More and more people are surfing the Internet from their phones these days. Take a look at the following graph. It shows the number of monthly visits to googlestore.com from Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry devices over the past 2 years. There were 277 visits in Sep, 2008. But in July of 2010, there were over 13,000 visits! Given this kind of growth, it makes sense for many businesses to set up a mobile device-friendly site. If you’ve been considering whether to create a mobile site, you may want to check out the Mobile Devices report in the Visitors section. You can see how many visits you received from each mobile operating system, how many pages they visit on average, how much time they spend on your site, as well as see conversion and ecommerce information. In next week’s Back to Basics, I’ll show you how to create your own trend graph like the one in this article, so you can really dig into the numbers for your own site. Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

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Back-to-Basics: How much mobile traffic do you get?

More and more people are surfing the Internet from their phones these days. Take a look at the following graph. It shows the number of monthly visits to googlestore.com from Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry devices over the past 2 years. There were 277 visits in Sep, 2008. But in July of 2010, there were over 13,000 visits! Given this kind of growth, it makes sense for many businesses to set up a mobile device-friendly site. If you’ve been considering whether to create a mobile site, you may want to check out the Mobile Devices report in the Visitors section. You can see how many visits you received from each mobile operating system, how many pages they visit on average, how much time they spend on your site, as well as see conversion and ecommerce information. In next week’s Back to Basics, I’ll show you how to create your own trend graph like the one in this article, so you can really dig into the numbers for your own site. Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

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Back-to-Basics: How much mobile traffic do you get?

More and more people are surfing the Internet from their phones these days. Take a look at the following graph. It shows the number of monthly visits to googlestore.com from Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry devices over the past 2 years. There were 277 visits in Sep, 2008. But in July of 2010, there were over 13,000 visits! Given this kind of growth, it makes sense for many businesses to set up a mobile device-friendly site. If you’ve been considering whether to create a mobile site, you may want to check out the Mobile Devices report in the Visitors section. You can see how many visits you received from each mobile operating system, how many pages they visit on average, how much time they spend on your site, as well as see conversion and ecommerce information. In next week’s Back to Basics, I’ll show you how to create your own trend graph like the one in this article, so you can really dig into the numbers for your own site. Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

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Back-to-Basics: How much mobile traffic do you get?

More and more people are surfing the Internet from their phones these days. Take a look at the following graph. It shows the number of monthly visits to googlestore.com from Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry devices over the past 2 years. There were 277 visits in Sep, 2008. But in July of 2010, there were over 13,000 visits! Given this kind of growth, it makes sense for many businesses to set up a mobile device-friendly site. If you’ve been considering whether to create a mobile site, you may want to check out the Mobile Devices report in the Visitors section. You can see how many visits you received from each mobile operating system, how many pages they visit on average, how much time they spend on your site, as well as see conversion and ecommerce information. In next week’s Back to Basics, I’ll show you how to create your own trend graph like the one in this article, so you can really dig into the numbers for your own site. Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

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Back-to-Basics: How much mobile traffic do you get?

More and more people are surfing the Internet from their phones these days. Take a look at the following graph. It shows the number of monthly visits to googlestore.com from Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry devices over the past 2 years. There were 277 visits in Sep, 2008. But in July of 2010, there were over 13,000 visits! Given this kind of growth, it makes sense for many businesses to set up a mobile device-friendly site. If you’ve been considering whether to create a mobile site, you may want to check out the Mobile Devices report in the Visitors section. You can see how many visits you received from each mobile operating system, how many pages they visit on average, how much time they spend on your site, as well as see conversion and ecommerce information. In next week’s Back to Basics, I’ll show you how to create your own trend graph like the one in this article, so you can really dig into the numbers for your own site. Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

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Back-to-Basics: How much mobile traffic do you get?

Chris Dixon had an interesting post a while ago about how to find start-up ideas . The advice boiled down to keeping a spreadsheet of ideas and talking to lots of smart people (entrepreneurs, potential customers, VCs, people at big companies). It’s good advice. Paul Graham also wrote in 2008 about startup ideas he’d like to fund . Here’s another way to come up with startup ideas: walk around your house or apartment, and look for “hot spots.” A hotspot can be an area of high information density, clutter, stress, disorganization, or any place that has a suboptimal solution. Then think about a web or cloud solution to that hot spot. Let’s take a look at a few examples: Music CDs -> iTunes, Amazon MP3 store, doubleTwist, MP3tunes, etc. Bookshelf -> Amazon, Kindle, iBooks Stereo system -> Sonos, Squeezebox, Rhapsody, Pandora, last.fm, Spotify, Grooveshark, MOG, Rdio, etc. External hard drives -> Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Pogoplug Okay, those all seem simple or obvious, right? Let’s go a little deeper. What would you do with this pile of business cards? Pile of business cards -> CloudContacts Here are a few more that come to mind: Bank statements -> Mint Photo Albums -> ScanCafe Bathroom scale -> Withings Pedometer -> Fitbit Phone -> Google Voice, Twilio, Ribbit, Rebtel Camera -> EyeFi Stack of video games -> Steam, OnLive DVD player -> Roku, Netflix Instant movies Treadmill or Elliptical machine -> Nike+ shoe sensor, LoseIt! iPhone app, CardioTrainer app for Android, Fitbit Pen -> Livescribe All of these take a hotspot in your home and inject a cloud or web element to make life easier, more efficient or better. So what happens when you look at a pile of manuals, or receipts? Your alarm clock? Those “Learning Japanese” CDs? A stack of take-out menus? A stack of cookbooks? A hard drive full of MP3s that are disorganized? A hard drive that doesn’t have a back-up copy? An out-of-date programming book? A box full of videotapes? All those back issues of magazines? A blank wall, with no posters or other decoration? Stuff in your garage that you’ve been meaning to sell or give away? Your wallet? Ideas are sitting all around where you live. If you have a small snag, irritation, or hotspot in your life, probably a lot of other people do too. You can make it easier to organize something (can you convert something physical to digital and store it in the cloud?). You can sell niche versions of a product (e.g. Threadless for T-shirts), you can let people make something that they couldn’t make before (CafePress for T-shirts, LuLu for books), you can pool people with similar interests (a blog like Craftzine, or a forum for book lovers or body builders), you can review products in a particular space, you can teach someone to do something. You can become a well-known expert in something and then sell your time or expertise as a consultant. You can make a free version of something useful or fun, then sell more features or consult on more involved cases. You can do meta versions of lots of these, e.g. Etsy is a marketplace for people who like to buy and sell custom crafted objects. I’ll stop with a story. I have a friend at Google who is really good at noticing things that annoy him. While walking from his car to his desk in the morning, he can easily find six things that irritate him because they should be improved. I’m not recommending that you make yourself more irritable, but I am saying that if you notice all the times you run across something that can be improved, those are opportunities. And I think one of the easy methods of spotting start-up ideas is looking around where you live and how you spend your time. Find the hotspots in your own life and you might identify some great products or services to build.

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How to find start-up ideas

App Inventor is a new tool in Google Labs that makes it easy for anyone—programmers and non-programmers, professionals and students—to create mobile applications for Android-powered devices. And today, we’re extending invitations to the general public. For many people, their mobile phone—and access to the Internet—is always within reach. App Inventor for Android gives everyone, regardless of programming experience, the opportunity to control and reshape their communication experience. We’ve observed people take pride in becoming creators of mobile technology and not just consumers of it. For the past year, we’ve been testing App Inventor in classrooms around the United States, and we’ve found that it opens up the world of computer programming to students in new and powerful ways. David Wolber, professor of computer science at the University of San Francisco and part of the initial pilot program, says “students traditionally intimidated by technology are motivated and excited to program with App Inventor.” One student from Professor Wolber’s class told us: “I used to think that no one could program except CS people. Now, I’ve made dozens of applications for the Android phone!” Another student, who struggles with dyslexia, was inspired by App Inventor to take more computer science classes and is now learning Python. Check out this video to hear more about App Inventor for Android at University of San Francisco. Visit our site to learn more about App Inventor and see sample apps. To request an invitation, fill out this form and you’ll soon be on your way to building mobile applications . And check out the video below to see how it works. We can’t wait to see what you create! Posted by Mark Friedman, Google Engineer

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App Inventor for Android

This is one of a regular series of posts on search experience updates. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed. We work hard to consistently develop new tools, features and algorithmic changes to help us better understand what you mean when you enter a query into the Google search box—and we ultimately use that understanding to get you the information you’re looking for as fast as possible. Understanding is core to our mission —particularly as we strive to be as useful in your everyday tasks. For example, if you search for a local sports team, and there’s been a recent game, we’ll show you scores. If you’re visiting Boston and looking for a restaurant, you’ll find tailored search suggestions based on the best Beantown spots. It’s these features that enhance the experience of searching and help you find exactly what you’re looking for. This week, we’ve made a few changes that we hope will make Google search even better for you. Spelling Corrections in Suggest Since we first launched Google Suggest, we’ve offered spell-corrected search completions to provide you with similar search queries from other users. With this feature, not only does Suggest help you rest your fingers because you don’t have to type out a full query—you can also catch a mistake quickly and easily. An example of old spelling correction in Google Sugge st This week we launched an update that makes Google Suggest even more intuitive and simple. If you’re typing a query for which there are no search completions to offer, and yet some of your search terms do seem to be misspelled, Google Suggest will now offer a “Did you mean” suggestion for your query—giving you an option to correct your spelling right away and get on with your search. These spelling suggestions already exist on the results page, but by moving them to an earlier point in the search process, we hope we’ve made it faster and easier to get to the results you’re looking for. Right now, this feature is offered only for google.com in English, but we’re working to roll this out internationally in the near future. Google Suggest with the new spelling corrections feature Mobile app results in mobile search With tens of thousands of apps available for both Android and iPhone phone, there are plenty of options to choose from when you’re looking for new apps. And it makes sense that if you hear about a great new app while you’re out and about, you’ll want to download it then and there. In an effort to make apps even easier to find, this week we launched a new feature for mobile search that helps users on Android-powered devices and iPhones find and download mobile apps. So the next time you’re looking for the latest action game, multimedia app or travel tool on your phone, we’ll show you a special result at the top of your mobile search results showing basic information about the app you’re looking for, including title, price and publisher. You’ll also find a link that will take you directly to the app’s installation page in the Android Market or Apple’s App Store. Example mobile searches on your iPhone or Android device: [ download pandora ] or [ bank of america app ] A new look for the Google homepage Search is more fun when it’s personalized. That’s why I was delighted to announce our new feature that allows you to personalize your Google homepage with a favorite photo. Whether you choose a picture from your computer, your own Picasa Web Album or a public gallery of photos hosted by Picasa, Google is now yours to personalize. To get started, head to google.com and look for the “Change background image” link in the lower left-hand side of the page. Keep an eye out for more fun announcements with this feature! Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more next week. Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience

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This week in search 6/6/10

Last Friday, we said that mobile advertising was moving fast. So are we! Today, we closed our acquisition of AdMob. Omar Hamoui has built a great team and great products at AdMob and we’re thrilled to officially welcome them to Google. We’ll now begin the process of bringing our products and teams together in the best way, and building new products and features together. We’re working to make this integration happen as fast and as seamlessly as possible. We’ll actively keep our clients up-to-date as we bring our businesses together — stay tuned! It’s clear that mobile advertising is becoming a much larger part of our clients’ and partners’ strategies and with this acquisition, it’s now a central part of our own business. In continuing to invest in this highly competitive area, we’ll be bringing together our technology, resources and expertise in search advertising with AdMob’s innovative solutions for advertising on mobile websites and in mobile applications. Mobile search is central One of the key ways that people find and access information on their mobile devices, just like on the desktop, is through search. As smart phones have proliferated, we’ve seen dramatic increases in mobile search volume. Over the past two years, Google’s mobile search volumes have grown more than fivefold, at an accelerated pace. In the first three months of 2010, people with smartphones with “full” WebKit browsers (such as the iPhones, Android devices and Palm Pre) searched 62 percent more than they did in the previous three months. Increasingly, people aren’t just typing search queries into their mobile devices. They speak them, they take photos of them and they even translate them from different languages. In addition to traditional search ads on mobile devices, we’ve worked to develop entirely new search ad formats. “ Click-to-call” search ads , for example, have been really popular. They enable advertisers to include a local business or national phone number directly in their ad text that you can click to reach the business directly via phone. This is a really great way for you to easily get information from a relevant business (say, a local restaurant), and a highly effective way for advertisers to connect with interested customers. With many more advances to come, search advertising will remain the central way that many businesses connect with consumers on mobile devices. Mobile websites and apps In addition to search, another key way that people access information is through mobile websites (accessed through a browser) and mobile apps (available through Apple’s App Store, the Android Marketplace and more). Mobile display and text ads make it easy for publishers and developers to make money from their mobile websites and apps, and enable advertisers to extend the reach of their campaigns to relevant mobile content. In this area, AdMob has been a real pioneer and has innovated at a tremendous pace, building a successful business and working with thousands of advertisers, publishers and developers. AdMob was one of the first companies to serve ads inside mobile applications on the Android and iPhone platforms. They’ve developed a host of engaging and creative ad units for Android and iPhone apps—for example, interactive video ad units and expandable rich media ads . Google has also been developing new features for in-app ads. For example, last week, we announced that we’ll be making “click-to-call” ad formats available to developers who run AdSense in their mobile apps. With Google and AdMob starting to work together, there’s lots more innovation to come in this area. The future It’s clear that mobile advertising is growing incredibly fast with lots of businesses innovating at great speed. Every day, more marketers are looking to take advantage of the mobile-specific capabilities, extended reach, great returns and value that mobile advertising provides. Advertisers are now starting to see mobile as an essential part of their overall campaigns, not just a silo-ed experiment on the side. We want to unleash agencies’ and advertisers’ creativity on all mobile devices and deliver them better results from their campaigns, drive better returns and more choice for publishers and developers, and help people get better ads and more free mobile content. We believe that mobile advertising can play a significant role in every single marketing campaign. We’re passionate about the unlimited possibilities in this space. Today, with AdMob, our work to make them a reality begins. Posted by Susan Wojcicki, Vice President of Product Management Stock Repurchase As previously announced, Google intends to repurchase in the open market a number of shares equal to the number of shares issued in the transaction and issuable upon exercise of outstanding options to purchase common stock issued by AdMob. The repurchase program is expected to commence shortly after the completion of the acquisition. The repurchases will be funded from available working capital.

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We’ve officially acquired AdMob!

If there’s one entertainment device that people know and love, it’s the television. In fact, 4 billion people across the world watch TV and the average American spends five hours per day in front of one*. Recently, however, an increasing amount of our entertainment experience is coming from our phones and computers. One reason is that these devices have something that the TV lacks: the web. With the web, finding and accessing interesting content is fast and often as easy as a search. But the web still lacks many of the great features and the high-quality viewing experience that the TV offers. So that got us thinking…what if we helped people experience the best of TV and the best of the web in one seamless experience? Imagine turning on the TV and getting all the channels and shows you normally watch and all of the websites you browse all day — including your favorite video, music and photo sites. We’re excited to announce that we’ve done just that. Google TV is a new experience for television that combines the TV that you already know with the freedom and power of the Internet. With Google Chrome built in, you can access all of your favorite websites and easily move between television and the web. This opens up your TV from a few hundred channels to millions of channels of entertainment across TV and the web. Your television is also no longer confined to showing just video. With the entire Internet in your living room, your TV becomes more than a TV — it can be a photo slideshow viewer, a gaming console, a music player and much more. Google TV uses search to give you an easy and fast way to navigate to television channels, websites, apps, shows and movies. For example, already know the channel or program you want to watch? Just type in the name and you’re there. Want to check out that funny YouTube video on your 48” flat screen? It’s just a quick search away. If you know what you want to watch, but you’re not sure where to find it, just type in what you’re looking for and Google TV will help you find it on the web or on one of your many TV channels. If you’d rather browse than search, you can use your standard program guide, your DVR or the Google TV home screen, which provides quick access to all of your favorite entertainment so you’re always within reach of the content you love most. Because Google TV is built on open platforms like Android and Google Chrome, these features are just a fraction of what Google TV can do. In our announcement today at Google I/O, we challenged web developers to start coming up with the next great web and Android apps designed specifically for the TV experience. Developers can start optimizing their websites for Google TV today. Soon after launch, we’ll release the Google TV SDK and web APIs for TV so that developers can build even richer applications and distribute them through Android Market. We’re looking forward to seeing all of the ways developers will use this new platform. We’re working together with Sony and Logitech to put Google TV inside of televisions, Blu-ray players and companion boxes. These devices will go on sale this fall, and will be available at Best Buy stores nationwide. You can sign up here to get updates on Google TV availability. This is an incredibly exciting time — for TV watchers, for developers and for the entire TV ecosystem. By giving people the power to experience what they love on TV and on the web on a single screen, Google TV turns the living room into a new platform for innovation. We’re excited about what’s coming. We hope you are too. * Nielsen, Three Screen Report, Fourth Quarter 2009 Posted by Salahuddin Choudhary, Google TV Product Manager

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Announcing Google TV: TV meets web. Web meets TV.