Voting closes October 24th.
Posted by Leticia Lentini, Events Marketing Manager, Google Australia
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Google Analytics support in Blogger
Having a solid understanding of the traffic and visitor engagement statistics of your blog is one of the best ways to help it grow, and that’s why today we’re excited to announce that you can now easily connect your Google Analytics account with your blog.
Adding Google Analytics to your blog will give you more insight into where your visitors are coming from and help you determine which content they engage with the most. It's an easy to use, powerful, free product that is used internationally by businesses large & small.
If you already have a Google Analytics account, simply navigate to your blog’s Settings > Other tab and enter your blog's Google Analytics Web Property ID. Blogger will then insert Google Analytics code into your blog automatically, regardless of which template you're using, including mobile.
For more details and troubleshooting tips, check out this post on the Blogger Developers Network blog.
A few notes:
Adding Google Analytics to your blog will give you more insight into where your visitors are coming from and help you determine which content they engage with the most. It's an easy to use, powerful, free product that is used internationally by businesses large & small.
If you already have a Google Analytics account, simply navigate to your blog’s Settings > Other tab and enter your blog's Google Analytics Web Property ID. Blogger will then insert Google Analytics code into your blog automatically, regardless of which template you're using, including mobile.
For more details and troubleshooting tips, check out this post on the Blogger Developers Network blog.
A few notes:
- Google Analytics is supported on blogs using Dynamic Views, Layouts templates, and mobile templates, but not Classic templates.
- Because of the technical differences in how Blogger’s stats and Google Analytics collect data, you are likely to see some minor discrepancies between the two.
Posted by Muthu Kannan, Software Engineer
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Judging Doodle 4 Google
Earlier this year we announced the popular Doodle 4 Google competition for 2011 which gives Australian students the chance to have their version of the Google logo on our homepage and win prizes for their school.
We asked the ‘doodles’ to represent this year’s theme ‘My Future Australia’. More than four thousand schools across the country grabbed their pencils and paints to take part.
There was excitement in the Google HQ this morning as our judges Anne Geddes, Del Kathryn Barton, Jack Manning Bancroft and Joanna Gilmour pored over the entries to choose our 32 state and territory winners.
Stayed tuned to see who they've chosen when we'll open voting for your favourite doodle to narrow it down to the top four.
L-R: Jack Manning Bancroft, Anne Geddes, Joanna Gilmour and Del Kathryn Barton
This year our volunteers who sorted through all the doodles were also given a chance to pick their favourite. This special packing room mention goes to Shayla Dinh from Beechboro Primary School in Western Australia, who wrote:
“"My brother Justin has helped me think about this, so I have picked for my Doodle for Google, to help my disabled brother, Justin, he has Down syndrome. I want to cure all types of disabled people, with my own medicine (Shayla's smartability)."
To vote, visit http://www.google.com.au/doodle4google.
Posted by Leticia Lentini, Events Marketing Manager, Google Australia
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Lightbox update
When we enabled a brand new photo viewing experience, called Lightbox, by default a few weeks ago, we heard from a number of Bloggers who preferred to use their own, previously installed Lightbox solution, or who simply wanted to continue blogging without the new feature.
Thanks to your feedback, we turned Lightbox off temporarily, and we’re re-launching it today with the option to disable it, along with a handful of fixes to bugs that you reported.
To learn more about Lightbox and how it works, check out the original blog post.
If you’d like to disable Lightbox on your blog, log in to Blogger and select “No” next to Lightbox in the Settings | Posts and Comments section (new interface) or the Settings | Formatting section (old interface).
Thanks again for your detailed suggestions, and please continue to share your feedback in our help forum.
Posted by Marcos Almeida, Software Engineer
Thanks to your feedback, we turned Lightbox off temporarily, and we’re re-launching it today with the option to disable it, along with a handful of fixes to bugs that you reported.
To learn more about Lightbox and how it works, check out the original blog post.
If you’d like to disable Lightbox on your blog, log in to Blogger and select “No” next to Lightbox in the Settings | Posts and Comments section (new interface) or the Settings | Formatting section (old interface).
Thanks again for your detailed suggestions, and please continue to share your feedback in our help forum.
Posted by Marcos Almeida, Software Engineer
Read More Here...
What's killing Australian innovation?
Last week I had the opportunity to speak at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas held at the spectacular Sydney Opera House. My co-panelists were Martin Rogers, biomed entrepreneur and founder of Prima Biomed, and Prof Alec Cameron, Dean of the Australian School of Business. Our topic: “What's killing Australian innovation?”
My view is that the future of innovation in Australia is neither as dark as that topic suggests, nor is it all sunny. A recent Federal Government report concludes that we’re very good at incremental innovation, which essentially means adapting overseas innovations. Yet despite being blessed with ample talent and capital, plus a reasonably strong education system, Australia produces relatively few global innovations. Arguably, countries with much smaller populations, such as Finland, Switzerland, Israel, and Taiwan, have performed much better.
So what’s holding us back then?
From my experience, what may be holding us back from achieving our innovation potential is our attitude towards failure. It might sound counter-intuitive, but big innovation and failure are intimately intertwined. All innovations are essentially experiments which carry the prospect of failure. Innovators in the US, and particularly Silicon Valley, where I lived for 16 years, understand this only too well.
Sadly, Steve Jobs, one of the greatest innovators of our time, passed away yesterday. I watched his 2005 Stanford University commencement speech (well worth the time) in which he describes how “failure” has shaped his life for the better. In particular, his getting fired from Apple, the company he founded, liberated him to think afresh, and start, not one, but two new companies, Next and Pixar.
Australians love success, but we hate failure. As a result, we can be very harsh on entrepreneurs who try and fail. Yet if you look into the history of many innovators, just like Steve Jobs, you will find many examples of failure being a way point on the road to success.
It’s high time we started to embrace failure as much as we embrace success.
My view is that the future of innovation in Australia is neither as dark as that topic suggests, nor is it all sunny. A recent Federal Government report concludes that we’re very good at incremental innovation, which essentially means adapting overseas innovations. Yet despite being blessed with ample talent and capital, plus a reasonably strong education system, Australia produces relatively few global innovations. Arguably, countries with much smaller populations, such as Finland, Switzerland, Israel, and Taiwan, have performed much better.
So what’s holding us back then?
From my experience, what may be holding us back from achieving our innovation potential is our attitude towards failure. It might sound counter-intuitive, but big innovation and failure are intimately intertwined. All innovations are essentially experiments which carry the prospect of failure. Innovators in the US, and particularly Silicon Valley, where I lived for 16 years, understand this only too well.
Sadly, Steve Jobs, one of the greatest innovators of our time, passed away yesterday. I watched his 2005 Stanford University commencement speech (well worth the time) in which he describes how “failure” has shaped his life for the better. In particular, his getting fired from Apple, the company he founded, liberated him to think afresh, and start, not one, but two new companies, Next and Pixar.
Australians love success, but we hate failure. As a result, we can be very harsh on entrepreneurs who try and fail. Yet if you look into the history of many innovators, just like Steve Jobs, you will find many examples of failure being a way point on the road to success.
It’s high time we started to embrace failure as much as we embrace success.
Read More Here...
Dynamic Views: Update #1
Hi Bloggers!
Last week, we launched Dynamic Views in an effort to make it easier for readers to enjoy and discover your posts. You responded. As of today, hundreds of thousands of blogs have changed their blog template to Dynamic Views. The clear favorite appears to be Magazine, with Classic running a close second.
I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to provide their feedback, and let you know that in the last week we’ve made the following improvements:
With respect to customization, we realize that many bloggers have invested lots of time and effort to personalize their blog with custom background, fonts, etc. We plan to enable similar customization of Dynamic View templates via the Template Designer in the very near future.
Our plan is to continue to introduce updates and improvements as quickly as we can. Thanks again for your feedback, and we’re happy to hear that you’re enjoying Dynamic Views!
Happy blogging.
Bruce Polderman, Product Manager
Last week, we launched Dynamic Views in an effort to make it easier for readers to enjoy and discover your posts. You responded. As of today, hundreds of thousands of blogs have changed their blog template to Dynamic Views. The clear favorite appears to be Magazine, with Classic running a close second.
I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to provide their feedback, and let you know that in the last week we’ve made the following improvements:
- Added more emphasis to search results with Magazine & Timeslide
- Improved the preservation of image position within the full post
- Enabled JavaScript support within posts
- Fixed the issue that sometimes resulted in continuously spinning gears after clicking a link
- Turned on support for Archive pages
With respect to customization, we realize that many bloggers have invested lots of time and effort to personalize their blog with custom background, fonts, etc. We plan to enable similar customization of Dynamic View templates via the Template Designer in the very near future.
Our plan is to continue to introduce updates and improvements as quickly as we can. Thanks again for your feedback, and we’re happy to hear that you’re enjoying Dynamic Views!
Happy blogging.
Bruce Polderman, Product Manager
Read More Here...
Google Earth downloaded more than one billion times
This is a cross-post from the Google LatLong blog.
How large is one billion? One billion hours ago modern humans were living in the Stone Age. One billion minutes ago, the Roman Empire was flourishing. If you traveled from Earth to the Moon three times, your journey would measure one billion meters.
Today, we’ve reached our own one billion mark: Google Earth has been downloaded more than one billion times since it was first introduced in 2005. That’s more than one billion downloads of the Google Earth desktop client, mobile apps and the Google Earth plug-in—all enabling you to to explore the world in seconds, from Earth to Mars to the ocean floor.
Today, we’ve reached our own one billion mark: Google Earth has been downloaded more than one billion times since it was first introduced in 2005. That’s more than one billion downloads of the Google Earth desktop client, mobile apps and the Google Earth plug-in—all enabling you to to explore the world in seconds, from Earth to Mars to the ocean floor.
We’re proud of our one billion milestone, but we’re even more amazed at the way people have used Google Earth to explore the world. When we founded Keyhole, Inc. back in 2001 (the company was acquired by Google in 2004), we never imagined our geospatial technology would be used by people in so many unexpected ways. At www.OneWorldManyStories.com, we’ve collected stories from people all over the world who use Google Earth to follow their dreams, discover new and distant places, or make the world a better place.
Visit www.OneWorldManyStories.com to learn about people like Professor David Kennedy of the University of Western Australia, who’s used Google Earth to scan thousands of square kilometers in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Professor Kennedy has discovered ancient tombs and geoglyphs dating back at least 2,000 years, all without leaving his desk in Perth. Architect Barnaby Gunning, after the April 6, 2009 earthquake near L’Aquila Italy, encouraged his fellow citizens to start rebuilding the city virtually in 3D. Their online urban planning will aid city planners and architects. Retired English teacher Jerome Burg created Google Lit Trips, which uses Google Earth to match places in famous books to their geographical locations, encouraging students to create connections between the stories they read in school and the world they live in.
We hope you enjoy the site, and that it illustrates how some of those one billion downloads of Google Earth have been making a difference. You can explore these stories right in your browser with the Google Earth plug-in or download the KML files to view in Google Earth.
If you have a Google Earth story you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you. If you don’t have Google Earth, download it now and be part of the next billion stories. While it’s inspiring to see how Google Earth has touched the lives of so many, we know the best is yet to come.
Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering, Google Earth and Maps
Visit www.OneWorldManyStories.com to learn about people like Professor David Kennedy of the University of Western Australia, who’s used Google Earth to scan thousands of square kilometers in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Professor Kennedy has discovered ancient tombs and geoglyphs dating back at least 2,000 years, all without leaving his desk in Perth. Architect Barnaby Gunning, after the April 6, 2009 earthquake near L’Aquila Italy, encouraged his fellow citizens to start rebuilding the city virtually in 3D. Their online urban planning will aid city planners and architects. Retired English teacher Jerome Burg created Google Lit Trips, which uses Google Earth to match places in famous books to their geographical locations, encouraging students to create connections between the stories they read in school and the world they live in.
We hope you enjoy the site, and that it illustrates how some of those one billion downloads of Google Earth have been making a difference. You can explore these stories right in your browser with the Google Earth plug-in or download the KML files to view in Google Earth.
If you have a Google Earth story you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you. If you don’t have Google Earth, download it now and be part of the next billion stories. While it’s inspiring to see how Google Earth has touched the lives of so many, we know the best is yet to come.
Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering, Google Earth and Maps
Read More Here...
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