This week in search 11/05/10

This is one of a regular series of posts on search experience updates. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

As the leaves turn here in Mountain View, we’re reminded again about the importance of time. On the search team, we work every day to save you precious seconds so you can spend that time doing the things that really matter. This week, we’ve brought Google Instant to mobile, helping you more quickly find the results you’re looking for. We also brought you up-to-the-minute election results, so you could be the first to find out if your candidate got the job, and improved snippets for shopping sites, so you can quickly pick, say, the right stopwatch or alarm clock to buy. Speaking of alarm clocks, read on to the end of the post for an important tip...

Google Instant for mobile
Yesterday, we released a beta version of Google Instant for mobile, currently for Android 2.2+ and iOS4 devices in the U.S. To try it out, go to google.com in your phone’s browser and tap the Google Instant “Turn on” link beneath the search box. Like the desktop version of Instant, when you type on your mobile device you’ll see predictions of what you might be searching for, and results for the top prediction appear automatically. Here’s a demo:



Live midterm election results in search
During this week's midterm elections in the U.S., people came to Google to get up-to-the-minute results. To speed things up we flipped on a simple way to find election results when you search terms like [elections] or [midterm election results]. It includes the latest results for U.S. House and Senate races and, where appropriate, your state Governor and Senate races. You can also choose to see the results for any specific states with queries like [new york election results]. Many people were curious about the results for California—a search for [ca election results 2010] and related terms was the #2 hottest query on Tuesday.

Rich snippets for shopping sites
In time for the holiday season, we now support rich snippets for shopping sites! Rich snippets are search results that have been enhanced using structured data from webpages. When you’re looking for something to buy, you’ll start seeing a new search result format with product price, availability and reviews. Here’s an example from a search for an [office lava lamp]:


This feature is currently available in the U.S., but we’ll be rolling it out in new countries soon. For more details, read our post on the Webmaster Central blog.

This week in searches
With the end of daylight savings time (which happens this weekend in the U.S.), in many parts of the world people were thinking about time this week. Between the U.S. elections, Halloween and, of course, the World Series, there was plenty to schedule. We all know the Giants won the title, but who won the search trends battle? Watch this week’s Google Beat to find out.

Thanks for sharing a few minutes to learn more about the latest in search. Oh, and don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour this Sunday!

Posted by Ben Gomes, Distinguished Engineer

The power of Google Instant, now in your pocket

(Cross-posted on the Mobile Blog)

Google Instant makes search faster by displaying not just predictions but actual search results as you type. This saves valuable time on a desktop browser, but wouldn’t it be great to have Google Instant on mobile devices, where each keystroke and page load is much slower and you frequently have just a moment to find the information you need?

In September we announced that we were working to bring Google Instant to mobile, and today we’re making a beta version available to most iPhone and Android devices in the U.S. To try it out, go to google.com in your phone’s browser and tap the Google Instant “Turn on” link beneath the search box (if you don’t see the “Turn on” link, try waiting a moment and then refresh the page).

Like the desktop version of Google Instant, when you type on your mobile device you’ll see predictions of what you might be searching for. If you type [anse], for example, you should see [ansel adams] along with other predictions. Results for the first prediction appear automatically, and tapping on the other predictions will display those results. Pressing the enter key or the search button skips the predictions and will display results for exactly what you’ve typed. Check out our demo video:



With Google Instant on mobile, we’re pushing the limits of mobile browsers and wireless networks. You will probably notice a big improvement in speed when you search thanks to a new AJAX and HTML5 implementation for mobile that dynamically updates the page with new results and eliminates the need to load a new page for each query.

Google Instant for mobile works best on 3G and WiFi networks, but since the quality of any wireless connection can fluctuate, we’ve made it easy to enable or disable Google Instant without ever leaving the page. Just tap the “Turn on” or “Turn off” link.

We hope you’ll enjoy using Google Instant for mobile as much as we enjoyed making it. It’s currently available for Android 2.2 (“Froyo”) devices and iPhones and iPods running iOS 4 in the U.S. in English. We’re working to support additional countries and languages and more devices in the coming months, so stay tuned.

Posted by Steve Kanefsky, Software Engineer

YouTube highlights – 11/4/2010

This is the latest in our series of YouTube highlights. Every couple of weeks, we bring you regular updates on new product features, interesting programs to watch, and tips you can use to grow your audience on YouTube. Just look for the label “YouTube Highlights” and subscribe to the series. – Ed.

Below is our update from the last two weeks with news from the recent U.S. elections, product improvements, video contests for both viewers and partners and a couple milestones reached.

Debating the issues on YouTube
Leading up to the US midterm elections this past Tuesday, political campaigns, voters and interest groups came to YouTube to debate the issues. Who emerged on top of the YouTube elections heap? We took a look at all videos categorized as News & Politics on YouTube and found a mixture of official campaign videos, viewer-generated content and videos from interest groups. Here are the top 10 most-viewed videos—by the numbers.

Celebrate the natural world
If you enjoy nature or are passionate about environmental issues, a new program gives you the chance to create a video that brings your passion to life. The most innovative short film—judged by the YouTube community—will receive a National Geographic photography workshop and $1,000 gift card from The North Face. Get started at Planet Inspired.

Release notes: improvements in 3D, new languages and easier bug reporting
We’ve made several updates since our last product release in September. Try our new player for 3D videos, which is faster than the previous player. YouTube is also now available in Amharic and Swahili, and the virtual keyboard that appears on your computer or mobile screen is available in 26 languages. Finally, we’ve added a "report a bug" link at the bottom of any YouTube page.

Here's where you can turn on the virtual keyboard

On the rise
Many YouTube partners are hitting subscriber numbers in the 100,000s and even in the millions. To help more video makers get to those kind of subscriber numbers, we started a new feature on the YouTube Blog called “On the Rise,” where your vote counts on who should be featured on the YouTube hompage. So far, emilynoel83 has received the most votes—check out an example of her work below.



A billion subscribers and a half a billion Promoted Video views
In 2006, we introduced an easy way for community members to keep track of each other’s updates on YouTube: the yellow subscribe button. When you subscribe to a channel and sign in, new videos from that channel show up as “Subscriptions” on your personalized YouTube homepage. Today, the button that’s been immortalized as a throw cushion hits an important landmark: it’s been clicked more than 1 billion times.

We also announced last week that Promoted Videos has hit half a billion views. Promoted Videos allow you to promote your video ad alongside search results and related videos on YouTube. The first Promoted Video campaign was “Penny Pranks” by Office Max in November 2008.

And congratulations to Lady Gaga who has received more than 1 billion video views on her YouTube channel!

Happy Halloween
Finally, Halloween’s already over, but we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss the first-ever user-designed doodle, which was created by xperpetualmotion and spent last Sunday on our homepage.

Don’t forget to check out the latest advice on filmmaking in the digital age, and for more information on all things YouTube, please visit us at the YouTube Blog.

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Marketing Manager, YouTube Team

More midterm election search trends as the results come in

As Election Day went on, people continued to come to Google for information and, importantly, updates on results. Starting around 8pm PT yesterday, Nov 2, and continuing throughout the night and into the morning, more than half the terms in Hot Trends were related to the election. People searched for [live election coverage] as well as news sites like [fox news] and [drudge report]. Most of the popular searches, however, were for certain races and candidates, starting mostly with races in the Eastern time zone and gradually moving west as polls closed across the country.

The hot terms included Senators-elect [marco rubio] of Florida, [dan coats] of Indiana and [rand paul] of Kentucky, three Republicans who won yesterday, as well as incumbent Democrats Sen. [blanche lincoln] of Arkansas and [russ feingold] of Wisconsin, who lost, and Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who won the special Senate election to take Robert Byrd’s former Senate seat. [joe sestak], Pennsylvania’s Democrat candidate for Senate, was also popular online, as well as [joe toomey], who defeated him. People also looked for information on the [delaware senate race] which had gained national attention largely due to Republican candidate Christine O’Donnell (she lost).

Beginning around 9pm PT, we saw interest rising in the [nevada senate race], the outcome of which would determine whether Majority Leader Harry Reid would stay in office. Searches for [harry reid polls] and [nevada election results] continued to be popular even after it was announced that he had won. California’s incumbent Democrat Sen. [barbara boxer], who also won her reelection bid, was also popular search. And the still-undecided Alaska Senate race continues to drive searches, especially for the write-in candidate there, [lisa murkowski].

In the House of Representatives, we’ve seen searches spike for Rep. [nancy pelosi], who won her California district last night but lost her position as Speaker of the House when the Republicans gained the majority in the house. Her successor as Speaker, [john boehner], was also popular. And there was interest in reelected candidates from both sides of the aisle, from Democrat [barney frank] of Massachusetts to Republican [michele bachmann] of Minnesota.

Popular Governors’ races include Ohio, Florida (people are also looking for info about its winner as of this morning, [rick scott]), Texas, Illinois, Connecticut, South Carolina (which elected its first female governor last night, [nikki haley]) and Minnesota, where the winner has yet to be decided as of this moment. [emmer], the Republican candidate there, is in the top 20 list on Hot Trends as of 8am PT this morning.

California’s prop 19, which lost by an estimated 10 percentage points, continued to be popular online, as people checked for [prop 19 results] [prop 19 status] and [prop 19 poll numbers], asking [did prop 19 pass in california].

Some East Coast residents seem to have gone to bed before the results came out last night, and are catching up on the news this morning. Searches for New England newspapers [portland press herald], [hartford courant], [burlington free press] and [bangor daily news] took up a fifth of the Hot Trends list at 8am PT today, along with searches for [tallahassee democrat] and [columbus dispatch].

Finally, it wasn’t just current candidates who made news last night. Former vice presidential candidate [geraldine ferraro] was popular online; Ferraro appeared on TV last night with her fellow VP candidate Sarah Palin, and the former made some comments about female candidates for president in 2012 that had some people raising eyebrows. People were also interested in [obama trip to india], the President’s trip planned for this weekend.

That’s it for now, but we’ll keep an eye on the search trends—and on the news—and see if we have any more interesting tidbits to share.

Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog Editor

More midterm election search trends

Election Day is finally here in the U.S., and many people are turning to the web to get information before heading out to vote. On Hot Trends at 1pm PT today, 13 of the top 20 searches were election-related, most of which had to do with figuring out where to vote. Terms like [polling place locator], [voting locations by zip code] and [where do i vote] have been popular all day, as well as state-specific searches like [nc board of elections] and [where to vote in minnesota]. Others are turning to the Internet to ask how long they have to vote, with searches like [what time do the polls close]. And earlier today, we even saw a handful of hot searches like [am i registered to vote in texas] and [voter registration]—apparently some well-meaning citizens have left one important part of the process until the last minute!

Of course, many people are also looking to make decisions about how to vote. The terms [vote smart] and [voters guide] have been popular today, indicating that people are trying to squeeze in some research before heading to the polls. Naturally, searches for various candidates, from [bill white] of Texas to [charlie baker] of Massachusetts, have increased today as well. Other searches like [massachusetts ballot questions 2010], [oklahoma state questions] and [amendment 4 florida] spiked this morning as people look for information about statewide measures. And at 1pm PT, three of the top 20 terms on Hot Trends had to do with California's proposition 19.

People are also already looking to get information about returns—searching for [exit polls 2010], [gallup poll], [voter turnout], [2010 election results] and [voting results], even though polls don’t close on the East Coast for several more hours.

Looking back over this past weekend, we saw a steady stream of political searches coming in. Search volume for California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina spiked last Friday when news broke that she had entered the hospital for an infection, but searches for Fiorina have since dropped below those for her opponent, Sen. Barbara Boxer. And amidst growing speculation about the possibility of his becoming Speaker of the House (and back-and-forth barbs with President Obama over the weekend), searches for Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner rose steadily across the country. Finally, last weekend was the culmination of nearly two months of national interest in Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. On Saturday, October 30, more than half the terms on Hot Trends were related to the rally, and related searches like [comedy central rally] and [keep fear alive] have exploded, increasing by more than 5,000% in several cases.

We’ll be back later on with the latest on our election search trends. Until then, go find your polling place and vote!

Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog Editor

Announcing the Panoramio Photo Contest

(Cross-posted from the Lat Long Blog)

The Panoramio community enables you to share your photos and explore them on Google Earth, Google Maps and other places. If you’ve never geo-tagged a photo, watch this video to learn how easy it is to add photos to the Panoramio layer in Google Earth.

Now you can add some excitement to your photo project and enter your photos to the monthly Panoramio Geotagged Photo Contest! Starting this month, we’ll be giving away the new Casio Hybrid-GPS camera EX-H20G to the winner of each category (Scenery, Heritage, Travel and Unusual Location). The Panoramio community reviews all of the submissions and votes for what they consider to be the best each month.


Casio’s new Hybrid-GPS camera combines a GPS engine with autonomic positioning made possible by a motion sensor. This makes geotagging easy—both outdoors and indoors.


If you haven’t joined the Panoramio community yet, try it out and don’t forget to participate in our monthly contest. To enter your photo, click on “Submit to the contest” and choose a category. Good luck and we can’t wait to see your photos!

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Passing the torch to the cloud: NYU is going Google

(Cross-posted on the Google Enterprise Blog)

The weather report may predict sun today in New York City, but it’s beginning to look more like a city that’s in the “cloud.” Today, NYU announced that it’s moving to Google Apps for Education, providing cloud-based email and collaboration tools to the entire university community. This announcement comes just weeks after New York State created an initiative to bring Google Apps for Education to their K-12 schools. With students and faculty across New York now using Google Apps, it looks like the Empire State has fully embraced the cloud.

This move to Google Apps will provide more than 60,000 students, staff and faculty at NYU with Google tools like Gmail, Calendar, Docs and Sites and will bring all 18 schools of NYU—including medical, dental and law schools—together on one uniform system. This project is estimated to save the University around $400,000 annually by eliminating the need to purchase, upgrade, and maintain in-house mail servers and software licenses.

Marilyn McMillan, NYU’s Chief Information Officer says the move is “...a win-win: in one stroke, we are able to provide better email services to members of the NYU community, offer a new set of tools for academic collaboration, and achieve savings for the University.”

The community of NYU joins more than 10 million users from thousands of schools across the globe who have gone Google, and we’re proud to welcome them to the family.

To learn more about how you can bring your campus to the cloud, visit www.google.com/a/edu.

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Apps for Education team