Google launches Goo.Gl

Google has launched its own URL shortening service, aptly called goo.gl.

At the moment, its only being used for Google Toolbar and Feedburner. The shortener is not a stand alone service and is not available for “broader consumer use.”Google assures that its shortener will be stable and secure to help protect users from clicking on malicious sites. And Google promises a speedy service.

Google India's Most Searched Terms in 2009: Budget, Kambakht Ishq, IRCTC,Satyam...

2009 Year-End Google Zeitgeist: India
Global economic downturn and local implications were clearly on India's mind as Budget 2009 and Satyam share price emerged as the fastest rising queries on Google. India mourned the untimely demise of Micheal Jackson and looked for the latest on Twitter but without impacting the good old Indian railways and Gmail which emerged as the most popular online destinations.
Young politicians like Rahul Gandhi and Sachin Pilot emerged as the new face of political leadership in the country. With Corporate woes and recession news, more people looked for ways to meditate and concentrate. Romance scored over action, fantasy and drama – with Love Aaj kal emerging as the most searched movie of the year, followed by Harry Potter and Slumdog Millionaire.

Fastest Rising Searches

1. budget 2009
2. kambakth ishq
3. irctc
4. satyam share price
5. bhuvan
6. michael jackson
7. twitter
8. election results
9. windows 7
10. nokia 5800

Most popular

1. gmail
2. youtube
3. yahoomail
4. orkut
5. indian railways
6. yahoo
7. google
8. rediffmail
9. facebook
10. rediff

Most popular celebrities

1. katrina kaif
2. michael jackson
3. salman khan
4. aishwarya rai
5. shahid kapoor
6. kareena kapoor
7. shahrukh khan
8. angelina jolie
9. megan fox
10. sachin tendulkar

Most popular politician

1. rahul gandhi
2. indira gandhi
3. sachin pilot
4. sarah palin
5. p chidambaram
6. mayawati
7. barack obama
8. sonia gandhi
9. rajesh pilot
10. maneka gandhi

Most popular movies

1. love aaj kal
2. harry potter
3. slumdog millionaire
4. kaminey
5. kambakht ishq
6. ghajini
7. hannah montana
8. dev d
9. wake up sid
10. dostana

How to

1. how to kiss
2. how to hack
3. how to meditate
4. how to study
5. how to swim
6. how to draw
7. how to flirt
8. how to chat
9. how to concentrate
10. how to download


More AT http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/press/zeitgeist2009/index.html

Related Links Widget for Bloggers by Google

ages and searches to your site. Unlike the homonymous service released by Google in 2006, the new Related Links restricts the results to your site.

"Related Links is a tool to help webmasters increase page views on their sites. Given a page on your site, Related Links can choose the most related pages from your site and show them in a gadget. You can embed this gadget in your page to help your users reach other pages easily. Related Links also suggests searches that users can run within your site to find even more related pages."

The service is not publicly available, but you can try a demo and ask for an invitation. "To apply for an invitation, please send an email to relatedlinks@google.com stating your Gmail address, website domains and approximate pageviews per day."

Once you get the invitation, log in using your Google account and click on "Manage Related Links". You'll be able to configure the gadget, customize the look and feel and enable some advanced features: highlighting the keywords from the page for visitors that come from a search engine, blacklisting web pages from the list of related links and removing prefixes or suffixes from titles.

After configuring the gadget, paste the code in one of your sites and test if it works well. If you edit the gadget's configuration, the changes are reflected instantly and you don't need to change the code.

The results are relevant, but there are some issues which show that the service is still in an early phase: there's an encoding bug when displaying page titles and links are only opened in a new window.

VIA Googlesystem Blog

Google unveils first ever 'Made in India' Doodle

It took 90 days, over 4,000 entries and 60,000 votes for India to get its first 'made in India' Doodle. Dennis Hwang - the Master Doodler chose the first-ever young doodler for India on the basis of 'innovation and creativity'.

So what is a Google Doodle? "Doodles" are creative Google logos that appear on some special days, to commemorate scientific and artistic achievements, historic or seasonal events, and other local occasions. Their eye-catching designs also often teach you something new about a day, event or occasion whenever you happen to stumble upon them. For over a decade, Google has been designing innovative logos called 'Doodles' for its homepage and Dennis Hwang - the master doodler - has been driving this innovation. In August 2009, Google India decided to unleash the creativity of thousands of children in India as we announced India's first ever doodling competition called Doodle4Google™.

Happy Birthday - Blogger completes 10 years today

Many Many Happy Returns of the day to Blogger and my fellow Blogger users.
Blogger has today gifted all its users a revamped 'Post Editor', which looks next generation in the first look.
I will be doing the full review later today but right now I am in the celebration mood. Like most of the bloggers, My first and last choice was always Blogger, the ease of use, so many features, that too free of cost. I never thought I will be shifting to Wordpress or anyother blogging platform.
Blogger has become synonymous to blogging for million around the world. I know today thousands of users will be paying their gratitude to Blogger for such a nice experice all these day and I hope this will coontinue in future. I leave the rest for others to jot down.

Blogger History:

• On August 23, 1999, Blogger was launched by Pyra Labs. As one of the earliest dedicated blog-publishing tools, it is credited for helping popularize the format.
• In February 2003, Pyra Labs was acquired by Google under undisclosed terms. The acquisition allowed premium features (for which Pyra had charged) to become free. About a year later, Pyra Labs' co-founder, Evan Williams, left Google.
• In 2004, Google purchased Picasa; it integrated Picasa and its photo sharing utility Hello into Blogger, allowing users to post photos to their blogs.
• On May 9, 2004, Blogger introduced a major redesign, adding features such as web standards-compliant templates, individual archive pages for posts, comments, and posting by email.
• On August 14, 2006, Blogger launched its latest version in beta, codenamed "Invader", alongside the gold release. This migrated users to Google servers and included some new features.
• In December 2006, this new version of Blogger was taken out of beta.
• By May 2007, Blogger had completely moved over to Google operated servers.
• In October 2008, Turkey temporarily blocked access to Blogger.

• Blogger was ranked 16 on the list of top 50 domains in terms of number of unique visitors in 2007.

Blogger releases new 'Post Editor' - 10th B'day Gift to users

In the bid to give users more stable posting experiece, Google Blogger today launched new post editor. Blogger's new post editor has been activated in all the existing Blogger accounts, howver one can go to settings and change it to the old post editor.

At the first glance, this post editor is refreshing and good if you are bored of you good old post editor.
But, I have found some problems, which I think Blogger will get rid of in the meantime. It seems that this Blogger Post Editor dows not recognise Keyboard shortcuts while editing in the HTML mode. Apparently, I tried using 'Ctrl + B' to make the text Bold, which was not working.


New Post Editor Features:

1. Improved Image Handling

When you upload an image to the new post editor it will appear as a thumbnail in the image dialog box. That way, you can upload several images at once, and then add them into your post at your convenience. The thumbnails will be available until you close the post editor.

When you add an image from the dialog into your post it will be placed at the insertion point instead of at the top of the post.

If you don’t like where an image is in your post, you can drag it around to another spot. If you drag it towards the left side of the editor it will float to the left, likewise for the right, and if you leave it in the center it will be centered. You can drag the image between paragraphs and other block elements. Unlike in the current editor, dragging in the new editor preserves the link to the full-size version of the image.

You can easily resize or remove an image with the image size “bubble.” Click on the image (Firefox 3 users may need to double-click) to bring up the bubble, and resize the image instantly. You can resize any image, including ones added by URL, but if you resize an image that was uploaded through the post editor we resample the image on our servers to keep the download size small. 

2. Improved Raw HTML

If you use Edit HTML, especially to add tables and other advanced HTML to your posts, you should find that the new editor has a number of enhancements to make the experience less frustrating, or, dare we say it, even pleasant.

By default, the current post editor replaces any newlines in your post with
tags. This can cause problems when you want to use newlines to make table or list HTML clearer, since the inserted
s will mangle the formatting significantly. The new post editor does not introduce
s within tables, lists, scripts, styles, preformatted blocks, or objects.<

Since they won’t destroy the formatting, the new post editor adds clarity newlines to the HTML that’s generated by Compose mode. For example, if you create a list in Compose mode and then look at it in Edit HTML, you’ll see that there are newlines before each of the tags.

3. Other New Features

• Add your location to your posts with geotagging
• Posts are now timestamped at the date and time they are published, not when they were orignally created.
• Vertical resizing. You can now change the height of the post editor by dragging the resize handle in the lower right (near the labels field). The size is saved in a per-user, per-blog preference.
• Easy link editing in Compose mode. Just click a link and you’ll have the option of changing its URL or removing the link
• Full Safari 3 support on both Windows and Macintosh. The old editor is pretty quirky on these browsers, but the new editor works as you’d expect.
• New Preview dialog that shows your post in a width and font size approximating what you’d see on a blog.
• Placeholder image for tags (such as those from video embeds) so that you can see and drag them around Compose mode.
• New toolbar. This toolbar looks better, loads more quickly, and has undo and redo buttons. By popular demand, the full justification button has returned. We’ve also added a strike through button and improved the color palettes.

Google boss Eric Schmidt resigns from Apple board

Google chief executive officer Eric Schmidt has resigned from the board of Apple because of potential conflicts of interest, Apple said in a statement Monday.

The move comes as the two companies increasingly find themselves competing in the same arena. Google's Android operating system power phones that are a major rival to Apple's iPhone, while its Chrome browser and its plans for a Google operating system also compete with Apple's products. Schmidt has been with Google since 2001 and on Apple's board since August 2006.

"Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple's core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric's effectiveness as an Apple board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

"Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple's board," he added.

"I have very much enjoyed my time on the Apple board; it's a fantastic company," said Schmidt in a statement. "But as Apple explained today (Monday) we've agreed it makes sense for me to step down now."

Google "interested" in Microsoft-Yahoo deal

Search engine giant Google Inc said it was "interested" in Microsoft's 10-year search deal with Yahoo (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) announced on Wednesday, adding that competition was usually good for online users.

"There has traditionally been a lot of competition online, and our experience is that competition brings about great things for users," said Google spokesman Adam Kovakovich.

"We're interested to learn more about the deal," he said in an emailed statement.

Google made a search ad deal with Yahoo in June 2008 but scrapped it because of objections from the Justice Department.

Advertisers had hotly opposed it, fearing Google and Yahoo's dominance of the market could mean higher prices. Yahoo initially struck the deal with Google as a way to fend off an unsolicited takeover bid from Microsoft.

Microsoft had lobbied hard against the Google/Yahoo partnership.

Reuters

YouTube turns to TV

YouTube could soon be appearing on the main TV set with the launch of YouTube XL, which offers new features and a larger display designed to work for the TV rather than a computer monitor.

YouTube XL has an entirely new display design, with larger video player and easier and more streamlined navigation controls.

Some of the features commonly associated with the internet version of YouTube, like comments and suggested videos, are being taken away to clean up the interface and make it clearer for the user.

The TV will need to be hooked up to the user’s computer or games console to receive the service.

With the BBC planning to put its content onto YouTube, it is clear to see how this could quickly become a favourite of TV viewers everywhere.

Story Via techwatch

YouTube Wins Global Movie Premiere

Story from Bloomberg
YouTube will premiere Luc Besson’s latest movie, the first simultaneous Internet and theater debut, as the video-sharing site looks to Hollywood to goose its ad sales and reach profitability.

The Google Inc. unit will premiere “Home” tomorrow, a film about the environment produced by Besson, who has previously directed “The Fifth Element,” “Nikita” and “The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.”

“We’re more than just dogs on skateboards,” said Anthony Zameczkowski, a Paris-based partner development manager for YouTube in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “With us, you have the ability to reach 350 million unique users a month.”

As sales of DVDs falter, filmmakers and rights holders are increasingly looking to ad-funded sites like YouTube and the U.S.’s Hulu.com to attract a wider audience and save on marketing costs. YouTube is eager to turn its first profit by attracting previously reluctant advertisers to support professional film and TV show content.

“The existing short-form model on YouTube is popular with users, but not with advertisers uncomfortable being next to content that is amateur and uncontrolled,” said Clayton Moran, an analyst at New York-based Benchmark Co., who rates Google shares “buy.”

Seeking Profit

YouTube earns money from only about 3 percent of all videos on the site, mainly because of hesitancy by advertisers and concern that some user-generated content may violate copyright protection laws, according to an April report by Credit Suisse. A lack of uniformity on how ads are displayed on the site also complicates buying and takes time, according to the report.

Credit Suisse estimates YouTube’s revenue will rise 20 percent to $240 million in 2009. Sales for the year at Google may reach $16.9 billion, the average of 28 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Before today, Mountain View, California-based Google had gained 40 percent in Nasdaq Stock Market trading this year.

Last month, YouTube’s Zameczkowski was at the Cannes Film Festival to encourage filmmakers to consider the site for long- format projects. It currently hosts a channel called “The Screening Room,” which showcases independent and short films handpicked by a YouTube film editor.

‘Terror Creatures’

In April, the new categories “Movies” and “Shows” were introduced on YouTube’s U.S. site, supported by ads that run in the start, middle and end of a segment, Zameczkowski said. The films are mostly older and more obscure, such as “Death Duel of Kung Fu,” “Terror Creatures From the Grave” and “His Girl Friday,” from studios such as Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.

“We were initially surprised when people were willing to sit down and watch long format, but clearly it’s where the trend is going today,” said Chris Dale, a spokesman at YouTube’s head office in San Bruno, California. “We had increased demand from users and from potential content partners and advertisers.”

YouTube now has the equivalent of 90,000 full-length films uploaded in one week, or 15 hours of content added every minute, Zemeczkowski said.

The site premiered its first film in the U.S. in October with Wayne Wang’s “The Princess of Nebraska.” The debut, from the director whose previous films include “The Joy Luck Club” and “Smoke” with Harvey Keitel, initially attracted more than 140,000 views, Dale said.

“Their strategy makes a lot of sense and it’s also in response to increased competition, where Hulu is a main competitor,” Benchmark Co.’s Moran said. Other YouTube rivals include ABC.com, MySpace and the U.K.’s LoveFilm.com.

Legal Advantage

Hulu, partly owned by News Corp. and General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal, is a TV Internet streaming service mostly airing shows such as “Family Guy” and “The Simpsons.”

Viewers watched 5.9 billion videos on YouTube and other Google sites in March, Reston, Virginia-based ComScore Inc. said April 28. News Corp.’s fully owned sites such as MySpace were the second most-watched Internet video destination with 437 million viewings, followed by Hulu’s 380 million and Yahoo! Inc.’s 335 million.

A key benefit of sites like YouTube and Hulu is they are legal, which may help curb rates of illegal downloading. The worldwide motion picture industry lost $18.2 billion in 2005 because of piracy, according to the most recent study by the Motion Picture Association of America. Piracy was the highest in China, Russia and Thailand.

“I don’t think it will replace the theater experience, but there is a place for YouTube, maybe as a function for film rental,” said Christopher Marcich, the Brussels-based head of the Motion Picture Association in Europe.

Online Priority

The move online is a key priority in the film industry, said Eric Stevens, the head of digital development at Independent Film Company, a London-based film producer.

“With YouTube, it’s hard to argue with the number of users they have,” he said. “When you make a film there’s a massive negative cost at the beginning. And with DVDs drying up there goes a way to finance a film.”

Independent Film Company premiered its film, “wmd,” about the buildup to the war in Iraq, online at Dailymotion.com as well as at the Brighton Film Festival in southern England. The film went up on Hulu.com last month and U.S. distributors include Amazon.com and Cinemanow.com, Stevens said.

In Europe, there’s an estimated 240 video-on-demand platforms like YouTube, and hundreds of ways to watch films, according to Mike Gubbins, a digital consultant to the industry and the former editor of Screen International magazine.

Gubbins said the film industry has been slow to move online and must act quicker to keep up with changes in how films are watched.

“Customers don’t hang around waiting for business models,” he said. “This is the first time in the history of film that the pace of change isn’t in the industry, it’s driven by customers.”

Google to sell e-books to challenge Amazon.com

Seeking to find common ground with authors, who have complained about copyright violations through search services, Google plans later this year to begin distributing and selling e-books on behalf of its publishing partners.

"We've consistently maintained that we're committed to helping our partners find more ways to make their books accessible and available for purchase," Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker said Monday confirming the move first reported by the New York Times.

"By end of this year, we hope to give publisher partners an additional way to sell their books by allowing users to purchase access to partner programme books online," he said in an e-mail to InformationWeek, a leading source for information technology news.

"We want to build and support a digital book ecosystem to allow our partner publishers to make their books available for purchase from any Web-enabled device."

Google is anxious to find common ground with authors, who have complained about copyright violations in the past through services like Google Book Search.

Formerly known as Google Print, Google Book Search was introduced in 2004 and targeted by publishers and their lawyers the following year for digitising books without the permission of copyright holders.

A proposed settlement of that lawsuit is currently being reviewed by the courts and the US Department of Justice.

Google's e-book sales service will be made available to participants in the Google Book Service Partner Programme, a marketing programme for promoting books through Google Book Search.

If Google succeeds in making peace with authors and publishers, it may find itself competing more directly against Amazon.com, the publication said.

Amazon gave up competing against Google Search in 2006 when it closed its A9 search engine, but Amazon Web Services, the company's on-demand computing infrastructure service, remains a strong contender against Google App Engine.

With its Kindle e-book reading devices, Amazon has been building the infrastructure and market for electronic texts on portable devices, a transition in reading technology that's been anticipated for a decade, but never fully realised.

Apple too will soon release its iPhone 3.0 operating system, which will bring e-book sales opportunities to the iPhone's many e-book reading apps, InformationWeek said.

Apple is rumoured to be working on tablet computing device, a form factor ideal for reading e-books. Other players, like Sony, see a future in e-books, too.

Google Powerpoint Presentation | Everything about Google

All about Google

View more presentations from Ouriel Ohayon.

Google's Internet bus rolls into Karnataka

How to browse the net, search, e-mail, social networking, browse maps or track stock market trends - this is what global web-based search engine Google is going to teach people as its custom-built Internet bus drives through 15 towns of Karnataka to expose the people to the digital world.

The bus, which began its journey Monday, will course through the state for the next 50 days.

After a successful two-month tour of 17 towns across Tamil Nadu from December to February, the Google bus began its Karnataka leg Monday from Kolar, a backward district, about 100 km from India's tech hub.

"The Internet bus project is an attempt to educate the people, especially the younger generation about the worldwide web and how Internet serves as a platform to step into the digital world for information, communication, entertainment and education," Google India research and development (R&D) head Prasad Ram told IANS.

The Interent-enabled bus has a video-driven content to showcase how people can make their everyday life simpler by accessing information in multiple formats - data, audio and video through English or local language (Kannada).

The content is tailored to familiarise the common folk with the basics of Internet. The online tool facilitates access to multiple services such as search, e-mail, social networking and browsing maps.

Among the Karnataka towns the Google bus will travel through over the weeks are Mandya, Mysore, Hassan, Shimoga, Chikmagalur, Chitradurga, Davanagere, Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum, Hospet and Tumkur.

"Tamil Nadu was a big learning for us. It was inspiring to see the people wanted to know about the Internet and share their needs with us. The experience has reinforced our belief that awareness is the key challenge in the growth of the Internet in India," Ram recalled.

In this phase, Google will focus on how mobile phones can be used to access even local information without data plans. Access to the Internet in local language will be its thrust area.

The benefit of the bus project is evident from a couple of instances during its sojourn in Tamil Nadu. A short tour of the Google bus made elderly parents at Krishnagiri to buy a computer for chatting and emailing with their son working overseas.

Similarly, a young businessman at Cuddalore, once a school dropout, learnt to track the stock market movements by browsing the relevant information or data links through the Internet.

"In Coimbatore, a boy who sold flowers for a living and had no exposure to the Internet learnt about Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Search in his native language (Tamil) by stepping into the bus," Ram noted.

The project is in line with Google's global strategy to make access to information, education and entertainment universal and relevant to end-user in English or multiple languages.

"Search has become more local with useful information on business listings, railways and flight status, cricket scores, movie review and et al. Our applications like SMS search, SMS channels and map maker have made Google the most sought after vehicle (engine) for millions in India and the world over," Ram claimed.

Access to information over mobile devices has become easier with mobile maps, mobile search, and mobile Orkut.

Google has also created platforms like the 'Be NetSmart' campaign to educate students, parents and teachers on Internet safety.

After travelling through Karnataka towns, the Internet bus will drive into other states across the country for similar exposure over the ensuing months.

Google Helps Share Your Latitude with Friends

Have you ever counted the number of times you ask friends "where are you?" in a given day? Well, Google is aiming to help answer this question before it needs to be asked. Today we've launched Google Latitude, a feature in Google Maps for mobile that allows you to share your location with your friends and family. While it won't pinpoint your exact location, it gives you a good idea of where your friends are at a given time.

Using your Google account, you can opt into the feature, and then invite friends and family to join Google Latitude. Once they accept, you will see their profile picture appear on a map through your mobile device. So imagine if you spot your friend in the same neighborhood as you on the map, using Google Latitude you can then click on their icon to call, text, IM or email them. We can also give you directions to their location on the map.

And of course, we thought long and hard about making sure users have complete control over how and when they want to be found. Once you've shared your location, you can hide it from individual friends or all of your friends at once, or you can turn off Google Latitude completely at any time. You can adjust your privacy settings in Latitude so that you share as much or as little about your location as you want, with whom you want. For more details on Google Latitude's privacy settings, please check out this helpful video.

Google Latitude is available in 27 countries, and across a variety of devices, including:

-- Android-powered devices, such as the T-Mobile G1
-- Most color BlackBerry devices
-- Most Windows Mobile 5.0+ devices
-- Most Symbian S60 devices (Nokia smartphones)

To get started, visit google.com/latitude from your phone's mobile browser to download Google Maps for mobile with Latitude.

Google Crashes: Says "This site may harm your computer" error with every search

To my surprise, every search result was flagged as "This site may harm your computer" - the tag line reserved for sites believed to contain malwares. This error message started to show with every search result around 8:20 IST.
It is around 8:
50 as i write this post but there is still no respite from the error. This is getting difficult to open websites from Google search results. The only way to open a webpage is to copy and paste the link in address instead of clicking in Google Search results.

"Googling damages the planet"

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate the same amount of harmful carbon dioxide as boiling an electric kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research quoted Sunday.

A typical search generates about seven grammes of CO2 whereas an electric kettle generates about 15 gm, The Sunday Times quoted a Harvard University physicist as saying.

“A Google search has a definite environmental impact,” says Alex Wissner-Gross, whose research due out soon.

The newspaper said Google is “secretive” about its energy comsumption and carbon footprint, and refuses to divulge the locations of its data centres.

“However, with 200 million internet searches estimated globally daily, the electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions caused by computers and the internet is provoking concern,” the newspaper said.

A recent report by information technology analysts Gartner said the global IT industry generates as much greenhouse gas - which contribute to global warming - as the airlines industry.

The Google system, which sends search queries to several competing servers that may be thousands of miles apart, “minimises delays but raises energy consumption".

Wissner-Gross has submitted his research for publication by the US Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and has set up a website www.CO2stats.com .

“Google are very efficient but their primary concern is to make searches fast and that means they have a lot of extra capacity that burns energy,” the physicist said.

Google said, “We are among the most efficient of all internet search providers.”

Google Gets A New Favicon

Generally when a site changes its favicon (the tiny image that typically appears next to the URL in your browser) nobody really notices or cares. Unless you're Google.

Back in June the company unveiled a brand new stylized 'g' icon with a blue background. It was sleek, but a big departure from the classic G logo that everyone was familiar with. The blue icon made appearances elsewhere, too, and can now be seen on the Google iPhone Mobile App.

Now it looks like the company has switched again, this time to a logo that incorporates the same stylized lowercase g, but one that also includes the company's classic yellow/blue/green/red color scheme.

Marrisa Mayer, the company's Vice President, Search Products & User Experience had this to say last time the company made a change:

"The reason is that we wanted to develop a set of icons that would scale better to some new platforms like the iPhone and other mobile devices. So the new favicon is one of those, but we?ve also developed a group of logo-based icons that all hang together as a unified set."

Google 'hero' Nishar to join LinkedIn

Dipchand Nishar, an Indian American engineer who helped Google start its mobile business, is joining the social networking group LinkedIn to help it develop new products and strategies.

An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Kharagpur and the University of Illinois, Nishar was instrumental in developing Google's backend infrastructure and was also overseeing the Asia Pacific market.

“The kinds of things LinkedIn is doing are truly shaping the way professionals work,” said 40-year-old Nishar, whose colleagues at Google have often described him as an “unsung hero” of the company.

He said he wanted to leave Google because he wanted to move on from the role of building “impactful products” to an “impactful company”. He will be vice president of products at LinkedIn.

The Wall Street Journal also prominently covered his new appointment.

“We wanted to find someone who knows how to build a large organisation, but also has an entrepreneurial background,” said Kay Luo, a spokesperson for the company, adding: “Deep fills that role.”

Prior to Google, Nishar worked for Siebel System, which he joined after he sold Pataki Networks, a web-based software integration services company, which he had founded. He was also associated with the Boston Consulting Group.

“We are grateful for Deep's contributions over the last five and a half years, and wish him well in his new job,” said Jane Penner, a spokeswoman at Google.

Backed by companies like Goldman Sachs, LinkedIn, which recently raised over $75 million in fresh funding, is adding some 500,000 new members to its social networking site every week.

It has some 30 million users who use it to connect with friends, classmates, business associates and colleagues.

Searchwiki: Edit your Google search results

Today while searching on Google, I was struck with a nice change, i.e. Google has included the SearchWIKI feature in the Google search results. It's a welcome change, which will somehow help in refining the search results. Well, to look at various other search engine, Yahoo and MSN (MSN HRS to name)have tried to have a human refined search results, well I have yet to find a satisfied user. Google still takes the major chunk of Search engine market.

Well lets see what Google BLog says about this new feature.

"Have you ever wanted to mark up Google search results? Maybe you're an avid hiker and the trail map site you always go to is in the 4th or 5th position and you want to move it to the top. Or perhaps it's not there at all and you'd like to add it. Or maybe you'd like to add some notes about what you found on that site and why you thought it was useful. Starting today you can do all this and tailor Google search results to best meet your needs.

Today we're launching SearchWiki, a way for you to customize search by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results. With just a single click you can move the results you like to the top or add a new site. You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don't feel belong. These modifications will be shown to you every time you do the same search in the future. SearchWiki is available to signed-in Google users. We store your changes in your Google Account. If you are wondering if you are signed in, you can always check by noting if your username appears in the upper right-hand side of the page.

The changes you make only affect your own searches. But SearchWiki also is a great way to share your insights with other searchers. You can see how the community has collectively edited the search results by clicking on the "See all notes for this SearchWiki" link.
This new feature is an example of how search is becoming increasingly dynamic, giving people tools that make search even more useful to them in their daily lives. We have been testing bits and pieces of SearchWiki for some time through live experiments, and we incorporated much of our learnings into this release. We are constantly striving to improve our users' search experience, and this is yet another step along the way.

New Google Fevicon Released

This morning i started Firefox and saw a new Google favicon.
A favicon is a small image that is generally used to reflect the identity of a web site. You can find it in the address bar, in your browser's tabs, in the list of bookmarks or in some feed readers like Bloglines.

Google's favicon is hosted at google.com/favicon.ico and it's a 16x16 pixels image, a standard size for favicons. Google replaced the upper-case "G" in blue border, green and red borders with a lower-case purple "g" in a rounded corner rectangle.