Map of the Week: Volkswagen Street View Quest

Map of the Week: Volkswagen Street View Quest

Why we like it: We really like this creative approach to interacting with Street View imagery. This Google Maps API implementation shows us that are still many different ways to take advantage of the imagery offered in the API.



When I was kid, my friends and I would play a game called “Punch Beetle” (also known as punch bug, punch dub, piggy punch, slug bug, or beetle bug depending on where you’re from). In brief: the object of the game is to be the first one to spot a Volkwagen Beetle and call out "Punch buggy!" or "Slug bug!" while punching your opponent in the arm.



In many ways, this game is a real world viral meme that became popular without the Internet. Using Google Street View imagery via the Google Maps API, Volkswagen found a way to translate this old tradition into an online game that you can play anywhere in the world without actually having to be in the car or punching anyone. Head over to the Street Quest site for a cool YouTube trailer and to start playing (note: you'll need a facebook login to participate in the challenge).

In VW Street View Quest, players search Google Street View imagery to find and tag any VW vehicles (not just bugs) that have been picked up by our cameras. The person who tags the most vehicles wins the challenge. There are also bonus challenges where users are asked to find the location of a particular car using only a few degrees of the Street View panorama as a clue.







Currently, prizes are only available to residents of South Africa, but the rest of the world can still explore the site and follow along. The top four users who find the most VW vehicles in Google Street View get to compete against each in real life to find the most VWs in Cape Town, South Africa. Overall, this concept is a fun way to embrace the sub-cultures and memes that have sprung up around the VW brand and share them with the rest of the world.



Posted by Carlos Cuesta, Google Maps API Product Marketing Manager

Docs Grow Ears: Google Feedback now in Google Ads Developer Documentation

If you've recently visited any of the Google Ads Developer documentation, you may have noticed a "Feedback on this document" link at the top right corner of a page. That's right—you can now use that link to report errors, comment on existing content, or request further clarification for any of the Google Ads Developer docs:

• Google AdMob Ads SDK


• AdSense APIs


• AdWords API


• DoubleClick Ad Exchange APIs


• DoubleClick for Advertisers API


• DoubleClick for Publishers API


• Interactive Media Ads SDK

In addition to this new channel, you can continue to reach out to us through the developer forums or Google Developers Live events.

Quang Nguyen, Ads Developer Relations Team

Automate Google Analytics Reporting using Google Apps Script

Many people have been asking for a simple way to put Google Analytics data into a Google Spreadsheet. Once the data is inside a Google Spreadsheet, users can easily manipulate Google Analytics data, create new visualizations, and build internal dashboards.



So today we released a new integration that dramatically reduces the work required to put Google Analytics data into any Apps Script supported product, such as Google Docs, Sites, or Spreadsheets.



Here’s an example of Google Analytics data accessed through Apps Script and displayed in a Google Spreadsheet.

Custom API Dashboards - No Code Required

We know that a popular use case of this integration will be to create dashboards that automatically update. To make this easy to do, we’ve added a script to the Spreadsheets script gallery that handles all this work - no code required. The script is called Google Analytics Report Automation (Magic).



This script is a great template for starting your own project, and we’ve had many internal Google teams save hours of time using this tool. Here’s a video demoing how to build a dashboard using this script:





You can find this script by opening or creating a Google Spreadsheet, clicking Tools -> Script Gallery and searching for “analytics magic”.

Writing Your Own Script

Of course many developers will want to write their own code. With the new Analytics – Apps Script integration, you can request the total visitors, visits, and pageviews over time and put this data into a spreadsheet with just the following code:

// Get Data.
var results = Analytics.Data.Ga.get(
    tableId,
    startDate,
    endDate,
    'ga:visitors,ga:visits,ga:pageviews',
    {‘dimensions’: ‘ga:date’});

// Output to spreadsheet.
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().insertSheet();
sheet.getRange(2, 1, results.getRows().length, headerNames.length)
    .setValues(results.getRows());

// Make Sandwich.

To get started now, read our Automated Access to Google Analytics Data in Google Spreadsheets tutorial. Also check out the Google Analytics Apps Script reference docs.

Solving Business Problems

Are you ready to start building solutions using Google Analytics and Google Apps Script?



We’d love to hear new ways you use this integration to help manipulate, visualize and present data to solve business problems. To encourage you to try out this integration, we are giving out Google Analytics developer t-shirts to the first 15 developers to build a solution using both APIs.



To be eligible, you must publish your solution to either the Chrome Web Store or the Spreadsheets Script Gallery and include a description of a business problem the script solves. We’ll then collect these scripts and highlight the solutions in an upcoming blog post. After you publish your script, fill out this form to share what you’ve built.



We’re looking forward to seeing what you can do with this integration.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski   profile Nick is a Senior Developer Programs Engineer working on the Google Analytics API. In his spare time he likes to travel around the world.

Upcoming Learn With Google Webinar: Understanding Multi-Screen Consumer Behavior

90% of media consumption today is screen based, and the growing number of digital devices is rapidly changing the way people search, shop, and connect with people or businesses. To make the most of all of their devices consumers have developed common patterns of multi-screen behavior, and this multi-screening has quickly become the norm. In order to gain a deeper understanding of this changing consumer media behavior, we conducted some new research.



Join Google on Thursday, August 30th (10am PT/1pm ET) for a webinar about our recently released research, "The New Multi-screen World: Understanding Cross-Platform Consumer Behavior."







The webinar will share our research findings on how the growth of device ownership has changed the way that people consume media. We will also discuss specific strategies that businesses and advertisers can employ to take advantage of these multi-screen behaviors and more effectively connect with their target audience.



Sign up for our webinar today by registering here.



We look forward to seeing you on August 30th!



Posted by Samantha Podos Nowak, Product Marketing Manager, Google Mobile Ads

Introducing the Links API

Since we launched our first set of API’s, we've consistently heard from publishers that they want an automated, flexible way to access and serve affiliate ads to scale their marketing efforts, create more unique advertising experiences, and better monetize their websites. Today, we've launched a beta of the new Links API, enabling publishers to query for links, banners, and even create publisher-specific links in real time.



If you're using our existing API's or are looking for more advanced ways to distribute affiliate links, try our Links API to programmatically access and show ads from Google Affiliate Network advertisers in new and creative ways. To get started, take a look at the documentation.



To start testing now, try out the Links API in Google APIs Explorer. Try running some sample requests like listing available free shipping promotions from approved advertisers (requires authentication).

Want to learn more about using Google Affiliate Network APIs to their full potential? Check out our presentation at Google I/O:

As always, we’d love to hear from you. If you have comments or suggestions on our new Links API, please visit our forum and share your feedback.



Posted by:

Ali Pasha, Product Manager

Shaun Cox, Software Engineer

Inventory Management now available in DoubleClick Search

If you’re a search marketer managing a large product inventory, you know that staying on top of changing products, new promotions, and seasonal search trends can be incredibly time-consuming. The DoubleClick Search (DS) team is pleased to announce the release of our inventory management solution (beta), which allows you to use your Merchant Center Feeds to efficiently and automatically update your search campaigns.

With our new inventory management feature, you’ll be able to update your online advertising based on your physical inventory. To do this, DS monitors changes to your inventory feed and updates your campaigns accordingly.

With inventory management, you can:

• Integrate with your Google Merchant Center feed to leverage your existing investment in product search. The hardest part of inventory management can be the initial setup in integrating your feeds. With our solution, you can avoid this by simply continuing to update your Merchant Center account to keep the inventory fresh and up-to-date. Once you connect DS to your Merchant Center account, DS will automatically reflect any changes.


• Tie the behavior of ads and keywords to inventory levels. For example, you can pause keywords when the related product is out of stock, and reactivate them when it’s back in stock. You can also change landing page URLs when the links in the feed change.


• Refresh ad copies with feed parameters. For example, you can specify templates that would update ads based on price or description updates from the feed.

For example, let’s say you’re a retailer managing two ad groups with different types of kitchen appliances: EZ Freez Ice Cream Maker, and FroYo + Ice Cream Maker. Below is an example of how you can use a template to create relevant, customized ads for your products.

1. Create a template for your ads using an inventory ad template, a generic message that can be modified based on the values of product attributes.


2. Connect the template to the two ad groups via creating a new inventory rule, which binds together inventory items and search entities.

User setup in DS	Auto-created, inventory-managed ads
Free Shipping Template: <TITLE> Free Shipping Today Only! Available for <PRICE> <LANDING_PAGE_URL> Destination URL: [http://www.productpage.com]	EZ Freez Ice Cream Maker Free Shipping Today Only! Available for $34.99 DisplayURL.com/EZFreez FroYo + Ice Cream Maker Free Shipping Today Only! Available for $49.99 DisplayURL.com/Combo

Create and customize rules to automate your keyword states, ad copy, and landing pages. Sample rules:

• If, or when, product sells out, pause keywords.


• If price changes, create new ads based on the ad template to reflect the new price.


• If product landing page changes, update keyword landing pages.

Visit our Help Center article to learn more about Inventory management. To be included in the beta, please contact your Technical Account Manager.

Posted by the DoubleClick Search team

Wood