Blog Archives

Blogger’s 11th Birthday Round-Up

6:04 pm - September 8, 2010 in Blogger Buzz

Posted by Seth Shamban, Blogger Consumer Operations

Last week we hosted Blogger’s 11th bday celebration, and a huge thanks goes out to everyone who helped us celebrate! Since we were only able to attend a few parties in person (which was awesome!), we enjoyed watching tweets, videos, and photos stream in at #bloggerfiesta. From the four hour conference for 90 people in Manila, Philippines to the three person casual rendezvous at a restaurant in Duluth, Georgia, we heard great stories from around the world about bloggers meeting each other face-to-face.

Even though we’re an internet company, we know the importance of meeting in-person. It provides a great opportunity to learn from others, meet new folks and share tips. We loved that one Fiesta attendee even learned how to set up a custom domain.

While we had some fun of our own last week (particularly in our Sydney office), our favorite stories are the ones you’ve shared. We’ve linked to some of our favorites below. If you have a story from your Blogger Fiesta that you would like to share with us, please send it along to blogger-fiesta@google.com.

Blogger Fiesta Sydney in Google's Sydney office

Back-To-Basics: How much mobile traffic do you get? (Part 2)

5:21 pm - September 8, 2010 in Google Analytics Blog

Last week’s back-to-basics post illustrated the dramatic growth in mobile with an example from googlestore.com. This week, let’s look at how to create a mobile trend graph from your own data.

You’ll start by creating an advanced segment. Go to your reports in Google Analytics. In the left navigation, you’ll see a grey box called My Customizations. In this box, click Advanced Segments. On the next screen, click “Create new custom segment”. This will take you to the segment builder screen.

Under Dimensions (in green), expand Systems and drag “Operating System” into the work area and create this definition:

Operating System Matches Exactly Android

Now, add an OR condition and add another definition:

Operating System Matches Exactly iPhone

Keep adding as many OR conditions and definitions as you like.

Name the segment (for example, “mobile phones”) and save it. You can now use the Advanced Segments dropdown (at top right of most reports) to apply the segment. For last week’s graph, I selected only “mobile phones” and de-selected “All Visits”. This allowed me to only see traffic from the mobile phone types in my segment.

Now, to see your trend graph, go to any report that graphs visits (for example, the Dashboard will work fine for this). Set your date range to include the last 18 months or 2 years. The trend will be most clear if you select the Graph by Month icon (at top right of the graph):

How much growth are you seeing over the past year or more? Post a comment and let us know what you’ve found!

Also, if you’re rusty with advanced segments, be sure to watch this short video tutorial.

Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

Debugging Common Canvas Issues

5:12 pm - September 8, 2010 in IEBlog

As we’ve previously discussed, IE9 includes support for HTML5 canvas. You can test it out right now by downloading the latest platform preview. In our testing of sites that use the latest web standards, we are pleased to see that many canvas sites just work in IE9. For those of you using <canvas> on your site, we have two tips to make sure it works properly across browsers and in IE9: use feature detection instead of browser detection, and use <!DOCTYPE html>.

Be sure to use feature detection instead of browser detection

If you are using browser detection, such as automatically falling back to a non-canvas implementation if you detect that the user is using an IE User Agent string, you may be blocking HTML5 content from rendering in IE9. Instead of doing browser detection, you should do feature detection to check if the user’s browser has a certain capability. For instance, you can use this code to check if your user’s browser supports canvas:

var canvas = document.createElement("canvas");
if (canvas.getContext && canvas.getContext("2d")) {
{
	// Code requiring canvas support
} else {
	// Canvas isn't available. Put non-canvas fallback here
}

This eliminates the need for you to make assumptions about current browser feature support and ensures your site will continue to work as browsers evolve. We explain more about feature detection in this post.

How to check if the user’s browser supports Canvas:

DO: Canvas feature detection code
DON’T: Browser detection using User Agent string
DON’T: Conditional comments

Make sure your site is in IE9 mode

By default, if your site is following web standards, such as using a standards DOCTYPE, IE9 will render it in standards mode. You can check if your site is in this mode by bringing up the Developer Tools (press F12) and checking to see if your site is in IE9 standards Document Mode.

screenshot of the developer tools with Document Mode: 'IE9 standards highlighted'

Canvas is a new feature only supported in IE9 standards mode – a design decision we took to ensure that legacy document modes remain fully backward compatible. If you see a Document Mode for your site other than IE9 standards, HTML5 elements like canvas won’t be displayed. For example, if you don’t have a DOCTYPE in your page, IE9 will display the site in Quirks Mode. To ensure your page works as expected in IE9, we recommend that you add a strict DOCTYPE to your webpages. For example, you could add the W3C HTML5 DOCTYPE:

<!DOCTYPE html>

Or you can use a common strict DOCTYPE such as this:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

You can read more about how IE determines the document mode here.

Interoperability and Canvas

Interoperability is a high priority for IE9, to the point where we recommend sending IE9 the same standards-based markup your site sends to other browsers. Most canvas sites should just work on IE9 if the site was originally developed for another browser. That being said, there are a few behavior differences between browsers. For instance, consider the shadow demo from the Canvas Pad test drive site.

a canvas rendering from IE9 same canvas rendered in Chrome - gradients and shadows look different than IE9 same canvas rendered in Firefox - similar to IE9 but certain shadows rendered differently than IE9 or Chrome same canvas rendered in Safari - shadows different yet again same canvas rendered in Opera - also different

This is one example of a canvas feature that is rendered a little differently in each browser. We are making IE9 interoperable whenever possible, but for some canvas features, other browsers do not have a complete or correct implementation. In these cases, we follow the W3C spec. We submit test cases to the W3C as a way to help ensure everyone agrees on how the spec should be interpreted and implemented. To learn more about our shadow implementation, check out our canvas tests from the IE Test Center.

The purpose of the W3C spec is to define a standard that all browsers should follow. If we find examples where browsers uniformly behave differently from the spec, we feel that spec should be updated to reflect the interoperable behavior, if it makes sense for web developers. For instance, HTMLFrameElement did not contain the contentWindow attribute in the W3C spec; however IE8, Firefox, and Chrome all support this attribute. We filed a bug with a proposed change, and the HTML5 editor updated the latest revision of the spec.

If something looks unexpected in IE9 and you believe it is an interoperability issue or an area where we deviate from the spec, please let us know by filing a bug with Microsoft Connect. One of our goals around the platform previews and the beta of IE9 is to give our users a chance to give us as much feedback as possible, so don’t hesitate to let us know if you think you see a bug!

Thanks,
Elizabeth Ford and Jatinder Mann
Program Managers, Internet Explorer

Edit 9/9: Updated the detection code sample to be more robust. Thanks to Paul Irish for pointing out this problem.

‘Giant Goldfish’ Makes Waves on the Web

4:00 pm - September 8, 2010 in Yahoo! Buzz Log

by Mike Krumboltz

This just in from the "strange but true" files. Fisherman Raphael Biagini reeled in what is believed to be a 30 pound koi carp in France, where the fish are quite popular. The fish, a vivid orange, looks a great deal like a giant goldfish. The photo is several months old, but it's buzzing right now, thanks to an article from the UK's Daily Mail.

Not surprisingly, Web searches on "giant goldfish" are currently soaring on Yahoo!. However, it's important to remember that this guy only looks like a super-sized version of every child's first pet. And, for the record, Mr. Biagini, who has caught many a giant carp in his day, returned the orange fish to the water after having his photo taken.

[Video: Massive rabbit on the loose]

[Rewind: Whale jump crushes boat]

Of course, some people may look at the photo and scream, "Fake!" And, indeed, the Web is full of stories of altered photos. However, from what we can tell, a fish this size and this color is possible. According to Ken Peterson, Communications Director at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, this isn't out of the realm of possibility. If a koi has the right amount of food, and enough space to grow, he says there's no telling how big they can get.

Indeed, koi carp have grown a lot bigger. John McCosker of the California Academy of Sciences points out that, according to FishBase.org, the largest koi on record weighed almost 90 pounds (like the orange fish, it was caught in France).

While it is a bit odd that the fish doesn't appear to be struggling, McCosker explains that this kind of fish isn't among the most wild. And the fish's color, while striking, isn't all that unique. Check out this photo from a Japanese Garden in Long Beach, California.

Still, there are those who don't believe the photo is real. Many commenters to the Daily Mail story point out that the fish appears to weigh much more than 30 pounds. One doubter writes that the fisherman is holding the fish the way somebody would hold a one pound package.

Other popular Yahoo! stories:
• NBA star's bizarre ride causes a stir
• A-list actors' childhood movie roles
• Best and worst fast food hamburgers

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September developer events

2:30 pm - September 8, 2010 in Yahoo! Developer Network Blog

AppNation logo AppNation, San Francisco, CA. September 13-15: YDN will be represented by Erik Schmidt and Connected TV at the demo pod. In addition, Ron Jacoby, the Chief Architect of Connected TV, will be speaking.

PennApps, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. September 16-19: Tom Hughes-Croucher will be presenting a talk on YQL, and he is also a Hack judge.

Web Directions, Atlanta, GA. September 21-24: Tom will be speaking on An Introduction to Server-side JavaScript, while Nicholas Zakas will address High Performance JavaScript.

An Evening with Hadoop, London, England. September 22: Yahoo! Solutions Architect Dr. Milind Bhandarkar will present two 90-minute talks: Overview of Apache Hadoop & MapReduce Programming, and Introduction to Pig Programming.

JSConf EU, Berlin, Germany. September 25-26: The European JavaScript conference will have Tom on server-side JavaScript, Stoyan Stefanov on Performance Patterns, and Douglas Crockford on Loopage.

TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon, San Francisco, CA. September 27-29: YDN will be on hand to offer API support on September 25 at the hackathon weekend that precedes the main Disrupt event. In addition, startups who have registered will compete in a Startup Battlefield demo/competition, with a $50,000 cash prize at stake.

Web 2.0 Expo, New York, NY. September 27-30: Several Yahoos will be in New York for this event, including

Doug Crockford discusses What to Expect from Browsers in the Next Five Years: A Perspective
Havi Hoffman moderates a panel on Why Hacking Matters: How to Have a Hack Day at Your Company or Organization
Tom Hughes-Croucher declares JavaScript is the New Black: Why Node.js is Going to Rock Your World
Matt Sweeney offers The Browser Performance Toolkit
Duncan Watts ponders Is Noise the New Signal, or is Signal the New Noise

Women in Computing, Grace Hopper.org conference logo Grace Hopper Celebration, Atlanta, GA, September 28- October 1: Yahoo! roars at this "celebration of women in computing" in Atlanta, with CEO Carol Bartz leading the way.

Carol Bartz delivers a keynote speech
Natalia Vinnik moderates An Introduction to Community-Developed and Open Source Software
Jenn Han Donnelly is a presenter on the Career and Economic Opportunity in Open Source Software panel
Avni Khatri moderates and Jamie Lockwood participates in a panel on Open Source for Good
Avni is a coordinator of the culminating Open Source Codeathon for Humanity (creating access to critical information in disaster zones), which includes the participation of Yahoos Mani Abrol, Jamie Lockwood, Glenna Mayo, Barbara Poblete, Jenny Han Donnelly, and Natasha Vinnik

Stacy Milman, @stacymilman
YDN Events Manager

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Rodney King, Sober and Engaged

2:05 pm - September 8, 2010 in Yahoo! Buzz Log

by Vera H-C Chan

Rodney King is not only getting along, he's getting married.

King, whose arrest and beatdown by LAPD was caught on camera way back in 1991, will be marrying someone who knows his situation well, down to his financial status: His intended is Cynthia Kelley, who served on the jury that awarded him $3.8 million in a police brutality settlement.

The romance, described in a Radar Online exclusive, started the day after the trial, when they shared a slice at a Newport Beach pizzeria. Both were married at the time, which introduced a few complications. They separated a few times, including when King, an AA member and a son of an alcoholic, reformed himself on VH1's "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew." (According to a Los Angeles Times profile, he also had another fiancee named Dawn Jean, so the romance timeline's a bit unclear).

Sobering up apparently re-ignited the devotion to his "guardian angel." The former cab driver called Kelley four months ago, and now they're headed for the altar. Though Kelley initially kept the relationship hush-hush to avoid media attention, she's gushing now. No date is set yet, though.

King, of course, made his most famous appeal back in 1992, when he asked, "People, I just want to say — can't we all get along? Can we get along?" This was in response to an acquittal of the police brutality case and the three days of rioting in Los Angeles, which resulted in "54 deaths, more than 2,300 injuries, and 12,000 arrests." To hear King talking up his newfound sobriety, check out this NPR interview.

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Hand-Write Your Searches in Yahoo! Taiwan and Hong Kong

1:51 pm - September 8, 2010 in Yahoo! Search Blog

Yahoo! Search continues to roll out innovative features to make entering queries easier, and we’ve just added a new feature for the Yahoo! Taiwan (Yahoo! Kimo) and Yahoo! Hong Kong search box. You can now hand-write queries on the writing panel next to the search button in either traditional Chinese or English.

Typing search queries in Chinese can be challenging especially for new computer users because it requires memorizing Chinese character mapping rules. Even experienced computer users don’t remember the mapping for all Chinese characters. The handwriting feature lowers the hurdle for people searching on Yahoo! Taiwan and Yahoo! Hong Kong.

To use the handwriting feature, first open the writing panel next to the search button (make sure you have the latest version of Adobe Flash Player). When you finish drawing a Chinese character, you’ll see up to six candidate characters that best match the character you drew. After you select the character you want, you may see search suggestions, saving you even more keystrokes on long queries.

For example, to search for “Lady Gaga,” you can start writing the first Chinese character of the singer’s name in the writing panel and receive six candidates that match the character.

After the first candidate is picked, you’ll see 10 search suggestions. Lady Gaga is the fourth suggestion in the list.

The handwrite technology supports Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, English, and numbers.

With this new feature, we’re continuing our focus on answering the needs of our international markets. If you use Yahoo! Search in Taiwan or Hong Kong, give the handwriting feature a try.

James Ying
Product Manager, Yahoo! Search

Early adopters: transition to the new infrastructure for Google Apps accounts

1:03 pm - September 8, 2010 in Google Enterprise Blog

Back in May we shared details about a big change so Google Apps accounts can start accessing dozens of Google services beyond the core suite of messaging and collaboration apps. This change will let users access many new services such as Blogger, Reader, Google Voice and calling-in-Gmail (US only), Picasa Web Albums, AdWords and iGoogle from their Google Apps accounts. This big improvement addresses 9 of the top 20 requests from customers in one fell swoop, so we’re thrilled that the new infrastructure is now open for early adopters! After accounts are transitioned to the new infrastructure, these customers will be able to tap into much more innovation happening all across Google, helping people be even more productive with a broader range of tools in the cloud.

Why just for “early adopters” you ask? We’re still working on a few important features, but after extensive testing we’ve found that what’s ready today is already tremendously valuable to many Standard, Premier and Education Edition customers. Here’s the functionality that early adopters won’t see before the new infrastructure is feature-complete:

Administrators do not yet have the ability to turn off access to any of these additional services as they can today for applications in the core suite.

A few applications are not compatible with the new infrastructure at this time including Google Health, PowerMeter, YouTube, Web History, Buzz and Profiles.

You should also be aware of two other details not specific to early adopters: support limitations and “conflicting accounts”. Additional applications beyond the core suite are not covered by Google Enterprise support or the 99.9% uptime guarantee. However, many services have self-service online help resources, and a subset (such as AdWords) offer enhanced support options. Finally, a small fraction of Google Apps users have created personal Google Accounts based on their organization’s Google Apps email addresses. Users in this situation will need to rename these “conflicting accounts” during the transition process, and we’ll help these users make the necessary changes.

So...if you understand the limitations and would like to transition users to the new infrastructure, sign in to the control panel. If you use the control panel in English and meet our other early adopter eligibility criteria, you’ll start seeing a notification in your dashboard in the next few days where you can get started. You can begin with a handful of pilot users, and then transition your whole organization once you’ve had a chance to kick the tires.

If any of the current limitations are problematic for you, or if your organization isn’t eligible yet, hang tight and keep an eye out here for the next phase of our roll-out. We’re excited to help you move to the new infrastructure too, and we’ll be ready for you soon! For more information, please explore our Help Center documentation for administrators and for end-users.

Posted by Denis Sosnovtsev, Product Manager

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Naomi Campbell Gets a House, Kirsten Dunst Robber Gets 4 Years, Amy Poehler Gets to Host ‘SNL’: What’s the Buzz

12:23 pm - September 8, 2010 in Yahoo! Buzz Log

by Claudine Zap

Naomi Campbell and boyfriend Vladislav Voronin

Our top picks from the day's hottest searches.

Marilyn Manson (Searches increased by 2,585%). The shock rocker lost his signature made-up look for his Interview magazine homage to "Eastbound and Down."
Balenciaga (+940%). The man who snatched Kirsten Dunst's high-end bag will get four years behind bars.
Naomi Campbell (+481%). The supermodel's billionaire boyfriend is buying her a manse on Venice's Grand Canal.
Quran burning (+396%). Hillary Clinton has condemned the Florida church's call to burn the religious book on 9/11.
Amy Poehler (+77%). Set your Tivo to funny: the comedian will return to "Saturday Night Live" as the guest host (with Katy Perry as the musical act) to launch the season on September 25.

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Google Instant: A More Innovative Approach to Search

12:02 pm - September 8, 2010 in Inside AdWords

This post is also available on the following local blogs:

(FR)

(DE)

(IT)

(ES)

(RU)

Today, we announced the launch of Google Instant, an innovative new Google.com interface that creates an interactive search experience for users by predicting their query as they type and instantly showing updated results. By providing users with this immediate feedback, they’re able to refine their searches more quickly and find the results that more precisely match what they need.

This new interface applies to both search results and related ads. Therefore, we expect increased user engagement with our search services, including ads.

Although Google Instant doesn’t change the way ads are served, ads and search results will now be shown based on the "predicted search." For example, if someone types "flow" into Google.com, our algorithms predict that the user is searching for "flowers" (the predicted search) and therefore display both search results and ads for “flowers”. However, if that user then adds the letter "c" to the query, our algorithms may predict that the user is searching for "flowchart" and show the corresponding natural and paid results for flowchart.

Example 1: User types "flow"

(click for full size image)

Example 2: User types "flowc"

(click for full size image)

As a result, Google Instant changes the way we think about impressions. With Google Instant, an impression is counted if a user takes an action to choose a query (for example, presses the Enter key or clicks the Search button), clicks a link on the results page, or stops typing for three or more seconds.

It's possible that this feature may increase or decrease your overall impression levels. However, Google Instant may ultimately improve the quality of your clicks since it helps users type queries that more directly connect them with the answers they need.

Google Instant is starting to roll-out to users on Google domains in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia who use the latest browsers (Chrome v5/6, Firefox v3, Safari v5 for Mac and Internet Explorer v8). Please note, users on domains other than Google.com can only access Google Instant if they are signed in to a Google Account. We will continue to add new domains and languages over the next several months.

For more information on this interactive new feature, please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

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