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Posted by Balazs Racz, Software Engineer As part of field trial we opened in October, it became possible to instantly see your relevant emails, Google Drive files, Calendar events, and more when you search in Gmail. Those of you who participated in the field trial told us that you like the time-saving convenience of searching for all your stuff from one place, and over the coming week, we'll be rolling out this feature in English to all U.S. users. Now you can find what you're looking for faster right in Gmail.

The digital journey has grown more complex, giving customers the option to move seamlessly across media and devices. This shift in technology can make it challenging to get a complete picture of customers’ interactions. As a marketer, your success depends on gaining visibility into your customers’ preferences and behaviors. Next Thursday, join Sara Jablon Moked, Product Marketing Manager for Google Analytics, for a detailed look at effective measurement for today's multi-device world. We will discuss strategies and best practices for measuring customer behavior, and we’ll look at how Google Analytics and other Google tools can help you measure and respond to the evolving customer journey. The webinar will include live Q&A. Date: Thursday, May 30, 2013 Time: 10am PST / 1pm EST/ 6PM GMT Duration: 1 hr Level: 100 / Beginner Register: Register here Posted by the Google Analytics team

The Galapagos Islands are some of the most biologically unique ecosystems in the world. Explorers and scientists alike have long studied and marveled at these islands—made famous by Charles Darwin. The Ecuadorean Government, local conservation groups and scientists are working to protect the Galapagos from threats posed by invasive species, climate change and other human impacts. It’s critical that we share images with the world of this place in order to continue to study and preserve the islands’ unique biodiversity. Today we’re honored to announce, in partnership with Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) and the Galapagos National Parks Directorate (GNPD), that we’ve collected panoramic imagery of the islands with the Street View Trekker. These stunning images will be available on Google Maps later this year so people around the world can experience this remote archipelago. Daniel Orellana of Charles Darwin Foundation crossing a field of ferns to reach Minas de Azufre (naturally-occurring sulfur mines) on the top of Sierra Negra, an active volcano on Isabela Island. The Google Maps team traveled for more than three hours, hiking and on horseback, to reach this remote location. Images, like the one you see above, are also an important visual record that the CDF and GNPD will use to study and protect the islands by showing the world how these delicate environments have changed over time. Daniel Orellana of the Charles Darwin Foundation climbs out of a lava tunnel where he was collecting imagery. The dramatic lava landscapes found on Isabela island tell the story of the formation of the Galapagos Islands. Our 10-day adventure in the Galapagos was full of hiking, boating and diving around the islands (in hot and humid conditions) to capture 360-degree images of the unique wildlife and geological features of the islands with the Trekker. We captured imagery from 10 locations that were hand-selected by CDF and GNPD. We walked past giant tortoises and blue-footed boobies, navigated through steep trails and lava fields, and picked our way down the crater of an active volcano called Sierra Negra. A Galapagos giant tortoise crawls along the path near Googler Karin Tuxen-Bettman while she collects imagery with the Street View Trekker in Galapaguera, a tortoise breeding center, which is managed by the Galapagos National Park Service. Life underwater in the Galapagos is just as diverse as life on land. We knew our map of the islands wouldn’t be comprehensive without exploring the ocean that surrounds them. So for the second time we teamed up with the folks at the Catlin Seaview Survey to collect underwater panoramic imagery of areas being studied by CDF and GNPD. This imagery will be used by Catlin Seaview Survey to create a visual and scientific baseline record of the marine environment surrounding the islands, allowing for any future changes to be measured and evaluated by scientists around the world. Christophe Bailhache navigates the SVII camera through a large group of Sea Lions at Champion Island in Galapagos. Image courtesy of the Catlin Seaview Survey. We truly believe that in order to protect these Galapagos Islands, we must understand them. As they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” We hope this Street View imagery not only advances the important scientific research, but also inspires you to learn more about this special place. Stay tuned for updates on this collection—the first time we’ve captured imagery from both land and sea! We can’t wait to share this amazing imagery with you later this year. Posted by Raleigh Seamster, Project Lead, Google Maps

Social media has dramatically changed the way we get to interact with our favorite musicians, actors, artists and athletes, so it makes sense that any awards ceremony celebrating social media also needs to flip the standard red carpet affair on its head. Tonight’s first-ever Social Star Awards in Singapore is attempting such a feat—running an awards program for a full 24 hours via social media. Forget a few dozen statues going out to some lucky winners. How about a whopping 288 awards, one awarded every five minutes, recognizing everything from top actors and athletes to favorite songs and sports teams. And all that ends with a splash: a live two-hour show full of musical performances and celebrity drop-ins. For those who can’t be there live to watch at Singapore’s iconic Marina Bay Sands Hotel, YouTube is partnering with Starcount to exclusively live stream the whole show on www.youtube.com/starcount. The broadcast will kick off on May 23 at 9 p.m. Singapore Time (6 a.m. PST) with a red carpet awards ceremony where Aerosmith, Cee Lo Green, Carly Rae Jepsen and PSY come on stage to play their hit tunes. From there, you can expect appearances and award presentations from some of YouTube’s most famous faces, including Ryan Higa, HIKAKIN, PewDiePie, and Natalie Tran. With so many awards being handed out, you may be asking, what does it take for me to win a Social Star Award? Check out this video to see some of YouTube’s top talent like Epic Meal Time and DeStorm give a one-of-kind training on how to become a social star. Whether you’re tuning in for the whole show or just dropping by to check out your personal favorites on stage, we look forward to seeing you soon over at www.youtube.com/starcount. Benjamin Grubbs, Asia Pacific Head of Partner Marketing, YouTube, recently watched David Choi & HIKAKIN’s "You Were My Friend (Original) Unplugged."

A Pixel Sandwich Video URL (mobile): http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp4/twit.cachefly.net/video/twig/twig0199/twig0199_h264b_640x368_256.mp4 MP3 feed URL: http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/twit.cachefly.net/audio/twig/twig0199/twig0199.mp3 Hosts:Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Gina Trapani Google IO aftermath, Yahoo Tumblrs, privacy risks from Glass, and more. Guest:Matt Cutts Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/twig. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes. Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show. Running time:1:30:08 People: Gina Trapani Jeff Jarvis Leo Laporte Sponsors: twig.ting.com 99designs.com/twig

Last year, Google Drive added an advanced image search feature powered by Goggles that recognizes objects and uses OCR technology to extract text. The same feature is now available in Google+: search for [sunflower], click "More", restrict the results to "Photos" and select "Most recent". You'll find sunflower images from Google+ posts that don't even include "sunflower", not even in the image filename. This also works for the images you've uploaded to Picasa Web Albums/Google+ Photos or the images uploaded by your circles.{ via Android Police }

Google Trends has a new section that shows monthly popularity charts for topics like scientists, cars, movies, songs, people, animals, chemical elements and more. Charts are limited to the US for now and they show the most popular things, not the "movers and shakers". Google uses the Knowledge Graph to restrict the charts to real-world things and "measures interest in a broader topic, so it might also count different searches with the same meaning"."Top Charts are lists of real-world people, places and things ranked by search interest. They show information similar to our Year-End Zeitgeist, but updated monthly and going back to 2004. To check them out, go to Google Trends and click 'Top Charts' on the left-hand side," informs Google.Google Trends shows information from Wikipedia, links to Google+ or other top search results, the number of months in chart and the previous month's rank.Google also added a Metro-inspired page that lets you visualize hot searches in full screen. Mouse over the top-left icon to show multiple searches at the same time and click the country name at the bottom of the page to switch to a different country.{ via Google Blog }

Just as physical stores need to keep track of their sales and in-store visits, businesses with an online presence need to understand how visitors are interacting with their site. Google Analytics provides tools to help understand and evaluate these interactions. For example, if purchases are your key objective, Ecommerce tracking allows you to measure sales performance. Yet sales are just one possible goal—there are many other important interactions that may be valuable to your business, such as media plays, social connections, newsletter sign-ups, a minimum purchase value, or the amount of time spent on a screen. Using Goals, you can measure these types of engagement activities and track how these interactions help you to meet your larger business objectives. Today, we’re announcing several updates to Goals in Google Analytics—including a new set-up flow, new templates, and new verification capabilities—to make it easier for you to measure customer behavior and evaluate your performance. These updates are now live in Google Analytics. How to get started with Goals Goals are set at the profile level. To find a profile in your Google Analytics account, click the Admin tab, then navigate to the account, property, and profile you want. Click Goals, then Create a Goal. Follow the flow to set up and start measuring your Goals. For guidance as you set up Goals, visit our help center. Introducing templates: An easier way to set up Goals We’ve redesigned and added new templates to the Goals set-up flow so you can add meaningful and actionable Goals to your Analytics account quickly. When you use a template, the Goal setup flow is prefilled with suggested values (based on your industry) that you can either keep or change as you walk through the process. The templates are organized into four business objectives (Revenue, Acquisition, Inquiry, Engagement) to help you think about the purpose of each Goal, plus you can still create custom goals. Note that “revenue” goals don’t necessarily imply a direct sale -- these goals are user activities which have a strong impact on your desired business outcomes. Depending on your business model, a Revenue Goal could be a purchase, such as a completed checkout; or it could also be a successful lead submission, such as a scheduled appointment. Some Revenue Goals might lend themselves to Ecommerce tracking as well. The templates you see are based on the Industry Category selected in your property settings, so you only see templates that are relevant to your business. We also added a set of 20 new industry categories to Google Analytics. This classification is now aligned with Google’s web standard for industry vertical classification. Please edit your property settings to make sure you’re using the one that best describes your business. Verify each Goal before you save In addition to the templates, we’ve added a way for you to check your setup before you save. You’ll find a verify option at the end of the setup flow that lets you see what the conversion rate would have been for the past seven days had this Goal been setup. Using the verify option gives you immediate feedback, so you can decide to save or modify the Goal configuration you’re working on. Analyze how different Goals perform and relate to each other Use the Goals Overview report under the Conversions section to see how your goal completions happen over time. Develop a sense how often a Goal conversion happens, and look to identify relationships between different Goals. In the Goals Overview report you can use the metric selector to choose the relevant metric. Example: Goal performance over time Select a single Goal and observe the performance over time. Use the date range selector and compare the Goal performance month on month, or quarter on quarter. This way you can compare seasonal trends, and the growth rate of your goal over time. Example: Discover relationships be

After 130,000 submissions and millions of votes cast, Sabrina Brady of Sparta, Wisc. has been named the 2013 U.S. Doodle 4 Google National Winner. Her doodle, “Coming Home,” will be featured on the Google homepage in the U.S. tomorrow, May 23. Students across all 50 states amazed us with their creative interpretations of this year’s theme, “My Best Day Ever...” From scuba diving to dinosaurs to exploring outer space, we were wowed by the ways young artists brought their best days to life in their doodles. Sabrina’s doodle stood out in the crowd; it tells the story of her reunion with her father as he returned from an 18 month deployment in Iraq. Her creative use of the Google letters to illustrate this heartfelt moment clearly resonated with voters across the country and all of us at Google. In addition to seeing her artwork on the Google homepage, Sabrina—who is in 12th grade at Sparta High School—will receive a $30,000 college scholarship, a Chromebook computer and a $50,000 technology grant for her school. She will attend Minneapolis College of Art and Design this coming fall, where she will continue her artistic pursuits. Congratulations Sabrina! In addition to the National Winner, voters across the country helped us determine the four National Finalists, who will each receive a $5,000 college scholarship: Grades K-3: Reagan Gonsalves (Grade 1, Santan Elementary School, Chandler, Ariz.) for her doodle “My best day ever is learning about nature.” Reagan says, “My best day ever is to be around the pretty animals and plants in nature, because I love to know about what is around me. I love to watch hummingbirds drink nectar out of flowers. I love to read books on nature and how plants and animals grow.” Grades 4-5: Audrey Zhang (Grade 4, Michael F. Stokes Elementary School, Levittown, N.Y.) for her doodle “...When I discover paradise!” Zhang says, “My best day ever will be when I discover paradise. In paradise, I could play with dragons, romp with leopards, and chat with fairies...It would be the best day ever when I could finally live in a mystical, dreamy realm.” Grades 6-7: Maria Iannone (Grade 7, Chestnut Ridge Middle School, Sewell, N.J.) for her doodle “The best day ever.” Maria says, “Where I live, it's difficult to view the night sky very well. Having an interest in astronomy, a day where I can observe the things I study on my own time would satisfy me.” Grades 8-9: Joseph Han (Grade 8, Falmouth Middle School, Falmouth, Maine) for his doodle “Late-afternoon bliss.” Joey says, “For me, ‘the best day ever’ doesn't consist of ambitious dreams, but rather the enjoyment of a day spent in carefree euphoria. Being in the woods is something that evokes such happiness in me. The lighthearted joy of rafting, fishing or catching fireflies is what I've attempted to capture.” After the awards ceremony, all 50 of our State Winners will unveil a special exhibition of their artwork at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where their doodles will be displayed for the public to view from May 22 - July 14. Thanks to all who voted and helped us select the 2013 Doodle 4 Google winners. Even more importantly, thank you to all of the students who submitted their artwork and the parents and teachers who continue to inspire and support their young artists. Until next year... happy doodling! Posted by Ryan Germick, Doodle Team Lead

Ever wonder what the world is searching for? With Google Trends, you can see what's hot right now, and also explore the history and geography of a topic as it evolves. Today you'll find new charts of the most-searched people, places and things in more than 40 categories, from movies to sports teams to tourist attractions. You'll also find a new colorful visualization of real-time Hot Searches. Top Charts—a new monthly "spirit of the times" Top Charts are lists of real-world people, places and things ranked by search interest. They show information similar to our Year-End Zeitgeist, but updated monthly and going back to 2004. To check them out, go to Google Trends and click "Top Charts" on the left-hand side. For example, you can see the 10 most-searched cities, movies and scientists in April: Top Charts includes more than 40 top 10 lists and more than 140 time periods. Hover on a chart for links to embed the chart in your own page or share on social media. Top Charts is built on the Knowledge Graph, so the data shows interest in real-world things, not just keywords. When you look at a chart of sports teams and you see the Golden State Warriors, those rankings are based on many different related searches, like [gs warriors], [golden state bball] and [warriors basketball]. That way you see which topics are most popular on Google Search, however people search for them. Top Charts provide our most accurate search volume rankings, but no algorithm is perfect, so on rare occasion you may find anomalies in the data. You can learn more about Top Charts in our Help Center. Hot Searches, now in hot colors In addition to Top Charts, now there's a vibrant new way to visualize trending searches as they happen. On the Trends homepage in the left-hand panel, you'll find a new link to "Visualize Hot Searches in full-screen." You’ll see the latest trending topics appear in a colorful display: You can customize the layout by clicking the icon in the upper-left corner and expanding it to see as many as 25 searches at a time. You can also pick any region currently supported by Hot Searches. Use fullscreen mode in your browser for the biggest, purest eye candy. ...and a few design updates We’re also continuing to spruce up our site. Among other things, now the homepage shows you more interesting stuff up front, and the search box is always available at the top: The new Trends homepage shows a list of today's Hot Searches. Enter search terms at the top to see search interest over time and by geography. We hope you enjoy bringing new stories to life with Google Trends. We love feedback, so please feel free to let us know what you think by posting online or by clicking "Send Feedback" at the bottom of any page in Google Trends. Posted by Roni Rabin, Software Engineer