About Me
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Top searches on Election Day (part 1)
The long, long election campaign season culminates today as people make their choices on hundreds of statewide and local contests as well as the race for the next U.S. president. Throughout the day, we're keeping an eye on Google Hot Trends to decipher what may be meaningful, as well as what's "business as usual" in Google searches. We'll post updates as interesting trends turn up. - Ed.
As of 12 noon EST:
No fewer than 87 of the top 100 fastest-rising terms relate to the election right now. Of these, 10 relate to searches for state information, including [florida sample ballot], [ohio ballot issues 2008] and [where to vote in texas].
We practical Americans are keen to be rewarded for our participation, too: [free stuff for voting] refers to the giveaways some retailers are offering citizens who stop in. One ubiquitous coffee purveyor is called out in particular: [starbucks free coffee], [starbucks election] and [starbucks vote] are clear indicators of the caffeine boost people anticipate needing today.
Keen-eyed citizens are also on the lookout for information on [voting lines] and [voting problems] as well as a better understanding of [how does the electoral college work]. And lest you think it's all about the major parties, at this hour Independent Party candidate [ralph nader] is #59, and Libertarian [bob barr] is #98.
And the excitement of the day boils over: #92 on the current Hot Trends is [when will we know who is president]. Google can't say for sure; we'll keep watching along with you.
In addition to today's searches, we also took a look at the top campaign-related queries during the general election season: Sept. 1-Nov. 4. Here they are:
Top Political Personas
Obama
Palin
McCain
Tina Fey
Joe Biden
Chuck Norris
Cindy McCain
Bristol Palin
SNL Palin
Colin Powell
Top Political Topics
debate
Social Security
presidential debate
polls
voter registration
gas prices
oil prices
FDIC
electoral college
Socialism
Top Political News Sources
Drudge
Huffington Post
Gallup
Real Clear Politics
Rasmussen
Rush Limbaugh
Politico
538
CNN Politics
Daily Kos
Monday, November 3, 2008
Wrapup: Google election info
Tomorrow, Americans across the country will vote (or finish voting), and we want you to find as much information as you'd like concerning this historic 2008 election. Here are three steps for getting the full scoop:
1) Get informed
To use Google tools that will help inform you before you cast your vote, visit our 2008 Election site. Watch campaign videos on YouTube, catch a glimpse of the best political map mashups -- including historical voting results -- on Google Maps, see what the candidates had to say via these In Quotes and Audio Indexing tools, and add the Presidential Candidates gadget to your iGoogle page.
2) Vote
Find out where to vote on our U.S. Voter Info site (on your mobile phone, head to m.google.com/elections). We hope your boss has given you at least an hour off to vote, and if you're so inclined, bring a video camera with you to the polls to capture your voting experience on YouTube's Video Your Vote channel. We're using Google Maps to track these videos across the country -- and to see where polling problems might be occurring during the day. In addition, we're featuring all political videos on the homepage - including videos made especially for Election Day by both the McCain and Obama campaigns.
3) Watch results
On the front page of Google News, you'll find a Google Map showing real-time popular and electoral vote counts. And we'll be providing results from the presidential, Senate, House, and gubernatorial races as they are reported by the Associated Press.
On the Elections section page, you can see more detailed results. At the top of the righthand column there are summaries of the presidential race and the races for majority control in the Senate and House (beneath the summaries you can select a state in the pull-down menu). For each state we display the breakdown in votes for the presidency, governor (where there is a race), and for each Senate and House seat that's up.
You can also access news and results as they occur on the Google Maps Elections Gallery (you can even embed the results onto your own site), or via the Elections section of Google News. Finally, you can follow the presidential election and see a summary of the popular and electoral votes by visiting news.google.com on your iPhone or Android mobile phone.
Update: Added new features available on Google News.
Update: Letters to the Next President project
When I introduced the Letters to the Next President writing project last month, 962 middle and high school students had published their letters. Since then, thousands of new letters have been written and published (there are now more than 5,200 total).
High school juniors and seniors from rural Alaska have voiced their concerns about gas prices and paying for college. Ninth and tenth graders from Brooklyn, NY have written persuasive pieces on war and global warming.
Although most of these students are too young to vote in tomorrow's presidential election, they've proven that they can participate in the democratic process by expressing their concerns and hopes for our country. You can read their letters at Letters2President.org and hear some of their thoughts in this video.
High school juniors and seniors from rural Alaska have voiced their concerns about gas prices and paying for college. Ninth and tenth graders from Brooklyn, NY have written persuasive pieces on war and global warming.
Although most of these students are too young to vote in tomorrow's presidential election, they've proven that they can participate in the democratic process by expressing their concerns and hopes for our country. You can read their letters at Letters2President.org and hear some of their thoughts in this video.
Plug in to the latest release of Google Chrome
When we launched Google Chrome two months ago, the response was overwhelmingly positive. We got all sorts of support and encouragement from many users, but we also got the most valuable resource we could ask for: feedback! Because of the variety of software and hardware configurations that exist "in the wild," users were able to find a few issues that we hadn't come across. In particular, they reported problems with Google Chrome's support for plugins used to play videos and show PDFs.
I am happy to report that we've made great progress in addressing plugin problems. The release that just went live is packed with plugin fixes, and early developer-channel users noted that plugin performance improved dramatically. You can read more about one of the improvements to viewing PDFs on the official Chromium Blog. Most importantly, if you tried the first version of Google Chrome but found that there were some bugs giving you headaches, give it another try. If you already have Google Chrome, you will get updated automatically, or you can download the latest version from www.google.com/chrome.
We've still got a long list of planned improvements, so stay tuned. And keep the interesting questions, helpful bug reports, and stellar code contributions coming!
I am happy to report that we've made great progress in addressing plugin problems. The release that just went live is packed with plugin fixes, and early developer-channel users noted that plugin performance improved dramatically. You can read more about one of the improvements to viewing PDFs on the official Chromium Blog. Most importantly, if you tried the first version of Google Chrome but found that there were some bugs giving you headaches, give it another try. If you already have Google Chrome, you will get updated automatically, or you can download the latest version from www.google.com/chrome.
We've still got a long list of planned improvements, so stay tuned. And keep the interesting questions, helpful bug reports, and stellar code contributions coming!
Visualizing data in the cloud
More and more companies are storing data in the cloud, and as this data grows, so does the need for reporting tools to make sense of this information. To address these growing needs, earlier this year we introduced the Google Visualization API, a powerful API that enables anyone to build apps on top of Google Spreadsheets. Companies can create and use reporting applications from the Google Visualization Gadget Gallery that can be integrated anywhere on the web, displaying data from a Google Spreadsheet. Today, we are expanding the capabilities of the Google Visualization API by enabling developers to display data from any data source connected to the web (any database, Excel spreadsheet, etc.), not just from Google Spreadsheets. From pivot tables and heat graphs to motion charts and timelines, the Google Visualization Gallery holds a growing set of 40+ visualizations that appeal to a multitude of businesses.
We're also pleased to announce that Salesforce.com has made available some tools to make the Google Visualization API even easier to use. These tools enable their customers to build sophisticated reporting and analysis applications using the API that works with data inside Salesforce.com's CRM. The Visualization API also enables developers to create custom reporting applications to sell to Salesforce customers or to other companies with data in the cloud. Earlier today at the Dreamforce conference, Adam Gross, Vice President, Developer Marketing, Salesforce.com, commented that "The enhancement of the Google Visualization API represents a significant opportunity for developers. We expect to see the creation of new tools for our users to quickly generate reports and dashboards for their Salesforce CRM data and in their Force.com applications. These enhanced analysis capabilities will provide our customers with greater productivity and deeper insight into their businesses."
As companies open their platforms, we expect to see increased integration of data and services across clouds, benefiting the enterprise community.
We're also pleased to announce that Salesforce.com has made available some tools to make the Google Visualization API even easier to use. These tools enable their customers to build sophisticated reporting and analysis applications using the API that works with data inside Salesforce.com's CRM. The Visualization API also enables developers to create custom reporting applications to sell to Salesforce customers or to other companies with data in the cloud. Earlier today at the Dreamforce conference, Adam Gross, Vice President, Developer Marketing, Salesforce.com, commented that "The enhancement of the Google Visualization API represents a significant opportunity for developers. We expect to see the creation of new tools for our users to quickly generate reports and dashboards for their Salesforce CRM data and in their Force.com applications. These enhanced analysis capabilities will provide our customers with greater productivity and deeper insight into their businesses."
As companies open their platforms, we expect to see increased integration of data and services across clouds, benefiting the enterprise community.
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