A fresh design for the Google Affiliate Network Help Center

After launching nearly four years ago, the Google Affiliate Network Help Center has been regularly updated with articles to help you find answers to common issues, manage your account, and learn affiliate marketing best practices.



Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve launched improvements to the design of our Help Center to give you easy access to help content that is most relevant to you.



The new design features four main sections:

• Get Started in the left navigation has basic information about Google Affiliate Network and how to launch or activate your advertiser or publisher account.


• Learn about Google Affiliate Network contains articles organized by category. Quickly find information you need about your account, managing ads, running reports, and many other areas. Plus, we’ve added a comprehensive FAQ that covers the most common questions users ask.


• Fix an issue helps you troubleshoot and resolve specific issues.


• Additional resources in the right navigation includes more ways to connect with us and get support such as our forum, Twitter feed, and even this blog.

In the next few weeks, look out for new help articles as well as additional changes to further simplify your Help Center experience.




Ready to get started? Visit the Advertiser or Publisher Help Center today. After you’ve taken a few minutes to check out the redesigned Help Center, we’d love to hear from you in our forum.



Posted by:

Josh Pyle, Google Affiliate Network Strategist

g|days Are Coming to India

After its roaring success in South America, Middle East and Africa, we’re delighted to bring Google g|days to India. The g|day events are an opportunity for businesses and web developers to learn more about Google products and the opportunities that are available online.



Google products have always been simple and easy to use, and with g|india events, we hope to make our platform and tools more accessible to the Business and Developer communities in India.



We will be hosting 5 events in India from July to September, with the kickoff in Chennai on the 19/20th of July, and cover all major cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi with the final event in Mumbai on the 13 / 14 September 2012.



The Full Schedule: 

• g|chennai - 19 / 20 July 


• g|bangalore - 2 / 3 August 


• g|hyderabad - 21 / 22 August 


• g|delhi - 4 / 5 September 


• g|mumbai - 11 / 12 September 

The two day event will cater to different audiences with Day 1 focussing on businesses who want to learn more about Google products and Day 2 will be dedicated to the tech audience like webmasters & App developers.



Day 1: Business Day: Business users and entrepreneurs will benefit from learning about Google tools that will help them to improve and take advantage of their online presence. We will host dedicated tracks on topics likes AdWords, AdSense, YouTube, Google+, and Google Apps.



Day 2: Technical Day: Will provide an opportunity to web developers and webmasters to discuss and learn more about Google platforms like Android, Google+, Google Apps and Google APIs.



Find more information here

The events will feature multiple tracks, including sessions specifically for Women Entrepreneurs and sessions for people seeking to become more involved with Google. We will also host multiple panel discussions on both days giving the audience a chance to hear from Google product leads and local industry experts.



The event is totally free, with registrations opening today. So hurry up and make sure to register yourself today. The countdown to the g|india events has begun, and so has the excitement.



Posted by Sunil Rao, Country Head , Outreach Programs, India.

Local—now with a dash of Zagat and a sprinkle of Google+

[Cross posted from Google Official Blog]



Finding the best places to go is an essential part of our lives, as are the people and resources that help us make those decisions. In fact, the opinions of friends, family or other trusted sources are often the first we seek when looking for the perfect restaurant for date night or the cafe that makes the best latte ever.



Today, we’re rolling out Google+ Local, a simple way to discover and share local information featuring Zagat scores and recommendations from people you trust in Google+. Google+ Local helps people like my husband turn a craving—“Wow, I need brunch”—into an afternoon outing: “Perfect, there’s a dim sum place with great reviews just two blocks from here. Let’s go.” It’s integrated into Search, Maps and mobile and available as a new tab in Google+—creating one simple experience across Google.

Local information integrated across Google 

From the new “Local” tab on the left-hand side of Google+, you can search for specific places or browse for ones that fit your mood. If you click on a restaurant, or a museum (or whatever), you’ll be taken to a local Google+ page that includes photos, Zagat scores and summaries, reviews from people you know, and other useful information like address and opening hours.



Google+ Local is also integrated across other products you already use every day. If you’re looking for a place on Search or Maps, you get the same great local information there too. You can also take it on the go with Google Maps for mobile on your Android device, and soon on iOS devices.

A search on Google Maps

Google+ Local on an Android phone

Better decisions with Zagat 

Since Zagat joined the Google family last fall, our teams have been working together to improve the way you find great local information. Zagat has offered high-quality reviews, based on user-written submissions and surveys, of tens of thousands of places for more than three decades. All of Zagat’s accurate scores and summaries are now highlighted on local Google+ pages.

Each place you see in Google+ Local will now be scored using Zagat’s 30-point scale, which tells you all about the various aspects of a place so you can make the best decisions. For example, a restaurant that has great food but not great decor might be 4 stars, but with Zagat you’d see a 26 in Food and an 8 in Decor, and know that it might not be the best place for date night.



Recommendations and reviews from people you know and trust 

Your friends know what you like, and they probably like the same things you do. That’s why the opinions of people in your circles are front and center. If you search for [tacos] on Google+ Local, your results might include a friend’s rave review of the Baja-style taco stand in your neighborhood. And if you’re searching on Google or Google Maps for a great place to buy a gift for that same friend, your results might include a review from her about a boutique she shops at all the time.



You can also share your opinions and upload photos. These reviews and photos will help your friends when they’re checking out a place, and are also integrated into the aggregate score that other people see. The more you contribute, the more helpful Google+ Local will be for your friends, family and everyone else.

Whether it’s a block you’ve lived on for years or a city you’ve never been to before, we hope Google+ Local helps you discover new gems.



Today is just the first step, and you’ll see more updates in the coming months. If you’re a business owner, you can continue to manage your local listing information via Google Places for Business. Soon we’ll make it even easier for business owners to manage their listings on Google and to take full advantage of the social features provided by local Google+ pages. Get more information on our Google and Your Business Blog.



Posted by Avni Shah, Director of Product Management

Future of Advertising Event - DoubleClick Insights

There has been explosive growth in ad technology over the last 20 years. From each of our perspectives -- whether you are an agency, an advertiser, publisher or a technology provider -- we can all still see unprecedented opportunities as the digital world continues to grow and diversify.

We believe that as an industry, we’re on a common digital journey and that the next wave of innovation in ad tech will come from us all working better together. 

However, like all great opportunities, there are challenges and questions, such as:

• How do we unlock the next $50 billion of opportunity for digital advertising? 


• How do we deliver those immersive, interactive experiences to today’s empowered consumer demands? 


• What do we, as part of the ad tech ecosystem, need to build to create even more value for our clients and consumers?

On June 5th we’re hosting DoubleClick Insights to start exploring some answers to these questions. Senior leaders from top agencies, advertisers and publishers will help lead the conversation -- and you’re invited to join via the live stream! Register here.



The agenda will include topics such as:



Adapting to the Empowered Consumer:

Neal Mohan, Vice President, Display Advertising at Google will be joined by David Kenny, Chairman & CEO, The Weather Channel Companies, and James Pitaro, Co-President, Disney Interactive Media Group, to discuss how technology is being used to deliver new content and advertising experiences to consumers.



If We Build It, Will They (Consumers) Come? 

Terry Kawaja, CEO and Co-Founder, Luma Partners (and creator of the now legendary LUMAscape chart) will lead a conversation about the ad tech ecosystem, and what it needs to do next to add value for agencies, publishers, marketers – and ultimately consumers. Terry will be joined onstage by:

• Omar Tawokol, Chief Executive Officer, BlueKai


• Greg Stuart, Global CEO of Mobile Marketing Association


• Kurt Unkel, President, VivaKi 


• Shishir Mehrota, Vice President of Product Management, YouTube

Outside the Box: Technology = Creative Friend or Foe?

Technology is supposed to make the life of a marketer easier. For our final conversation, we’re going to focus on the question of: Is this technology exploring resulting in better marketing? Or, is it just resulting in mediocre creative and complexity for both consumers and marketers? Karim Temsamani, Vice President - New Products and Solutions, Google moderates the conversation with leaders from creative agencies, iconic brands and publishers including:

• Brad Ruffkess, Global Connection, Coca-Cola


• Mike Lowenstern, Managing Director of Digital Advertising, R/GA


• Peter Minnium, Head of Digital Brand Initiatives, IAB 


• John Caldwell, Chief Digital Officer, National Geographic

The live stream will start on June 5, 2012, at 9:00 am PDT, and you’ll be able to watch from your computer, tablet, or mobile device. To learn more about our highlighted speakers go to the Speakers page on our site.



Please register for this virtual event by visiting the DoubleClick Insights Live Stream page.



DoubleClick Insights

Tuesday, June 5th 2012

9:00am - 1:00pm PST

Set event reminder today



Following us on Google+ or Twitter (@DoubleClick and @DoubleClick_pub)? Use the #dclkinsights tag as you're watching the event to ask questions or share comments during the event?



Posted by Stephen Kliff and Scott Brown, DoubleClick Marketing

Future of Advertising Event - DoubleClick Insights

There has been explosive growth in ad technology over the last 20 years. From each of our perspectives -- whether you are an agency, an advertiser, publisher or a technology provider -- we can all still see unprecedented opportunities as the digital world continues to grow and diversify.

We believe that as an industry, we're on a common digital journey and that the next wave of innovation in ad tech will come from us all working better together. 

However, like all great opportunities, there are challenges and questions, such as:

• How do we unlock the next $50 billion of opportunity for digital advertising? 


• How do we deliver those immersive, interactive experiences to today's empowered consumer demands? 


• What do we, as part of the ad tech ecosystem, need to build to create even more value for our clients and consumers?

On June 5th we're hosting the DoubleClick Insights event to start exploring some answers to these questions. Senior leaders from top agencies, advertisers and publishers will help lead the conversation -- and you're invited to join via the live stream! Register here.



The agenda will include topics such as:



Adapting to the Empowered Consumer - Neal Mohan, Vice President, Display Advertising at Google will be joined by David Kenny, Chairman & CEO, The Weather Channel Companies, and James Pitaro, Co-President, Disney Interactive Media Group, to discuss how technology is being used to deliver new content and advertising experiences to consumers.



If We Build It, Will They (Consumers) Come? Terry Kawaja, CEO and Co-Founder, Luma Partners (and creator of the now legendary LUMAscape chart) will lead a conversation about the ad tech ecosystem, and what it needs to do next to add value for agencies, publishers, marketers, and ultimately consumers. Terry will be joined onstage by:

• Omar Tawokol, Chief Executive Officer, BlueKai


• Greg Stuart, Global CEO of Mobile Marketing Association


• Kurt Unkel, President, VivaKi 


• Shishir Mehrota, Vice President of Product Management, YouTube

Outside the Box: Technology = Creative Friend or Foe?

Technology is supposed to make the life of a marketer easier. For our final conversation, we're going to focus on the question of: Is this technology exploring resulting in better marketing? Or, is it just resulting in mediocre creative and complexity for both consumers and marketers? Karim Temsamani, Vice President - New Products and Solutions, Google moderates the conversation with leaders from creative agencies, iconic brands and publishers including:

• Brad Ruffkess, Global Connection, Coca-Cola


• Mike Lowenstern, Managing Director of Digital Advertising, R/GA


• Peter Minnium, Head of Digital Brand Initiatives, IAB 


• John Caldwell, Chief Digital Officer, National Geographic

The live stream will start on June 5, 2012, at 9:00 am PDT, and you'll be able to watch from your computer, tablet, or mobile device. To learn more about our highlighted speakers go to the Speakers page on our site.



Please register for this virtual event by visiting the DoubleClick Insights Live Stream page.



DoubleClick Insights

Tuesday, June 5th 2012

9:00am - 1:00pm PST

Set event reminder today



Following us on Google+ or Twitter (@DoubleClick and @DoubleClick_pub)? Use the #dclkinsights tag as you're watching the event to ask questions or share comments during the event?



Posted by Stephen Kliff and Scott Brown, DoubleClick Marketing

Mobile Rich Media Advertising Gets Easier than Ever Before

[Cross-posted to the Google Mobile Ads Blog.]

Advertisers want to manage their mobile display campaigns with the accountability and ease provided by the DoubleClick platform. Toward this goal, in November 2011, we introduced a streamlined workflow for mobile display campaigns by adding support for a "Mobile In-App" rich media format in DoubleClick Studio and DoubleClick for Advertisers. Today we’re happy to announce that advertisers can serve mobile ads, in both standard and rich media formats, from DoubleClick for Advertisers into the AdMob network with no beta restrictions and new options for easily creating beautiful, mobile rich media ads.

This ad serving solution makes it easier to build, traffic, serve and measure mobile rich media ads, allowing easy integration of mobile into the overall workflow. Media teams gain access to interaction rate and clickthrough rate for their mobile rich media ads and can compare this to these metrics for their other ads. There is no need to fuss with multiple reports from different publishers, all information can be aggregated with our robust reporting system.

Building mobile rich media ads can start in DoubleClick Studio, where creative agencies upload HTML5 assets to build and test their creatives. Or, our services team can assemble any one of eleven mobile rich media designs ideal for showing your videos, retail locations or products via a rich ad placed within AdMob mobile apps. These designs make it easy for advertisers to create beautiful and highly interactive ads with no HTML5 expertise.

With desktop display and rich media, advertisers have enjoyed the ability to build an ad once and run it in multiple places. We are continuing to work towards making this a reality for mobile display advertising by extending our reach beyond the AdMob network and integrating with other mobile in-app networks, and are actively performing initial testing. As our reach grows, so will our ability to help advertisers manage their mobile display campaigns with accountability and ease.

To learn more about how DoubleClick’s mobile solutions can meet your needs, download the DoubleClick Guide to Mobile Rich Media.

Posted by Jen Klimas, Wook Chung and Shamim Samadi

Future of advertising event - DoubleClick Insights

There has been explosive growth in ad technology over the last 20 years. From each of our perspectives -- whether you are an agency, an advertiser, publisher or a technology provider -- we can all still see unprecedented opportunities as the digital world continues to grow and diversify.

We believe that as an industry, we’re on a common digital journey and that the next wave of innovation in ad tech will come from us all working better together. 

However, like all great opportunities, there are challenges and questions, such as:

• How do we unlock the next $50 billion of opportunity for digital advertising? 


• How do we deliver those immersive, interactive experiences to today’s empowered consumer demands? 


• What do we, as part of the ad tech ecosystem, need to build to create even more value for our clients and consumers?

On June 5th we’re hosting DoubleClick Insights to start exploring some answers to these questions. Senior leaders from top agencies, advertisers and publishers will help lead the conversation -- and you’re invited to join via the live stream! Register here.



The agenda will include topics such as:



Adapting to the Empowered Consumer:

Neal Mohan, Vice President, Display Advertising at Google will be joined by David Kenny, Chairman & CEO, The Weather Channel Companies, and James Pitaro, Co-President, Disney Interactive Media Group, to discuss how technology is being used to deliver new content and advertising experiences to consumers.



If We Build It, Will They (Consumers) Come? 

Terry Kawaja, CEO and Co-Founder, Luma Partners (and creator of the now legendary LUMAscape chart) will lead a conversation about the ad tech ecosystem, and what it needs to do next to add value for agencies, publishers, marketers – and ultimately consumers. Terry will be joined onstage by:

• Omar Tawokol, Chief Executive Officer, BlueKai


• Greg Stuart, Global CEO of Mobile Marketing Association


• Kurt Unkel, President, VivaKi 


• Shishir Mehrota, Vice President of Product Management, YouTube

Outside the Box: Technology = Creative Friend or Foe?

Technology is supposed to make the life of a marketer easier. For our final conversation, we’re going to focus on the question of: Is this technology exploring resulting in better marketing? Or, is it just resulting in mediocre creative and complexity for both consumers and marketers? Karim Temsamani, Vice President - New Products and Solutions, Google moderates the conversation with leaders from creative agencies, iconic brands and publishers including:

• Brad Ruffkess, Global Connection, Coca-Cola


• Mike Lowenstern, Managing Director of Digital Advertising, R/GA


• Peter Minnium, Head of Digital Brand Initiatives, IAB 


• John Caldwell, Chief Digital Officer, National Geographic

The live stream will start on June 5, 2012, at 9:00 am PDT, and you’ll be able to watch from your computer, tablet, or mobile device. To learn more about our highlighted speakers go to the Speakers page on our site.



Please register for this virtual event by visiting the DoubleClick Insights Live Stream page.



DoubleClick Insights

Tuesday, June 5th 2012

9:00am - 1:00pm PST

Set event reminder today



Following us on Google+ or Twitter (@DoubleClick and @DoubleClick_pub)? Use the #dclkinsights tag as you're watching the event to ask questions or share comments during the event?



Posted by Stephen Kliff and Scott Brown, DoubleClick Marketing

New industry metrics to help publishers chart their growth plan

As the display industry evolves, we're collectively discovering and analyzing trends that point towards promising opportunities and paths to growth. This is the year where we’re doubling down on publishers, giving you the tools you need to make the most from today’s digital media landscape. One of the ways we’re helping publishers navigate their way to success is by providing new sources of industry knowledge and benchmark data. So today we’re introducing a new report, “Display Business Trends: Publisher Edition”.

The Publisher Edition will be the first in a series of publications looking at aggregated global data from across our display advertising solutions. We’re doing this to generate metrics that will answer a few of of the most common questions we hear from our partners, and put some data behind long-held industry assumptions. For example:

• Is the banner really dead? If you mean the 468x60 banner, then it might be time to hold a wake. This ad size dropped down to 3% of all impressions. Brand-friendly “premium” units are gaining share and we’re seeing that smaller ad units are dropping in popularity. However nearly 80% of all impressions are the ad unit “three musketeers”: the medium rectangle, leaderboard, and skyscraper still comprise the vast majority of ads served.


• What types of sites are showing strong impression growth?  In 2011, we found that Shopping, Sports, and Auto & Vehicle sites were some of  the fastest year-on-year growth verticals on the Ad Exchange and AdSense. We saw impressive figures across the board, with 15 out of 25 publisher verticals displaying double-digit growth.


• Are your sell-through rates getting a 17% holiday bonus? Anecdotally we’ve heard that publishers’ sell-through rates increase at the end of the year, thanks to higher advertiser holiday spending. We’re now able to quantify this end-of-year shift, and we found that the global publisher sell-through rate increases from 36% to 42% in the fourth quarter. Comparing the regions in 2011, European publishers experienced the greatest sell-through boost, increasing to 47%.


• How fast is the growth in mobile and video? Growth in mobile usage has exploded, with mobile web impressions on the Ad Exchange and AdSense platforms increasing by 250% from the third to fourth quarter in 2011. Over the same period, video ad impressions increased nearly 70% across the DFP Video platform.

• Where in the world are you? All over, as it turns out. Of a possible estimated 245 different countries and territories, we saw publisher ad impressions from 235 of them. These included the island country of Palau - one of the world’s newest sovereign states - and the middle-African nation of Equatorial Guinea, with astounding growth rates of 1106% and 4635% respectively. And while the United States still accounts for the highest percentage of impressions overall, we’re seeing a significant representation from China and Japan, coming in at 11% and 6% respectively.

These metrics are a beginning: they give a snapshot of what’s happening in an ever-changing industry. We hope this sparks conversations across the marketplace about the trends driving these metrics, and how publishers can best capitalize on them to grow their businesses bigger, faster.


For our part, we’ll be continuing the conversation at DoubleClick Insights on June 5th, where we’ll be live-streaming our discussion on the future of buying and selling ads online. We hope you’ll join us there!

Posted by Jonathan Bellack, Director of Product Management, Display Advertising.

Advanced Wordpress SEO Secrets Part 3

                                 

Well As you have Read our previous article on Wordpress SEO secrets.We at incomefigure bring you another article related to Wordpress SEO secrets. I personally recommend the readers to read our Advanced Wordpress SEO Secrets Part 1 Advanced Wordpress SEO Secrets Part 2 So than it will be more helpful and easy to understand as I have carried some stuff from our previous post. So lets get started.Below are some key points so do read it.!. Below  are our Tips and Secrets Which we are going  to reveal.

The Title of your Blog Post:

Incorporating keywords into the title of your post is a good idea. Since I’m writing this article about optimizing your WordPress blog for SEO, I wanted to include as many of those keywords as I could while at the same time trying to create a title that would interest potential visitors. Search engines “see” this title, and you see this title.

This is an most important tip of our “Wordpress SEO secrets”. This is one of the strongest ways to get listed for a search term. However, it is again incredibly important to remember that you must not practice keyword stuffing. Only put your keyword in the title if you’re able to make it sound fun, exciting and engaging to your readers.

XHTML Code: Several reasons that you should take the time to validate your website to the standards of the World Wide Web Consortium. If you know anything about the basics of html then getting started won’t be difficult. Simply click through to the W3C Validator, type in the name of your website, and then follow the instructions that it provides you for resolving each issue. Advanced: Although Google clearly states that they will not dock a website for invalid code, you won’t ever have to worry about them missing anything if your site is semantically accurate.

Link Keywords:  Internal links are a powerful way to let Google know what your articles are about, and they’re a terrific way to increase page views across your site as they invite your readers to click through to read other articles. Do you interlink your articles?  You should. Take a tip from keyword data. However its just tells you about 50-65% of what you need to know.

Keyword data tells you exactly what customers are searching for. Using meta description tags is no longer considered to be as important to SEO as it once was. Google reports that they no longer include meta descriptions in their algorithm.  However, these descriptions still appear in the search results. Therefore, they can influence whether or not someone decides to click on your link and visit your site.

Google Sitemap:Google likes it when you provide them with an easy-to-read overview of all the pages on your site. The easiest and most effective way to deliver this much needed SEO tool is to simply install the WordPress plugin called Google XML Sitemaps. This plugin will do all the hard work for you and automatically update every time you add new posts to your site.

Link to Content: It’s always a good idea to point your users toward resources on other websites that will be helpful for them. It shows security as a thought leader in your niche when you’re willing to suggest to your readers that they leave your site, and search engines favor sites that link to other websites that it views as both generally authoritative and relevant to your articles.


Note: Don’t link to other sites with the hope of getting something in return. Find resources that are genuinely helpful and share them with your readers. People will respect you for it.  


Target Keyword Subjects and Theme for SEO: Arrange your wordpress blog in a silo or themed format, with the main subjects covered representing each silo. Focus your keyword targeting on a limited number of terms for more targeted seo.

 Focusing on siloed or themed content makes it easy for Google to index and focuses your content more on the words you really want to be ranking for. I don’t practice hyper-strict siloing, but its helpful for understanding how Google views your site via its spiders.

Optimize Images In Your Posts: When you can illustrate your topics and articles with attention grabbing artwork or photography people are more likely to view your content.  As you work to do that, be sure to use image titles and alt text that adequately describe both the image and the content of the article. Search engines don’t “see” images.

That’s why it’s so important to use the file name, title, alternate text and description fields to help optimize your site for the search engines (SEO) Enter carefully chosen keywords that describe your post (not necessarily the picture).


Link to Related Posts:  My final piece of advice  in our “WORDPRESS SECRETS”is to install WordPress Related Posts Plugin and begin linking to 4 or 5 similar articles at the bottom of each article. This is both a terrific way to guide your readers to more of your articles on similar topics and it’s a terrific way to guide search engines around your site.

Its an important tip of our “Wordpress SEO secrets”


Things To Avoid on Your WordPress Blog:  

• What to Avoid on Your WordPress Blog
• Avoid unethical gray and black hat search engine optimization tactics.

Check out Yahoo’s quality content guidelines that lays out how it determines user relevance and rank. The principles apply to Google and most other search engines as well.This is most important tip of our “Wordpress SEO secrets”

Conclusion:

So that’s where it ends today, hope it wasn't too hard work, and you’ve seen something you might not have thought about yet, but if not there’s plenty more to come.I hope this article may have provide you enough knowledge for you people to become a champ in SEO.

As this was our motive in our article “Wordpress SEO secrets” I hope it has given you enough secrets that you may not known. Stay Tuned for more upcoming article related to “Wordpress SEO secrets”.


Do show your appreciation by liking our fan page @Income Figure

1.6.6 SDK Released

While the Search API was a feature that was just so exciting we couldn’t wait to share it, we still have our regularly scheduled release for May full of new offerings, fixes and refinements with a little something for everyone.

Search API

For the Search API, we’ve included a change that displays the current experimental quota limits in the Admin Console. We've also made several bug fixes and small naming changes in the API to improve consistency. 

Service Refinements

As a result of the Master/Slave datastore deprecation, new users will no longer be able to create new Master/Slave applications. We strongly suggest that developers move their existing Master/Slave applications to HRD.

Feature Updates

We are always looking for ways to remove our system limits so that developers can get the most out of the App Engine platform. With this release, apps that have billing enabled can now configure up to 100 cron jobs.

Lastly, we will be prompting a small percentage of admin console users each week to participate in an optional user satisfaction survey.

Of course, we can’t get to all the new things we have for you here, so don’t forget to read the full release notes for Python, Java, and Go. Stack Overflow for App Engine is an amazing way to get technical help from the community and members of the App Engine team, and we continue the lively discussion about App Engine over on our Google Group.

- Posted by the Google App Engine Team

Interested in working with the Google App Engine team? We are hiring solutions architects to help support our premier customers and engage with the community to broaden the impact of Google's cloud offerings.

Business Photos Comes to India

In 2010 we started a project in select cities worldwide to take photographs of business interiors. In this pilot, we’ve been taking 360-degree photographs of businesses, with their permission, to highlight the qualities that make their locations stand out. In addition to the photos that business owners can upload directly through Google Places, these photos help potential customers get a better view of the decor, merchandise, food, and more on each business’ Place Page and on Google.com.



We are now excited to bring this pilot program to India, starting with Hyderabad and rolling out to several other cities. The photographs are shot by Google appointed photographers who work directly with the business owner to arrange a time to do the photo shoot. The images will show prospective customers the interiors, decor, merchandise — and all of this will be done at no cost to the business owner. The panoramic photos will appear alongside other still photos on a business’ Place Page and can help potential customers get a better sense of what an establishment has to offer and if they’d like to visit it in person.



If you’d like your business to be considered for a visit from Google’s photographers, you can learn more and express your interest by filling out this form. Right now we’re focusing on businesses like restaurants, cafes, spas, salons, gyms, showrooms, and retail stores, but all are welcome to apply. While we’ll only be able to take panoramic pictures of a portion of those who apply depending on the demand, any business owner around the world can easily upload their own still photographs and videos to their Place Page by logging in to Google Places.



Posted by Rahul Kulkarni, Senior Product Manager



India pilot details and FAQs - Business Photos

Announcing the 90 Regional Finalists of the Google Science Fair 2012

[Cross-posted from the Google Science Fair Blog]



Congratulations to the regional finalists of the second Google Science Fair! These top 90 entries from around the world represent some incredibly innovative and groundbreaking science.



This year’s competition was even more international and diverse than last year. We had thousands of entries from more than 100 countries, and topics ranging from improving recycling using LEGO robots to treating cancer with a substance created by bees to tackling meth abuse. Our judges were impressed by the quality of the projects, and it was no easy task to evaluate the creativity, scientific merit and global relevance of each submission to narrow down the entries to just 90 finalists.



Thirteen of our 90 finalists have also been nominated for the Scientific American Science in Action award, the winner of which will be announced on June 6 along with our 15 finalists. These top 15 and the Science in Action winner will be flown out to Google’s headquarters in California in July for our celebratory finalist event and for the last round of judging, which will be conducted by our panel of renowned scientists and innovators.



Now, let’s get excited for the results!



The regional finalists in each of the three age categories are:



ASIA (Age 13 - 14)

Sadanand Patil, India

Utkarsh Gupta, India

Anjan Venkatesh, India

Aravind Muraleedharan, India

Nitya Raju, India

Aditya Jain, India

Sumit Singh, India

Ayushi Khedkar, Shraddha Kukade, Pournima Shinde, India

Nihar dalal, India

Shravan Patankar, Abhishek Dedhe, India



ASIA (Age 15 - 16)

Ivan Jie Xiong Ang, Malaysia

Marco Ochsner, Ludwig Hruza, Singapore

Edith Loo, Li Yin Tan, Singapore

Rohit Fenn, India

Hamza Azhar, Pakistan

Benjamin Chan, Paul Jeanbart, Singapore

Xi Xu, China

Scott Guan, Cher Yeoh, China

May Ning Law, Shi Hui Ang, Ruixin Ng, Singapore

Akshat Boobna, India




ASIA (Age 17 - 18)

Shaoxiong Luo, Singapore

Mark Borris Aldonza, Philippines

Geoffrey Tanudjaja, Singapore

Michael Teoh, Singapore

Shan Tan, Singapore

Wenqing Yan, Ronghui He, Singapore

Chung Kyu Kim, Ho Shin Cho, Joo Hee Lee, South Korea

Raghavendra Ramachanderan, India

Kay Yi Low, Singapore

Wataru Ogasa, Takeshi Kitagawa, Youta Nakagawa, Japan



EMEA (Age 13 - 14)

Sakhiwe Shongwe, Bonkhe Mahlalela, Swaziland

Carlos Vega García, Spain

Natanel Levis, Israel
Marcin Pitek, Poland

Ana María Santos Espósito, Spain

India Hannon, Naomh Hannon, Isabelle Bond, England

Isabel Medrano Sáinz, Spain

Anthony Carmoy, France

Alexey Kozlov, Milena Klimenko, Ukraine

Ralph Moran, Ireland




EMEA (Age 15 - 16)

Artem Mosiyenko, Javed Lindner, Germany

Mohammed Al Eydan, Saudi Arabia

Pablo González Recio, Alvaro Cuevas Alvarez, Alejandro Sánchez Lechón, Spain

Shahd Al Jasser, Saudi Arabia

Iván Hervías Rodríguez, Marcos Ochoa, Sergio Pascual, Spain

Gonzalo Balbás Moñivas, Spain

Judith Calvo Rull, Spain

Omar Obeya, Egypt

Karsten Roth, Germany

Menna AbdelGawad, Saudi Arabia



EMEA (Age 17 - 18)

Danijar Hafner, Germany

Eugen Hruska, Germany

Till Speicher, Paul Georg Wagner, Germany

Ibrahim Khalil, Egypt

Eduardo Sancho Calzada, Alejandra Bargues Carot, Laura García Marco, Spain

Muireasa Carroll, Mairéad Kingston, Denise Hurley, Ireland

Melvin Zammit, Malta

Abdallah Reda, Egypt

Adrián Díaz, Sandra Garrido Romero, Spain

Philip Glass, Callum Middleton, England




The Americas (Age 13 - 14)

Kriti Lall, USA

Anirudh Jain, USA

Jonah Kohn, USA

Mark Liang, USA

Andrew Chen, USA

Raymond Wang, Canada

Garima Singh, USA

Arjun Mahajan, Maya Flannery, Jonathan Berman, USA

Suruchi Ramanujan, USA

Martin Schneider, Joshua Li, USA



The Americas (Age 15 - 16)

Kimberley Yu, Phillip Yu, USA

Natalie Ng, USA

Rishabh Mazmudar, USA

Emily S. Wang, Trevor Wang, USA

Joshua Meier, USA

Catherine Wong, USA

Katherine Zimmerman, USA

Sabera Talukder, USA

Grace Brosofsky, USA

Alejandro Andres Fuentes Herrera, Chille



The Americas (Age 17 - 18)

 Daniel Wang, USA

Brittany Wenger, USA

Yamini Naidu, USA

Karen Resnick, USA

Grace Pan, USA

Yuhao (Danny) Huang, Canada

Blake Smith, Vickram Gidwani, USA

Pascal Gendron, Canada

Yassine Bouanane, Canada

Ricardo Enrique Alba Torres, Jessica Alba Torres, Colombia



The Scientific American Science in Action Award nominations are:

Anjan Venkatesh, India

Sumit Singh, India

Geoffrey Tanudjaja, Singapore

Sakhiwe Shongwe, Swaziland

Carlos Vega García, Spain

Mena Abdel Gawad, Saudi Arabia

Mark Liang, USA

Andrew Chen, USA

Catherine Wong, USA

Sabera Talukder, USA

Grace Brosofsky, USA

Ricardo Enrique Alba Torres, Jessica Alba Torres, Colombia

Katherine Zimmerman, USA



Thanks to all of the students around the world who submitted projects to the Google Science Fair and congratulations to all the young scientists who were selected as regional finalists.

Posted by Sam Peter, Google Science Fair Team

Missed registration this year? Click here to sign up for a notification when registration opens for the Google Science Fair 2013.

The Blogger In Draft Blog Is Being Retired

Cross-posted from the Blogger in Draft blog



In 2007, we introduced Blogger In Draft, a special version of Blogger where new features could reach users early and let people try new things. We also introduced the Blogger In Draft blog, and for the past five years, we’ve introduced new updates and options here, often before we told the rest of the world on our official blog, Buzz.

With the recent launch of our Google+ page, we have another great way to keep you updated on new features, both for everyone and those of you who love seeing things early. To simplify the many places you can get updates, we will be retiring the Blogger in Draft blog, with this being the final post. Going forward, we’d like to invite you to follow our official blog and our Google+ page to find out what’s new with Blogger.

This doesn’t mean the Blogger In Draft service is going anywhere, so don’t fret! You’ll still get all the shiny goodness as fast as we can bring it to you. But we’ll be talking about it somewhere else.

Mark your calendars for DoubleClick Insights on June 5th

From our vantage point, we see unprecedented opportunity as the digital media world continues to grow and diversify. What does this mean for the future of buying and selling ads online?

Tune in and find out as Google's Neal Mohan, VP of Display Advertising sits down with industry leaders to explore how the digital ecosystem is swiftly evolving, and how advertisers and publishers can work better together to chart a path to capitalize on every opportunity, while simultaneously addressing the challenges we face.

The live stream will start on June 5, 2012, at 9:00 am PDT, and you’ll be able to watch from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.



Please register for this virtual event by visiting the DoubleClick Insights Live Stream page.



DoubleClick Insights

Tuesday, June 5th 2012

9:00am - 1:00pm PST

Set event reminder today



Following us on Twitter? Use the #dclkinsights as you're watching the event.



Posted by Stephen Kliff and Scott Brown, DoubleClick Marketing

Answering to Our Users - Delivering on Commitments

Last year at IAB’s Innovation Days, I made a number of predictions, all focused on answering one central question: how can we put the user at the center of all that we do? One year later, I think it’s time for a progress report - to hold ourselves accountable and see how far we’ve come. I presented an update on some of my predictions earlier today at Digital Media Summit, hosted by Luma Partners:

Prediction: People will have a direct say in 25% of the ads they see
Update: We’ve seen choice friendly formats take off across the industry. In our own network, engaged views of TrueView skippable ads grew 4x last year. Going beyond ads, we rolled out paywall alternative Google Consumer Surveys, which has already shown more than 300 million surveys, with an average publisher RPM of $12. Given all the innovation, I actually think we aimed too low and that consumers will have a say in well over half of the ads they see.

Prediction: Engagement rates across all display ads will increase 50%
Update: This increase in engagement will be driven by two factors: relevance and creativity. While technological innovations continue to improve relevance, we believe rich media will be the key to unlocking the creative potential of digital advertising. According to Nielsen AdRelevance, rich media impressions almost doubled in 2011. We’re committed to helping creative agencies scale and optimize rich media ads with templatized ad units in the latest version of DoubleClick Studio.

Prediction: 35% of campaigns will use metrics beyond clicks and conversions
Update: As we move to a model that seeks to drive engagement versus just clicks, we need new measures of success. We’re working with the industry-wide “Making Measurement Make Sense” (3MS) initiative to establish new standards for brand advertisers to measure reach and engagement. And just last month, we launched the Brand Activate Initiative with several pilots for new metrics--Active View, which shows brands whether their ad has been seen; and Active GRP, the digital counterpart to the gross rating point. We’ve already received interest from dozens of major brands.

As an industry, we’ve made plenty of progress over the last year. With all the innovations to do right by our user, I actually have two new predictions I’d like to add to the list.

New Prediction: 25% of brands will favor digital ads over all other media
This is a pretty bold prediction, considering today this number is probably close to none. So why are we so bullish? First, audiences continue to move online: in 2011, households with broadband but with no cable TV, increased 23% (Nielsen Cross-Platform Report Q3’11). Second, so is content: the newly launched YouTube Original Channels alone will introduce 25 new hours of original programming a day. Third, technology is offering new levels of control and measurement: technologies like real-time bidding will allow for improved targeting while initiatives like 3MS and Brand Activate will demonstrate effectiveness. With reach, control, quality content and measurement, I think the real question will become, why wouldn’t a brand name digital their favorite medium?

New Prediction: 100% of campaigns will be integrated everywhere
All signs indicate that campaigns that reach across screens - TV, desktops, smartphones and tablets -- are more effective. For example, in a study conducted by Google and Nielsen Multi-Media Labs in September 2011, users who saw a multi-screen Volvo campaign had a 24% higher brand recall than those that viewed their ads on TV alone. We’re increasingly seeing increased interest in buying across screens on our own platforms, like DoubleClick for Publishers Mobile, where we’ve seen the number of impressions delivered double every quarter.

The online advertising ecosystem is complex, and in order for digital advertising to be a medium that provides a great experience for consumers, marketers and publishers alike, we all need to work together. For our part, we’ve invested in hundreds of partnerships to better support publishers, and advertisers, ultimately serve our users. Happier consumers will drive better performing ads, more money for publishers and increased ad spend (including marketing budget) for agencies. I look forward to seeing the continued innovation that this “user revolution” inspires and working with all of you to move towards the bright future I hope we all envision for this industry.

Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President, Display Advertising

5 YouTube Tips to Keep Videos Alive

YouTube, as always, is an unbeatable video website that has reached countless milestones. Despite issues of copyright infringements and the fear of oversaturation, a lot of online users are still on the platform uploading video after video. However, the majority of video uploaders are remiss on techniques that can successfully launch their videos to the point of becoming viral. They only think in terms of YouTube views and not on longevity. What they need are techniques that will help them see the big picture of a YouTube success.

Why not try these tried and tested strategies?

1. Piggy Back Technique
   
   

The piggy back technique pertains to riding on the limelight of others. There are two ways to do it. First is to leverage your video to what is already trending or popular online. You want to be swept together with the popular videos or topics that people are currently searching for. You will appear in the search results which will give you a bigger chance to get clicked and viewed. Second is to post video responses to niche-related YouTube channels. 

2. Relevant Online Communities
   
   

Look for popular and relevant online communities where there is a pool of users. You can sign up for Digg or Reddit and start establishing relationships with community members. When the time is right, you can start sharing your videos and create a discussion around it.  It is important to share your videos outside the realm of YouTube. There are endless possibilities on forums and other types of online communities.

3. Build Subscriber Base
   
   

Just as celebrities need fans, video owners need viewers and subscribers as well. They are the ones who will see your news feed such as video likes, favorites and new uploads. And you can’t gather a lot of these people if you have crappy video content with a sorry number of YouTube views, or if you don’t do the next strategy below.

4. Respond
   
   

This strategy is repeated in the nth time on video blogs but still there are those people who are too smug and complacent that they neglect or deliberately ignore comments. What are they thinking? Unless you are a popular music artist like Bieber, your videos need a voice or people will stop commenting on your other videos. This is not limited to YouTube. You need to respond to comments about your videos even on blogs or forums as well.

5. Link your videos
   
   

This is a very valuable strategy if you want to shine a light on your other videos in your video library. You can use annotations or place video links on the description box. You can put links to related videos or previous videos with a lot of YouTube views.

These tips have been written repeatedly, yet only a few tried to apply it to their YouTube plans. Maybe it’s no longer about strategies but a case of idleness.

A look back at a year of innovation in search management

[Cross-posted from the DoubleClick Search blog] 




About a year ago, we made a promise to make managing the world’s largest search campaigns more efficient and effective with the launch of DoubleClick Search V3 (DS3). Our goal was to give search marketers a simpler and faster way to manage campaigns, provide streamlined reporting and powerful campaign optimization tools - and do it through a completely rebuilt platform that runs on Google systems and infrastructure.

Today, we’d like to shine a light on how clients are using DoubleClick Search to run high-impact campaigns, and take a look at what’s yet to come. Looking back at the past year, a few things struck us:

• 6 of the 10 largest agencies now use DoubleClick Search(1)


• Agencies using DoubleClick Search see significant increases in efficiency, ranging from 25 to 60%.(2) That’s like suddenly finding another few hours in your workday.

We heard a lot from marketers and agencies about what they wanted most from their search management tools. This feedback has informed many of the key areas we’ve invested in over the last year:

Easy, intuitive campaign management
Managing large search campaigns can be complex. With DoubleClick Search, we wanted to give search teams a single point of access to their accounts across AdWords, adCenter, and Yahoo! Search Marketing. Gone are days of accessing multiple interfaces, and flipping to and from a variety of spreadsheets and one-off tools.

Better reporting, deeper insights
Today, you have access to more than 90 key metrics, which can be custom arranged and saved for a customized view of your campaigns. Reports that may have previously taken hours to run and consolidate now take minutes. Event-level reporting gives you granular data for every click and conversion your campaigns receives, such as keyword, query, time, and referral data, enabling you to better optimize your search campaigns.

Bid optimization, powered by Google
A search advertising campaign is only as good as the technology powering it. For example, a key driver of campaign performance is automating the keyword bidding process based on business goals. With the DoubleClick Search Performance Bidding Suite, this is an area where we’ve made significant and continuous investments. Whether you want to maximize clicks, conversions, return on ad spend, or a combination, you can achieve those goals at scale. Our Performance Bidding Suite is powered by algorithms with a unique ability to optimize based on same-day conversion data from Floodlight tags and are built to ensure that the clicks you pay for always maximize your campaign performance. In fact, after recent improvements to our system, 88% of DS3 clients saw a significant boost in campaign performance.(3)



2012 has more in store
The past year of work has set the foundation for exciting changes to come. Over the next few months, we’ll continue momentum by investing in:

• New search funnel tools to better understand a consumer’s path to conversion


• Allowing clients to integrate their own data sources to inform search decisions, and


• Tighter integration between DoubleClick Search and other ad properties for enhanced cross-channel optimization

We’re also further investing in improving our key areas of campaign management, reporting, and bidding efficiencies -- improvements we think will continue to drive great results for our partners in 2012 and beyond.

Stay tuned to the latest in DoubleClick Search by subscribing to our blog.

Posted by Ariel Bardin, Director of Product Management


1. Google internal data

2. Forrester Research, Inc.

3. Google internal data, March 2012