Monday, April 9, 2012

Google Art Project launches with Museums in Delhi

I am very excited to announce the launch of Google Art Project in India. This launch allows users across the world to view artwork collection supported by 2 museums in New Delhi - National Gallery of Modern Art and National Museum, from the comfort of their homes at www.googleartproject.com. We hope to add many more such museums in time and welcome partnerships from museums across India to participate in this program. Sign up form is here.



Globally, we have launched 151 cultural institutions in 41 countries with 30,000 artworks from 6,000 artists.



Users from anywhere can find excellent portalist from Kerala, Raja Ravi Varma’s oil paintings during the 1890s to Jamini Roy’s inspiration from tribal and folk culture that connects towns to villages. Also check out the miniatures from the early Chola Art at the National Museum - outstanding bronze image of Nataraja in chatura-tandava posture from Tiruvarangulam and cosmic dance of Lord Shiva symbolizing fivefold aspects of Divine control of the universe namely; creation, preservation, destruction, illusion and grace.



Global collections include the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery in London, the Palace of Versailles in France, the White House in Washington DC, the collection of the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar and many more. Don’t forget to check out the museum view located on the left bottom panel of the site.



The platform gives you a fun and unique way to interact with art and we hope this inspires you to visit the real thing. Users all over the world can now interact with art in a way that was never possible before - brush level strokes of paintings, virtual tour of the museums and a feature that allows you to create your own collection to share with your friends and family.





Here are a few things in the Art Project that you might enjoy:



  • Using tools called Explore and Discover, you can find artworks by period, artist or type of artwork, displaying works from different museums around the world.


  • Google+ and Hangouts are integrated on the site, enabling you to create engaging personal galleries.


  • Street View images are displayed in finer quality. A specially designed Street View “trolley” took 360-degree images of the interior of selected galleries which were then stitched together, enabling smooth navigation of more than 385 rooms within the museums. You can also explore the gallery interiors directly from within Street View in Google Maps.


  • We have 46 artworks available with our “gigapixel” photo capturing technology, photographed in extraordinary detail using super high resolution so you can study details of the brushwork and patina that would be impossible to see with the naked eye.


  • An enhanced My Gallery feature lets you select any of the 30,000 artworks—along with your favorite details—to build your own personalized gallery. You can add comments to each painting and share the whole collection with friends and family. (It’s an ideal tool for students.)




We’re incredibly excited about this project—it’s our first step toward making great art more accessible, and we hope to add more museums and works of art in time.



Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Master/Slave Datastore, thanks for all your hard work



Almost 4 years after launch, we’ve seen fantastic growth both in Google App Engine and the apps that run on it. And although the Master/Slave Datastore was a big part of our early success, it's time to announce the deprecation of the Master/Slave Datastore in favor of the High-Replication Datastore (HRD). HRD has provided us with higher availability and better, more predictable performance. Many upcoming features will be HRD-only and we strongly encourage you to migrate all your applications as soon as possible using the migration tools found in the Application Settings tab of the Administration Console. The deprecation period will follow the guidelines set in our terms of service. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at ms-datastore-deprecation@googlegroups.com.



- Posted by Max Ross, on behalf of the App Engine Datastore Team


Google Affiliate Network expanding in the UK

After testing Google Affiliate Network in beta throughout the UK, we’re excited to announce that we’re expanding to more UK advertisers and agencies. This means more relevant deals and promotions will be available to publishers with UK audiences. We’ve worked hard to enhance our international product offering and now have a team based in the Google London office actively supporting UK users.

Key benefits for UK users:



  • Market-leading insights and reporting available in local timezone, language and currency

  • Publisher payments available in over 40 currencies in 80 countries

  • Product feed integration via Google Merchant Centre

  • Ability to create accounts with different payouts, advertiser-specific terms and local market presence



  • Custom recruiting for select advertisers



For UK publishers:
UK publishers can now apply for UK affiliate programmes including Blue Nile, Onlineticketexpress.com, Orvis UK, Shoes.com, Skechers and more. Follow the steps below to to get started:

1.) Log in to your account (or apply to join our network)
2.) Go to the Advertisers tab
3.) On the left-hand navigation, click ‘Countries’ and choose United Kingdom
4.) Apply to programmes

For UK advertisers:
If you’re an advertiser interested in starting an affiliate programme with Google Affiliate Network, please contact us and a member of our team can provide more information.

We look forward to helping advertisers, publishers and agencies achieve their goals in the UK, and doing our part to grow the UK affiliate market! For more information, please visit our website.

Posted by: Tony Nelan, Head of Google Affiliate Network for Europe

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Two new gadgets to make your blog better with Google+




Imagine being able to share your blog with like-minded people across the web. Today we’ve made doing that easier with the introduction of two Google+ gadgets, the +1 button and Google+ Badge.

Unlike the +1 button that can appear below a post, this gadget is specific to your blog. Displaying it on your blog will allow visitors to endorse your blog and share it with their friends.  




+1 button for blog



If you’re wondering what a +1 means, think of it as a public stamp of approval from your readers. As soon as someone clicks on the +1 button next to your blog, they’ll also have the option to share it with their friends, contacts, or the rest of the web.  

+1s from your readers will appear to people in their circles whenever your blog shows up in Google search results.
Here’s an example:









We’re also introducing the Google+ badge gadget, which allows you to connect your blog to your personal profile or your Google+ page on Google+. Adding the badge to your blog helps you connect with friends, fans, and customers. It enables your readers to add you, or your blog to their circles and follow your blog posts on Google+.

If you are happy to blog under your real name, people can follow your stream on Google+. If you prefer to blog under a nickname or an established pseudonym, you can create a Google+ Page to represent your blog. Bloggers who wish to remain anonymous should continue to blog as usual.

To add these gadgets to your blog, select "Add a Gadget" from the "Layout" tab of Blogger, and select them from the list of gadgets under "Basics". You'll need to copy your Google+ ID (personal or Page) to configure the brand badge gadget for your blog.




Add the +1 and Google+ brand badge gadgets to your blog today to grow and engage your audience.

Bora Toska, Product Marketing Manager

What's new in DoubleClick for Publishers

Spring is here and so are a couple of new features in DFP! For a complete list, please visit the DFP or DFP Small Business Help Centers.

Available in DFP and DFP Small Business:



  • Integrated Change History: To help you keep a closer eye on your ad operations, we’ve integrated our change history feature into the orders page in addition to its home in the Admin tab. The change history can help you quickly identify and review all changes made to your orders and line items, including: what has changed (e.g., line item), what change occurred (e.g., from "Paused" to "Ready"), who made the change, and the date and time the change was made.

  • Creative Preview Links: “What will my creative look like on your site?” You've told us that this is one of the most common requests that you hear from advertisers. With our creative preview tool, you’ve been able to create an internal test page for QA purposes, and send screenshots to advertisers to see how their ad would appear, but advertisers could not interact with their creative on your site unitl it went live. We’ve changed that with the release of external creative preview links. You can now send your advertisers a link to a test page that displays their creative on your site so they can easily preview and interact with their creative on your site before it’s live.

  • Bulk Creative Upload: We’ve designed DFP so there are less steps, clicks, and screens throughout the trafficking process to help you save time when trafficking your campaigns. In efforts to help you streamline your workflows even further, we’ve introduced the ability to bulk upload multiple creatives. With this tool, you can easily drag and drop multiple image, Flash, or text creatives from your desktop directly into your line item with a single gesture rather than uploading multiple individual creatives, helping you save time and minimizing clicks.




Available in DFP:



  • DFP Optimization: Publishers can now supercharge ad performance with DFP Optimization - an advanced optimization system that supercharges ad performance to help publishers increase the value of their premium inventory, and boost yield for non-premium inventory. DFP Optimization leverages Google’s infrastructure and processing capabilities to automatically deliver the best ad, to the best user, at the best time. Read more.



  • First-party audience segmentation: Publishers are increasingly taking control of their audience data as one of the key assets of their digital businesses. To help you manage and control this data, we’ve introduced the ability to define and manage audience segments directly in DFP to help you increase the value of their inventory while gaining insights on how different audience segments engage with your content. Read more.



Available in DFP Mobile:




  • Click-To-[Action] Creative: As mobile advertising becomes a greater emphasis for your advertisers, it’s important to recognize that their campaign objectives may differ from their web-based campaigns. On mobile, advertisers may define success as driving downloads of a mobile application, calling a telephone number, or opening a map versus visiting a website. To provide your advertisers with uniquely mobile experiences, we’ve released a new mobile creative type that enables you to specify an action (ie. download) as the destination. This new creative type will help you differentiate your mobile offering and provide your advertisers with the latest mobile formats and functionality.



Available in DFP Video:


  • VPAID Linear SWF Creatives: Creative agencies are building more VPAID compliant video ads than ever before. DFP Video now supports the VPAID standard as defined by the IAB, allowing you to accept more video ad campaigns without needing extra technical development. VPAID introduces a common language between ad servers and video players for handling interactive video ads for Flash and HTML5 environments.




 

Monday, April 2, 2012

Moving to the New Blogger Interface




Last September, we introduced a new user interface that makes it easier to find what you need and focus on writing great blog posts. Since then, we’ve implemented a number of updates and improvements based on your feedback.



In the coming weeks, we will change the default interface for those of you still using the old version, and bring the advantages of Blogger’s improved interface to everyone. If you are already on the new interface, there will be no change.



If you have been using the old interface, give the new look a try today by clicking “Upgrade Now” at the top of the page. This is, of course, a free upgrade and all major features are present in the new interface. You can still temporarily switch back to the old interface by clicking the “Old Blogger interface” link located in settings, but not for much longer.








We recommend that anyone currently using the old interface switch to the new one, as all accounts will be permanently upgraded very soon.



When you switch to the new interface, you'll find a number of new features that we've released recently, including:





To help you get a better sense of what’s changed and how to navigate the new interface, check out the short video below or read the friendly guide “Using our upgraded interface”.








We hope you enjoy the new interface and welcome your thoughts about the new look. If you have suggestions or feedback, sign in to Blogger and click “Send Feedback” at the bottom right of the screen.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Happy April Fools! The Google Cloud API: cloud coverage anywhere, anytime



We are thrilled to announce a project the App Engine team has been working on for a long time: the Cloud API. The Cloud API allows developers unprecedented control over cloud deployments in their area.

We think the Cloud API is a huge step forward for developers. For the first time, developers can simply and easily gain cloud coverage in locations around the globe within minutes. With the Cloud API developers can drive increased cloud awareness for a wide range of new users and enterprises. This will not only allow totally new applications in the agricultural and metrology sectors to flourish but also provide a welcome addition to mobile, social and gaming. The Cloud API provides the scalability you would expect from App Engine with clouds seeded on demand and dispersed when they are no longer needed. Clouds are created using cloud engines which are specially designed jet engines with three fins. 




A Cloud Deployed Using the Cloud API. Imagery ©2012 GeoEye, DigitalGlobe, Cnes/Spot Image, TerraMetrics




The Cloud API is supported in Python, Java and Go, check out the Getting Started Guide to find out how simple it is to integrate clouds into your applications.






As with other parts of App Engine, the Cloud API is backed by an SLA of 99.95% uptime along with an accuracy of ±5m. Clouds come in configurable sizes ranging up to 5m3 for free customers with paid and premier customers able to extend clouds to 10km3.

Pricing for the Cloud API are based on the likelihood of cloud in the location the cloud is requested. A cloud pricing calculator will be released in the coming days, however example pricing is provided below:








Example LocationLikelihood of CloudPrice/Cloud Hour/10m3
Seattle, WA, US55%Free*
Brisbane, AU20%$0.10
Yuma, AZ, US10%$0.20




*Removal of cloud from high cloud areas such as Seattle has a cost of $0.10 per Cloud Hour per 10m3.

If you have any questions or comments send them to the App Engine group. We'd love to hear from you.

- Posted by the App Engine team