Introducing a collection of favorite places from around the world

We on the Google Maps team are committed to organizing all the local places and businesses that can be found online, from a design shop in New York City, to an architectural bookstore in San Francisco, to a cabaret in London. To show you the range of all this interesting local information, we've teamed up with local experts around the world to share some of their favorite places.

Culinary expert and chef Alice Waters has shared her favorite places for organic and sustainable food in San Francisco and the Bay Area, including places like Blue Bottle Cafe, whose coffee Alice serves at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, and Bi-Rite Creamery, where you can find salted caramel ice cream.

Iwona Blazwick, director of the Whitechapel Gallery in London, has shared her favorite places to experience art in London, from the Tate Modern for contemporary art to Curzon Soho cinema, where you can catch the latest independent film releases.

Vladimir Spivakov, artistic director and principal conductor of the State chamber orchestra Moscow Virtuosi and the National Philharmonic of Russia, has shared his favorite places to hear and appreciate theater and music in Moscow, from the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied, to the historic Maly Theater, the oldest theater in Moscow.

With this project we also hope to send a friendly message to local businesses — people are looking online for local information, and you should be here. Timothy Childs, Founder and Chief Chocolate Officer of TCHO in San Francisco, shares his perspective on using online tools to build and grow:

"TCHO is all about using appropriate technology, to make high quality chocolate and experiences for our customers. As our start-up moves to early growth stage, we are now using tools like Google Maps and the Local Business Center to reach customers and to continue building our business."

It's estimated that 80% of U.S. Internet users use web search to find restaurants, stores and other local businesses, and yet only about half of local businesses currently have a website. By working with local experts to highlight the power of the web, we're encouraging local business owners to build out their online presence. If you're a business owner looking to get online, have a look at the Google Local Business Center.

To browse the full collection of favorite local businesses and places, visit google.com/favoriteplaces or m.google.com/fav from your phone's browser.



Special thanks to all the participants and partners around the world who helped to make this project possible, including United Airlines, NYC & Company, Time Out and Le Figaro.

Posted by Michaela Prescott and Katie Mandel, Product Marketing, Google Maps

Google Voice mobile app for Blackberry and Android

It’s been an exciting few months since we announced Google Voice. The feedback from early users has been terrific, and the requests for invites have been flowing in. We started sending invites a few weeks ago and will keep sending them daily.

At the same time, we continue to improve the service and address your requests and feedback. Among the most requested features are tools to make placing outgoing calls from your Google Voice number easier. So today, we’re pleased to announce a Google Voice mobile app for Blackberry and Android.

Previously, to place a call using Google Voice, you had to dial your own Google Voice number from your cell phone or use the Quick Call button online. With this new mobile app, you can make calls and send SMS messages with your Google Voice number directly from your mobile phone. The app is fully integrated with each phone’s contacts, so you can call via Google Voice straight from your address book.

From the mobile app, you can:

• Access your voicemail: read message transcripts, follow along with "karaoke-style" playback of messages, read SMS messages sent to your Google Voice number (even if your phone doesn't receive SMS messages) and access your call history
• Place calls that display your Google Voice number from your address book, the app dialer (Blackberry) or the native dialer (Android)
• Send SMS messages that display your Google Voice number
• Place international calls at low rates

See how it works in the following video:



You can download the app from the Google Voice mobile site at m.google.com/voice. It's also available in Android Market — just search for "Google Voice."

And for those of you who don't have a Blackberry or an Android-powered device, we have a mobile web version of the Google Voice site (accessible by typing www.google.com/voice into your mobile browser) that allows you to access Google Voice features.

You'll need a Google Voice account to use the mobile application. Currently, Google Voice is only available in the U.S. If you'd like to check it out, request an invite here.

Posted by Vincent Paquet, Google Voice Team and Marcus Foster, Google Mobile Team

Google Friend Connect speaks more languages

We know that there are millions of sites using Google Friend Connect to build a community around their content and they come in a variety of languages. With site owners and visitors from all over the world, the integration of services like Netlog and orkut and the worldwide adoption of OpenSocial, supporting additional languages has been a priority for the team. Today, we're happy to announce that Friend Connect is now available in 47 new languages.

This means you'll start seeing Friend Connect gadgets in languages such as French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and Portuguese. Site owners simply set the language of their site and Friend Connect will automatically render the gadgets in that language.

To learn more about this and other recent improvements to Friend Connect, visit our Social Web Blog.

Posted by Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager, Google Friend Connect

Google accounts on Twitter

Like lots of you, we've been drawn into Twitter this year. After all, we're all about frequent updates ourselves, and there's lots happening around here that we want to share with you. Of course, we enjoy watching, and contributing to, the tweetstream (we hope you find our tweets useful, too). Because there are many programs and initiatives across the company, we've got a number of active accounts. Here's a list of the current ones. We'll update this list from time to time.

twitter.com/Google - our central account
twitter.com/GooglePubPolicy - our take on politics, policy & government*
twitter.com/Blogger - for Blogger fans
twitter.com/Google Books - Passages, quotes, images and product news*
twitter.com/GoogleCalendar - user tips & updates
twitter.com/GoogleContacts - user tips for Google Contacts*
twitter.com/GoogleImages - news, tips, tricks on our visual image search
twitter.com/GoogleNews - latest headlines via Google News
twitter.com/GoogleNewsJP - latest headlines via Google News Japan*
twitter.com/GoogleReader - from our feed reader team
twitter.com/GoogleVoice - updates & info on Google Voice*
twitter.com/iGoogle - news & notes from Google's personalized homepage
twitter.com/GoogleStudents - news of interest to students using Google
http://twitter.com/googlemobileapp - Updates on Google mobile apps*
twitter.com/YouTube - for YouTube fans
twitter.com/YouTubeES - en Espanol
twitter.com/GoogleAtWork - solutions for IT and workplace productivity

twitter.com/GoogleSites - Google Sites updates*

twitter.com/GoogleToolbar - news & tips from the Toolbar team*

Geo-related
twitter.com/SketchUp - Google SketchUp news
twitter.com/3DWH - SketchUp's 3D Warehouse
twitter.com/Modelyourtown - 3D modeling to build your favorite places
twitter.com/EarthOutreach - Earth & Maps tools for nonprofits & orgs
twitter.com/GoogleEarth - updates from the Google Earth team*
twitter.com/GoogleMaps - uses, tips, mashups
twitter.com/GoogleSkyMap -Android app for the night sky

Ads-related
twitter.com/AdSense - for online publishers
twitter.com/AdWordsHelper - looking out for AdWords questions and tech issues
twitter.com/AdWordsProSarah - Google Guide for AdWords Help Forum
twitter.com/GoogleAnalytics - insights for website effectiveness
twitter.com/GoogleAdBuilder - re building display ads
twitter.com/GoogleAdManager - info on managing online ads & inventory*
twitter.com/GoogleAffiliate - info for publishers from Google network advertisers*
twitter.com/GoogleAuto - news for auto advertisers*
twitter.com/GoogleFinSvcs - news for financial services advertisers*
http://twitter.com/googlemande - news for media & entertainment advertisers*
twitter.com/GoogleRetail - news for retail advertisers
twitter.com/GoogleTech - news for tech advertisers*
twitter.com/GoogleTravel - news for travel advertisers*
twitter.com/GoogleTVAds - info on our digital system for more measurable TV advertising*
twitter.com/TechnologyUK - for U.K. tech advertisers
twitter.com/UKretail - for U.K. retail advertisers
twitter.com/creativesandbox - for advertising agencies*
twitter.com/InsideAdWordsDE - for German AdWords customers
twitter.com/GoogleAgencyDE - for German ad agencies
twitter.com/AdSenseKorea - info for Korean-language publishers*
twitter.com/AdSensePT - info for Portuguese-language publishers
twitter.com/AdWordsRussia - AdWords news & tips in Russian
twitter.com/DentroDeAdWords - Spanish updates from the Inside AdWords blog
twitter.com/GoogleAgencias - for Latin American agencies*

Developer & technical
twitter.com/AdWordsAPI - AdWords API tips*
twitter.com/GoogleResearch - from our research scientists
twitter.com/GoogleWMC - Google Webmaster Central
twitter.com/GoogleCode - latest updates for Google developer products
twitter.com/GoogleData - Data APIs provide a standard protocol for reading and writing web data
twitter.com/app_engine - web apps run on Google infrastructure
twitter.com/DataLiberation - our initiative for complete import/export of all data
http://twitter.com/googledevapac - for Google developers in Asia-Pacific*
twitter.com/GoogleMapsAPI - about using Google Maps embedded in websites
twitter.com/GoogleIO - Google's largest annual developer event

Culture, People
twitter.com/googletalks - notes from our @Google speaker series
twitter.com/googlejobs - the voice of Google recruiters

Country or Region
twitter.com/googlearabia - news from the Google Arabia Blog*
twitter.com/googledownunder - Google activities in Australia & New Zealand

twitter.com/googlebrasil - News & info for Brasil*
twitter.com/googlecanada - News & notes from Google Canada*
twitter.com/GoogleDE - Google in Germany
twitter.com/GoogleKorea - News & notes in Korean*

twitter.com/GoogleLatAm - Latin America (en Espanol)
twitter.com/GooglePolicyIt - Notes on Google policy issues in Italy

twitter.com/GoogleRussia - Information in Russian on Google products & services*

Update: Additions indicated by *

Update April 14, 2010: This list is no longer being maintained. Find the most updated list of Google Twitter accounts in our directory.

Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog & Twitter Team

Google tips for recent grads

Summer has arrived, and that means graduation. Our hearty congratulations to the class of 2009! Now that you've packed up your dorm room and picked up your diploma, what's next? This transitional time between college and "the real world" can be a bit chaotic. Luckily, we have some tools that can help you get organized as you start the next chapter in your life. We're posting tips and tricks for newly graduated students in our summer series, Grad Tips, running on the Google for Students Blog. The series is a few posts in — look for more tips over the next couple of months!

Posted by Joyce Sohn, Google Apps Team