Louis Gray reports that Google has opened up a physical retail store, to compliment their online store. The physical store is located on the Google Campus at 2000 Charleston Road building, known as the 2000 Alza building. The building houses the Google Buzz team and "consumer-facing products" according to Gray. When Gray visited Google recently he said he found the "lobby swarming with gadget seekers today, and a line with dozens of customers looking to sport the Google logo." He took a video of the inside of the store, which shows a nice line at the checkout counter: Can you ju [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Employees | Google: General | Google: Marketing | Google: Other

Google announced a new portal named Google New. Google New is the one stop shop to find all the latest Google product and services. Google New seems to aggregate all the Google blogs and shows the latest posts from them on this site. It provides a search box to search for Google products. It also displays a highlighted Google product, today's highlighted product is Google Instant. Google also has a directory of all their blogs, products, ads, developer tools and more at one location. Google New however isolates the latest Google releases. Check it out at google.com/newproducts. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: General | Google: Marketing

"We celebrate our failures," Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday when speaking at the Techonomy confernce, in response to the surprise closure of his company's Google Wave product. When it comes to failures, Google's celebrating more than you might realize. Some believe that anything Google touches is golden. Yesterday's closure of Google Wave is another reminder of how this isn't so. Below, a summary of important Google products that haven't made the cut, over time. For each product, I've also pulled a "celebratory failure quote." I don't mean for that to be as snarky as it seems. It [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Features: Analysis | Google: Business Issues | Google: Marketing | Stats: History | Top News

Google takes pride in showing how it will enforce its anti-spam rules even against itself, but apparently there's a limit to how far it will go. Google is declining to ban many of its own help pages that were published in violation of its webmaster guidelines. That's wrong for the reasons has Google's stated. But it's right if it means a more common sense approach to its rules may come out of this. Google's Help Area & Cloaking In particular, Google has a long-standing rule against "cloaking," where a web site shows a search engine content that's different from what a human would see [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: Marketing | SEO: Cloaking & Doorway Pages | Top News

I got a chuckle out of this on Google. Do a search for bing it, and Google comes back with a suggestion of "bring it." Is Google telling Bing to bring it on? It's all automated, of course. This is just Google's spelling correction kicking in. Many more people are likely typing in "bring it" than "bing it," so Google's trying to do the right thing and help them. But it's still funny to me. Over at Ask, the same thing happens there: So see, it's not just Google being mean to Bing. Yahoo also does something similar. It brings back results for for both "bring it" and "bing it" [...]

Related Topics: Ask: Promotions | Channel: Industry | Features: General | Google: Marketing | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Marketing | Top News | Yahoo: Marketing

Google's dogged pursuit of small business owners continues with a new web page that offers advice about "how to succeed online" and appears to have the backing of the U.S. government. The page is called "Tools for Online Success" and shows both Google's logo and the U.S. Small Business Administration at the top. The introductory text explains that Google and the SBA "have partnered to educate local businesses about how to succeed online." But the fine print at the bottom clarifies the relationship: This web site is provided as a public service under Cosponsorship Authorization 10- [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Business Issues | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Marketing | Google: Partnerships | Top News

For the second year in a row, Google hired goats to mow their lawn. This is Google's way of reducing their carbon footprint. The 200 goats, according to Google, cost as much as a lawn service to bring in and would benefit the world by eliminating mower emissions, reducing noise pollution, restoring plant species and fertilizing while grazing. I assume the goats are not just about minimizing Google's carbon footprint. It is also a nice marketing and PR play for them. Here are some pictures: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: General | Google: Marketing | Google: Offices

It's not unusual for other search engines like Yahoo, Bing or Ask to advertise on Google. But I've never seen Google run an ad on another search engine until now. I did a search this evening on Bing for Google Chrome. To my surprise, there was an ad right at the top of the page advertising Chrome, apparently from Google: What's that big box below the ad? That's Bing doing a special "Best Match" unit. It's completely editorial and not connected with the ad. But above it is definitely an ad -- that's why it says Sponsored Listing. I also see the ads if I search for just chrome or br [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: Chrome | Google: Marketing | Top News

Want to follow Google cofounder Sergey Brin on Google's new microblogging service, Google Buzz? Brin says he might join in the future. During the Google Buzz launch event, Brin spoke of being a big fan, even using it to gather opinions internally at Google about a New York Times opinion piece he was writing about Google Books. Now that Buzz is available to the public, will Brin be participating? At the TED Conference in Long Beach, he told me that he might. The key issue for him and a number of Googlers is that the Buzz accounts they've used so far have only been for discussions within G [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Features: General | Google: Buzz | Google: Marketing | Top News

Perhaps yesterday's tweet by Google CEO Eric Schmidt put it best. Hell has indeed frozen over. Google has run its first major television ad, during the Super Bowl, no less. Below, the ad, how it has been received, how it compares to other search engine commercials from rivals and some questions about why market leader Google felt it needed to make such a dramatic move to promote its best known product that has no real marketing problems. The rumor that Google would run a commercial during today's Super Bowl 2010 proved true. Google aired a spot from its online video Search Stories series, c [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Features: General | Google: Marketing | Top News

Google CEO Eric Schmidt is causing quite a stir with this tweet from about an hour ago that suggests Google will run its first major broadcast television commercial during tomorrow's Super Bowl. NOTE: This has now happened. See Hell Freezes Over: Google Airs Ad During Super Bowl. For those who can't see the image above for some reason, Schmidt said: Can't wait to watch the Superbowl tomorrow. Be sure to watch the ads in the 3rd quarter (someone said "Hell has indeed frozen over.") Is he hinting that Google will be running an ad during tomorrow's Super Bowl broadcast? It would seem [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Marketing

Google announced their third annual Doodle 4 Google contest today. In this year's contest, the competition is around the theme, "If Could Do Anything, I Would..." The prizes include, the logo being features on Google.com on May 27, 2010, plus receive a $15,000 college scholarship, a laptop computer and a $25,000 technology grant for their school. Your school must be registered by March 17, 2010 because only students from registered schools can enter. All doodles must be submitted by March 31, 2010. For more details, click here. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | Google: Marketing

[caption id="attachment_33344" align="alignleft" width="135" caption="Credit: National Review"][/caption] The Wall Street Journal and Reuters are reporting that Google has hired Jill Hazelbaker to replace Matt Furman as head of corporate communications. Most recently Hazelbaker worked for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg during his successful re-election campaign. Google has historically hired people with Washington experience, but bringing on Hazelbaker may anticipate a somewhat more adversarial road ahead for the search engine as it confronts anti-trust scrutiny at every turn. Whi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Employees | Google: Marketing

If you visit Google.com today, you will see that they are showing a promotion for the Nexus One. The promotion is found under the search box and reads, "Experience Nexus One, the new Android phone from Google." As we saw in Danny's live blogging of the event, yesterday - Google said they would use Google.com to push this device. They did so for the Verizon/Motorola Droid, so of course they will do it for their own device. The link takes you to google.com/phone, as you would expect. Here are some past ads/promotions on the Google home page: Postscript from Greg [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Marketing | Google: Mobile | Google: Partnerships | Top News

Tonight at 9pm ET/PT on CNBC there will be a special premier of "Inside the Mind of Google." The show will go over how Google got started, how they grew over the years and what challenges they have had recently. Our very own Danny Sullivan is interviewed in this documentary, so you do not want to miss it. Here is a clip of this documentary on YouTube. From the press release: The one-hour documentary delivers a comprehensive look at Google's crown jewel-- its Internet search engine- the most visited web site in the world. In fact, despite formidable competition, nearly two-thirds o [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Critics | Google: General | Google: Marketing

Google really wants you to buy a Motorola Droid, the hot new phone that just hit stores today. In fact, Google is so enamored that it's advertising the Droid on its homepage: "The Droid is on sale now. Learn more." Clicking the "learn more" link leads to this "mobile partners" page that touts the Google search capabilities available on the Droid. The two links in the upper right -- the "Get" button and the "Learn more" text link below it -- point to verizonwireless.com and droiddoes.com, respectively. It's hard to make the case that this isn't an ad on Google's home page, and [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Marketing | Google: Mobile | Google: Partnerships | Top News

A reader pointed us to the Delta 2 rocket launch where Microsoft was a co-sponsor. If you look closely, you can see the Bing logo on the rocket ship. While Bing's logo went into space, Google today announced a partnership with DigitalGlobe to launch a satellite into space to provide "high-quality imagery in Google Earth & Google Maps." What about Yahoo? Well, they did bury a Time Capsule in earth in October 2006 which wont be opened until March 2, 2020. Not exactly space, but still feels a bit futuristic. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Earth | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Marketing | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Microsoft: Marketing

It appears Google has pulled together a bunch of statistics throughout the web and created a small landing page named Google Internet Stats on the Google UK front. The page explains that this service "brings together the latest industry facts and insights together in one place." Google collected this data from many third party vendors, on a wide range of topics. In fact, you can submit your data using this form. Here is a picture of the mobile technology internet stats from this tool: The categories of statistics include: - Consumer Trends -- Community -- Entertainment -- Infor [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Google: Marketing | Google: Trends | Stats: General | Top News

Does today's speech from President Barack Obama to school children across the United States need any more controversy? Having listened to it, I personally can't see many parents objecting. But I could see one tech company not happy: Microsoft. Competitors like Google got called out as "good" things to aspire to while a Microsoft's Xbox was something he suggested should be turned off. From his prepared remarks, which should be pretty close to the exact speech he delivered: Microsoft gets the bad news early: I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Features: Analysis | Google: Marketing | Microsoft: Marketing | Search & Society: General | Twitter

Google's outreach last week was all about Street View. This week it appears to be Google Maps' turn in the spotlight, thanks to a new page that touts the benefits of using Google Maps on your web site, and shows the various ways to do it. The mini-site offers step-by-step instructions with two options -- "Quick" for us common folk, or "Advanced" for programmers and developers. The instructions aren't new -- Google's offered embeddable link code for some time now and an API for more advanced developers. What's interesting is Google's continued campaign to pitch its products to end users. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Marketing