Creative Sandbox Gallery. Now open for play.

At Google, we're amazed by how the ad industry is using the digital canvas to bring brands and ideas to life. Whether it’s enticing viewers with video, evoking a smile with a mobile phone, or reconfiguring the typical ‘test drive,’ when digital advertising works, it can not only be informative, but emotional and dazzling. That’s why we've created a space where everyone can see this great work, talk about it, and roll around in it like a big happy dog.





Today, we’re launching the Creative Sandbox gallery. It’s a crowdsourced collection of global campaigns that push the boundaries of creativity and technology from across digital platforms -- a place to flash your brilliance, spark new digital ideas, inspire and be inspired. We're asking the creators to share a little detail on how they made the magic happen and the tools they used to do it, exposing us all to new ideas and new ways to improve our own work.



As with any sandbox, looking and playing are required. Vote to push your favorite projects to the top. Tell other creators what you admire. And if you've done something amazing lately, send it in. We'd all love to see it.



Jump in. Explore. And play.



www.creativesandbox.com



Posted by Justin Joy, Agency Marketing Manager

The Benefits & Importance of Compatibility

We built Android to be an open source mobile platform freely available to anyone wishing to use it. In 2008, Android was released under the Apache open source license and we continue to develop and innovate the platform under the same open source license -- it is available to everyone at: http://source.android.com. This openness allows device manufacturers to customize Android and enable new user experiences, driving innovation and consumer choice.



As the lead developer and shepherd of the open platform, we realize that we have a responsibility to app developers -- those who invested in the platform by adopting it and building applications specifically for Android. These developers each contribute to making the platform better -- because when developers support a platform with their applications, the platform becomes better and more attractive to consumers. As more developers build great apps for Android, more consumers are likely to buy Android devices because of the availability of great software content (app titles like Fruit Ninja or Google Maps). As more delighted consumers adopt Android phones and tablets, it creates a larger audience for app developers to sell more apps. The result is a strategy that is good for developers (they sell more apps), good for device manufacturers (they sell more devices) and good for consumers (they get more features and innovation).



In biological terms, this is sometimes referred to as an ecosystem. In economic terms, this is known as a virtuous cycle -- a set of events that reinforces itself through a feedback loop. Each iteration of the cycle positively reinforces the previous one. These cycles will continue in the direction of their momentum until an external factor intervenes and breaks the cycle.



When we first contemplated Android and formed the Open Handset Alliance, we wanted to create an open virtuous cycle where all members of the ecosystem would benefit. We thought hard about what types of external factors could intervene to weaken the ecosystem as a whole. One important external factor we knew could do this was incompatibilities between implementations of Android. Let me explain:



Imagine a hypothetical situation where the platform on each phone sold was just a little bit different. Different enough where Google Maps would run normally on one phone but run terribly slow on another. Let's say, for sake of example, that Android implemented an API that put the phone to sleep for a fraction of a second to conserve battery life when nothing was moving on the screen. The API prototype for such a function might look like SystemClock.sleep(millis) where the parameter "millis" is the number of milliseconds to put the device to sleep for.



If one phone manufacturer implemented SystemClock.sleep() incorrectly, and interpreted the parameter as Seconds instead of Milliseconds, the phone would be put to sleep a thousand times longer than intended! This manufacturer’s phone would have a terrible time running Google Maps. If apps don’t run well across devices due to incompatibilities, consumers would leave the ecosystem, followed by developers. The end of the virtuous cycle.



We have never believed in a “one size fits all” strategy, so we found a way to enable differentiation for device manufactures while protecting developers and consumers from incompatibilities by offering a free "compatibility test suite" (CTS). CTS is a set of software tools that tests and exercises the platform to make sure that (for example) SystemClock.sleep(millis) actually puts the device to sleep for only milliseconds. Like Android, the test suite is freely available to everyone under the Apache open source license: http://source.android.com/compatibility/cts-intro.html 



While Android remains free for anyone to use as they would like, only Android compatible devices benefit from the full Android ecosystem. By joining the Open Handset Alliance, each member contributes to and builds one Android platform -- not a bunch of incompatible versions. We’re grateful to the over 85 Open Handset Alliance members who have helped us build the Android ecosystem and continue to drive innovation at an incredible pace. Thanks to their support the Android ecosystem now has over 500 million Android-compatible devices and counting!



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

The Benefits & Importance of Compatibility

We built Android to be an open source mobile platform freely available to anyone wishing to use it. In 2008, Android was released under the Apache open source license and we continue to develop and innovate the platform under the same open source license -- it is available to everyone at: http://source.android.com. This openness allows device manufacturers to customize Android and enable new user experiences, driving innovation and consumer choice.



As the lead developer and shepherd of the open platform, we realize that we have a responsibility to app developers -- those who invested in the platform by adopting it and building applications specifically for Android. These developers each contribute to making the platform better -- because when developers support a platform with their applications, the platform becomes better and more attractive to consumers. As more developers build great apps for Android, more consumers are likely to buy Android devices because of the availability of great software content (app titles like Fruit Ninja or Google Maps). As more delighted consumers adopt Android phones and tablets, it creates a larger audience for app developers to sell more apps. The result is a strategy that is good for developers (they sell more apps), good for device manufacturers (they sell more devices) and good for consumers (they get more features and innovation).



In biological terms, this is sometimes referred to as an ecosystem. In economic terms, this is known as a virtuous cycle -- a set of events that reinforces itself through a feedback loop. Each iteration of the cycle positively reinforces the previous one. These cycles will continue in the direction of their momentum until an external factor intervenes and breaks the cycle.



When we first contemplated Android and formed the Open Handset Alliance, we wanted to create an open virtuous cycle where all members of the ecosystem would benefit. We thought hard about what types of external factors could intervene to weaken the ecosystem as a whole. One important external factor we knew could do this was incompatibilities between implementations of Android. Let me explain:



Imagine a hypothetical situation where the platform on each phone sold was just a little bit different. Different enough where Google Maps would run normally on one phone but run terribly slow on another. Let's say, for sake of example, that Android implemented an API that put the phone to sleep for a fraction of a second to conserve battery life when nothing was moving on the screen. The API prototype for such a function might look like SystemClock.sleep(millis) where the parameter "millis" is the number of milliseconds to put the device to sleep for.



If one phone manufacturer implemented SystemClock.sleep() incorrectly, and interpreted the parameter as Seconds instead of Milliseconds, the phone would be put to sleep a thousand times longer than intended! This manufacturer’s phone would have a terrible time running Google Maps. If apps don’t run well across devices due to incompatibilities, consumers would leave the ecosystem, followed by developers. The end of the virtuous cycle.



We have never believed in a “one size fits all” strategy, so we found a way to enable differentiation for device manufactures while protecting developers and consumers from incompatibilities by offering a free "compatibility test suite" (CTS). CTS is a set of software tools that tests and exercises the platform to make sure that (for example) SystemClock.sleep(millis) actually puts the device to sleep for only milliseconds. Like Android, the test suite is freely available to everyone under the Apache open source license: http://source.android.com/compatibility/cts-intro.html 



While Android remains free for anyone to use as they would like, only Android compatible devices benefit from the full Android ecosystem. By joining the Open Handset Alliance, each member contributes to and builds one Android platform -- not a bunch of incompatible versions. We’re grateful to the over 85 Open Handset Alliance members who have helped us build the Android ecosystem and continue to drive innovation at an incredible pace. Thanks to their support the Android ecosystem now has over 500 million Android-compatible devices and counting!



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

Fab Friday is Experimental

Welcome to another edition of the Fab Friday Post. Today we have a quick update on our Google Developers Live events. Our latest video is up, Experiments in Big Data Visualization. Brendan Kenny and I took a look at using the CanvasLayer Utility Library [link] to visualize shapefiles and KML in the browser. We talked about some of the challenges of using binary XmlHTTPRequests and trying to do polygon triangulation in JavaScript. Take a look:







In particular, we talked about two open source JavaScript libraries we used:



JSTS, a JavaScript port of the Java Topology Suite



and



shp.js for parsing .shp files.



It’s a fun experiment and we hope to launch it soon.



Coming up next Tuesday, we have Pete Giencke and Ka-Ping Lee discussing how they build Google Crisis Response maps like the one used for Hurricane Isaac. Should be a really interesting session.





Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations Team

Supporting modern browsers: Internet Explorer 8 support discontinued

As we announced last year, we support the latest version of Google Chrome (which automatically updates whenever it detects that a new version of the browser is available) as well as the current and prior major release of Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari on a rolling basis. Each time a new version of one of these browsers is released, we begin supporting the update and stop supporting the third-oldest version.



Internet Explorer 10 launches on 10/26/2012, and as a result, we will discontinue support for Internet Explorer 8 shortly afterwards, on 11/15/2012. After this date users accessing Google Apps services using Internet Explorer 8 will see a message recommending that they upgrade their browser.



Editions included:

Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Education and Government



For more information:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/our-plans-to-support-modern-browsers.html

http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=33864



whatsnew.googleapps.com


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Social that Adds Up: Performance and Measurement

Join us for a webinar Tuesday, September 18th 11am PT, in partnership with Hootsuite, to learn how we can make better decisions based on performance metrics of social networks using Google Analytics social reports. Register today, it’s open to everyone! 

Adam Singer, the Product Marketing Manager for Google Analytics, will go beyond the current social metrics of followers, +1’s, likes and others, to discuss the true impact your social media is making on your brand’s bottom line. We often are asked about how businesses can measure their social media and how they can capture the value they create for their consumers. Many of our current metrics allow us to measure the reach of our message, but not necessarily the ROI. What impact does social have on a company’s performance? Learn how to connect visits to your social pages all the way through to a sale or conversion on your website. It’s time to prove the value of social media with the right measurement metrics.

You’ll also learn how social media can actually influence other media performance and drive conversions. When you verify your Google+ Page, Google may show more endorsements for your business from your customers and supporters within the search results page. This can raise the social awareness of your business and increase its relevance. Because 77% of US consumers trust recommendations from their social media connections more than any other media source, seeing a +1, can help them make a purchase decision. On average, search ads with annotations have a 5-10% uplift in clickthrough rate. Some of our advertisers have seen even higher uplifts, H&M achieved 22% uplift, Cadbury achieved 17% uplift and Laterooms.com achieved a 9% uplift in clickthrough rates on their search ads.

Start measuring the value you’re creating through your social media campaigns! 

Sources: Google Research 2012; Google internal data

Posted by the Google Analytics team

Google Maps shows how we spent summer 2012

[Cross posted from the Google Official Blog]

In the blink of an eye, summer is coming to an end. It feels like it was just yesterday that I was planning out all my summer activities as I eagerly awaited the start of long, sunny days and warm nights.



Before we approach the official end of summer on September 21, our Google Maps team thought it’d be fun to see how those of us in the Northern Hemisphere have spent the dog days. To do this, we reviewed the summer search activity on maps.google.com in several countries between the end of May and the beginning of September. Within each country, a look at some of the top-rising searches and the often-searched landmarks on Google Maps gives us a sense of how people around the world spent their summers.



We’re honored that people rely on the comprehensive and accurate imagery in Google Maps to research, plan, preview and digitally experience distant as well as local destinations across the globe. Take a look and click through for a larger image:







North Americans sought out the best local beaches to help cool off from the summer heat. In comparison, many more people from Spain, Italy and France searched for community swimming pools. In cooler areas of the U.K. the rising Google Maps searches included many indoor activities such as squash, bars and going to the gym. And, as expected, travel was a clear choice for the summer, as indicated by a surge in searches for lodging in almost every region.



Many popular destination searches were located outdoors. National parks and Hawaiian islands were the most popular searches in the U.S., while local parks, zoos, gardens and playgrounds topped Canada’s and Europe’s list. Major landmarks such as the Empire State Building in New York City, Niagara Falls in Canada, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Taj Mahal in India also topped the list of often-searched places in Google Maps. And of course, with the Summer Games drawing in international audiences, Wembley Stadium and the Olympic Stadium were two of the most searched for locations throughout the U.K. this summer.



Check out the destinations that captured people’s attention this summer and see how your interests compared to others around the world. We hope you enjoy this look back to remember the fun places we all went with Google Maps this summer, and we can’t wait to help you find your next adventure!



Posted by Manik Gupta, Sr. Product Manager, Google Maps