App Engine Down Under

Earlier this month the Google App Engine team celebrated coming out of preview to become a fully-supported Google product.

With this major milestone we would like to showcase the Sydney App Engine team who have been working hard on App Engine for more than three years.

App Engine, Google’s cloud application platform, enables developers to build and host web apps on the same systems that power Google applications. That means anyone can quickly develop and deploy web applications with simple administration and no need to worry about hardware, patches or backups.

App Engine serves over 2 billion pages a day and powers not only popular apps like the the official Royal Wedding website but also Australian businesses like Ray White and Shoes of Prey.

The Australian App Engine team includes software and site reliability engineers, developer relations and product and technical management. We work on new features, keep the platform running smoothly and support and engage the developer community.

Members of the Sydney App Engine Team

For all those that haven’t built a web application using App Engine before, you can see how easy it is by following our Getting Started Guide.

Posted by Cayden Meyer, Google App Engine Product Manager, Sydney

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Searching spree...then shopping spree? Insights on the 2011 Christmas retail season

Earlier this month, we shared a few early insights on retail search trends for this year’s Christmas shopping season. And from what historical data tells us, over the next five weeks shopping-related search traffic is really going to accelerate.

Over the previous few years, searches for "Christmas" specific questions have climbed fast starting the third week of November. Thus far searches are up year over year in all major retail categories. This year’s big winners include mass merchant retailers (searches up 47%), food and drink (+31%), and toys (+28%).

Over the past few years, a distinctive search pattern has evolved around the Christmas season:

• During the first week of December, shipping windows for international online retailers traditionally close and searches for domestic online retailers rise.

• Two weeks before Christmas, searches for store names plus ‘trading hours’ or ‘location’ begin to rise dramatically. Last year, searches for trading hours grew nearly 250% in the last two weeks before Christmas. This year, such searches are already up 37% year over year -- and over a third of these searches now comes from a mobile device.
• Around December 16th, the last day Australia’s online retailers can guarantee delivery before December 25 and the last in-store retail weekend before Christmas, you can see another big spike in searches for store name plus “hours” and “location”.

Here are three tips from Google for retailers who are reviewing their online ad strategies for the holidays.

1. Review your search ad budget & timing: Santa brings a big increase in shopping search traffic -- make sure you don’t run out of search ad budget too early in the day. Last year, some Google advertisers used up their daily search ads budgets only 1/3 of the way into the Christmas trading day because their daily ad budgets were the same as the middle of the summer. That’s like forgetting to put your most popular product out on shelves during the busiest season of the year.

2. Anticipate key shopping days: Try to anticipate when your customers will be researching and buying gifts online and when they’ll be looking for stores. For example, if you’re a large retailer you may want to focus your search ads on e-commerce queries until mid-December and then shift to ads featuring in-store promotions, maps, and trading hours thereafter.

3. Be ready for mobile: Mobile shopping searches have risen 220% year over year. All retailers should be ready with mobile-friendly websites that prominently display store hours and locations to accommodate people looking for their stores on mobile. Already, over 30% of such searches come from mobile, and we expect that number to rise further during the crucial last 14 days.

Posted by Ross McDonald, Head of Retail, Google Australia & New Zealand

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Google Engage: helping agencies help small businesses

Over the past year, thousands of Australian small businesses have recognized how the Internet can help them market and grow their business. Through our Getting Aussie Business Online program alone we’ve seen over 25,000 businesses sign up for a free website. But getting online is just the first step -- and fortunately there are hundreds of developers, designers, and agencies around Australia who can work hand in hand with small businesses to create and manage their online presence and help with their online marketing.

Last year we launched the Google Engage program to provide educational resources and training to help these organisations serve their clients better. Over the last two weeks more than 300 advertising, web design, and creative agencies attended our Google Engage for Agencies masterclass series to learn new techniques for helping their clients succeed in the digital world. At sessions held around the country in Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, and Sydney, we brought the latest updates on Google advertising products like AdWords.

We opened the day with insights into the online behaviours of Australians, pointing out the explosive growth in mobile devices as Aussies access the internet while they’re on the go. Today only one out of five businesses with a website having a mobile-friendly version. Agencies can help small businesses ensure that their websites load properly on smartphones and tablets, make use of click-to-call links, and include critical info like store location and operating hours.

David Booth, a Google certified trainer from US-based digital agency Cardinal Path, then took the podium to share his more than 10 years of experience running an agency that manages online marketing campaigns for SMBs. He shared practical tips for how to improve a client’s return-on-investment from their advertising budget and gave advice on how to run your agency more efficiently.

We also introduced the audience to the brand new Pages for Google+ offering, which is a way for organisations to connect with other people, brands, and businesses online. Google Engage agencies including Reload Media and Eminent Online Marketing have been quick to start taking advantage of Google+, as well as small businesses such as DUGG, a mens underwear retailer.

Armed with new tips and tricks, the attendees are ready to go help Australian small businesses become even more effective in their online marketing. Going into 2012 we’ll be taking some of our training events to Hangouts on Google+ to speak with our Engage participants more frequently. Watch this space for updates.

Posted by Richard Flanagan, Head of Small Business Marketing, Google Australia & New Zealand

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Every search tells a story

We’re constantly inspired by our users and how they rely on Google products to achieve the extraordinary. Today I want to share three amazing Australian stories.

A New/Old Prosthetic
Seven years ago Hobart motorcycle mechanic Mark Lesek lost his arm in an accident. Unhappy with the prosthetic he was given, Mark used Google Search to find patents and designs -- from the early 1900s -- to build a new one.

Neighbours in Need
As the waters moved in and destroyed countless homes during the Queensland floods helicopter pilot Mark Kempton and his team rescued 43 people from roof and treetops. With streets and landmarks submerged, Mark turned to Google Maps on his mobile to find people in distress. The heroism of Mark and his team has recently been recognised with a Pride of Australia award.




Ancient Ruins
Professor David Kennedy from the University of Western Australia uses Google Earth to scan thousands of square kilometers in Saudi Arabia and Jordan to discover ancient ruins. Most recently he uncovered thousands of prehistoric man-made stone structures across the Arabian peninsula -- without leaving his desk.



You can see more inspiring search stories from other people around the world on Search Stories.

Posted by Lucinda Barlow, head of marketing Google Australia and NZ

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Custom domains simplified

(Cross posted on the Blogger +page)

Adding a custom domain to your blog is a great way to increase your brand identity. Setting one up, however, can sometimes be a frustrating experience, especially if you aren’t quite sure of the difference between an A-NAME and C-NAME record or where to find them.

The good news is that the folks at Go Daddy created a handy tool that simplifies the process and makes it possible to redirect your blogspot domain to a custom Go Daddy domain with the click of a button.

If you already own a Go Daddy domain and would like to connect it with your Blogger blog, head to the Go Daddy tool, log in to your Go Daddy account, enter your preferred domain or subdomain (for instance www.example.com or blog.example.com), click Confirm, and voila, your DNS records are updated.

Once your DNS records are set correctly, log in to Blogger, click “Add a custom domain” in the Publishing section of the Settings page, follow the short instructions, and your custom domain will be set up and redirecting in 24 hours or less.

If you purchased a domain from another provider, don’t worry, we’ve got a step-by-step guide that will walk you through the setup process. And finally, if you would like your blog to redirect to a custom domain, you can purchase one and get it set up without complicated configuration right from the Blogger dashboard in the Publishing section of the Settings page.

Posted by Brett Wiltshire, Product Operations

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Our Mobile Planet - a new resource for mobile marketers

A few weeks back we highlighted some of the most interesting statistics about how Australians use their smartphones, including the fact that Australia has the second highest smartphone penetration in the world.

Today we’re making it possible for anyone to dig through the thousands of data points that we collected, to come to your own conclusions, with Our Mobile Planet. This new website features an interactive tool that anyone can use to create custom charts that will help them understand the mobile consumer better and make the right decisions on their mobile strategy.



We encourage you to explore the site yourself, but in the meantime, here are some highlights on how you can use it:

• Extensive data: See the penetration of smartphones across 30 markets, where and why people use smartphones, and what they do when they’re using them. Also get stats on mobile commerce behavior and perceptions of mobile advertising.
• Powerful comparisons: Easily select multiple statistics and multiple countries to compare with one another.
• Easy graphs: Once you’ve selected your data points and countries, it’s just a click of a button to create an image to embed in a presentation, or to download the data into a spreadsheet.
• Segmentation: Cut the data by age, gender and/or intensity of internet usage.

To get started, visit www.ourmobileplanet.com.

Posted by Ryan Hayward, Product Marketing Manager, Asia-Pacific.

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Doodle 4 Google winner doodles for “My Future Australia”

In July we announced our latest Doodle 4 Google competition, in which we asked school students across Australia to draw their own version of the Google logo, inspired by the theme “My Future Australia.”

Now, 4500 doodles later, we can announce the winning doodle!

Congratulations to Timothy Winkels of Padua College Mornington in Victoria, whose winning doodle displayed his hope that a future Australia will have more National Parks and a cleaner, protected environment. “Sometimes nature is such a good refuge that I escape my own self,” wrote Tim about his work. “The environment saves me, so I am responsible enough to save it.”

His doodle was chosen by the original Google doodler Dennis Hwang, who appreciated the doodle’s skill and creativity, as well as the optimistic message and tone. “The longer you look at it, the more things you discover within it, which is not always easy to pull off,” he said.

Timothy’s doodle will be featured on google.com.au early next year.

Three of the age group winners spent yesterday at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. Damian, Timothy and Christina were given a behind-the-scenes tour of the of the gallery and exhibitions and had their very own special portrait taken by the gallery’s multimedia expert and resident photographer Mark Mohell. The young doodlers also saw their work in a special digital display of the 32 doodle state and territory winners.

The day was not without drama when one of our age group winners, Ineka, missed the morning tour due to an earlier emergency appendectomy. But proving that you can’t keep a good doodler down, she came directly from hospital to accept her trophy in the afternoon. The NPG will arrange her own personal tour of the gallery when she’s up and about.

Thank you to all our thousands of doodlers from across Australia, and look out for Timothy’s doodle on our homepage.

Posted by Leticia Lentini, Event Marketing Manager, Google Australia.

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