Google Reader shows videos

Ever read a blog post with a embedded video but doesn't display properly in Google reader or personalized homepage? This era has gone. Now Google Reader supports embedded videos from Google Video and YouTube*. You see the latest Google Tech Talks by Kai-Fu Lee, Greater China President, when visiting the Seattle area Google office on January. [Warning: 53mins long]

* - This also includes other popular video sharing sites including MySpace, Jumpcut, Grouper, IFILM, Metacafe, Vimeo, vSocial.

Related: Official Google Reader Blog - Getting embedded in Google Reader

Customize coloums in AdWords

Google focus highly on user experience and they offer users the right to choose. This is why you can customize your Google personalized homepage, what softwares to download for Google Pack and now you can choose what data to appear in your AdWords columns. A same change, yet saves time.

Orkut gets SMS

Today is orkut's three-year-old birthday and Google as normal celebrates it by adding features to it. You can now scrap* your friends, look up their contact information and receive scrap notifications via SMS right in your mobile phone. This feature is only available for Brazilians using Claro as their service provider.

* A scrap is similar to a comment or a short story

Related: Official Google Blog - SMS on Orkut

Google ready to take on Microsoft

Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google has hinted that the company is working very hard on an enterprise product which will be sold to businesses, will include e-mail, calendar, word processing, spreadsheet, instant messaging, and voice-over-Internet programs and is expected soon. Google currently offers a free version of its integrated, ad-free word processor (formerly called as Writely) and spreadsheet program called as Google Docs.
Google's narrow income source often worries investors. Now it is trying to broaden its revenue beyond advertising and takes on Microsoft. The move comes as Microsoft prepares to roll out Office 2007, the new version of its best-selling productivity software suite, as well as Windows Vista, the latest upgrade of its ubiquitous operating system. Will Google be able to attract enterprises to switch from something that they are used to and so far relatively reliable? Let's see.

Another AdSense video ad test

Google AdWords allow publishers to display video ads on Google's content network. Google likes testing and now they testing the starting button of video ads. Here is a sample:

As far as I am concern, I don't really like the look and feel of the video ads. I would suggest Google:

1. Change the video control bar to transparent and to hide it when the video starts playing. This gives more space for the video itself and becomes less distractive.
2. Change the Google text in the 'Ads by Google' to a colorful Google logo. This blends with the colorful videos.
3. I don't know how, but make the whole thing less dull. I sometimes think that not much users will bother to even click and play the videos (even worse than image ads where they at least get seen).

Still lots of testing and improvements needed before more advertisers start trying video ads.

Open Gmail Document Attachemnts in Google Docs

A few months ago, Gmail allows users to open spreadsheet attachments in Google Docs. Now, they allowed users to open document attachments in Google Docs as well. In the Gmail Help Center, there is no mention that users can open document attachments in Google Docs yet. This feature is extremely useful for those who would not only like to view the attachment but to also to edit it.

Now that you can view documents and spreadsheets in Gmail in a separate window, would it be possible if we could edit them within the message. The idea is simple, when attaching a document, you first upload it to Google Docs. When the recipient receives the email, they can edit it within the email message and can collaborate. This saves a lot of time to enter and exit the Google Docs interface.



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PageRank Advancement

I was actually pretty surprised and shocked when I checked the PageRank of gSpy today and noticed a leap from nothing to 3 shortly within two months. While many Search Engine Optimization (SEO) companies guarantees a 24 hour inclusion in Google and other popular search engines, I managed to get listed in Google within 12 hours (at that time I got only a few blog posts). How is this possible? Let me share my experience:

1. Google loves content and to Google, content is king. Google believes that clear and accurate pages that is helpful, information-rich will attract many visitors and entice webmasters to link to your site. This to me means to blog about Google and that's all. I never mention anything off-topic, e.g. Apple released the innovative iPhone or when Yahoo updated its ad algorithm (this is the first time). For other webmasters, this means might mean to narrow up your main focus and to reduce off topic content. For instance, a blog about NBA shouldn't have posts about Window Vista ... you know what I mean.
2. Content is king but it makes no difference if your site is never seen. Ever since I started to blog in gSpy, I was desperate to let Google know its existence. The most effective and efficient way is to make use of the webmaster tools.
   
   • Add your page to the to-be-crawled list and in most cases, Google bots will visit your site within hours to get a basic idea of the page content. Any content that catches Google's attention will be included in its index shortly (normally within hours as well). Keep in mind, however, submitting your URL to Google does not guarantee inclusion, but only to notify Google and let it examine it.
   • Verify your site in Google Webmaster Tools by adding in a specific META tag into your blog's . Though I don't know the mechanism behind this (and Blogger don't support Sitemaps) , I get the feeling that this helps speeds up the inclusion process. Moreover, this tool helps you understand more about your pages - in Google's perspective. For example, Google will tell you the common words found in the content of your site and external links to your site. These factors determines the ranking of your site for a particular keyword search (Though Google has never reveal its PageRank algorithm, people commonly agree that Google uses the quantity, quality and keywords of incoming links to a site, the URL of the page, the title and keywords in the page and the layout to determine the importance of a page. Read more about Google's PageRank technology here.)
   • If you own a blog, remember to ping Google every time you create a new post. Unlike normal websites, blogs tend to be updated more frequently and Google wants to keep its index up-to-date. Google Blog Search tends to be less strict in terms of index inclusion. So more likely your blog will be searchable within the next couple hours.
3. I have been talking about Google indexing your blog so far, how about the PageRank? As a recent post in the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog mentions, blogmasters no longer have to optimize their content so that 'thematically-related or trusted websites link to you by choice'. The more recent method is, takes advantage of Web 2.0 social content websites such as Digg, Del.icio.us, or !Yahoo Answers. In my case, every single post in gSpy are being Dugg to ensure to increase exposure and most likely, good stories get more diggs.
4. Focus on users rather than search engines and keep working. It sounds a bit naive (or from the Official Google Blog) but that's reality. The more you focus on search engine rankings, the more you forget about readers or visitors. And without users, you it will have to pay more for even unnatural SEO. I waited for two months not days (of course it is also because I was lucky enough to have a PageRank update in January.)

I have once been like you, struggling to get visitors and readers. But once you get used to the rules, you notice the importance of user experience and content.

If you would like more reading, here are some really useful reference:
Webmaster Guidelines
How can I create a Google-friendly site?

Report bugs in Gmail

Google provides Gmail and other services to webmasters who owns a domain through Google Apps for your domain. Google knows very well that the administrator who can manage a domain has a greater chance of having better knowledge over programing and is more sensitive to small bugs. Therefore, Google places a 'Report bug' link in selected Gmail accounts of Google Apps for your domain adminstrator hoping that they will help refine ther system. On click, you will be redirected to a form dedicated for bug report. This is a description of the form:

This form is to make sure that Gmail knows about technical issues, and we regret that we cannot respond to every message we receive.

User feedback is always essential in product developments as combining the power of billions of users, you, can make a difference.

Google Video and YouTube integration

This morning, YouTube was under maintenance and many functions were disabled. Now we know why. Since Google acquired YouTube in November 2007, there has been no sign of integration between the two companies. However, Google finally release its plans to how it is going to make full use of the Internet's most popular video sharing site. Here is how:

• All YouTube videos will be included in the Google Video index (in other words it is searchable in Google Video). This migration of index includes all description and ratings (maybe tags). Yet Google hasn't mention anything about ranking the videos. Will YouTube videos come first or only the impression and rating counts?
  
• Google has made a hint in its Press Release by mentioning the testing of video ads with AdSense publishers that YouTube will soon display video ads by Google (most likely similar to Google Video where ads are inserted either at the very back of the video or in the middle like TV commercials (which is of course very annoying).

This made clear that Google will still concentrate on its search technology while the YouTube focuses on innovations with online video sharing (there are a few experimental products in TestTube, the YouTube labs)

Related: Official Google Blog - A look ahead at Google Video and YouTube

Added thought: Google Video has a dedicate video player allowing users to save videos and view them later (yet requires Internet connection). Now that YouTube and Google Video shares index, would it be possible to view YouTube videos in Google Video Player in the future?

The truth about Google Earth

Note: According to Google Earth, most of the imageries are approximately one to three years old. So the situation mention in the video will not happen in reality. ;)