Tag Archives: Google+

Android Developer Story: Travel app Wego, increases monthly user retention by 300% with material design

Posted by Lily Sheringham, Google Play team

Headquartered in Singapore, Wego is a popular online travel marketplace for flights and hotels for users in South East Asia and the Middle East. They launched their Android app in early 2014, and today, more than 62 percent of Wego app users are on Android. Wego recently redesigned their app using material design principles to provide their users a more native Android experience for consistency and easier navigation.

Watch Ross Veitch, co-founder and CEO, and the Wego team talk about how they increased monthly user retention by 300 percent and reduced uninstall rates by up to 25 percent with material design.


Learn more about Material Design, how to use Android Studio, and how to find success on Google Play with the new guide ‘Secrets to App Success on Google Play.’

Helping 1 million students build better apps

Posted by Peter Lubbers, Senior Program Manager, Google Developer Training

Almost three years ago we shipped our very first Udacity course about HTML5 Game Development. Today marks a milestone that we proudly want to share with the world. The 1 millionth person has enrolled in our Google Developer Training courses. Was it you?

This milestone is more than just a number. Thanks to our partnership with Udacity, this training gives developers access to skills that empower families, communities, and the future.

One million developers around the world have made a commitment to learn a new language, expand their craft, start a new business, completely shift careers and more. So, here's to the next million people who are excited about using technology to solve the world’s most pressing challenges.

Keep learning!

Google announces a new Accelerator for mobile startups

Posted by Roy Glasberg Global Lead, Launchpad Program & Accelerator

Available to startups around the world, Google Launchpad offers resources, technology and expertise to help developers design, develop and distribute their apps. The Launchpad program includes a number of activities: Launchpad Week supports early-stage companies and focuses on high-impact mentorship, while Launchpad Day and Launchpad Summits similarly serves later-stage developers. So far, these events have been hosted in more than 30 countries and impacted more than 8,000 startups.

To complement all these efforts and provide a more intimate experience for developers, we're expanding Launchpad to now also include the Launchpad Accelerator - a program that offers six months of hands-on support and training to help high-potential startups in India, Brazil and Indonesia build high quality apps and successful businesses. As part of the program, developers will be connected with Google professionals, world-class mentors and equity-free funding (up to $50,000 per startup) to help them quickly scale and reach their true potential.

The first wave kicks off on January 18th in Mountain View, CA, where over twenty pre-selected startups will coincide for two-weeks of intensive programming. Afterward, each company will return to their home country where mentorship will be ongoing, both locally and remotely, for the remaining time of the program. The startups will also receive credit for a range of Google services, as well as free co-working space. In the coming month, we’ll expand Launchpad Accelerator to more countries.

We’re now accepting new applications for the next round of the program, which begins in mid-2016. If you’re interested in participating to accelerate your app to the next level, apply here!

United Biscuits prepares for another Christmas sales rush with help from Google Apps

Posted by Barry Kelly, Enterprise Architect at United Biscuits 

Editor's note: Today we hear from Barry Kelly, Enterprise Architect at United Biscuits, a leading international manufacturer and marketer of biscuits and cakes, producing brands including McVitie’s, Jacob’s and Carr’s. Read how the company’s employees use Google Apps to work together globally and deliver significant incremental sales.

Christmas is a peak trading period for us here at United Biscuits, as people up and down the country stock up on their favourite snacks and treats to get ready for the festive period. We make 30% of our yearly sales then, so it’s important to get every area of the business focussing on driving seasonal sales. But with thousands of employees based all over the country, we had to find a way to work as a single team and get around the geographical challenges.

By using Google Apps for Work we’ve become a stronger team: we share over 700,000 documents on Drive, spend 1,600 hours a month meeting together on Hangouts, use Sheets to help coordinate marketing efforts and rely on Sites to continually develop our company intranet for better communication.

Google Apps tools have also delivered huge sales increases that add to our bottom line. Richard Williams, Field Sales Controller has been leading our seasonal in-store promotion days — or Making A Difference Days (MAD), as we call them. These now bring in additional significant revenue each year, thanks largely to the motivation and inspiration teams get from being part of our Google+ community. These specific days see up to 200 employees from across the company working together to improve our customer offer and taking on roles they’d normally never do. MAD days are a chance for people at every level to contribute to the customer-facing parts of the business during our busiest time of year.

On our MAD Day last Christmas, teams used Google+ to instantly share over 700 photos and videos with colleagues in other stores, and teams inspired and encouraged each other to go the extra mile. By allowing teams to share ideas across regions instead of work alone in a single store, Google+ revolutionised the day, and staff left feeling exhilarated rather than exhausted.

Google technology has transformed our merchandising days — and, with this year’s Christmas activity not far away, we’re confident our sales figures will reflect this. And by year end, every single United Biscuits employee will be a member of our Google+ community, meaning knowledge and ideas will continue to be shared and developed across the business, no matter where we’re based.

Say hello to a simpler, better Google+

Posted by Ivan Passos, Product Manager, Google Apps for Work

Today we’re rolling out a few updates to Google+ that make it easier to focus on the features our Apps customers tell us they find the most useful. There’s a new homestream to quickly browse through content, Communities that make it easy to safely share ideas and Collections that enable organizations to curate their work and keep it in one easy-to-find place.

The fully redesigned homestream is built to be fast and simple. The new design makes it easier to use whether you’re at your desk browsing through posts or sharing an update on the go from a smaller mobile device screen.

Domain-restricted Communities are a popular way for organizations to share content and ideas amongst teammates, with the peace of mind that they’ll stay private. We’ve already seen how a global fashion brand uses Communities to inspire conversation about products and branding among employees across the world and how a Japanese startup is keeping their staff up-to-date as they build a vaccine.

Collections let you keep all your related content in one spot and make it easier to discover and browse. For example, earlier this year we dedicated a week on the Google for Work G+ page to our awesome System Admins, in order to keep all that content together, we put it into a Collection. It’s a handy way to collate posts, whether they’re showing off your new product or keeping your customers in the know about your Black Friday sales.

For more information on the launch check out the Official Google Blog. Explore the new-look Google+ yourself on the web today and on iOS and Android later this week.

Google Shopping Best Practice Videos Help You Reach More Shoppers for the Holidays

The holiday season is often the busiest time of year for many small business owners. In addition to running your business, trying to implement a top-notch holiday marketing campaign can be daunting. Here at Google Shopping, we want to help you succeed during one of the busiest times of the year and connect shoppers with your products at the drop of a (Santa) hat.

Earlier this year, we shared Google for Retail, our online hub for businesses of all sizes to get up and running on Google Shopping. Today, we’re introducing a few new Google Shopping best practice videos, highlighting three tactics to help you turn clicks into customers and find even more shoppers this holiday season.

Manage your Shopping campaign
After you’ve set up your Shopping campaign, you’ll want to make sure you have your goals, bids, and budgets set for the best results. In the video below, we’ll eliminate the guesswork and walk you through setting up realistic budget and targets to maximize your reach on Google.



Get more of your products online
When setting up your first data feeds, you may run into issues that prevent your products from appearing on Google. Learn more about how to get your data feed into tip-top shape to show even more of your products online, making it easier for shoppers to find you.



Optimize your Shopping campaigns
Once your Shopping campaign is up and running, you’re ready to think about how to optimize your ads to get the best return-on-investment (ROI). While there are many ways to do this, the key is knowing what to do first. Learn optimization fundamentals including how to drive traffic to your site and optimize that traffic to maximize your profits and ROI.



By managing your Shopping campaigns, fixing your data feed disapprovals, and optimizing your ads, searching shoppers can find all the products you’re selling -- helping you efficiently and effectively get more sales for the holidays, and beyond.

For more information on Shopping campaign best practices, check out the Google Best Practices Help Center or our Google Shopping YouTube channel.

Posted by Kim Doan, Product Marketing Manager, Google Shopping

Programmatically transfer ownership of Google+ pages and Google Drive content

Posted by Muzammil Esmail, Product Manager, Google for Work

Google Apps users generate a lot of content at work—project plans, design documents, client presentations, and more. Many of these files are still relevant to an employee’s company or team even after he or she has left or transferred internally. The new Data Transfer API will make it easier for developers to build tools that will allow admins to better manage their end-user data, specifically apps that can transfer ownership of Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, and all the other Google Drive files as well as Google+ pages in your Google for Work account—in bulk—from one employee/end-user to another using the API.

In July, we introduced the Data Transfer privilege, which makes it easier for admins to transfer data ownership. That same privilege is leveraged by the Data Transfer API. When enabled, it allows admins to programmatically migrate file ownership anytime they want using the API—provided they’ve enabled API access. In order to transfer ownership of Google Drive content as well as Google+ pages, super admins will need to grant/delegate the Data Transfer privilege to admins before end-user content can be migrated programmatically (via API or 3rd-party tools) or from the admin console.


This is what User Deletion looks like in the Administration console,
but now you can also do this programmatically with the API.

To get started with the Data Transfer API, take a look at the developer documentation. Keep in mind that while this programmatic feature is new, admins can still transfer user data manually from the admin console. For more general information, see the Help Center pages on transferring file ownership on Google Drive and how to delete a user.

Keeping the conversation going

YouTube is built by one of the most engaged communities on the web, and you tell us when you want changes. Today, you heard from Google+ about upcoming changes based on user feedback. We wanted to give you an early look at what this will mean with respect to comments on YouTube, and to your overall YouTube experience.

The headline: we think you’ll like it.

Comments
Comments are super important to the relationship between creators and fans on YouTube. You love MyLifeAsEva and Kingsley. You thought that latest video from Tyler was his funniest yet. You want to tell Epic Rap Battles who their next match-up should feature. And these creators want to hear from fans like you, just as much as you want to communicate with them.

All of these conversations should be simpler and easier to have on YouTube, and we’ve been working on that.

  • First off, we’ve improved the ranking system that reduces the visibility of junk comments. It’s working—the rate of dislikes on comments has dropped by more than 35 percent across YouTube.
  • With today’s announcement from Google+, you’ll see more changes. The comments you make on YouTube will now appear only on YouTube, not also on Google+. And vice-versa. This starts rolling out today.
  • Creators told us they liked the moderation options on their channels, like reviewing comments before they’re posted, blocking certain words, or auto-approving comments from certain fans. All this stays.

Your YouTube channel
This one’s further off. In the coming weeks, YouTube will no longer require a Google+ profile when you want to upload, comment, or create a channel. If you’re happy with everything as it is now, then just keep on keepin’ on. If you want to remove your Google+ profile, you’ll be able to do this in the coming months, but do not do it now or you’ll delete your YouTube channel (no bueno). Please visit our Help Center for further details.

We’ve heard you. Keep talking to us.

The YouTube team

Source: YouTube Blog


Admin provisioning of individual Google+ profiles

Previously, Google Apps administrators had no means by which to give people in their organizations a Google+ profile in order to connect with other employees and encourage collaboration and sharing in the organization. With today’s launch, admins can now perform individual profile upgrades centrally (bulk upgrades coming soon). 

For people with Google+ enabled who have yet to register (i.e., create a profile), admins may individually create a basic Google+ profile on their behalf, certifying the employee is 18+ years of age (or specifying a birthday). After the admin has completed this action, the person for whom the profile was created will receive a Google+ welcome email explaining the action taken by the admin.

Notes
  • Today’s launch applies to Premier, Gov and higher-education EDU domains only (K-12 EDU domains are excluded).
  • People using Picasa or with a public chat photo are not eligible to be upgraded by an admin, and must create their own profile.

Release schedule:
Rapid release and Scheduled release

For more information:


Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Ok Google, how do I vote?

On November 4, Americans will cast ballots for 435 members of congress, 36 senators, 39 governorships, and thousands of other races locally. While every election is important, the voting process can often feel complicated, with the information about how to head to the polls spread across multiple official sources.

Get ready to vote with Google.

That’s why we are launching a number of new tools to equip voters with the information they need to vote on the issues they care about this November.  What is my registration deadline? How do I vote? What forms of identification do I need? All a voter needs to do is ask Google.

For the first time ever, a simple search for [how do i vote] or [register to vote] will give you all the information you need - personalized by state - to vote in person, vote by mail, and make sure you are registered to vote.

Voters can even get reminders on key election information straight from the Google App.

What’s trending this election season?

As election day approaches, YouTube.com/Elections and Google.com/Elections will provide real-time feeds for all the latest news and analysis, live candidate debates, and trending videos on the key races and top issues from across the country.

tablet_elections.jpg      yt_elections_android.jpg

By visiting Google.com/+GooglePolitics voters can see all Google Trends infographics -- a pulse on what Americans are searching in the final 26 days of the election.

           
Google Search and the Google Politics & Elections teams are working to make things simpler, by bringing technology to the elections process to encourage transparency, engagement, and informed participation.  With so much at stake on November 4th, including the balance of power in Congress, it is crucial that voters have access to all the information they needed to exercise their power to vote at the polls.

Make sure to check back over the coming weeks, as we’ll continue to release new tools to make sure all Americans can discover and connect with our democratic process.

Be informed. Spread the word. Get ready to use your power.

Posted by Anthea Watson Strong, Elections & Civic Engagement Program Manager