donna’s own pioneering efforts, we will now be able to discover this important chapter in Australia’s history, and in the history of women’s rights - by searching.

As Donna says,

[The Dawn] was the first publication that gave voice to Australian feminist politics. It is a significant publication and often cited by scholars of history and feminist thought.

It's now in the public domain, so making it available online makes it available to all. As an important primary source for the suffrage movement it might help future scholars rediscover the fight to win women the right to vote, the right to work, and the history of the struggle for equal pay.'

Posted by Alice Boxhall, Software Engineer.

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Wonders of sugar apple

VIVAnews - sugar apple store a million health benefits. Fruit is also known as custard apple or sugar apple by British sailors, one of which is useful for beauty.
Sugar apple contains antioxidants, like vitamin C, which helps fight free radicals in the body. High potassium and magnesium contained in these fruits can also protect you from heart disease, as quoted by the Times of India pages.
If you want to beautify the skin naturally, consume regular sugar apple. This fruit contains vitamin A which is beneficial to keep the skin, hair health, and improve the function of the eye.
Not only that, the fruit commonly used as a jam in the bread, it is also efficacious to control blood pressure and help normalize digestive function, cure constipation, and treat diarrhea and dysentery.
That is why it is important to include this fruit in your daily diet. This fruit contains a high magnesium, able to balance the water in the body, helps to remove acid from the joints and reduces symptoms of rheumatism and arthritis.
When often experience excessive fatigue, you can eat sugar apple. Therefore, the potassium contained in it can help fight muscular weakness.
The fruit is also beneficial for people suffering from anemia, because the fruit is high in calories. And if you want to gain weight, there's no harm in eating regular sugar apple. Sugar apple is famous for its natural sugar content, for it is better if the fruit is used as a snack or dessert you.

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Two Weeks until the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011

This is a cross-post from the YouTube Australia blog.

In just a few days the YouTube Symphony Orchestra arrives in Sydney. The 97 orchestral musicians, winning improvisers, and Michael Tilson Thomas have been hard at work to ensure that their performances in Sydney are nothing short of extraordinary. And to give you a sneak peek, Tourism Australia has flown four winning musicians down under in advance of the full orchestra’s arrival to spend some time with some of Australia’s up and coming musical talent. The pair, Desmond from London, and Luke from NSW have completed a musical track, inspired by their journey:

The YouTube Symphony Orchestra kicks off March 15 for a week-long festival of creativity, technology and the arts. The Grand Finale is nearly sold out, but be sure to pick up your tickets at the Sydney Opera House website for any of the week’s ensemble concerts and the Saturday matinee.



This year, we’ll also be joining an additional YouTuber to jam with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra at a special, pre-finale performance at The Basement. Here’s the winning entry from Qantas’ open mic competition, Zak Gottleib:

Even if you don’t have tickets, be sure to come down to Dawes Point to watch the Opera House sails come to life during the Grand finale performance on 20 March. And stay tuned for more sneak peeks of what’s to come!



Posted by Ernesto Soriano, YouTube Team, just watched Making Tracks: Stu and Sam cycling in Canberra

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Hang with Blogger @ SXSW2011

Posted by Brett Wiltshire

The annual South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas is just around the corner, and once again Team Blogger will be on the scene and hoping to mingle with as many of you as we possibly can. We’ll have a booth set up on the tradeshow floor where we’ll be showing off some exciting new things we’ve been working on, so please come find us at booth 1322 under the giant orange ‘B.’

We’re also throwing our annual SXSW bash at Six Lounge on Monday, March 14th. We’ll have great local music, some goodies to give away, and of course, free booze. And if you come visit us at the tradeshow, we just might have some VIP invites lying around if you mention this post. Doors open at 7 p.m., so come early and avoid the lines.

Please spread the word, and we’ll see you in Austin!

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Getting Aussie Business Online

For an Aussie business these days, having a website is as important as having a phone.

Millions of Australians regularly turn to the Internet to research local shops and services. They start their taxes online; there are 4,000 Google searches every day in Australia for accountants. They go online to remodel their kitchens; there are 12,000 searches every day in Australia for builders. And they look for a nearby cafe to get their morning cup of coffee; there are 30,000 searches every day in Australia for cafes.

Yet two-thirds of Aussie small businesses are invisible to Aussies online. According to research from MYOB Business Monitor, only one in three Aussie small businesses have a website. These businesses tell us they’re not online because it’s too expensive, too complicated, and they just don’t have the time.

Until 9:50am this morning, Terry Randall was one of these small business owners.



But now, Terry has a new website for his excavations business, which means customers can now find him online. Terry is the first of what we hope will be more than 50,000 Aussie businesses to set up a website through Getting Aussie Business Online.

Getting Aussie Business Online is a nationwide campaign from Google and MYOB to give a free website to more than 50,000 Australian small businesses. It’s designed to knock down the common barriers to small businesses getting online by making it easy, quick, and free to set up and maintain a website.



To set-up your website, visit Getting Aussie Business Online and enter your Australian Business Number (ABN), your business phone number, and a few details about your business such as street address and opening hours. Your site can be up and running in 15 minutes. You’ll also get a free .com.au domain for two years and resources to help you add information and features to your website over time.



We’ve long believed in the power of the Internet to help businesses thrive and to help consumers find information quickly and easily. Getting Aussie Business Online makes businesses like Terry’s visible to their customers and, in the long run, improves the Internet for all Australians.

Posted by Claire Hatton, Google Australia’s Head of Local Business

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