Happy Eighth Birthday!

Today marks Blogger’s eighth birthday! A time for reflection, a time to catch our breath from yesterday morning, and a time to break out the baby picture.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us over the past four-fifths of a decade, and thanks especially to you for all the blogs.

In honor of our birthday, we have a small present in the form of an iGoogle gadget for Blogs of Note. Click the “Add to Google” button below to put the day’s Blog of Note on your iGoogle homepage.

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Maps, maps, maps and more maps

Posted by Carl Sjogreen, Senior Product Manager

Becoming a "tab" on the Google homepage is like graduating from University - for a product at Google, its a sign that you've really arrived, proven your stuff, and are now ready to be showcased to the millions of people who use Google every day.

We're pleased to announce that as of today we're making Google Maps Australia available as a link (or tab as we call it) on the Google Australia homepage. This means that access to our maps, local search results, and driving directions are now just one click away.

There's been a mountain of great news and new Google Maps features in Australia recently. From easily embeddable maps to the Aussie engineers behind the product, to draggable driving directions, to Mapplets, local business reviews and more

The team here in Sydney has been working hard on making Google Maps the best mapping product out there - both globally and for our Australian users.

The fact that we've got a team of dedicated Googlers based here who can listen to your feedback and make enhancements quickly helps set us apart. More and more Australians are using Google Maps daily, and we're eager to hear your feedback as we continue in our efforts to make Google Maps the easiest to use, most comprehensive and most innovative map of Australia.

Happy mapping!

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Photo Storage and Sharing Made Easy

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

There was a time when going on holidays might result in you taking a few rolls of film, developing them into a hundred or so snaps, which may or may not make it into a photo album to be shown to friends who come around for dinner.

On my last trip, I took over 2,000 photos … in three days. Welcome to the dilemma of the digital age – how to store, edit, access and share your digital photos.

This is where we step in. Google has developed Picasa and Picasa Web Albums, free applications to take care of all your photo needs.

One of the best things about using the Google suite of products is that they seamlessly let you move your files from one to the other. With Picasa, you can quickly upload your photos, view them in easy-to-manage folders and perform basic editing (like removing red eye, adjusting lighting and changing images from colour to sepia or black and white).



It’s then a quick step to email photos to friends at your desired resolution, upload them to your blog, order prints online, print you faves, make a collage or slideshow or export them. You can also upload your photos to your Picasa Web Album.



Picasa Web Albums gives you 1GB of free storage to showcase and share your photos online. You can create a slideshow, map your photos to show friends where the pics were taken, set albums as public or private, and send an email to your friends with a link to your albums. Your friends can download your photos – full-size – and leave comments.



Is 1GB enough space, I hear you say. If you decide it isn’t, you now have the option of purchasing extra storage. Plans start at $20/year for 6GB, with larger plans ranging up to 250GB.

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July's top gainers

Posted by Rafe Petkovic, Google Business Solutions Team

The top gaining Google Australia searches in July included everything from underwear to skiing to US sailors stopping over in Sydney for one night only…

Interest in Australian fashion came alive in July. Alex Perry's dresses won him a spot in the top fifteen. At the other end of the skin-covering scale, what better place to look for underwear than on Google? Australians BRIEFly searched for them via local brand Aussiebum, famous for their cheeky range of men's underwear!

Australians love their sport - there's no denying that. So it didn't come as a shock that Google users desperately wanted live AFL scores or that the results of the Wimbledon tennis tournament were a high priority, perhaps they just wanted to see if it had stopped raining there! Now we can't forget about NRL: West Tiger's player Benji Marshall made his comeback from a shoulder injury.

Impatient Harry Potter followers wanted to get in on the Harry Potter leak and find the answer to the question that everyone wants to know; who will die?

Actor/singer and overall teen sensation Ashley Tisdale proved herself worthy of her inclusion in Teen People's 25 hottest stars under 25, by coming in as the fifth top gaining query on Google Australia.

From teeny boppers to rock. My Chemical Romance guitarist Frank Iero played his way into people's hearts with a mixture of punk attitude, black eyeliner and musical talent of course!

Gossip lovers found Deborah Hutton's relationship with former Hockeyroo player Danni Roche fascinating. The USS Kittyhawk's impending arrival to Sydney's shores raised the eyebrows of many others, bringing with it more then 7000 sailors.

Boys and their toys; Transformers 2007 have won back the hearts of many with the release of the new blockbuster hit movie based on the children's toys and cartoons. Those who didn't want to watch the movies, chose to watch their investments instead, with the stockmarket another top gaining query.

With the Sydney Opera House on the shortlist to be a new wonder of the world, Australians searched on Google to find the original Seven Wonders of the World. In other history news, many Australians searched for details of the anniversary of the the French Revolution (Bastille Day).

And with ski season upon us, Jindabyne accommodation was of interest for skiing enthusiasts.

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 July.

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

Top gainers for July:

1. Seven Wonders of the World
2. Danni Roche
3. Stockmarket
4. Live AFL scores
5. Ashley Tisdale
6. Bastille day
7. Aussiebum
8. Transformers 2007
9. USS Kittyhawk
10. Harry Potter leak
11. Frank Iero
12. Wimbledon
13. Alex Perry
14. Benji Marshall
15. Jindabyne accommodation

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Googlers go surf offline

Posted by Shaden Mohamed, Creative Maximiser (Travel Team)

On Sunday 12 August, in the heart of Sydney’s CBD, 64,000 enthusiastic participants flocked to the starting line of the Sun Herald’s annual City to Surf.


In a bid to raise much needed money for the youth-focused charities of Australia, fitness junkies and amateurs alike travelled 14km on foot, from Hyde Park to the shores of Bondi Beach.

This year, a new health initiative entitled “Google 4 Life” organised a team entry, with 20 Googlers and their families taking part in the grueling run (or in my case, walk!).

Although most of us were separated during the course of the race, we were all exposed to the same pleasures (and pains!) - from quirky costumes, random roof-top bands, copious amounts of Gatorade, to the battle to conquer the infamous Heartbreak Hill.

The Google team crossed the finish line with smiles and pride. The day was a huge win for both the participants and the recipients of the generous donations and funds raised during the day.

Congratulations to the Googlers and all other Sydneysiders who participated – I look forward to seeing you at the next fitness charity event!

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Doodle 4 Google - what a response!

Posted by Ashley Gorringe, Doodle 4 Google Team


I wanted to give you an update on the Doodle 4 Google initiative that we launched a couple of weeks ago. We've had an amazing response, with over 1,300 Australian schools registering. Registrations close in a little over a week.

There's been quite a bit of media and blog interest in the initiative.

And we're thrilled that Education Departments are right behind it.

Halloween doodle 2006

If you're not familiar with D4G (our internal nickname), the program invites school children in Years 1 to 10 across the country to use the Google logo as a starting point for their own creativity around the theme of 'My Australia'. The winning student will have their 'doodle' appear on the Google Australia homepage on Australia Day 2008. The winner will also receive a MacBook for themselves and over $10,000 worth of technology equipment for their school.

We're particularly excited about the geographical spread of the schools that have registered, which range from Hobart to Darwin and everywhere between. With so many teachers and students getting behind the initiative, we estimate that over 100,000 students will be designing Google doodles.

Frank Lloyd Wright themed doodle

Needless to say, we can't wait to see what Australia means to today's generation of school kids. We've also had really positive response from teachers, who have taken the opportunity to work with their students to consider what it means to be Australian.

In terms of our next milestones, we're focused on registrations closing on August 17, then the cutoff for entries on September 7. And if you're a registered school and reading this, look out for your certificates and bookmarks, which we'll be sending out by mail later this month.

Ed: Since Ash wrote this post this morning, we're now well over 1400 schools!

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Browse Profiles! Find new blogs to read!

Say you live in Albuquerque, count the Smashing Pumpkins among your favorite bands, and like sushi. Starting today, we’re making it easy for you to find other bloggers who share your interests.

Now you can go to any Blogger profile page (start with your own, or perhaps another popular blogger’s) and follow any of the links on the page to get a list of other bloggers with the same industry, occupation, location, interest, or favorite book, movie, or music.


The Browse Profile results are tuned to show you people who have recently updated their blogs at the top, so you can find blogs with fresh posts.


If you haven’t filled out your profile, do it now to help people find your blog. Here’s how.

Don’t want to be found? Just edit your profile and uncheck the “Share my profile” box, and your profile won’t show up when other people browse.

Still curious about Blogger profiles? Read our FAQ.

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