Monthly Archives: November 2012

Edit spreadsheets on the go with the Drive mobile app

You’re making your list, you’re checking it twice -- and now you can do it from anywhere.

Just in time for this year’s holiday season, you can edit Google Sheets on your mobile device, just like you can with Google Docs. From the Drive app on your Android device, you can create a new spreadsheet or edit an existing one. You can switch fonts, resize columns, sort data, and more. And just like on your computer, you’ll be able to see other people’s edits in real time as they’re made.


Beyond spreadsheets, you may notice a few other tweaks to the Drive app, including better text formatting when you paste from one Google document to another. And from your Android device, you can edit text within tables in documents and add a shortcut on the homescreen of your device to any specific file in Drive.

Whether it’s holiday recipes, shopping lists, or just your family budget, the Drive app on your mobile device makes it easy to get stuff done wherever you are.

Get the Google Drive app today on Google Play.

Posted by Shrikant Shanbhag, Software Engineer

Grow your audience with the Google+ followers gadget

Connecting your blog to Google+ is a great way to attract new readers, as well as build lasting relationships with your followers. For example, you can easily share your posts in the Google+ stream, as well as enable blog visitors to recommend your stuff in a single click. Today we're excited to offer another Google+ perk: the followers gadget.

The Google+ followers gadget highlights your total Google+ audience (both its size and some friendly faces), and offers visitors the chance to follow you on Google+. As a result, you can grow your readership across the web, and reach them either in the Google+ stream, or through your blog.
To get started, just connect your blog to Google+, visit the "Layout" tab of the Blogger dashboard, and select "Add a Gadget." You can also read a bit more about today's update in our Help Center.

Happy blogging!

p.s. Those of you with the Google Friend Connect followers gadget can keep using it, if you like. We retired most of Friend Connect earlier this year, but we'll keep it running on Blogger for the foreseeable future.

Source: Blogger Buzz


First fan-voted ARIA Award for Best Video goes to Missy Higgins’ ‘Everyone’s Waiting’

We know the YouTube community loves its music videos, and yet even we were overwhelmed by the interest in the first ever fan-voted ARIA Award for Best Video, presented by ARIA and YouTube.

There were thousands upon thousands of votes, and last night Missy Higgins’ ‘Everyone’s Waiting’ was declared the winner.


The video’s director, Natasha Pincus, is no stranger to ARIA awards having won this Award last year for her now world-famous video, Gotye’s ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’.

Music videos have gone through a major renaissance in the last few years, and it’s wonderful to see our Australian artists embracing the medium and pushing creative boundaries. Last year's winner, Gotye, became one of the most viewed videos of all time on YouTube and it is a testament to the calibre of Australian recording artists and video producers that local talent continues to perform so well on YouTube globally.

Congratulations Missy and Natasha!

This line up of nominees for Best Video Award were:

Alex Weltlinger – 360 - Boys Like you
Luci Schroder – Alpine - Hands
Animal Logic – Hilltop Hoods - I Love It
Brent “Quincy” Buchanan – The Grindhouse – Jackson Firebird, Cock Rockin’
Emma Tomelty – Hermitude, from the album “Heperparadise”, Speak Of The Devil
Darcy Prendergast - Kate Miller-Heidke, I’ll Change Your Mind
Josh Logue - Lanie Lane – Oh Well, That’s What You Get Falling In Love With a Cowboy
Natasha Pincus- Missy Higgins, Everyone’s Waiting
Sam Bennetts – Bluejuice, Act Yr Age
Josh Logue -The Rubens, My Gun

Posted by Richard North, Content Partnership Manager, YouTube

Rihanna: 777 Live On YouTube

Seven countries, seven days, the release of a seventh album in “Unapologetic”: Rihanna is having quite a week of it on the 777 tour, and on Monday you can catch up with her live at a top secret venue in London before she boards a Boeing-777 with 150 journalists and fans and heads to New York for the concluding date. 



Scheduled to start at 9pm (GMT) on the official release date of “Unapologetic”, sets so far have included versions of “Man Down”, “Only Girl In The World”, “Diamonds”, “Umbrella” and “We Found Love”, so if you’re a RiRi obsessive make no mistake: youtube.com/RihannaLive is the only place to be Monday evening. 

Laura Quinn, YouTube Marketing Manager, recently watched “BT Infinity Presents an exclusive LIVE gig with Conor Maynard”.

Source: YouTube UK Blog


Updated Scholar Metrics: Now Grouped by Research Area

Earlier this year, we launched Scholar Metrics which provides an easy way for authors to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of recent articles in scholarly publications. Today, we are updating Scholar Metrics to make it easier for you to explore publications in research areas that you are interested in.

To get started, you can browse publications in broad areas like Engineering & Computer Science, Health & Medical Sciences, or Social Sciences. You will see the top 20 publications in the area ordered by their five-year h-index and h-median metrics. To see which articles in a publication were cited the most and who cited them, click on its h-index number.

To explore more specific research areas, select one of the broad areas, click on the "Subcategories" link and then choose one of the options. For example: Databases & Information Systems, Development Economics, Virology or Composite Materials.

We use a statistical model based on the articles published in the last five years to compute the set of publications associated with each research area. Recognizing the multi-disciplinary nature of many publications, our model allows a publication to be associated with more than one research area.

Browsing by research area is, as yet, available only for English publications. As previously, you can browse the top 100 publications in several languages. You can, of course, also search for specific publications by words in their titles.

Scholar Metrics currently covers articles published between 2007 and 2011. It only includes journal articles from websites that follow our inclusion guidelines, selected conference articles in Computer Science & Electrical Engineering and preprints from arXiv, SSRN, NBER, and RePEC. Scholar Metrics does not include publications with fewer than 100 articles, nor publications that received no citations in 2007-2011.

The metrics are based on citations from all articles that were indexed in Google Scholar as of November 15, 2012. Since our previous metrics were based on citations from all articles indexed as of April 1, 2012, the new numbers are expected to be a bit higher. Alas, that does not indicate that your favorite journal has become more influential over this short period.

For more details, see the Scholar Metrics help page.

Posted by: Helder Suzuki, Software Engineer

New and improved Blogger mobile apps

Inspiration for a new post can happen at any place and time: on the couch, while shopping, at a game, or in the kitchen. Fortunately, mobile devices enable you to stay connected wherever you are.

With that in mind, we just launched updated apps for both Android and iOS. The updated apps include a visual facelift and other features which make it easier for you to create and share -- wherever your imagination runs wild. Some of the more notable improvements include:

  • Landscape support for composing posts
  • Sharing to Google+
  • Ability to view a scheduled post time
  • International support in 30+ languages
  • iPad support

We hope you enjoy these improvements, and keep writing great blog content on the go. 

Get Blogger in the Play store to get the latest on your Android phone or the App Store for iOS devices.

Source: Blogger Buzz


Two new services added to Takeout

We're always working to improve our tools and make it easier for users to control and access their data. Today we are happy to add support for two new services in Google Takeout.

Latitude: Download a json file with your location data.

Reader: You can already export your data within Reader. Now that functionality comes to Google Takeout. Export an xml file of your subscriptions and your lists of starred, shared, following (and more) items in json format.
Posted by Kári Ragnarsson, The Data Liberation Front

Source: Data Liberation


Making it easier to watch YouTube videos on TV

Cross-posted from the Official YouTube Blog

What if you could send YouTube videos from your phone to your TV with a click of a button? It’s an idea we’ve been working on since 2010, and today we’re taking the next step.

We’re making it even easier to play videos from your phone or tablet on your TV, with a YouTube app update for Android and Google TV that automatically pairs your devices on the same WiFi. Just find a video on your YouTube app for Android — like the latest video from GoPro or H+ The Digital Series — click the TV icon that appears, and the video will play instantly on your Google TV.

Like a remote control, you can pause, scroll or skip to the next video with your mobile device as it plays on your TV. Since your devices are connected in the cloud, you can also do things like find the next video to watch from your tablet or browse around the web on your phone, all while the video plays on TV. You can even connect multiple devices to the TV to have your friends add to the playlist. 

Stay tuned to see this feature coming to more devices and screens in the future. The next evolution of TV is in your hands. 

Timbo Drayson, Product Manager, recently watched all of H+ The Digital Series on his TV.

Deck the halls with tools for shopping

I love shopping for gifts for my family and friends, but it’s not always easy. Fortunately, the Google Shopping team has built several new tools to help you (and me!) get an early and stress-free start on holiday shopping.

Explore products in 360-degree detail on Google Shopping

Having trouble imagining what a toy actually looks like from the online picture? Now, when searching for a subset of toys on Google Shopping, you can see 360-degree photos of the products. These interactive images bring the in-store feeling of holding and touching a product to your online browsing.

Look for the “3D” swivel icon on the product image to see a toy in 360-degree view, on HTML5 enabled browsers. We’ve also put together a Holiday Toy Collection featuring this enhanced imagery—explore the collection on this site. 360-degree imagery is coming for other types of products soon.

Google Shopping 360 detail

If you’re a retailer or manufacturer interested in displaying these rich images of your products on Google Shopping, please fill out this form.

Use Shortlists to stay organized and collaborate with friends

Google Shopping shortlists

New in Google Shopping, Shortlists make it easier to research products and plan purchases with friends and family. Instead of using bookmarked websites and docs containing long lists of URLs, or back-and-forth emails with friends, you can now consolidate all your shopping research in one place. With Shortlists, you can easily:

  • Keep track of products you like from Google Shopping and across the web
  • View product photos, prices and specs side by side
  • Share your Shortlist with friends, who can add their own ideas

Create a Shortlist by visiting google.com/shopping/shortlists or clicking the “Add to Shortlist” button as you browse products on Google Shopping.

Shortlists on Google Shopping

Shortlists on Google Shopping

Discover great deals and store promotions on Google Shopping

Google Shopping discounts

To help you make the most of your holiday budget, Google Shopping now shows discounts or promotions on the products you're viewing. If discounts or promotions are available, you can click on the link and visit the retailer’s site to redeem the offer.

That’s not all...a few more new Google Shopping features

Here are a few of the other tools we’ve created to make your holiday shopping a little easier:

  • Not sure you’ve found the perfect gift? Read reviews from people you know and write your own product reviews on Google Shopping.
  • Found an item that’s almost perfect but not quite? Now you can view“visually similar” results for even more types of products and categories, including jewelry, coats, handbags and more.
  • Buying an important gift? Look for the Google Trusted Store logo as you shop. It indicates a store ships quickly and delivers excellent customer service.
  • Shopping on the go? Browse for gift ideas, find local sales and research products with the new and improved Google Shopper 3.0, currently available for Android.
  • Still need some inspiration? Browse holiday catalogs from the top retailers directly on Google Shopping.

Happy holiday shopping!