This week, we had a number of exciting announcements:
Refine your searches by location Location can tremendously aid the way you search, so we were pleased to add the ability to refine your searches by location to the Search Options panel. Say you're big on the outdoors and want to find bike rental information, bicycling blogs or the closest sporting goods store. There's a good chance you're looking for information that's relevant to your region, city or even a city you're visiting on vacation. That's where this tool can help. One of the really useful things about this tool is that it works geographically — not just with keywords — so you don't have to worry about adding a city name (e.g., "Berkeley") to your query and missing webpages that are in a similar region (e.g., "East Bay", "Oakland") but might not specifically mention the city in your search.
Example search: [bike stores] - Click on "Show options" to adjust the location. You can narrow the location down to near you, the city you're in, the region or state. You can also select "Custom Location" and enter it directly.
Fetch as Googlebot Mobile added to Webmaster Tools Labs Last October, we launched Webmaster Tools Labs, and it has been a huge success. Malware Details have helped thousands of users identify pages on their site that may be infected with malicious code, and Fetch as Googlebot has given users more insight into our crawler. Today, we're happy to introduce an additional Labs feature to our line-up: the ability to fetch pages as Googlebot-Mobile.
This was a common request from users with mobile-specific sites, and we thought it was a great idea. We have two mobile options: cHTML (primarily used for Japanese sites) and XHTML/WML. We're excited to bring you this feature based on your feedback, and we look forward to launching more of them in future. Let us know what you think!
Facebook in real-time search Starting this week we added Facebook content to real-time search in the U.S. Real-time search, which we launched in December, helps you tap into the most relevant, freshest search results on the web, many of which are just seconds old. With this latest addition, you can access the news, photos and blog posts that Facebook fan pages publish to the world. You can find the Facebook Pages updates in our real-time mode by clicking on "Show Options" and then "Latest" or "Updates."
Google Voice is about giving you more control over your communications, through dozens of features — ranging from call screening to voicemail transcription to the ability to send and receive SMS by email.
While we've heard from users that they love our growing list of features, we're conscious of the fact that Google Voice can seem overwhelming to people trying it for the first time.
So we've created a short video that gives an overview of what Google Voice can do.
In addition, we've created a set of short videos that dive into more detail about ten features of Google Voice:
The videos show why you might want to use each feature and basic instructions for getting started. And each video focuses on just one topic so you can learn about the features that matter to you.
Finally, we just launched our own YouTube channel at youtube.com/googlevoice. You can view all of the videos mentioned above in a custom video gadget we built for this channel, which will help you keep track of which videos you've already watched.
We hope these videos help you get the most out of Google Voice.
Posted by Jason Toff, Associate Product Marketing Manager
Also released last week: search spelling suggestions help you find the file you're looking for, even when your typing is off. The Google Docs search spell checker is powered by the same technology that helps you get better search results on google.com.
Scripts for Google Apps Standard Edition At the end of last week we launched application scripting for Google Apps Standard Edition. (Before it was only available to businesses and schools using Premier and Education Editions.) Scripts can be triggered from spreadsheets to perform automated tasks and calculations, but scripts go far beyond spreadsheets; they can be used to fire off automated email messages, create appointments in Google Calendar and accomplish other actions across the whole Google Apps suite. We've written up a few script tutorials if you have the itch to give scripting a try.
Mobile device management Just yesterday, Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers got a boost in their ability to manage mobile devices synced with Google Apps. Right from the online control panel, IT admins can remotely wipe data from lost or stolen mobile phones, configure devices to lock after a period of inactivity and set password strength requirements. These new capabilities are available for iPhones, Windows Mobile devices and Nokia E-series phones. Stay tuned for similar features for Android devices.
Saline Area Schools in Michigan has an especially impressive "gone Google" story. They're saving $400,000 in the first year, spending much less time on server administration, keeping spam at bay and fostering better collaboration among faculty.
Fairchild Semiconductor also recounted their experience switching 6,000 employees spread across 20 countries off their legacy Lotus Notes installation, selecting Google Apps and Postini over hosted email alternatives from Microsoft and IBM. Barry Driscoll, Senior Director of IT for Fairchild summed it up best: "Now we are providing our employees with a lot more functionality for a lot less money."
Hope you're enjoying the latest round of new capabilities, whether you're using Google Apps with friends and family, with work colleagues, or with classmates. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.
Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager
Follow
