Google Friends Newsletter - May 2007
Google Friends Newsletter
Hello to all of our Google friends. We hope you enjoy this month's
update on our products and services.
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POWER TIP
Create and send your own message on iGoogle
A new feature of iGoogle enables anyone to send and update personal
messages through gadgets on the iGoogle homepage. You can choose from
seven gadget types: Photo Album, Google Gram, The Daily Me, Free Form,
YouTube Channel, Personal List, and Countdown. Either send your
gadgets to selected friends and family, or share them with everyone on
the public directory of iGoogle gadgets.
Create your iGoogle gadget: http://www.google.com/ig/gmchoices
Create your iGoogle homepage: http://www.google.com/ig
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NEW PRODUCTS & UPDATES
Search across all content with new universal search effort
In striving to give you the best results to your search queries, we've
found that the best information can take many different forms. For
this reason, we have taken the beginning steps towards a new universal
search effort that provides a more holistic search experience on
Google. Until recently, you could find the best results for your
searches within the separate and distinct Google properties (e.g.,
web, images, maps, videos, books) by clicking a link above the search
box. Using a universal search approach, Google technology searches
across all of the content sources, integrates, and then ranks the
results for the best answers. So depending on your search query, you
may see results from news, images, videos, local, or books integrated
with the web search results. We also introduced new contextual
navigational links so that you can click to see more results from a
suggested type of content. And we've added a new Google navigation bar
to the top of the page to provide easier navigation to Google's
products.
http://www.google.com
Sneak a peek with Street View
Street View gives you navigable 360-degree street-level imagery in
Google Maps for selected cities. You can see images for a spot and
take virtual walks along that street. So when you're trying to find
the perfect outdoor cafe for lunch with friends or want a glimpse of
the neighborhood you're considering moving to, use Google Maps to see
what the spot actually looks like, as if you were right there in
person. Currently Street View imagery is available for the San
Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Las Vegas, Miami, and Denver; and
we expect to launch this feature in many more cities soon. Click on
the "Street View" tab at the top of the Google Maps page or follow the
demo link in the left panel.
http://maps.google.com
Check out Google's latest search ideas
Google Experimental showcases our latest ideas for improving the
search experience - for example, viewing search results on a timeline
or a map, navigating results with keyboard shortcuts, or refining your
search with left-/right-hand navigation. Take a tour of these
experiments, and tell us what you think by clicking "Send Feedback"
from the page you're on.
http://www.google.com/experimental
New tools in Google Finance
Stay on top of your investments with recent upgrades to Google
Finance. View and download historical end-of-day prices for any US or
Canadian company; download the latest performance, returns and
transactions from your portfolio; stay on top of news from your
favorite companies using feed applications like Google Reader; view
events such as earnings calls and analyst meetings on company or
portfolio pages.
http://finance.google.com
Search across more books
In addition to the searching the full text of more than a million book
titles, you can now find information on even more books using Google
Book Search. Millions of metadata records have been added to the
index, which means you can find images of book covers, summaries and
references for even more titles in Google book results. We've also
added new information to the "About this book" page so that now, in
addition to basic information about the book like title and author,
you'll also see reviews and references to the book from web pages as
well as other books.
http://books.google.com
Find your next appointment on your phone
Google Calendar is now available for mobile devices. Just point your
phone's browser to calendar.google.com, and you'll immediately access
your day's agenda, complete with details like date, time, location,
description, and guest list.
http://calendar.google.com
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MISCELLANY
The Google Channel on YouTube
Much has been made of the 'YouTube' phenomenon, which has emerged
thanks to relatively inexpensive and easy to operate video cameras,
faster computers with more storage space (to hold all that footage)
and easy uploading. The creativity and fun factor are worth
celebrating -- but don't lose sight of online video's ability to show,
tell, teach, and share information quickly. Increasingly, businesses
are showcasing their products, promoting their initiatives and
exposing their employees via video. You may learn something or you may
dislike the marketing messages, but either way, better get used to it
- corporate use of popular online video channels is here to stay. In
Google's case, we've chosen to share quite a few talks by technology
gurus and popular authors, conversations with presidential candidates
(all of whom we've invited to visit our Mountain View campus), and
other presentations and product demonstrations -- and we're adding
more material all the time. Enjoy the view.
http://www.youtube.com/google