Search Engines

SageTV’s founder just revealed in a Google+ comment that Fiber TV is powered by his former company’s technology.

SageTV essentially provided a television interface for DVR, music, and photographs, with the ability for users to create and control the media center from multiple devices. In June 2011, SageTV CTO and founder Jeffrey Kardatzke announced that Google acquired his company, and SageTV products have no longer been available for purchase since.

Google launched its Gigabit Google Fiber Internet and TV service in Kansas City this afternoon. The Mountain View, Calif.-based Company spent a lot of time demoing its “100 times faster” Internet service, but the majority of the demo was for Fiber TV. The service will give access to YouTube, DVR, on-demand libraries, and Netflix.

While Fiber TV is only available to “Fiberhoods” in Kansas City at the moment, Kardatzke told Google+ folks to “stay tuned” (below).

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uZVqPuq81c]

Google plans to make a “special announcement about Google Fiber and the next chapter of the Internet” at 12 p.m. EST.

The company revealed earlier this week that it would launch the “100 times faster than broadband” Internet service today in Kansas City.

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You may already be aware that Google search provides a calculator that offers answers to queries, such as 2+2 directly, from the main search results page. As pointed out by a reader, Google recently updated the calculator search functionality, and it now provides a full HTML5 scientific calculator for these types of search queries. The features work with voice—except for on mobile devices, as they do not have access to the full scientific calculator presented on desktops.

Earlier this month, Google started to roll out a similar widget on its search page for unit conversions, like inches to centimeters. Now, unit conversion queries are presented with the live unit conversion tool (pictured below) that allows you to switch between units of measurements for temperature, length, mass, speed, digital storage, and much more.

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We knew the U.S.-made streaming device would ship sometime in July to those who preordered, but today Nexus Q is officially in stock on the Google Play store. It is shipping in “3-5 business days” to U.S. customers. Nexus 7 certainly had a good start. It sold out at several retailers, but many are skeptical the $299 media streamer will do as well.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1ErgRekjn8&feature=player_embedded]

Google is expanding its “Search as You Type” feature under Google Commerce Search to U.S.-based AdWords advertisers today as a free, stand-alone service.

“It’s easy to implement and helps increase sales and conversion rates on merchant websites. The Search as You Type pilot is available to US-based AdWords advertisers for free, up to 25 million searches annually, after which licensing fees would apply,” announced Google Shopping Product Management Director Jennifer Dulski on the official Google Commerce blog.

Google’s famous predictive suggestions, auto complete, and related product results are integrated into Search as You Type to bulk a merchant’s existing website search functionality. Today’s announcement supports Google’s recent attempts at enhancing its online retail and search experiences.

“When shoppers type a search query into a merchant’s site, Search as You Type shows them product suggestions and photos, making it faster and easier for people to spot the product they’re looking for and click through to make a purchase,” Dulski explained.

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In a story detailing some recent updates to the two-year-old GoogleEDU program, The Wall Street Journal noted today that last year saw roughly 11,000 Google employees enrolled in the program’s classes as Google “cut classes that didn’t work and retooled others.” That is about one-third of the 33,100 Google employees worldwide.

“What’s important is that it aligns with our overall business strategy,” says Karen May, Google’s vice president of leadership and talent, who has led the revamping of GoogleEDU.

As part of the revamping of the program, the report described how Google is using data analytics and other methods to suggest new courses to employees:

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As highlighted on the official Google Analytics blog, the company is today announcing the addition of mobile app analytics for three main areas: Acquisition and new users, Engagement (retention, crashes, conversions), and Outcome (app sales and in-app purchases).

New and active users – measure the number of new and active users who launch your app everyday and analyze your most valuable segments.

App versions – keep track of the distribution of active users over the older and newer versions of your app so you know what to support.

Device overview – check out the top mobile devices and OS versions that your app runs on, and optimize the experience for each device.

User behavior – assess how loyal your users are, how frequently they use the app, and the engagement level of each loyalty group.

Engagement flow – visually see the screens, actions and paths users take to move throughout your application in order to optimize usage.

In-App purchases – if you sell virtual or tangible goods in your app, you can measure the number of purchases and the revenue generated.

In addition to the inclusion of the new Mobile App Analytics reports that can be seen in the screenshots above, Google is also rolling out a new Google Analytics Android app (images above via AnalyticsTalk.) If you are interested in checking out the new Mobile App Analytics and app, Google said it would roll out to select whitelisted users. You can sign up to become part of the beta here.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvDoGt1tJy8&feature=player_embedded]

Google unveiled its “Project Re: Brief” ad campaign in March, which re-imagined four classic commercials, and now the company has published an hour-long documentary of its marketing venture on YouTube.

The four re-imagined classic commercials are Coca-Cola’s “Hilltop” from 1971, Alka-Seltzer’s 1972 commercial, Volvo’s “Drive it like you hate it” from 1963, and Avis’ “We try harder” campaign from 1962. Google’s in-house advertising team and several other agencies— including the creators of the original campaigns—re-created all the ads. Each video is available on Google’s Project Re: Brief website.

“Re: Brief is not just about the ads themselves. It’s also about the creative process behind them: bringing ‘old school’ advertising legends and technologists into the same room to create digital ads that consumers love as much as they loved the iconic campaigns of yesterday,” explained Project Re: Brief Lead Aman Govil on the Official Google Blog. “To share this experience, today we premiered the documentary film Project Re: Brief, directed by Emmy winner Doug Pray, at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity—also available on YouTube.”

Govil continued:

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In a post on the Android Developers blog, Google today outlined how it will be improving the ability for developers and app users to connect with one another through Google Play. Starting with an initial rollout today for Top Developers, devs will now have the ability to reply to user reviews from within the Google Play Android Developer Cosnole:

Developers can gather additional information, provide guidance, and — perhaps most importantly — let users know when their feature requests have been implemented…We’ll also notify the user who wrote the review via email that the developer has responded. Users can then contact the developer directly if additional followup is needed or update their review.

Google noted it will begin to offer the feature to additional developers as it gathers feedback on the feature from developers and users.

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Google wants to stop YouTube-MP3.org from ripping audio within YouTube’s videos.

TorrentFreak obtained a June 8-dated letter where the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company threatened to take legal action against the conversion website, which, according to Google’s numbers, rakes 1.3-million daily visitors.

Google’s video-sharing platform is free and provides content that is embeddable or accessible through its API, while YouTube-MP3.org is free, pulls audio from YouTube videos, and then converts those files into downloadable MP3s. Apparently, despite the API that gives developers access to many features, pirating any sound directly violates YouTube’s Terms of Service agreement.

The leaked letter addresses the website’s owner, Philip. In the warning, YouTube’s Associate Product Counsel Harris Cohen cited the platform’s terms for API, where he maintained that separating, isolating, or modifying “the audio or video components of any YouTube audiovisual content made available through the YouTube API” is strictly prohibited.

Cohen threatened “legal consequences” for YouTube-Mp3.org, and he gave the website a week to comply. TorrentFreak spoke with Philip, who said YouTube does not want to negotiate. He also mentioned Google immediately blocked his website’s servers from accessing YouTube.

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Google just revealed a backpack-like Street View capture device called “Trekker” that snaps images in areas impossible to navigate by vehicle (above).

“It’s 40 pounds and includes two batteries that’ll last you all day. It’s Android-powered…. We intend to take it to National Parks, the Grand Canyon, castles, etc.,”explained Google’s Engineering Director of Street View Luc Vincent at the “Next Dimension” Google Maps event in San Francisco.

The director further said street level data “could be” useful for users, and then he showed off an original Street View van (below). It is a Chevy Astro and definitely does not compare to newer Street View cars.

It is worth mentioning that Google announced it drove over 5 million unique miles to collect 20 petabytes of imagery for Street View.

More information about today’s event as at the Official Google Blog.

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Google just unveiled a new feature in Google Play for in-app billing: Subscriptions.

In-app billing launched in Google’s marketplace a year ago to allow developers more opportunities for earning cash with apps. Approximately 23 of the 24 top-grossing apps now take advantage of Google’s money-making service, and Ibrahim Elbouchikhi, Google Play’s product manager, even told 9to5Google in a public statement that the total revenue produced from in-app purchases surpasses revenue from traditional app purchases. The executive further noted the feature is an extreme success, especially because it gives developers multiple monetizing options through “try-and-buy, virtual goods, upgrades, and other popular business models.”

Now, developers have another business model option thanks to today’s newly-announced in-app subscription feature within in-app billing. The feature is quite self-explanatory—users can purchase subscriptions to any type of extra content from an app using any Android device. Some examples of in-app subscription could apply to bonus game levels/maps or and recurring services like journals and magazines. The ability to sell monthly or annual subscriptions in any app is effective immediately, while users can also start buying right away.

“While making it easy for developers to offer a great purchasing experience, our subscriptions are also designed for flexibility,” Elbouchikhi explained. “Developers can use them to monetize premium dynamic content such as journals and magazines, but they can also use them to sell access to bundled products, game levels, music and video content, value-added services, or any other digital content.”

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