Google Play Store turns one: Happy Birthday!

Google’s Play Store has turned one today and there are gifts for all of you by the Google Play team. It was exactly one year ago that Google rechristened the Android Market as the Google Play Store. Here’s a message from the Google Play team:

It was just a year ago today that we launched this amazing shop on the interwebs to offer the best in digital content. Since the best parties are the ones that send you home with a present, today we celebrate our birthday with a festive goodie bag full of gifts. Don’t delay in picking up these limited-time offers. It’s been an incredible first year and we look forward to sharing the gift of digital diversions for many more to come.

Google launched its Google Play Books service in India recently and is expanding its presence all around the world with nifty features. The offers currently going on are mostly in-app offers, followed by music, TV shows and movies. Kung Fu Panda is discounted to half its price, the pilot of Breaking Bad is free, and the book A Quest of Heroes by Morgan Rice is available for free.

Source: Google Play

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Google Play Books arrives in India

It’s been just under a year that Google introduced its Google Play Store. An answer to the increasing competition from Apple and Amazon, the Play store is a digital entertainment hub where you can find, consume and share apps and games on your Android phone or tablet.

Google is adding books functionality to Google Play for people in India. The Google Play Store has thousands of Indian titles on offer, and that includes titles from new releases to eternal classics. Books from well-read Indian authors such as Amish Tripathi, Devdutt Pattanaik and APJ Abdul Kalam can be found on the store, plus many international bestsellers.

Books on Google Play caters to a wide audience offering many titles and many ways to access and read them. And the fact that your library is literally at your fingertips no matter where you are is a great boon to the users, especially a service that is provided by Google. Google Play allows you to read on the device of your choice: the web, a phone, or a tablet and pick it up right where you left off when switching between devices.

The many ways you can access Google Books are:

• Android phones and tablets – you can begin reading books bought by you instantly in the Google Play Books app.


• Your computer – you can read in your web browser.


• iPhones and iPads – you will be able to read books in the Google Play Books app.

Source: Google India Blog

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Google developing touchscreen devices based on Chrome OS

Reports from the Wall Street Journal suggest that Google has been developing Chrome OS laptops with touchscreens added. According to WSJ’s sources, the touchscreen Chromebooks will go on sale later this year. There are no further details pertaining to which hardware manufacturers Google is working with to bring the device to the market. Chromebooks manufactured by Samsung and Acer are directly sold through the Google Play Store, and this has been happening since the last year. The much rumored Chromebook Pixel might just be the touchscreen wonder that’s being looked at here right now, although it still remains alluded in mystery.

The Chrome OS is built around Google’s Chrome browser for the desktops and is optimised for use with mouse and keyboard. A touchscreen based Chromebook would require significant changes in user interface to the current Chrome OS. With Android already dominating as a touchscreen platform, making Chrome OS touch based too would mean two touch based OS offerings from Google, just like Microsoft.

Source: Wall Street Journal (Subscription required)

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Google rumoured to open its own retail shops by the end of the year

9to5Google reports that an extremely reliable source has confirmed to them that Google is in the process of building stand-alone retail stores in the U.S. and hopes to have the first flagship Google Stores open for the holidays in major metropolitan areas.

The ultimate aim of Google branded stores is to get Google’s flagship products such as the new Google Nexus, Chromebook, and upcoming products like Google Glass into the hands of prospective customers. Google is of the opinion that many potential customers need to get hands-on experience with its products before they are willing to commit to a purchase. Apple and Microsoft, Google’s fiercest competitors, already have retail outlets where customers can try before they buy.

It is speculated that marketing Google Glass to the public was one of the main reasons for Google to consider opening up their own retail stores. The leadership at Google thought consumers would need to try Google Glass first hand to make a purchase. Non-techies would not be interested in buying Google’s glasses without having to try them out. The chance to sell other Google-branded products at the stores also made sense.

Apart from the advantages mentioned above, Google will also have an opportunity to demonstrate other upcoming and Google X projects such as driverless cars and mini-drone delivery systems.

Source: 9to5Google

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Google rolls out Android 4.2.2 update, bug fixes and stability enhancements

Google hasn’t yet announced the Android 4.2.2 update, but users have confirmed that the over-the-air update has started rolling out to Nexus devices. The update is a very minor one with just certain “stability enhancements” and bug fixes, and those are the ones that are really important. Android Central has listed the most noticeable enhancements, such as fixes for random rebooting problems and Bluetooth audio stutter issues. So if you have any issues with your Android device, hopefully Android 4.2.2 will fix them.

The user interface of the quick settings introduced to the notification bar in Android 4.2 has been tweaked now. Whereas earlier tapping Wi-Fi or Bluetooth in the notification bar would take you to the relevant settings screen, you can now switch them on or off directly with a long press. That’s a very convenient change and would speed things up. The Airplane mode is toggled with a quick tap though.

Other changes include a prompt to allow the connection when connecting via Android Debug Bridge to a computer for the first time, changes in App download notification (a progress bar that tells you the time remaining in addition to a percentage downloaded), new sounds for wireless charging initiation and low battery alert, and new Gallery app animation for faster loading.

Via: Android Central

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Poems on Promise Day 2013

Happy Promise Day 2013 Poems

To be in love and to say nothing approximately it –
this seems to me the most elegant
(and perhaps the only sensible)
form of romantic attachment.
It’s a sentiment poetry and music only
occasionally address – the best pop song on this theme
is The Band’s “It Makes No Difference” with the tremendous line,
“Now there’s no love as true as the love that dies untold” –
yet Walter Raleigh’s “The Silent Lover” keeps its own counsel even more eloquently.

---

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was pleased in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought yet love from thee donate recompetence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay.
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

---

Give me a promise,
That You will never go away,
You will donate me your Love,
Through the Night and Day.Say that you will care,
You will be always there,
You will whisper my name,
And think of me in your Prayers.Give me this promise,
And mean it too,
Give me a Red Rose,
And say I Love Yo

---

I Promise You My Friend
Promise You My Life
Promise We’ll Never Be Apart
Promise Not To Hurt You
Promise To Never Make You Cry
Promise To Always Trust You
Promise Not To Lie
Promise You Forever
Promise You Tonight
Promise You My Respect
Promise To Do Things Right
Promise To Always Be There
Promise Until The End
Promise To Always Love You
Promise To Be Your Best Friend
Promise You My Love
Promise You My Life
Promise This Forever
Promise Our Friendship Is My Life
Your The PEANUT To My BUTTER ,
Your The STAR To My BURST,
Your The T To My T,
Your The POP To My TART,
Your The MILKY To My WAY,
Your The FRUIT To My LOOP,
Your The MILK To My DUDS,
Your The LUCKY To My CHARMS,
Your The ICE To My CREAM,
But Mostly….
Your The BEST To My FRIEND

Happy Promise Day 2013 Poems, Promise Day 2013 Poems, Poems on Promise Day, Happy Promise Day 2013 Poem, Best Poem for Promise Day 2013, 2013 Promise  Day Poems, Promise day 2013 Poems in Hindi, Happy Promise Day Poems in English, Valentines Promise Day 2013 Poems, Poem for Valentine Promise Day

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Android for Dummies

Android. Over the last couple of years, this word has become a household name. It is printed in the newspapers, comes on TV, jumps out from billboards and screams at you from shop windows. The word ‘Android’ rolls off our tongues quite casually when the talk turns to smartphones and tablet computers. Some of us can talk nineteen to the dozen and proffer advice to our comrades about purchasing the best Android mobile phone for a hot deal in the market. But how many of us can talk ABOUT Android for a whole minute? That, might be a question worth thinking about.

Before we delve into what Android means, there are a couple of concepts that we would do well to understand. Android, as it is widely known, is an Open Source software. What does Open Source mean? Let us take up an analogy to go about this. Say you go to a restaurant and order a burger. If the waiter gives you a free sample along with the recipe for the burger, you could make it on your own and add your modifications to it. Open Source software like Android works along these lines. The mobile Operating System (OS) Android is a free software in itself and the source code (something like the main program) is made readily available to the public

While defining Open Source, the term Mobile OS has cropped up. Most of us are familiar with what an Operating System is. Windows from Microsoft, is an operating system for computers and laptops. An operating system is essentially a master program which is responsible for the working of your PC on the whole. A similar arrangement is required to incorporate the ‘smart’ in a smartphone. A mobile OS is needed to connect to the Internet, download applications, run them and respond intelligently to user inputs.

Now, we can go into understanding what Android is. It is an Open Source mobile OS used in smartphones by various hardware manufacturers. Android was originally the name of a start-up firm by name Android Inc. formed in 2003, a company that aimed to make software for mobile phones. Search maven Google acquired this company in 2005 and has since been controlling the versions and updates of Android. In 2007, the Open Handset Alliance was formed which brought into partnership some mobile software, hardware and carrier companies. Android was the first ever product of this consortium. The first ever smartphone running Android was the HTC Dream released in October 2008.

Android has received many updates, both major and minor since its inception. To the observant eye, it would be apparent that the versions are named after desserts or sugary confectionary and the starting letters are in an alphabetical progression (Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich and the latest – Jelly Bean). Since Google is the proprietor of the Android software, it has come out with a flagship Nexus range of devices (phones and tablets) that run the unaltered version (no changes to the source code) of Android.

Because of it’s versatility and free lincense, Android has risen rapidly as the OS of choice for mobile manufacturers. To distinguish themselves from their competitors, hardware manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, LG, Micromax, Karbonn etc., apply their own customization to the software released by Google and come up with different User Interfaces (UIs). The customization doesn’t stop there. The end user, i.e., the customer can change the entire look of the phone to his taste with the help of custom made themes that come in the form of applications or ‘apps’.

Google Play Store Logo

App is another buzzword which may baffle the less informed ones among us. These are applications, like the text editor, Internet Explorer, music player, photo viewer etc., that run on your laptop/PC. These facilities can be made available in a smartphone by downloading the respective applications or ‘apps’. These applications are again programs that have been written exclusive for the Android platform. Google has an online shop where you can pick out applications that interest you for free or for a small fee. Called the Play Store, the app store spoils you to no end as there is an app for anything and everything. Play Store comes pre-installed in every Android phone so that you can delve in as soon as you get a data connection. Latest iterations of Android have multitasking capabilities built into them to juggle efficiently between tasks that the user delegates to his phone. Apps have a way of staying idle in the background without consuming battery power and can be called upon when required.

One of the major issues reported and bemoaned by Android patrons is the lack of timely updates for their devices. The problem is a complicated one because Android is an OS that is used by a wide array of hardware manufacturers. These hardware manufacturers  in turn have not one but at least ten different devices for which they have to roll out the updates. Each device has different specifications and as a result, unique modifications have to be applied to the Android version to make a perfect fit. Once these levels have passed, there is the time taken by carriers to see how these updates can be sent out to mobile phone owners via their channels. By the ti me all these hurdles are crossed and the update whirs to life in the user’s hands, the novelty of the software is long lost. However, constant efforts are underway to minimize this time lag between the official announcement and actual receipt of the software updates.

 Official Android updates are typically announced once in every six to nine months. In spite of the delay it takes for these effects to trickle down to the consumer level, there are many takers for this platform owing to its user-friendliness, amenability to customization and open nature. Today, Android is monopolizing over the smartphone territory with a 75% market share. No other operating system has seen such widespread and consistent success. Android’s growth chart seems to be going all the way up and the projected figures replicate this trend for a couple more years to come. With manufacturers working round the clock to churn out new devices to capitalize upon this amazing piece of software, there are more sugary treats to look forward to in the near future.

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How to Search Google Images by the Exact Size

Google Images previously offered a useful “search by size” option to help you find images by their exact size (or resolution).

For instance, you could limit your search for landscape photographs to image files that were at least 10 Megapixels in size. Or, if you are were using Google Image search to find wallpapers for the desktop, you could specify the image resolution as 1920×1080 pixels and Google would only return large images with those exact dimensions.

The “exact size” search option is missing in the new Google Images but you can still limit your searches to a particular size by using the “imagesize” search operator in the query itself (see the above screenshot).

Enter the search terms as before and then add IMAGESIZE:WIDTHxHEIGHT to the query. Once you hit Enter, Google Images will remove the operator from the query but the results will only display images that match the specified size.

The search by size operators works on the mobile version of Google as well.

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Check how to Generate RSS Feeds from Google Plus

Google Plus does not offer RSS Feeds but you can easily generate feeds on your own using a new Chrome app developed by Eric Koleda, an engineer working with the Google Apps Script team. Here’s a  sample Google+ Feed create using this tool.

Follow Google+ Profiles and Pages via RSS Feeds

Create RSS Feeds for Google Plus

To get started, open Feed+ inside Chrome and it will request access to some of your Google services. Say yes and you are all set to create RSS feeds from Google Plus. You can generate RSS feeds for individual profiles, business pages and for search results on Google Plus.
The generated RSS feeds are public and thus you, or anyone else, can subscribe to these feeds in any news reader. FeedBurner, for some reason, does not recognize these feeds as valid though I could easily subscribe to them in Google Reader.
And now that you have an RSS Feed for your Google Plus profile, you can easily cross-post updates to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn and everywhere else using the IFTTT service. You may also refer to my previous tutorial on how to publish RSS feeds to Twitter for more options.
If you are to ever disable a particular Google Plus feed, simple delete it from the Feed+ app inside Chrome. Also, you only need the Chrome app for managing the feeds – the Google Plus to RSS conversion happens in the cloud.
Google Plus APIs do not include details about Circles else it would have been more convenient to have a single RSS feed per Google+ circle rather than having to generate separate feeds for every member of a circle.

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Hoe to Track DMCA Complaints Status to Google

A ‘spammy’ website decides to copy your content – be it text, photos or something else – without permission and also ignores your repeated requests (and warnings) to remove the stolen material from their server.
You are left with no other option but to file a DMCA complaint with Google to get your copied content removed from Gogle search results and also to AdSense if the other website is using Google Ads to monetize “your” content.
Google has made it extremely easy for web publishers to file DMCA complaints. They provide simple online forms for reporting copyright infringement on Google properties like AdSense, Blogger, YouTube and Web Search and you need not have a legal background to submit such requests.
What happens next? Google also offers a DMCA Dashboard where you can track the status of DMCA complaints that you made to Google for web search.

Track your DMCA Complaints to Google

If your complaint is accepted, Google will remove the relevant pages of the offending site from its search results and will also forward a copy of your DMCA notice to the Chilling Effects website for archiving – the complaint becomes public at this point.
The DMCA dashboard is part of the Google Webmasters website so there’s a possibility that it may only work for sites that you have registered with webmaster tools. Also, it only tracks complaints related to Google Search at this time.

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You Can Use Google Authenticator without the Phone

Google Authenticator makes your online accounts more secure. You need to enter the regular password and a one-time password generated on your phone (or tablet) to log into any online account* where 2-step authentication is enabled.

Google Authenticator generates one-time passwords on your mobile phone

Tip #1: Use Google Authenticator on Multiple Devices

The Authenticator app is available for Android, iPhone, Windows Phone and BlackBerry mobile phones. If you however carry two or more of these devices, like an iPad and an Android mobile phone, you can configure the app such that same code is generated on all your devices. This is handy because you can then pick the one-time code either from your phone or the tablet for logging in.
The trick is fairly straight-forward. While you are scanning the QR code with Google Authenticator on one device, launch the Authenticator app on your other devices and scan the same QR code image with them. Just make sure that the system time is the same on all your devices and you can then use either of them to log into your online accounts.
If you have already configured two-step authentication for an account on one device, you may have to temporarily disable 2-step authentication for that account and then re-enable to simultaneously configure it across all your devices.

Tip #2: Use Google Authenticator on the Desktop

You may run into a situation where you are working on the desktop (or laptop) computer but the mobile phone, that is required for generating one-time passwords, is another room or you probably left it at a friend’s place.
Not a problem as you can also generate verification codes in your desktop browser without requiring the Google Authenticator app. All you need is is the GAuth add-on for Chrome and you are good to go. The only difference is that instead of scanning QR codes, here you will have to enter the 16-digit secret key to add an account manually.
The security tokens are stored locally in your browser using HTML Local Storage and thus you don’t have to enter them again.

[*]  Gmail (Google), Dropbox, Dreamhost, WordPress, LastPass and quite a few other web apps now support 2-step verification using the Google Authenticator app. See Lifehacker for a complete list of supported apps.

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Block Useless Websites from your Google Search Results

Google has been getting better at identifying and removing spam websites from their search results pages but sometimes not-so-useful sites do manage to slip through the Google filters. What can you do to prevent such sites from appearing in your Google results?
Approach #1: Block Sites at the Browser Level 
Google offers an easy-to-use Chrome add-on called Personal Blocklist that lets you block entire web domains from showing up in your Google search results. If you spot any irrelevant website in search results pages, just click the block link (screenshot below) and all pages from that website will be hidden from your Google results forever.

Block Websites from appearing in your Google Search Results

The Chrome add-on implements client-side filtering – the blocked websites are still getting served in Google search results as before and the add-on simply hides them on your screen using

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Five quick ways to get a website indexed by Google

Launching a brand new website is tough. When you first start out, your website is completely unknown, you have no inbound links, and you can’t be found in the search engines. So what do you do?
I've launched a lot of new websites over the years and I've experimented with many different methods of getting websites indexed. Here are my top five indexing tips...

1) Submit your website URL to Google

This is a bit of a no-brainer but it really has to be first in this list. Google can’t index your website if it doesn’t know about it, so submitting your homepage URL is definitely the best place to start. This may not be the quickest indexing method but it’s a safe and sure one to start you off.
Of course Google makes no guarantees that it will index every URL that is added but don’t let this stop you. Just make sure you only add one URL per domain (normally your homepage) otherwise it could be considered spam. Google’s crawlers will find all the other pages in your website by following internal links.

• Here’s the link to submit your URL to Google:
  www.google.com/addurl
  
• Yahoo also has a similar ‘Add URL’ function:
  search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html
  
• And so does Microsoft Live:
  search.live.com/docs/submit.aspx

2) Add an XML sitemap

It can take quite some time for Google’s crawlers to index all the pages in a new website just by following links. The larger the website, the more time it can take. Pages at a high click depth from your homepage can take a lot longer to get indexed because the crawlers don’t discover them until after several rounds of indexing and link following have occurred. I find that adding an XML sitemap really solves this problem because it tells Google about all your pages ahead of time. If you have a large website with many high click depth pages then an XML sitemap will help indexing enormously.
An XML sitemap is basically a text file (saved with an XML extension) that lists all the URLs in your website. The XML sitemap protocol is very simple so it can easily be created by hand or automatically with an XML sitemap generator tool. The XML sitemap standard is supported by Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft so the same sitemap can be used for all three search engines.
Once you have created your sitemap file you have to submit it to each search engine. To add a sitemap to Google you must first register your website with Google Webmaster Tools. This website is well worth the effort, it’s completely free plus it’s loaded with invaluable information about your website ranking and indexing in Google. You’ll also find many useful reports including keyword rankings and health checks. I highly recommend it.
Similarly, you can add an XML sitemap to Yahoo! through the Yahoo! Site Explorer feature. Like Google, you have to authorise your domain before you can add the sitemap file, but once you are registered you have access to a lot of useful information about your site.
Microsoft doesn’t have a special way to submit a sitemap yet (they always seem to be so far behind the competition) so you have to use their regular Submit my site form instead.

3) Submit an article to Digg

Another interesting thing I’ve noticed lately has to do with social news websites. If you submit an article to Digg or Reddit or one of the many other large social news websites, your URL tends to get picked up by Google very quickly. Typically a Digg article will appear in Google’s index after only a day or two. This is great news if you want new pages on your website to be indexed very quickly.
The down side to social news submission (if you can call it a down side) is the URL only stays in Google’s index for a few days to a week before it drops out again. After this happens it seems to be crawled as per normal, eventually appearing in the index for good after a more natural timeframe. The only exception to this rule is when an article becomes extremely popular and rises to the front page of the news website - these tend to stay in the index and not drop out at all.
Social news websites are a great way to get new websites indexed. If your site has lots of interesting content you could even find yourself on the front page so it’s well worth giving them a try.

4) Add a Google map

I discovered this little trick just the other day when I was helping my girlfriend build her big doodles website. Felicity's always drawing cute little pictures, she scans them in at super-high resolution, cuts them up into tiles, and displays them on her website with the Google Maps API (It's a great way to explore massive images on a small bandwidth connection). To make the 'doodle map' work on her domain we had to first apply for a Google Maps API key. So we did this, then we played with a few test pages on the live domain - to my surprise after a couple of days her website was ranking on the first page of Google for "big doodles", I hadn't even submitted the domain to Google yet!
Eventually I figured out what was happening. One of the Google Maps API conditions is the maps you create must be in the public domain (i.e. not behind a login screen). So as an extension of this, it seems that pages (or domains) that use the Google Maps API are crawled and made public. Very neat!

5) Source quality inbound links

Another very useful method of speeding up indexing is to get as many inbound links from quality websites as possible. If you know someone who runs a popular website or blog why not ask them for a link and a bit of a plug? It seems that the more popular a website is, the more indexing attention it gets from Google, so creating a good inbound linking strategy is essential. Spend time writing interesting and useful articles for your new website and these should start attracting more and more good quality links over time...

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ByPass YouTube Ads Before The Video Plays

Annoying YouTube ads, I’m talking about the ad before the video and not the one which gets displayed while the video plays, we have an option to hide text ads on YouTube videos. This video ad before Youtube videos is so annoying. We need to wait 30 seconds sometimes to bypass it. Some videos gives us the option to skip ad after 5 seconds. So, totally how to avoid those Youtube ads before the start of playing video.

Waiting for 30 seconds to see a one minute video is so irritating. Fortunately for Google Chrome users, there is a simple trick to bypass this YouTube video ad annoyance. You can easily skip ads on YouTube. No illegal block, Skip Ads on YouTube Chrome extension skips the ad and get you straight to the video.
There are hundreds of adblock extensions that prevent popup ads and text ads, flash ads in YouTube, but doesn’t skip these video ads which plays before the video. This extension is mainly done to save time while watching videos on YouTube. If losing about 30 seconds before watching a 1:45 video is such a pain for you, you will really enjoy that.
Once you’ve installed this extension, you could find a blue play button beside the title of every video on YouTube. If you see a video which starts with a annoying ad, just push this play button. The skip button is pretty simple. While watching a video on YouTube, a small blue icon appears at the top of it. Clicking on it will skip the current ad immediately. Works with Cosmic Panda !
Download Skip YouTube Ads

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College Tips By Google: You’ll Fail Without These 16 Google Products

Without Google, no one ever graduated college. At least that’s the message of “College Tips By Google“. It’s a new site where Google shamelessly suggests its products as the answer to all the problems facing today’s students. Follow these tips, and you’ll become a healthy, productive cog in Google’s advertising machine.

Yes, you could follow the official tips and collaborate on a resume through Docs or practice a presentation on Hangouts. But let’s face it. The people who built these products probably didn’t have a typical college experience.

Here’s a list of the 16 products Google suggests and how I think they’re actually used by college students:

• Google Maps – Drunkenly find your way back to/from the frat house
• Google Docs – Get your classmates to do all the work for you, edit your name in at the end
• Google Hangouts – Have video chat sex with your girlfriend who’s studying abroad
• Gmail – Sign up for 46 clubs, read newsletters, never attend meetings
• Google Places – Find the nearest place to buy red cups and ping pong balls
• Google Calendar – Ignore your alerts until you have 3 hours to write that 20 page paper
• Google Chrome – Roommate away for the weekend? New Incognito Window 
• Google Scholar – Cite books you never read, or don’t, plagiarizing is easier
• Google Sites – Set up a protest site to stick to the fascist school administration for banning kegs from the library
• Google Tasks – Feel guilty about all the reading you never do
• Google Advisor – Find the best 3rd credit card so you don’t run out of beer money
• Google Groups - Contribute nothing to the study group but read everyone else’s summaries
• Google Goggles – Scan your art history exam and get those obscure artist names
• Google Product Search – Buy your text books a week before finals
• Google Flight Search – Springbreak!!!
• Google+ – (no use)

CRUNCHBASE

• GOOGLE

Company:Google

Website:google.com

Launch Date:July 9, 1998

IPO:NASDAQ:GOOG

Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps and YouTube. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing them with a rich source of information....

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Google Adsense Changes Account Approval Application Process

It’s pointless to mention again that Adsense is one of the best contextual advertising network. Until now, adsense approval process was simple: You create a new adsense account, your account is reviewed, Adsense team accepts your application and you can implement ads on your site and start making money.

Google Adsense Blogger

But from now on, Adsense has changed the adsense approval process and instead of simple one step process, they have made it 2-step process.

Sign up for Adsense > Account reviewed and passed first stage > Implement ad > Account reviewed again and finally accepted.

Starting from 31st August, when you sign up for a new Adsense account, your application will be reviewed by adsense team, they will do preliminary checks on your site and information submitted in the application. For all the application which passes this first stage, they will be granted access to Adsense account and codes will be provided to place it on submitted site in the application. This is not final approval.

Publisher have to implement those ad codes on their site and which will be showing blank ads and will blend with the background of your site. Any click on these ads will not be counted in your revenue until adsense team will again review ads and if publisher passes the final approval stage, he will get another Email from adsense team confirming the same. Until 2nd stage is not passed, you will be able to login to your adsense account but it will show a message saying your account is under review.

From my point of view I don’t see that this 2 step adsense approval process will speed up whole adsense approval stage in any ways. Infact since verification and review process will be done at two stage it might delay the whole process. Users who were using Adsense on youtube, already complaining that they seeing message saying “Your earning have been put on hold” and their account has gone under review stage.

Though this will certainly help in domain ownership verification and more over those who are signing up using someone else website, might find it tough to get into Adsense. I doubt if this will also hurt services like Indyarocks which offer free adsense account without a website. Nonetheless if your account is still rejected, it’s time to try out Adsense alternatives.

Have you signed up for Adsense recently? How was your experience with new adsense approval process?

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Google Quietly Rolls Out The Chrome Extension To Bring +1 To The Entire Web

You may recall that back in May, we spotted something in Google’s “Dear Sophie” commercial: an unreleased +1 Chrome extension. This was pre-Google+, when the +1 button still didn’t do a whole lot, so even I forgot about the extension over the past few months. But very quietly, Google actually launched it yesterday.

There was no blog post, no featured placement in the Chrome Web Store — pretty much no fanfare beyond Google SVP of Chrome, Sundar Pichai, posting a link to it on Google+. But it has the potential to be a bigger deal than it seems on the surface.

As the tagline indicates, the Google +1 Button extension allows you to “+1 a web page, anywhere you go on the web”. That’s important. You no longer have to rely on a site to implement the +1 Button, you can invoke the functionality through your browser. Imagine if Facebook made their own browser and offered an extension to “Like” any page on the web through it — same idea (and one that I stillsuspect will happen sooner or later).

Right now, the +1 Button just shares content you like on the web. But eventually, the plan is to look at this data as a way to affect Google Search itself potentially. That’s huge. The button also is starting to play a role in how Google serves up advertising to you. Again, huge — though these concepts may make people wary of such a button.

As Google notes in their description of the app:

In addition to the practices described in the Google +1 Button Privacy Policy, by installing this extension, all of the pages and URLs you visit will be sent to Google in order to retrieve +1 information.

Yes, you read that correctly, “all of the pages and URLs you visit will be sent to Google” — and that’s even if you don’t click the button. Nefarious or not, that will worry some people.

And while the +1 Buttons for websites just added the functionality to share your Google+ Circles, the extension doesn’t yet offer that — but I assume it will. It does offer +1 counts though already, which is nice.

Find the extension here. Again, it’s Chrome only for now, we’ll see if they create ones for Firefox, IE, and Safari as well.

Update: For those concerned about privacy, Google pointed me to this page: How the +1 button respects your privacy.

CRUNCHBASE 

GOOGLE

Company:
GOOGLE

Website:
http://google.com

Launch Date:
7/9/1998

IPO:
25/8/2004, NASDAQ:GOOG

Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of...

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Google Launches A Music Blog To Remind People That Google Music Beta Still Exists

Music Beta, remember it? It’s the online music locker service that Google unveiled at I/O in May. But the keyword in the title very much remains “Beta” — as in, not in any way ready for primetime. Okay, maybe that’s a bit unfair, the service does work — it just doesn’t offer much. A new feature today hopes to keep people interested while they work on making it better.

Magnifier is a new music discovery site that Google has launched today as a compliment to Music Beta. But let’s be clear, this is a blog (it even runs on Google’s Blogger platform). Each day, the blog will be updated with a “song of the day” that can be added to your Music Beta account with one click.

That’s great, you can’t knock free music. But Magnifier still doesn’t address one of Music Beta’s core incompetencies: there is no way to purchase music. In order to get music into Music Beta, you have to upload your own MP3s. Now Magnifier offers a second way, but again, it’s only for a few songs that Google has acquired the rights to give away for free. Presumably, they’re still negotiating with the labels and rights holders to be able to incorporate either a music store or a streaming service into the Music product, but that’s clearly not ready to go yet.

And until it is ready to go, Music Beta won’t be close to resembling an “iTunes killer” or even an Amazon MP3 competitor. Both of those service offer easy ways to browse and buy new music. Meanwhile, other service like Pandora, Rdio, MOG, and the just-launched-in-the-U.S. Spotify attack from the other end with music streaming.

Google says that Magnifier is a way to “reignite your passion for music”, but it seems more about reminding people that Music Beta exists. Those deals can’t come soon enough for the service.

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what is the use of google base ?

Google base, also known as Froogle, is an over looked resource for traffic and product sells for an E-commerce website. Products listed with Google base are typically displayed on the first page of search results in a box labeled Shopping Results. Sometimes these ads are places at the very top of the search results under Adwords.

With these first page shopping result listings, you can add products that go directly to your website and not hosted on the Base website. You can also link your Adwords account directly to Google Base, so that your products can show up with your ads.

How to get traffic and product sells with Google Base

1. Use keywords in product titles.

One of the most common mistakes when using Google Base is not inserting keywords in product titles. Unless the product is a commonly searched term, then your visitors will not see your base listings.

An example of a bad title would be “HP Mini 1000 Mi series”. Unless someone is specifically looking for this product then it will be displayed, otherwise it will never show up in search results.

But if you change the title to “HP Computer Laptop Mini 1000 Mi”, your product listing will be displayed for keywords like HP Computer, Computer Laptop, and HP Laptop. If someone does do an exact search for Mini 1000 mi, the product will still come up for them, but by changing the title you have increased the visibility of your product.

Piece of advice, do not go past 32 characters for your products title. If you do go over 32 characters, the rest of words and characters will be cut off.

Example Title Listing with the right amount of characters – HP Computer Laptop Mini 1000 Mi

Screen shot of one my listings in Google, using keywords in title tag. If you are lucky you can get 2 or 3 listings to show up in the shopping results in Google search.

Example Screenshot Listing for StoneGifts.com in Google Search

If you use a Google base or a Froogle module for an ecommerce website like Zencart, oscommerce, cube cart, etc, then I recommend editing product titles in the feed file. I know this can be a hassle, but it will help get traffic to your website. On my website, stonegifts.com, I have to manually edit each product title in the xml feed. Several of the products titles don’t make sense outside of my website and the mod doesn’t read the meta tags, so that means I have to do it by hand.

2. When you are setting up your account make sure to use a URL for your company name. This is for display purposes and lowers bounce rate from visitors who click a product link.

If you are going to use Google base for product listing, then you should use your Website name for your company name. This way when shopping result show up in Google search, it has your url next to it.

The reasoning for this, if people are redirected to your website when they are expecting Google base, they will typically leave your website. If you use a company name in place of a url, chances are your company name will be cut off after so many characters.

By using your url, it looks betters next to a listing and advertises your website, which is the point of using Google base for traffic. It also alerts people to the link redirecting to your website, so they don’t think it’s spam if they are taken to a website that they think they didn’t click on.

Now this doesn’t apply if your company is well known like Target or Sears. If your website is a name brand then you want to use your company name as your url. But for the rest of us e-commerce owners, it’s a great way to promote a website and build trust.

A word of advice when you are using your url as your company name, make sure to capitalize the first letter of each word in your url.

An example would be StoneGifts.com or SupplyStyle.com. This makes the link look professional and it has been shown in multiple trials runs on Adwords to increase click through rate. This does not apply to your actual url for your website, it is just a visual link that shows up in the shopping results in Google, which is typically used for your company name

3. Host your own product listings, do not ADD or EDIT your product listings in Base, or else your product will be hosted on Google base and displayed on their website, not on yours.

If you list products one at a time in Google base or edit an item, your products will be listed within their website. Yes, you can put a link in these listings back to your website, but this is nott the same as doing a data feed and uploading your products with a link to your website.

This doesn’t not apply to people who use Google base feed mods on their website because the links are already created in the data feed files. But keep in mind, if you change your listings in the Google base control panel, your product listings will be changed from being hosted on your website to Google base. So be careful not to edit listings.

When you use a data feed product upload, you can put a link in an excel or xml file and all your Google base listings will redirect a visitor to YOUR websites when clicked on and not to a generic base listing. Google base redirecting to your website also applies to shopping results that show in Google search; shopping result links will bring a visitor directly to your website.

This is a plus for several reasons.

When traffic comes to your website you can display your product in a much better layout and design, that is a bonus unless your website doesn’t look better then Google base. 
You have a better chance of people viewing your other products when they on your website, then if they are just browsing through Google Base. 
The checkout process is on your website, so you can offer any payment processing you want. 
When people make an account, the information is on your website, which is beneficial if you offer mailing list and other mailing promotions.

Here are a few links to Google base help on how to create a Datafeed upload file by using Excel or Xml.

How to make tab delimited excel files, also includes a video to watch –

http://base.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=58083&hl=en

Full list of acceptable Attributes you can use in excel and xml listings –

http://base.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=78170&hl=en

This next link is hard to find on Google Base. The following link will give you a list of product categories. Just select the category you want to use and copy the Xml or text code at the top. You can use multiple categories for products and you can create your own category if you need to.

http://base.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66818

A product listing can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours before it active, but once active it is instantly search able in Google.

In conclusion, Google base is a great resource to use for e-commerce websites. It’s free to   use and they don’t charge you for listing or selling an item. If used correctly it can bring much needed sales and traffic to a new or struggling store.

Google base will provide you with the ability to go after other keywords that you are not currently after because they are lower on your list, but you still want traffic for. Or for keywords that are saturated and you want to display your products for until you can get enough backlinks for your website to show up as a search result.

If you have any questions about this post or experience any problems when using Google Base, post a comment and I will see what I can do to help out.

use of the google base, google base usage, how to use google base

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