Official Google Blog |
- Searching for a Cinderella story
- YouTube highlights 3/31/2011
- Two new Google domains: Iraq and Tunisia
| Searching for a Cinderella story Posted: 31 Mar 2011 03:15 PM PDT Like everyone else in the U.S. who fills out a bracket for their office pool, I always have a strategy going into the NCAA Men's and Women's basketball tournaments. It's a mix of alma mater pride, light research, some guessing and a lot of crossing my fingers. And, like almost everyone, my bracket always gets busted. With both the Men's and Women's Final Four being played out on the hardwood in the United States this weekend, we thought it would be a good time to check in with what American sports fans are searching for around the web. Almost ever year, an unknown team comes out of nowhere to end up in the Final Four. Back in 2006, that team was [george mason] and last year it was [butler university]. In the men's bracket this year, there's not just one, but two "Cinderellas," in the form of the VCU Rams and the return of the Butler University Bulldogs. These underdogs have captured the attention of the nation's sports fans; searches for [vcu] have climbed lately and currently outpace searches for each of the other three teams in the Men's Final Four.  When the women take the court in Indianapolis, Indiana, for their Final Four this weekend, I'll be rooting on my Notre Dame Fighting Irish in what looks to be an even field of four teams. But in search query volume, there's a runaway favorite: [uconn] leads the way against the other three teams in the bracket. The Stanford Cardinal are trying to break through this year, having played in the previous three Final Fours, but have to get to the finals first against a tough Notre Dame team. Having both the UConn Men and Women playing in the Final Four is clearly a strong reason for this search volume lead, but so is having arguably the best player in the women's game!  Great coaches can get their teams to dig deep and come together to succeed in the difficult field of 64. In the women's tournament, the coaching match-up that hoops fans across the country were hoping for unfortunately won't take place: we're not going to be seeing a head-to-head battle between two giants of the coaching profession in UConn's [geno auriemma] and Tennessee's [pat summitt], thanks to my Fighting Irish of Notre Dame besting the Lady Volunteers of Tennessee. While Coach Auriemma's team is still alive, Coach Summitt is winning the search query volume contest off the floor. I'm sure if I were Coach Summitt, I'd rather still have my team playing this weekend—but maybe her lead in search can be some small consolation!  On the men's side, there's a nice mix of seasoned veteran coaches as well as two young coaches emerging as rising stars. As we near the end of the tournament, it's not Coach [jim calhoun] or Coach [john calipari] capturing the attention of U.S. searchers—it's the young head coach at VCU, [shaka smart], and Butler's equally young coach [brad stevens] who currently take the top spots in search query volume.  Each year, new stars emerge as the tournaments unfold. In 2010, Duke's [kyle singler] captured the Final Four MVP, and in 2006 Florida's [joakim noah] captured the nation's attention. This year, Butler's [matt howard] has risen to take the top spot as the most searched player of the tournament.  Finally, I know that I get a little basketball-crazy during this time of year, but looking at some of our data, I discover that I'm not alone. In the state of Indiana—the home of Hoosiers and some of the most vocal hoops fans, home-state [butler bulldogs] have pulled ahead of pop music star [katy perry] in search query volume. Now that's dedication to basketball!  This tournament is always one of the most unpredictable sporting events in the country, so it's comforting to know that the tournaments end the same way every year: with the champions cutting down the nets. While we can't predict which team will be up on the ladder cutting the nylon, the search data does provide a glimpse into what we U.S. sports fans are interested in—and perhaps who we're cheering for in the waning seconds of the games. Like you, I'll be sitting on the edge of my couch this weekend with my busted bracket in hand. Of course, in my case, I'll be rooting on my alma mater. Go Irish!      |
| Posted: 31 Mar 2011 01:37 PM PDT This is the latest in our series of YouTube highlights. Every couple of weeks, we bring you regular updates on new product features, interesting programs to watch and tips you can use to grow your audience on YouTube. Just look for the label "YouTube Highlights" and subscribe to the series. – Ed. In the past two weeks, we saw online video swing into action in a few very powerful scenarios. Video helped connect people with loved ones affected by tragedy while at the same time, uniting musicians from around the world to create art. YouTube Person Finder The YouTube Person Finder (消息情報) channel aggregates video messages from those affected by the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan. You can search for videos within the module or browse videos in Japanese. Our hope is that the power of video and the access to YouTube will help victims and their families find each other and make sure they're safe.  YouTube Symphony Orchestra dazzles from Sydney One hundred and one musicians from 33 countries were selected via online auditions to come together as an orchestra and celebrate music, creativity and collaboration. Well-known YouTube stars joined the show in Sydney to collaborate, including Pogo and Ukrainian sand artist Kseniya Simonova. A week of events and seven sold-out concerts captured on youtube.com/symphony culminated in a Grand Finale event on March 20. The event was streamed 33 million times around the world to 189 countries, including an incredible 2.8 million mobile live-streams. Lights, YouTube—Action Owning a video camera is no longer a prerequisite to joining the YouTube community. youtube.com/create, just launched in beta, enables anyone to use video creation sites Xtranormal, Stupeflix and GoAnimate to make personal videos using images, music and animations and then share them by posting to YouTube. If you do own a video camera, we have some good news for you too. Nine months ago we introduced our cloud-based video editor, with basic tools, at www.youtube.com/editor. This week, we've made two major enhancements to our video editor—image stabilizer and 3D capabilities. Now, you can smooth unsteady video footage with the click of a button or create a composite of two side-by-side videos to produce your very own 3D action flick—all for free. Baby, she was "Born this way" Lady Gaga stopped by Google's headquarters last week and wowed a packed auditorium of Googlers and YouTubers. Gaga answered questions from fans via Twitter and Moderator as well as the audience, dishing on fashion, her larger-than-life persona and upcoming album. Watch the entire Q&A now on YouTube. This week in trends Some quick highlights from YouTube Trends:
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| Two new Google domains: Iraq and Tunisia Posted: 31 Mar 2011 12:05 PM PDT We offer search on different regional domains, such as google.fr for France and google.dj for Djibouti, in order to provide the most locally-relevant results. We've steadily brought Google to many of the world's domains, and today we announced on our Google Arabia Blog that we're adding two more: google.iq for Iraq and google.tn for Tunisia. This brings the number of local Google search domains worldwide to 184, with 15 domains in Arab countries. The new domains will help people in Iraq and Tunisia find locally relevant information, faster. For example, a search for [central bank] on the Iraq domain yields results relevant to someone in Iraq, such as the Central Bank of Iraq. On the other hand, the same search on the Tunisia domain returns slightly different results. The new domains also make it easier for people in Iraq and Tunisia to access search in their preferred languages. In Iraq, people can now easily access Google search in local languages like Arabic and Kurdish; while in Tunisia, people can find the Google interface in Arabic and French. In the past, people in these regions would need to visit the domain for another country to use Google in an interface they were comfortable with. And when they did, the results would be relevant to a different region. Local domains are a first step towards making the web more accessible and relevant for people around the world. They're also an integral part of our vision to make all of our products available in the world's top 40 most spoken languages covering 99 percent of Internet users worldwide. We plan to add more domains in the coming months, so stay tuned!     |
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