Fab Friday went to I/O

Wow, what an amazing week at Google I/O. First and foremost, I really enjoyed meeting many of you, the developers who continue to build great maps, who push the boundaries of what is possible, and who push us to grow and improve our mapping APIs. I am always pleased and amazed at the work you do.



We’re all heading home, tired from the week. We’ll do a more complete wrap-up next week, but I wanted to give you a brief taste before then.



We had a LOT of Google Maps going on this year, with ten sessions on the Google Maps track, the Maps for Good session on the Tech Talk track, and two codelabs. Too many to name them all here, but I wanted to highlight a few that you might have missed. I want to thank all the speakers, the organizers, and the TAs in our codelabs as well.



We also had a bunch of new features launch, including Symbols and Heatmaps for data visualization, a number of enhancements to Styled Maps, and the heavily requested addition of public transit to the Maps API.



The video for every session is being posted to the Google Developer Channel on YouTube, and embedded in the session page on the Google I/O site. All sessions for day one are now available, with the remainder to be added over the next few days.



Since it’s my post, I’ll end with Enterprise Geospatial in the Cloud with myself and Sean Maday. We published our slides this morning.







On a personal note, I’ll be taking the month of July off. I’ll miss you all while I’m enjoying sunny Italy. Have a great summer!



Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations team

AdWords Location Targets will start PHASING_OUT

Location criteria, first introduced in v201109, are undergoing some changes for the v201206 release. This blog post explains these changes and what they mean for your software.

PHASING_OUT obsolete Location criteria

The Location criteria object has a new field, targetingStatus, which can be one of ACTIVE, OBSOLETE and PHASING_OUT.

• ACTIVE Locations can be targeted as normal.


• OBSOLETE Location targets have been retired and cannot be targeted.


• PHASING_OUT Locations will shortly become obsolete and should not be targeted.

Locations can be phased out for a number of reasons: the location may be re-structured into smaller (or larger areas), geo-political changes, etc. The AdWords UI reflects these changes and now the AdWords API will make these changes visible to developers. We will publish a blog post 4 weeks in advance of a location moving to PHASING_OUT.

What this means for your software

As of the launch of v201206, Location criteria that are PHASING_OUT will still be accepted. Starting 4 weeks later (week of 7/23), adding these targets will cause a CriterionError.Reason.CANNOT_TARGET_CRITERION error message. Please make sure before adding a Location target that it is ACTIVE. Choose a different target if it is labeled OBSOLETE or PHASING_OUT.

Soon to PHASE_OUT

Check out this help center article to learn which specific locations will be removed after July 23rd. The article also provides more detail about the phasing-out process in general.



In addition, we will introduce two new separate targets, one for Serbia and one for Montenegro in the coming weeks. These new targets will replace the current single Serbia Montenegro target, and the targeting status of Serbia Montenegro will change to PHASING_OUT sometime after July 27th.



We have documented this new status field in our downloadable documentation. The LocationCriterionService and CampaignCriterionService will also populate this field. Please update your code to check this field or your application may break.



If you have any questions, please post on the forum or attend one of the AdWords API Office Hours Hangouts.



 - Kevin Winter, AdWords API Team

Data At Your Fingertips: Announcing The Google Analytics App For Android

We are pleased to announce the launch of Google Analytics App for Android phones!

With the Google Analytics App, you can access the same accounts and profiles you see when you open Analytics from a desktop browser, but you’ll see reports that are optimized for your phone. 

Swipe through these reports to see the essential data about your websites and apps anywhere, anytime:

• Real-Time: See the number of visitors you currently have and a list of the pages (for websites) or screens (for apps) that are currently popular.


• Dashboard: Monitor the KPIs and user metrics you care about the most. By default, you’ll see your Daily Unique Visitors and your Goal Conversion Rate, but you can customize the dashboard to change which reports, metrics, or segments you see.  


• Automatic and Customized Alerts: Google Analytics detects statistical anomalies in your data and can send you an alert when something unusual happens. See either automatic alerts, or customize your settings to send alerts based on your own benchmarks. 

Screenshot: The Realtime Report

Screenshot: The Dashboard

Visit Google Play to download and install the app to keep up with your data anytime, anywhere.

Peng Li, on behalf of the GA Mobile App team

AdWords API v201206 launch - including new Flexible reach targeting settings on the Google Display Network

We’re pleased to announce the launch of AdWords API v201206, which includes new ad group level Flexible reach targeting settings on the Google Display Network, a new query language to retrieve items more flexibly, new report types, and changes to ad scheduling and other services. Below we’ve highlighted some of the new features available to all users. A complete list of changes is available in the release notes.




v201206 highlights:

• CampaignService and AdGroupService changes for the adgroup override/restrict targeting setting migration - The new Flexible reach setting in AdWords enables advertisers to fine-tune where ads show by choosing settings at the ad group level instead of the campaign level. Once you choose Flexible reach for the campaign, you cannot revert back to your previous setting, and will manage targets and bids at the individual ad group level. 


• New services for obtaining customer information - we’re introducing the new ManagedCustomerService and CustomerService in v201206, v201109_1 and v201109. These services will be replacing ServicedAccountService and CreateAccountService, starting with v201206. 


• New reports - We’re introducing a new CLICK_PERFORMANCE_REPORT which provides information on each click, as well as REACH_FREQUENCY reports at the Account, AdGroup and Campaign levels. 


• AWQL - The AdWords Query Language providing SQL-like syntax queries is now available on some services including Ad Hoc Reporting. 


• Other changes - AdSchedule targeting has been moved to CampaignCriterionService. The CampaignTargetService is now sunset. 

With the release of v201206, the following versions and services will be deprecated:

• v13 AccountService - We will sunset this version and service on August 20, 2012 


• v201109 and v201109_1 - We will sunset these versions on October 26, 2012 

As with every new version of the AdWords API, we encourage you to review the resources in the release notes. If you have any questions please post on the forum or attend one of the AdWords API Office Hours Hangouts.



- The AdWords API Team

Measuring a Mobile World: Introducing Mobile App Analytics

Mobile is changing the way that people communicate, work and play, and much of the growing adoption and innovation we're seeing in the industry is driven by mobile apps. There are already more than 600,000 mobile apps on Google Play alone, and we expect to see continued momentum throughout the industry. Mobile is also becoming front and center for marketers and businesses. As more of them understand the value of mobile apps, sophisticated measurement tools are becoming core to how marketers and app developers invest, analyze and market their apps. 

That’s why today we’re announcing a new set of reports in beta called Mobile App Analytics that help marketers and developers better measure their mobile apps. The reports are tailored for mobile app developers and marketers, speaking the language that matters to them. They are designed to measure the entire mobile customer journey - from discovery to download to engagement. This enables the creation of app experiences that are more useful and engaging through data-driven decisions at each stage of the app lifecycle:

1. Acquisition and user metrics such as downloads and new users


2. Engagement metrics such as retention, crashes and conversions


3. Outcome metrics such as app sales and in-app purchases

Layout of new Mobile App Analytics reports

Here’s an outline of the new Mobile App Analytics along with screen grabs of selected reports:

Acquisition and User Analysis Reports - discover your best sources of new users

New and active users - measure the number of new and active users who launch your app everyday and analyze your most valuable segments. 

Google Play traffic sources - understand which traffic sources are driving new users and in-app conversions through Google Play to fine-tune your marketing initiatives. 

App versions - keep track of the distribution of active users over the older and newer versions of your app so you know what to support.

Device overview - check out the top mobile devices and OS versions that your app runs on, and optimize the experience for each device.

Engagement Reports - see how users interact with your app

User behavior - assess how loyal your users are, how frequently they use the app, and the engagement level of each loyalty group.

Engagement flow - visually see the screens, actions and paths users take to move throughout your application in order to optimize usage.

App crashes - see trends in crashes and exceptions that will help you troubleshoot problems on certain devices and operating systems.

Outcome / Business Impact Reports - identify whether users are accomplishing your goals

Goal conversions - set up conversion events in your app, like spending 10 minutes in the app, or clicking on ads to gauge success.

In-App purchases - if you sell virtual or tangible goods in your app, you can measure the number of purchases and the revenue generated.

The new reports are part of a holistic experience tailored for mobile app measurement, including a new and lightweight SDK v2.0 that’s easier to implement and is opt-out ready, with a streamlined back-end infrastructure.

We’ve also revamped our sign-up process, so new users can choose whether they want to start measuring their website or their mobile app. This means you’ll be just 3 clicks away from setting up your app analytics account and downloading the SDK.

We will be opening the beta up to whitelisted users in waves, so if you’re interested in using Mobile App Analytics for your app, please complete this beta signup form and we’ll get you started soon. We anticipate the reports will be available to all Google Analytics users by the end of the summer.

Also, if you are at Google I/O be sure to attend the Google Analytics session “Measuring the End-to-End Value of Your App” (from 11:30AM - 12:30PM today, June 29) where our lead engineers will tell you more about Mobile App Analytics and some other exciting things we’re working on.

Posted By JiaJing Wang, Product Manager, Google Analytics Team

Keeping A Smart Banner Docked To The Bottom Of The Screen on iOS

Smart Banner advertisements, introduced in AdMob SDK v6.0, help developers utilize the full width of the iPhone and iPad screen for displaying ads. You still have to be smart about using Smart Banners! We are noticing that some of you are having a hard time resetting your ad’s origin when a re-orientation of the device occurs. More specifically, not resetting the ad’s origin correctly causes ads to disappear offscreen after orientation changes. In this blog post, we’ll show you how to keep a Smart Banner docked to the bottom of the screen on iOS.

The first thing to do is to initialize a Smart Banner at the bottom of the device’s screen. You can do this by giving the ad an origin corresponding to the screen bottom.

// Initialize the banner docked to the bottom of the screen.
// We start in a portrait orientation so use kGADAdSizeSmartBannerPortrait.
  CGPoint origin = CGPointMake(0.0,
                               self.view.frame.size.height -
                               CGSizeFromGADAdSize(
                                   kGADAdSizeSmartBannerPortrait).height);

  self.adBanner = [[[GADBannerView alloc]
                    initWithAdSize:kGADAdSizeSmartBannerPortrait
                            origin:origin] autorelease];

//Continue rest of initialization here

Every time an orientation change occurs, you have to reset the ad’s orientation so it continues to stay docked to the bottom. The best place to implement the above logic is in the willAnimateRotationToInterfaceOrientation:duration: method since the view’s frame has been updated to the new orientation

Update the origin by utilizing the Smart Banner constant that is applicable to your current orientation. The only value that should change is your y-origin, since your x-origin should remain at 0.

-(void)willAnimateRotationToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)toInt
                                        duration:(NSTimeInterval)duration {
  // The updated y value for the origin.
  CGFloat yLocation;

  // Set a new frame to update the origin on orientation change. Remember to set
  // adSize first before you update the frame.
  if (UIInterfaceOrientationIsLandscape(toInt)) {
    self.adBanner.adSize = kGADAdSizeSmartBannerLandscape;
    yLocation = self.view.frame.size.width -
                CGSizeFromGADAdSize(kGADAdSizeSmartBannerLandscape).height
  } else {
    self.adBanner.adSize = kGADAdSizeSmartBannerPortrait;
    yLocation = self.view.frame.size.height -
                CGSizeFromGADAdSize(kGADAdSizeSmartBannerPortrait).height);
  }

  CGRect frame = self.adBanner.frame;
  frame.origin = CGPointMake(0.0, yLocation);
  self.adBanner.frame = frame;
}

If you’re not using mediation, changing the adSize after your first request will cause another request to be made. Make sure that you set the frame after you modify the adSize. This ensures that the ad transition looks smooth across orientation changes.

Your Smart Banner ads are now even smarter. As the orientation of the device changes, your ads should stay docked to the bottom of the screen. If you have any questions about Smart Banners or about the AdMob SDK, feel free to post them in our forum or keep on the lookout for upcoming Hangout office hours.

 - Raj Parameswaran, AdMob Team

Google Maps API, now with even more style!

At Google I/O two years ago we launched Styled Maps in the Google Maps API, which allows you to customize the look of the map in your applications. Today we’re rolling out a number of enhancements to Styled Maps that offer more precise control over both the selection of map features to style, and the ways you can style them:

• You can now specify a precise color for features as an RGB value in addition to the existing adjustment filters for hue, saturation, lightness, and gamma.


• You can now style the outline stroke of features separately from the interior fill, and the label text separately from any icon.


• You can now adjust the width of line features such as roads and rivers, and also the width of feature outlines.

If you would like to try designing a map that would suit your site we recommend that you start with the updated Styled Maps Wizard. Once you are happy with your style you can apply it to your Maps API v3 application as detailed in the Styling section of the Maps API documentation.



Web sites like the Submarine Cable Map and the NY Times already use Styled Maps to simplify or soften a map in order to draw more attention to the data provided. Map of the Dead and The Global Transition to a New Economy restyle their maps to fit the house style or theme of their respective websites. There have also been a few maps that are just a little unusual, such as Fata Morgana.



If you need assistance in using Styled Maps for your site, or have any other Maps API related question, we recommend consulting our developer community and support channels. We look forward to seeing how you take advantage of these new Styled Maps features to make even more beautiful and engaging new Maps!



Posted by Thor Mitchell, Product Manager, Google Maps API

Announcing v201206 of the DFP API

Today we’ve released the newest version of the DFP API, v201206, which adds a significant number of reporting improvements. The new release also fully supports OAuth 2.0 as the authentication mechanism of choice and we encourage you to switch to OAuth 2.0 from ClientLogin or OAuth 1.0a. A full list of improvements from today’s release can be found on our release notes page.

Reporting improvements



In a few of our recent hangouts, we received the feedback that while our reports were great for generating important performance metrics, the CSV files that you downloaded were not always easily machine readable. To make it easier for you to consume reports, we’ve created a new ExportFormat - CSV_DUMP. Below is a list of the features of this new format:

• Columns are now shown as Dimension.ENUM_VALUE or Column.ENUM_VALUE


• All money values are now displayed in micro format in the currency of the network


• All dates are now displayed as YYYY-MM-DD


• All date-times are now displayed as YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss±hh:mm


• There is no "pretty printing" of values (i.e. commas) and there is no total row

You may also notice that the v201204 CSV export format has been replaced by CSV_EXCEL, which can be imported into Excel-like products.

As an important note to some of our developers, after upgrading to v201206, you will most likely need to update your code; many column names have changed to reflect a more accurate description of what metrics they are indeed pulling. For example, the column TOTAL_IMPRESSIONS has been changed to TOTAL_INVENTORY_LEVEL_IMPRESSIONS because the v201204 column could only be used with dimensions like AD_UNIT_NAME on the inventory level, i.e. it could not be used with line items, orders, companies or creatives. Alternatively, TOTAL_LINE_ITEM_LEVEL_IMPRESSIONS in v201206 should now be used with dimensions like LINE_ITEM_NAME and ORDER_NAME for instances where you need to include dynamic allocation impressions from AdSense or Ad Exchange line items. To determine how each column should be updated, visit the old column’s reference page and look for the phrase that begins with “Replaced with …”, e.g.



    Replaced with TOTAL_INVENTORY_LEVEL_IMPRESSIONS beginning in v201206.

Lastly, we’ve improved formatting for inventory reports that don’t use top level ad unit views. Most importantly, the duplicate columns clicks and impressions issue for hierarchical views has been fixed and the flat view report will now match how the report is downloaded from the UI.



OAuth 2.0



If you are an eagle-eyed developer, you may have noticed that we recently added OAuth 2.0 information to our authentication page. OAuth 2.0 is now fully supported in the DFP API and we are progressively adding support in our client libraries; Java, Python, .Net , and Ruby currently have full support, while PHP will very soon. In fact, our DFP test playground already uses OAuth 2.0 with the Java library. Please stay tuned to the project sites or the forum for announcements regarding future support.



Our next hangout is July 18th and we’ll be taking your report questions or anything else you might have on your mind. As always, let us know if you have any questions on our forum.

 - Adam Rogal, DFP API Team

Google Compute Engine launches, expanding Google’s cloud offerings

Today at Google I/O we were pleased to announce a new service, Google Compute Engine, to provide general purpose virtual machines (VMs) as part of our expanding set of cloud services. Google App Engine has been at the heart of Google’s cloud offerings since our launch in 2008, and we’re excited to begin providing developers more flexible, generalized VMs to complement our fully-managed, autoscaling environment. App Engine has been growing rapidly since leaving preview, and we’re excited about the benefits that Google Compute Engine brings to developers who want to combine the advantages of App Engine’s easy-to-use, scalable, managed platform with the flexibility of VMs.

If you are interested in using VMs with your App Engine applications in the future, let us know by signing up here.


- Posted by Peter S Magnusson, Engineering Director, Google App Engine Team

Speeding up the ad experience: updating ad click referral

If you analyze your own traffic logs, or develop web analytics software, we have some news for you: we’re making a change to how some clicks coming from Google appear in your logs. We're writing this mostly as an industry FYI, because Google Analytics reports will not be affected by this change.



Up to now, referrers for clicks on ads for the term "flowers", for example, would be one of the following:



http://www.google.com/search?...&q=flowers&...

http://www.google.com/aclk?...&q=flowers&...



We’re adding a third possible referrer:



http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?...&q=flowers&...&ohost=www.google.com&...



This new referrer is on a different domain named ‘www.googleadservices.com’, and has a new path of ‘/pagead/aclk’. The query is still there as the GET parameter ‘q’ and the originating host for the click is there as the GET parameter ‘ohost’. For example, if the click came from google.ca, the new referrer format would be http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?...&q=flowers&...&ohost=www.google.ca&...



We’re making this change because we’re trying to improve the experience of clicking on an ad for our users. For historical reasons, Google currently uses two redirects on two different domains for many of the ads on our site. We are streamlining our infrastructure to remove one of these redirects, which brings users to ad landing pages faster, leading to a better user experience for our users and a better return on ad clicks for our advertisers.



The new referrer format ensures that advertisers will still get the relevant bits of information about a search that drove traffic to their site, but without the extra redirect.



In order to give everyone enough time to change any referrer log parsing software, we’ll be keeping the number of affected searches at a low percentage through July. In August, we’ll be increasing the number of affected queries to 100%. When we’re done, you should expect to see all three forms of the URLs.



Ali Mohammad, Ads Latency Team

Go offline with Google Maps for Android

[Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long blog]




Having an Internet connection has always been a key requirement for using Google Maps for Android... until now.



A few weeks ago we told you that offline Google Maps for Android was coming. Now, you can download the latest version of the app in Google Play, then select and save a region of a map from more than 150 countries (including India) for use offline. Whether travelling internationally, carrying a WiFi-only device, heading underground on the subway or restricting your mobile data usage, you can now save up to six large metro areas (e.g., Greater London, or New York City and surrounding area) and use Google Maps for Android to find your way.








Let’s say you find yourself traveling to London this summer. Before you head off on your trip, simply find the area that you’ll be visiting. Then select “Make available offline” from the menu and verify the area that you would like to save.



Below the map, you’ll see we estimate the file size for you, so you know how much space it will take on your device. Once you confirm your selection the map will immediately start downloading.

Save an area and go to My Places to see all your offline maps

If you have GPS enabled on the device, the blue dot will still work without a data connection so you know where you are, and if your device has a compass you can orient yourself without 3G or WiFi connectivity.



So whether you’re traveling internationally or underground, we hope offline maps will help you get around.



Today we’re also releasing a smoother and faster Compass Mode for Street View within Google Maps for Android. It’s the next best thing to being there, because your device becomes a window into a 360-degree, panoramic view of the outdoor or interior location through Business Photos. To experience the improved qualities of this feature you need a device with Google Maps for Android, Android 3.0 or higher and a gyroscope sensor plus version 1.8.1 of Street View on Google Maps.

To learn more about Google Maps for Android features, start here.



Posted by Jiabei Lei, Software Engineer Google Maps Mobile

Powerful data visualization with Symbols and Heatmaps in the Google Maps API

The Google Maps API provides a robust platform in which you can add geographical context to your data in a variety of ways. Data visualization is therefore one of the elements at the heart of the Maps API, and today we’re introducing two new techniques for visualizing your data in flexible and dynamic ways.



Symbols

At SXSW Interactive in 2011, I attended a session on geotemporal data visualization that made me keen to make it easier for Maps API developers to build visualizations similar to those discussed. For this reason I’m particularly excited to introduce a simple, yet powerful, new concept to the Maps API v3 that we call Symbols.



Unlike the image icons currently used for marking locations on a map, a Symbol is defined as a vector shape. The size, stroke width, color, and opacity of the shape, are all set by the Maps API application and can be dynamically modified. A small number of shapes, such as a circle, are provided by the Maps API, and custom shapes can be expressed as an SVG path.



Symbols open up a wide range of compelling new possibilities for data visualization and visual effects. For example, the below map illustrates the expansion of the Walmart chain of stores between 1962 and 2006:







In addition to using symbols to represent point features you can also decorate polylines with Symbols. One or more symbols, such as an arrowhead, can be placed at fixed positions on the polyline or repeated along the polyline. Because the polyline that has been decorated does not need to be visible, this feature can also be used to created dotted or dashed polylines, and just as the style of the symbols can be dynamically modified, so too can their location on the polyline:

Heatmaps

Developers often ask how they can represent large amounts of data on a map. Improvements in web browser technology have increased the number of markers that can be rendered by a Maps API application, but above a certain threshold the density of markers can overwhelm the user.



An alternative approach is to use a heatmap, and to enable this approach we’re launching support for browser rendering of heatmaps by the Maps API using the new Heatmap Layer. Your Maps API application can define the colour spectrum, intensity range, and behaviour of the heatmap when the map is zoomed. Here’s the Walmart example from above, but this time visualized as a heatmap:

If you have any technical questions about these new features, we recommend engaging with our developer community online, or joining our regular Google Maps API Office Hours. If you’re at I/O come see us in person at Office Hours in the Google Maps developer sandbox. We’d love to to meet you, hear how you’re using the Maps API, and answer any questions you may have!



Posted by Thor Mitchell, Product Manager, Google Maps API

Google App Engine 1.7.0 Released at Google I/O

Each release is special in its own way, but this time we can’t help but be extra proud. From San Francisco to Sydney we’ve taken an extra week to pack in some of our most widely requested features and prepare a host of talks and announcements for Google I/O.

We’ll be bringing you more information about this release and the future of Google App Engine platform, as well as some exciting announcements from our I/O YouTube live stream. We’ll also be posting highlights from I/O on our blog and Google+, so tune in here for updates the rest of this week.

Without further ado, here are the highlights from our 1.7.0 release:

App Engine SSL for Custom Domains
Starting today, developers can serve their applications via HTTPS on custom domains. We’re offering both SNI and VIP based SSL, which provide both a low cost and universally supported option, respectively.

Server Name Indication (SNI)

• This allows multiple domains to share the same IP address while still allowing a separate certificate for each domain. SNI is supported by the majority of modern web browsers. SNI is priced at $9/month which includes the serving of 5 certificates.

Virtual IP (VIP):

• A dedicated IP address is assigned to you for use with your applications.  VIP is supported by all SSL/TLS compatible web clients and each VIP can serve a single hostname, wildcard or multi domain certificate.  A VIP will cost $99/month.

Google App Engine’s additional location - the EU
For the past four years, App Engine applications have been served from North America. However, we understand that every ms of latency counts so we’ve turned up an App Engine cluster in the European Union so that our developers with customers primarily in Europe can have confidence that their site will look as fast as they’ve designed it.

Initially, the Google App Engine cluster in the European Union will be limited to Premier Accounts only. If you are interested in signing up for a Premier Account to get access to our European cluster, as well as Premium Support and invoice billing, please contact our sales team at appengine_premier_requests@google.com.

PageSpeed - Making the Google App Engine Powered Web Faster
At Google we’ve had an ongoing commitment to making the web faster and for almost a year the PageSpeed Service team has been enabling websites to optimize their static content for delivery to end users at lightning fast speed. Today we’re making this service available to our HRD applications with just a few clicks. Use of the PageSpeed Service is priced at $0.39 per GB of outgoing bandwidth, in addition to standard App Engine outgoing bandwidth price.

GeoPoint Support in Search
Our Search team deserved a break after releasing the Search API a month and a half ago, but instead they’ve worked hard to announce exciting improvements at Google I/O. You can now store latitude and longitude as a GeoPoint in a GeoField, and search documents by distance from that GeoPoint.

Other Service Updates
Here are some other amazing updates we have this release:

• Blob Migration Tool now Generally Available - Since the deprecation announcement for Master/Slave Datastore (M/S), we’ve been continually improving the experience for apps migrating from M/S to HRD. We’re happy to announce that the Blob Migration tool is now generally available, so you can migrate both your Blobstore and Datastore data in one easy step.


• Application Code Limits Raised from 150MB/version to 1 GB/application - For those of you biting your fingernails every time you update your application, wondering if today will be the day you finally reach the 150MB application version limit, fret not! We’ve updated the application size limit to be 1GB total for all versions of your application. You can check your app’s Admin Console to see the total size of all your application versions. In the future, you’ll be able to purchase more quota to store additional files.


• Logs API Updates - Paid applications will now be able to specify a logs retention time frame of up to 1 year for their application logs, provided that the logs storage size specified is sufficient for that period. Additionally, we’re introducing some Logs API billing changes so that you can pay to read application logs after the first 100MB. Reading from the Logs API will cost $0.12/gigabyte for additional data over the first 100MB.


• Go SDK for Windows - We’ve published an experimental SDK for Windows for the Go runtime.

Don’t think these are all the new features we’ve introduced with 1.7.0; we’ve got so much more than just the highlights above. Make your way to our release notes for Java, Python, and Go straightaway to read about 1.7.0. If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it in our Google Group. We and the whole Stack Overflow community for App Engine have been working hard to answer all your technical questions on the App Engine platform.


- Posted by the Google App Engine Team


Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Python is a registered trademark of the Python Software Foundation.

Public transit routing and layer now available in the Google Maps API

Google Maps API now enables developers to add Transit data, including public transit directions, to their maps and apps.



Whether you're planning a trip from your computer or on the spur of the moment from your mobile device, Google Maps helps you find directions in more than 475 regions around the world. Today we're pleased to announce that public transit directions are now available in the Google Maps API.



Public transit has been one of the most requested features by Maps API developers, and you can now use it in both the Google Maps Javascript v3 and the Directions Web Service. It's simple for you to update your apps to also offer routing by public transit in addition to driving, bicycling, and walking. The transit route responses include the number of stops, direction of travel and more. It will also tell you what type of vehicle you will be travelling on. Everything from a typical subway train to a funicular!








To support the launch of routing by public transit we're also adding the Transit Layer to the Maps API. For example if you are a retail chain, the Transit Layer allows you to show all the bus major transit lines that run past each store. The Transit Layer can be displayed by enabling the TransitLayer(), it’s as simple as that!



If you're using a Google Map, you can now use the Directions API web service to add this useful and helpful transit data to your map. As always, if you have any questions about public transit in the Google Maps API, we recommend posting to our sponsored tag on Stack Overflow, or if you’re at Google I/O swing by at the Google Maps Developer Sandbox. Happy commuting!



Posted by Nabil Naghdy, Product Manager, Google Maps API

Introducing the Path to Conversion report

Conversion attribution is the practice advertisers use to give appropriate credit to every impression, interaction or click that helped drive a conversion in a campaign. Instead of the typical “last click wins” model, in which 100% credit is given to that last ad that was clicked on before a conversion, attribution modeling shines a light on the entire path the customer took to get there.

Beyond the “last click wins” approach

There are many reasons why online advertisers have relied on this “last click wins” model. There is a lot of data to sift through, and making sense of it can be a overwhelming. Although only 14% of respondents in a recent survey by Google Analytics in partnership with eConsultancy consider “last click” attribution to be “very effective,” it remains common; most likely because marketers haven't yet found or mastered the right attribution tools. But simply giving all the credit to the final click ignores the contribution of the customer’s previous interactions—whether through search, display or rich media —that led to the final purchase.

At DoubleClick, we provide you with the data needed to properly credit the different channels that led to conversions for your campaigns. First came the Exposure to Conversion Report (E2C), a premium report which lets advertisers view data on up to ten ad interactions leading up to a conversion. Then we released Multi-Channel Funnels in DFA to offer all clients an aggregated view of which channels contribute to and result in conversions.

Expanded insights: The Path to Conversion report

Now, we’re pleased to introduce the Path to Conversion Report. This report, available in new DFA Reporting, makes it easier for you to gain insight into your customer’s journey to a purchase.

For a trial period, the new Path to Conversion report is available to any customer who is already receiving the E2C report.

This new report, currently available to any customer who receives the E2C report, provides similar insights but offers E2C customers significant improvement in a few key areas:

• Easier to use: the data, available in new DFA Reporting is much easier to compile and faster to download.
  
  
• More interactions: the availability of data has greatly expanded. Now you can analyze up to 200 customer interactions (also known as “exposures”) per conversion as compared to a maximum of ten in the E2C report.
  
  
• Custom Floodlight Variables: you can now include custom floodlight variables in the report in order to determine custom conversion details, e.g. order amounts for e-commerce sites or the number of nights booked for travel sites.
  
  
• Enhanced DoubleClick Search integration: Available per interaction: Ad level data including keyword, new DS3 labels and Full DoubleClick Search IDs - for easier optimization.
  
  
• Attribute sales with no clicks: Often you’ll encounter customers who have seen a DoubleClick-served ad from another network, and then went to the advertiser’s site later to buy. Data on these unattributed conversions (aka non-attributed interactions), are now measured in this report.
  
  
• International support: P2C now supports multi-byte characters in Floodlight Custom Variables and in DoubleClick Search Data (keyword, etc).

We invite existing E2C customers to log in to DFA Reporting and try out the Path to Conversion report during this trial period. We’re excited to see how you can leverage this report to take the next step in your attribution modeling efforts.

Posted by Aaron Nelson, Product Manager

Android @ I/O: the playground is open

Last year at Google I/O, we talked about momentum, mobile and more. This year, we’re picking up right where we left off. More than 400 million Android devices have now been activated—up from 100 million last June. And twelve new Android devices are activated every every second—that’s more than 1 million a day. Today, we’re rolling out a new version of Android called Jelly Bean, adding more entertainment to Google Play, and introducing two powerful—yet distinctly different Nexus devices to bring you the best of Google.



Jelly Bean: simple, beautiful and beyond smart

Jelly Bean builds on top of Ice Cream Sandwich. It makes everything smoother, faster and more fluid. For example, notifications are now more dynamic: if you’re late for a meeting or missed a call, you can email or call directly from notifications. The keyboard is smarter and more accurate, and can predict your next word. And voice typing is faster, working even when you don’t have a data connection.



We’ve redesigned search from the ground up in Jelly Bean, with a new user interface and faster, more natural Voice Search. You can type your query or simply ask Google a question. Google can speak back to you, delivering a precise answer, powered by the Knowledge Graph, if it knows one, in addition to a list of search results.



Today’s smart devices still rely on you to do pretty much everything—that is, until now. Google Now is a new feature that gets you just the right information at just the right time. It tells you today’s weather before you start your day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work, or your favorite team's score as they’re playing. There’s no digging required: cards appear at the moment you need them most.







Starting in mid-July, we’ll start rolling out over-the-air updates to Galaxy Nexus, Motorola Xoom and Nexus S, and we’ll also release Jelly Bean to open source.



Google Play: more entertainment

Google Play is your digital entertainment destination, with more than 600,000 apps and games plus music, movies and books. It’s entirely cloud-based, which means all of your content is always available across all of your devices. Today our store is expanding to include magazines. We’ve been working with leading publishers Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith and more to offer magazines like House Beautiful, Men’s Health, Shape and WIRED.



Now, you can also purchase movies in addition to renting them. And we’re adding television shows on Google Play—in fact, we’re adding thousands of episodes of broadcast and cable TV shows, like "Revenge," "Parks & Recreation" and "Breaking Bad," from some of the top studios, like ABC Studios, NBCUniversal and Sony Pictures. You can play back movies and TV shows on all your Android devices, through Google Play on the web, and on YouTube, and soon we’ll bring the experience to Google TV devices.



Movie purchases, TV shows and magazines are available today on play.google.com, and will roll out to Google Play on devices over the coming days.



Nexus 7: powerful, portable and designed for Google Play

All of this great Google Play content comes to life on Nexus 7, a powerful new tablet with a vibrant, 7” 1280x800 HD display. The Tegra-3 chipset, with a quad-core CPU and 12-core GPU, makes everything, including games, extremely fast. And best of all, it’s only 340 grams, lighter than most tablets out there. Nexus 7 was built to bring you the best of Google in the palm of your hand. Hang out with up to 10 friends on Google+ using the front-facing camera, browse the web blazingly fast with Chrome and, of course, crank through your emails with Gmail.







Nexus 7 comes preloaded with some great entertainment, including the movie "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," the book “The Bourne Dominion,” magazines like Condé Nast Traveler and Popular Science, and songs from bands like Coldplay and the Rolling Stones. We’ve also included a $25 credit to purchase your favorite movies, books and more from Google Play, for a limited time. Nexus 7 is available for preorder today from Google Play in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia, and starts at $199 in the U.S. It will start shipping mid-July.



Nexus Q: It’s a sphere!

It's great to be able to take your entertainment with you wherever you go, but sometimes you want to ditch the headphones and enjoy music with friends and family. So we’re introducing Nexus Q, which combines the power of Android and Google Play to easily stream music and video in your home—all controlled by an Android phone or tablet. Designed and engineered by Google, Nexus Q is a small sphere that plugs into the best speakers and TV in your house. It’s the first-ever social streaming device—like a cloud-connected jukebox where everyone brings their own music to the party. Available first in the U.S., you can preorder Nexus Q today from Google Play for $299, and it will ship mid-July.







If you own one of the 400 million Android devices out there, you already know that it’s much more than simply a phone or tablet. It’s your connection to the best of Google—all of your stuff and entertainment, everywhere you go. Now you have a new version of Android, more entertainment and a growing portfolio of Nexus devices to choose from—all available in Google Play. The playground is open.



Posted by Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile and Digital Content

Android @ I/O: the playground is open

Last year at Google I/O, we talked about momentum, mobile and more. This year, we’re picking up right where we left off. More than 400 million Android devices have now been activated—up from 100 million last June. And twelve new Android devices are activated every every second—that’s more than 1 million a day. Today, we’re rolling out a new version of Android called Jelly Bean, adding more entertainment to Google Play, and introducing two powerful—yet distinctly different Nexus devices to bring you the best of Google.



Jelly Bean: simple, beautiful and beyond smart

Jelly Bean builds on top of Ice Cream Sandwich. It makes everything smoother, faster and more fluid. For example, notifications are now more dynamic: if you’re late for a meeting or missed a call, you can email or call directly from notifications. The keyboard is smarter and more accurate, and can predict your next word. And voice typing is faster, working even when you don’t have a data connection.



We’ve redesigned search from the ground up in Jelly Bean, with a new user interface and faster, more natural Voice Search. You can type your query or simply ask Google a question. Google can speak back to you, delivering a precise answer, powered by the Knowledge Graph, if it knows one, in addition to a list of search results.



Today’s smart devices still rely on you to do pretty much everything—that is, until now. Google Now is a new feature that gets you just the right information at just the right time. It tells you today’s weather before you start your day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work, or your favorite team's score as they’re playing. There’s no digging required: cards appear at the moment you need them most.







Starting in mid-July, we’ll start rolling out over-the-air updates to Galaxy Nexus, Motorola Xoom and Nexus S, and we’ll also release Jelly Bean to open source.



Google Play: more entertainment

Google Play is your digital entertainment destination, with more than 600,000 apps and games plus music, movies and books. It’s entirely cloud-based, which means all of your content is always available across all of your devices. Today our store is expanding to include magazines. We’ve been working with leading publishers Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith and more to offer magazines like House Beautiful, Men’s Health, Shape and WIRED.



Now, you can also purchase movies in addition to renting them. And we’re adding television shows on Google Play—in fact, we’re adding thousands of episodes of broadcast and cable TV shows, like "Revenge," "Parks & Recreation" and "Breaking Bad," from some of the top studios, like ABC Studios, NBCUniversal and Sony Pictures. You can play back movies and TV shows on all your Android devices, through Google Play on the web, and on YouTube, and soon we’ll bring the experience to Google TV devices.



Movie purchases, TV shows and magazines are available today on play.google.com, and will roll out to Google Play on devices over the coming days.



Nexus 7: powerful, portable and designed for Google Play

All of this great Google Play content comes to life on Nexus 7, a powerful new tablet with a vibrant, 7” 1280x800 HD display. The Tegra-3 chipset, with a quad-core CPU and 12-core GPU, makes everything, including games, extremely fast. And best of all, it’s only 340 grams, lighter than most tablets out there. Nexus 7 was built to bring you the best of Google in the palm of your hand. Hang out with up to 10 friends on Google+ using the front-facing camera, browse the web blazingly fast with Chrome and, of course, crank through your emails with Gmail.







Nexus 7 comes preloaded with some great entertainment, including the movie "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," the book “The Bourne Dominion,” magazines like Condé Nast Traveler and Popular Science, and songs from bands like Coldplay and the Rolling Stones. We’ve also included a $25 credit to purchase your favorite movies, books and more from Google Play, for a limited time. Nexus 7 is available for preorder today from Google Play in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia, and starts at $199 in the U.S. It will start shipping mid-July.



Nexus Q: It’s a sphere!

It's great to be able to take your entertainment with you wherever you go, but sometimes you want to ditch the headphones and enjoy music with friends and family. So we’re introducing Nexus Q, which combines the power of Android and Google Play to easily stream music and video in your home—all controlled by an Android phone or tablet. Designed and engineered by Google, Nexus Q is a small sphere that plugs into the best speakers and TV in your house. It’s the first-ever social streaming device—like a cloud-connected jukebox where everyone brings their own music to the party. Available first in the U.S., you can preorder Nexus Q today from Google Play for $299, and it will ship mid-July.







If you own one of the 400 million Android devices out there, you already know that it’s much more than simply a phone or tablet. It’s your connection to the best of Google—all of your stuff and entertainment, everywhere you go. Now you have a new version of Android, more entertainment and a growing portfolio of Nexus devices to choose from—all available in Google Play. The playground is open.



Posted by Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile and Digital Content

Introducing DS Change History

Ever wish you could remember exactly when a change was made in DoubleClick Search (DS) or who made it? Or, perhaps you’d like to investigate an unexpected spike or dip in your campaign performance and link it back to a specific change. Help is now available directly in your DS account. We’ve just launched DS Change History, which enables you to audit what changes were made to your account, when, and by which user.

We’ve integrated DS Change History directly into the Campaigns tab, to allow you to seamlessly switch between analyzing campaign performance and the changes made during that same time.

Imagine you see a huge increase in impressions for a campaign and you’d like to know if there is a specific change that caused this. With one click, you switch from Statistics mode to Change history mode and quickly assess that a colleague accidentally increased the campaign budget from 100 to 1000 dollars. A quick click back into Statistics mode allows you to fix the budget and move on with the rest of your work. (Hint: Use our new filter to selected feature to narrow the scope of your view to the specific data rows you’d like to investigate.)

Let’s look at some of the specifics. With DS Change History, you can:

• See the changes for campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords, labels, and bid strategies.


• See when a change was made and when it was trafficked, as well as which system and user made the change. DS Change History will report of changes made through the interface, bulksheets, inbound sync and bid strategies.


• Gain insights into bid strategy changes with a summary of the bid rationale. This will let you know what target the change was intended to hit, how often bids are evaluated and, for target position strategies, details on why a change was made


• Get guidance on how to improve bid strategy performance by discovering where settings like maximum keyword bid inhibits the bid changes

To view a change, navigate to the engine account, advertiser, campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords, labels, or bid strategies whose change history you want to see. Once you select your scope, select the Change history link in the right hand corner of the performance summary graph.




After reviewing your changes in the interface, you’re able to download the report for offline analysis, by selecting the download button as you would any other report.

We hope this new workflow makes it even easier to keep track of changes made in DS. For more information on DS Change history, read the relevant articles in our Help Center or contact our support team for more information.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team