Official Web Master Blog

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+ has received a major update. There's a new multi-column desktop interface, a new messaging platform and Google+ Photos is a lot smarter.


The desktop Google+ looks different. You can see more content thanks to the new interface that shows up to 3 columns, depending on the window size. "Photos and videos can fill the entire width of the stream, making it easier to scan, and nicer to look at. The sharebox bounces, the menus slide, and the cards flip and fade."

Google+ can now automatically generate hashtags for your posts, so other people can find related content. "Hashtags appearing at the top of a post are related to the post's content. Clicking on a hashtag will let you explore related posts. Hashtags with gray coloring are those used by the author of the post while hashtags with blue coloring are added by Google based on the content of the post. Related hashtags help posts get discovered and build conversations around the content of that post."

If you don't like this feature, you can disable it from the settings.


The unified chat service is not called Babel, the name is Google Hangouts. It replaces the Google Chat sidebar in Google+ and the Gmail Chat box and there are apps for Android, iOS and a Chrome extension. Google Hangouts combines Google+ Messenger, Google Talk/Chat and the old Hangouts feature, so you can use text chat, video chat, photo sharing and group conversations on the most popular platforms. You only see notifications once, no matter if you're using the desktop sites or the mobile apps. The built-in chat history lets you go back in time and read old conversations.



Google+ Photos is smarter. It can now find your best photos and use Auto Enhance to combine various effects that make your photos look better. "Auto Enhance makes instant adjustments to brightness, saturation and more. Auto Enhance is on by default so every photo you upload will look its best." There's also Auto Awesome, which creates new images from your photos: collages, motion images, HDR photos, panoramic images, improved group photos. Both Auto Enhance and Auto Awesome can be disabled in the settings.

While Blogger's new commenting system has a lot of cool features, there's an important downside: Google+ Comments has nothing to do with Blogger.

The old comments are available in the new interface, but the new comments are not available in the old commenting system, if you decide to switch back. Blogger's comment feeds don't include the comments from the new interface, you can no longer manage comments from the Blogger dashboard and the new comments aren't included when you export your blog.

Here's the empty comment feed for a post that has a lot of comments:


When you switch to Google+ Comments, you outsource the comments to Google+, but Google+ doesn't have a section that lets you manage the comments and there's no way to export the new comments.

Until Google launches an API for the Google+ Comments feature, you can use the code from Blogger. Browsing the Net found a way to embed Google+ Comments on any website or blog. Here's the code you could use:

<script src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js">
</script>
<div class="g-comments"
    data-href="[URL]"
    data-width="642"
    data-first_party_property="BLOGGER"
    data-view_type="FILTERED_POSTMOD">
</div>

Replace [URL] with the address of your page. If you enter the URL of a different page, Google shows some Google+ posts that link to that page and all the comments for that page. For example, if you enter the URL of this blog post, you'll see all the comments and Google+ messages from this page and you can also add a new comment.

It's important to keep in mind that this is an unofficial way to add Google+ Comments and Google can always change the code or remove some features.

{ Thanks, Jerzy. }

I don't know if you've notice, but this blog's comments look different. That's because I've switched to the new Google+ Comments feature for Blogger.


The upgraded commenting system preserves the existing comments, but the future comments require a Google+ account. That means, visitors can no longer post comments anonymously, using an OpenID account or using a Google account that hasn't been upgraded to Google+. When posting a comment, visitors can also share it on Google+. The new commenting system doesn't just show the comments posted on Blogger, it also shows all the Google+ messages that link to the post and their comments.

Just like Disqus, Google+ Comments shows by default the best comments and there's an option to show the most recent comments. It's not clear how Google determines the top comments, but the number of +1s could be one of the signals. You can also restrict the comments to the people from your Google+ circles.

Bloggers will notice some other changes: the comment management feature from Blogger is no longer available and you can only manage comments for each post. That's a significant downside, especially if you receive a lot of comments. When one of your posts receive new comments, you'll see a notification in the Google bar and you'll get an email notification. I haven't found a way to disable these notifications, not even from the Google+ settings page.

How to enable Google+ Comments if you have a Blogger blog? "Google+ Comments is available for Blogger users who have created a Google+ profile and connected it with their blog. If you haven't upgraded your Blogger profile to a Google+ profile and would like to, you can start the process by clicking the Google+ tab on the Blogger dashboard. Once your blogs are linked to a Google+ profile, a new 'Use Google+ Comments' setting will be displayed on the Google+ tab of your blog," explains Google. If your blog has a heavily modified template, you may need to reset widgets or use the code from this page.

There are additional limitations: Google+ Comments is not available for private blogs and for blogs with adult content. This means that the old commenting system will continue to be available as long as Blogger supports these kinds of blogs. You can always disable Google+ Comments and go back to the legacy Blogger commenting system.

It's important to point out that Google+ Comments are embedded as an iframe (the URL starts with https://plusone.google.com/_/widget/render/comments) and the comments are no longer included inside the Blogger page. Google manages to index content from iframes, but the change could affect your Google rankings.

Another interesting thing: it's the first time when the official Google Blog has comments.

Some early thoughts:

* Blogger is now more relevant, it's less likely that it will be discontinued in the next few years

* Blogger finally has a modern commenting system

* Google+ Comments will be available for other blogging platforms

* "sign in with Google+" will make Google+ even more popular as an identity service.

If you want to restrict Google+ search results to posts that include photos, you can now do that. After performing a search, click the "Everything" dropdown and select "Photos".


"You can find any photo post (...) from items shared only with you, to public photos shared by some of the great photographers on Google+. Here are some searches that I enjoy: [Long exposure], [Steel wool], [Cartoons]," says Google's Dave Cohen.

Unfortunately, Google shows a long list of posts instead of a grid of photos. It's worth pointing out that the search results don't include photos uploaded to Google+ that haven't been explicitly shared.

{ via Search Engine Roundtable }

Google will start to use Google+ Hangouts to provide support. The screensharing feature is especially useful because a Google employee can see what's on your computer screen, so you don't have to take screenshots.

Here's the text used by the screensharing feature:

"Would you like to share your screen with Google? By clicking 'Share my screen' button you will enable screensharing. Your microphone and camera will remain off and your computer will be visible to your Google representative. Please make sure you close anything you do not want your representative to see. To turn off screensharing at any time click the 'Stop sharing my screen' button."


It's not clear which Google service will have this option, but the wording suggests it will be limited to businesses that use services like Google+, AdWords and Google Apps.

{ Thanks, Florian. }

After replacing Picasa Web with Google+ Photos in the navigation bar and redirecting individual albums to the Google+ interface, now Google redirects picasaweb.google.com to the albums section of Google+ Photos. You can still go back to the old Picasa Web interface if you use this URL: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos?noredirect=1. Google displays this URL in a message that says: "Click here to go back to Picasa Web Albums".


When you use that URL, Google also sets a cookie value that prevents the redirect to Google+ Photos even when you enter picasaweb.google.com in the address bar.

Google+ Photos has constantly improved last year, while Picasa Web Albums no longer added new features. It's obvious that Google+ Photos is an upgraded version of Picasa Web Albums, which will be discontinued in the future. There are still a lot of cool Picasa Web features that haven't been added to Google+ Photos (Creative Commons licensing, photo mapping, featured photos, search), so let's hope that Google won't retire Picasa Web Albums until Google+ Photos adds these features.

{ Thanks, Dave and Eric. }

Fortune has an interview with Larry Page, Google's CEO. There are many questions about Apple, competition, managing the company, but some of the most interesting answers revolve around the word "understand".

"If we're going to do a good job meeting your information needs, we actually need to understand things and we need to understand things pretty deeply," says Larry Page. That's why Google has a single privacy policy for most of its services, that's why Google Search uses SSL when you're logged in, that's why Google experiments with combining data from multiple services, that's why Google+ was built and that's why Google values data so much. To understand things deeply.

"What you should want us to do is to really build amazing products and to really do that with a long-term focus. Just like I mentioned we have to understand apps and we have to understand things you could buy, and we have to understand airline tickets. We have to understand anything you might search for," continues Larry. There's a long list of things Google needs to understand, but your preferences help Google return better results and even anticipate your searches.

"I think in order to make our products really work well, we need to have a good way of sharing. We had 18 different ways of sharing stuff before we did Plus. Now we have one way that works well, and we're improving." If there's an easy way to share things online, this helps Google understand your preferences.

"We see the opportunity to build amazing products that are more than any of those parts. So one of my favorite examples I like to give is if you're vacation planning. It would be really nice to have a system that could basically vacation plan for you. It would know your preferences, it would know the weather, it would know the prices of airline tickets, the hotel prices, understand logistics, combine all those things into one experience. And that's kind of how we think about search," concludes Larry.

The search engine that returned the same results for all users is now a thing of the past. This worked for simple questions, for navigational queries, but it doesn't work for complex questions, for vague queries, for recommendations. Instead of showing the same results for [italian restaurant], Google can personalize them based on your location, your favorite food, your reviews and the reviews written by your friends, your Latitude check-ins.

The new Google tries to understand you and that's the secret behind Google+. Obviously, it's still about search, but it's a deeply personalized search. Google also goes beyond keywords and tries to understand concepts and the relation between them. The Knowledge Graph and the Social Graph define the new Google.

Google Drive added a new feature that lets you share files to Google+, just like you can share them to Facebook and Twitter. Click the "share" button or right-click a file and select "share" twice, then click the Google+ icon.




Google displays thumbnails for documents, spreadsheets, drawings and music files, a player for presentations and videos and the description for archives. It's important to change the visibility options to "anyone with the link" or "public on the web".

You can also paste a Google Drive URL in a Google+ post and you'll the same thumbnails and players.


Google still doesn't do a good job at integrating Google Drive with other Google services. For example, you can't pick a Google Drive file (other than photos) when writing a Google+ post. You can't select a Google Drive file when composing a Gmail message and you can't upload files to Google Drive instead of sending them as attachments.

Microsoft's Hotmail (now called Outlook) has a clever feature that uploads large attachments and Office documents to SkyDrive, so it only sends the links.


{ Thanks, Herin. }

Google shows a new annotation next to some web search results and image search results: "actively discussed on Google+". If you click "show", Google displays a recent Google+ post that includes the URL.

The feature is potentially useful, but it needs some fine-tuning because the Google+ posts aren't necessarily popular, while some search results don't need special annotations.




It's interesting to notice that Google+ popularity is a ranking factor for Google's search engine even when you're not logged in.

Now that YouTube uses Google Accounts and integrates with Google+, it's a lot easier for Google to bring more Google+ features to YouTube.

You can now use your full name on YouTube. Just go to YouTube's settings page, click "advanced" next to your email address and click "Begin using my full name on YouTube".


What will change after enabling this feature?

1. Your full name from your Google+ profile will replace your username on YouTube.

2. Your channel title and photo will change.

The YouTube username can still be used to log in and the channel URL will stay the same.

Google's goal is to use the same identity on YouTube, Google+ and other Google services so that it can provide an unified experience. For example, other people that know you will find your YouTube videos much more easily if you're using your full name and your photo. YouTube's commmenting system can also improve if people use their real identity.

Obviously, not everyone will want to drop their username, especially if they like/need anonymity or their username is very popular. That's probably the reason why this feature is optional.

A Google spokesperson told LA Times that "YouTube will let people change their usernames back if they decide to start using their full name. (...) New users can still set their YouTube name however they want. The prompt comes up only for users who have a Google+ profile."

"You'll see this option when you upload or comment on YouTube (...). For partners, brands, and organizations, you won't see this just yet. In the coming months we'll be working on new options to give you even more control over your presence on YouTube," informs Google.

{ Thanks, Katty. }

Google tests a new "share" link for search results pages. The link lets you share a search result on Google+ and it replaces the "+1" button, which only added a page to the "+1" section of your public profile.


The "share" link is only displayed when you mouse over the search result, just like the "+1" button. When you click the link, Google shows the standard Google+ dialog for sharing content. Unfortunately, you can't "+1" pages.


I think it's a bad idea to replace the "+1" button with the "share" link. The "+1" button works as a social bookmarking tool: you're not only bookmarking pages, but you also help other people find useful pages (and they help you). When you "+1" a page, your action is not automatically broadcast to everyone that follows you, so you're likely to use it more often. The "share" link creates a Google+ post, so you might only use it to share important things.

It's not clear why Google didn't enhance the "+1" button from search results pages by adding the sharing feature that's already available for the regular "+1" button used by so many sites. This way you could both "+1" a page and share it with other people.

Google+ has a new feature: support for creating and managing events. Instead of copying Facebook's similar feature, Google decided to release a cutting-edge feature that's miles ahead everything else.

Google+ Events integrates with Google Calendar, has support for beautiful themes and it's not just about creating events. The most interesting feature is called "party mode" and it automatically brings together all the photos taken by the guests. "Once you've enabled Party Mode on your mobile device, all of your new photos get added to the event in real-time. And as more guests turn on Party Mode, more pictures will instantly appear to fellow invitees. In this way Google+ Events gives your party a visual pulse; we've even added a 'live slideshow' you can proudly project during the event," explains Google.


When the event ends, you can see everyone's photos in one place and filter them by popularity, the photographer or the tag. It's a great way to manage your photos, but the guests need to have Android phones and install the Google+ app.

Speaking of the Google+ app, it's now available for tablets. Right now, you can only install it if you have an Android 3.0+ tablet, but the app will also be available for the iPad soon.


Google says that more than 250 million people have upgraded to Google+ and the number of active users is 150 million. The active users spend about an hour per day at google.com and 12 minutes in the Google+ stream. Launched one year ago, Google+ seems to be pretty successful.

Google+ was built around sharing content and that's its main purpose, so many Google products started to provide a unified sharing experience powered by Google+.

Gmail allows you to share image attachments with other Google+ users by clicking the "Share" link, but what about the embedded images from a message? Now you can share them by mousing over the images and clicking the "share" button.


How to insert images into a Gmail message? Just drag and drop the images from your favorite file manager. It should work in the latest versions of Chrome, Safari and Firefox, assuming that you haven't disabled the rich text mode.

{ Thanks, Enrico. }

Google+ has a new interface that brings a lot of changes. It's not yet available to everyone and that's because it rolls out over the next few days.

The new interface has a vertical navigation bar that lets you reorder and hide apps. When you mouse over an app, Google+ shows a list of quick actions. This change will make it easier to add third-party apps in the future.

There are two new pages in the navigation bar: a hangouts page that lists the invitations from the people you've added to your circles, as well as a list of popular hangouts and an explore page for "what's hot".



The list of circles is now displayed at the top of the page, the search box is larger and the chat gadget has been moved to the right sidebar. When you resize the window and there's not enough room to display the chat sidebar, it becomes a floating panel.

Google+ conversations borrowed the old card interface from the previous versions of Gmail, while thumbnails for images and videos are bigger and include captions.

The profile page now accommodates bigger photos, so it's probably a good idea to upload new photos.



Vic Gundotra, Google Senior VP, says that there are 170 million Google+ users, up from 90 million users 2 months ago. That's a really impressive achievement.

{ Thanks, Jérémy. }

The ubiquitous +1 buttons will soon have a new look. The updated version is available when you subscribe to the Google+ Platform Preview, at least for now.

"Following in the footsteps of our new red and white Google+ icon, the +1 button is sporting a fresh coat of paint," informs Google.


While the new buttons are more consistent and include the Google+ branding, the old buttons are more colorful and more descriptive. "+1" is bigger and more obvious in the old buttons and that made them more clickable.

Here's the tiny +1 button from Google+:


... and here's the +1 button from Google Groups:



The small +1 buttons are not legible and it's not obvious that you're supposed to click them. As Fernando Fonseca says, "I understand the need to have a button that looks like the new logo but the problem is that a white background with a thin red line is hardly eye catching and hardly says 'Click me'."

You can compare the different versions of the +1 (v1) and +1 (v2) using the corresponding sprites. I'd choose the old buttons.

Update: There's still time to improve the buttons. Share your feedback here and here.

{ Thanks, Yu-Hsuan Lin. }

Google sometimes displays some annotations below search snippets. Showing that one of the people you trust +1'd a page is useful and might help you decide to click a search result.

Now Google also adds a link that lets you send a thank you note to the person that +1'd page: "Your +1 helped me find this. Thank you!". It's a cute idea and this also helps Google find the recommendations that were really useful, but the links clutter Google's results pages. Maybe Google could show the "thank you" link when you +1 the page.



Another issue is that social annotations aren't necessary when it comes to the top result for a navigational query. Most people that search for [Yahoo] want to visit Yahoo's homepage or use services like Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, so the annotations for these results are unnecessary. It's probably a better idea to show the annotations less often and only for the results that deserve to be highlighted.

{ via Search Engine Roundtable }

After a strong start, Google+ could have lost its momentum, at least if we are to believe ComScore's numbers. "According to comScore, Google+ users averaged only three minutes on the site during January, a pittance compared to Facebook's average of 405 minutes per visitor."

That's a really low number, but I'm not sure it's accurate. Google+ is not a separate service like Google Finance or Google Scholar, it's the social fabric from many Google products. Below Google's navigation bar, there's always a share box and a notification button that lets you read comments and post your replies without visiting Google+. Google's search results include pages shared by your Google+ circles, YouTube's homepages shows videos shared by the people you follow in Google+ and many pages have +1 buttons. You're using Google+ even you're not visiting plus.google.com and that's because Google+ is an upgrade, not a new product.

"This is just the next version of Google. Everything is being upgraded. We already have users. We're now upgrading them to what we consider Google 2.0," says Vic Gundotra, Google VP.

Google's bet is so significant that Google+ simply can't fail. Google+ is just a fancy name for a new Google that knows more about you, so that it can offer a more personalized experience. Upgrading to Google+ will offer better search results, better ads, simple ways to share content, collaborate and communicate with the people you care about. It's the same Google made more powerful by a social upgrade.

What's the message displayed by Gmail when there's no message in your inbox? If you answered "No new mail! Want to read updates from your favorite sites? Try Google Reader", you are right. It was Google's subtle way to promote Google Reader.


Before Google Reader was released, Gmail's "inbox zero" message used to be: "No new mail! There's always Google News if you're looking for something to read."

Now that Google focuses on developing Google+, a modern version of Google Reader, Gmail's new message is: "No new mail! See what people are talking about on Google+." The links sends Gmail users to the "what's hot" section of Google+ which "highlights selected content thought to be exemplary, interesting, and appropriate: showing you serendipitous and diverse information".


From Google News to Google Reader and now Google+, Gmail illustrates three different ways to read news. Google News ranks and clusters articles from the web, Google Reader allows you to read news from your favorite sites, while Google+ lets you read the articles shared by the people you follow. From news that are important to everyone to news that are important to the people you trust.