tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10693083609985711852023-11-16T00:27:31.664+05:30India news announcementsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-33970130333482395432010-01-20T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:04.347+05:30YouTube to live stream all DLF IPL 2010 matches<p><em>First major sporting event to be live-streamed across the globe</em></p><ul><li><em>YouTube to live stream all DLF IPL 2010 matches</em></li><li><em>First major sporting event to be live-streamed across the globe</em></li><li><em>60 matches over 45 days to be broadcast live</em></li></ul><p><em>Fans can catch all the action live on a dedicated IPL channel at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/ipl" target="_blank">www.youtube.com/ipl</a></em></p><p><strong>Mumbai, January 20th 2010</strong>: Get front row seats for all DLF Indian Premier League matches in 2010 as the cricket stadium will now be virtual! Adding a unique social media edge to the upcoming DLF IPL 2010 season, Google India today announced an agreement with the Indian Premier League and its licensing partner Global Cricket Ventures that will enable it to live stream all the action from latest season on a dedicated IPL channel on YouTube at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/ipl" target="_blank">www.youtube.com/ipl</a>. YouTube™ is the world’s largest entertainment platform where people enjoy the biggest selection of videos and collaborate to create a unique viewing experience and brands get access to a highly engaged audience.</p><p>Under the terms of this agreement, Google will have exclusive online rights for IPL content for two years and both Google and IPL will jointly share revenues from sponsorships and advertising on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/ipl" target="_blank">www.youtube.com/ipl</a> and on <a href="http://www.iplt20.com" target="_blank">www.iplt20.com</a> (the official website of IPL).</p><p>This is the first time Google is live streaming – a mega cricket tournament spanning 60 matches over 45 days- for a major global sport on YouTube. This partnership also marks a first-of-its-kind innovation in live streaming of any global cricketing event providing boundary-less access to the billions of fans across the world, except in USA where re-broadcast options will be available. Now fans from Mumbai to Melbourne will be able to enjoy all the 60 matches of DLF IPL 2010 and join the action with cricket fans from all over the world on-demand and share their experiences on YouTube. They will also enjoy special content, which includes match highlights, player interviews, wickets of the match, top sixes of the match, award ceremony, pitch reports, and much more, at any time convenient to them. Those who watch IPL matches live on YouTube will also get a special treat – an exclusive "YouTube View" that will provide viewers with an alternative view of the match not available on television or any other media.</p><p>"We are thrilled to have the IPL as our global partner and bring to the YouTube community around the world and here in India an interactive, unique experience building greater awareness around the world for the sport", said Shailesh Rao, Managing Director, Google India and Media & Platforms, Asia Pacific.</p><p>He added, "YouTube offers an open platform for sports and entertainment companies to take their content to a global audience and a great opportunity for advertisers to interact with a large number of viewers through interactive video formats. During the IPL season, the biggest and most talked-about cricket tournament in the world, YouTube will offer innovative and engaging advertising opportunities to companies which help them build stronger online brand associations and engage the audience."</p><p>Lalit Modi, Chairman and Commissioner, Indian Premier League said, "This unique initiative by IPL to partner Google India will give the league a global reach on a single distribution platform. This will allow IPL fans anywhere in the world to view the action on-demand as per their convenience, thus making the new dedicated IPL channel on YouTube the biggest virtual stadium in the world. Fan interactions with players, owners and other fans worldwide will ensure that the IPL YouTube destination becomes the most compelling and comprehensive online destinations for the league. I am certain that this new innovation will significantly enrich the user experience of the global cricket fan with a direct window to the on-field action through generation next technologies. I am really confident and that this year’s season will be bigger and more exciting than the last."<br>In addition to live streaming of matches on YouTube, Google will also host a special IPL branded Orkut Community which will host live chats with Man of the Match, team owners, contests and match polls to engage fans and audiences while the tournament is on. Users will also be able to enjoy short clips of highlights and other special video content on the YouTube mobile – <a href="http://www.youtube.com/mobile" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/mobile</a>.</p><p>The advertising options on YouTube will be available only for a limited number of sponsors over the course of the season. Companies will have the opportunity to sponsor live streamed matches, match re-broadcasts, and ongoing viewership of clips and highlights. Advertisers will be able to advertise on the YouTube homepage, the live stream page, video ads during the match itself amongst several other innovative formats.</p><h3>About Google™ Inc.</h3><p>Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.google.com">www.google.com</a>.</p><h3>About YouTube™</h3><p>YouTube is the world’s most popular online video community allowing millions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small. YouTube, LLC is based in San Bruno, CA and is a subsidiary of Google Inc.</p><p>DLF Indian Premier League 2010<br>DLF IPL 2010 is set to kick-off in Hyderabad on March 12th and will feature last year’s league winners the Deccan Chargers taking on the Kolkata Knight Riders. The DLF IPL 2010 will be played over 45 days across India and will feature a grand total of 60 games, with the addition of a third place play-off. The league will also see the addition of four new home venues in the form of Nagpur for the Mumbai Indians, Vishakapatnam for the Deccan Chargers, Ahmedabad for the Rajasthan Royals and Dharamshala for the Kings XI Punjab.<br>For more information on all the action in IPL 2010 log onto <a href="http://www.IPLT20.com" target="_blank">www.IPLT20.com</a> the official online destination of the league.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-79347051053507426172009-12-16T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:05.341+05:30Google launches landmark driving direction on Google Maps<p><strong>Announcement<br>16 December, 2009</strong></p><p>Google India announces the launch of landmarks in driving directions for users of Google Maps. Users can now navigate around locations using Google Maps on their desktops and mobile phones using landmarks like petrol stations, banks, schools, railway stations, bus stops, local businesses & traffic circles and signals. India is the first country globally to get this feature on Google Maps.</p><p>Indians are more comfortable finding way on the streets using landmarks. Typically many roads in India are not marked with road signs and even if they are, the signs are not visible. In some cases people do not even know the road names. For instance, a friend asks you for directions to your house for a new year party, or to that nice picnic spot you recommended to celebrate a new year’s eve, you scribble some lines on a piece of paper or explain that they should take a turn from a petrol pump or a bus stop or a grocery shop! Google today enables this activity online and share with friends and family.</p><p>In India, Google has collected good landmark data through user-created "Points of Interest" in Google Map Maker. Google’s new algorithm determines which of these landmarks are most useful for navigation, based on importance, and closeness to the turns that the user is making and other available signals. With this launch, Google will now combine landmark data, counted turns ("the 2nd right"), intersection names, and road names, and try to use whatever information is most relevant and useful.</p><p>Google is providing two kinds of landmarks – to identify where users need to turn, and to provide confirmation that they’re on the right track. Google also encourages users to help make directions even better for millions of users in India by enriching landmarks data via Google Map Maker.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-26924437713842383522009-12-09T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:04.001+05:30Google’s Internet Bus Enters God’s Own Country – Kerala<p><strong>9 December, 2009 –</strong> Having travelled more than 10,000 kilometers across 4 states of India during the last 10 months, Google Internet Bus continues to add more miles and smiles as it enters the state of Kerala – God’s own country. The Internet Bus – a custom designed mobile bus aimed to provide an online experience to the people of Kerala will be travelling through 8 towns – Kochi, Alappuzha, Kollam, Trivandrum, Thirssur, Palakkad, Kozhikode and Thalasery – in the next 25 days.</p><p>The Google Internet Bus journey which started from Tamil Nadu in February 2009 has so far touched the lives of over 400,000 Indians across states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh helping them to understand how they can use internet to do everyday things more easily. The bus left behind some interesting anecdotes each time it visited a city: For instance a businessman in Ujjain was excited to know how easily he could keep track of his bank account by using online banking. A businessman in Krishnagiri (Tamil Nadu) was amazed to see how he could easily book the train tickets online. A cybercafé owner in Vijaywada (Andhra Pradesh) was thrilled to use products like Google Maps and Google search in local languages and was keen to educate his customers about use of these products.</p><p>With a focus on four themes – information, communication, entertainment and education, the Internet Bus will showcase informative content in both English and Malayalam to provide the users with an understanding of how the Internet can be used for all of these needs. In addition to the basic familiarization on using services like search, email, social networking, online maps and others the bus will also showcase how the Internet services can be used by mobile phones owners to make their everyday life simple.</p><p>Commenting on the successful run of Google Internet Bus project, Dr. Prasad Ram, Head R&D, Google India said, "2009 has been a memorable journey for Google through the Internet Bus. We have learnt a lot about the needs and requirements of the emerging users of the internet in India. It has been exciting to see people from different walks of life visit the bus and learn what the internet can do for them."</p><p>"We are committed to bring the real benefit of Internet services by localizing our global products for the users in India and making it accessible even on mobile phones. We hope the Internet Bus will be able to extend the awareness of these local innovations and enable the common man to utilize the power of knowledge and information for economic prosperity in the state.," adds Dr. Ram.</p><p>In Kerala, Google has joined hands with NIIT™, who would give a free hour of hands-on internet training to the visitors of the Internet Bus. This has been designed to sustain the interest among the users about the internet and also to increase the engagement levels of people.</p><p>Users across India will be able to follow the bus through its journey, see pictures and videos and join online communities by simply visiting <a href="http://www.google.co.in/internetbus">http://www.google.co.in/internetbus</a>.</p><p>In India, Google has been making significant investments to make the Internet more relevant and accessible to the Indian user. Search has become more localized with useful information like business listings, railways and flight status, cricket scores, movie reviews and more. Google has also launched products like Google SMS Search™, SMS Channels, Google Local Search™, and Google Map Maker™, and has localized many popular Google applications. It is offering transliteration in 5 Indian languages, Google News™ in 4 Indian languages, machine translation for English-to-Hindi (bidirectional), and soft keyboards for a vast majority of Indian languages.</p><p>Access to information over mobile devices has become easier with mobile maps, mobile search, voice search and mobile orkut™. Google has also created platforms like the Be NetSmart campaign aimed at students, parents and teachers to educate them on Internet safety.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-57921753245166593732009-11-02T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:04.843+05:30Google launches search by voice for Nokia S60 phone users<p><strong>2 November, 2009 –</strong> Have you ever been in a hurry and really needed to find an answer to something, but there was no one to ask? Like what is the latest cricket score update, where is the closest restaurant, pharmacy? Now you can just speak your query. Google India announces the launch of a downloadable Google Mobile App™ for Nokia S60 (most N and E series models e.g. N 86, E- 63) users. This will enable easier and faster access to Google Search™.</p><p>Google Mobile App™ is equipped with speech recognition technology designed to understand Indian accents. Search by voice on mobile will now trigger a Google Search™ as soon as you speak your search query and give you the required results with a high accuracy rate.</p><p>So the next time you need to order a pizza, enquire about a taxi service, call up a florist or in case you want to access the plethora of information available on the internet while you are on the road just use search by voice on GMA on your Nokia S 60 phones to initiate a Google Search™ on your mobile. The free-to-use application helps users to search for updates on cricket and local business listings. The application automatically detects your location. So now as soon as you enter a pizza or pharmacy query and it will return results closest to your current location.</p><p>In addition to this, Google Mobile App™ for Nokia S60 also has a smart suggest feature which suggests search terms query, thus minimizing typing in case you are using the cumbersome mobile key board and this result in faster completion of your query term.</p><p>Announcing the launch Vinay Goel, Head of Products, Google India said "There’s no denying the importance of search by voice in India, and the extension of Google’s search by voice feature to more mobile handsets is a natural next step for our mobile strategy. Speech is one of our key innovations in the mobile space out of the India engineering center. With millions of new mobile users being added every month Google Mobile App’s will provide them with a quick and easy way to get the required information whenever and wherever they need it. With the launch of this service for Nokia S60 handsets we would be catering to a larger segment of mobile users, as a significant number of Nokia phone users are on the S60"</p><p>Voice search speeds up the entire experience and the process of conducting a Google Search™ using your mobile. All you have to do is to download the Google Mobile App™ from <a href="http://m.google.co.in">m.google.co.in</a> on your phone so download yours now!</p><p>Google Mobile App™ on your Nokia phone enables you to:</p><ul><li>Get rid of typing on the mobile keyboard… just speak your queries.</li><li>Search for business, weather and film information without specifying where you are.</li><li>Start a Google search with just one click. Suggestions appear as you type, to save you time.</li></ul><p><em>###</em></p><p><em>Google Search™, Google Mobile App™ are trademarks of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.</em></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-53637449157778312652009-10-14T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:04.805+05:30Indian Local Businesses get a boost with New, Data-Rich Dashboard in Google Local Business Center<p><em>New feature will provide businesses with new visibility into the ways their local listings are found on Google, enabling them to make smarter decisions about attracting customers</em></p><p><strong>Announcement<br>14 October, 2009</strong></p><p>As a business owner in India, a local listing on Google will now ensure much more than online visibility. Businesses in India will now be empowered with information on how their listing is being searched and from where -- trends that will enable businesses to make informed decisions to reach out to potential customers.</p><p>Google is introducing a new dashboard feature in the Google Local Business Center (LBC) that will provide business owners with a powerful level of information about how Google users are interacting with their local listings. The Local Business Center (<a href="http://www.google.co.in/lbc">www.google.co.in/lbc</a>) is a free tool that enables business owners to control the content of their listings in Google Search™ and Google Maps™. With the addition of the new dashboard, the LBC will now draw upon local search data to help owners optimize their local listings and their other efforts to attract more customers.</p><p>According to Google estimates, the number of queries for local businesses is fast increasing. The LBC dashboard will initially provide business owners with the following data on that activity in Google Search and Google Maps.</p><ul><li><strong>Impressions:</strong> The number of times the business listing appeared as a search result on Google Search or Google Maps search in a given period.</li><li><strong>Actions:</strong> How many times users interacted with the listing; for example, the number of times users clicked through to the business’ website or requested driving directions to the business.</li><li><strong>Top search queries:</strong> Which queries led users to the business listing; for example, whether more customers are finding the listing for a cafe by searching for "tea" or "coffee."</li></ul><p>With the LBC dashboard, business owners will be able to identify trends, such as days of the week when interest in their business spikes, or seasonality in the types of searches that lead potential customers to their listings. Owners will also be able to better determine how changes to their listings -- such as adding a video or refining their category -- influence the traffic to that listing.</p><p>The LBC dashboard also allows business owners to better measure the impact of changes to associated web content or adjustments to marketing campaigns -- such as a new post to the company blog, or a new advertising campaign -- by measuring impressions, actions, location, and more before and after the changes.</p><p>So, for example, a restaurant could host an event and then watch to see if queries for its business name increase in the following days. It could also experiment with the information in its LBC listing to uncover which configurations produce more hits in Google Search for certain keywords. With this data, owners will be able to make informed decisions about the most effective ways to promote their businesses and attract new customers.</p><p>The LBC dashboard will be pre-populated at launch with Google data from the past 30 days, and it will then be updated daily. All data available in the LBC dashboard will be anonymized and aggregated, so no individual Google user data will be shared.</p><p>The dashboard is accessible to any business owner who has claimed his or her listing in the Local Business Center. Business owners who do not yet have an LBC account can quickly create theirs for free by visiting <a href="http://www.google.co.in/lbc">http://www.google.co.in/lbc</a>.</p><p>For information on how business owners can help Google users find and connect with their businesses, check out <a href="http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=148047">this list of tips</a>.</p><p><em>###</em></p><p><em>Google Search™ and Google Maps™ are trademarks of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.</em></p><h3>Media Contacts</h3><p>Gaurav Bhaskar<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:gauravbhaskar@google.com">gauravbhaskar@google.com</a><br></p><p>Simran Singh Sethi<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:simran@2020india.com">simran@2020india.com</a><br>09810815160</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-88808047895706181122009-10-06T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:05.568+05:30Google empowers SMBs to kick start online ad-campaigns for free<p><strong>6 October, 2009 –</strong> Bringing the power of Internet advertising to small businesses, Google India today announced a special initiative to help entrepreneurs jump start their online advertising campaign on Google’s AdWords™ platform for free. All small businesses with an online presence, will be able to avail Rs 2500/- worth of advertising coupons by just calling the toll free number 1860 266 6622 and registering their websites with Google India AdWords platform – <a href="http://adwords.google.co.in">http://adwords.google.co.in</a>.</p><p>Launching this all-India initiative in Punjab, Google India’s head of on-line sales, Sridhar Seshadri said, "Small and medium businesses have always wanted to advertise to get more business but that option has consistently remained beyond their reach because of the high costs associated. But with Google’s AdWords platform, they no longer have to worry as they can start advertising with a budget which is as low as Rs 200 per day and grow it as per their business demand. With Punjab being the hub of small entrepreneurial businesses, we want to provide the entrepreneurs here with an opportunity to try out online advertising options and see the results for themselves".</p><p>Sharing his experience, an entrepreneur from Ludhiana Rishi Sachdev of www.AryanFlorist.com website, said, "The flexibility to change your AdWords campaign budget at any time and adjust campaign geo-targeting at the country, region and city levels are the two most important features of Google AdWords. I advise others to start Google AdWords campaigns with a modest budget, focus on the right keywords and use text ads and then scale-up their investments gradually." Today, AdWords accounts for 70% of his web traffic and 90% of its business, proving to be a key ingredient in the success formula for Aryan Florist.</p><p>Yashish Dahiya, CEO of Policybazar.com, a leading online insurance aggregator, also narrating his experience with Google AdWords said, "AdWords is the best friend a marketer can have! You can measure your ROI; you can monitor and optimize your campaign, all at your own pace-so you are totally in control."</p><p>"The company was able to increase the traffic to their website through Google Search network, which in turn helped us receive around 100-200 leads per day consistently. AdWords is a powerful tool that can do wonders to your business. It is, however, important to spend time on it and monitor performance seriously" he added.<br>Highlighting the success of Google AdWords among many SME advertisers, Seshadri further added "The combined benefits of the online medium and Google AdWords platform enables SMEs to target precisely, pay only for results, and stay firmly in charge of costs. Besides this, online is also a smart place to be when your customers are price-conscious and doing a lot of research on the web before they make a purchasing decision. Indian SMEs are increasingly appreciating the control that search marketing gives them and they are using it to their advantage to drive business growth."<br>The demand for online search engine advertising by SMEs has been growing consistently in India. And with Google being one of the leading players in the search category, Google’s AdWords platform offers reach and precision targeting making it one of the most cost-effective and highly-targeted online advertising platforms available today. Small medium businesses can also use the platform to target new audiences on the Google advertising network and get a greater control of their budgets, with very little time commitment and reach out to specific audiences not only in India but also international markets.<br>Google India foresees a vast opportunity in SME sector and is committed to extend support to all local SME advertisers to help them gain from the internet medium.</p><h3>About Google Inc.</h3><p>Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford PhD. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.google.com">www.google.com</a>.</p><h3>Media Contacts</h3><p>Gaurav Bhaskar<br>Global Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:gauravbhaskar@google.com">gauravbhaskar@google.com</a></p><p>Achint Punyani<br><a href="mailto:apunyani@perfectrelations.com">apunyani@perfectrelations.com</a><br>09810521303</p><p>Neha Bhatt<br><a href="mailto:nbhatt@perfectrleations.com">nbhatt@perfectrleations.com</a><br>09873175272<br></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-91622952966272341952009-09-24T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:05.682+05:30Google’s Internet Bus Enters the Hindi Heartland<p><em>Internet Bus to cover 10 cities in Madhya Pradesh</em></p><p><strong>Indore, September 24, 2009 –</strong> After covering Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, Google™ India today announced the arrival of the Google Internet Bus in the Hindi heartland as the bus kick-starts its journey in Madhya Pradesh. ‘The Internet Bus’ will travel through the state of Madhya Pradesh covering ten key cities in next 25 days and highlight the benefits of using the Internet. The Google Internet bus experience is specially designed to familiarize people with various applications and services that they can use to make their life simple.</p><p>During its 8-month journey the Internet Bus has left behind some compelling stories each time it has visited a city: A businessman in Krishnagiri (Tamil Nadu) was amazed to see how he could pay off his utility bills and book for train tickets with the click of a button. It was a thrilling experience for a local musician in Vijaywada (Andhra Pradesh) to learn how he can use the internet to compose music and showcase his work to the world. A millet farmer in the remote fringes of Tumkur (Karnataka) went back with a memorable experience with the bus and asked his son to go online to search for a job.</p><p>With a focus on four themes – information, communication, entertainment and education, the ‘Internet Bus’ will showcase informative content in both English and Hindi to provide the users with an understanding of how the Internet can be used in their daily lives. In addition to basic familiarization on using services like search, email, social networking and online maps, the bus will also aim to reach out to first-time users who have little or no exposure to the Internet.</p><p>"We are passionate about empowering users with information and the Internet democratizes access to information. Our vision is to empower users by providing organized, easily accessible information and products which will encourage the creation and consumption of locally relevant content. With the ‘Internet Bus’ we want to take the power of this medium to people who will really benefit from it and thus help in making the internet play an important role in their daily lives." said Dr. Prasad Ram, Head of Google R&D, India.</p><p>In Madhya Pradesh, Google has joined hands with NIIT™, who would give a free hour of hands-on internet training to people who visit the Internet Bus. This has been designed to sustain the interest among the users about the internet and also to increase the engagement levels of people.</p><p>Users across India will be able to follow the bus through its journey, see pictures and videos and join online communities by simply visiting <a href="http://www.google.co.in/internetbus">http://www.google.co.in/internetbus</a>.</p><p>This initiative is aligned with Google’s overall strategy of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful. In India, Google has been making a significant effort to make the Internet more relevant and accessible to the Indian user. Search has become more localized with useful information like business listings, railways and flight status, cricket scores, movie reviews and more. Google has also launched products like Google SMS Search™, SMS Channels, Google Local Search™, and Google Map Maker™, and has localized many popular Google applications. It has been overcoming language barriers by offering transliteration in 5 Indian languages, Google News™ in 4 Indian languages, machine translation for English-to-Hindi (bidirectional), and soft keyboards for a vast majority of Indian languages. Access to information over mobile devices has become easier with mobile maps, mobile search, and mobile orkut™. Google has also created platforms like the Be NetSmart campaign aimed at students, parents and teachers to educate them on Internet safety.</p><h3>About Google Inc.</h3><p>Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.</p><p><em>* Internet Bus™, Google SMS Search™, Google Voice Local Search™, Google Map Maker™, Google News™, orkut™ are trademarks of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.</em></p><h3>Media Contacts</h3><p>Gaurav Bhaskar<br>Global Communications & Public Affairs Manager Google India<br><a href="mailto:gauravbhaskar@google.com">gauravbhaskar@google.com</a></p><p>Aman Abbas<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:aman@2020india.com">aman@2020india.com</a><br>09810341899</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-44201665397106222452009-08-25T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:04.692+05:30First ever Orkut Zeitgeist measures the pulse of Indians online<p><em>Interesting discoveries as orkut mercury rises across India</em></p><ul><li><em>Jai Ho "India"!</em></li><li><em>Citizen journalism is here to stay</em></li><li><em>Recession makes the youth catch bulls and bears</em></li><li><em>Soccer mania surfaces, cricket fever faces challenge</em></li><li><em>When online men and women no longer belong to different planets</em></li><li><em>How fast do you change your marital status after you get married – 1 hour after ceremony, 2 hours?</em></li><li><em>Fancy characters and skins add a new spark to profiles</em></li><li><em>The ‘Orkut brandwagon’ gets hotter as brand promotion rises.</em></li></ul><p><strong>Announcement<br>August 25, 2009</strong></p><p><strong>August 25, 2009:</strong> Google India today announced its first ever Orkut Zeitgeist in India. Zeitgeist means the "spirit of the times". Social networking sites being the single largest generators of Indian web traffic are the best place to check out what India’s youth are up to online…and turns out they are all on Orkut! People are using Orkut like never before: to forge bonds, to express themselves, to come together around causes and topics that excite them or simply to share their creative pursuits with a wider audience. The wandering mind knows no bounds!</p><p>Are you a fan of cricket? Rajnikanth? Vada Pav? Tom and Jerry? Do you fanatically follow the stock market updates? Do you obsessively miss your home-town? Whatever your passion, there’s probably a community around it on Orkut. A community is the ultimate hangout for those on Orkut with a specific interest. People meet, discuss, share and learn from others on these communities. And these communities are what we looked at to compile the Orkut Zeitgeist. We looked at millions of communities and usage trends to finally arrive at the ten most popular communities. The trends are based on an anonymised and aggregated study of the behaviour of Indian users over the past seven days. The analysis was repeated over several seven day periods, to confirm the accuracy of results and to rule out episodic variations. We scoured through lists on a national level and then dug deeper into city trends. The results are fascinating!</p><p>“Orkut is the number one web property in India with over 17 million* active users that comprise 48% of India’s online population. Therefore it is no surprise when everyone refers to orkut to comprehend the dominant trends in the Indian way of life. While different people find different things to do on the web, the list of the top Orkut communities (based on popularity) is the best representation of the unique ways in which Indian users are mining the Internet and social networks.” said Rahul Kulkarni, Product Manager, Google India.</p><p>While young India remains patriotic, being ‘stylish’ is a growing priority too! ‘Chocolate’ is still the first crave and ‘MTV’ the youngistan’s loved space. The stock market is growing in appeal for the young traders while football catches up with cricket. And while Bollywood seems to be losing to Tollywood. Discrimination is increasingly a thing of the past between men and women as both groups actively engage in discussions. Everyone loves to ‘chat’ but ‘photo’ sharing and comments are the new fad. At a city level, the love for the land rules with the exception of Bangalore which has emerged as the new ‘True blue’ Metropolis in India. Delhi tops the list as the style capital while Hyderabad proclaims great love for their hero Pawan Kalyan with zeal. More interesting trivia is given below:</p><h3>Orkut Zeitgeist Results</h3><p>Top National Communities List:</p><ul><li>"StYlIsH PeOpLe"</li><li>"India"</li><li>"Chocolate"</li><li>"MTV & still more MTV!"</li><li>"TCS 2009 Batch………!!!!!!"</li><li>"Tom and Jerry – Cartoon"</li><li>"Boys VS Girls (Who Is d Best?)"</li><li>"India Stock Market (BSE NSE)"</li><li>"Tamil Cinema"</li><li>"I hate to wake up early"</li><li>"Friends".</li></ul><p>Inferences:</p><ul><li>Indian alarms snooze the maximum</li><li>Tom congratulates Jerry as they still manage to tickle the young</li><li>Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the most stylish of the lot</li><li>Battle of the sexes continue even as none win.</li></ul><h3>A peep into regional trends:</h3><p>India is a vast nation and trends vary from city to city. Given below are highlights of the top-most communities in various cities across India</p><ul><li>Delhi</li></ul><p>- “Stylish People” – The fashion hub of the country also boasts of style online<br>- "Chocolate" – The national capital is also the sweet centre of India</p><ul><li>Mumbai</li></ul><p>- Only “Marathi girls rock” for Mumbai<br>- “India” and “Marathi” – Mumbai defines the spirit of unity in diversity</p><ul><li>Bangalore</li></ul><p>- “India” "vokkaliga gowdas" and "Naruto" are amongst the top three</p><p>- With Bengalis, Malayalees, and Kanndaigas, Tamilians- Bangalore is the ‘true blue metropolis’- atleast online</p><ul><li>Pune</li></ul><p>-"Muktapeeth" – Responsibility drives the Pune youth, citizen journalism comes calling<br>- “Marathi girls rock” – Marathi girls find fan following yet again</p><ul><li>Hyderabad</li></ul><p>-“Powerstar Pawan Kalyan” and "Telugu Movie World” – Its Tollywood all the way for Hyderabad</p><ul><li>Kolkata</li></ul><p>- "Proud to be Bengali" and "Orkut’s Most Koolest Bengalis" – Ami Bengal ke bhalo bhaasi, Kolkata defines the love for Bengal</p><ul><li>Chandigarh</li></ul><p>- With "StYlIsH PeOpLe"and "MTV & still more MTV!" – Fashion ka hai yeh jalwa<br>- "Chandigarh Geri Route Sec 11"- the world revolves around this hang-out!</p><h3>Here are some more trends:</h3><p>Beyond communities we looked at aggregated usage pattern:</p><ul><li>Photo uploads are the new ‘scraps’: while millions of scraps are exchanged everyday, photo uploads have increased many fold</li><li>Rahul and Neha are the most popular names on orkut</li><li>Women and Men meet half way for ‘chats’. Women care more for Horoscopes</li><li>Marketers are using a combination of communities, ads and apps to keep their audiences engaged. Film "Love Aajkal" drives over 200 communities and 100000 users</li><li>Orkut is accessed from everywhere: more and more users logging from their mobiles.</li></ul><p><em>orkut™ is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.</em></p><h3>Media Contacts</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a></p><p>Aman Abbas<br>Account Director<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:aman@2020india.com">aman@2020india.com</a><br>09819341899</p><p><strong>*Source:</strong> comScore 2009</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-91914781937763463562009-08-21T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:05.720+05:30Bring out the artist in you, and doodle for Google!<p><strong>Announcement<br>21 August, 2009</strong></p><p>What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you visualise the Google homepage? The colourful, characteristic Google logo, of course! But every now and then, on a few special days, visitors to the Google homepage sometimes see something different -- creative, catchy, artistic variations of the regular Google logo. These "doodles" appear on some special days, to commemorate scientific and artistic achievements, historic or seasonal events, and other local occasions. Their eye-catching designs also often teach you something new about a day, event or occasion whenever you happen to stumble upon them.</p><p>Today, we are announcing <em>Doodle 4 Google,</em> our first ever ‘doodling’ competition in India, to give any school student in India the chance to draw on the most exciting canvas in the world, by creating a doodle for the Google India homepage, to be seen by millions of Google users!!</p><p>The theme of this competition is "My India", and we’re asking students to create a doodle for us by giving a pictorial depiction of what India means to them. The winning doodle will be displayed on our home page, <a href="http://www.google.co.in/">www.google.co.in</a>, on Children’s Day, November 14, 2009. The final winner will also win a laptop for himself/herself, and a technology grant of Rs.1,00,000 for his/her school.</p><p>Announcing the launch of the <em>Doodle 4 Google</em> competition, Arvind Desikan, Head of Consumer Marketing from Google said, "Creativity, innovation, and a sense of fun are at the heart of Google’s culture and beliefs. Through <em>Doodle 4 Google</em>, we hope to celebrate the immense creative talent and richness of ideas of students across the country. We are delighted to be able to give school students across India the opportunity to doodle for Google."</p><p>Doodles will be judged on artistic merit, creativity and the communication of the "My India" theme. The judging panel will include faculty and students of the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, our <em>Doodle 4 Google</em> partner institute and one of India’s foremost institutions in the field of design education, as well as renowned cartoonist N. Ponnappa, and young emerging Indian artist Raghava K.K.</p><p>Pradyumna Vyas, Director of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad said: "NID’s mission is to foster world-class design education and promote design awareness and excellence while rooted to the cultural ethos and traditions of our country. At the same time, we want to make design education relevant to today’s context, and demonstrate the social and economic benefits of design, especially the pivotal role it plays in social development. We are happy to collaborate with Google’s <em>Doodle 4 Google</em> initiative, and we are certain that it will encourage the creative art and design talent of young students all across India, many of whom may be the finest design minds of the future."</p><p>According to Ponnappa, "A culturally diverse, vibrant emerging superpower that India is, this <em>Doodle 4 Google</em> competition is bound to open the eyes of the world to the immense creativity and talent that young Indians have to offer. I look forward with great anticipation to seeing the spontaneity, simplicity and surprise in the artwork."</p><p>"<em>Doodle 4 Google</em> will unleash our young creative potential. Cartoons make people laugh and think -- I am confident that our kids, the storehouses of Indian creativity, will give Google a doodle to remember," remarks Raghava K.K.</p><p>From among all the entries received, 45 of the best doodles will be chosen by the judges and displayed on the <em>Doodle 4 Google</em> website, where people can vote for their favourite doodle in each of the three age-categories, based on the class in which a participant is studying.. The final winner will be decided by Google’s original doodler and webmaster, Dennis Hwang, who created Google’s first doodles in 2000, and continues to create them even today!</p><p>Participating in the competition is simple. Here are a few more details for participants:</p><ul><li>The ‘Doodle 4 Google- My India’ competition is open to all students between the 1st and the 10th standards, studying in any school in India</li><li>Students can register online at <a href="http://www.google.co.in/doodle4google">www.google.co.in/doodle4google</a>, where they will also find all the information needed to take part in the contest.</li><li>Entries will be judged in 3 categories: (a) 1st-3rd standards (b) 4th – 6th standards, and (c) 7th – 10th standards</li><li>Entries will be judged on the basis of artistic merit, creativity, how well the idea is communicated, and a supporting statement which explains the thinking behind the doodle</li><li>In mid-October, 45 finalists’ doodles will be shortlisted on the Doodle 4 Google website, for an online public vote to determine 3 winners in each age bracket. Dennis Hwang, Google’s webmaster, will then choose one final winner amongst the three.</li><li>The 45 finalists will be invited to an awards ceremony in early November, where the final winner will be announced</li></ul><p>For more details, visit <a href="http://www.google.co.in/doodle4google">www.google.co.in/doodle4google</a>.</p><p>Get started! Put your art on the Google homepage!</p><h3>Media Contacts:</h3><p>Paroma Roy Chowdhury<br>Head, Corporate Communications & Public Affairs<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:paroma@google.com">paroma@google.com</a></p><p>Aman Abbas<br>Account Director<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:aman@2020india.com">aman@2020india.com</a><br>09810341899</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-87011497995375192012009-07-22T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:05.493+05:30Google’s Internet Bus in Andhra Pradesh<p><strong>Announcement<br>22 July, 2009</strong></p><p><strong>Hyderabad, (July 22, 2009):</strong> Google India today announced that the Internet Bus™ will now tour the state of Andhra Pradesh. This is Google’s initiative to reach out to people with limited knowledge and exposure to the Internet, in India. The Internet Bus™ has seen overwhelming response from people in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka earlier this year.</p><p>The bus will visit educational institutes and public places in 16 towns of Andhra Pradesh in the next 48 days. The campaign will focus on four themes – information, communication, entertainment and education. Interactive content – in English and Telegu – will be used to highlight benefits of Internet in people’s daily lives. The company will also engage local cyber café owners with an aim to build advocacy for this powerful medium.</p><p>“The interest in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka surpassed our expectations. It was very exciting to see people from different walks of life, visit the bus and learn about what Internet could do for them. The journey so far has been critical from an awareness building perspective. However the challenge is to maintain this momentum by ensuring that people use Internet on a regular basis. We hope that people would remain motivated and visit neighborhood cyber cafes and get internet connectivity for their home and business PCs," remarked Dr. Prasad Ram, Head of Engineering, Google India.</p><p>"Mobile based products were a big hit. In Andhra Pradesh, we will lay special emphasis on this medium and showcase how people can access Internet even on low cost data plans and handsets." adds Dr. Ram.</p><p>The Internet Bus™ has traveled across 35 towns so far, reaching thousands of first-time Internet users in each town. On one occasion, a group of farmers in Karnataka explored the Internet for agro-development, while a local artist learned how tools like Picasa can be used for showcasing his work to global audience.</p><p>Users across India can follow the bus through its journey, see pictures & videos, and join online communities by simply visiting <a href="http://www.google.co.in/internetbus">http://www.google.co.in/internetbus</a>. They can also subscribe to receive SMS alerts in Telegu and English with useful tips on internet.</p><p>This initiative is aligned with Google’s overall strategy of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful. In India, Google has been making a significant effort to make the Internet more relevant and accessible to the Indian user. Search has become more local with useful information like business listings, railways and flight status, cricket scores, movie reviews and more. Google has launched products like Google SMS Search™, SMS Channels, Google Voice Local Search™ service, and Google Map Maker™, and has localized many popular Google applications. It has been overcoming language barriers by offering transliteration in 5 Indian languages, Google News™ news service in 4 Indian languages, machine translation for English-to-Hindi (bidirectional), and soft keyboards for a vast majority of Indian languages. Access to information over mobile devices has become easier with mobile maps, mobile search, and mobile orkut™. Google has also created platforms like the Be NetSmart campaign aimed at students, parents and teachers to educate them on Internet safety.</p><h3>About Google Inc.</h3><p>Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.google.com">www.google.com.</a></p><p><em>* Internet Bus™, Google SMS Search™, Google Voice Local Search™, Google Map Maker™, Google News™, orkut™ are trademarks of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.</em></p><h3>Media Contacts:</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a></p><p>Joya Ahluwalia<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:joya@2020india.com">joya@2020india.com</a><br>09811112669</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-88325572330022467502009-05-13T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:05.530+05:30Google’s Internet Bus in Karnataka<p><strong>Announcement<br>13 May, 2009</strong></p><p><strong>Bangalore, (May 13, 2009):</strong> Google™ India today announced that the ‘Internet Bus™’ will now tour Karnataka. Starting its journey from Bangalore the bus will travel through 15 towns in the next 50 days. This campaign is aimed at people with limited knowledge and exposure to the Internet and the experience has been designed to create awareness of the benefits of this powerful medium.</p><p>The Karnataka leg of Google’s Internet Bus will continue to focus on four themes – information, communication, entertainment and education. The video driven content will showcase how even with basic knowledge of the Internet people can make their everyday lives simpler. The content will also provide familiarization on using services like search, email, social networking, online maps and mobile. All this information will be available in English and Kannada.</p><p>"Tamil Nadu was a big learning for us and it was inspiring to see that people wanted to know about the internet and share their needs with us. This experience has reinforced our belief that awareness is the key challenge in the growth of the Internet in India and we are excited about bringing this campaign to yet another state. In this phase besides popular services like email, search and videos, we will be focusing on how mobile phones can be used to access useful local information even without data plans. Access to the Internet in local languages will continue to be a focus area," said Dr. Prasad Ram, Head of Google R&D, India.</p><p>The success of the Internet Bus in Tamil Nadu was evident from the number of interesting stories that followed each time the bus visited a city – In Krishnagiri, an elderly couple came on board the Google Internet Bus and, after experiencing Gmail, decided to buy a computer and use it to communicate with their son who was abroad. A young businessman who dropped out of high school said that "since visiting the Google Internet Bus, I have found a way to improve my knowledge of the stock market." In Coimbatore, a young boy, who sold flowers for a living and had never been exposed to the Internet managed to learn about Google Maps™, Google Earth™, and Google Search™ in Tamil, his mother tongue.</p><p>Users across India will be able to follow the bus through its journey, see pictures and videos and join online communities by simply visiting <a href="http://www.google.co.in/internetbus">http://www.google.co.in/internetbus</a>.</p><p>This initiative is aligned with Google’s overall strategy of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful. In India, Google has been making a significant effort to make the Internet more relevant and accessible to the Indian user. Search has become more local with useful information like business listings, railways and flight status, cricket scores, movie reviews and more. Google has launched products like Google SMS Search™, SMS Channels, Google Local Search™, and Google Map Maker™, and has localized many popular Google applications. It has been overcoming language barriers by offering transliteration in 5 Indian languages, Google News™ in 4 Indian languages, machine translation for English-to-Hindi (bidirectional), and soft keyboards for a vast majority of Indian languages. Access to information over mobile devices has become easier with mobile maps, mobile search, and mobile orkut™. Google has also created platforms like the Be NetSmart campaign aimed at students, parents and teachers to educate them on Internet safety.</p><h3>About Google Inc.</h3><p>Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.google.com">www.google.com.</a></p><p><em>* Internet Bus™, Google SMS Search™, Google Voice Local Search™, Google Map Maker™, Google News™, orkut™ are trademarks of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.</em></p><h3>Media Contacts:</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a></p><p>Joya Ahluwalia<br>20:20 MEDIA<br></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-89657218112385869222009-02-03T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:05.606+05:30Google launches Internet Bus in Tamil Nadu<p><strong>Chennai, (February 3, 2009) --</strong> Google India today launched an Internet Bus™ – a mobile bus designed to provide an Internet experience to the people across the cities of Tamil Nadu. Through this campaign Google is aiming to reach out to people with limited knowledge and exposure to the Internet. The bus will cover 15 towns over a period of one and a half months.</p><p>With a focus on four themes – information, communication, entertainment and education, the ‘Internet Bus’ will have useful and informative content in English and Tamil to give the users an understanding of how the Internet can be used for all of these needs. In addition to basic familiarization on using services like search, email, social networking, online maps and others the bus will showcase how the Internet can make everyday life simple.</p><p>“We are passionate about empowering users with information and the Internet democratizes access to information. With this initiative we want to take the power of this medium to people who will really benefit from it. We believe that if we can get people to experience the Internet even briefly they will find the means to go back again,” said Dr. Prasad Ram, Head of Google R&D, India. "India needs more of such efforts. It is the collective responsibility of the government, the industry and academia to solve the challenges around access, costs and content. Once this is done, the possibilities of use are limitless," added Dr. Ram.</p><p>The bus is designed to make the introduction to the Internet simple for a user. The message will be shared through interesting videos that talk about how people are using the Internet for varied reasons and activities – grandparents using email and video sites to interact with children and grandchildren in another city; a student from a small city using search to find information that is not otherwise physically accessible; a local music group using YouTube to share their talent with the world; a small entrepreneur using the Internet to expand his reach and revenues. The Internet Bus will also address the challenge around access and language for a lot of users in smaller cities by educating them on how they can access the Internet on their mobiles and use various Google tools to break the language barrier. Users across India will be able to follow the bus through its journey, see pictures and videos and join online communities by simply visiting <a href="http://www.google.co.in/internetbus">http://www.google.co.in/internetbus</a>.</p><p>This initiative is aligned with Google’s overall strategy of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful. In India, Google has been making a significant effort to make the Internet more relevant and accessible to the Indian user. Search has become more local with useful information like business listings, railways and flight status, cricket scores, movie reviews and more. Google has launched products like Google SMS Search™, SMS Channels, Google Voice Local Search™ service, and Google Map Maker™, and has localized many popular Google applications. It has been overcoming language barriers by offering transliteration in 5 Indian languages, Google News™ news service in 4 Indian languages, machine translation for English-to-Hindi (bidirectional), and soft keyboards for a vast majority of Indian languages. Access to information over mobile devices has become easier with mobile maps, mobile search, and mobile orkut™. Google has also created platforms like the Be NetSmart campaign aimed at students, parents and teachers to educate them on Internet safety.</p><h3>About Google Inc.</h3><p>Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.google.com">www.google.com</a>.</p><p><em>* Internet Bus™, Google SMS Search™, Google Voice Local Search™, Google Map Maker™, Google News™, orkut™ are trademarks of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.</em></p><h3>Media Contacts</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a></p><p>Aman Abbas<br>Account Director<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:aman@2020india.com">aman@2020india.com</a><br>09810341899</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-46784307402179017192008-12-11T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:04.730+05:30Google.org Launches Gram Panchayat Puraskar in AP and Karnataka<p><em>Announces Rs. 5 lakh for winning panchayats</em></p><p><strong>New Delhi, (December 11, 2008) --</strong> Google.org – the philanthropic arm of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) – today announced the launch of the Gram Panchayat Puraskar to reward the best innovations in local governance by Gram Panchayats in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. This initiative is the first of its kind by Google in India and gives the opportunity to Panchayats to showcase the innovative work in their villages, and emerge as the star innovators of their respective states.</p><p>Entries for the competition will be evaluated on the basis of criterion such as empowerment, innovation and scale. The innovation needs to be in the context of one of the following six areas – education, health and nutrition, water supply, rural infrastructure, rural electrification, resource mobilization – going above and beyond the call of duty.</p><p>The Gram Panchayat will have to demonstrate the following:</p><ul><li>Inclusion of all social and income groups in village decision-making or planning.</li><li>Sharing information with villagers such as Gram Sabha dates, proceedings and action items; record maintenance; Gram Panchayat plan</li><li>Community tracking and monitoring of the budgets and quality of the programs</li><li>Working with other programs to reach development objectives</li></ul><p>Encompassing 27,942 villages in 49 districts, the competition has been launched under the ‘Inform and Empower’ initiative of Google.org. A panel of public sector experts in India will select a total of 20 finalists from each state. A separate panel will select the 5 winners in each of the states. Each prize will be INR 500,000.</p><p>According to Salimah Samji, Program Manager, Google.org, ”Panchayats create positive change at the grassroot level, but their success stories aren’t as well known as they should be. For example in Kerala, a Panchayat that was committed to education made sure the entire village was completely literate. In the Thar district of Rajasthan, a Panchayat converted the area into a tourist destination, increasing the income of its inhabitants. We want to celebrate innovative Panchayats and create incentives to further innovation in local governance throughout the country.”</p><p>“India is one of the largest, most populous democracies in the world and the government allocates large amounts of funds to the Panchayats for local level development. Clean water, health and education are the key elements of human welfare and play an instrumental role in economic development. Google.org is committed to enhancing development in India and taking innovation beyond Google” remarks Shailesh Rao, Managing Director, Google India.</p><p>To enter the contest, users can visit the contest website at <a href="http://www.google.org/ggpp.html">www.google.org/ggpp.html</a> or pick-up an application form at their district Panchayat office in Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh. All legally recognized Gram Panchayats in the states of Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh are eligible to apply.</p><p>The contest will be open for applications from December 12, 2008 through January 25, 2009, with one entry form per Gram Panchayat being accepted. Entries – accepted in Telugu, Kannada, Hindi or English – must be postmarked on or before January 25, 2009 to be considered. A total of 10 prizes will be given out – 5 for each State</p><p>Details will be available at District and Block Panchayat offices and in Panchayat magazines and newsletters.</p><h3>About Google Inc.</h3><p>Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit <a href="http://www.google.com">www.google.com</a>.</p><h3>About Google.org</h3><p>Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, uses the power of information to help people better their lives. We develop and invest in tools and partnerships that can help bring shared knowledge to bear on the world’s most pressing challenges in the areas of climate change, economic development and global health. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.google.org">www.google.org</a>.</p><h3>Media Contacts</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a><br>040-66196300</p><p>Shivang Mehta<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:shivang@2020india.com">shivang@2020india.com</a><br>+91 9871384780</p><p>###</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-759579067070282732008-12-10T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:05.264+05:30Google Releases Fastest Rising and Most Popular Search terms in India for 2008<ul><li>YouTube becomes the fastest rising search term in 2008</li><li>Orkut and Gmail remain the most popular networking and communication properties for Indian users</li><li>Katrina Kaif is the most searched person in India</li><li>Cricket, always a favourite has become even more popular this year</li><li>Indians are beating long queues at the Railway station by going online</li></ul><p>Today, Google announced its India Zeitgeist, a look at 2008 through the collective eyes of the Indian users on the web. The 2008 year-end India Zeitgeist offers a unique perspective on the year’s major events and hottest trends based on searches conducted by users in India.</p><p>“The year-end provides an opportunity to take stock of our lives and those of others, look at what made news through the year and browsing the Google India Zeitgeist lists is especially interesting as these provide a refreshing perspective on the year gone by and an insight into emerging trends. Different people find different things to do on the web, so these lists are a good representation of the unique ways in which Indian users mine the Internet. Given the popularity of mobiles, this year we also looked at what people searched for while on the move through their mobile phones.” said Vinay Goel, Head of Products, Google India.</p><p>While developing the 2008 report, Google analyzed various aspects of the search queries to understand what was on the minds of Internet users in India. We retrieved the most frequently-searched terms for the period across many categories like Bollywood Celebrities, Holiday destinations etc. In addition we also looked at the top 10 fastest rising search words in India. This was done by reviewing several thousands of 2008’s most popular searches and ranking them based on how much their popularity increased compared to 2007. Taken together, we believe that all these lists define the true Zeitgeist or the "spirit of the times." In addition, for the first time this year we are offering a unique insight into the mobile web, by including the top queries searched for on the mobile.</p><p>Hope you enjoy reading and analyzing these interesting and fun results.</p><h3>Zeitgeist Explained</h3><p>Google reveals the internet "Zeitgeist" (German for "the spirit of the times") through an exploration of the billions of search queries we receive every year. In addition to the year-end Zeitgeist, which highlights the top trends of 2008, we also have several tools that give insight into global, regional, past and present search trends. Google Zeitgeist tools can never be used to identify individual users because we rely on anonymized, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur over time. These tools are available year-round for you to play with, explore, and learn from: <a href="http://www.google.com/zeitgeist">www.google.com/zeitgeist</a></p><h3>About Google Inc.</h3><p>Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.google.com">www.google.com</a>.</p><h3>Media Contacts:</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a><br>040-66193600</p><p>Paroma Roy Chowdhury<br>Head, Corporate Communications & Public Affairs<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:paroma@google.com">paroma@google.com</a><br><br>Dechama Uthappa<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:dechama@2020india.com">dechama@2020india.com</a><br>+91-98450 87220</p><h3>I. 2008 India Zeitgeist lists</h3><h3>A. Fast- Rising Searches in 2008</h3><ol><li>youtube</li><li>orkut</li><li>Katrina Kaif</li><li>cricket</li><li>IRTTC</li><li>facebook</li><li>Genelia d’souza</li><li>Beijing 2008 Olympic Games</li><li>sixth pay commission</li><li>IPL</li></ol><ul><li><em>YouTube becomes the fastest rising search term in 2008.</em></li><li><em>Katrina Kaif is the most searched person in India.</em></li><li><em>Increased attention around the sixth pay commission.</em></li></ul><h3>B. Most Popular Searches in 2008</h3><ol><li>Orkut</li><li>Gmail</li><li>Yahoo</li><li>Google</li><li>Youtube</li><li>Yahoomail</li><li>Indian railways</li><li>Rediff</li><li>Cricket</li><li>Katrina Kaif</li></ol><ul><li><em>Social networking is the most popular way of connecting with people, even more than email.</em></li><li><em>The Indian railways website sees huge traffic showing Indian users would rather go online than stand in long queues at railway stations.</em></li></ul><h3>C. Most Popular Mobile Queries For 2008</h3><ol><li>Orkut</li><li>Yahoo</li><li>Waptrick</li><li>Gmail</li><li>Games</li><li>Katrina Kaif</li><li>Rediffmail</li><li>Yahoomail</li><li>Namitha</li><li>Google</li></ol><ul><li><em>Mobile optimized websites like Waptrick and mobile games are becoming very popular.</em></li><li><em>Orkut and Gmail remain the most popular networking and communication properties for Indian users.</em></li><li><em>Presence of three email services on this list shows increasing adoption of Internet on mobile. People are using their mobiles to email, to check cricket scores, latest news and to know more about Bollywood celebrities!</em></li></ul><h3>II. Category Lists</h3><h3>Most Popular Bollywood Celebrities</h3><ol><li>Katrina Kaif</li><li>Aishwarya Rai</li><li>Salman Khan</li><li>Hrithik Roshan</li><li>Kareena Kapoor</li><li>Shahid Kapur</li><li>Deepika Padukone</li><li>Shahrukh Khan</li><li>Mallika Sherawat</li><li>Genelia D’souza</li></ol><ul><li><em>Actresses hold the spotlight this year. The interest around Katrina, Aishwarya and Salman is still going strong.</em></li><li><em>Shahid makes his debut on our list, while Salman Khan maintains his ‘online’ popularity over King Khan</em>.</li></ul><h3>Top 10 “How to” do stuff</h3><ol><li>How to reduce weight</li><li>How to kiss</li><li>How to earn money</li><li>How to get pregnant</li><li>How to learn English</li><li>How to gain weight</li><li>How to play guitar</li><li>How to create a website</li><li>How to impress a girl</li><li>How to tie a tie</li></ol><ul><li><em>The Internet seems to be the one stop shop for all your needs, with Beauty, Love and Money – in that order, ‘weighting’ on our minds!</em></li></ul><h3>Most Popular Sports stars</h3><ol><li>Sania Mirza</li><li>Sachin Tendulkar</li><li>Cristiano Ronaldo</li><li>John Cena</li><li>Dhoni</li><li>David Beckham</li><li>Brett Lee</li><li>Khali</li><li>Kaka</li><li>Roger Federer</li></ol><ul><li><em>Tennis star Sania Mirza tops the list showing that cricket is not our only passion!</em></li></ul><h3>Most Popular Politicians</h3><ol><li>Mahatma Gandhi</li><li>Raj Thackeray</li><li>Sarah Palin</li><li>Sonia Gandhi</li><li>Barack Obama</li><li>Indira Gandhi</li><li>Rahul Gandhi</li><li>Abdul Kalam</li><li>Manmohan Singh</li><li>Mayawati</li></ol><ul><li><em>3 Gandhis on this list, showing that ‘Gandhigiri’ rules Indian minds.</em></li><li><em>American politics seems to have found its way east with Sarah Palin more ‘searched’ than Obama!</em></li></ul><h3>Most Popular Movies</h3><ol><li>Jodha Akbar</li><li>Dasavatharam</li><li>Singh Is King</li><li>Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na</li><li>Jannat</li><li>Tashan</li><li>Ganesha</li><li>Fashion</li><li>Rock On</li><li>Race</li></ol><ul><li><em>Bollywood is the king in India! It’s interesting to see that audience interest is going beyond song and dance sequences.</em></li><li><em>Noteworthy is the # 2 slot retained by Tamil cinema.</em></li></ul><h3>Most Popular Holiday Destinations</h3><ol><li>Goa</li><li>Kerala</li><li>Kashmir</li><li>Dubai</li><li>Singapore</li><li>Australia</li><li>London</li><li>Shimla</li><li>Switzerland</li><li>Manali</li></ol><ul><li><em>Goa becomes everyone’s favorite destination.</em></li><li><em>Like last year foreign destinations are just as popular this year.</em></li></ul><h3>Most Popular "days"</h3><ol><li>Independence Day</li><li>Valentine’s Day</li><li>Friendship Day</li><li>Teacher’s Day</li><li>Earth Day</li><li>Republic Day</li><li>Mothers Day</li><li>Women’s Day</li><li>Father’s Day</li><li>World Environment Day</li></ol><ul><li><em>National pride and love for India is still the strongest.</em></li><li><em>India with all its festivals still finds time for all these days showing marketers that their work is paying off!</em></li></ul><h3>Most Popular Government websites</h3><ol><li>indianrail.gov.in</li><li>cbseresults.nic.in</li><li>incometaxindia.gov.in</li><li>mca.gov.in</li><li>incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in</li><li>passport.nic.in</li><li>tn.gov.in</li><li>cbse.nic.in</li><li>sebi.gov.in</li><li>indiapost.gov.in</li></ol><ul><li><em>Welcome to the new face of the Indian Government! Indian users are looking for more information and access.</em></li></ul><p><em>###</em></p><p><em>Google and Google Zeitgeist are trademarks of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.</em></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-22475580733236072912008-11-18T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:03.962+05:30Make Google SMS Search, your best friend<ul><li><em>Out late at night without a ride home and need the number of a taxi service?</em></li><li><em>Run out of cash in a new city and looking for an ATM?</em></li><li><em>Power cut in between a nail biting cricket match. Need instant updates on the score?</em></li><li><em>Long queues at the railway enquiry counter making you sweat?</em></li><li><em>Wondering how many woolens to pack for your Delhi trip?</em></li><li><em>Another collapse on BSE, want an update on your stock?</em></li><li><em>Can’t understand the word your girlfriend just used?</em></li></ul><p><em>Now you can get answers to all of this and more through a simple SMS at the price of your regular SMS*.</em></p><p><strong>Announcement<br>November 18, 2008</strong></p><p>Cricket scores and Astro updates on SMS brought a smile to a lot of us, only until we saw the bill at the end of the month. And this was after we were also trying to remember multiple input methods. After speaking to many users about their ‘sms’ information woes, we at Google, have come up with a newer version of Google SMS Search. The product has been reincarnated, with a new number and tons of new features. Now you can SMS your query to 9773300000 at the cost of a regular SMS and get instant answers. Launched nationally, this service is available across all operators on both GSM and CDMA mobile phones.</p><p>The list of features available on Google SMS search is given below. What we do want to add is that searching on SMS will be much easier now. No longer do you need to remember complicated strings to put before your query, you can search as if you are searching on Google web search – we will do all the hard work to understand your query and give you the best results on SMS. Hope you will enjoy the change!</p><h3>SMS Search features-</h3><ol><li><strong>Cricket Scores:</strong> Simply SMS "cri" or "cricket" or "cricket India" to receive latest cricket scores.</li><li><strong>Indian Railways:</strong> Send your PNR number to get latest status of your PNR (confirmed/RAC/current waitlist status). Or send "trains between mumbai to delhi" to know trains and get further details of train schedule.</li><li><strong>Stock Quotes:</strong> SMS "Company name quote" to receive stock quotes from BSE. e.g. "reliance stock".</li><li><strong>Horoscope:</strong> Simply send your sunsign (e.g. Virgo) to receive your day’s horoscope.</li><li><strong>Local Business Search:</strong> Do local search on SMS (e.g. categories such as "restaurants indira nagar bangalore" or businesses such as "pizza hut koramangala"). This is available across 34 cities – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkatta, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Vadodara, Surat, Kanpur, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Nagpur, Rajkot, Ernakulam, Cochin, Gaziabad, Bhuwneshwar, Aurangabad, Lucknow, Nashik, Indore, Panaji, Bhopal, Agra, Guntur, Visakhapatnam, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Coimbatore.</li><li><strong>News:</strong> Send "news" or "business news" to receive latest news.</li><li><strong>Movie Showtimes:</strong> Send "movies delhi" or "golmaal returns delhi" and get movie rating and movie showtimes.</li><li><strong>Flight status:</strong> Flight status for Jet, Kingfisher, Indigo & Spicejet. Simply send "9w502", "It 302".</li><li><strong>Definitions:</strong> Send "define " e.g. "define zenith", “define inflation”.</li><li><strong>Weather:</strong> e.g. "weather Delhi".</li><li><strong>Calculator:</strong> "1 kilo in pound".</li><li><strong>Currency Conversion:</strong> "5000 inr in usd".</li><li><strong>Facts:</strong> e.g. "GDP of india" or "population of bangalore".</li></ol><p><em>*Normal SMS rates apply and are determined by the service package provided by the mobile operator</em></p><h3>Media Contact:</h3><p>Paroma Chowdhury<br>Head, Corporate Communications & Public Affairs<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:paroma@google.com">paroma@google.com</a><br>+91 124 4512534</p><p>Jovita Dsa<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:jovitadsa@2020india.com">jovitadsa@2020india.com</a><br>+91 – 98457 50964</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-32587332671960441942008-10-23T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:04.234+05:30New safety filter for an enhanced orkut experience<p><strong>Announcement<br>October 23, 2008</strong></p><p>orkut is one of the most popular web destinations in India today with users from multiple age groups and even more diverse backgrounds. In fact, the content on orkut is a true reflection of this diversity. Check these very cool communities that are helping users express their unique personalities and interests on <a href="http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#Community.aspx?cmm=8423415" target="_blank">photography</a>, <a href="http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#Community.aspx?cmm=170660" target="_blank">education</a>, <a href="http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#Community.aspx?cmm=1254214" target="_blank">literature</a>, <a href="http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#Community.aspx?cmm=11521529" target="_blank">environment</a> and <a href="http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#Community.aspx?cmm=1344880" target="_blank">rural development</a>. Most of these communities reflect the power of social networking. However, sometimes users post content that can diminish the experience for a large number of our users.</p><p>Keeping this in mind, we decided to introduce a new feature on orkut: the "Safety Filter". The safety filter will automatically screen and mark unsafe, mature content that could be potentially upsetting but may not violate our policies. The safety filter will be turned ‘ON’ by default for all users in India, and photos or text with mature content will be put behind a warning page. In addition, this content will no longer show up in search results. The reason for introducing this filter is simple: given the magnitude of content that gets uploaded every second, we want to make it easier for our users to control their orkut experience.</p><p>This feature is in addition to our existing approach to porn, spam and impersonation- all of which are clear violations of our policies and will be removed as soon as orkut users bring these to our notice. The safety filter helps protect users from the content on orkut that sometimes causes people to disagree: that is, material that some people may find acceptable but others may find offensive. You can read more about this difficult area of user-generated content in <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/free-expression-and-controversial.html">this blogpost</a>.</p><p>We are using technology to filter as much content as possible however, since no filter is 100 percent accurate we will continue to trust our users to report abuse, and will take prompt action when it violates our terms and conditions.</p><p>We hope this new update will make orkut an even more fun and safe place for all of you.</p><h3>Media Contacts:</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a><br>040-66193600</p><p>Vertika Yadav<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:vertika@2020india.com">vertika@2020india.com</a><br>+91-9953689693</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-29334206050192963442008-09-17T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:04.118+05:30Google India launches second leg of the Internet safety campaign<p><em>Partners with IAMAI, government and local law enforcement authorities to take the ‘Be NetSmart’ message to Chennai, Kolkata and New Delhi</em></p><p><strong>Announcement<br>September 17, 2008</strong></p><p>Google India has launched the second leg of its nationwide Internet safety campaign, ‘Be NetSmart,’ in collaboration with the government and local law enforcement authorities. This campaign was launched in Chennai on August 25th 2008, then initiated in schools across Kolkata on September 2nd and is now being taken to schools in New Delhi starting September 15th. During the ‘Be NetSmart Week’ campaigns in Chennai and Kolkata, Google employee volunteers and police authorities visited English, Tamil and Bengali medium schools and reached nearly 11,140 students, 90 teachers, and 17 schools with the ‘Be NetSmart’ message. The ‘Be NetSmart Week’ campaign is now being taken to schools across Delhi in association with the Government of India’s Department of Information Technology and IAMAI.</p><p>‘Be NetSmart’ is an interactive campaign that is focused on students, parents and teachers. The campaign aims to celebrate the goodness of the Internet, applaud its impact on society, and educate India’s youth on Internet safety. The sessions in schools cover topics that range from the positive use of the Internet and its increasing role in our lives, to responsible online conduct such as the need to maintain confidentiality, safely download content, carefully post pictures, and cautiously engage in chatting.</p><p>Shailesh Rao, Managing Director, Google India said, “The Be NetSmart campaign is not a story about one organisation. It is a story about the young people of India using a powerful medium like the Internet to realise their highest potential. It is vital to empower our youth with all the tools and the knowledge that will help them build a better future. The ‘Be NetSmart’ campaign is a celebration of the Internet and its positive impact on the lives of our children.”</p><p>"It is time that we celebrate the role that Internet plays in our lives as a platform for information sharing, self expression, and communication. The Be NetSmart campaign is a nucleus around which we would like to build a nationwide campaign for making the Internet pleasurable, useful and safe. Towards this end, I appeal to all business leaders who have reposed their faith in the digital medium to join hands and support us in our endeavour," said Dr. Subho Ray, President, Internet and Mobile Association of India.</p><p>The Be NetSmart campaign was first launched in Mumbai on February 18th 2008, in collaboration with the Mumbai Police, and focused on school children in sixth standard and above. Mumbai police and Google employee volunteers visited English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, and Urdu-medium schools in Mumbai to conduct this campaign. The campaign in Mumbai illustrated the increasing awareness of students, teachers, and parents about the Internet and its impact. Students, irrespective of their language or Internet usage patterns, were keen on setting aside time from their academic schedule to learn about a practical subject that impacts their lives.</p><p>Since February, the national “Be NetSmart” campaign has reached more than 36,000 students. The overwhelming interest in this campaign is a testimony to the power of the Internet as a medium. In just a few years the Internet has moved from the periphery to the centre of our lives. Educating the youth today is imperative to ensure a flourishing Internet that is home to innovation, prosperity and development.</p><p>After the metros, Google India and IAMAI aim to join forces with other stakeholders to replicate the success of this campaign in other Indian cities as well.</p><h3>Media Contacts</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a><br>040-66193600</p><p>Vertika Yadav<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:vertika@2020india.com">vertika@2020india.com</a><br>+91 – 9953689693</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-40203816644765178022008-09-01T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:04.500+05:30Google Announces Developer Day in India<p><em>Google Developer Day Will Focus on Building Great Web Apps and Advancing the Web as a Platform</em></p><p><strong>BANGALORE, India (September 1, 2008) –</strong> Google today announced <strong>Google Developer Day</strong> in India. Developer Day is scheduled for <strong>October 18</strong> and is free to attend. Google Developer Day is an in-depth gathering for developers to share knowledge about Google’s tools and about web application development in general. Google Developer Day will be held in Bangalore at the Chancery Pavilion.</p><p>"It’s an incredibly exciting time to be a web developer, with so many powerful APIs, open distribution platforms, and development tools becoming available for easy and often free consumption," said Prasad Ram, head of engineering and R&D at Google India. "As a community, developers are shaping the future of the web, putting foundations in place now that future generations of users won’t be able to imagine living without. Google’s developer events are a place for developers to celebrate this moment, collaborate with each other, and learn about faster and better paths to successful web applications and a better web."</p><h3>Tools for Making the Web Better</h3><p>At Google Developer Day, attendees will hear from top Google engineers and get a mix of practical, hands-on advice for building web apps as well as opportunities to learn about emerging programming trends.</p><p>Sessions at the event will cover:</p><ul><li><em>APIs & Tools: Im</em>proving performance and compatibility of web applications is important. Google APIs and tools such as Google Web Toolkit and Google App Engine allow developers to create efficient AJAX applications in Java and store applications on Google’s servers. Sessions will cover these tools and others that enable better web development.</li><li><em>Social</em>: The web is an inherently social place. A new wave of APIs and frameworks, including OpenSocial, are opening up interesting ways to interact with people through applications.</li><li><em>Indic:</em> Google is developing a set of tools to help Indians experience the web in their native language. These sessions will teach developers how to use the Indic tools to reach engage users in one of the Internet’s fastest-growing countries.</li><li><em>Maps & Geo</em>: Since the introduction of the Google Maps™ API in 2005, geo and map applications have been one of the most interesting phenomena on the web. These sessions focus on the many aspects of geo applications.</li></ul><p>More information about Google Developer Day is available at <a href="http://code.google.com/intl/en_in/events/developerday/2008/" target="_blank">http://code.google.com/intl/en_in/events/developerday/2008/</a>. Space is limited, so early registration is recommended.</p><h3>About Google Inc.</h3><p>Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit <a href="http://www.google.com/">www.google.com</a>.</p><p>###</p><p><em>Google is a registered trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.</em></p><h3>Media Contacts</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a><br>040-66193600</p><p>Dechama Uthappa<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:dechama@2020india.com">dechama@2020india.com</a><br>91 – 9845087220</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-86402642424463375602008-08-27T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:05.455+05:30Now you can Map Your World with Google<p><em>Google Map Maker launched in India</em></p><p><object width="380" height="300"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube.com/v/DjoXsot4Xao&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> <embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="380" height="300" src="//www.youtube.com/v/DjoXsot4Xao&hl=en&fs=1" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></param></object></p><p><strong>BANGALORE, India (August 27, 2008)</strong>- Google today announced the launch of Google Map Maker™ (<a href="http://mapmaker.google.com/">mapmaker.google.com</a>) in India. A global product conceived and developed by the Indian engineering team, Google Map Maker allows users to add or edit features, such as roads, businesses, parks, schools, apartment buildings, localities and more. With Google Map Maker tools, users can add detailed information about these locations, and this user- created geographical content is updated and made visible immediately to all other users.</p><p>Understanding that people know their neighborhoods best, Google Map Maker empowers this user- expertise to improve the breadth and depth of available mapping data. The product also introduces peer moderation, allowing users to review the data their peers have entered to ensure map quality and accuracy.</p><p>“Google Map Maker solves an inherent need, especially for countries such as ours where maps data is sparse. This product embodies our passion to empower people everywhere, to share knowledge of the places they know best by creating maps,” says Dr. Lalitesh Katragadda, Software Engineer and Creator of Google Map Maker.</p><p>“This is a great achievement for our engineering team. India is a challenging market – but one that has inspired us to really focus on creating technology that addresses real issues around local content and usability" said Dr. Prasad Ram, Head of Google R&D. "This launch is the reinforcement of our commitment to bring more useful information to people around the world and especially in hyper-growth countries like India where maps are changing on a daily basis given the rapid pace of infrastructure development," he added.</p><p>This mapping product is particularly relevant for a country like India, with its vast territory, varying geographies, and language and cultural diversity. For example, Google Map Maker can help bolster commerce by enabling people to map local businesses from their regions. Similarly, NGOs can benefit from it by effectively mapping challenging belts in the rural and sub-urban areas.</p><p>Other than India, Google Map Maker is available in 57 countries in Asia, the Island Nations, and the Caribbean.</p><p><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube.com/v/tXD2yTOjXe4&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> <embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" src="//www.youtube.com/v/tXD2yTOjXe4&hl=en&fs=1" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></param></object></p><h3>About Google Inc.</h3><p>Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.google.com/">www.google.com</a>.</p><p>###</p><p><em>Google is a registered trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.</em></p><h3>Media Contacts</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a><br>040-66193600<br></p><p>Nidhi Chhabra<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:nidhi@2020india.com">nidhi@2020india.com</a><br>91 – 9811205937</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-72859329340324790332008-08-05T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:05.111+05:30Google launches Tamil News and Tamil Transliteration<p><strong>Announcement<br>August 5, 2008</strong></p><p>Google India today reiterated its strong focus on serving Tamil speakers by announcing the launch of a new edition of Google News™ in Tamil and Tamil transliteration on Google Search, Blogger™ and orkut™ . Google believes that these launches will make it quicker and easier for the large population conversant in Tamil to be able to search for news and other information and to communicate with their friends and families.</p><p><a href="http://news.google.co.in/news?ned=ta_in">Google News™ in Tamil</a>, like other news editions, gathers news stories from the various Tamil news sources on the web and presents an automatically generated summary with links to the most important stories in each section. The Google News model is aimed at sending readers the best sources of news. Every link to a news story takes the reader to the news site where they can read the story in its entirety. This is the third Google News edition to be launched in India, after English and Hindi.</p><p>We recognize that it can sometimes be hard to enter Tamil text with existing keyboards. Google’s transliteration technology enables the conversion from English text to phonetically equivalent text in Indian languages. For example, using transliteration, you could type “vanakkam” and we would convert it to Tamil script as "வணக்கம்" . We have embedded this technology in several Google products to make it easier to enter text in Tamil. <a href="http://www.google.co.in/ta">Google search in Tamil</a> allows users to start typing in English and automatically get query suggestions in Tamil. For example, if a user wanted to enter the query “ponniyin selvan” in Tamil, they simply need to start typing it in English – e.g. “ponni” and the tamil suggestion "பொன்னியின் செல்வன்" will be shown to the user.</p><p>Tamil transliteration in Blogger™ enables users to publish content in Tamil while using English keyboard for text entry. This is intended to make Tamil content more popular and more easily available in the online world. <a href="http://www.orkut.com/Scrapbook.aspx">Tamil transliteration in orkut</a>™ will make it easier to communicate with friends and family by exchanging scraps in Tamil.</p><p>We hope that these products will help bring the benefits of the internet to the millions of Tamil speakers in India and overseas.</p><h3>Links to Tamil products</h3><p>Google News in Tamil: <a href="http://news.google.co.in/news?ned=ta_in">http://news.google.co.in/news?ned=ta_in</a><br>Google Search in Tamil: <a href="http://www.google.co.in/ta">http://www.google.co.in/ta</a><br>Blog in Tamil: <a href="http://blogger.com/indic/ta">http://blogger.com/indic/ta</a><br>Send scraps to your orkut friends in Tamil: <a href="http://www.orkut.com/Scrapbook.aspx">http://www.orkut.com/Scrapbook.aspx</a></p><h3>Media Contacts:</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a><br>040-66193600</p><p>Kanika Khanna<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:kanika@2020india.com">kanika@2020india.com</a><br>+91-9810934606</p><p>###</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-60636262190945130612008-05-26T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:04.881+05:30Google India names Business Heads for Financial Services, Technology and Travel & Local<p><strong>NEW DELHI, India (May 26, 2008) –</strong> Google today announced the appointment of Sridhar Seshadri as Business Head – Financial Services, Parminder Singh as Business Head – Technology and Narasimha Jayakumar as Business Head – Travel & Local for its advertising and monetization business. The appointment of these senior business executives is part of Google India’s strategy to go deep in the key sectors identified above and deliver significant and measurable growth for customers leveraging the AdWords platform. Industry teams led by these newly appointed leaders will focus on providing counsel to customers regarding their digital, marketing and advertising strategies.</p><p>As Business Head – Financial Services, Sridhar will lead a team that will be responsible for the generation of advertising business from the financial services segment and will focus on serving key clients in the Banking, Insurance, and Mutual Funds sectors. As Business Head – Technology, Parminder will lead a team that drives Google’s advertising operations in the technology and telecommunications space in India. As Business Head – Travel and Local (Local includes classifieds, education and real estate), Narasimha will similarly aim to grow Google’s presence in this space. Commenting on the appointments, Mr. Shailesh Rao, Managing Director, Google India said, "We always seek more ways to create value for our partners and customers. At this stage of our evolution in India, we believe it is critical to bring in senior executives who have the right domain expertise to drive focused growth for Google and our customers in key industry sectors. To create more value for our customers we want to be able to help them perfect their digital strategies and drive measurable and sustained business growth by leveraging the medium to its fullest using platforms like AdWords across the web, mobile, and potentially other channels in the future. These three individuals, each rising executive stars in their respective industries, represent the perfect blend of industry credibility rooted in real front line experience and a deep understanding of technology and how it will transform these markets for decades to come. We are excited and privileged to have their leadership at Google."</p><p>Sridhar Seshadri brings with him a decade of work experience with ICICI Bank, across a number of divisions and functions. Sridhar has, through his long tenure at the Bank, participated in the transformation and quick growth of the bank leading it to become the premier banking institution in India. At ICICI Bank, his responsibilities spanned from advertising and marketing to product development and branch banking. Most recently, he was in the Rural, Agricultural and Micro-Banking division of ICICI Bank. He was also nominated as an exemplar for the DNA Awards at the Bank, for Innovation, Nurturing Talent and Collaboration. Sridhar holds a Bachelors degree in Chemical Plant Engineering from Mumbai University and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow.</p><p>Parminder Singh has over 14 years of cross-functional experience in strategy and brand marketing with focus in the technology and telecommunication sector. He was Country Head of Marketing for Apple and most recently Head of Marketing for IBM’s Hardware division. With a track record of consistent and outstanding performance in companies such as IBM, Apple, HCL and Cyrix (National Semiconductor), he has been responsible for introducing several best practice marketing campaigns and is also credited with launching and setting up successful distribution networks for high technology products. He was awarded IBM’s prestigious Asia – Pacific Role Model award for excellence in the marketing discipline. He holds an MBA in Marketing from University Business School, Chandigarh and Bachelors in Physics (Hons.) from Delhi University.</p><p>Narasimha Jayakumar brings with him over 10 years of experience across multiple industries having worked with companies such as Expedia Inc., Cendant Corporation, Tata Consultancy Services and IBM India amongst others. Narasimha ran the B2B client portfolio for the distribution business of Expedia Europe based out of London. Narasimha was awarded the "Special Achievement – MD’s Award" (2006) and the "Power of Many" Award – (2004) for outstanding contribution while at Cendant, and the IBM ‘Outstanding Contribution’ for exceptional sales achievement. Narasimha holds an MBA from the London Business School and a Bachelor of Technology Degree in Computer Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Surathkal where he graduated 2nd. He is also a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) holder from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India, achieving a distinction.</p><h3>About Google Inc.</h3><p>Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.google.com">www.google.com</a>.</p><p>###</p><p><em>Google is a registered trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.</em></p><h3>Media Contacts</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a><br>040-66193600</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-3412055803814563932008-05-05T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:04.386+05:30Google aapki bhasha mein<p><strong>Announcement<br>May 5th, 2008</strong></p><p>Google today announced the launch of Google Translate™ translation service for Hindi. This new launch enables automated translation between Hindi and English. If you want to translate some text, a web page, or issue a query in Hindi and have results translated from English, you can do it at: <a href="http://www.google.com/translate_t">http://www.google.com/translate_t</a>. Of the total literate Indian population, only about 13% are English literate. Keeping this in mind, this launch is a step towards ensuring that Hindi speaking users in India can benefit from the richness of the Internet, regardless of their familiarity with English language.</p><p>This launch is the latest in a series of updates that are all focused on making it easier for multi-lingual users in India.</p><p>Many of us use the Internet for a variety of activities: to communicate with our friends and family, to express our views and to search for information. Do you remember your best friend from college? Wouldn’t it be nice to find him and see what he is doing these days? Would you like to express your views on a topic that you’re knowledgeable about? If you like movies and think you’re a good critic, why not publish your movie reviews online? What about looking for information that you need? Perhaps a recipe? Or details on the upcoming elections? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to have all this information available at the click of a button?</p><p>You can do all these things and more on the Internet if you are an English speaker, but what about if you want to communicate in your native language? After all, we switch back and forth between languages in our daily lives – we should be able to do the same online. We at Google India are working hard to make this happen, and we would like to take this opportunity to describe some of the products we have launched.</p><p><strong>Easier Data entry</strong>. First, we’ve built a way for you to easily type in Hindi using your regular keyboard. You only need to type the word as it sounds. For example, you can type “mera” using regular English characters, hit the space bar, and we’ll convert it to the corresponding Hindi word. We <a href="http://www.google.co.in/transliterate/indic/Hindi">launched this technology</a> on Google Labs India. (You can also add an <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=www.google.com/ig/modules/indic_transliteration.xml">iGoogle gadget</a> to your home page to do the same thing). Available in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.</p><p>Scrap your friends. We got such a positive response from our users in India that we decided to make this technology available across other Google products as well. If you want to find that old school friend and start chatting with him, you can now send <a href="http://www.orkut.com/Scrapbook.aspx">orkut scraps</a> in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam</p><p><strong>Express your views</strong>. If you would like to express your views on a subject you’re very passionate or knowledgeable about, you can create your own blog and <a href="http://blogger.com/indic/hi">write blog posts</a> in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.</p><p><strong>Find information</strong>. Google now makes it easy to search for the latest election news or film gossip in Hindi. Go to the <a href="http://www.google.co.in/hi">Google Hindi search page</a> and simply start typing your query using English characters. We will convert it into Hindi and suggest queries based on what you type. For example, if you want to find information about Amitabh Bachchan, you can simply start typing “Amitabh” and we will suggest the full term in Hindi for you.</p><p>Unfortunately, there is still a lack of good information available online for Hindi speakers. We are sure that will change, but in the meantime, Google Translate should help by automatically translating English search results into Hindi: <a href="http://www.google.com/translate_t">http://www.google.com/translate_t</a>. You can also access this page by going to <a href="http://www.google.co.in/">www.google.co.in</a> and clicking on the “Language Tools” menu option to the right of the search box.</p><p>Let us make the web as multi-lingual as we are. Communicate with your friends, express your views, create content and find information online in your language.</p><h3>Links to Indic Products</h3><p><strong>1) Labs:</strong></p><p><a href="http://www.google.co.in/transliterate/indic/Hindi">Hindi</a> (http://www.google.co.in/transliterate/indic/Hindi)<br><a href="http://www.google.co.in/transliterate/indic/Tamil">Tamil</a> (http://www.google.co.in/transliterate/indic/Tamil)<br><a href="http://www.google.co.in/transliterate/indic/Telugu">Telugu</a> (http://www.google.co.in/transliterate/indic/Telugu)<br><a href="http://www.google.co.in/transliterate/indic/Kannada">Kannada</a> (http://www.google.co.in/transliterate/indic/Kannada)<br><a href="http://www.google.co.in/transliterate/indic/Malayalam">Malayalam</a> (http://www.google.co.in/transliterate/indic/Malayalam)</p><p><strong>2) Blogger:</strong></p><p><a href="http://blogger.com/indic/hi">Hindi</a> (http://blogger.com/indic/hi)<br><a href="http://blogger.com/indic/ta">Tamil</a> (http://blogger.com/indic/ta)<br><a href="http://blogger.com/indic/te">Telugu</a> (http://blogger.com/indic/te)<br><a href="http://blogger.com/indic/kn">Kannada</a> (http://blogger.com/indic/kn)<br><a href="http://blogger.com/indic/ml">Malayalam</a> (http://blogger.com/indic/ml)</p><p><strong>3) Search (with Suggest):</strong></p><p><a href="http://www.google.co.in/hi">Hindi</a> (http://www.google.co.in/hi)<br><a href="http://www.google.co.in/ta">Tamil</a> (http://www.google.co.in/ta)<br><a href="http://www.google.co.in/te">Telugu</a> (http://www.google.co.in/te)<br><a href="http://www.google.co.in/kn">Kannada</a> (http://www.google.co.in/kn)<br><a href="http://www.google.co.in/ml">Malayalam</a> (http://www.google.co.in/ml)</p><p><strong>4) <a href="http://www.orkut.com/Scrapbook.aspx">Orkut:</a></strong> (http://www.orkut.com/Scrapbook.aspx)</p><p><strong>5) <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=www.google.com/ig/modules/indic_transliteration.xml">iGoogle Gadget</a></strong> (http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=www.google.com/ig/modules/indic_transliteration.xml)</p><h3>Media Contacts:</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a><br>040-66193600</p><p>Kanika Khanna<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:kanika@2020india.com">kanika@2020india.com</a><br>+91-9810934606</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-17513262726448358482008-04-17T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:03.886+05:30Another reason to have fun on orkut<p><em>OpenSocial applications launched on orkut</em></p><p><strong>Announcement<br>April 17, 2008</strong></p><p>Do you love books and playing games online? Want your friends to know about your favorite hangouts? Now that OpenSocial applications are available on orkut online community, users can expect a more fun and powerful experience on orkut.</p><p>These applications, created by third party developers, let you interact with friends and customize your orkut profile by adding games, music, and much more. With over a dozen applications to choose from today and many more on the way, you can share your favourite books with other enthusiasts, tell your friends about your favourite hangouts, and even play games with them. These applications are integrated into user profiles in the same manner as regular orkut features, such as scrapbook or testimonials.</p><p>All of the applications are built on the OpenSocial platform, a set of common APIs that enables developers to build social applications that run on many sites, all across the web. The launch of OpenSocial on orkut means that developers can potentially reach tens of millions of orkut users from around the world and hundreds of millions of new users through other OpenSocial container sites.</p><p>Indian developers contributed a number of applications, so apps on orkut will also allow for a more ‘desi’ experience on orkut. ‘Hangout’ is one such application that enables orkut users to schedule an event and invite friends to it. Be it a concert or a coffee meeting, you can now let your friends know where to ‘hang out’!</p><p>"With so much user interest and enthusiasm around orkut and other interactive websites, it is safe to say that the Web is better when it’s social. Our goal is to constantly make orkut better by releasing new features. With the launch of applications, orkut users will get access to more new features everyday, thereby improving the user experience at a faster rate. These applications will speed up innovation, unleash developers’ creativity, and make the Internet even more enjoyable for users," said Vinay Goel, Head of Products, Google India.</p><p>With apps that cover everything from travel to cricket, education to entertainment orkut users can look forward to a more enriching online experience.</p><h3>Media Contacts:</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a><br>040-66193600</p><p>Kanika Khanna<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:kanika@2020india.com">kanika@2020india.com</a><br>+91-9810934606</p><p>Simran Singh Sethi<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:simran@2020india.com">simran@2020india.com</a><br>+91-9810815160</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-74433534174242211502008-03-06T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:05.188+05:30Google Launches New Forms of Payment for AdWords™ in India<p><strong>NEW DELHI, India (March 6, 2008) –</strong> Today, Google announced the widening of its bouquet of payment options for the AdWords™ advertising program in India. Advertisers will now have the power to choose from among a range of payment options to create their Google AdWords account. The new options of payment by cheque, demand draft and net banking offer advertisers more flexibility and convenience and bring a whole new dimension to online advertising and e-commerce in India.</p><p>“Google is committed to improving the user experience for its advertisers the world over. India is a very strategic market and feedback from Indian advertisers has been an important component in making AdWords more useful for the Indian market. We hope that more Indian advertisers will be able to grow their business through AdWords by recognizing that Indian businesses prefer to conduct transactions not only by credit cards but also by cheque and electronic funds transfer. With this fuller set of options in place more Indian businesses will be able to use AdWords to expand their reach, profitability and exposure online” says Shailesh Rao, Managing Director, Google India.</p><p>These new forms of payment are a boon to Indian advertisers, especially small and medium size enterprises, who tend not to be credit card holders. Now they can pay for their AdWords account by cheque or demand draft, just as easily as they would make payments for electricity, mobile and cable bills. By choosing this option, businesses just have to mail their cheque or demand draft to the Citibank office in Mumbai to ensure optimal convenience in managing their advertising campaigns online.</p><p>The other form of payment being launched today, via net banking, is the electronic transfer of funds from a user’s bank account to their AdWords account. This can be easily done from Google’s website making it a secure and seamless experience. Advertisers comfortable with online transactions can now benefit from this real time experience. Advertisers can continue to use credit cards, but it’s always great to have a choice</p><p>To learn more about AdWords and the new forms of payments, go to <a href="https://adwords.google.co.in/select/login">https://adwords.google.co.in/select/login</a></p><h3>About Google Inc.</h3><p>Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Google, Google News, Google Toolbar, and Blogger are trademarks of Google Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.google.com/">www.google.com</a>.</p><p>###</p><p><em>Google and AdWords™ are registered trademarks of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.</em></p><h3>Media Contacts:</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a><br>040-66193600</p><p>Vivek Padiyar<br>Perfect Relations<br><a href="mailto:vpadiyar@perfectrelations.com">vpadiyar@perfectrelations.com</a><br>+91-98923-06446</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1069308360998571185.post-74459573733993594432008-03-05T07:00:00.000+05:302020-07-31T04:56:05.226+05:30Google India launches nationwide Internet safety campaign<p><em>Partners with Mumbai Police to help 25,000 students ‘Be NetSmart’</em></p><p><strong>Announcement<br>March 5, 2008</strong></p><p>The Internet has evolved as a great tool for millions across the globe. By typing just a few words into a computer, it is possible to find information about any subject. In a matter of minutes you can find information about universities abroad, listen to music from your favourite music artists, read about Bollywood stars, and compare prices of latest gadgets – the list is endless.</p><p>Given the many benefits, it’s natural for children to explore the Internet. From seeking information to making life-long friends, more and more students are coming online. It is, therefore, important to educate them on how to use the Internet judiciously and stay safe online.</p><p>With this objective, Google India has launched a national Internet safety campaign called ‘Be NetSmart’. The campaign was launched in Mumbai on February 18th 2008, in collaboration with the Mumbai Police. Since then, Mumbai Police and Google have already reached nearly 15,000 students, 300 teachers, and 30 schools with the "Be NetSmart" message and eventually aim to educate over 25,000 students in the city.</p><p>‘Be NetSmart’ is an interactive campaign focussed on students in sixth standard and above. The sessions in schools cover topics that range from maintaining confidentiality and not interacting with strangers online to tips on downloading content, posting pictures, online chatting etc. In addition to students, parents and teachers are also being educated on Internet awareness and the need to be involved with children.</p><p>In the last few weeks, Mumbai police and Google employee volunteers have visited English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, and Urdu-medium schools in Mumbai to conduct this campaign.</p><p>Shailesh Rao, Managing Director, Google India said, “Nowhere in the world is the idea that young people are the future truer than in India, so it is critical to empower our youth with all the tools that will help them build a better life. The Internet is feeding the curiosity of youth – encouraging them to ask new questions and to expand the boundaries of their knowledge. The ‘Be NetSmart’ campaign is a step towards ensuring their safety online, while they continue to explore limitless possibilities.”</p><p>"Ensuring the safety of children online requires a collaborative effort on the part of parents, teachers, authorities and service providers. This campaign is one such collaborative effort. Google and Mumbai Police are aiming to reach out to students to educate them about Internet security. It is vital to remember that the Internet is here to stay. It is our job to teach our kids to be safe and smart," said Mr Sanjay Mohite, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Enforcement).</p><p>With an ambitious plan to replicate the success in Mumbai across the country, Google India is in talks with police organizations in cities across India about forging partnerships to together educate students, teachers, and parents in the local communities.</p><p>For queries on Internet safety and security, please contact <a href="mailto:benetsmart.mumbaipolice@gmail.com">benetsmart.mumbaipolice@gmail.com</a></p><h3>Media Contacts:</h3><p>Roli Agarwal<br>Communications & Public Affairs Manager<br>Google India<br><a href="mailto:roli@google.com">roli@google.com</a><br>040-66193600</p><p>Disha Arora<br>20:20 MEDIA<br><a href="mailto:disha@2020india.com">disha@2020india.com</a><br>+91 – 9899994796</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com