Monthly Archives: September 2012

Your YouTube original videos now available in Google Takeout


Your Takeout menu is growing.  Today's entrée:  YouTube videos.

Previously, you've been able to download individual transcoded videos from your YouTube Video Manager.  But starting today, you also have a more efficient way to download your videos from YouTube. With Google Takeout, you can download all of the original videos that you have uploaded in a few simple clicks.  No transcoding or transformation -- you’ll get exactly the same videos that you first uploaded.  Your videos in.  Your videos out.




Posted by Brian Hawkins, YouTube Engineer and Data Liberator.


Source: Data Liberation


More places to get great fonts

Open source fonts are good for the web: they’ve helped spur web font adoption, and made it easier for anyone to contribute improvements to fonts for the whole web community.

Today, we’re happy to announce that all the fonts in the Google Web Fonts directory are also available via Adobe’s new Edge Web Fonts service.

And on the heels of the recent release of Source Sans Pro, another Adobe designed open source font, Source Code Pro, is available today from both Google Web Fonts and Edge Web Fonts.

We’re also working with the Adobe team to hint some of the fonts in the collection, a process that will make them look better at smaller text sizes.

Here’s to a more accessible, translatable, and beautiful web!

Posted by Ajay Surie, Product Manager

Google News turns 10

Posted by Krishna Bharat, Distinguished Scientist and Founder, Google News

Google News launched on September 22, 2002—exactly a decade ago.

Inspired by the widespread interest in news after the September 11 attacks, we invested in technology to help people search and browse news relevant to them. Google News broke new ground in news aggregation by gathering links in real time, grouping articles by story and ranking stories based on the editorial opinions of publishers worldwide. Linking to a diverse set of sources for any given story enabled readers to easily access different perspectives and genres of content. By featuring opposing viewpoints in the same display block, people were encouraged to hear arguments on both sides of an issue and gain a more balanced perspective.

In the last ten years, Google News has grown to 72 editions in 30 languages, and now draws from more than 50,000 news sources. The technology also powers Google’s news search. Together, they connect 1 billion unique users a week to news content.

Google News today

As we have scaled the service internationally, we have added new features (Local News, Personalization, Editors’ Picks, Spotlight, Authorship, Social Discussions), evolved our design, embraced mobile and run ancillary experiments (Fast Flip, Living Stories, Timeline). In parallel, we have monitored our quality and challenged our engineers to improve the technology under the hood—increase freshness, group news better, rank stories more accurately, personalize with more insight and streamline the infrastructure.

Take a look back at the past decade in Google News through the top stories from each year and a few notable features that have launched in the interim:

 

It’s undeniable that the online news landscape has changed immensely. Smartphones and social networks have transformed how news is accessed and sourced, and shifted the relationship between readers and authors. Open journalism is the norm, and aggregation by humans and machines is an integral part of the ecosystem. New technologies such as Hangouts on Air have the potential to connect users, journalists and opinion makers and transform how stories are discussed.

Opportunities abound, and we are excited for where we can take this product in the next decade. While change is inevitable, one thing remains the same: our mission is to bring you the news you want, when you need it, from a diverse set of sources.

(Cross-posted on the Official Google blog)

Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger now in the UK!

(Cross-posted from the Google Affiliate Network blog)

Earlier this year, we launched Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger in the US and added new enhancements in June. The positive results and feedback we’ve received are very promising, and we’re excited to announce that this gadget is now available to Blogger users in the UK!

To refresh your memory, Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger is a gadget that makes it easy for Blogger users to insert an affiliate ad into a blog post and earn a commission when someone clicks the link and makes a purchase on the advertiser’s site.

Watch the video below for a quick refresher:

Here’s how to get started:
  1. If you’re a Blogger user in the UK (or the US), go to the Earnings tab in Blogger and sign up for AdSense if you don’t already have an account.
  2. Once you have an AdSense account, you may see the Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger gadget when you write a new blog post.*
  3. Write a new post and select a relevant affiliate ad from the 'Advertise Products' gadget.
  4. Publish your post, and voilà! You may earn a commission when someone clicks your affiliate ad and makes a purchase.
Participating UK advertisers:
Advertisers including Bestbathrooms.com, Cheapsuites.co.uk, Crooked Tongues, Diamond Manufacturers, eFlorist, Hudsonreed.com, Perfume Click and The Snugg have already come on board, and more are joining every day.

If you’re an advertiser interested in participating in Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger, please reach out to your Google Affiliate Network account team or contact us if you’re not already working with us.

Source: Blogger Buzz


A newly hatched way to tag your news articles

Posted by Rudy Galfi, Product Manager, Google News

The day after the historic 1929 stock market crash, Variety bannered their front page with these words: “WALL ST. LAYS AN EGG.” It’s a great headline: pithy, catchy, and expressive of the substance of the story as well as the scale of its consequences. It’s also worth noting that Variety’s editors had a full day to write the headline—millions of readers weren’t trying to search for the story within seconds of hearing about it.

The Web has transformed both how news organizations report information and the way users find it. Imagine if “WALL ST. LAYS AN EGG” were used as a headline today by an online news site. Since the headline is a sequence of text that’s only readily understandable by a human, most machine algorithms would probably attach some sort of biological association to it. In turn, this would make it difficult for millions of curious users who are using Google.com or Google News to find the best article about the stock market crash they just heard about.

To help solve this problem, today we’re excited to announce a news_keywords metatag. The goal is simple: empower news writers to express their stories freely while helping Google News to properly understand and classify that content so that it’s discoverable by our wide audience of users.

Similar in spirit to the plain keywords metatag, the news_keywords metatag lets publishers specify a collection of terms that apply to a news article. These words don’t need to appear anywhere within the headline or body text. Taking the Variety example above, news keywords such as “stocks”, “stock market”, or “crash” would be helpful in allowing Google News to better understand the article content for ranking without forcing the editors to water down the creativity of a great headline. Because the metatag appears only as part of the HTML code of a page, visitors to a site won’t ever see the magic under the hood.

Keep in mind that this metatag will be one signal among many that our algorithms use to determine ranking. The news_keywords metatag is intended as a tool -- but high-quality reporting and interesting news content remain the strongest ways to put your newsroom’s work in front of Google News users.

You can learn more about getting news_keywords set up by reading our Help Center article.

Peace One Day Concert: Live on YouTube

On Friday, September 21, Elton John will perform live on YouTube, headlining the Peace One Day Celebration ‘Global Truce 2012’ concert at Wembley Arena.

Staged on Peace Day, the concert also includes performances from BRIT award-winning James Morrison and YouTube sensations 2CELLOS. There will be introductions from Peace One Day ambassador Jude Law, Lily Cole and the organisation’s founder, Carnegie Wateler Peace Prize-winner, Jeremy Gilley. The show is set to be the biggest event of Peace One Day’s groundbreaking 13-year history.



Viewers will be able to discuss the live stream on the Peace One Day YouTube channel with Google+, Twitter and Facebook.

In 1999 film-maker Jeremy Gilley founded the non-profit organisation to lead a process that resulted in the unanimous adoption by UN member states of the first ever annual day of global ceasefire and non-violence. With the day in place, Peace One Day works to establish Peace Day around the world. Since the adoption of the Peace Day resolution in 2001, activities on September 21 have enabled families to be reunited, mosquito nets and food aid to be delivered, and children to be vaccinated all over the world. Not only has Peace Day been proved as a catalyst for life-saving activity it has also become an annual platform for widescale civil society action towards a more peaceful world.

Subscribe to the Peace One Day channel or follow them on Google+ to learn more about their Global Truce campaign.
 
Laura Quinn, YouTube Marketing Manager, recently watched "Student Activation Launch 27 Feb 2012".

Source: YouTube UK Blog


Finding the next generation of talented video educators with YouTube Next EDU Guru

Crossposted from the Official YouTube Blog

Across the Northern Hemisphere, students and their teachers are heading back into the classroom for another year of reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. While what we learn has broadly stayed the same for years, how we learn is changing rapidly as technology advances. The rise of online educational videos is giving learners access to the world’s greatest thinkers and teachers, leveling the playing field for all.

We believe that inspiring online educators can come from all walks of life, and we want to find the next generation of educational YouTube stars - people with a talent for explaining tough concepts in compelling ways, and the passion and drive to assemble a global classroom of students. YouTube educational channels like Khan Academy,CrashCourse, Veritasium, Numberphile, MinutePhysics and Ted-Ed have grown to millions of views and subscribers - could you be next?

Today we’re teaming up with Khan Academy to start a search for the Next EDU Gurus--10 super talented and engaging content creators who we’ll support with training, promotion, and a $1000 B&H gift card for production equipment, so they can take the next step in their YouTube - and education - careers.

Do you set historical events to music? Doodle your geometry? Sing your Shakespeare? We’re looking for content creators who create all kinds of curriculum-related videos, from grammar to geography, history to histograms. You can submit any style of video as long as it’s educational and family-friendly--just bear in mind that we’re looking for content creators who can take people on a journey through a topic, so if you could imagine making ten, twenty, or fifty more videos on the topic in the future, all the better!

The 10 YouTube Next EDU Gurus will be selected by a panel from the YouTube Education team and the Khan Academy. One of these 10 will also be awarded the Khan Academy EDU Guru Prize. The program is open to creators in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand; it opens today and closes on October 1.

Our new EDU Gurus will help meet the growing demand for great educational content on YouTube. In the last year, you all spent 50% more time learning from YouTube Education’s 700,000 videos, and the number of subscribers to YouTube’s educational channels more than doubled. Check out the YouTube.com homepage today for the latest videos from some of our most engaging educational creators. You can also see a playlist of their latest and greatest below.

  

If you’re an educator, visit youtube.com/teachers to view more than 300 playlists curated by teachers to align with common education topics. And if you’re looking for inspiration about incorporating YouTube in your school curriculum, see how one school from Kent, WA uses YouTube to experience the world beyond the walls of their classroom.

  

Angela Lin, YouTube Education team, recently watched “Capitalism and Socialism: Crash Course World History #33.”

Introducing a new YouTube app for your iPhone and iPod touch

For all you diehard YouTube fans out there who can’t get enough YouTube on your mobile, we’ve got some great news: starting today, you can download the official YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch from the App Store, bringing you more of the videos you love and more ways to share them with the people you care about.

The new app is built by YouTube engineers, to give our iPhone and iPod touch users the best mobile experience. Here’s what you’ll find:

Tens of thousands more videos: Watch official music videos like Taylor’s latest hit.

New YouTube channel guide: Swipe your finger from the left edge of the screen to reveal a guide with your subscribed channels on YouTube, giving you instant access to everything from Alli Sports to YOMYOMF.
Find awesome videos faster: Get to videos like “Gangnam Style” faster with new search tools that give suggestions while you type, and let you sort through videos or channels. Flip through related videos, comments and more info, all while watching a video.

More ways to share with the people you love: Share that incredible video you found on YouTube on Google+, Facebook or text message in the app, as well as from Twitter and email.

There’s even more to explore with the new YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch, available for download from the App Store today. We’re working on an optimized version of the YouTube app for iPad in the coming months, and stay tuned for more details.

You’ve already shown us you love YouTube on mobile—to the tune of 1 billion mobile views a day—so we can’t wait to see what you think about this new experience.

Andrey Doronichev, head of YouTube mobile, recently watched “One-Shot // Goodbye, beloved sister.”

Google Drive: Updates for iOS and Android

Every day, more and more people are choosing to live online and get things done in the cloud. Helping to make this experience as seamless as possible, Google Drive is one place where you can create, share and keep all your stuff. Drive is available on the web, as well as Mac, Windows and Android and iOS.

Updates for iOS

Starting today, if you’re using the Drive app on your iOS device you can also edit Google documents, just as you can with the Android app. From your iPhone or iPad, you can create a new document, edit an existing one or format text. And, just like on your computer, you’ll be able to see other people’s edits instantly as they’re made.

Google Drive on iPad

You’ll also notice other new improvements to the iOS Drive app. For example, you can now view Google presentations on your iPhone or iPad, including speaker notes, full-screen mode and the ability to swipe between slides. You can also create new folders, move files into folders and upload stuff (like photos and videos) from your device directly in the Drive app.

Updates for Android

We’re also updating the Drive app for Android phones and tablets today. You can now add comments, reply to existing comments and view tables in your Google documents. And you’ll have the same new abilities to view presentations and organize your stuff as your friends with iPhones do.

More to come... 

Looking ahead, we have plenty more planned for the Drive mobile apps—including native editing and real-time collaboration for Google spreadsheets. Stay tuned.

Google Drive for mobile

Get Drive in the App Store for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch and visit the Play Store to get the latest on your Android phone or tablet. To learn more about Google Drive, visitdrive.google.com/start.

Source: Drive


Google Drive: Updates for iOS and Android

Every day, more and more people are choosing to live online and get things done in the cloud. Helping to make this experience as seamless as possible, Google Drive is one place where you can create, share and keep all your stuff. Drive is available on the web, as well as Mac, Windows and Android and iOS.

Updates for iOS

Starting today, if you’re using the Drive app on your iOS device you can also edit Google documents, just as you can with the Android app. From your iPhone or iPad, you can create a new document, edit an existing one or format text. And, just like on your computer, you’ll be able to see other people’s edits instantly as they’re made.

Google Drive on iPad

You’ll also notice other new improvements to the iOS Drive app. For example, you can now view Google presentations on your iPhone or iPad, including speaker notes, full-screen mode and the ability to swipe between slides. You can also create new folders, move files into folders and upload stuff (like photos and videos) from your device directly in the Drive app.

Updates for Android

We’re also updating the Drive app for Android phones and tablets today. You can now add comments, reply to existing comments and view tables in your Google documents. And you’ll have the same new abilities to view presentations and organize your stuff as your friends with iPhones do.

More to come... 

Looking ahead, we have plenty more planned for the Drive mobile apps—including native editing and real-time collaboration for Google spreadsheets. Stay tuned.

Google Drive for mobile

Get Drive in the App Store for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch and visit the Play Store to get the latest on your Android phone or tablet. To learn more about Google Drive, visitdrive.google.com/start.

Source: Drive