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Happy Holidays – Xmas Google Doodle

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http://www.youtube.com/v/to__rxeGRe8?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata

Merry Christmas :-) Google shows on the homepage a nice animated holiday greeting. Click it from left to right and it will start a blinky christmas greeting :-) On the left, over the “G”, you can see a snowflake symbol. Next comes a Santa Claus, followed by a yellow bell. The Google “g” is a snowman, the “l” a candle. Last but not least the “e” as a present. Merry Chistmas to all of you :-) Thumbs up if you like the holidays doodle 2011. music: “Jingle Bells” More about this : www.tagseoblog.de (german)

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Happy Holidays – Xmas Google Doodle

Happy Holidays – Xmas Google Doodle

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http://www.youtube.com/v/to__rxeGRe8?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata

Merry Christmas :-) Google shows on the homepage a nice animated holiday greeting. Click it from left to right and it will start a blinky christmas greeting :-) On the left, over the “G”, you can see a snowflake symbol. Next comes a Santa Claus, followed by a yellow bell. The Google “g” is a snowman, the “l” a candle. Last but not least the “e” as a present. Merry Chistmas to all of you :-) Thumbs up if you like the holidays doodle 2011. music: “Jingle Bells” More about this : www.tagseoblog.de (german)

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Happy Holidays – Xmas Google Doodle

On your mark, get set, GOMC!

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Professor registration for the 2012 Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC) is now open. GOMC is a global online marketing competition open to professors and their students in any higher education institution. Professors sign up for the contest and then serve as guides and mentors to their student participants throughout the competition. Over the course of three weeks, student teams are tasked with developing and running a successful online advertising campaign for real businesses or nonprofit organizations using Google AdWords . In the process, they sharpen their advertising, consulting and data analysis skills. (Note: student registration will open on January 31, 2012 and students can only enter if their professors have signed up already and must sign up under their own professors). After running their online advertising campaign for three weeks, students summarize their experiences in campaign reports, which they submit online. Based on the performance of the campaigns and the quality of the reports, Googlers on the GOMC team and a panel of independent academics select the winning teams. The global winners and their professor will receive a trip to Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. The regional winners (and their professor) will win a trip to local Google offices, and the social impact award winners will be able to make donations to nonprofit organizations that were part of the GOMC competition. Last year’s challenge had 50,000 participants representing 100 countries, and this year we expect even more. For more information, visit www.google.com/onlinechallenge . Professors, here is a chance to help your students sharpen their marketing skills and make a global impact! Posted by AJ Pascua, GOMC Team

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On your mark, get set, GOMC!

Test your creativity with our search caption challenge

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Our main goal at Google Search is to bring you the most relevant and useful results as quickly as possible. But, we are aware that often that is only part of your task or journey. Sometimes, you need more than simple results. You might want to learn, to discover, to be entertained or get insights. Insights can happen when you least expect them. To improve their chances, it’s good to try other things, or do things differently once in awhile. As a lifelong fan and connoisseur of New Yorker style cartoons, I always believed in the power of humor not just to entertain but to enlighten. I have tried to connect humor to everything I do (although, I have to admit, not always successfully). The best cartoonists possess great insights, which they illustrate in a clever package that we can consume in seconds and yet remember for years. With all of this in mind, today we’re connecting Google search and cartoons through a search caption challenge . Cartoon caption contests have a long history dating back at least to the 1930s, as can be seen in this example I found from Ballyhoo magazine. For our modern version, we worked with artists like Matthew Diffee, Emily Flake, Christoph Niemann, Danny Shanahan and Jim Woodring, who created cartoons that place characters in unusual, interesting and funny situations—all with a common twist. In each cartoon, one of the characters is doing a Google search. We’ve left it to you to imagine what they’d be searching for at that moment, and left the caption blank for you to fill in with your answer. To participate, go to Inside Search and submit your idea. Your caption will appear on the site, and you can share it with friends via a unique link. You can also vote on your favorite submissions and the most popular will rise to the top. We hope this game helps you think in a way you wouldn’t otherwise, and maybe get some insights. Or just have fun. Posted by Udi Manber, VP of Engineering and Cartoons (Cross-posted on the Inside Search blog )

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Test your creativity with our search caption challenge

One more present under the tree—custom video messages from Santa

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Last Friday Santa opened up the Ho Ho Hotline and teamed up with Gmail to send personalized holiday phone calls to anyone you know who has been nice (or naughty, for that matter) in the U.S. or Canada. In just a few days Santa has made hundreds of thousands of calls to your friends, family and loved ones, and received many a message from you at his Google Voice number ( 855-34-SANTA ). Santa has one more surprise in store. Starting today, anyone in the world can create and send a personalized cartoon video message (in English only) from Santa to anyone you know, anywhere in the world, and share them through email and Google+. Watch our sample video below and create your own at SendaCallFromSanta.com

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One more present under the tree—custom video messages from Santa

Ending the year with another clean energy investment

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We’ve made a new $94 million investment in a portfolio of four solar photovoltaic (PV) projects being built by Recurrent Energy near Sacramento, California. This brings our portfolio of clean energy investments to more than $915 million. We’ve already committed to providing funding this year to help more than 10,000 homeowners install solar PV panels on their rooftops. But this investment represents our first investment in the U.S. in larger scale solar PV power plants that generate energy for the grid —instead of on individual rooftops. These projects have a total capacity of 88 MW, equivalent to the electricity consumed by more than 13,000 homes. We’re investing alongside global investment firm KKR and Recurrent Energy , a leading solar developer. Google will provide a $94 million equity investment and SunTap Energy, a new venture formed today by KKR to invest in solar projects in the U.S., will provide the remaining equity. We’re joining KKR on their first renewable energy investment in the U.S. We believe investing in the renewable energy sector makes business sense and hope clean energy projects continue to attract new sources of capital to help the world move towards a more sustainable energy future. Solar panels at one of the Recurrent projects The energy produced by these projects is already contracted for 20 years with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). SMUD recently created a feed-in tariff program (FIT) to help green the grid for Sacramento-area residents. We’re excited that these projects are the first to be built under the program. We’ve had a busy year at Google. Since January, we’ve invested more than $880 million in clean energy projects. We believe the world needs a wide range of solutions —from wind, to transmission, to solar PV and concentrated solar—and we look forward to new opportunities next year to further expand our portfolio of clean energy investments. Posted by Axel Martinez, Assistant Treasurer, Google Treasury

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Ending the year with another clean energy investment

Ho-ho-hold the phone: Santa’s on the line

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Last year, Santa got his very own Google Voice number , and people around the U.S. received a special personalized holiday phone call from Santa Claus. This year, Santa wants you to reach out to him (after all, reindeer are only so-so conversationalists). If you or your family members have a special request for Santa, you can call him right from Gmail * and leave him a message at his Google Voice number: 855-34-SANTA. Santa won’t be able to return messages himself—it’s a busy time of year for him—but he’s promised to keep us up to date on happenings in the North Pole day by day. You also can create and send a unique, customized phone call from Santa to anyone you know, from your nieces and nephews to old college friends, over the phone (to U.S. numbers only). Listen to a sample phone call , and send a message of your own from SendaCallFromSanta.com . Of course, Santa is never one to fall behind the technological times (word on the street is that Rudolph’s nose was recently upgraded to an energy-efficient LED). So while the red suit may never go out of style, this year Santa has come up with an extra special way to spread the holiday cheer. But you’ll have to wait until it’s closer to Christmas to find out what it is. So no peeking—but keep checking the site ! Happy Holidays from your friends at Gmail. *Calls from Gmail are free for U.S. and Canadian users, but will cost people outside those areas $.01/minute (plus any applicable VATs). Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Product Marketing Manager

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Ho-ho-hold the phone: Santa’s on the line

Google Apps highlights – 12/16/2011

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This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “ Google Apps highlights ” and subscribe to the series. – Ed. The elves got an early jump on the holidays this year by leaving us some surprises in Google Apps over the last few weeks. Sharing from Gmail got a whole lot easier, and Google Calendar can make better use of precious screen space. We also have 10 new Google Apps customer stories to share from the tens of thousands that have gone Google in recent weeks. Gmail gets more social Last week we sprinkled a touch of Google+ into Gmail , making it easier to connect and share with people from your inbox. You can add people to circles right from an email thread through Gmail’s people widget, share photo attachments with friends and family on Google+ without leaving Gmail, and view a filtered version of your inbox only showing messages from people in your circles. We also improved Gmail’s address book by incorporating contact information shared by your friends, family and colleagues in their Google+ profiles. New features in the Gmail iOS app Just yesterday we added several new improvements to the Gmail app for iOS 4+ . Now you can set up a custom email signature for mobile messages, manage your vacation responder, and view nested labels from your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. We also added scribbles, a fun way to spice up messages by adding a quick hand-drawn sketch. You can create scribbles using a range of colors, brush sizes, lines, erasers and spray paints from your touchscreen device. More free calls right from Gmail Last year we introduced free domestic calling in Gmail within the U.S. and Canada, and we’re extending this free service for the whole year of 2012 . We’re happy to help you keep in touch with those special people in your life, for free. Hide morning and night hours in Calendar If you don’t often have appointments early in the morning or late at night, a new trick in Google Calendar might be useful. Now you can hide morning and night hours , leaving more screen real estate for the times of day when most of your events take place. Give it a try in Calendar Labs. Who’s gone Google? Businesses and schools are switching to Google Apps in droves these days. From tiny startups to large enterprises and nonprofits to college campuses, we love hearing the inspiring stories that our customers share. Here’s a new batch of stories for your reading pleasure: TripIt , IPSEN , Ebby Halliday , Ticket River , VigLink , HeyZap , The Great Books Foundation , Utah K-12 schools , the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and UC Santa Cruz . Welcome one and all! For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog , and keep an eye out for this series here after the holidays. We launched more than 150 improvements to Google Apps in 2011, and we have a ton more in store for 2012! Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

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Google Apps highlights – 12/16/2011

Dabble in Doodle history on our new site

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Have you ever seen a doodle you loved, but when you went to see it again it was gone? Ever curious about what doodles in Italy look like, or how your favorite holiday has been celebrated each year? Or wanted to get a behind-the-scenes scoop on the recent Les Paul doodle, and maybe share it with your friends on Google+? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then take a look at our revamped Doodle site . Since our very first one in 1998, doodles have been our way to share with you the things we love or are excited about. In the past few years we’ve started to create doodles that people can not only look at but also play with. Our first interactive one featured a clickable slideshow of Halloween candy in 2009 and since then we’ve invited people to insert a coin to play an arcade classic , watch a film , and even compose an epic guitar solo , all on the Google homepage. We’ve always thought it was a little sad that doodles are only available on the homepage for a day. Since we’re firm believers in having too much of a good thing, we set up a gallery of all our previous doodles a while ago. Now on the new site, you can browse, watch or play with over 1000 doodles. Enjoy front-row tickets to a Martha Graham dance , send the first man to space or learn more about why one doodler decided to “cartoonize” Mary Blair . You can even start wearing doodles, or hanging them on your wall, since the new site includes a link to our new Doodle store featuring all kinds of doodle swag. Happy doodlin’! Posted by Ying Wang, Director of Product Management

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Dabble in Doodle history on our new site

Giving back in 2011

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As the holiday season approaches we thought it was a good moment to update you on some grants we’re making to support education, technology and the fight against modern day slavery. STEM and girls’ education Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) open up great opportunities for young people so we’ve decided to fund 16 great programs in this area. These include Boston-based Citizen Schools and Generating Genius in the U.K., both of which work to help to expand the horizons of underprivileged youngsters. In total, our grants will provide enhanced STEM education for more than 3 million students. In addition, we’re supporting girls’ education in the developing world. By giving a girl an education, you not only improve her opportunities, but those of her whole family. The African Leadership Academy provides merit scholarships to promising young women across the continent, and the Afghan Institute of Learning offers literacy classes to women and girls in rural Afghanistan. Groups like these will use our funds to educate more than 10,000 girls in developing countries. Empowerment through technology We’ve all been wowed by the entrepreneurial spirit behind the 15 awards in this category, all of whom are using the web, open source programming and other technology platforms to connect communities and improve access to information. Vittana , for instance, helps lenders offer loans to students in the developing world who have have a 99 percent repayment rate—potentially doubling or tripling a recipient’s earning power. Code for America enables the web industry to share its skills with the public sector by developing projects that improve transparency and encourage civic engagement on a mass scale. And Switchboard is working with local mobile providers to help African health care workers create networks and communicate for free. Fighting slavery and human trafficking Modern day slavery is a multi-billion dollar industry that ruins the lives of around 27 million people. So we’re funding a number of groups that are working to tackle the problem. For instance, in India, International Justice Mission (IJM) , along with The BBC World Service Trust , Action Aid and Aide et Action , are forming a new coalition. It will work on the ground with governments to stop slave labor by identifying the ring masters, documenting abuse, freeing individuals and providing them with therapy as well as job training. Our support will also help expand the reach of tools like the powerful Slavery Footprint calculator