Official Google Australia Blog: January 2012

Reigniting the global economy... online

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

World Economic ForumConnected ContinentDigital ManifestoreportConnected ContinentValue of the Web

What are you working for?

Monday, January 30, 2012

We asked small businesses in Australia “What are you working for?” Their responses were as diverse as the businesses themselves. But there were two things all of them had in common. The first was a passion for what they did. The second was a desire for more time to focus on their business, rather than on the operational details -- like technology.

While many understood that using the Internet could make their lives easier - to find customers, to run and promote their business, even to save costs - they had been slow to adopt it because they often didn’t know how and who to ask. At Google, we want to make it easy for small businesses to succeed. This is why we launched Getting Aussie Business Online last year, which gives businesses a free domain name and website. Today we’re launching another set of resources -- at www.whatareyouworkingfor.com -- to help small businesses learn how to use Internet technologies to operate more efficiently.

At www.whatareyouworkingfor.com business owners and managers can learn from their counterparts around Australia who have already taken the leap to Google Apps. Like George Perry at Choice, a leading consumer advocacy group, who turned on Gmail and Google Calendar for the whole company... overnight! Or John O’Neil, owner and builder at O’Neil Construction who said Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs have helped him exceed his clients’ expectations while letting him spend more time outside the office. Karen Huby is a project manager at Sitback, a Sydney based design studio, who says Google Apps has helped take the stress away from her everyday job. No longer chained to her office desktop, she is now fully productive on her mobile from anywhere.

The site contains a repository of relevant content from Google and from around the web on topics that address real questions around how small businesses work. At any time, business managers can sign-up for a 30-day free trial of Google Apps to experience the benefits of these tools in their own business environments.

The Internet is redefining how most businesses work. We hope you find these resources useful in helping you consider how you want to work in 2012.

Posted by Jeremy Wood, Marketing Manager, Google Enterprise

Five Myths of Viral Video

Friday, January 27, 2012

This blog post was initially published on AdNews
Justin Biebertalking twin babiesRebecca BlackNatalie TranEcruisingcommon myths I’d like to debunkYou need a viral hit to have a successful presence on YouTubeOnly humorous videos are popularShoes of PreyYouTube is just for young people55 percent of all womenPeople only watch YouTube for entertainmentCanon AustraliaVideos need to be professionally produced to gain viewsOrabrushjust $500TrueView
Posted by Karen Stocks, Head of YouTube & Display, Google Australia

Picture perfect: Welcome customers into your business on Google Maps

Friday, January 27, 2012

When we initially announced the Business Photos pilot program, we wanted to give business owners an easy way to get customers in the door online using interactive, high-quality, 360-degree images of places on Google Maps and on Google Search results. With thousands of businesses under our belt — from cafes to hotels— we’ve been hearing the same question again and again from both business owners and photographers alike: How can I participate?

Well, with the overwhelming success of the first pilot, we’ve decided to unveil a complementary initiative that will help us reach more interested business owners, more quickly: Trusted Photographers.

Click and drag to view the inside of Yuki’s at The Quay

It’s simple. Visit our new website and search for a Google Trusted Photographer in your area. Either email or call a photographer in your area to schedule a time and agree on a price that you will pay the photographer for a photoshoot of your business. This self-serve model makes for easier scheduling and quicker turnaround, while also supporting the local photographers in your community. During the hour it should take for the shoot, you can collaborate with the photographer about how best to display and capture your business. When finished, the photographer will upload the images to Google, and shortly thereafter, you’ll see 360-degree panoramic views of your business on Google.com.au, Google Maps and on your Google Places listing.

See how Business Photos has helped Toy Joy of Austin, Texas.

Trusted Photographers are available in 14 U.S. cities, as well as in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and France. Don’t see a photographer in your area? Let us know, as that will help us determine where more Trusted Photographers are needed.

Posted by Gadi Royz, Product Manager, Google Maps

Google Earth 6.2: It’s a beautiful world

Friday, January 27, 2012

This is a cross-post from the Google LatLong blog.

We're taking bird's eye view to a whole new level with the latest version of Google Earth, released today. With Google Earth 6.2, we’re bringing you the most beautiful Google Earth yet, with more seamless imagery and a new search interface. Additionally, we’ve introduced a feature that enables you to share an image from within Google Earth, so you can now simply and easily share your virtual adventures with family and friends on Google+.

A seamless globe

The Google Earth globe is made from a mosaic of satellite and aerial photographs taken on different dates and under different lighting and weather conditions. Because of this variance, views of the Earth from high altitude can sometimes appear patchy.

Today, we’re introducing a new way of rendering imagery that smoothes out this quilt of images. The end result is a beautiful new Earth-viewing experience that preserves the unique textures of the world’s most defining geographic landscapes—without the quilt effect. This change is being made on both mobile and desktop versions of Google Earth. While this change will appear on all versions of Google Earth, the 6.2 release provides the best viewing experience for this new data.

Grand Canyon before and after

Sri Lanka before and after

Share your explorations with Google+
Google Earth is a great way to virtually explore the globe, whether revisiting old haunts or checking out a future vacation spot. With the Google Earth 6.2 update, we’ve added the option to share a screenshot of your current view in Google Earth through Google+. If you’ve already upgraded to Google+, you can share images of the places you’ve virtually traveled to with your Circles, such as family, friends or your local hiking club. To try this new feature, simply sign in to your Google Account in the upper right hand corner of Google Earth and click “Share.” Images of mountains, oceans, deserts, 3D cities, your favorite pizza shop on Street View—you can now experience all these amazing places around the world with people on Google+.

Search improvements
We’ve also made some updates to the search feature in Google Earth. Aside from streamlining the visual design of the search panel, we’ve enabled the same Autocomplete feature that’s available on Google Maps. We’ve also introduced search layers, which will show all the relevant search results (not just the top ten), so now, when looking for gelato in Milano, you can see all the tasty possibilities. Finally, we’ve added biking, transit and walking directions, so if you’re itching for a change of scenery or looking for a new route for your regular commute, you can now use Google Earth to generate and visualize all your options.

Biking directions in Google Earth

Download Google Earth 6.2 and start exploring and sharing today!

Posted by Peter Birch, Product Manager, Google Earth

Android Developer Labs Coming to Australia

Monday, January 23, 2012

Our Android Developer Advocates are kicking off 2012 with new events to get out and meet Android developers around the world. First stop: Australia & New Zealand!

Android Developer Labs (ADLs) will be taking place in Melbourne (Tuesday 31 January), Sydney (Friday 3 February) and Auckland (Wednesday 8 February). ADLs are aimed at accomplished Android developers who want to learn the best practices for building truly world-class Android apps. Ideally, developers will enter an ADL with a good app that has already garnered some success, but leave with a great app that will appeal to Android users everywhere.

In these sessions, we’ll cover the following topics:
Latest advances in Ice Cream Sandwich
Utilising cloud services in Android apps
Designing polished and immersive user experiences
Building rich apps for both smartphones and tablets
How do I participate?
Registration is open to everyone, but we will sift through the applications by hand and select the most qualified developers. In choosing attendees, we’re primarily looking for developers who have already released a successful app on Android Market but want to improve its overall quality, fit and finish.

Other prerequisites include a laptop with the Eclipse & Android SDK (API 15) installed and configured, an Android device(s) for debugging and a solid understanding of Android fundamentals (activities, layouts, app life cycle, etc). If you’re selected to attend, you’ll receive an invitation up to 48 hours before the event.

Visit the Android Developer Lab website for more information and submit your application.

Think fast in the first Think Quarterly of 2012

Friday, January 20, 2012

Think QuarterlyDon MeijBom KimUrs HölzleAstro Teller

Ask your question in the 2012 Google Science Fair

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Are human beings born curious, or can curiosity be nurtured through environment, competition or a good teacher? Everyone’s got a question—that’s ours. But we’re sure you’ve got tons of questions, too. So we’re inviting students around the world to pose their most pressing questions and answer those questions through scientific inquiry as part of our second annual Google Science Fair.

Along with our partners CERN, The LEGO Group, National Geographic and Scientific American, it’s the largest online science competition in the world. Open to students ages 13-18, students (either individually or in teams of up to three people) pose a question, develop a hypothesis and conduct science experiments to test it.

Last year, we received entries that strove to solve a wide variety of needs, from “How can I cure cancer?” to “Can I teach a robot to learn English?” to “Can I build a faster sailboat?” The breadth and depth of these projects was incredibly impressive, and this year we hope to see even more entries from the next generation of brilliant young scientists.

From the entries we will recognise 90 regional finalists before our judges select the top 15 finalists, who will be flown to Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, for the Google Science Fair event on July 23, 2012. At the finals, a panel of distinguished international judges (like Vint Cerf, Sylvia Earle, and Nobel Laureates David Gross and Ada Yonath) will select top winners in each age category (13-14, 15-16, 17-18).

In addition to satisfying your curious mind, your project can also help to win you some pretty cool prizes, like a US$50,000 college scholarship from Google, a 10-day trip to the Galapagos Islands with a National Geographic Explorer or an internship at Google or any one of our partners.

We’re also introducing a new category for this year’s competition—the Scientific American Science in Action award which will see the winner earn US$50,000 and a year-long mentorship to make their project a reality. We were so inspired by 2011 finalist Harine Ravichandran’s project, which attempted to solve energy surges in rural villages, that this year we decided to recognise an outstanding project that addresses a social, environmental or health need.

The Google Science Fair will accept submissions until Sunday, April 1 at 11:59 GMT.

Google itself was founded through experimentation and with the Google Science Fair, we hope to inspire scientific exploration among the next generation of scientists and engineers, celebrate scientific talent, create scientific role models and unite students around the world in the quest for learning.

Visit google.com/sciencefair and ask your most burning questions.
(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog) Posted by Cristin Frodella, Google Education Team

Introducing our Sydney Community Manager, Anna Kricker

Thursday, January 5, 2012

(Cross-posted on the Google Places Community Blog)
Hey Sydneysiders,

My name is Anna and I’m the new Places Community Manager for Sydney. What does that mean? It means I’m here to make sure you get the most out of Google Places and don’t find yourself sighing,

“Where should we eat tonight?”
“How can I find a good gym whilst travelling interstate?”
“Does anyone know of a nearby bike shop?”

I’d like to let you know a little bit more about myself. I am my happiest (apart from being part of the Google Places team) when cranking my 29er mountain bike around a track, reading Margaret Atwood or drinking my first morning coffee -- as Murakami stated -- coffee as ‘hot and strong as the devil at midnight.’

I love taking videos with my GoPro whilst planning my next caffeine hit or out on adventures with my FJ40. I am passionate about good food and about accessing the beautiful, yet unforgiving, Australian bush. You can also find me on Twitter having a chat about car restorations with the FJ40 community.

After a long road trip or bike ride, nothing but the most satisfying food will suffice. I love Das Kaffee Haus in Manly for german schnitzels and Weissbier or Steki Taverna in Marrickville for spanakopita and meat dolmas. When I have interstate visitors I always head to Fratelli Paradiso for rice porridge and rhubarb breakfasts. "Blessings on him who invented…the food that appeases hunger"(Cervantes)

Having grown up in both Sydney and Melbourne, I am fascinated by the complex, yet mutually beneficial, food relationship these cities have. I have entered many a passionate debate about the superiority of a Sydney style latte versus the Melbourne. My favourite caffeine burrows in Sydney involve anything roasted by the team at Allpress and if a cafe is near a Berkelouw Bookshop , even better. When in Melbourne my favourite battleground cafes are Pellegrini’s and Ici Cafe.

Ask me about my favourite food genre and there is no hesitation in answering… Japanese. Long time Sydney favourites are Uchi lounge, Kintaro and Sydney’s best Japanese supermarket, Tokyomart.

You can often find me seeking out a burger for lunch after racking up the kilometers cycling Manly Dam . Currently the best spots to hit up are The Cooks Larder or Cafe Splat with a glorious Sydney water view as bonus.

Through planning user meetups, foodie contests and giveaways I want you to experience and share Sydney at its best. I look forward to hearing from foodies, outdoor adventurers and dog lovers about everything that makes you L-O-V-E- this Emerald City as a marvellous place to live, work and play!

Follow us at @googlesydney and get ready to join me for some very cool activities.

Posted by Anna Kricker, Sydney community manager

Australia Blog

Reigniting the global economy... online

What are you working for?

Five Myths of Viral Video

Picture perfect: Welcome customers into your business on Google Maps

Google Earth 6.2: It’s a beautiful world

Android Developer Labs Coming to Australia

Think fast in the first Think Quarterly of 2012

Ask your question in the 2012 Google Science Fair

Introducing our Sydney Community Manager, Anna Kricker

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