Think Display with Google

Since the first online display ad ran in the mid-1990s, display advertising has become a crucial part of the Web - providing useful information for users and funding many of the online services that we all love today such as news, online video, mobile applications, email, and social networks. It has also become a $17 billion global industry though still small compared to the $171 billion spent worldwide on TV.

Today, display advertising finds itself in the midst of its quiet revolution. What started as a world of static banner ads is transforming into advertising that is interactive, dynamic, and extremely relevant. Display ads today are the ads that catch your eye as you browse the Web - interactive video ads, rich media ads with Twitter feeds, and ads that change dynamically based on the content of the page and interactions with users.

Here in Australia, 17 of the top 20 advertisers as ranked by Nielsen have run display campaigns with Google across YouTube or our network over a million publisher sites. And yet, running creativity at scale is still a complex process for advertisers, agencies, and publishers. A single display ad that loads on a website in milliseconds can take hundreds of hours to create, plan, and measure. Google wants to help remedy this.

Last night, 350 of Australia & New Zealand’s leaders in online advertising joined together to Think Display at the first Google Australia display advertising summit.

Google’s Shailesh Rao, Director of JAPAC Media & Platforms:
“Working on display advertising is part of our vision of improving the web as a whole. We want to simplify the process of buying and selling display ads, enable advertisers and agencies to get the best performance from their advertising, and open the ecosystem to even more advertisers and publishers.”

Brad Bender, Google’s director of Product Management for display:
"..bringing the science of search to the art of display."

Henrique De Castro, Google’s vice president for Global Media & Platforms Sales:
“We all know display advertising is more than just clicks and conversions. The very best display advertising creates an emotional connection with us, and we don’t yet have an algorithm for emotion. We want to take the pain out of display advertising so advertisers and agencies can spend more time doing what they do best, and that is really creative engaging and memorable ad campaigns.”
Google serves display ads across the Google Content Network, which contains over a million websites. The vast majority of publishers in the network have opted in to receiving display ads (along with text ads) and a majority of them are currently serving display ads. Google’s network reaches 79% of Australians online according to ComScore. We also offer a variety of display ad formats on YouTube such as video, image and flash ads.

Finally, with our acquisition of DoubleClick we also provide ad serving technology to publishers, agencies and advertisers, which is the infrastructure that enables billions of ads to be served each day across the web. You can find out more about these products on Google for Advertisers.

Posted by Ernesto Soriano, Product Marketing Manager - YouTube & Display

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For the love of soccer ... vote for your favourite doodle

As the countdown to the FIFA World Cup begins, we're excited to share with you the ten Aussie finalists in the first ever global Doodle 4 Google competition.


Earlier this year we announced "Doodle 4 Google - I Love Soccer", inviting 4 to 17 year olds across the world to design their own Google logo, depicting the artist's passion for soccer as a way to celebrate this amazing global event.

Australia's finalists are now open to public vote to determine the winning entry, which will be displayed on the Aussie Google homepage on June 13, supporting the Socceroos on the day of their first World Cup match. The national winner will then be put forward to a global final, with the opportunity to have their doodle displayed to hundreds of millions of people worldwide on the day of the World Cup final (11 July 2010) - and win a holiday to South Africa, home of this year's FIFA World Cup.

We're proud of our local entries and encourage all Aussies to get into the spirit of competition, and vote for their favourite doodle - simply visit google.com.au/doodle4google and cast your vote by Monday, June 7.

Our national finalists are:
  • Claudio Cruz, 9, Ocean Reed, WA
  • Madison Pole, 11, Maryland, NSW
  • Maria Rapetti, 11, Highbury, South Australia
  • Marcus Calangelo, 12, South Australia
  • Keelie Sander, 12, Toowoomba, QLD
  • Patricia Luu, 14, Milpera NSW
  • Gloria Lo, aged 15, Bexley, NSW
  • Robin Jeon,15, Carlingford, NSW
  • Abdul Qambana, aged 16, Endeavour Hills, VIC
  • Topaz Turkenitz, aged 17, Caulfield, VIC
And to see what our talented Aussie finalists are up against, check out the competition on the "I love Soccer" sites from around the world:
We want to demonstrate the artistic talents of our Aussie finalists to the world - so show your Aussie spirit and vote for your favourite 'doodle' today.

Posted by Katharina Friedrich, marketing manager

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Introducing the Australian AdWords Online Classroom

We've just released our latest online training for Australian small- and medium-sized businesses wanting to advertise online: the AdWords Online Classroom.

You can get free, hands-on online training in over a dozen AdWords topics, available for viewing at any time that suits you. To fit with the busy schedules of small business owners, we’ve kept the courses bite-size, usually just 15-20 minutes long.

We have something for everyone, so choose the selection of courses that best suits you, or follow one of our suggested series below depending on your knowledge level:
Our experience with tens of thousands of small business owners has shown that the most successful advertisers are those who invest a bit of their time to improve their knowledge of online advertising and AdWords. We hope that the AdWords Online Classroom will let more Australian businesses use AdWords to connect with customers.

All you'll need to sign up to any of these courses is your AdWords email address and ten digit account number which you can find in the top right of your AdWords account.

See you in class!

Posted by Rich Flanagan, Google Australia AdWords

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The Promise of IT

There has been plenty of talk recently about older bastions of the Australian economy, such as the car industry, the energy industry and others. Yet no other industry has more potential to spur on Australia's future economic growth than information technology (IT).

Over the past few years, the internet has become ingrained in almost everything we do. It has evolved into an essential platform for businesses and communications, and has helped Australia to overcome the "tyranny of distance" by levelling the global playing field for Australian companies and entrepreneurs.

But right now, our focus as a nation on IT is inversely proportionate to IT’s importance and IT’s untapped potential. We face a serious IT trade deficit in Australia, and the number of students graduating with IT degrees is declining.

Australia has the potential to become a global IT leader, but this can only happen if we act now to make IT a top national priority, and encourage our children to embrace the power of an IT education, to foster a new generation of innovators.

The speed, interconnectivity and openness of the Internet inherently produce innovations on a remarkable scale. Cloud computing, user generated content, the mobile web, social networks, online advertising: these are just the beginning of a new, universally accessible web ecosystem driving efficiency in business and opportunities for consumers everywhere. If IT were biology, we're about at the point now where we're discovering the microscope.

Fundamentally, IT fuels the economy like no other technology. It is not only a $85 billion-plus industry that employs over 260,000 Australians; but also an enabler of other industries, generating new opportunities and businesses, new workplace arrangements, and connecting people more quickly and more broadly to get things done.

More than ever before, we need to create fantastic IT opportunities that will keep our talent at home. This effort starts with recharging the imaginations of our children, opening their eyes to endless possibilities of careers in IT. We need computing to join the ranks of reading, writing and arithmetic as an essential in the classroom.

Think how much more powerful our IT industry can be if all our technical pistons are firing at once: enhanced research, development and investment, an open internet and most importantly a world-class skilled workforce.

Part of the current decline in graduates with IT degrees (including Computer Science and Software Engineering) is due to a lingering fear after the dotcom crash that the world of IT is unstable, and jobs unreliable, when in fact the situation is the opposite: the opportunities in IT are boundless and booming, and the choice of career paths is incredibly diverse. Those who do emerge from college and high school with IT degrees are incredibly sought after. Companies are competing heavily with each other for today’s engineering talent, and that competition translates into better jobs and job security for everyone graduating with an IT degree.

There are opportunities in IT to work as part of a large company with global reach, or as part of a small team running with a new and revolutionary idea, or even as an individual developer or web designer--many who have designed Facebook or iPhone apps have sold their ideas for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Often, engineers have the opportunity to experience each of these worlds, and to move between them. From there on, there are opportunities to teach and conduct research, to consult, and even to advise in government.

Many positive steps have already been taken to raise awareness of IT in our schools, but we need more. New, national initiatives are being developed at the Universities of Adelaide and Melbourne, including ventures into puzzle-based learning, problem-solving curricula for computers, and "Integrated Virtual Learning Environments" (IVLE) to help students develop fundamental computing skills.

Universities across Australia have begun to work closely together and are beginning to open up a forum of discussion through the AIIA and the Council of Deans. Fantastic programs like the University of Sydney's National Computer Science Summer School are reaching out to high school students across Australia, posting materials online for access anywhere, and empowering teachers to find new ways of incorporating IT learning in the classroom.

At Google Australia, we're actively hiring talented engineers at all levels to work on challenging and exciting problems in geo-spacial technology, cloud computing and collaborative software. This year, we're also sponsoring the inaugural Eureka Prize for Innovation in Computer Science.

We need now to build upon these foundations. Investing in IT education is investing in a stable and prosperous future for all Australians. It's not enough anymore to talk about the benefit's of a digital economy. We need real change, and we need to bring IT to the forefront of our national consciousness. We need to act as a nation to seize this moment, and to inspire that next generation of great imaginations that will lead us in the coming century. We've just discovered the microscope. Imagine where we can go from here.

Editor's note: This opinion piece was first published in the Australian Financial Review

Posted by Alan Noble, Engineering Director Google Australia and New Zealand

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At five years, two billion views per day and counting

(This is a cross post from the Official YouTube blog)

Five years ago, after months of late nights, testing and preparation, YouTube’s founders launched the first beta version of YouTube.com in May, with a simple mission: give anyone a place to easily upload their videos and share them with the world. Whether you were an aspiring filmmaker, a politician, a proud parent, or someone who just wanted to connect with something bigger, YouTube became the place where you could broadcast yourself.

Over time, these aspirations have created a vibrant and inspiring community that helped transform a murmur of interest into something far greater than any of us ever could have imagined. Today, thanks to you, our site has crossed another milestone: YouTube exceeds over two billion views a day. That’s nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major U.S. television networks combined.

What started as a site for bedroom vloggers and viral videos has evolved into a global platform that supports HD and 3D, broadcasts entire sports seasons live to 200+ countries. We bring feature films from Hollywood studios and independent filmmakers to far-flung audiences. Activists document social unrest seeking to transform societies, and leading civic and political figures stream interviews to the world.



To celebrate our birthday, today we’re launching the YouTube Five Year channel. There, you’ll find the “My YouTube Story” project which features people from all over describing how YouTube has changed or shaped their lives.



Please add your own story to the mix! You can upload your video here -- and it may be selected to appear on the channel’s video wall or map.

The channel also hosts an interactive timeline containing some of the most important moments and memes in our short history. It was tough to pick -- and just scratches the surface of all the amazing things that have happened on YouTube over the years. What else? We’ve asked a handful of luminaries like Conan O’Brien, Vint Cerf and Katie Couric to curate playlists showcasing their favorite videos on the subjects they know best. You can also check out our Infographic here; it contains lots of neat facts and figures.

Since we never could have predicted all that happened in YouTube’s first five years, we certainly can’t imagine what the future will look like. But we do know there’s a lot more to be done. For instance, we want to make it even easier for you to sort through and find the videos that matter to you. Although the average user spends 15 minutes a day on YouTube, that’s tiny compared to the five hours a day people spend watching TV. Clearly, we need to give you more reason to watch more videos! And we want to give you all the tools and support to make YouTube both your career and your community. After all, this is only the beginning of the video revolution. We’re just getting started.




Posted by the YouTube team

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Tips from the AdWords experts: Measure the success of your campaigns

Over the past few weeks, we've posted four videos that suggest easy improvements you can make to your AdWords account in response to the top questions we get from Australian small- and medium-sized businesses. This week in our final video of the series, we'll provide you with some guidance for measuring the results of your advertising campaigns and see the progress that your account has made.

With AdWords, you can see how successful your advertising is by monitoring key statistics in your account such as impressions, clicks, and click-through-rate. Going one step further, you can implement our free Conversion Tracking tool to monitor which of your clicks translate into a desired action on your website, such as a sale or request for more information. Understanding these statistics will allow you to assess your results and further tweak your campaigns for even better performance.

Take a look at this video to learn how to track and understand your AdWords results in order to fine tune your advertising.




Have you have found this series of videos useful for improving your advertising and growing your business? Let us know. We love reading your feedback and will use it to help create future trainings focused on small businesses.

Posted by Posted by Rich Flanagan, Google Australia AdWords team

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Guest Post: Blog2Print/Blogger

Posted by Caroline Vanderlip, CEO SharedBook


Since we announced the Blog2Print/Blogger program last Fall, we at Blog2Print have been busy enhancing Blog2Print in response to user feedback and requests. Our goal is to maintain the integrity and ease of the blog–to-book creation process while providing you with more editing power and control over your blog books.

I’m pleased to tell you we now offer two different layout options for your blog books: Compact and Snapshot. Compact, the original page layout, arranges your blog posts, captions, and photos into a page that makes the best use of space and minimizes the number of total pages. The new layout, Snapshot, keeps the positioning of captions, photos, and text as it appeared in your posts online.

Meanwhile, we understand that some posts just aren't meant to be preserved, and you should be able to decide which posts you put in your book. Now you can, as individual posts can easily be deleted from your blog book. Especially when given as a gift – sometimes a little editing is needed here or there before a blog book is gift ready. And speaking of gifts, you can now buy a Gift Card for Blog2Print.

A few more changes: we’ve raised the maximum number of photos to 1500 in one book, added Safari support, and modified the User Agreement to clarify that bloggers continue to own all of their content and can resell their books if they choose – just make sure you own all relevant copyrights.

With your invaluable feedback, Blog2Print continues to evolve and improve. Please – keep asking! We’ll keep delivering.

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