Google has built a huge status on helping people guide the virtual world of the internet. Now it says it's going to assist people get around the genuine world of Boston on MBTA buses, trains, and boats.
Through a partnership with Google Transit, when T customers are using public transportation by logging on Google Maps will now be able to calculate their route, transit time, and walking directions.
"This really makes a lot of information more reachable," Steve Vinter, engineering director for Google Boston said yesterday at a press conference held at South Station to announce the technological improvement. "There are a lot of people like me who take the T work but do not know much about the transit system outside of that."
MBTA and local officials lauded Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas's leadership on the project. Grabauskas, who in recent days has found his ability as general manager questioned by Governor Deval Patrick and a few members of the T's board of directors, answered questions from a group of reporters after the conference. But Grabauskas kept the politic comments short, saying the current controversy should not divert from the day's declaration.
A survey conducted by consultancy major Tata Consultancy Services and software services, that School children in Indian cities bank more on Internet search engine Google to gather information than on print or television.
According to the survey, (41 per cent) students rely on Google as compared to television (25 per cent) or print (26 per cent). The survey was conducted in 12 cities, with a sample size of 14,000 students aged between 12 and 18 from English-medium schools. The purpose of the survey was to decipher the minds of the young generation, their preferences and habits. S Ramadorai, CEO & MD of TCS said "One out of 10 people on the world are aged under 25 and living in India. That is the significance of India's next generation and what they and think and aspire will hold insights for all those who aim to connect with this Web 2.0 generation".
From the survey some surprises on social networking trends among the schoolchildren. While in Mumbai (60 per cent) and Ahmedabad (57 per cent) kids read about films and celebrity blogs, Bangalore and Hyderabad students (33 per cent) prefer blogging on studies. Bangalore is 'Blogging capital of India', with 66 per cent student's blogging regularly against the national average of 39 per cent.
Overall 93 per cent of the respondents were alert of social networking, with Orkut rising as the most preferred source for social networking. In India, Mumbai is the only city where rival Facebook is more popular.
Google has realized that when we are using short urls particularly when dealing with the somewhat long and complicated urls that it dishes out for its Google maps service.
To create a plug-in for its gmail client that automatically recognizes the url and then changes it on the fly accordingly.
Now when gmail mobile users get sent link to a Google map it will strip out the address and serve that as that the text rather than the common gobbledygook.
"We all know that screen space on a mobile device is limited, so it's not very helpful when I get an email with a long link such as this Google Maps link," explained Google in a blog post. "To solve this problem, we now shorten the link and convert raw links into named links automatically, which we call "Smart Links"." So instead of that long link to Google Maps, you're going to see the link renamed to the real address. Please note that Smart Links work only in plaintext emails right now.
Google says that aside from Maps, it will be supporting other urls it creates including Google Maps directional queries(with one destination), Google Maps address queries, YouTube videos, and Google Sites WebPages with the assure of support for other services like Google Docs coming shortly.
Last week Google launched a Web application version of latitude, that geolocation-based social tracking service. Apple's request, Google opted to make it a Web application instead of a native application that required installation. This is a fully bad thing as I found out after extended use this weekend. There's a lot to like, and some that's not so great.
The Good:
Easy to use. If you've got it set to automatically refresh your location you just have a fire it up from a bookmark, or home screen shortcut.
You can keep it running in a browser tab at the same time as you're doing things in other tabs. It's almost like running multiple applications at once!
We can works in both portrait and landscape modes. And impressive about landscape mode, is you can still drag your finger around the map without scrolling the rest of the page.
Really granular control over. Who want to see where you are and what you're doing. Right down to a per-friend level.
Turn-by-turn driving directions in your browser.
The Bad:
Safari-only, which means no push notification, full-screen user interface.
Missing some of Google Maps bells and whistles including things like walking directions, Street View and public transportation.
When compared to the Google Maps application it's slightly slow. Filling out forms and response when clicking on a button can be a bit delayed. Might just be our old, chugging iPhone 3G though.
Sydney Morning Herald says, Google may lose Australian advertising sales from Fairfax Media Ltd. and News Corp. after it began listing real estate for sale on its Google maps service.
The newspaper says, Fairfax and News Ltd are independently weighing up whether to pull the "millions of dollars" they spend on buying key search terms from Google.
Google earlier this month began allowing aggregators such as Homehound and My Home to display their properties for free on Google Maps, the newspaper said.
According to AC Nielsen, nearly half a million people visit property websites everyday with Fairfax and News Ltd sites getting nearly 90 percent of traffic, the newspaper said.
Bill Gates and co-founder of Microsoft Corporation are recently launched own search platform today, described as "Fun Competition" with Google.
Software giant Microsoft launched its own search engine "Bing" to take on the competitor Google, at the same time he complimented them.
Now, Microsoft has been trying to make its presence felt on the search space and take on Google, the leader in the space.
When asked about the future of search, Gates said "The future of search is Bing......" on a humorous note.
Talking about Nasscom event, Gates said "In next 3 years search should be dramatically better. Microsoft has taken some great people to do innovative work to make it more competitive."
"When you are a distant two, you have to try harder. Who knows we can make it better and faster than any body"
Previously we announced about Google Latitude, in that you and your friends can share your locations with each other. You can also control whose want to see your location and where on the map you appear to other. And today, we're releasing Google Latitude for iPhone and iPod touch as a web application run in Safari browser.
To visit Google Latitude, type google.com/latitude from your device to start. Add a bookmark to your home screen for quickly launch latitude. Open Latitude in Safari and tap the + icon >Add to Home Screen > Add. For more, check the Google Mobile Blog.
Sonic Solutions announced that CinemaNow was preparing for electronic delivery of 3D movies later this year. Now, Google is apparently checking delivering of some movies in 3D formats. And the interesting is that switching format on dropdown menu also adjusts the format of the movie itself. So far, however, most of the formats seem to favor the older anaglyph style of 3D, the type which want the funky red and green glasses.
About, YouTube blog, Google hasn't made any announcement at the moment, so we'll wait to see what the company says. In any event, it looks like at smaller amount of the older B-movie classics might appear in 3D goodness.
Google (GOOG) continued to be the most visited Web site in June also, with nearly 157 million U.S. visitors, according to comScore (SCOR).
Yahoo (YHOO) in Second positions, with 154 million visitors, followed by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), with 127.4 million. The duo is also-rans to Google for market share of Internet searches. Both companies are launching new efforts in an attempt to reverse the tendency.
Facebook.com moved up two positions to No. 6, its highest ranking yet as the social-networking site continues to catch the attention of new fans.
Meanwhile, the release of Web browser Firefox 3.5, which includes numerous new and improved features, pushed the Mozilla Organization up 13 spots to No. 28.
Twitter.com, a fast-growing site that lets users broadcast short messages to "followers," made its first appearance in comScore's top 50 in June, ranking No. 46 with 20.1 million visitors. "It's hard to believe that Twitter.com had fewer than a million visitors in June 2008, and now attracts more than 20 million visitors a month," said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix.
Flanagan noted that travel Web sites gained the biggest percentage of visitors last month as Americans began planning summer vacations. Visitors to airline Web sites jumped 22% to 33.2 million, with Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV) visitors growing 64% to 16.4 million.
Online travel agent sites increased 9% to 42.8 million, and Expedia (EXPE) led the category, with 27 million. Orbitz Worldwide (OWW) was next, up 10% to 12.5 million. The total Internet audience was flat at about 193.9 million visitors.
Moon in Google Earth was launch recently at the Newseum in Washington D.C. This Moon in Google Earth tool will make it easier for millions of people to learn about space, the moon and some of the most significant and dazzling discoveries humanity has accomplished together. This Moon in Google Earth enables people to explore lunar imagery as well as informational content about the Apollo landing sites, panoramic images shot by the Apollo astronauts, narrated tours and much more. People believe that this educational tool (Moon in Google Earth) is a critical step into the future, a way to both develop the dreams of young people globally, and inspire new audacious goals.
With Google Earth, young explorers around the world can bounce around the galaxy in Sky, fly to Mars and now visit the moon from wherever they may be for the use of Moon in Google Earth tool.
The Google's Custom Search Engine team has made it easy to any site to add custom search. Google recently introduced Web Elements; the Web Elements are simple snippets of code you can copy/paste into your site's HTML.
From the Custom Search Element web page, I copied the code. Then in the Word Press control panel under Appearance->Widgets, I clicked to add a new "Text" widget, changed the title to "Search (CSE)" and pasted the code into the box:
Click "Done" and then "Save Changes" and that is it! You no need to register, sign up for anything, get a user ID, or anything like that. You can see the result on the right-hand sidebar of my blog.
Now any one can translate any text from English into Persian and Persian into English, whether it is a text, a news story, a webpage, a blog, a document, an email, a tweet or a Face book message. Go to the following link and use it http://translate.google.com.
Google launching Persian is important now, Like YouTube and other services, Google Translate is one more tool that Persian speakers can use to communicate directly to the world, and this service is increasing everyone's access to information.
As with all machine translation is not perfect yet, And Google launching this service quickly, so Google Translate may perform slowly at times. Google will keep a close watch and if it breaks, Google will restore service as quickly as we can.
Google have optimized this service for translation between English and Persian. But Google working hard to improve Persian translation for the additional 40 languages available via Google Translate. If you see, something you think is incorrectly translated, Google invite you to click on the "contribute a better translation" link and Google will learn from your correction.
The internet provides many new channels of communication that enable us to see events unfold in real-time around the world. We hope that Google Translate helps make all that information accessible to you and no matter what language the people will speak. So please visit Google Translate and try it out.
Here are some tips to help you create a good site architecture and navigation scheme. These tips, when used with keyword and link best practices, will help search engines find the content on your web pages.
Navigation:
1. Be consistent and consolidate information wherever possible."Help", "FAQ",and "Instructions" can be all put into one page or one category that makes it easy for users to find that type of information. Break information up inside the category if you need to. In addition, saying "Instructions for filling out such and such form", uses the keywords of what the page is about, helping search engines find the page.
2. Use breadcrumb trails. This type of navigation literally creates a trail that users can follow back to where they came from. For example: Home > Category 1> Bucket A > Bucket B > Bucket C. Breadcrumbs are used in conjunction with regular navigation. They don't replace it. They're nearly always text links, in a smaller font. Large sites should have top-of-the-page navigation pointing to the top-level pages and category navigation on the left with breadcrumb navigation on the page itself. Footer navigation should be placed at the bottom of the page.
3. The footer of web pages is also important. It's important to give your users a quick way to the home page or key pages. The footer is a good place to put text-only links that are redundant to the top-level navigation, so your user doesn't have to scroll back up to the top of the page. Supplying this added convenience also allows another chance for you to use those important keywords, and helps users who have their graphics turned off.
4. Use keyword phrases within your main content links. These links may go to the exact same place as top-level navigation links but they're labeled with keywords related to the same topic. For example, a top-level navigation link may be labeled "Local Weather Forecasts", while a text link lower down on the page from inside a paragraph (pointing to the same page) might say "Weather for your Zip Code". Since users and search engines use both terms heavily, you're covering your bases by taking this extra measure.
5. Always use a sitemap. Search engines love to have a site map through which they can quickly and easily access your site's pages for indexing. When creating a site map for your websites, be sure to put it at the root level (not within any subfolders or directories), link to it from your home page, and name it site_map.html (or .htm, whichever extension you are using for your site). A table of contents is also helpful in some cases.
Simply create a list of links (similar to an outline format) that shows how the pages of your site are linked to from each upper tier page, and name these links using keyword-rich, but relevant, text links. Add a small paragraph about your organization, or about the subject matter of the page, at the top of the page.
Keep the site map page simple, using no graphics (or very few if necessary, perhaps your organization's logo). Be sure to link to your site map or table of contents near the top of the homepage as it will be picked up by crawlers. And when submitting your site's pages to the major engines, be sure to submit the site map page as well as your home page.
Below is a list of best practices compiled by web managers should follow for managing their Search Engine:
Choose a Good Search Engine: Acceptable search engines include commercial search engines, search engines that operate as a web service (application service providers), search engines developed by organizations, the free search index available at no cost to federal agencies. For more information, see Choosing a Good Search Engine
Practice Good Usability: Apply the Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines about Search.
Place a "search" box or a link to a "Search" page on every page of Your Website: The search box or link should be entitled "Search". Usability studies demonstrate that search boxes are most effective when placed in the same position on all pages (usually within the upper third of a web page).
Provide a Long Search Box: Create your search box (entry field) at least 35 to 40 characters wide. This will allow users to self-detect more errors when they see what they have entered.
Provide Readable Search Results: Results should be in an easy-to-read format that shows visitors the term they searched for and highlights the term in the title and description of each search result.
Ensure Comprehensive Results: Ensure that your search engine, to the extent possible, can search all of your content that is available to the public. This includes providing access to searchable public databases. A new tool that is available to help you with this is sitemaps. You also will want to know how deeply, that is how many levels down from your entry pages, your search engine indexes content.
Do not Search Restricted Information: Ensure that sensitive, restricted, or classified information or information that contains personally identifiable information-such as social security numbers-is not included in any web-based file that could be retrieved using a government-owned or commercial search engine.
Provide Search Help: Many people are unfamiliar or unskilled at using search technology, so provide help, hints, or tips, and include examples.
Index Content Frequently: Index the content of your website at least once a month. Content that is added and updated frequently, such as press releases, should be indexed more frequently; however, content that changes infrequently, such as archived or historical documents, may be indexed less often.
Have a Quick Response Time: Your search engine should produce results in less than three (3) seconds (on average). Monitor and log search response times to ensure that adequate hardware and software capacity is available to achieve this response time standard.
Ensure Relevant Results: Routinely identify the common search terms used on your website, evaluate the relevancy of your search results for those terms, and configure your search services to provide the best ranking possible. You should conduct this review at least quarterly.
Provide an advanced search function. Although usability research indicates that very few people use "advanced" search features, you should allow visitors to conduct more refined, focused searches to achieve more relevant results. For example, you may want to provide options for searching within certain sets of information, databases, or applications.
