Design & Development Digest : google

Google Fiber: The Future of Video Marketing

'Net Features : wm-designdev — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 21:30:00 GMT

By Richard Oldale, Founder of johnaudreyjones_productions In Sept. 2012, Google launched an experimental super-speed Internet, which is capable of pumping out 700mbps through fiber-optic connections. It will revolutionize the way we stream videos and...(read more)

Roundup: Google Cloud Platform Adds Features, Lowers Prices

'Net Features : wm-designdev — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 19:18:00 GMT

It has certainly been a busy few weeks for the Google Cloud Platform. Back on November 8th, Google updated its Cloud SQL offering to provide faster performance, larger databases, an EU zone (more on that shortly) and a no-cost trial – but now there’s...(read more)

Performance Matters: Mod_Pagespeed Leaves Beta

'Net Features : wm-designdev — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 15:00:00 GMT

After nearly two years and eighteen updates, Google has taken the Beta label off its mod_pagespeed offering, an open-source Apache HTTP server module developed to automatically optimize web pages and their resources including images, CSS, and JavaScript...(read more)

Testing Structured Data with Google

'Net Features : wm-designdev — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 21:05:00 GMT

Structured data is all the rage among search engine optimization professionals, but even they struggle with ensuring that their data is marked up the right way. Fortunately, Google launched a new version of its rich snippet testing tool which it is now...(read more)

Google Tag Manager Released

'Net Features : wm-designdev — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 13:41:00 GMT

Google has released Tag Manager, a free tool that replaces the often clunky and extensive number of tags that are placed on a website for the purpose of remarketing, analytics, etc. By adding a single snippet of code, users can manage every tag (mostly...(read more)

40+ Data Points Added to Google's Core Reporting API (Analytics)

'Net Features : wm-designdev — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 16:30:00 GMT

Web workers can expect to see a lot more in the way of data within the applications they interface with as Google last week added over forty new data points (metrics and dimensions) to its reporting API's. Developers wil be able to tap into the data...(read more)

Android Releases Jelly Bean Source Code to Developers

'Net Features : wm-designdev — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 16:30:00 GMT

Not too long ago, Google released the Android Jelly Bean raw source code for its Android Open Source Project. This makes it possible for developers to work on updates and releases for tablet and smartphone apps far more easily, and it also provides greater...(read more)

Google’s Design Guidance for Instant Preview

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 17:10:00 GMT

Google has (fortunately) provided some guidance - although minimal - related to Web design with the release of Instant Preview today.

The development as was mentioned here makes great Web design imperative. Some of the suggestions Google has provided are open to interpretation and will surely initiate an immense amount of discussion moving forward.

While a good user experience should always be the focus of Web design, Google may just be forcing the hand of designers to keep distractions and extraneous content at a minimum. Site simplicity and message clarity are now of the utmost important courtesy of the introduction of Instant Previews.

Google is recommending avoiding interstitial pages, ad pop-ups and other elements that interfere with content as they will affect the preview and make screenshots less attractive. This should drive every single interactive media designer, media buyers and site owner over the virtual edge. Count on work-arounds (and perhaps an increase in cloaking) being released soon.

Perhaps most important in the short term is that some videos or Flash content in previews will appear as the dreaded “puzzle piece” icon or simply a black square. While Google is working on rendering these content types, perhaps it’s time you brush up on some HTML5.

Google has attempted to make it clear that Instant Previews does not change its search algorithm or how clicks are tracked. According to Google, “If a user clicks on the title of a result and visits your site, it will count as a normal click, regardless of whether the result was previewed.” Previewing a result, however, doesn't count as a click by itself.

If you are using the nosnippet meta tag on your pages (which will cause Google to not show a text snippet in its results) you may want to remove that as the tag will also not show previews.

Faster Websites with mod_pagespeed

Pete Prestipino — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 17:26:00 GMT

Google seems singuarly focused on making the Web faster, intorducing the Page Speed developer tool last year and this week introducing a module for the Apache HTTP Server called mod_pagespeed.

The module performs multiple speed optimsations including optimziing caching, minimizing client-server round trips and miniming payload size. Google tests have revealed that the module can reduce page load times by up to 50%.

If you're a Go Daddy customer and host your website on the company's platform, you'll be one of the first to experience this doubly-fast Web, as Google is working with Go Daddy to get the module running for the domain registration and hosting company's 8.5 million customers.

"Go Daddy is continually looking for ways to provide our customers the best user experience possible," said Warren Adelman, President and COO of Go Daddy. "That's the reason we partnered with Google on the 'Make the Web Faster' initiative. Go Daddy engineers are seeing a dramatic decrease in load times of customers' websites using mod_pagespeed and other technologies provided. We hope to provide the technology to our customers soon - not only for their benefit, but for their website visitors as well.”

Google is also working with Cotendo to integrate the core engine of mod_pagespeed as part of their Content Delivery Network (CDN) service.