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Inaugurating our new French headquarters
December 6, 2011
Last year, our Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt promised to open a research and development and culture centre in France. Today, Eric returned to Paris to inaugurate our new 10,000-square meter office in a refurbished
19th century Second Empire building
near the St. Lazare Train Station.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy honored us with his presence. “Why as President, do I make this symbolic move and come to Google?" he asked rhetorically to a packed courtyard auditorium. “I love the United States, and its motto that everything is possible whatever your origins.” President Sarkozy also officially launched the
Elysee Palace’s YouTube channel
and his visit was shown on
YouTube Live
, the section of the site where we list all live streamed events.
The President participated in a Google+ Hangout, taking questions from French-speaking Googlers around the world. (“What time is it there?” he asked someone dialing in from California.) On a serious note, he expressed his gratification for how Google has moved to dig deep roots in France. “When I first met Eric, we had a frank conversation,” he recalled, saying his message was clear. “I asked him how long Google was preparing to make money in France without investing here. I told him that Google must have its feet in France.”
Our new Paris office is emblematic of our commitment to one of Europe’s fastest-growing Internet economies. According to a recent McKinsey study that we helped sponsor, the web contributed to 3.2 percent of the French GDP in 2009 and created more than 700,000 jobs during the past 15 years. Between now and 2015, McKinsey estimates that the digital contribution will grow to 5.5 percent of GDP, and 450,000 additional jobs will be created. In order to help accelerate the French digital engine, we’ve launched a
Startup Café
, an online platform offering information and tools.
Our investment plan for France is ambitious, and extends far beyond buildings. We’re expanding our engineering presence to take advantage of France’s strong engineering talent pool and are making significant academic investments, including a partnership with the French national research center
CNRS
.
France is a global cultural leader and we’re working hard to partner with French writers, filmmakers and musicians. Over the past year, we've reached an agreement with the biggest French publisher Hachette to scan and sell digital versions of out-of-print books and are providing payment systems for French news publishers from Hachette. YouTube has signed royalty-collection agreements with music copyright societies and our new Cultural Institute will be located in the Paris headquarters. It will aim at driving innovation in cultural preservation, creation and access, not just in France, but across the world.
Just before the President left, he asked to say a few final words. He praised our “dynamism” and wished well our expanded operations, before making a parting promise. “I hope this inauguration is one of a long series,” he said. “If you invite me to another building opening, I will come.”
Posted by Anne-Gabrielle Dauba Pantanacce, Head of Communications, France
(Cross-posted from the
European Public Policy Blog
)
Gravity Games highlight future scientists and engineers
December 5, 2011
The Google data center in
Caldwell County, NC
lies close to the birthplace of
NASCAR
and any visitor can tell—even our data center is decked out in NASCAR paraphernalia and pretty much everyone is a NASCAR fan. When we learned that many competitive drivers got their first start behind the wheel in
soapbox cars
, we put two and two together and thought there would be no better way to get local students excited about science and engineering than by giving them a chance to build and race a soapbox car in the first ever Western North Carolina Gravity Games Soapbox Races.
We teamed up with
Appalachian State University
(ASU) to co-host a soapbox race, hoping that young people would bring the same excitement they had for NASCAR to this hands-on engineering activity and gain some technological ingenuity along the way. The race was divided into three divisions: middle school, high school and an open group for university, corporate or private teams. Each car would compete for both speed and creativity honors. During the months leading up to the event, ASU’s physics, technology and design graduate students and Googlers from the data center in Caldwell County served as mentors for the teams and provided the students with technical assistance and advice.
On November 19, I joined a team of Googlers from the data center and several hundred parents, kids and their derby cars in downtown Lenoir for the race. While most families were still in their PJs, we were busy transforming Church Street into a race track—complete with hay bales, a custom-built starting gate, finish line, a race timer designed by the team at the data center, an event emcee and 34 colorful soapbox cars. Some even had sponsor logos, just like real race cars.
Teams from Alleghany, Avery, Burke, Caldwell, Catawba and Watauga counties competed to be the fastest car on the hill and the kids had an “in-it-to-win-it” swagger. Some had designed their own custom T-shirts, while one driver dressed up in a Super Mario costume. One team created a box-turtle car made from metal and wood and there were several cars with custom paint jobs that included bright red flames and a few bug eyes.
The vehicles had to run solely on potential energy. No electrical, chemical or animal-powered sources were allowed. (Because you never know what kids are capable of, we forbade nuclear power in the rules, too, just in case.) The only thing cars could run on was gravity and—for the upper age divisions—potential mechanical energy, such as springs, weights, elastic or
flywheels
. Most of the teams stuck with gravity as the primary accelerator and focused on reducing friction, optimizing vehicle weight and selecting the fastest path down the race course.
The Church Street race track was 650 feet long, and the average speed over the course of the track was 17 miles per hour. Top speeds at the finish line topped 30 miles per hour, and our
winners
clocked in with total times around 26 seconds.
With a time of 26.213 seconds, Hudson Middle School won the speed category in the middle school division, beating 22 other teams. Caldwell Career Middle College won the speed category in the high school division, defeating seven other high school teams with a time of 26.962. Hudson Middle School also won the People’s Choice Award, given to the car the attendees voted as their overall favorite. Each team entered a car that was either custom-built or was created from an approved kit.
In the creativity category, Jacobs Fork Middle School and St. Stephens High School took home top honors. In the open division, ASU’s North Carolina Center for Engineering Technologies won for its two-bicycle design.
The Gravity Games was one of my proudest moments as a Googler. Beyond being a great time, it gave young people a way to get excited about science, technology and engineering. The students who participated in the soapbox races are future engineers and scientists (and possibly Googlers), and I hope they’ll have more opportunities to inspire their peers and this community with the incredible abilities we saw that morning.
Naturally, we’re already planning to host another Western North Carolina Gravity Games in the spring of 2012 and we’ll be including more North Carolina communities. You can view the complete results and event photos at
www.ncgravitygames.com
.
Posted by Enoch Moeller, Hardware Operations Manager
Say yes to CS during CSEdWeek
December 2, 2011
This Sunday marks the start of the third annual Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek), taking place in the U.S. from December 4-10. CSEdWeek underscores the need for strong computer science education programs to ensure the nation has a pipeline of future workers skilled in technology. It’s a call to action that urges local efforts by parents and teachers to not only pay attention to CS education, but also to elevate its status and quality.
Current projections
show we’ll have 1.4 million new computing jobs by 2018, but a recent
report from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) found that only nine states count high school computer science courses as a core academic subject in graduation requirements. You don’t have to be an engineer to do the math here—if things stay this way, there will be a shortage of skilled workers to fill these valuable jobs.
We want to increase access to education and technology for all students, which is why we support initiatives like CSEdWeek that are vital to accomplishing that very goal. CSEdWeek is a chance to eliminate misperceptions about CS and computing careers and increase awareness about all the opportunities understanding computing enables. Furthermore, a high-quality education that includes CS teaches students skills and processes that will benefit them no matter what field they choose to go into. The overarching goal is to have K-12 computer science become one of the core disciplines in our national education system.
A few ideas about what you can do this week:
Students can celebrate CSEdWeek and spread the word by changing their Google+, Facebook, Twitter or other social media profiles to a computer scientist you identify with most.
Teachers can use
CS Unplugged
to teach lessons that explain how computers work, and at the same time, address critical mathematics and science concepts from number systems and algorithms to manipulating variables and logic.
Anyone can “
Take the Pledge
” to join in and/or support teachers, students, parents and others who are participating in CSEdWeek activities and events.
CSEdWeek is a major activity of
Computing in the Core
(CinC), a non-partisan coalition of which we’re proud to be a member, alongside other corporations, associations, scientific societies and nonprofits striving to elevate computer science education to a core academic subject in K-12 education. Including CS as a core subject will give young people career-readiness knowledge and the skills necessary to thrive in a technology-focused society.
For additional information on CSEdWeek or to find out about events for students, parents and educators in your area, please visit the CSEdWeek website:
www.csedweek.org
.
Posted by Tara Canobbio, K-12 Education Outreach
Take a walk on the sell-side
December 2, 2011
In June, we
announced
that we are acquiring
Admeld
, a New York-based company that helps large publishers (also known as the “sell-side” by people, like me, who live and breathe display advertising) maximize their revenues from online advertising. We’re pleased that the U.S. Department of Justice has today cleared this deal. We’ll close the acquisition in the coming days and then start the real work—building improved products and services that help our publisher partners to make more informed decisions across all their ad space, and to grow their revenues.
The opportunity for major online publishers is huge...and growing. People are spending more and more time consuming online content across numerous devices, advertisers are running more online and mobile campaigns to reach them; and ads continue to get more engaging and relevant. This represents an unprecedented moment for publishers. We believe that improved technology and services can help publishers seize it and make online advertising work much better.
For now, it’s business as usual—Admeld’s products will operate separately to Google’s existing solutions (such as
DoubleClick for Publishers
and the
DoubleClick Ad Exchange
). But over time, there are opportunities to bring the best of both businesses together in a variety of ways; and to develop entirely new solutions, too.
As we do this, Admeld and Google are guided by some core shared beliefs:
We want to give publishers more
control
over their ad space, and offer more
flexible
ways to manage and sell it. Publishers’ businesses should influence the technology they use; not the other way around
We believe that publishers can make better decisions to maximize their revenues when they have better
insights
at their fingertips
We envisage a much
simpler
system that enables publishers to manage and sell their ad space—across desktop, video, mobile, tablets and more
The content produced by Google’s and Admeld’s publisher partners is the lifeblood of the Internet. We can’t wait to start building the next generation of tools and services that will help them grow their businesses.
Update
December 6, 2011
: Our acquisition of Admeld has now closed.
Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President of Display Advertising
(Cross-posted on the
DoubleClick Publisher Blog
)
Get more into what you love on YouTube with our new look
December 1, 2011
From your favorite
sports highlights
and
dance competitions
to
make-up tutorials
,
science experiments
and
great movies
, there’s a ton of great stuff on YouTube—over 3 billion views worth per day by last count. More and more, behind every great video is a great Channel, and with our announcement last month that
more of them
are coming to YouTube, we want to make it easier for you to find and keep tabs of what you want to watch.
So, today we're introducing a new homepage, Channel design and a fresh coat of digital paint. Here are three ways these updates will improve your life on YouTube:
1. A new homepage
The YouTube homepage is your gateway to a vast entertainment universe. To help you get more into YouTube, we’re making it easier to find and follow great Channels when you arrive. On the left side of the homepage you can create your own, personal, customizable YouTube Channel line-up. Sign in, or
create a YouTube account
. Then you can browse recommended Channels; customize your homepage’s feed; even link your YouTube account to Google+ and Facebook to see what your friends are sharing. The new homepage feed we
launched
earlier this year is now front and center on the homepage. You can switch between feeds by clicking on different Channels on the left.
For step by step instructions on using the new YouTube homepage, you can go to our
help center
.
2. Simpler, customizable Channels
Given the homepage’s new focus on helping you find and organize your favorite Channels, we would be remiss if we didn’t update the look and feel of the Channels themselves. Today we're launching an improved Channel design focused on what matters most: helping users find great videos. As different uploaders have different goals, we've created new Channel templates to meet your needs whether you produce one video a week or have thousands of videos for a fan to browse. Some partners have even uploaded
videos
talking about the features, or
giving tips
on how they’re taking advantage of the new design. To learn how to opt-in to and test this new Channel design, check out our
help center
.
3. A new overall design
To bring the new homepage and Channels designs together we’ve also applied a fresh coat of digital paint across the whole site. In July, we
unveiled
an experimental design called Cosmic Panda. We’ve used your feedback to improve our overall design, and today, we’re presenting a cleaner and simpler YouTube, with a consistent gray background, bigger video thumbnails and a more streamlined watch page.
Ready to get started? Your new YouTube is already shipped and waiting for you at
YouTube.com
, and like every new toy, we included an
instruction manual
(and
video
) to help.
Our recent
Channels expansion
, our
grants
and
educational programs
, and this new design are all focused on helping you discover a broader range of entertainment on YouTube. We’re always innovating and testing new stuff out to make the experience the best it can be for you. We rely on your feedback to figure out when we've gotten it right and when it needs further tweaks. So let us know what you think.
Posted by the YouTube team
Here comes Santa Claus
December 1, 2011
Whether you know him as
Père Noël, Weihnachtsmann, Babbo Natale, Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas
or
Santa Claus
, there’s a chance you’re anticipating a visit from the jolly old man this December 24. Although he goes by many different names, the magic he brings to the holidays is felt by children and adults celebrating Christmas all over the world.
Growing up in Lawrence, Kansas, I have fond memories of racing to the tree Christmas morning to see what Santa left during his stop in my town. Sometimes it took a lot of work to stay on the right side of the “naughty or nice” list, but Santa came through for me every year.
Like most traditions, this one has evolved over time. Now, in addition to racing downstairs to their stockings, children can follow Santa online on his annual trip from the North Pole to their chimney. With
NORAD Tracks Santa
, children and families can watch Santa as he delivers presents all over the globe (with a little help from the North American Aerospace Defense Command). If you haven't yet followed this tradition in your family, we'd like to invite you to join us this Christmas Eve.
The countdown to track Santa begins today. Visit
www.noradsanta.org
the entire month of December to play
holiday games
and learn fun facts about
NORAD
and
Santa
. Set a reminder for 2 a.m. EST on December 24 to start tracking Santa in real-time on the website using
Google Maps
, and in 3D with
Google Earth
. If your phone is handy on Christmas Eve, you can also search for [santa] on
Google Maps for mobile
to track his journey on the go.
Wherever you are, we look forward to counting down to the holidays with you at
www.noradsanta.org
. Be sure to finish all your holiday shopping in time so you can join us for the main event on December 24.
In the meantime, to get into the Santa tracking spirit, follow NORAD Tracks Santa on
Google+
and enjoy a few highlights from last year’s journey in this video:
Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering, Google Earth and Maps
(Cross-posted on the
Lat Long blog
)
America’s oldest flour company finds success on the web
December 1, 2011
From time to time we invite guests to post about items of interest and are pleased to have PJ Hamel, web producer for education and community at
King Arthur Flour
, join us today. In this post, PJ talks about the unlikely story of a small flour company based in Vermont that’s made it big with the help of the web. -Ed.
This is the story of a small, regional company that sells… flour. Yes, flour. It’s the story of how King Arthur Flour, a centuries-old company, used the web to grow into an international business, devoted to spreading the pure joy of baking throughout the world. Thanks to the web, it’s a story that will stretch far into the future.
Now America’s oldest flour company, King Arthur Flour began in 1790. George Washington had just become the United States’ first President. Despite the recent Revolution, Americans missed their English flour. So Henry Wood, a Boston entrepreneur, began to import flour from England. (Import from England—our arch-enemy? Even then, King Arthur Flour wasn’t afraid to make a bold move.)
Over the next two centuries King Arthur grew, in its own small way. The business gradually moved beyond the Boston area, and sold its flour throughout all of New England (we also moved our HQ to Vermont). In 1990, King Arthur launched The Baker’s Catalogue, a mail-order catalogue selling flour, tools and baking ingredients. Over the next five years, the catalogue helped introduce King Arthur Flour to markets outside of New England.
By 1996, King Arthur Flour was selling like hotcakes, with flour in supermarkets across the U.S. The World Wide Web was also growing in reach. That’s when we decided to make another bold move: taking our business online. We could see the power of the web—how it would enable us to reach customers and markets a small company like ours would never have had access to in the past.
King Arthur’s first site, in retrospect, was crudely designed and very, very basic. It featured five recipes, information about our flours and a bit of our history.
Since then, however, we’ve ramped up our presence on the web—and become tech savvy. Today, we’ve published more than 2,000 recipes online, all tested by bakers in our test kitchen. Over 75 percent of our catalogue sales now come in through our e-commerce site, which we built in 1999. We now connect directly with our customers through our blog, ratings and reviews and the social web.
Customers new and old find us via Google search, through both organic search results and targeted ads; we manage 2,000+ baking-related keywords on Google AdWords. Email marketing, and the spread of our recipes and content throughout the web, have established us as a true resource to millions of people who love to bake. In fact, during the peak of the holiday baking season, we receive almost 2 million site visits and 10 million pageviews per month.
And we’re always looking for new ways to inspire people to try baking. In the past year alone, we’ve implemented:
a mobile- and tablet-optimized website
the
Google Catalogs
app for iPad and Android
SMS (text message) marketing
QR codes on our flour bags and our catalogs
Online baking contests
Baking Hangouts on
Google+
and free, live streamed baking classes
The energy we’ve put into our online presence has produced tremendous growth for the business. Our workforce has quintupled in size, and we’ve built a huge new warehouse to handle the enormous increase in orders and sales. Brand awareness (and flour sales) have reached new heights across the U.S.; indeed, around the world. And significant growth continues year after year, with no signs of slowing down.
King Arthur spent 205 years offline and 16 years (and counting) online. Thanks to the web, this little flour company in Vermont has truly become America’s baking resource. We’re a 221-year-old startup—looking to grow, and loving every minute of it.
Posted by PJ Hamel, Web Producer, Education and Community, King Arthur Flour
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