Over the weekend Larry Page delivered the commencement address at his alma mater and encouraged grads to "get a little crazy." Video of his speech was recently posted and we wanted to share it with our readers. You can also read the full transcript.
About Me
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Google Trends on your website
One thing we've noticed here at Google over the years is that the more popular something becomes, the more people search for it online. Our annual zeitgeist catalogs some of the more interesting trends we've seen in a year's worth of web search data. We also like to keep our eye out for more timely events, such as the U.S. presidential inauguration.
As we head into the last month of this season's "American Idol," we thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce our new embeddable Google Trends gadget to track your favorite trends, right on your own website. It's as easy as "cut and paste" to showcase the rising popularity of your own idols, even if they're not on a hit television show. You get to choose which trends you want to track.
I've been using Google Trends to follow my favorite "Idol" contestants for the past three years. It all started in 2006 when I was a Chris Daughtry fan. Looking at the search trends I could tell I wasn't the only one, and I felt pretty good about the odds that Chris was going to fare well against the other contestants.
Going into the final four, Chris had a lead on Elliott Yamin, and I was pretty confident he'd advance. But over the week leading up to the performance, Chris' lead began to diminish. Despite his early lead, Chris ended up getting eliminated. I was totally bummed, but wasn't all too surprised given that they were neck and neck on Trends days before elimination night.
Fast-forward to 2008. I was rooting for David Cook, and after each performance I'd check so see how he was doing on Trends.
I was excited to see him getting more and more popular each week, and each week I could rest a little easier when I found out that David was more popular than the other contestants. David ended up walking away with the crown that year, and I had finally picked a winner!
This year, I had the good fortune of attending an "American Idol" show in person. Not really knowing what to expect, I was completely blown away by the evening's final performance: Adam Lambert's rendition of the Tears for Fears song "Mad World." I could literally feel the building move under my feet from his powerful vocals and the roar of the crowd. Since then I have been an Adam fan all the way. And just when I thought that Allison Iraheta was closing in, Adam raised the bar yet again with his rockin' performance of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." Let's see what Google Trends has to say about Adam this week. And if after last night's show you're worried that your favorite "Idol" had a bad night and might not make it to the next round, see if you can glean some insights from the search trends.
As we head into the last month of this season's "American Idol," we thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce our new embeddable Google Trends gadget to track your favorite trends, right on your own website. It's as easy as "cut and paste" to showcase the rising popularity of your own idols, even if they're not on a hit television show. You get to choose which trends you want to track.
I've been using Google Trends to follow my favorite "Idol" contestants for the past three years. It all started in 2006 when I was a Chris Daughtry fan. Looking at the search trends I could tell I wasn't the only one, and I felt pretty good about the odds that Chris was going to fare well against the other contestants.
Going into the final four, Chris had a lead on Elliott Yamin, and I was pretty confident he'd advance. But over the week leading up to the performance, Chris' lead began to diminish. Despite his early lead, Chris ended up getting eliminated. I was totally bummed, but wasn't all too surprised given that they were neck and neck on Trends days before elimination night.
Fast-forward to 2008. I was rooting for David Cook, and after each performance I'd check so see how he was doing on Trends.
I was excited to see him getting more and more popular each week, and each week I could rest a little easier when I found out that David was more popular than the other contestants. David ended up walking away with the crown that year, and I had finally picked a winner!
This year, I had the good fortune of attending an "American Idol" show in person. Not really knowing what to expect, I was completely blown away by the evening's final performance: Adam Lambert's rendition of the Tears for Fears song "Mad World." I could literally feel the building move under my feet from his powerful vocals and the roar of the crowd. Since then I have been an Adam fan all the way. And just when I thought that Allison Iraheta was closing in, Adam raised the bar yet again with his rockin' performance of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." Let's see what Google Trends has to say about Adam this week. And if after last night's show you're worried that your favorite "Idol" had a bad night and might not make it to the next round, see if you can glean some insights from the search trends.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
More tools and tricks for teachers
Hello teachers,
We hope that your desk was deluged with a bunch of shined-up apples this morning as a thank you from your students for all that you do for them every day. At Google, we'd like to thank you as well, and acknowledge that we wouldn't be where we are today if it hadn't been for the great teachers who mentored us through school.
In support of National Teacher Day, we'd like to announce that applications are open for our next Google Teacher Academy, which will take place in our Boulder, Colorado office on Wednesday, August 5th. The Google Teacher Academy is a free professional development experience designed to help K-12 educators get the most from innovative technologies. Each academy is an intensive, one-day event where participants get hands-on experience with Google's free products, which will help you bring communication, collaboration and fun into your classrooms. Teachers will also learn about innovative instructional strategies, receive resources to share with colleagues, and immerse themselves in an innovative corporate environment. Upon completion, participants become Google Certified Teachers who share what they learn with other K-12 educators in their local region. Applications are due Friday, July 3rd.
We'd also like to thank our cadre of Google Certified Teachers, who spread all kinds of professional development love every day. Specifically, we'd like to highlight GCT Jerome Burg, whose Google Lit Trips was recently awarded the 2008 Goldman Sachs Foundation Prize for Excellence in International Education in Media and Technology. Google Lit Trips uses the technologies of Google Earth and social networking to bring literature to life through virtual mapping. By placing markers on Google Earth tracking the journeys of characters from literature and populating those placemarks with a wide variety of supplemental resources, students can “ride along as virtual passengers” on the same journey the characters are taking. The site gives teachers access to previously constructed Google Lit Trips as well as the ability to interact and post new trips online. Congratulations, Jerome — you couldn't have made us prouder!
We hope that your desk was deluged with a bunch of shined-up apples this morning as a thank you from your students for all that you do for them every day. At Google, we'd like to thank you as well, and acknowledge that we wouldn't be where we are today if it hadn't been for the great teachers who mentored us through school.
In support of National Teacher Day, we'd like to announce that applications are open for our next Google Teacher Academy, which will take place in our Boulder, Colorado office on Wednesday, August 5th. The Google Teacher Academy is a free professional development experience designed to help K-12 educators get the most from innovative technologies. Each academy is an intensive, one-day event where participants get hands-on experience with Google's free products, which will help you bring communication, collaboration and fun into your classrooms. Teachers will also learn about innovative instructional strategies, receive resources to share with colleagues, and immerse themselves in an innovative corporate environment. Upon completion, participants become Google Certified Teachers who share what they learn with other K-12 educators in their local region. Applications are due Friday, July 3rd.
We'd also like to thank our cadre of Google Certified Teachers, who spread all kinds of professional development love every day. Specifically, we'd like to highlight GCT Jerome Burg, whose Google Lit Trips was recently awarded the 2008 Goldman Sachs Foundation Prize for Excellence in International Education in Media and Technology. Google Lit Trips uses the technologies of Google Earth and social networking to bring literature to life through virtual mapping. By placing markers on Google Earth tracking the journeys of characters from literature and populating those placemarks with a wide variety of supplemental resources, students can “ride along as virtual passengers” on the same journey the characters are taking. The site gives teachers access to previously constructed Google Lit Trips as well as the ability to interact and post new trips online. Congratulations, Jerome — you couldn't have made us prouder!
Monday, May 4, 2009
More ways to share your Google Latitude location
A few months ago, we introduced Google Latitude, a new feature for mobile and iGoogle that lets you share your location with your friends. Since the launch, a lot of you have asked "What if I want to share my location with people who are not my Latitude friends?" Today, we're happy to release two applications that make that possible.
Google Talk location status (beta) automatically updates your Google Talk or Gmail chat status message with your Latitude location. With this application enabled, all of your chat buddies can see your most recent city-level location. The Google Public Location Badge lets you publish your Latitude location on your blog or website. You can choose to show just the city that you are in or you can have your device's location detected automatically, using GPS, Wi-Fi, or cell tower ID, which provides a more specific location. To read more about these new features, visit the Google Mobile Blog.
If you're already a Latitude user, give the new apps a try. If you don't have a Google Latitude account, sign up and start sharing your location now. We take your privacy very seriously and you can read the privacy notice on the application pages for more information.
In the near future, we hope to offer a way to share your location in even more applications. If you have any suggestions or comments, please visit our Product Ideas page.
Google Talk location status (beta) automatically updates your Google Talk or Gmail chat status message with your Latitude location. With this application enabled, all of your chat buddies can see your most recent city-level location. The Google Public Location Badge lets you publish your Latitude location on your blog or website. You can choose to show just the city that you are in or you can have your device's location detected automatically, using GPS, Wi-Fi, or cell tower ID, which provides a more specific location. To read more about these new features, visit the Google Mobile Blog.
If you're already a Latitude user, give the new apps a try. If you don't have a Google Latitude account, sign up and start sharing your location now. We take your privacy very seriously and you can read the privacy notice on the application pages for more information.
In the near future, we hope to offer a way to share your location in even more applications. If you have any suggestions or comments, please visit our Product Ideas page.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Mowing with goats
At our Mountain View headquarters, we have some fields that we need to mow occasionally to clear weeds and brush to reduce fire hazard. This spring we decided to take a low-carbon approach: Instead of using noisy mowers that run on gasoline and pollute the air, we've rented some goats from California Grazing to do the job for us (we're not "kidding"). A herder brings about 200 goats and they spend roughly a week with us at Google, eating the grass and fertilizing at the same time. The goats are herded with the help of Jen, a border collie. It costs us about the same as mowing, and goats are a lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.
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