This week in search 2/28/10

This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs weekly. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

This week, we had a number of exciting announcements:

Refine your searches by location
Location can tremendously aid the way you search, so we were pleased to add the ability to refine your searches by location to the Search Options panel. Say you're big on the outdoors and want to find bike rental information, bicycling blogs or the closest sporting goods store. There's a good chance you're looking for information that's relevant to your region, city or even a city you're visiting on vacation. That's where this tool can help. One of the really useful things about this tool is that it works geographically — not just with keywords — so you don't have to worry about adding a city name (e.g., "Berkeley") to your query and missing webpages that are in a similar region (e.g., "East Bay", "Oakland") but might not specifically mention the city in your search.

Example search: [bike stores] - Click on "Show options" to adjust the location. You can narrow the location down to near you, the city you're in, the region or state. You can also select "Custom Location" and enter it directly.

Fetch as Googlebot Mobile added to Webmaster Tools Labs
Last October, we launched Webmaster Tools Labs, and it has been a huge success. Malware Details have helped thousands of users identify pages on their site that may be infected with malicious code, and Fetch as Googlebot has given users more insight into our crawler. Today, we're happy to introduce an additional Labs feature to our line-up: the ability to fetch pages as Googlebot-Mobile.

This was a common request from users with mobile-specific sites, and we thought it was a great idea. We have two mobile options: cHTML (primarily used for Japanese sites) and XHTML/WML. We're excited to bring you this feature based on your feedback, and we look forward to launching more of them in future. Let us know what you think!


Facebook in real-time search
Starting this week we added Facebook content to real-time search in the U.S. Real-time search, which we launched in December, helps you tap into the most relevant, freshest search results on the web, many of which are just seconds old. With this latest addition, you can access the news, photos and blog posts that Facebook fan pages publish to the world. You can find the Facebook Pages updates in our real-time mode by clicking on "Show Options" and then "Latest" or "Updates."

Example search: [facebook]

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more next week!

Posted by Gabriel Stricker, Director, Global Communications & Public Affairs

Katy Perry (Galeria 1)

Fotos:
Hollywood Press

Otras fotos:

Katy Perry (Galeria 2)

Experience Data

For many, data can be daunting, involving endless number crunching and analysis. As confusing or overwhelming as data may be, it can also be powerful.

At Google, we get pretty excited about data and are always thinking of new ways to present it. Data can read simply, like the year-end roll-up presented in our Zeitgeist 2009 report or it can be geographical, such as the information presented via Google Flu Trends.

Recently, we developed a series of videos to illustrate several Google products, including search, DoubleClick for Advertisers and the Google Content Network. The dynamic visuals in the videos use light, colors, and movement to present data as experience.

• To create the search video, a bunch of Googlers sifted through Google Trends on a Friday afternoon to aggregate the top queries over a year-long period. Try it one day. We promise you'll be amused and surprised.
• To measure the success of a display campaign, a marketer needs benchmarks to compare campaign results against. Using data from our ad serving tool, DoubleClick for Advertisers, the DoubleClick video illustrates the relationship between click-through-rate (CTR) and creative size. The colorful blocks help bring the comparisons to life, illustrating the click-through-rate (CTR) by height and depth.
• For the Google Content Network visualization, we highlight the always-on nature of U.S. impressions. As the sun rises and sets over the country, the mesmerizing imagery conveys performance at scale.

You can view all of the videos here:

(Click to view video)

Sit back, relax and experience the data.

Posted by Janine Gianfredi, Agency Marketing Manager

Armonía y bienestar gracias al Feng Shui

La principal tarea del Feng Shui es mejorar la calidad de vida humana a través del espacio y la decoración; es el arte de colocar cada cosa en su sitio.

La disciplina del Feng Shui parte de la idea de que el lugar que se ocupa en el universo depende de la relación entre las energías personales y las de la naturaleza o el ambiente que rodea a cada persona, por lo que las acciones humanas deben guiarse a mantener el equilibrio entre hombre y naturaleza.

Los principios de Feng Shui y los cinco elementos principales ayudan a equilibrar la energía de la casa y sus habitantes. No es extraño que una persona se sienta bien en una estancia y mal en la contigua. La meta del Feng Shui es decodificar esta íntima relación que une al hombre y a su entorno, afectando a su equilibrio emocional.

Para ello, existen varias teorías como la del 'Yinn y el Yang' o la de 'Los cinco elementos' (la Tierra, el Metal, el Agua, la Madera y el Fuego). En definitiva, el Feng Shui muestra la vía que lleva a equilibrar las energías personales y del hábitat, hogar u oficina, con las leyes de la naturaleza para poder vivir en armonía con ella. Así se puede aprender a manejar los problemas personales, desarrollando un potencial óptimo.

Muebles para TV modernos

La nueva central de TV de Rimadesio es lo último en su serie Cartesia. Anteriormente la serie de muebles incluía bibliotecas, estanterías, contenedores y otras cosas necesarias para crear la solución ideal en mobiliario para livings. Con la nueva central de TV, de diseño muy original y soluciones prácticas “open”, es aún más simple.

Este moderno mueble está equipado con estantes para CD-DVD, donde colocas todo tu home theater. La parte de atrás es de vidrio espejado y tiene espacio para pantallas LCD de hasta 50 pulgadas de ancho. Con un sistema de iluminación LED, esta central incrementa el disfrute del entretenimiento en el salón.

Ideas para decorar paredes con marcos antiguos

Te mostramos algunas ideas de cómo decorar paredes con marcos antiguos.

En este caso, la relación entre el color grisáceo de la pared y las sutiles variaciones de tonos amarillo y verde de los marcos son agradables a la vista, como lo es la variedad de las formas de los mismos. Los almohadones del banco imitan las variaciones de color de los marcos. Como resultado, los marcos y el banco se integran.

En esta imagen, los marcos en blanco brillante son parte del drama, ya que imitan el marcado contraste entre el color de las paredes oscuras y los zócalos blancos y el piso.

El tono madera de los marcos pasan a la madera de la mesa y del banco, abajo, enfatizado la sobriedad del conjunto, así como el fuerte contraste entre la madera oscura y la pared blanca.

Los marcos dorados encima de la cama señalan el tono dorado de las cortinas, mientras la agrupación asimétrica y la sorprendente naturaleza de los marcos vacíos desentonan con la formalidad de la sala.

Una variedad de cuadros de colores brillantes, apoyados más que colgados de las paredes, crea un sentido de fantasía, especialmente en contraste con el blanco circundante. Los cojines del sofá recogen los colores de los marcos, dando un sentido de cohesión a la caprichosa sala.

Pintar marcos del mismo color o similar al de la pared, hace que los marcos actúen como detalles arquitectónicos. Esta sería una buena forma de introducir carácter a un espacio arquitectónico aburrido.

Refine your searches by location

Location has become an important part of the way we search. If you're a foodie looking for restaurant details, food blogs or the closest farmer's market, location can be vital to helping you find the right information. Starting today, we've added the ability to refine your searches with the "Nearby" tool in the Search Options panel. One of the really helpful things about this tool is that it works geographically — not just with keywords — so you don't have to worry about adding "Minneapolis" to your query and missing webpages that only say "St. Paul" or "Twin Cities." Check it out by doing a search, clicking on "show options" and selecting "Nearby."


You can choose to see results nearby either your default location or a custom location, and you can narrow down to results at the city, region or state level. Try these examples:

[things to do on st. patrick's day] - In the Minneapolis region
[food blogs] - Near you
[farmers market] - Near the city of Ithaca
[dmv] - In the same state as Tucson

The new "Nearby" search option is available now on the google.com domain in English.

Posted by Jackie Bavaro, Product Manager

DIY Favors: Paper Cake Slice

We saw this posted on the How About Orange blog and loved this idea as a DIY project for wedding favors.  The paper cake slice is so adorable and perfect to fill with whatever candy or favor you want!  It is a great unique detail to add to any wedding.  You can even use different color paper to make different "flavored" cakes! 

Find the simple instructions at Paper Source Blog.

Muebles y accesorios para dormitorios infantiles

Tonos suaves

Escoge muebles y telas en el mismo tono para lograr un ambiente equilibrado.
Para los muebles apuesta por acabados en tonos crudos o blancos; son luminosos y conseguirás una sensación de armonía y sosiego ideal para el cuarto del bebé. Si los eliges en el mismo color, podrás mezclar muebles de distintos estilos.

Detalles

Una forma muy sencilla de darle un aire infantil al armario es sustituir los pomos por otros más divertidos. Encontrarás modelos estampados con todo tipo de motivos; pero si lo prefieres, puedes encargar que dibujen el mismo motivo que decora las paredes o la ropa de cama.

Mueble Auxiliar

Un mueble auxiliar pequeño te será muy práctico para tener a mano los productos necesarios para el cambio del bebé.

Zócalo de madera

Protege la zona inferior de la pared con un zócalo de madera. El pino y el abeto son las variedades más utilizadas; son maderas blandas, en tonos claros, perfectos para teñir o pintar. Combínalo con un papel con discretos espampados. Zócalo realizado por un ebanista. Papel, de Lienzo de los Gazules. Muñeco de madera en Dijous.

Fuente: Revista MiCasa

Diversos modelos de camas de hierro forjado

Las camas de hierro forjado gustan sobre todo a las mujeres. Es que su aspecto es realmente fantástico y muy delicado. Las camas de hierro forjado son una delicia para la decoración y ofrecen elegancia y duración como pocos otros materiales.

Cómo solucionar problemas de espacio en tu hogar

Ideas prácticas y bonitas para solucionar cualquier problema que tengas como: falta de espacio, rincones difíciles, cómo independizar ambientes... Te contamos cómo sacarles más partido y aprovecharlos mejor

Muy útil

Un mueble a medida con puertas centrales de cristal, aprovecha toda la pared y en la parte superior lleva puertas correderas.

Escritorio oculto

Simplemente abatiendo las puertas centrales y apoyándolas sobre las inferiores se tiene una práctica mesa de trabajo.

Zona de trabajo

Se ha conseguido integrándola en un mueble hecho a medida en la pared situada tras el comedor. La parte central tiene una zona con espacio para guardar el ordenador y los papeles y unas puertas abatibles que sirven de mesa.

Decoración en grises y blancos Se ha amueblado con un sofá, de La Oca, puesto en ángulo, para que quede espacio libre en el centro. El color de la pared es de Valentine.. Se ha aprovechado el muro de la pared para hacer una librería, simplemente con unas baldas que, además, ocultan el radiador que queda debajo.

Hear from Google at SMX West

If you're planning to attend next week's SMX West conference in Santa Clara, CA, be sure to catch Google presenters throughout the 3-day event.

First, we're pleased to have two keynote presenters. Peter Norvig, Director of Research, will be providing an inside look at Google Research, while Avinash Kaushik, Analytics Evangelist, will be delivering the State of the Search Union. In addition, we'll be presenting on topics ranging from social and local search to YouTube best practices.

You can also visit us in the Expo Hall on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 2nd and 3rd. Stop by our booth where you can speak to experts and see live demos of Analytics, AdWords, Website Optimizer and more. Or check out our two theater presentations on the Expo Hall floor where we'll cover Analytics and the Opportunities Tab in AdWords. These sessions are open to anyone with an Expo Hall Pass.

Visit the event site for a complete schedule. If you have not yet registered, be sure to use code smx10google for a 10% discount on an all-access event pass.

We look forward to seeing you in Santa Clara next week!

Posted by Christina Hill, Events Team

Traffic improvements and new name for Google Ad Planner

Every day, thousands of AdWords advertisers use Google Ad Planner to research websites and select where to advertise online. We're continuing to improve this tool in order to provide the deepest, most accurate insight into online audiences possible.

To that end, we've improved how Ad Planner calculates site traffic by over 10%, and we've changed its name to DoubleClick Ad Planner. Visit the DoubleClick blog to read more about the traffic improvements and the new name.

You don't need to be a DoubleClick customer to use the newly renamed DoubleClick Ad Planner as the tool remains free and open for everyone. You can continue to access it at: www.google.com/adplanner.

If you haven't used Ad Planner, we invite you to give it a try. We think you'll find it to be a powerful research and media planning tool that makes it easy to find your audience and create well-informed media plans.

Posted by Emily Williams, Inside AdWords crew

Better Site Traffic Data in DoubleClick Ad Planner

The mission of DoubleClick Ad Planner, Google's free research and media planning tool formerly named Google Ad Planner, is to provide the deepest, most accurate insight into online audiences possible. This insight helps display advertisers select the best sites for their media plans and drive results for their campaigns.

One of the many data points that DoubleClick Ad Planner provides is site traffic data. In line with Ad Planner's mission, we've improved how we estimate and share this data in order to provide media planners, buyers and researchers with improved data quality and more data visualization options. This builds upon the traffic improvements we made in January of 2009 and is part of our continuous effort to provide trusted insights into online audiences.

This release includes the following two significant improvements:

• Traffic estimates across a number of metrics are now more accurate (Unique user and reach estimates remain the same)
• Direct measured traffic is now included for publishers who opt-ed in their Google Analytics data

Upgrading Site Traffic Estimates

To improve the quality of our site traffic estimates, we have upgraded our traffic estimation model. Our model uses a hybrid methodology that combines sample user data, from various Google products and services, with direct measured site-centric data. The model's direct measured signal is pulled from Google Analytics customer accounts that have chosen to opt-in to sharing their data with Ad Planner. This hybrid approach allows us to use direct measured data to train our traffic estimation models and produce the best estimate for any given site. For more information about how we use opt-in Google Analytics data check out our past blog posts on how Google Analytics data is used in Ad Planner and on replacing traffic estimates with direct measured Google Analytics data.

This latest upgrade improves the accuracy of our estimates by over 10%. We look at a large amount of data and metrics to evaluate our estimates and are continuously working on improving them. We believe our model to be among the more accurate sources of traffic estimation in the industry.

Publishers who would like to complement their site listing with direct measured data are welcome to do so by opt-ing in their Google Analytics data in DoubleClick Ad Planner Publisher Center. We invite publishers who are new to Ad Planner to learn more about using Publisher Center to manage their site profile.

Providing Direct Measured Site Traffic Data

In May 2009, we announced Ad Planner Publisher Center, which made it possible for publishers to opt-in their Google Analytics data to Ad Planner. We've now upgraded site profiles in Ad Planner to display this data in the worldwide charts for Daily Unique Visitors on site profile pages. For publishers who opted-in, their direct measured data is displayed as a solid line in their chart. For example, Gamezhero, a website offering free online games, opted-in their Google Analytics data in June. Here's what their worldwide chart for Daily Unique Visitors looks like now:

(click here to view image)

In the coming months, we plan to bring direct measured site traffic data to country-level profile views in addition to the worldwide profile views that are currently supported.

Understanding the Data in Ad Planner

To offer additional transparency into how Ad Planner generates its data, we've published a new help document about our methodology. The document provides more details behind how Ad Planner generates site traffic data, in addition to other data, such as demographics, ad information, categories and descriptions.

Getting Started

Give DoubleClick Ad Planner a try at www.google.com/adplanner. We think you'll find it to be a powerful research and media planning tool that makes it easy to find audiences and create well-informed media plans.

Posted by Wayne Lin, Product Manager, DoubleClick Ad Planner

[note: this post has been reprinted from the DoubleClick Blog]

A meeting of the minds: Google's 2010 EMEA Faculty Summit

As the world's premier athletes assembled in Vancouver for the Winter Games, Googlers in the equally snowy Zurich, Switzerland were preparing for a prestigious event of a different sort. On February 8, 100 top academics from 62 leading universities throughout EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) descended upon our Zurich engineering headquarters for our third annual Faculty Summit — three days of in-depth technical presentations, discussions and networking sessions, all targeted at strengthening partnerships with EMEA's foremost computer science thinkers. Like their athletic counterparts in Vancouver, Faculty Summit attendees face big challenges. EMEA is a huge and very diverse region where companies and universities alike have huge mountains to climb. By sharing information about our projects, plans and initiatives, we hope to foster mutually beneficial relationships with our academic colleagues and their universities — working together to solve the big problems and drive technology forward.


We designed the Summit to allow maximum potential for debate, networking and reflection. Attendees participated in day-long "stream" discussions on themes ranging from privacy and security — with the participation of leading researchers such as Ross Anderson (University of Cambridge) — to natural language technologies, featuring NLP expert Fred Jelinek (Johns Hopkins University). Academics selected from a range of opt-in "teach the teacher"-style workshops on Google tech (including mobile platforms, MapReduce and web technologies). Additional events included a Google Wave demo geared towards educational use and special sessions for guests from Africa and the Middle East, showcasing Google's ongoing work in these regions. This year, we added extra time for 1-1 break-out sessions, in which academics and Google engineers met, chatted and developed ideas in an intimate, face-to-face setting.

The Summit also gave us a chance to see long-term relationships maturing and generating concrete outcomes inside and outside academic settings. Notable guests included keynote speaker Professor Andy Hopper, Head of the Cambridge Computer Lab, whose research initiative Computing for the Future of the Planet (CFTFP) received a Google Focused Research Award earlier this month. Andy's project promises major results in the areas of privacy and green computing research. We were also happy to welcome back former Google Visiting Faculty member Professor Hannah Bast (University of Freiburg). Hannah recently completed a year-long sabbatical with our Zurich development team for Transit in Google Maps, contributing major improvements to an application that started out as a 20 percent project and is now available in over 400 cities around the world. Privacy and security expert Dr. Frank Stajano (University of Cambridge) — our newest Visiting Faculty member — and Sara Adams, Anita Borg Scholar, former Google intern and current software engineer, joined us from the Munich office where they're working on privacy-related projects. We also had several Faculty Research Award winners in attendance, including Dr. Simon Harper (University of Manchester), Dr. Miles Osborne (University of Edinburgh), Lawrence Muchemi (University of Nairobi) and former Visiting Faculty member Dr. Hinrich Schuetze (University of Stuttgart). The Faculty Research Award supports academics working within universities on areas of mutual interest; for instance, Lawrence's Award-funded project creates a new mobile application development course for Kenyan students, while Hinrich and his Stuttgart team are improving search engine results by investigating the structure of queries. Hinrich, Lawrence and our other awardees offer examples of how partnerships can lead to amazing results, on local to global scales. We hope their stories inspired both academic and Googler attendees to take advantage of existing programs and help build new opportunities for all tech users.

Our engineering teams in EMEA and our academic partners have lots of work to do in 2010. This year's Faculty Summit offered an opportunity to explore new solutions, kick-start collaboration and prove, yet again, that our combined efforts always yield results far greater than the sum of their parts! For more information about how Google supports university programs and partnerships, check out our Google Research site and stay tuned for news of the North America Faculty Summit — planned for late July.

Posted by Nelson Mattos, VP, EMEA Product and Engineering

Alternative Headpieces

We are loving all the new trends in wedding headpieces!  Steering away from the classic tiara or real flowers, there are some very unique new fashions that may fit perfectly to your style.  From a bold, sassy, and vintage look with the birdcage vail, to a sweet, delicate, and whimsical look with a feathered headpiece, we love them all!  Which is your favorite?

The Birdcage Vail

The Silk Flower

The Feathered Headpiece

The Headband

All of these fabulous handmade creations can be found at Etsy.

Calendario H para Hombres 2010

Fotos:
Calendario H para Hombres 2010

Otras fotos:

Calendario H para Hombres 2009