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Update on planning your wedding with Google Docs
Last month, we launched a series of Google Docs templates that make it easier to plan your wedding. To infuse these templates with helpful tips, we teamed up with Style Me Pretty.
Over the past month, over 25,000 templates have been used by wedding couples and the number keeps growing. To celebrate our collaboration, Style Me Pretty held a month long sweepstakes with the winner receiving a free consultation with celebrity event planner Michelle Rago and a $500 gift certificate to Wedding Paper Divas. On Tuesday, they announced the randomly selected winner, Janel, who submitted this as her biggest challenge planning a wedding:
"My wedding challenge is finding a balance between what we can fit in our budget, and what I obsess over in wedding magazines! I keep reminding myself that this day should reflect my fiance and I, and not pretty wedding magazines." To learn more about planning your wedding with Google Docs, check out docs.google.com/wedding.
Posted by: Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager
Over the past month, over 25,000 templates have been used by wedding couples and the number keeps growing. To celebrate our collaboration, Style Me Pretty held a month long sweepstakes with the winner receiving a free consultation with celebrity event planner Michelle Rago and a $500 gift certificate to Wedding Paper Divas. On Tuesday, they announced the randomly selected winner, Janel, who submitted this as her biggest challenge planning a wedding:
"My wedding challenge is finding a balance between what we can fit in our budget, and what I obsess over in wedding magazines! I keep reminding myself that this day should reflect my fiance and I, and not pretty wedding magazines." To learn more about planning your wedding with Google Docs, check out docs.google.com/wedding.
Posted by: Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager
Categories: Google
Smart Rescheduler in Google Calendar Labs
Posted by David Marmaros, Software Engineer
As you can imagine, those of us on the Google Calendar team spend a lot of time thinking about scheduling. We regularly talk to people who schedule and reschedule a lot of meetings: administrative assistants. Talking to them, we understand just how much time they spend looking at schedules, investigating other people's calendars, finding replacement conference rooms and rescheduling conflicts. And then some manager's travel plans change and everything starts over again.
If you're searching for something on the web, you don't just start randomly visiting pages looking for relevant content, you use a search engine. So we decided to apply some of Google's search experience to the problem of scheduling. We experimented with using ranking algorithms to return the most relevant meeting times based on specified criteria like attendees, schedule complexity, conference rooms, and time zones. Just like Google search ranks the web, our scheduling search algorithm returns a ranked set of the best candidate dates and times.
Today we're launching the result of that experiment, a gadget called Smart Rescheduler, in Google Calendar Labs. Once you turn it on, just select an event you'd like to reschedule, then click "Find a new time...":
You'll see ranked list of possible times for your meeting. By investigating the calendars others have shared with you, Google Calendar can make some educated guesses about how easy it might be to reschedule a conflicting meeting and even find you a replacement conference room nearby. This process is 100% automated — no Google employees are doing any work behind the scenes. You can refine the results by marking people as optional, changing the meeting duration, ignoring certain conflicts, or specifying the earliest and latest times you'll accept. The results will immediately update to reflect your new requirements.
This feature is still experimental, so we'd love your ideas and feedback. Of course, we can't make meetings more interesting, but we can try to save you frustration leading up to them.
As you can imagine, those of us on the Google Calendar team spend a lot of time thinking about scheduling. We regularly talk to people who schedule and reschedule a lot of meetings: administrative assistants. Talking to them, we understand just how much time they spend looking at schedules, investigating other people's calendars, finding replacement conference rooms and rescheduling conflicts. And then some manager's travel plans change and everything starts over again.
If you're searching for something on the web, you don't just start randomly visiting pages looking for relevant content, you use a search engine. So we decided to apply some of Google's search experience to the problem of scheduling. We experimented with using ranking algorithms to return the most relevant meeting times based on specified criteria like attendees, schedule complexity, conference rooms, and time zones. Just like Google search ranks the web, our scheduling search algorithm returns a ranked set of the best candidate dates and times.
Today we're launching the result of that experiment, a gadget called Smart Rescheduler, in Google Calendar Labs. Once you turn it on, just select an event you'd like to reschedule, then click "Find a new time...":
You'll see ranked list of possible times for your meeting. By investigating the calendars others have shared with you, Google Calendar can make some educated guesses about how easy it might be to reschedule a conflicting meeting and even find you a replacement conference room nearby. This process is 100% automated — no Google employees are doing any work behind the scenes. You can refine the results by marking people as optional, changing the meeting duration, ignoring certain conflicts, or specifying the earliest and latest times you'll accept. The results will immediately update to reflect your new requirements.
This feature is still experimental, so we'd love your ideas and feedback. Of course, we can't make meetings more interesting, but we can try to save you frustration leading up to them.
Categories: Google
Template highlight: 2010 College Basketball Tournament Bracket
The first round of the 2010 NCAA Division I men's college basketball tournament is starting and in celebration, the Google Docs team has brought back the College Basketball Tournament bracket template for 2010. This template is powered by the GoogleTournament function which John Danaher created last year in his 20% time.
Since you can add collaborators to your spreadsheet, it's easy to engage in some friendly rivalry right within the spreadsheet. Like last year, the template includes 10 blank brackets that each of your friends can fill out. No need to print out and fill-in blank paper brackets. There's one sheet that shows whose picks are the best. You can even customize the point values for each game if you want using points sheet.
Other Google teams are getting into the basketball spirit. From an iGoogle gadget, to live scores, to a Google Earth plugin, there is something for every basketball fan at google.com/collegebasketball2010.
Posted by: Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager
Since you can add collaborators to your spreadsheet, it's easy to engage in some friendly rivalry right within the spreadsheet. Like last year, the template includes 10 blank brackets that each of your friends can fill out. No need to print out and fill-in blank paper brackets. There's one sheet that shows whose picks are the best. You can even customize the point values for each game if you want using points sheet.
Other Google teams are getting into the basketball spirit. From an iGoogle gadget, to live scores, to a Google Earth plugin, there is something for every basketball fan at google.com/collegebasketball2010.
Posted by: Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager
Categories: Google
Brazen Careerist: A Career-Focused Social Network for Young Professionals
Brazen Careerist is a premier Generation Y career-based social network. Our goal is to help shift job seeker's and the recruiter's approaches to focus on social strengths and ideas instead of just experience. We have been using Drupal for almost two years to help us scale and add social features rapidly. Using it as a platform has been crucial to our success and will continue to be in the foreseeable future.
Most recently, we gave our users new and powerful ways to participate in idea-based conversations. We also rolled out innovative integrations with external social-networking sites and revolutionary ways to display your online resume. We'd like to showcase some of these new features to the Drupal community, and hopefully get some more great ideas from you guys!
Categories: Content Management
When does old age start?
Many may beg to differ but according to a new survey, the average Briton believes youth ends at 36 and old age starts at 58.(author unknown)
Better controls for buzz in your inbox
Posted by Bruce DiBello, Software Engineer
When you participate in a conversation in Google Buzz, we bring that post to your inbox to make it easy to keep up with the discussion. But we’ve heard loud and clear that buzz in your inbox can get noisy — we feel it too, so today we're launching two features to help with this:
1) Settings to control what gets sent to your inbox
From the Buzz tab of Gmail Settings, you’ll be able to choose whether the following buzz items get sent to your inbox:
2) Explanations for why posts get sent to your inbox and an easy-to-find “Mute” link
You'll see a new message at the top of each post in your inbox that explains why it’s there: someone commented on your post, you were @replied, etc. We’ve also added an easy-to-find “mute” link that will stop subsequent comments from bringing the conversation back to your inbox.
These are just the first in series of features designed to help control the noise level in Google Buzz, so stay tuned for more. If you have ideas for Google Buzz you'd like to share with the team, you can post your ideas and vote for others on our official Product Ideas page.
When you participate in a conversation in Google Buzz, we bring that post to your inbox to make it easy to keep up with the discussion. But we’ve heard loud and clear that buzz in your inbox can get noisy — we feel it too, so today we're launching two features to help with this:
1) Settings to control what gets sent to your inbox
From the Buzz tab of Gmail Settings, you’ll be able to choose whether the following buzz items get sent to your inbox:
- Comments on your posts
- Comments on posts after you comment on them
- Comments on posts after you are @replied on them
2) Explanations for why posts get sent to your inbox and an easy-to-find “Mute” link
You'll see a new message at the top of each post in your inbox that explains why it’s there: someone commented on your post, you were @replied, etc. We’ve also added an easy-to-find “mute” link that will stop subsequent comments from bringing the conversation back to your inbox.
These are just the first in series of features designed to help control the noise level in Google Buzz, so stay tuned for more. If you have ideas for Google Buzz you'd like to share with the team, you can post your ideas and vote for others on our official Product Ideas page.
Categories: Google
Mobile World Congress and Google Uganda
En Français
Late last month, nearly 50,000 people converged in Barcelona for the GSMA Mobile World Congress, the world's largest mobile conference. There was an outstanding lineup of speakers from the mobile industry, 1,300 companies represented in the exhibition halls, showcasing new devices, technologies, applications, operating systems, accessories and much more. Google hosted a number of events and meetings, including the inaugural App Planet event held by GSMA with Google and other sponsors, which included application developer conferences and an Android Developer Lab. Google CEO Eric Schmidt delivered the keynote address, in which he emphasized the priority of mobile in Google's engineering and product development approach, the opportunity for enhanced services that fully utilize the robust capabilities of new mobile devices, and highlighted some of the major trends in the mobile industry, such as user demand for device and service connectivity, the increasing importance of cloud services, and improved capacity and computing power.
At the Global Mobile Awards 2010, Google Africa was nominated for two awards in the category for "Best Use of Mobile for Social and Economic Development." The first nomination we received was for our role in establishing the Application Laboratory (AppLab) with Grameen Foundation and MTN Uganda, where Google served as angel investor and major contributor of technology, product and management expertise. Through this unique collaboration among partners Grameen Foundation (AppLab Uganda), Google, and MTN Uganda, we launched a suite of mobile services that help address issues of poverty, distance (rural) and vulnerability in Uganda, including Google SMS Health Tips, Farmer's Friend agriculture tips and Google Trader, an SMS and web-based service that promotes greater access to markets and trade. It was our work in providing the Google SMS Health Tips service in Uganda that earned the Google Africa team a second nomination for the Global Mobile Awards, also for "Best Use of Mobile for Social and Economic Development." We were delighted to be announced as the winner in this category, an honor amongst such an impressive set of nominees.
With our partners Grameen Foundation and MTN Uganda, we were awarded this prize for providing the first mobile phone health application that combines natural language search technology with locally relevant, timely, trusted and actionable content. The service includes a local clinic finder, which helps people find nearby clinics that offer services they need and information that enables better health-seeking behavior and access to critical health treatments. We launched the Health Tips service so that critically-needed sexual and reproductive health information can be made available to anyone with access to a mobile phone. Health Tips improves people’s access to important health information that empowers them and enhances their lives, especially among the poor.
These nominations and the award demonstrate the increasing awareness of the value of services that focus on users needs and serve the majority of people across Africa. We hope that this award helps catalyze new innovations and lasting impact for anyone using a mobile phone.
Posted by Rachel Payne, Country Manager Uganda, and Fiona Lee, Technical Program Manager, Google Africa Team
====
Mobile World Congress et Google Ouganda
Le mois dernier, près de 50 000 visiteurs se sont rendu à Barcelone pour visiter plus grand salon international de téléphonie mobile, GSMA Mobile World Congress. Ils ont pu assister aux interventions de nombreux acteurs du secteur de la téléphonie et visiter les stands de 1300 entreprises proposant leurs nouveaux appareils, technologies, applications, systèmes d’exploitation, accessoires et autres. Google a accueilli un certain nombre de manifestations et de réunions, dont l’événement inaugural App Planet organisé par GSMA avec Google et d’autres sponsors, ainsi que des conférences d’éditeurs d’applications et un Android Developer Lab (ADL). C’est à Eric Schmidt, PDG de Google, qu’est revenu l’honneur de prononcer le discours d’ouverture. Ce fut pour lui l’occasion de mettre l’accent sur la priorité donnée au mobile par Google en termes d’ingénierie et de développement produit, et de rappeler l’opportunité offerte par les services évolués qui exploitent pleinement les capacités des nouveaux appareils mobiles. Il a également abordé quelques-unes des grandes tendances du secteur : la demande des utilisateurs pour une plus grande connectivité des appareils et des services, l’importance croissante des services en nuage, et l’amélioration des capacités et de la puissance informatiques.
Aux Global Mobile Awards 2010, Google Afrique a été nominé pour deux prix dans la catégorie "Meilleur usage du mobile pour le développement socio-économique." La première nomination récompense notre rôle dans la mise en place du Application Laboratory (AppLab) avec la Fondation Grameen et MTN Ouganda, où Google a servi de business angel et de contributeur majeur de technologie, produit et expertise de gestion. Par le biais de ce partenariat unique entre la Fondation Grameen (AppLab Ouganda), Google et MTN Ouganda, nous avons lancé une série de services mobiles qui aident à apporter des réponses aux problèmes de pauvreté, de distance (zones rurales) et de précarité en Ouganda, avec par exemple Google SMS Health Tips, Farmer's Friend (service destiné aux cultivateurs) et Google Trader, un service basé sur Internet et les SMS qui assure un meilleur accès aux marchés et aux échanges. C’est notre travail sur le service Google SMS Health Tips en Ouganda qui nous a valu notre deuxième nomination aux Global Mobile Awards, toujours dans la catégorie "Meilleur usage du mobile pour le développement socio-économique." « Nous avons été ravis d’apprendre que nous étions lauréats de cette catégorie, un grand honneur compte tenu de la qualité et du nombre des autres nominés. »
Avec nos partenaires, la Fondation Grameen et MTN Ouganda, ce prix nous a été décerné pour avoir fourni la première application de santé sur mobile qui combine une technologie de recherche en langage naturel avec un contenu pertinent localement, en temps utile, fiable et concret. Le service comprend un localisateur de centres médicaux locales, qui aide les gens à trouver la clinique la plus proche offrant les services dont ils ont besoin, et des informations permettant d’améliorer ses habitudes en matière d'hygiène et de santé et d’avoir accès aux soins fondamentaux. Nous avons lancé le service Health Tips pour que les informations de santé en matière de sexualité et la procréation soient à disposition de tous ceux qui ont accès à un téléphone mobile. Health Tips améliore l’accès de tous à des informations de santé essentielles, qui les responsabilisent et améliorent leur vie, notamment celle des plus pauvres.
Ces nominations et ce prix montrent combien la valeur des services centrés sur les besoins des utilisateurs et servant la majorité des peuples d’Afrique est de plus en plus reconnue. Nous espérons que ce prix aidera à concrétiser d’autres innovations et aura un impact durable pour améliorer la vie de tous ceux qui se servent d’un téléphone mobile.
Posté par Rachel Payne, Directrice Pays Ouganda, et Fiona Lee, Directrice Programme technique, équipe Google Afrique
Late last month, nearly 50,000 people converged in Barcelona for the GSMA Mobile World Congress, the world's largest mobile conference. There was an outstanding lineup of speakers from the mobile industry, 1,300 companies represented in the exhibition halls, showcasing new devices, technologies, applications, operating systems, accessories and much more. Google hosted a number of events and meetings, including the inaugural App Planet event held by GSMA with Google and other sponsors, which included application developer conferences and an Android Developer Lab. Google CEO Eric Schmidt delivered the keynote address, in which he emphasized the priority of mobile in Google's engineering and product development approach, the opportunity for enhanced services that fully utilize the robust capabilities of new mobile devices, and highlighted some of the major trends in the mobile industry, such as user demand for device and service connectivity, the increasing importance of cloud services, and improved capacity and computing power.
At the Global Mobile Awards 2010, Google Africa was nominated for two awards in the category for "Best Use of Mobile for Social and Economic Development." The first nomination we received was for our role in establishing the Application Laboratory (AppLab) with Grameen Foundation and MTN Uganda, where Google served as angel investor and major contributor of technology, product and management expertise. Through this unique collaboration among partners Grameen Foundation (AppLab Uganda), Google, and MTN Uganda, we launched a suite of mobile services that help address issues of poverty, distance (rural) and vulnerability in Uganda, including Google SMS Health Tips, Farmer's Friend agriculture tips and Google Trader, an SMS and web-based service that promotes greater access to markets and trade. It was our work in providing the Google SMS Health Tips service in Uganda that earned the Google Africa team a second nomination for the Global Mobile Awards, also for "Best Use of Mobile for Social and Economic Development." We were delighted to be announced as the winner in this category, an honor amongst such an impressive set of nominees.
With our partners Grameen Foundation and MTN Uganda, we were awarded this prize for providing the first mobile phone health application that combines natural language search technology with locally relevant, timely, trusted and actionable content. The service includes a local clinic finder, which helps people find nearby clinics that offer services they need and information that enables better health-seeking behavior and access to critical health treatments. We launched the Health Tips service so that critically-needed sexual and reproductive health information can be made available to anyone with access to a mobile phone. Health Tips improves people’s access to important health information that empowers them and enhances their lives, especially among the poor.
These nominations and the award demonstrate the increasing awareness of the value of services that focus on users needs and serve the majority of people across Africa. We hope that this award helps catalyze new innovations and lasting impact for anyone using a mobile phone.
Posted by Rachel Payne, Country Manager Uganda, and Fiona Lee, Technical Program Manager, Google Africa Team
====
Mobile World Congress et Google Ouganda
Le mois dernier, près de 50 000 visiteurs se sont rendu à Barcelone pour visiter plus grand salon international de téléphonie mobile, GSMA Mobile World Congress. Ils ont pu assister aux interventions de nombreux acteurs du secteur de la téléphonie et visiter les stands de 1300 entreprises proposant leurs nouveaux appareils, technologies, applications, systèmes d’exploitation, accessoires et autres. Google a accueilli un certain nombre de manifestations et de réunions, dont l’événement inaugural App Planet organisé par GSMA avec Google et d’autres sponsors, ainsi que des conférences d’éditeurs d’applications et un Android Developer Lab (ADL). C’est à Eric Schmidt, PDG de Google, qu’est revenu l’honneur de prononcer le discours d’ouverture. Ce fut pour lui l’occasion de mettre l’accent sur la priorité donnée au mobile par Google en termes d’ingénierie et de développement produit, et de rappeler l’opportunité offerte par les services évolués qui exploitent pleinement les capacités des nouveaux appareils mobiles. Il a également abordé quelques-unes des grandes tendances du secteur : la demande des utilisateurs pour une plus grande connectivité des appareils et des services, l’importance croissante des services en nuage, et l’amélioration des capacités et de la puissance informatiques.
Aux Global Mobile Awards 2010, Google Afrique a été nominé pour deux prix dans la catégorie "Meilleur usage du mobile pour le développement socio-économique." La première nomination récompense notre rôle dans la mise en place du Application Laboratory (AppLab) avec la Fondation Grameen et MTN Ouganda, où Google a servi de business angel et de contributeur majeur de technologie, produit et expertise de gestion. Par le biais de ce partenariat unique entre la Fondation Grameen (AppLab Ouganda), Google et MTN Ouganda, nous avons lancé une série de services mobiles qui aident à apporter des réponses aux problèmes de pauvreté, de distance (zones rurales) et de précarité en Ouganda, avec par exemple Google SMS Health Tips, Farmer's Friend (service destiné aux cultivateurs) et Google Trader, un service basé sur Internet et les SMS qui assure un meilleur accès aux marchés et aux échanges. C’est notre travail sur le service Google SMS Health Tips en Ouganda qui nous a valu notre deuxième nomination aux Global Mobile Awards, toujours dans la catégorie "Meilleur usage du mobile pour le développement socio-économique." « Nous avons été ravis d’apprendre que nous étions lauréats de cette catégorie, un grand honneur compte tenu de la qualité et du nombre des autres nominés. »
Avec nos partenaires, la Fondation Grameen et MTN Ouganda, ce prix nous a été décerné pour avoir fourni la première application de santé sur mobile qui combine une technologie de recherche en langage naturel avec un contenu pertinent localement, en temps utile, fiable et concret. Le service comprend un localisateur de centres médicaux locales, qui aide les gens à trouver la clinique la plus proche offrant les services dont ils ont besoin, et des informations permettant d’améliorer ses habitudes en matière d'hygiène et de santé et d’avoir accès aux soins fondamentaux. Nous avons lancé le service Health Tips pour que les informations de santé en matière de sexualité et la procréation soient à disposition de tous ceux qui ont accès à un téléphone mobile. Health Tips améliore l’accès de tous à des informations de santé essentielles, qui les responsabilisent et améliorent leur vie, notamment celle des plus pauvres.
Ces nominations et ce prix montrent combien la valeur des services centrés sur les besoins des utilisateurs et servant la majorité des peuples d’Afrique est de plus en plus reconnue. Nous espérons que ce prix aidera à concrétiser d’autres innovations et aura un impact durable pour améliorer la vie de tous ceux qui se servent d’un téléphone mobile.
Posté par Rachel Payne, Directrice Pays Ouganda, et Fiona Lee, Directrice Programme technique, équipe Google Afrique
Categories: General
Book Review: ZAG by Marty Neumeier
I was so impressed with the presentation Marty Neumeier put together for The Brand Gap, that I decided to order his second book, Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands, which deals with the subject of differentiation (when everyone else zigs, zag!). This book is a great manual and reference guide on how to discover, design and maintain your brand.
The book explains how to build a brand in 17 steps. Each step is a fundamental question (i.e. Who are you?, What is your vision?, etc.) you need to answer before moving to the next one.
The author gives you a detailed list of assignments to help you answer each of the 17 questions effectively. He also applies the process to a fictional wine bar concept, which makes his dissertation easier to follow.
ZAG is written in a format that Neumeier calls a “whiteboard overview”, meaning that the book uses plenty of graphics, resembling a well crafted PowerPoint presentation, with the text substituting for the life speaker.
Neumeier is a branding genius, and he writes his books the same way he designs brands: with absolute clarity, focus, and nothing superfluous that may detract from the central message he wants to convey.
I read ZAG in just a couple of days. Once I started I couldn’t put it down. The book has so many valuable quotes and insights that it is a virtual highlighter magnet. Apparently, the author was well aware of this and conveniently listed the most valuable passages of the book in the last few pages. Some examples:
Complete this sentence: our brand is the ONLY ______ that ______. If you can’t say you are the “only” go back and start over.
Your value proposition is the reason your brand matters to customers. One proposition per brand.
Best practices are usually common practices. And common practices will never add up to a zag.
ZAG was definitely worth reading, and I’ll be keeping it close by for future reference.
Categories: Online Marketing
Gmail SMS Comes to Ghana!
En Français
Let's say you're in Ghana and you need to chat with somebody in Gmail Chat, but they don't respond because they just walked away from their computer. Or maybe you're in the middle of chatting with them just as they need to leave. But you still need to tell them something -- something really important, like where you're going to meet tonight ... or perhaps it's about a new spot for delicious kelewele. This is why we've built a way to chat with your friends even when they're away from their computers. Now you can keep the conversation going with a new feature that lets you send SMS text messages right from Gmail: you chat from your computer, and your friends can reply from their mobile phones. Their response will appear right in your Gmail Chat interface.
Like any other feature in Gmail, sending SMS messages from Gmail is completely free. When your friend replies from his phone, he will be charged at the regular SMS rate.
The new SMS feature in Gmail allows all Gmail users to send and receive SMS text messages from within Gmail Chat to connected phones anywhere in Ghana. Currently, we are supporting phone subscribers of MTN, Tigo, Zain and Kasapa in Ghana.
Tip: are you outside of Ghana and want to use Gmail to send free SMSes to your friends in Ghana? Just go into Settings->Labs in Gmail, and enable both labs that have the word "SMS" in their description.
Posted by Divon Lan, Product Manager, and Estelle Akofio-Sowah, Country Manager, Google Ghana
====
Les SMS Gmail arrivent au Ghana !
Supposons que vous êtes au Ghana et que vous devez chatter avec quelqu’un dans Gmail Chat, mais qu’il ne répond pas parce qu’il n’est pas devant son ordinateur. Ou que vous êtes en pleine conversation avec lui, mais qu’il doit partir. Mais vous avez encore quelque chose à lui dire – quelque chose de vraiment important, par exemple le lieu du rendez-vous de ce soir... ou une nouvelle adresse pour de délicieux keleweles. C’est pour cette raison que nous avons mise au point un moyen de discuter avec ses amis même lorsqu’ils sont loin de leur ordinateur. Désormais, vous pouvez poursuivre la conversation grâce à une nouvelle fonction qui permet d’envoyer des SMS directement depuis Gmail : vous chattez depuis votre ordinateur, et vos amis peuvent répondre à partir de leur téléphone portable. Leurs réponses s’afficheront sur votre interface Gmail Chat.
Comme toutes les autres fonctions de Gmail, envoyer des SMS depuis Gmail est totalement gratuit. Lorsque votre ami répond depuis son téléphone, il paye le tarif normal pour un SMS.
La nouvelle fonction SMS de Gmail permet à tous les utilisateurs de Gmail d’envoyer et de recevoir des SMS depuis Gmail Chat vers tous les téléphones connectés n’importe où au Ghana. Actuellement, sont pris en charge les abonnés à MTN, Tigo, Zain et Kasapa au Ghana.
Astuce : vous êtes hors du Ghana et vous voulez envoyer des SMS gratuitement à vos amis au Ghana via Gmail ? Allez sur Paramètres->Labs dans Gmail, et activez les deux labs dont la description contient le mot "SMS".
Posté par Divon Lan, directeur produit, et Estelle Akofio-Sowah, directrice pays, Google Ghana
Let's say you're in Ghana and you need to chat with somebody in Gmail Chat, but they don't respond because they just walked away from their computer. Or maybe you're in the middle of chatting with them just as they need to leave. But you still need to tell them something -- something really important, like where you're going to meet tonight ... or perhaps it's about a new spot for delicious kelewele. This is why we've built a way to chat with your friends even when they're away from their computers. Now you can keep the conversation going with a new feature that lets you send SMS text messages right from Gmail: you chat from your computer, and your friends can reply from their mobile phones. Their response will appear right in your Gmail Chat interface.
Like any other feature in Gmail, sending SMS messages from Gmail is completely free. When your friend replies from his phone, he will be charged at the regular SMS rate.
The new SMS feature in Gmail allows all Gmail users to send and receive SMS text messages from within Gmail Chat to connected phones anywhere in Ghana. Currently, we are supporting phone subscribers of MTN, Tigo, Zain and Kasapa in Ghana.
Tip: are you outside of Ghana and want to use Gmail to send free SMSes to your friends in Ghana? Just go into Settings->Labs in Gmail, and enable both labs that have the word "SMS" in their description.
Posted by Divon Lan, Product Manager, and Estelle Akofio-Sowah, Country Manager, Google Ghana
====
Les SMS Gmail arrivent au Ghana !
Supposons que vous êtes au Ghana et que vous devez chatter avec quelqu’un dans Gmail Chat, mais qu’il ne répond pas parce qu’il n’est pas devant son ordinateur. Ou que vous êtes en pleine conversation avec lui, mais qu’il doit partir. Mais vous avez encore quelque chose à lui dire – quelque chose de vraiment important, par exemple le lieu du rendez-vous de ce soir... ou une nouvelle adresse pour de délicieux keleweles. C’est pour cette raison que nous avons mise au point un moyen de discuter avec ses amis même lorsqu’ils sont loin de leur ordinateur. Désormais, vous pouvez poursuivre la conversation grâce à une nouvelle fonction qui permet d’envoyer des SMS directement depuis Gmail : vous chattez depuis votre ordinateur, et vos amis peuvent répondre à partir de leur téléphone portable. Leurs réponses s’afficheront sur votre interface Gmail Chat.
Comme toutes les autres fonctions de Gmail, envoyer des SMS depuis Gmail est totalement gratuit. Lorsque votre ami répond depuis son téléphone, il paye le tarif normal pour un SMS.
La nouvelle fonction SMS de Gmail permet à tous les utilisateurs de Gmail d’envoyer et de recevoir des SMS depuis Gmail Chat vers tous les téléphones connectés n’importe où au Ghana. Actuellement, sont pris en charge les abonnés à MTN, Tigo, Zain et Kasapa au Ghana.
Astuce : vous êtes hors du Ghana et vous voulez envoyer des SMS gratuitement à vos amis au Ghana via Gmail ? Allez sur Paramètres->Labs dans Gmail, et activez les deux labs dont la description contient le mot "SMS".
Posté par Divon Lan, directeur produit, et Estelle Akofio-Sowah, directrice pays, Google Ghana
Categories: General
Drupal.org redesign implementation update, and sprint March 19th
The Drupal.org redesign continues to progress. This is great news and a morale boost for everyone involved.
Since our front page post on February 3...
- Over 20 enthusiastic new volunteers have come forward to lend their expertise.
- Several experienced professional Drupal project managers have been added to the project management team
- We have produced two new theming documentation. This will help the theme implementation teams standardize their implementations. See details further on.
- Contributors can sign into the new *.staging.drupal.org subsites (groups, association, api, localize, etc.) in additional to the main site now.
- We continue to need expert resources with knowledge of drupal.org data sources to assist with custom Solr development
- Trellon has checked in an alpha dashboard and we now have a beta version of the main Download and Extend page.
Once the major blockers are cleared, we will push forward with engaging the MVP implementation volunteers that signed up last year.
Our next sprint will be on Friday, March 19th from 8am PST/4pm GMT to 12pm PST, 8PM GMT. We aim to focus on theming, and completing the search generated blocks. The sprint will be held on IRC in #drupal-infrastructure.
Categories: Content Management
Apps Script Gallery for Google spreadsheets
Every week, the Google Apps gang here in New York organizes a movie night. It’s always a lot of fun, but organizing it is chaotic! Naturally, we use a spreadsheet to keep a list of movies we’d like to see (that’s the easy part!), and then on Tuesday evening there’s a storm of email as we try to pick a winner.
Always fans of logic and the democratic process, the team wrote a script — to first collate a list of movie showtimes, then invite everyone to vote. The script automates the process, eliminating the drudgery and leaving us more time to canvas and cajole support for our favorite films.
Google Apps Script has been available to businesses, schools and other organizations using Google Apps since January, and today we’re excited to bring it to all Google spreadsheets, along with a new Apps Script Gallery that let’s everyone — not just those who are JavaScript-savvy — reap the benefits of Apps Script. You can see just how easy it is to make use of a script in the video below:
To kick things off in the gallery, we put together some wacky demos showing what’s possible with a script: you’ll find games of hangman and sudoku, some fractal art and a very practical unit conversion script.
You can find these scripts, and more, in the Apps Script gallery by going to Insert and then selecting Script... in any Google spreadsheet.
For more details on the Movie Night script, and to get started writing your own scripts, be sure to check out today’s Google Apps Script announcement on the Google Apps Developer Blog.
Posted by: Evin Levey, Product Manager, Google Apps
Always fans of logic and the democratic process, the team wrote a script — to first collate a list of movie showtimes, then invite everyone to vote. The script automates the process, eliminating the drudgery and leaving us more time to canvas and cajole support for our favorite films.
Google Apps Script has been available to businesses, schools and other organizations using Google Apps since January, and today we’re excited to bring it to all Google spreadsheets, along with a new Apps Script Gallery that let’s everyone — not just those who are JavaScript-savvy — reap the benefits of Apps Script. You can see just how easy it is to make use of a script in the video below:
To kick things off in the gallery, we put together some wacky demos showing what’s possible with a script: you’ll find games of hangman and sudoku, some fractal art and a very practical unit conversion script.
You can find these scripts, and more, in the Apps Script gallery by going to Insert and then selecting Script... in any Google spreadsheet.
For more details on the Movie Night script, and to get started writing your own scripts, be sure to check out today’s Google Apps Script announcement on the Google Apps Developer Blog.
Posted by: Evin Levey, Product Manager, Google Apps
Categories: Google
3 new Calendar Labs
Posted by Grace Kwak, Product Manager
Today, we're happy to announce three new features in Calendar Labs. To try them out, just go to the Labs tab under Calendar Settings.
1. Event flair by Dave Marmaros
Want a little airplane icon next to information about your upcoming flight? Or stars next to meetings with your boss? This experiment lets you choose from forty different icons and add one to each Calendar event. Even better, if you invite people to your events, they'll be able to see the icon you added too. After you enable this feature, click on an event and look for the "Event flair" gadget to activate.
2. Gentle reminders by Sorin Mocanu
If you keep Google Calendar open all day long, you probably end up seeing quite a few reminders every day. Browser alerts are okay, but I tried to find a way for Calendar notifications to integrate smoothly with everything else.
Turn on "Gentle Reminders," and when you get a notification, the title of your Calendar window or tab will start blinking and the event details will stay in Calendar.
If you're using this lab in a supported browser (currently Google Chrome for Windows and Google Chrome beta for Linux), you'll also have the option to get your reminders in the next generation of floating desktop notifications:
After you enable this feature, you can configure notification options on the Settings page.
3. Automatically declining events by Lucia Fedorova and Miguel García
Have you ever checked your calendar and noticed that someone scheduled a really important meeting during your vacation or at a time when you're not available? Now there's a way to automatically decline events when you're not around. Turn on "Automatically declining events," block off times when you're unavailable, and event invitations during this period will get automatically declined.
Today, we're happy to announce three new features in Calendar Labs. To try them out, just go to the Labs tab under Calendar Settings.
1. Event flair by Dave Marmaros
Want a little airplane icon next to information about your upcoming flight? Or stars next to meetings with your boss? This experiment lets you choose from forty different icons and add one to each Calendar event. Even better, if you invite people to your events, they'll be able to see the icon you added too. After you enable this feature, click on an event and look for the "Event flair" gadget to activate.
2. Gentle reminders by Sorin Mocanu
If you keep Google Calendar open all day long, you probably end up seeing quite a few reminders every day. Browser alerts are okay, but I tried to find a way for Calendar notifications to integrate smoothly with everything else.
Turn on "Gentle Reminders," and when you get a notification, the title of your Calendar window or tab will start blinking and the event details will stay in Calendar.
If you're using this lab in a supported browser (currently Google Chrome for Windows and Google Chrome beta for Linux), you'll also have the option to get your reminders in the next generation of floating desktop notifications:
After you enable this feature, you can configure notification options on the Settings page.
3. Automatically declining events by Lucia Fedorova and Miguel García
Have you ever checked your calendar and noticed that someone scheduled a really important meeting during your vacation or at a time when you're not available? Now there's a way to automatically decline events when you're not around. Turn on "Automatically declining events," block off times when you're unavailable, and event invitations during this period will get automatically declined.
Categories: Google
Are you working on your brand associations?
In my recent trip to Brazil I took a picture of this shirt, which I think vividly exemplifies a very important attribute of great brands: their ability to generate clear and consistent mental associations as soon as somebody hears their name.
The words on this shirt are exactly what comes to mind when we hear “Brazil”. This immediate connection is one of the reasons why Brazil is a strong brand. Other countries, like Paraguay or Honduras, for example, are weak brands because most people are not able to easily associate any meaning to them.
My country, Peru, is beginning to position itself as a brand. Whenever I tell people that I am from Peru, the most common reaction is: “Oh, Peruvian fooooood”, it’s the best!!!.” Peru is slowly but surely becoming known for its fascinating cuisine. Another strong association is Machu Picchu, and the iconic image that has been seen by millions of people all over the world.
There are other associations that can be exploited, but they need a little marketing help. For example: “surfing”. Peru’s beaches are great for surfing, but that hasn’t yet been communicated as effectively as the country’s reputation for great food. Another association that can probably work for Peru is “rain forest”.
For brand associations to be effective, they must work together to reinforce one single central theme. In the case of Brazil, notice how words like “beach”, “soccer”, “samba” and “caipirinha” work nicely together to reinforce the central theme of “pleasurable relaxation”, or “relaxed pleasure” that usually comes to mind when one hears the word “Brazil”.
Companies, products and people are also brands, and they must work on developing strong mental associations in order to differentiate themselves and break through the clutter, which is the biggest obstacle to making it in today’s marketplace.
What do you want people to think when they hear your name or the name of your product? Identify a few (five or six) positive and memorable words that go well with you and what you want to project, and work hard to live up to them. You will then be on your way to building a strong brand.
Categories: Online Marketing
New in Labs: Refresh POP accounts
Posted by Emmanuel Pellereau, Software Engineer
My little sister recently setup her Gmail account to retrieve messages from her school address, so she can check all of her email accounts in one place. She no longer has to constantly log in to two email programs, and she likes using Gmail's powerful interface for all her mail.
However, sometimes she knows an email has already been sent to her school address, and she just can't wait for the next scheduled fetch to have it show up in her Gmail inbox. As any big brother would, I tried to solve this issue for her and millions of Gmail users.
Turn on "Refresh POP accounts" from the Labs tab under Settings, and the refresh link at the top of your inbox will not only update your inbox with your new Gmail messages, it will also fetch messages from any other accounts which you have set up.
Try it out, and let us know if you have any feedback.
My little sister recently setup her Gmail account to retrieve messages from her school address, so she can check all of her email accounts in one place. She no longer has to constantly log in to two email programs, and she likes using Gmail's powerful interface for all her mail.
However, sometimes she knows an email has already been sent to her school address, and she just can't wait for the next scheduled fetch to have it show up in her Gmail inbox. As any big brother would, I tried to solve this issue for her and millions of Gmail users.
Turn on "Refresh POP accounts" from the Labs tab under Settings, and the refresh link at the top of your inbox will not only update your inbox with your new Gmail messages, it will also fetch messages from any other accounts which you have set up.
Try it out, and let us know if you have any feedback.
Categories: Google
Working on a more collaborative writing process with Apps Edu
Cross posted on the Google Enterprise Blog
While feedback and revision are crucial steps to successful writing, it’s not always easy to do in practice. Keeping track of revisions, deciphering edits, and arranging reviews can keep us from repeating this editing cycle more often.
The collaborative nature of Google Apps can help evolve the writing process with easy sharing and anytime, anywhere collaboration. Add in built-in reference tools, autosave and revision history, and ready-made templates, and Google Docs – part of the Google Apps suite – becomes a powerful platform for writing.
We’ve developed our first Google Apps Topic Review to highlight some of these features and stories from teachers in the classroom, and we shared and revised this paper using the same principles of collaboration.
If you’re attending this year’s ASCD conference (held from March 6-8 in San Antonio, Texas) we’ll be featuring presentations from Google Certified Teachers, Google Apps Education Edition customers, and Google Apps Education team members about other ways Google Apps can help in the classroom. View our teaching theater schedule and stop by to visit us in Booth #626.
For more information about how to start using Google Apps Education Edition at your school, visit www.google.com/a/edu.
Posted by: Dana Nguyen, Google Apps Education team
While feedback and revision are crucial steps to successful writing, it’s not always easy to do in practice. Keeping track of revisions, deciphering edits, and arranging reviews can keep us from repeating this editing cycle more often.
The collaborative nature of Google Apps can help evolve the writing process with easy sharing and anytime, anywhere collaboration. Add in built-in reference tools, autosave and revision history, and ready-made templates, and Google Docs – part of the Google Apps suite – becomes a powerful platform for writing.
We’ve developed our first Google Apps Topic Review to highlight some of these features and stories from teachers in the classroom, and we shared and revised this paper using the same principles of collaboration.
If you’re attending this year’s ASCD conference (held from March 6-8 in San Antonio, Texas) we’ll be featuring presentations from Google Certified Teachers, Google Apps Education Edition customers, and Google Apps Education team members about other ways Google Apps can help in the classroom. View our teaching theater schedule and stop by to visit us in Booth #626.
For more information about how to start using Google Apps Education Edition at your school, visit www.google.com/a/edu.
Posted by: Dana Nguyen, Google Apps Education team
Categories: Google
Hosting a viewing party for the OSCARS®
Last year, I planned an OSCARS® viewing party with my friends. To add some friendly competition and figure out who was coming, I collected people's predictions for the winners and their RSVP information with a Google form ahead of time. I found the process really easy, so this year I created a Google form for the 2010 OSCARS® and made it a template that anyone can use to plan their own viewing parties:
If you're getting together with friends for OSCAR NIGHT® tomorrow, check out this template in the Google Docs Template Gallery. Happy viewing!
Posted by: Natalie Schwartz, Google Creative Lab
“OSCAR®,” “OSCARS®,” “ACADEMY AWARD®,” “ACADEMY AWARDS®,” “OSCAR NIGHT®,” “A.M.P.A.S.®” and the “Oscar” design mark are trademarks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.
If you're getting together with friends for OSCAR NIGHT® tomorrow, check out this template in the Google Docs Template Gallery. Happy viewing!
Posted by: Natalie Schwartz, Google Creative Lab
“OSCAR®,” “OSCARS®,” “ACADEMY AWARD®,” “ACADEMY AWARDS®,” “OSCAR NIGHT®,” “A.M.P.A.S.®” and the “Oscar” design mark are trademarks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.
Categories: Google
Happy People Talk More Seriously
[ Hear movie clip by clicking on audio podcast above. ]
That’s a scene from the 1968 movie The Party with Peter Sellers attempting small talk. And sometimes small talk can lead to interesting connections.
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