For those who love info porn. Take it with a grain of salt, as no stats company has the market cornered on reality so far.

Liveside has a nice roundup of recent buzz.

Via Digg, three sites that are just worth wasting some time on.

Live action hamster video game

Dawkins on the Big Question

A Google Christmas lights mashup.

Via Lost Remote:

A new study found that 54 percent of adult internet users are shooting video but only 11 percent upload it to the internet. Interactive agency Sharpe Partners says the study illustrates the opportunity for companies to facilitate the migration of consumer video to the web. (Hint hint!)

So it’s fun to note that Fred is an authority on Borat, and Tom on porn. We love search!

Google Spreadsheets is the newest application to use a GData API — a library that allows programs to use Google products outside of the Google environment.  Philipp explains that you cannot use the API to create or delete spreadsheets yet, but you can do pretty much anything else you would want.
"According to Google, with the [...]

Take a look up there, that is a Google Spreadsheet, courtesy of Ionut. Alex. He reports that Spreadsheets has added publishing options for your spreadsheets, letting you publish them as HTML, PDF, XLS, ODS, CSV, or a feed, or you can go right ahead and embed it in your site or blog. That is a pretty cool feature, and will no doubt be used by a bunch of bloggers to easily show detailed charts on their blogs.
There’s a little more as well:
Google Spreadsheets shows you all the revisions of a spreadsheets, so it’s easy to go back to an earlier version

Problem: Google Checkout is not successful.Solution: Free processing and other incentives for holidays.
Problem: orkut doesn’t do well in the US.Solution: make it available to everyone and integrate Google Talk.
Problem: Gmail needs some Web 2.0 changes.Solution: a new design for displaying messages.
Problem: Vista comes for Google Desktop too.Solution: a transparent sidebar.
Problem: Windows Live Local has click-to-call.Solution: add click-to-call to Google Maps.
Problem: it’s hard to read books in Google Book Search.Solution: new Adobe Reader-like design

The 2006 ski and snowboard season is now upon us here in the northern hemisphere. To help get you ready to hit the slopes here are two fantastic Google Maps mashups that are back for another year to help people from around the world find a hill to get out on..RiderTech shows you world ski/board resorts - Matt Savarino’s RiderTech.com has joined forces with NWSnow.com to relaunch as a cool action sport mapping community just in time for the 2006 ski and boarding season

Recently, we answered some of your landing page quality questions here in the blog. Now, we’d like to answer a few more, focusing on landing page quality and the content network.

What is the content Quality Score?
The content Quality Score is a measure of the quality of your contextually-targeted ads and keywords and is specific to your ads that are showing on the content network

The Firefox Crop Circle has been on this planet for only four months, and it is now on Google Maps - which updates rarely. It was a project by the Oregon State University Linux User Group in August. Long story, if you are interested, check it out on their project page. Guess they have some back-door connection with the Maps team. Hehehe. -
via Google Blogoscoped

I’m shocked: Pascal Laureyn of Belgeoblog did some actual reporting, unlike the rest of us lazy bloggers, and interviewed Belgian senator Christine Defraigne, the member of the intelligence oversight committee who has been most vocal about her intention to censor aerial imagery of Belgium of the kind displayed in Google Earth.

Pascal writes a comprehensive article that looks at all the angles, including the effect of Google Earth on recent elections in Bahrain, the sanguine report on Google Earth in Belgium’s 2005 yearly intelligence assessment, and the current law in the Netherlands which allows the censoring of a list of sensitive sites from new imagery taken in Dutch airspace

 
As I mentioned yesterday, Google will be releasing an API for the Spreadsheets, under the GData API format, and yeah, they just did.
The Google Spreadsheets data API allows client applications to view and update Spreadsheets content in the form of a Google data API (”GData”) feeds. Your client application can request a list of a user’s spreadsheets, edit or delete content in an existing Spreadsheets worksheet, and query the content in an existing Spreadsheets worksheet

I’ll start with: Froogle.

At 6 pm PST tonight (11/30), our engineers will be performing site maintenance for approximately 15 minutes. You won’t be able to log in to your account during this short period, but rest assured that your ads and your reporting won’t be affected.
We apologize for the short notice — hopefully this will give you an extra 15 minutes to do some more online holiday shopping. Thanks for your patience!

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

With GPSies (which uses the Google Maps API), you can find and download tracks – e.g. for running courses, or mountain-biking – recorded by a GPS device. The website is the brain-child of Klaus Bechtold, who wraps up behind-the-scenes infos in his German blog. He says there’s 601 tracks available for Germany at this time, and 810 worldwide.

[Via Google’s featured projects.]

I told you Google Spreadsheets is way ahead of Google Docs. Now you can update your spreadsheets programmatically using Google Spreadsheets API. You can use it to get a list of spreadsheets for an account, to add or delete rows from a spreadsheets or to send simple SQL-like queries.
While the API isn’t powerful enough to create desktop applications, as you can’t manage spreadsheets, you could use the API to synchronize multiple spreadsheets or to import data from the web.
The API uses Google Data, “a simple standard protocol for reading and writing data on the web”.
{ Found on Blogoscoped

Google released an API for their Spreadsheets program.
Google makes this API part of their standardized GData program, which already allows you to access Google Calendar, Google Base, Blogger and Google Code Search. According to Google, with the Google Spreadsheets Data API you’ll be able to:

view spreadsheets
edit/ delete content in spreadsheets
request a list of existing spreadsheets
query a spreadsheet’s content

You can’t however (at this time) create new spreadsheets, or completely remove existing ones.

[Via Google’s blogs.]

Happy blog birthday, Declan, and once again you celebrate with insightful news. I too like the idea of Amazon’s EC2 computing-on-demand service — like Amazon’s S3 storage on demand, but where you rent processor cycles rather than networked storage. What I think it would be really useful for is server-side analysis tools for Google Earth, feeding network links

As you might know from our Payments Guide, one of the steps to getting paid is submitting your tax information. We’ve recently updated the Tax Information page located under your My Account tab with a new format that we hope will make it easier to determine which form is right for you

There are two really useful tools for you to track of your daily tasks and to keep an eye on your weight, if you want to gain/lose some. They are The Google 15 and Remember The Milk for Google Calendar.

The Google 15 is a Google Homepage module that “encourages you to get on the scale every day by calculating a moving average from your daily weight

A new GData API is available today, for spreadsheets in Google Docs & Spreadsheets:”Now there is the possibility of getting a feed listing your updated spreadsheets, and since there is more than one way to think of a spreadsheet, we give you two different feed schemas for viewing. A worksheet could be viewed as entries of individual cells or as a list of rows similar to a database table.”Check out the GData blog for further details!

One of my favorite categories of mashups that I’ve been indexing here on Google Maps Mania are those devoted to Weather & Earth. Some of my top picks in this section include WeatherBonk, If Earth were a Sandwich and EarthTools. Many more in this list show us locations of everything from waterfalls to mountains

Googler Eric Case posted a couple of funny comments left in source code, like:

you are not expected to understand this
this shouldn’t work
holy shit batman
this code sucks
your mother

[Via Digg.]

Today we would like to introduce the newest kid on the Google Data API block, Google Spreadsheets data API.Calendars and blogs have all been done and embraced by the data feed developer community, but in Google’s on-going attempt to push the envelope, here is the next installment for GData.Now there is the possibility of getting a feed listing your updated spreadsheets, and since there is more than one way to think of a spreadsheet, we give you t

… has been spotted on Google Maps. Much more entertaining than all those nekkid people. [Via Digg.]

If you have a screenshot of a Google product taken in a special moment, if you found something interesting at Google.com and want to share it with the world, if you have a meaningful photo related to Google, send it to ionutalexchitu+pog@gmail.com or post a link in the comments.
The best photos will be a part of an album that will be available at the end of the year.
* Don’t submit copyrighted photos. Your photos will be licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike license, unless you request otherwise. Please remove personal or sensitive information.

Google Invests in Indoor Mesh
Google is working with early-stage startup Meraki Networks Inc. on indoor mesh technology. Google’s invested in Meraki as well. The search giant is said to have made a “relatively small” six-figure investment in the Mountain View, Calif., startup.
Yahoo Fights Google’s Subpoena in Book-scan Lawsuit
Yahoo! Inc., owner of the second- most used Internet search engine, is resisting a subpoena from rival Google Inc

It’s not that new, actually, this feature has been around for about two weeks now, but Google just keep taking it out and putting it back for a few times. The new feature lets you to rename a subscription and change the folders its under, by clicking on .
There was only one option under “Feed actions…” before this change - Unsubscribe. You were able to rename a subscription in the Settings page, but adding this option is obviously easier and faster.

The Zen Monkeys blog has the details on a new radio spot by Helios, advertising their wireless GPS-enabled phones with mobile Google Maps. Sing along now [MP3]:

<<I got Google Maps in my pants (Helios)
In my pants, in my pants (GPS)

Put Google Maps in your pants (get a Helios)
In your pants, in your pants!>>

Google’s advertising partner eBay sells everything, as you might know, range from rocket launcher to dinosaur, from laziness to sickness. Today, eBay is spotted selling Google, or maybe say, Google thinks itself is being sale on eBay. You can check out the story behind this ad on Daggle, Danny Sullivan’s personal site. Oh yeah, today is Danny’s last day at SEW, and his “new editorial venture, Search Engine Land, will launch shortly”. Good luck.

The Search Engine Watch crowd is moving to (beautifully designed) SearchEngineLand.com. Guess we all gotta update our bookmarks!

[Thanks Tony Ruscoe.]

Posted by Adam Bosworth, Vice President

At Google, we often get questions about what we’re doing in the area of health. I have been interested in the issues of health care and health information for a while. It is now one of my main focuses here, and I’ve decided to start posting about it. I’ve been motivated in this field in part by my personal experiences helping to care for my mother, who recently died from cancer after a four-year battle

Nathan Jamin sends along this screenshot, saying that this is how Gmail displays a Microsoft Outlook invite.

And now for my
final post (thanks,
Elisabeth!), a recap of stories posted today to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along
with other items we’ve spotted but not blogged separately:

The latest
edition of my monthly
Search Engine
Report newsletter is now online, recapping top stories in search from the
past month. You can read it online or receive it via email for free by signing
up here.
If you’re a Search Engine Watch
member,
the latest
edition of Search Engine Update newsletter has also been posted. That
newsletter carries more items than the Search Engine Report newsletter and goes
out twice per month.

What’s on your wish list this holiday season? Wish you could find the closest toy store when you’re on the go? The nearest coffee shop on a cold winter day? Get news reports or traffic information on the move? Windows Live has granted those wishes and more: we’re proud to announce three new ways to search on the go:
Mobile Software – Download an application to your phone for local search, maps, driving directions, and live traffic information in a faster, richer and more interactive user interface

Apparently, North Carolina is going to start a trend of people who get court
orders to remove material Google has spidered when left out in public view. This
week, Google was ordered to remove material by a court in that state. It follows
a similar court order in a different case earlier this year.

Best of luck, Danny, and for sure, watch this feed.

Yahoo says non to Google in its court case over Google Library/Book Search. I’m late to the game on this one and running to a meeting, so read what the AP says here:

Yahoo has rebuffed Google’s attempt to learn more about its efforts to create digital copies of books, dealing Google another setback as it prepares to fight a copyright infringement suit.

In rejecting Google’s request, Yahoo adopted the same stance taken last month by the Internet retailer Amazon.com

As one might expect with an abrupt change of control, a lot of senior folks are leaving (or plan to leave) AOL since the new boss (Randy Falco from NBC) came on board. And they are talking - off the record - about what happened to former AOL CEO Jon Miller. Now, clearly this is sourced by folks who were Miller lieutenants, but they say Falco’s unexpected appointment means one thing: AOL is going to be stripped down and sold off within the next year

Today marks Danny Sullivan’s last day at Search Engine Watch, 10 years after beginning the industry’s leading publication for search engine news. Danny’s undeniable passion, knowledge, and dedication to the growth of the search engine industry is well engrained within the archives of Search Engine Watch, and will carry on long after his departure.

Google has canned its Google Answers program, which was the first major search operated question & answer service. Simply enough, Googlers would rather use the Google search engine to find answers to their questions, or turn to social question & answer services which are thriving due to their active member base.
Enter Yahoo Answers

Yahoo is inviting researchers from the now killed Google Answers site to join Yahoo Answers. Yahoo is heavily promoting its service through advertising, blog posts, links from the homepage etc., while Google slowly killed off theirs by removing mostly all ways to get to it during the past months and years (without ever handing out real reasons, leaving researchers and users alike guessing)

On October 5th, Google sent several subpoenas out to companies like Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon who have book scanning projects similar to Google Books.  Amazon.com said no to the request for information about the workings of their book scanning efforts almost immediately, and Yahoo just today followed suit by declining.  Yahoo says the request is [...]

Search engine optimization for small market sites and businesses just got a bit easier with the launch of SoloSEO; a web based self service project management tool for SEO campaigns.
Is SoloSEO the replacement for an expert SEO staff member or agency? No. But for those businesses which want to try and tackle basic SEO themselves or learn from the ground up, or for the private SEO contractor looking to consolidate multiple tools into one all around simplified project management offering, SoloSEO could be a Godsend.
SoloSEO.com service provides professional SEO tools and reports for finding and managing keywords, tracking website and page ranking data, and managing the link building process from start to finish.

Todd Malicoat has a write up called
The Search Marketer’s
Guide to Digg, where he explains the difference between the Digg.com
editorial process and search engines editorial process. It all comes down to the
"human editorial authority," and I quote;

While most the search engines DO have human intervention - they haven’t
accepted and embraced it

The NY Times reports that Yahoo has recently rejected Google’s subpoena for help with the Google Book Search project legal woes. Reportedly, Yahoo turned down Google’s request for similar reasons mentioned by Amazon when they turned down the same request. If you are interested, I have posted the full court filing at my server as a PDF download.

The Live Search Blog described how you can verify if the MSNBot you see crawling your site, is truly the MSNBot from Microsoft or some rogue spider trying to steal your content. Microsoft has added a way to look up the reverse DNS information for the IP of the bot and described what you should see, to ensure that it is the official MSNBot, if it is not, then you may want to block it or report it to Microsoft. A step by step guide is at the Live Search Blog.

What about Googlebot? We covered that here.

Here’s the WSJ (sub req’d) on the deal:

The agreement with Verizon is YouTube’s first major deal with a wireless carrier as it tries to extend the reach of its Internet video content beyond personal computers. YouTube, which was acquired by the Mountain View, Calif., Internet company for $1.65 billion, has attracted a huge audience for the videos on its site, which consist mainly of amateur films, home movies and clips of TV shows and musical performances.
Now YouTube is going mobile