Google Docs Gets Lots of Updates Google Docs added lots of new stuff, including saved searches, offline Google Gears access for spreadsheets and presentations, custom document stylesheets (using CSS), speaker notes in presentations, and embedded YouTube videos in presentations.
Move Your Life To Gmail With Gmail Uploader Google released last month the Gmail Uploader, a free application that moves your email and contacts from Outlook, Outlook Express or Thunderbird (on Windows XP and Vista only) to a Google Apps Gmail account. Considering the huge number of limitations (only three email programs, two operating systems, and one very specific and less popular edition of Gmail), you may never get the chance to use it, which is a shame, because most new Gmail users would love the easy migration method.
Google Charts Now Does QR Codes
Google has been trying out QR Codes (a type of 2D bar codes) in its print ads, and now they’re making it easier to generate them on the web. Before, you’d have to use a web app or software to create a QR Code, then save the image to use on your website, but now the Google Chart API can be queried to get them automatically. Right now, all you get are website URLs, though hopefully Google will extend the API to handle more complex data.
Here’s an API-generated image for this site, using the URL http://chartserver.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=300x300&chl=http://google.blognewschannel.com/:
Blogger Adds Future Posts
Google’s Blogger has added the ability to schedule posts to be published in the future by specifying a date yet to come for your post. This feature was tested in Blogger In Draft, and is yet another feature to make its way into the ever improving Blogger.
Google Invests In New Clearwire Google entered into an agreement with Sprint and others (Comcast, Intel Capital, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Trilogy Equity Partners), investing half a billion dollars in a new formation of wireless ISP Clearwire. The new company will be 51% Sprint-owned, taking Sprint’s Xohm WiMax business. Google’s a wireless provider of sorts, now, and will help get open devices, including Android devices, on the network, and provide search and applications for the network.
Google Me - A Documentary About Search
This documentary features a guy searching for others with this same name as him. A concept we’ve heard before, though it seems to have resulted in an interest project.
Google’s Head of PR Goes to Facebook
Elliot Schrage leaves for Facebook, costing Google its vice president of global communications and public affairs. Of course, Google’s corporate PR policies haven’t been that smart the last few years, so maybe this isn’t great news for Facebook.
Google Maps Interface Slimmed Down
Google has finally trimmed some of the cruft building on Google Maps, combining and simplifying an interface that was getting too complicated and cluttered.
Blogger Gets Integrated Analytics
Google has integrated Google Analytics into Blogger for Blogger users that are interested, giving access to stats inside the Blogger Dashboard along with special stats tracking relevant to blogs. They’re also letting Measure Map users roll over their accounts into Google Analytics now.
Add Images To Gmail’s Interface Xoopit is a Firefox plugin that adds dynamic image preview to Gmail. You see a strip of images above your email, and there’s some sort of social networking theory at work.
H-1B Visa Situation the Usual Giant Disaster
Read at Techdirt about the H-1B (foreign guest worker) visas, which are once again running into problems due to the government not providing enough visas for American tech companies to bring skilled workers to this country. As usual, the visas for the entire year ran out in a single day, and the Department of Homeland Security is doing what it can to keep those jobs in the U.S. by allowing certain industry grads to stay in the country longer on their student visas.
Google Earth Adds Street View Google Earth now has Street View built into it, in order to see street level photos of buildings and pedestrians. Not only that, but you can blow the Street View full screen, in order to gawk at total strangers having their privacy invaded in the utmost fidelity.
Google Most Valuable Brand Again Google has been named the most valuable brand by market research firm Millward Brown Optimor, value at $86 billion and beating out GE and Microsoft ($71 billion apiece). Google’s brand value grew 30% over the last year, though Google has now won three years running.
Earth Day Search Logos
Search Engine Land has a bunch of logos that ran on Earth Day, including this one from Google:
Google Stock Earnings Benefit From Failing Dollar
Google’s earnings report, released last week, showed it beat Wall Street’s expectations by $101 million, sending the stock way up. However, Valleywag explains that, due to the sinking dollar, Google’s earnings were $202 million higher than they would have been if the dollar were stronger, meaning the surprise extra growth didn’t exist almost at all.
Google News Shows Quotes Google News has a new feature that lets you search for people who are quoted in news articles. Just throw a name into Google News and you’ll see a quote from them at the top. Click their name, and you’ll see a page full of quotes in various news stories they’re in.
Google-Monopoly (The Game)
Box HQ has put together a version of the popular Monopoly board game that replaces everything in the game with Google-related items. For example, the properties are all web companies (Microsoft and Yahoo replace Boardwalk and Park Place) and jail is the Deadpool. You can just print out the PDF and get started, or go all out and modify a Monopoly game board to turn it into Google-opoly. One problem: there aren’t enough I’m Feeling Lucky and Google.org cards.
Google Finds New CIO Google has named a new Chief Information Officer, with Benjamin Fried from Morgan Stanley’s Application Infrastructure group taking over next month. Fried worked on Google’s IPO four years ago, giving him some experience with the company. Fried takes over for Douglas Merrill, who left for EMI earlier this month.
If you haven’t used Google Website Optimizer yet, perhaps the benefits of A/B Split & Multivariable Testing and Intuitive Reports will woo you. The goals, of course, are to increase sales, improve landing pages, get more leads, determine cost per acquisition (CPA), increase time spent on site, estimate guesswork from your site design, and more.
Lots of Google Doodles
Zorgloob’s got lots of Google Doodles you may not have noticed over the weeks.
AdWords API Price Dropped Google has droppped the prices on using the AdWords API. Search Engine Roundtable has the chart of revised prices, with the cost per API unit dropping as much as 70% on some services.
AdSense Ad Review Center Available To All Google has released its Ad Review Center for Google AdSense to all publishers. The Ad Review center allows AdSense publishers to control site targeted advertising on their website, including banning and approving targeted ads.
Download YouTube Videos As MP4 Ionut shares the URL parameter that will let you download videos from YouTube as MP4 files, perfect for loading onto a portable media player. Just use a URL like this one, except change the letters “ID” with the video ID code:
A Funny Google Interview Story Read this story about one guy’s experience interviewing for a job at Google. I guarantee you won’t see where it’s going.
(via Digg)
Arrest Caught On Google Maps Street View
One unfortunate fella was being arrested by authorities, and what happened to pass by? The Google Maps Street View van, that’s who! As a result, he wound up with that moment in his life, one he’d probably like to regret, recorded into Google Maps and now pictured on a number of blogs. Whoops.
Google Letting Apps Run On Their Cloud Google has announced a new service, Google App Engine, which lets web developers build their internet applications on top of Google’s technology. Developers will be able to use the Google File System and the Bigtable distributed data storage system in their applications, resulting in a strong backbone to compete with Amazon’s S3 service.
It’s free during the preview period, but the number of accepted applications and available resources are limited in the beginning. Let’s hope Google doesn’t leave it in a beta limbo for four years and make things impossible for some budding Web 2.0 companies.
Ex-Googler Bret Taylor has a very interesting article about opening up data sources so application developers can better take advantage of them, and so they can be free for innovation. Google could make App Engine a no-brainer for app developers if it has access to data source normal Web 2.0 companies normally go through hell to get access to.
Google Selling DoubleClick Performics Google has made a very popular decision, announcing it will be selling off the SEO business of Performics, a business of DoubleClick it received in the recently completed acquisition. Performics handled SEO and affiliate management for its clients, and a search engine doing SEO would have created a giant conflict of interest. The reaction has been almost nothing but positive, as many are glad to see Google eliminated this before it becomes a problem. However, Performics affiliate business will remain at Google, possibly creating a new area of the market for Google to dominate.
Googlers Leave For Facebook (and other places)
Some Googlers are jumping ship, heading for seemingly greener pastures (with stock options that aren’t already underwater), like Facebook. About 40 Facebookers, or 10% of Facebook’s entire workforce, used to be Googlers, showing that a definite shift is underway. Google’s director of social media, Ethan Beard left the company become Facebook’s new director of Business Development. Facebook’s new chief chef is Josef Desimone, formerly one of Google’s makers of free food, but Valleywag’s hearing that he won’t be missed.
A much bigger move than a chef changing jobs is that of Douglass Merrill, Google Chief Information Officer. He’s leaving for music giant EMI, becoming their new president. Now, leaving from a major exec position at a top Silicon Vallley company to become president of a big music company is almost certainly a step up, but given the music industry’s woes, you’d think Google could have had more to offer him than a top company in a failing industry could.
New Version of Google Talk in Testing
Google has finally remembered it has an IM client, releasing a Labs test of a new version of Google Talk. The first version of Google Talk was released over 2 and a half years ago, but Google has barely updated it at all in the meantime. The new version, dissapointingly, drops the calling feature, implying that Google has abandoned the original intent of the “Talk” name, but it does add tabbed browsing. I still use Talk every day, but I have no faith at this point in Google actually maintaining the software like it should.
Google Finance Adds Stock Screener
Google Finance now has something called a stock screener, essentially a type of sort/search site for the stock market, letting you narrow down through criteria to find stocks with specific attributes. For example, you can specify stocks within a range of market caps, dividend sizes, 52-week gains or losses, and others, and combine the criteria to discover the perfect stock. This being Google Finance, it’s all accomplished with fancy AJAX sliders.
I used it to discover that there is only one company on the market bigger than Google that also does not pay off a dividend: Berkshire Hathaway. Good company to be in, but Google hasn’t been as good at the market as Buffet in many months.
Google Starts DoubleClick Layoffs 300 people lost their jobs today, as Google laid off 300 employees, or about 25%, of DoubleClick, the advertising firm it bought for $3.1 billion. The layoffs were expected and even warned about by Google, but it’s always sad to see people lose their job, especially in a recession. Hopefully recruiters are excited at the idea of hiring all these people, and they won’t spend too much time on unemployment.
If you can hire a DoubleClicker, or are a DoubleClicker looking for a new job, send me a message. I’ll try to connect the two sides.
Valleywag has been covering the layoffs heavily, saying that:
YouTube Starts Tagging Copyrighted Videos YouTube has started identifying music videos by the artists in them, tagging the video with “Contains Content From” and a link to the artist’s YouTube account. Artists in the program get to choose to put advertising on the video’s page and earn money from it, or they can block the videos from being viewed. Alternatively, they can elect to just receive tracking stats on their videos and see how popular they are, or link to where the music can be bought on AmazonMP3.
Google Grants Gave Out $273 Million In Free Ads Google’s blog noted the five year anniversary of Google Grants, which gives free AdWords advertising to non-profits. They said that in the history of the program, 4,000 grantees have received a stunning $273.3 million in free ads, all out of the kindness of Google’s heart*. 1,000 Googlers have volunteered their time and effort to keep the program running and help it roll out in new countries (fifteen so far).
* - okay, and a tiny bit because, in an auction pricing system, unfilled inventory actually lowers earnings on paid inventory
AdSense Ads All Scrolling Now?
Google ran a test of a modification to AdSense ads last December that added scroll up/down buttons to ad units, letting users click to switch in a new set of text ads. Looks like they really liked the performance of the ads, since many people are reporting spotting the scrolling buttons on all ad units. I can confirm seeing them on all my ad units, so it could very well be the new default.
Entire Internet Goes Crazy Over April Fools
As usual, April Fools day was the internet’s Christmas, with many major and minor websites getting in the holiday spirit, most with unfunny fake news stories. A few were interest or stood out:
YouTube turned all the Featured Videos on its front page into links to Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up. The video, already the center of the Rickrolling meme, is now the unofficial anthem of April Fools day, with multiple pranks involving it somehow. The video pulled 6 million views in just one day.
Phillip listed a ton of others from Google, including a retread “We’re going to space” joke from Google (this time with Richard Branson and Mars and YouTube videos, but even less funny than when they did it in 2006), scratch-and-sniff Google Book Search, Google Talk auto converting everything you say into acronyms, a paper airplane template in Google Docs, custom email time in Gmail, Google Calendar’s Wake Up Kit (which pours a bucket of water on you if you ignore the alarm) and I’m Feeling Lucky button (random blind dates), Orkut renamed Yogurt, and more.
Blogger launched “Google Weblogs”, essentially a look at what a blog service by Google would have looked like in 2002, before Google discovered UI design
Andy talked about a Google USB Search Watch. Yes, a watch, as in what you wear on your wrist.
Google Docs Finally Gets Gears Offline Access
Google Docs, the most obvious candidate for offline access, has finally been enabled to work with Google Gears. You can now access and edit your text documents (but not spreadsheets or presentations, yet) without an internet connection, provided you’ve installed the Google Gears plugin. Wonderful news, and hopefully the start of a wave of Google products taking advantage of Google’s offline platform.
Here’s a video about it:
Google Spreadsheets Adds Gadgets Google Spreadsheets has added a directory of Google Gadgets you can use to extend its functionality. It includes charts, new table functionality, pivot tables, maps, search results, organization charts, and many other features Spreadsheets lacks. It also now has email notifications, autocomplete and a new visualization API. Unlike Docs, Spreadsheets is one area where the majority of users won’t be satisfied with an underpowered Microsoft Word, and any way Google can get advanced features in there, the better.
Google’s Search Lead Continues To Grow comScore saw Google share of the search market grow in February (surprising no one), reaching 59%. Yahoo fell to 21.6%, Microsoft slipped slightly to 9.6%, and Ask added .1% to reach 4.6%.
Viacom Will Not Get Punitive Damages Vs. YouTube A judge ruled that if Viacom prevails in its lawsuit against Google-owned YouTube over copyrighted videos, it would not be entitled to punitive damages. Instead, Viacom will have to prove actual damages, with each successfully proven “willfull” violation costing Google up to $300,000, and other costing as little as $750. Gonna have a hard time getting $1 billion out of Google that way.
Ionut notes that Google is already running April Fools “jokes” around the world. In Japan, there’s something about a joke regarding words that are similarly pronounced. In China, the company blog says they’re launching a human-powered search engine (watch out, Mahalo). In Australia, they’re letting you search the future. And in the United States, they’re possibly firing hundreds of hard-working advertising people — wait, that’s not funny!
But seriously, on the one hand, I’m hoping Google’s April Fools joke is good, on the other I’d rather see all those DoubleClickers keep their job. The “other hand” is weighing a lot more on my conscience than the humor hand, but I suspect that among those writing the pink slips, Google “hilarious” joke will be the only thing they really care about tomorrow.
Google Earth Getting Street View? Webware reports that they’re hearing Google will add Street View, its popular novelty feature in Google Maps that lets you see street-level photographs of businesses, making it available in the Google Earth desktop software. Their source is very non-specific, but the rumor does sound very believable, since there’s no good reason for Google Earth users to lag behind Maps users for this long. Webware says the addition could come in the next few weeks.
Barack Obama Rendered in Google SketchUp
Someone used SketchUp, Google’s 3D modeling software, to create this model of Barack Obama’s head. The whole thing is 400 polygons of rendered facial features, and I gotta say, it creeps me out. At least Obama’s a decent looking guy; I can’t imagine how creepy a 3D rendering of Ted Kennedy or Hillary Clinton (with giant eyes!) would look.
Sync Google Talk With Twitter Timothy Broder wrote a script that takes your latest Twitter message and makes it your Google Talk/Gmail Chat status message. It’s a simple thing, perfectly useful and good, just like a baby angel.
Crack Deal in Google Maps?
Is this really what this Digger thinks it is? Well, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to conduct a business transaction through your car window with a guy standing in the street. I think.
Does Google Chief’s $1 Salary Mean Anything?
For another year, Google’s head honchos will be taking a $1 salary, supposedly putting the interests of the business ahead of money. It’s a simple token gesture, offset by the fact that the guys taking the pledge, founders Page and Brin and CEO Schmidt, are billionaires, though it, in theory, would make them more focused on the health of the stock price. All three lost billions of dollars in the last few months as the once high flying stock tanked, though you won’t see them sweating it.
The salary/publicity stunt has been criticized as meaningless, and Valleywag has pointed out it means the super-rich taking the salary are contributing six cents to help Social Security and one penny for Medicare, meaning that none of their mega-riches are going to help those served by important government programs.
Google To Layoff DoubleClickers Tuesday Valleywag reports that Google intends to hold its first round of layoffs of DoubleClick employees, trimming headcount at its acquisition to get the most value out of the buy. The layoffs should start this Tuesday, the first day of the second financial quarter of the year.
Of course, that day is also April 1, the day Google usually publishes a funny prank to amuse web surfers. If Google tries to be funny while firing hundreds, if not thousands of good people, laying them off in the middle of a recession when the job market isn’t going anywhere, I don’t think I’ll be laughing a whole lot.
Barry Diller Wins IAC Trial
In the case for control of IAC and the right to decide the company’s future, Barry Diller has defeated John Malone and won the right to break up the company into five seperate firms. Considering the hard work Diller has put into screwing up Ask.com the last few months, his victory is everyone else’s loss.
Google Israel Goes Black for Earth Hour
Google’s website in Israel turned its background black Thursday, marking off Earth Hour, some sort of awareness campaign where people turn off their lights for an hour to save the planet. While the message was nice, it was still strange to see Google ignoring its own research that clearly showed a black Google wastes more energy than a lit Google.
YouTube Showing Advanced Video Stats YouTube has launched a new feature, called Insight, which shows you more advanced stats for your own uploaded videos. It features a Google Finance-type graph that shows viewing over time, so you can see which days viewing spiked, that sort of thing. Click About This Video on your videos page, or add “http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_insight?v=” before any video ID (it won’t work if it isn’t your video).
Video Ads Make it Into Google Search Google has started showing video ads in its search results, adding a “watch commercial” or “watch demonstration” or “watch testimonial” link beneath AdWords ads. Click the link, and a video expands and plays right there in the sidebar. The video is tiny (160×140) and is about 30 seconds long, and the advertiser pays if the user watches the video, not if they click the link to go to the ad’s landing page. I saw one of the ads in action, and if they don’t cost too much more than regular ads, they seem like a good deal.
Google Documents Revamps Interface
Google Docs’ word processor application has changed its interface, adding drop-down menus and getting rid of the old tabbed toolbar interface. The old interface was a poorly implemented middle ground between the old interface paradigm common in document apps like the older versions of Microsoft Office, and the new Ribbon used in Office 2007, and Google finally wised up and junked the confusing system.
The new interface is pretty familiar to anyone who has been using Microsoft Word since the Windows 3.1 days, with drop down menus and a simple toolbar. The new menus do include a list of the keyboard shortcuts, making it easier to use those timesavers, but the changes don’t bring anything new to the table. Guess this is one area where Microsoft can claim to be bolder and more innovative.
Blogoscoped also found this, an Easter Egg (or possible prep for April Fools Day), making fun of the old Microsoft Office feature, Clippy. It’s funny, but Clippy is a remnant of Office’s past, and Docs is looking more and more like Office used to, so maybe the joke’s on Google.
Google Japan Parametron Doodle Google ran this Doodle logo in Japan last week, honoring the anniversary of some Japanese computer:
YouTube Releases API for Customizing Player YouTube released an API for customizing its embeddable player, letting you change the look of it to match the look of your website. You can write completely customizable video player, changing any element and putting together anything your mind/code can come up with.
Easter and Purim Search Logos
The biggest search engines didn’t mark Easter at all, but Ask.com did run this homepage on Sunday (all screenshots via Barry):
Also, Dogpile:
And Cre8asite:
And Bruce Clay:
SER ran this on Friday to mark Purim, the Jewish holiday celebrating Queen Esther and crew saving the Jews from the evil Haman in long-ago Persia:
A Collection of Bad Google Interview Stories Silicon Valley Insider has another of those stories about Google job interviews, and the unique experiences candidates have had on them. This one features blown interviews, and at least one somewhat disgusting story where a veteran of the armed forces was asked an insulting question about how many people he’d killed, and if he’d done it efficiently. The general feeling is that Google’s famous arrogance is alive and well. This one was really interesting too:
They have a process which intentionally filters out people who are single minded and focused on a goal in favour of people who like to spread around and tinker with things. At some point in the process you end up in a room with gadgets and things. The room actually has either a CCTV camera or a double mirror (no idea what is the actual technical implementation). If you open your bag and read a book so that you do not lose concentraion at that point and ignore the shiny gadgets you are most likely going to fail the interview. If you tinker with the shiny trinkets around you, the likelihood that you will pass will vastly improve.
Also, Valleywag has an ex-Googler venting about the company’s recruiters being out of touch. Former employee Hans Cardinal says, like we’ve heard many times, that 20% projects are a fiction, Google’s new hires work mostly on ads, the new engineers are hideously unskilled, and the PMs are territorial and unpleasant.
Google Releases Search Plugin For Windows Mobile Google has released a very basic searching plugin for Windows Mobile devices. The plugin adds a Google search box to the device’s home screen, letting you run a search without first opening your browser. It doesn’t do anything else, but it is a convenience and can supplant a similar implementation by Microsoft in Windows Mobile 6. If you’re interested, go to mobile.google.com.
Google Updates Charts API Google has updated its API for free chart generation, removing the limit of 50,000 queries a day and adding new chart types. Now, not only can you use the API without worry (those using over 250,000 queries a day are only asked to call in, nothing more), you can also make cool new charts, like this one:
Googler is Convicted Hacker Valleywag has an article about Christophe Bisciglia, a senior software engineer at Google who is also a convicted former hacker. Bisciglia got in a dispute with his boss about a decade ago at the age of 17, and decided to take revenge by flooding the system with emails, sending email to the company’s customers, and defacing their website. Obviously he’s matured since then, but lets hope the next time he loses his temper the results don’t show in your Gmail account.
Spring Google Doodle
Google ran this Doodle logo to mark the beginning of Spring:
Google Loses FCC Auction The final results in the FCC’s spectrum auction are in, and the winners of major blocks of the 700 MHz spectrum are Verizon, winner of most of the coveted and somewhat open C block with Vodaphone (along with parts of A and B block), and AT&T, winner of most of B block. In total, the auction raised over $19 billion, much more than was expected, none of it from Google.
Hulu Launches
NBC and News Corp finally launchedHulu.com, its YouTube competitor video site, to the general public last week. Early reports are that, despite a lot of criticism from the press a year ago, the site has developed into a strong, high quality platform with a decent amount of good content. Hulu has a bunch of TV shows and full-length movies, and doesn’t charge anything to show them, just inserting ads. As long as the content is there, there’s absolutely no reason Hulu won’t be a hit.
Google Completes Purchase of DoubleClick
With the European regulators finally signing off on the deal, Google completed its megabillion dollar deal to buy DoubleClick. The acquisition met with a lot of opposition from Google’s competitors, who complained that it would create a monopoly in online advertising, but both U.S. and EU officials determined that DoubleClick’s business was sufficiently different enough from Google’s core search ad business, plus a possible Yahoo/Microsoft combo would be competitive enough.
The final acquisition cost was $3.24 billion, according to Google, about $140 million than originally planned. That’s either due to inflation, unexpected costs, slight changes in the deal, or includes the cost of getting the acquisition improved in the first place. SEJournal has the text of an email Google sent to all of DoubleClick’s clients with some FAQs.
Yahoo Buzz Driving Massive Traffic
I completely recant my earlier criticism of Yahoo Buzz, Yahoo’s Digg competitor. The main difference between Buzz and Digg is that it only allows in publishers who use a Yahoo advertising program, and the top stories from Buzz make their way onto the Yahoo homepage, the most popular webpage on the planet. Publishers in the program are reporting all-time traffic records, even really popular sites like Salon and TechCrunch, making Buzz a huge incentive for publishers to use Yahoo for their ads. Yahoo should have thought of this years ago.
YouTube Integrated Into Spore
The much anticipated Spore, arriving later this year from Maxis and gaming legend Will Wright this September, will include integration with Google’s YouTube. Players will be able to upload videos of their Spore creatures to YouTube while playing the game, and an official Spore channel on YouTube will feature the best contributions from the community. I got to sit down with an EA rep at a recent games preview event, and I was shocked at how well-thought out and integral the community aspect was for Spore, and the YouTube integration represents yet another great addition.
AOL Buys Bebo AOL bought Bebo, a mega popular (in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand) social networking site for $850 million. While the acquisition price has been widely panned as too expensive, it does underscore the importance of social sites being popular in countries other than the United States, and how MySpace and Facebook are not the only real players.
Here are the logos ran by the major search sites yesterday in honor of St. Paddy’s, courtesy of Barry:
And Yahoo’s Flash logo:
Interestingly, yesterday was not St. Patrick’s Day! The church moved it to last Saturday, so as not to fall out during Holy Week, so everyone got it wrong. Based on how many people told me “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” yesterday, it looks like a lot of people ignored the church.
NetworkWorld has gone out and put together a list of the best songs about Google over the years, and they’ve really gotten together some gems. They even found my favorite Google song on YouTube, and they’re all embedded below:
It’s Google, to the tune of Beat It:
Googleheads, a classic (though I have no idea what it’s saying):
The Zach Tate Band’s Google Song:
Jeff Stambovsky’s The Google Song, to the tune of Georgia on My Mind, only available in audio form on their article page.
The Googler, by Yariv Ben-Yehuda:
Obviously, the classic, “On Google (Talking ‘Bout Google)”:
Sputniko’s Google Song:
Diane 42 (Finding Love On The Internet), by Mark Easley:
They didn’t include SNL’s Google Song, thankfully, or some other bombs we’ve heard over the years.
Google ran this Doodle logo to commemorate this year as a leap year, on February 29 (naturally):
Google ran this one four years ago:
Interestingly, on Friday my friend celebrated his first wedding anniversary, since he got married on February 29, 2004. And yes, he picked that date just so he’d get the “one anniversary every four years” joke for the rest of his life. I hear he cooked his wife a really nice dinner to celebrate.
In the video below, you can hear Teyana Taylor sing her song, “Google Me”:
The song contains the lyric “I’m a celebrity/Go ‘head and Google me.” Really? You’re a celebrity? Everybody who even heard of this person, raise your hands.
I love it when people sing songs about Google (like the clasic “Google Song”), but I hate this sort of braggart all-about-me bullcrap that passes for “urban” music nowadays. Lady, you aren’t a celebrity, though with that attitude, you certainly remind me of a few infamous stars.
As for the classic Google Song, it’s no longer available at its original location. However, I found a mirror of it on PhotoBucket, so enjoy:
Google’s Doodle 4 Google competition, in which schoolchildren are given the opportunity to draw a logo for Google’s homepage, has finally come to the United States, after stints in England and Australia. The contest will give students from Kindergarten to 12th Grade a chance to draw a Doodle for Google.com, with the winner getting their logo on the homepage for one day, as well as a $10,000 college scholarship and a technology grant for his or her school.
The rules call for the Doodle to have a “What if… ?” theme, with the kids being divided up into four groups by grade. 40 regional winners will be chosen, and flown out to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, in May. A public vote will choose four national finalists, then Doodler-in-Chief Dennis Hwang will choose the overall winner. Any school can register, with approval of a teacher or principal, by the registration deadline of March 28.
Besides the national winner, the other three national finalists will receive a laptop computer and a t-shirt with their Doodle. The other 36 regional winners will also get the t-shirt (but at least they also get the free trip to the Googleplex). Another 360 state finalists get a Doodle 4 Google certificate.
Google is running this special Doodle logo for Valentine’s Day:
That’s actually pretty sweet. Last year’s Doodle was a mess, with a lot of sites reporting that Google had forgotten the “l” in Google:
Here’s the 2005 Valentine’s logo:
In 2006, Google did not celebrate Valentine’s Day because February 14 fell during the Winter Olympic Games, and Google runs special Olympic Doodles during those days.
If you forgot to get your special someone (or your pet, whatever) something for V-Day, might I recommend hitting up Rite-Aid on the way home? There’s always something there that says “I’m not a thoughtless jerk”.
Philipp notes that Google Docs is pink today, the Google Maps Street View guy is standing on a heart-shaped platform, and YouTube’s logo is heart-shaped.
The last 24 hours have likely been the darkest in the history of Yahoo! Inc. as the company fired 1000 employees, some deserving, some who deserved a better chance. The company’s decision to fire just over 7% of its workforce was pretty much a requirement as the company attempts to transition to more profitable systems and a leaner, more productive and accountable workforce.
News of the layoffs and thoselaid off spread like wildfire thanks to social services like Twitter and Techmeme. We heard of Ryan Kuder, who Twitter’d every step of the way, from nervous trepidation, to getting the call, to clearing out his desk, having his computer and badge confiscated, replacing his company cell phone, and celebrating unemployment with a giant margaritas at Chevy’s.
No doubt, there are Yahoo who badly deserved this, and no one is sad to see them go. A floundering company like Yahoo is filled with some employees who collect a paycheck, talk a lot of bull, and do nothing but consume company resources. However, the majority of those who lost their jobs were just regular folk doing regular jobs trying to support their families, and that is the tragedy of the day.
Often, companies do a round of layoffs in order to boost the stock price and earn a decent profit for board members at the expense of the average worker. Yahoo certainly can’t be accused of that, as Wall Street barely touched the stock today, due to its already inflated price caused by Microsoft’s offer to buy the company.
It’s hard to see this happen and not want Microsoft to buy Yahoo immediately. This company is bleeding, and Microsoft is offering a very expensive tourniquet. Sure, a lot of people will get fired if Microsoft buys it, too, but at least it’ll be a colder and more sensible integration and redundancy layoff round, and not the firing of good people because of management’s missteps and mistakes.
No one wants to see this happen again, but who honestly believes that there won’t be a round two if nothing drastic changes?
At least Google did okay. A smart Bradley Horowitz, head of Yahoo’s Advanced Technology Division, jumped from the sinking ship to join the Goog. Bradley will reportedly work on OpenSocial, and should be a huge asset for Google.
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Philipp and Tony are asking Google Blogoscoped readers to try their hand at redesigning Google’s iconic logo. It’s just getting started, but already a few decent entries are in. Here’s my try, just for the fun of it:
I used three fonts and colors to represent the three faces of Google, crossing the standard RGB color space. The playful Jokerman font, in basic blue, represents the playful, almost child-like attitude of Google’s corporate culture. The more dynamic Magneto font, in a bright green, represents Google’s desire to be an exciting technology innovator, expanding into fields like mobile devices. The classic Old English font, in an almost brown dark red, represents Google’s academic roots and hiring strategies.
Some entries attempt to edit the current Google logo, others, like myself, tried to start from scratch. Try to come up with something yourself, and post it in their forum.
Google’s Doodle 4 Google competition, in which schoolchildren are given the opportunity to draw a logo for Google’s homepage, has 
