Google AdSense Android App Now Available

Google AdSense now has an Android app!

As you know, AdSense is Google's publisher advertising platform for content creators to monetize their website by displaying contextual ads to their audience from Google AdWords and other ad networks.

The new app allows fast and easy access to data from your AdSense account. Information can be viewed by your selected time period (today, yesterday, last 7 days, this month, last 30 days, or last month) and for each account in use on your Android device. The screens available are:

• Earnings Overview
• Top Sites
• Top URL Channels
• Top Custom Channels
• Top Ad Units
• Payment Alerts
• Settings

Check out the screenshots and let us know your thoughts about the app in the comments below. It works great and is a good first version to gain quick insight into your ad performance, but is not nearly as robust as the website. Hopefully future updates will expand the functionality. Install Google AdSense for Android from Google Play to give it a try.

Having Google Login Problems? (Android, Chrome, Google+, OAuth, etc.)

If you have experienced or are experiencing problems when trying to sign in to Google services the solution may be simpler than you think. Although there can be other reasons a primary one, albeit not well known, is that you have too many active tokens.

Tokens are created, for example, when you login to third party services with your Google or Google+ account using OAuth, share your Gmail contacts, allow web apps to view your Google Reader subscriptions, sync your Chrome OS or browser data, use Android (phone and certain apps), or use/link any of Google's many services or APIs (Keep, YouTube, Picasa, Drive, Calendar, etc.)

The error message received is usually unclear and varies greatly from each service. You may receive an incorrect password message (the most confusing of all), be unable to connect and see a blank screen, or be told you have too many active tokens (google_too_many_active_tokens). If you have these types of problems while logging in with your Google account email and password to any service, site, or app you can usually rectify it by releasing some account tokens.

Follow these steps to remove authorized connections (tokens) from your Google account:

• Go to the Manage Access to Connected Applications and Sites page (slow to load sometimes)
• Click the "Revoke Access" button next to the connections you want to remove
• Find services you no longer use and remove (it is good to do this anyway)
• Remove some "Sign in using your Google account" items

Note: Removing a connection will not close your account with the other app/service. Although, you will have to use another token if you login there with Google again.

Google would not comment on the number of tokens allowed and I don't know if the limits are service specific. The only text I could find regarding a limit is "there are limits... per user across all clients" on the OAuth 2.0 page. Based on my account I believe the limit to be around 500 tokens. A lot of people may never have this problem, but for people like me that enjoy trying new apps, websites, and services you may hit the upper limit after a while.

Good luck!

YouTube Taking Another Step Towards Paid Subscriptions?

YouTube has recently been reported to be launching paid subscriptions which was essentially confirmed while reviewing YouTube's updated Android application code. In addition, Google is rumored to be working on a streaming music service which may offer you the ability to purchase a subscription via YouTube for songs (audio only) and music videos.

In my opinion, a YouTube survey sent out by email today is another indication of an impending subscription purchase plan. The timing and questions seem to point towards a premium service while the answers may help them decide on the launch channels. What do you think?

Below are the questions (slightly modified/shortened, please see images for exact content and setup).

YouTube always wants to improve and deliver the best experience to you. On the next few pages, please tell us how we are doing.

How often do you access YouTube?
          Daily
          Weekly
          Monthly
          Less than once a month, but within the past year
          Not in the past year, but have accessed previously

Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with the following statements:
          It is a good alternative to TV
          It is a place I want to go to every day
          It has content that is professionally made
          It is a place for high quality channels
          It has cutting edge content

Please name any YouTube channels or YouTube personalities/stars that come to mind:

Which statement best describes how you use YouTube?
          I watch videos and occasionally make a video and upload it
          I only watch videos
          I watch videos and make videos regularly to share on my channel

Google Launches New Research Tool For Google Documents

Google has launched the Research tool for Google documents. This new tool allows you to add Google Search content directly to your document without leaving the page. Right now when you login and create a new document you will see the new pane on the right side. You can reopen the tool anytime by clicking Research under Tools, or by initiating a search.

To initiate a search based on text you have already written you can right click on any word, or highlight a phrase and right click, to find the research function. Ctrl+Alt+R on Windows or Cmd+Alt+R on Mac are key shortcuts you can use also. If you prefer, when the tool is open, there is a search field at the top so that you can search for anything you want at anytime. The tool is not available in spreadsheets or the other file types.

The Research tool enables you to add a lot of different media that can easily be edited. Perhaps the best feature in my opinion is that any content inserted is automatically cited if required with a superscript number and footnote containing a link to the content along with a page title and date if available. Images and maps can be dragged to the document while text is added or cited by hovering over it. Any web page can be previewed in another pane that comes up next to it; even the webpage screenshot can be dragged to your document. Here is a quick sample document I made so that you can see the footnotes..

Give it a try and let us know what you think. I wish I had this in school!

Is Google Testing Local Wireless Broadband Networks?

GigaOM has come across a document (PDF) that Google filed with the FCC on December 29, 2011 requesting permission to test an entertainment device outside the laboratory. Many publications have speculated about what it could be. VentureBeat thinks it is related to Google TV, 9to5 Google says they are smart glasses with a computer interface, MG Siegler guesses a hardware device of some kind, while Phandroid takes the Android@Home route.

Before speculating let's extensively research the document line by line to see if it gives us any clues. This will be organized in the way I discover the details.

• Filed with Office of Engineering and Technology (OET). Their mission is to manage the spectrum and provide leadership to create new opportunities for competitive technologies and services.
• Richard S. Whitt is a telecommunications lawyer per his Google+ profile; looking at his contacts provides no insight. He is known for his work on mobile broadband, the spectrum, and WiFi.
• In October he worked on four Motorola licensing transfers (0004907037, 0004907038), 0004912040, and 0004912042. These, according to this document (PDF), are for Private Land Mobile Radio Services.
• The filing from December 29, 2011 states the Class of Station is MO which means "Mobile Station" intended to be used while in motion or during halts at unspecified points, which includes hand carried transmitters.
• Along with the December 29, 2011 filing I found a second one (PDF) from December 13, 2011 he submitted.
• Also has the Class of Station marked as MO
• Is for a "next generation personal communication device"
• The purpose of the test is to connect the devices to home WiFi networks to test stability, and that of the supported Bluetooth technology.
• The December 13th document essentially says the same
• The call sign WF9XLG can be tracked to an RSS feed from the FCC which says "A grant was issued on 02/02/2012 to Google Inc., experiment type: WiFi". In the feed we can see file number 0798-EX-ST-2011. There are some new documents there, but they do not provide any further insight.
• The call sign from the older document is WF9XKU and can be also be tracked to that RSS feed from the FCC which says "A grant was issued on 01/26/2012 to Google Inc., experiment type: WiFi". In the feed we can see file number 0758-EX-ST-2011. There are some new documents there, but they do not provide any further insight.
• The manufacturer is listed as Google. Before the Motorola acquisition they did not manufacture anything.
• All tests will use Google employees that are in range of a Google office
• The 5 GHz frequency listed can be used for a lot of things, including WiFi and Wireless ISPs. The 2.4 GHz can be used for Bluetooth wireless LANs.

With all of these details it leads me to believe they are possibly testing a local wireless broadband network with a Google office as the hub and the devices listed in the December 29, 2011 filing as the nodes. Could be a WDS or a WMN type of setup. The 252 nodes must be a type of home entertainment base to fall within the "entertainment device" description, and could be a new Google TV or Android@Home device as some believe with additional functionality. That device could allow connections from current WiFi and Bluetooth enabled cell phones to have non-cellular phone calls and communications. The earlier December filing is for 102 personal communication devices which may be handheld and used for voice and data communications while within the LAN and outside of a traditional home connection.

Or, I could be way off! What do you think Google is working on?

SocialGrapple Joins Google

SocialGrapple has joined Google. The below notification was just sent out; more details to come.

Update: Google has confirmed to me that Andrey Petrov is joining them. They were silent about whether or not any assets or property of SocialGrapple were part of the move.

I am excited to announce that the SocialGrapple team is joining Google.

SocialGrapple started a year ago, and launched only a couple of months later as a social graph analytics service. It was an amazing learning experience and I am incredibly grateful to all the users who supported this venture. Much of what was built over the months came directly from your needs and requests, so I feel like we were all on this journey together.

Since the first launch, we also explored keyword tracking and branched out to other social networks, but this was only scratching the surface. I’m looking forward to taking these ideas to the next level and revealing metrics on an incredibly larger scale.

As part of this transition, SocialGrapple is shutting down. All payment subscriptions have been cancelled so no more recurring payments will be charged. You will be able to download your SocialGrapple data exports until November 8, 2011, at which point SocialGrapple will shut down and your data will be deleted.

To download your data export, go here: http://socialgrapple.com/account/export

If there is anything I can do to help make your transition away from SocialGrapple easier, please reply to this email and I will do my best.

Thank you again for being a part of my journey. I strive to continue building tools that make the world more transparent and empowered, and I can’t imagine a better partner than Google.

- Andrey

SocialGrapple is an analytics tool created by Andrey Petrov to track Facebook and Twitter metrics.

Gmail New User Guide And Tips

Congratulations on making the switch to Gmail! If you have come to this post, but do not have Gmail yet, then sign up today.

Now that you visit Gmail.com every day let's go over some basic functionality and usability tips to make your experience even better. The adjustments can be found in your settings menu which is accessed by click on the gear logo at top right.

1) Inbox - There are five inbox types below to choose from to customize how you see unread and important emails. Ensure you leave the importance markers active and train them to improve the feature.

• Classic - A traditional view of all emails received with the newest on top
• Important first - Groups all the important emails together first, then everything else
• Unread first - All the unread emails, regardless of importance, are grouped together before everything else (I use this one)
• Starred first - All starred emails are shown first with everything after
• Priority inbox - Combines the unread, starred, and important styles together by having three groupings; important and unread, starred, and everything else.

2) Labs - This is how you get Gmail humming! Google tries out many new things here that you can partake in by enabling them. You can always turn them off or launch Gmail without labs in case something doesn't go well. You are not at risk of losing your data and I have never had to launch without labs to fix anything. Read through the entire list to see what they have to offer. Here is what I have on:

• Background Send - Gmail will send your email while you do other things
• Google Calendar gadget - Adds a box to the left which shows your upcoming events
• Google Maps previews in mail - Preview of all the addresses found in your email
• Google Voice player in mail - Play voicemails from Google Voice in Gmail
• Green Robot! - Chat friends with Android show up as robot icons
• Mark as Read Button - Creates a mark as read button that is front and center
• Pictures in chat - See your friends' profile pictures when you chat with them
• Smartlabels - Categorizes incoming Bulk, Notification or Forum messages
• Undo Send - Gives you a few seconds to stop an email after hitting send
• Unread message icon - Shoes your unread message count in your browser's tab (works with Chrome, Firefox, and Opera)
• Preview Pane - Provides a preview pane to read mail right next to your list of conversations

3) Chat - You have probably noticed the chat window to the left; if not, check it out. You can chat with your contacts right in Gmail. If you don't have any contacts yet send me a chat message at dbin78 to try it out. Back to the setting; you will see that you are automatically saving all chat history. I have found this useful on a couple occasions, but some people turn it off because they do not want the chats saved. While you are working with chat go ahead and set it up for making free calls.

4) Themes - With themes you can choose from different colors and layout designs. Some change with the time of day and weather; you can even create your own. My current choice is "Light". Scroll down to the bottom to set/update your location used for a dynamic theme.

5) General - Keyboard shortcuts can help you work faster by letting you complete certain things without your mouse. To receive pop-up notifications for new chats and emails make sure that both Desktop Notifications are on. I recommend uploading a nice headshot for your picture so that your contacts know who you are. Your signature line should be preceded by one blank line so that it is not crowding you when drafting emails. Two graduated labs, default reply and signature tweaks, are now settings on this page. I suggest checking the "Insert this signature before..." box for cleaner sent emails.

6) Labels and Filters are excellent and powerful tools for organizing your email. They can get complex and be a bit advanced; leave them alone for now until you are more comfortable with Gmail. Check out this video tutorial to learn how to use both.

7) Web Clips - You are no longer able to change these (more information).

8) Offline - Offline access is no longer supported from this screen, but you can get it by installing the Gmail Offline Chrome extension.

9) Gmail Search - The box to the right of the Gmail logo (upper left) is for searching your email. This may become your favorite feature!

Enjoy Gmail! If you have any questions please ask them in the comments below.

Find And Remove Inactive Google+ Friends With Uncircle+

One issue that comes up while using social networks that have a follow/subscribe function is managing those people. They are not your true friends, and therefore knowing when they are not using the service can be difficult.

Twitter was the "founder" of this issue, even then, it is not really a problem. It is more of a house cleaning task that can be cumbersome depending on how much data you consume. Although; there are some statistic websites that use your followers to following ratio as a measurement. If you follow more people than follow you there is a high probability that you are not producing interesting original content and could be engaging in follower spam. Follower spam is when a user follows other users in the hopes that they will follow them back after they receive their new follow notification.

This is currently not an issue for Facebook because they have just launched their subscribe function. On Google+ it is also limited because Google, for now, (and Facebook) only have this feature available for a real person. An non-human account is more apt to walk away and stop updating a service than an actual person is. That is why this is much more prevalent on Twitter. There were many Twitter tools, like MyCleenr, at one time that would scan your account to find when each account's last status update was and unfollow inactive users automatically. More recently most of them have had issues staying open because of Twitter's more stringent API rules.

Google+ is interesting because it is so new it does not seem like this would something people are even thinking about yet. I actually was! Just last week I started to look through my Following Circle to see who had never posted in a way I could see. What happened in the early days of testing is that many G+ users followed interesting people, but the service was so new that not seeing a post was normal. Now that Google+ is at the ripe old age of 3 months, and public, it is time to settle in and manage who we have Circled.

Today I came across the Chrome extension Uncircle+. It makes use of Google's recently launched API to scan everyone in your Circles to determine who has never updated their status in a manner that you could see. You then are given a list of those users and have the option to let Uncircle+ automatically unfollow them or not. This is very useful to clean house, and can be very beneficial to people that are up against the 5,000 people in your Circles limit. I downloaded and used version 1.1 of Uncircle+ without an issue. Give it a try and let everyone know what you think in the comments below.

Screenshot Tour:

Clicked on Find Inactive People after launching the extension.

Everyone in my Circles was scanned and it found 40 people that have no posts. The "I" above mean Inactive and the "E" means Error (one of my Circles users had been banned). Because I was testing the extension I right clicked to open a new tab on every person that was said to be inactive to verify; the extension was accurate.

I unchecked users that I did not want to uncircle.

After clicking Remove Selected it shows who was removed. Again, I verified for testing purposes, they (and only they) were removed.

DailyDeal Acquired By Google

Today Google continues it's drive toward the local economy with its purchase of DailyDeal. It was announced on DailyDeal's website:

When DailyDeal was founded in Berlin back in December 2009, there was just two of us. Since then, we have seen tremendous growth, as people throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland have used DailyDeal to find local deals on their favorite restaurants, travel destinations, entertainment venues and retail outlets.

Our team has grown too, and with it, our vision for DailyDeal. We see great opportunity to better connect businesses with consumers on a much larger scale, and we have found a team that shares our vision.

That’s why we’re excited to announce that we’ve been acquired by Google! What began as a two-person startup less than two years ago has transformed into a trusted platform to connect businesses with consumers. By combining our expertise with the Offers team at Google, we hope to expand our efforts to provide even greater deals to consumers.

The DailyDeal team

Founders, and brothers, Fabian and Ferry Heilemann

Google Opens Limited Google+ API

Google launches the Google+ API! The following email was sent today:

Greetings developers,

Thank you for showing your interest in the Google+ platform on our developer interest form. We promised to let you know when we had more details to share. Well, that time has come...

Today, we’re launching the first of the Google+ APIs. This initial API release is focused on public data only — it lets you read information that people have shared publicly on Google+. Read our blog post for more details.

Also, we’re happy to introduce a new Google+ developers site. This will be the place to go for our policies, terms, discussions with other developers, access to documentation, tools that make development on the Google+ platform easier and more fun, and of course, the place where announcements concerning new releases will be made.

We’re looking forward to seeing what you build with the API. Today is just the beginning, and your work will affect what comes next, so go ahead and get started.

Happy coding!

- The Google+ platform team

Google Continues Streamlining By Closing And Merging Many Projects

Google continues to prioritize (close and merge) it's product line as revealed on the recent earnings call. First came Google Labs, then the Slide product suite, and now they announced that many other products, listed below, will fade away. Google has said that with these changes "...we can devote more resources to high impact products".

(All bold product links direct to the product pages as of this writing; they will surely redirect to new locations in coming months. Screenshots have also been taken for posterity; click to enlarge.)

Aardvark: Closing September 30, 2011. Aardvark is a Q&A site that was acquired by Google in February 2010. I enjoyed answering questions from time to time and found the quality of questions mostly high and the small amount of spam questions was a joy. Of course, much of that has to do with the low volume. With the likes of Quora, Yahoo! Answers, and Ask.com (recently redesigned) it is a difficult field to compete in. Just Google your question! If you would like your data before the official closing just email support@vark.com.

Desktop: Closing September 14, 2011. Google Desktop is closing down the product, including all the associated APIs, services, plugins, gadgets and support. With ChromeOS being the future, a desktop application is not needed.

Fast Flip: Closing September 6, 2011. Fast Flip will be closing along with the Google News version. It was essentially a way to flip through articles on various webpages in magazine style way. I did not use it much as the sources were limited.

Google Maps API for Flash: Depreciated September 2, 2011. The Google Maps API for Flash was launched to provide ActionScript developers a way to integrate Google Maps into their applications. Support will remain for existing Google Maps API Premier customers using the Google Maps API for Flash.

Google Pack: Closed September 2, 2011. "Google Pack was introduced in 2005 to make it easy to download and install a package of Google and third-party applications that helped users get the most out of their computers. Google Pack was responsible for fueling 100s of millions of software downloads. A lot has changed in the last six years. Virtually all new applications and services are now on the web. With declining interest in downloadable software, the time has come to discontinue Google Pack."

Google Web Security: Closed September 2, 2011. Google Web Security came to Google as part of the Postini acquisition in 2007. Much of the web security functionality has already been integrated into Google products, such as safe browsing in Chrome. Existing customers will continue to be supported.

Image Labeler: Closing Septemebr 16, 2011. Google Image Labeler was a game to help people explore and label the images on the web.

Notebook: Closing September 2011. Google Notebook was a simple way to take notes to share or publish on the web. All notes will be automatically exported to Google Docs upon closure. There is no longer much need for this service considering you can do this with Google Docs and also use many other services like Evernote.

Sidewiki: Closing 2011. I will miss Sidewiki! The Chrome extension has proved very useful to me to allow my entire browsing history to be saved to Google for later searching. It is also used in Google's Help sections as a built in way to comment; I even though it could be used as a commenting system. Although this one is closing in current form I fully expect it to live on in some way.

Subscribed Links: Closing September 15, 2011. Subscribed Links let developers and others create specialized search results that were incorporated in the normal Google search results for certain searches.

Google And OpenDNS Work Together On The Global Internet Speedup

Google Public DNS, OpenDNS, and others are collaborating together on The Global Internet Speedup. It gets very technical about how it works, but you do not have to do anything if you’re using OpenDNS or Google Public DNS and visiting a website or using a service provided by one of the participating networks or CDNs.

What is essentially does is to route your information requests (internet traffic) to the best server based on location, speed, and current traffic levels. It makes DNS smart and dynamic! This is being made possible by an open standard IETF Draft called edns-client-subnet. This is needed for the Internet to grow and accommodate more users with higher bandwidth needs.

Google Is Shuttering Slide (Photovine, Disco, Pool Party, etc.)

Google owned Slide has announced it will be closing, and the vast majority of it's products will be retired. Most of Slide's 100 person team will be integrated over to other Google products and could certainly bring value to Google+. Max Levchin, founder of Slide, and the product head Jared Fliesler will be leaving Google/Slide.

Photovine, Disco, Pool Party, Slideshow, SuperPoke! Pets, and Video Inbox will all be closed in the coming months. Even though these are closing I am sure their technology will be used elsewhere. It is being reported that Prizes.org will remain open. 

Google bought Slide about a year ago and has allowed them to operate as an independent startup entity. None of their products really took off and with Larry Page continuing his streamlining the choice seems logical. The Google+ Project is really becoming the focus, and future!

Games Come To The Google+ Project

Google+ games were pretty much confirmed a couple weeks ago, but today brought the official announcement that games are being rolled out starting today. One of the biggest fears is that the pristine environment on G+ will be taken over like Facebook was with FarmVille and the like.

As they say, games are fun and we all like them on some level. Some people may be addicted to a certain game and the metrics of online gaming in a social world can force that person to make requests openly to further advance in the game no matter what other people think. I would probably have done anything to advance in Metroid or Kid Icarus at the time! Others are more casual and may play solo games once in a while. How do you appease everyone?

Google has answered this by separating games completely.

When you're ready to play, the Games page is waiting - click the games button at the top of your stream. You can see the latest game updates from your circles, browse the invites you've received and check out games that people you know have played recently. The Games page is also where your game accomplishments will appear. So you can comfortably share your latest high score - your circles will only see the updates when they're interested in playing games too.

If you're not interested in games, it's easy to ignore them. Your stream will remain focused on conversations with the people you care about.

Games have their own tab marked with this icon:

They are slowly rolling out the games feature. Keep an eye out for the new icon and give them a try once you have access. You can learn even more in the new Google+ Games help section. Game on! Check out this post if you are a developer and want to build games for the Google+ platform.

Google's New Commenting System?

I was reading through some of Google's Help sections and noticed a new commenting icon at the bottom of the page. It is the middle icon:



After doing some exploring I have found it does not appear on every page; it shows on about half. It seems to have cropped up with the new redesign of the Help Center along with other properties. You can see it in action at the bottom of this page and others. This commenting system replaces the "Was this information useful?" question.

My real surprise came when I clicked on the icon and a Google Sidewiki slide-out box opened from the left (screenshot below). Sidewiki has been around since 2009 as a Chrome extension to allow anyone to comment on any webpage and webpage owners to give special notes. It never gained much traction, but maybe it has found new life.

Could this be Google's answer to Disqus and IntenseDebate? With some tweaking, enhancements, expanded embedding options, and Google+ integration this could take over Facebook's commenting solution.

Preview Pane Now Available In Gmail

Gmail now has my favorite feature from Outlook and Lotus Notes available in Labs. Preview Pane!


To activate it head on over to Labs to enable Preview Pane

Now you will see a drop down box at top right where you can switch between preview and list views

You can adjust the time before a previewed email is marked as read on the General tab in setting

Your inbox will now have the Preview Pane you choose

Google+ and Gmail Integration

Gmail's user base is around two hundred million while Google+'s is around ten million. Bringing all those users to G+ will certainly help the new network expand and with the plus bar they are working towards that. The blending these two could make Google in to a communication powerhouse. Below are some of my thoughts on how to do that.

• On a reply or when sending a message (email), have the ability to send to a Circle much like things can be sent to email groups today. I could type "Family Circle" and when I send the "email" the message would post to Google+ to that circle. It should also be possible to direct a message to an individual on to the G+ platform. Any combination should be allowed; I should be able to send one message to one person via a G+ post, to another's email, and to a full circle. (Signature lines and quoted text being replied to should not be allowed when posting to G+.)

• My "from" option in Gmail should have an option to send it from my Google+ account so a reply to my email comes in to G+ as a limited post to me.

• If I choose to send from my Google+ account to a Circle it essentially becomes only a Google+ post; not an email. But, a history of the message/post should be kept in Gmail. Comments on my post would then follow my email notification settings inside G+.

• Add/integrate Google+ profile and profile data to the new area in Gmail, top right, that shows recent interactions and contacts details. The person's profile image, recent posts, and other things could be shown. This could be done for everyone, not just contacts. You could see what circles they are in and also manage the circles right there to be able to add people you do not have in circles or change what circles people are in. When mousing over the sender of an email you have open, it would display a pop up like today, but show this information.

• Gmail could automatically tag emails received from from people you have in your circles with the circle name(s).

• Have the ability to highlight an image, text, or link form an email and click on Share in the +bar. What was highlighted would automatically be pulled in to the share window for fast posting. Similar things can be done from chat to post to G+

• Have the Chat that is inside Gmail show the circle chat friends we see in plus.google.com

My vision is for Google to blur the line between emailing, messaging, and posting into one seamless communication platform.