In July we launched Lively in Google Labs because we wanted users to be able to interact with their friends and express themselves online in new ways. Google has always been supportive of this kind of experimentation because we believe it's the best way to create groundbreaking products that make a difference to people's lives. But we've also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off.

That's why, despite all the virtual high fives and creative rooms everyone has enjoyed in the last four and a half months, we've decided to shut Lively down at the end of the year. It has been a tough decision, but we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business. Lively.com will be discontinued at the end of December, and everyone who has worked on the project will then move on to other teams.

We'd encourage all Lively users to capture your hard work by taking videos and screenshots of your rooms.
[ Google blog ]

Gmail fans have been building unofficial extensions to spice up their inboxes for a while, but up til now themes haven't been an integral part of Gmail. We wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so out of the 30 odd themes we're launching today, there's a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company. There's even an old school ascii theme (Terminal) which was the result of a bet between two engineers -- it's not exactly practical, but it's great for testing out your geek cred. We've also done a minor facelift to Gmail's default look to make it crisper and cleaner -- you might notice a few colors and pixels shifted around here and there.



As you can see from these photos taken around our office in Zurich, Switzerland, themes have made their way into more than our inboxes -- that's a character from the ninja theme made out of pixel blocks, customized laptop decals, and a giant Zoozimps character on a beam next to my desk:



To customize your inbox, go to the Themes tab under Settings. We'll be rolling out themes to everyone over the next couple of days, so if you don't see them yet, check back soon. As for which theme to choose, don't ask us. We're neutral ;)
[ Gmail blog ]

From the practical to the political, from the serious to the silly, developers of over 150,000 sites around the world continue to inspire us with their creative uses of the Google Maps API.

To celebrate this blossoming ecosystem, we've redesigned our Case Studies video site. Timed with this relaunch, we've got two new videos showcasing innovative API uses, this time for sites that help you make the most of where you live.

Yelp was an early and eager adopter of the Google Maps API. As their local reviews site has grown in size and geography, Yelp has aggressively built upon our platform with intuitive neighborhood maps, static maps that load quickly but quickly transition to powerful dynamic maps, and more. They've also been quick to support our newest API features such as Street View and Mobile. Check out the video!

We are also excited to profile Zipcar, which uses Google Maps to help its exploding userbase find cars available for hourly or daily rental in their neighborhood:

We've got five more case study videos at the newly redesigned site, so take a quick break and (re)inspire yourself!
[ Google LatLong ]

See your latest updates on MySpace, read and reply to messages in AOL Mail, and keep track of your Google Book Search Library.



These are the first three gadgets on iGoogle to use OAuth, which is a privacy-preserving security standard that defines how a user can give consent for their data on one website to be accessed by another website (or in this case a gadget). iGoogle never sees the user's password on the other site, and the gadget displays the user's data from the other site without storing any of it on Google's own servers (read more details about OAuth on our Security Blog). With these gadgets on iGoogle, users can now keep track of even more personalized information from across their online life. For example, the MySpace gadget shows your friends' latest updates, status messages, bulletins, and an inbox preview.

With the AOL Mail gadget, you can preview all your email messages in home view. In canvas view, read rich text email, compose, reply, delete, mark as spam, and more. The gadget even includes autocomplete, attachments, spell check, and sorting options. If you have an AOL Mail or AIM Mail account, you must try this gadget.

The Google Book Search Library gadget allows you to keep track of all the books you want to read, and also offers you personalized recommendations. Finding new books and removing books from your library is a snap. You can even preview your books from right within iGoogle's canvas view.

These gadgets are also great examples of how to utilize the canvas view, which launched last month on iGoogle. If you want to create a gadget like AOL and MySpace, this overview will get you started on exposing an API that can be accessed using OAuth. If you already know which OAuth enabled API you want to access, you can jump directly to the gadgets documentation.
[ iGoogle Developer blog ]

Early readers of the Google.org blog may recall us embarking on a film project portraying public health heroes working in the field to eradicate polio. Gone from the modern world, new cases of polio continue to afflict mostly children under age 3 in the poorest regions of just a few countries — India, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. When we first announced this project and the collaboration between Google.org and Vermilion Films, filming was underway primarily in India and Afghanistan, documenting the front lines of public health in some forgotten corners of our world.

David Heymann of the World Health Organization reminds us, "When you haven't seen a disease for quite a while, which is the case in the industrialized countries, you forget about the terrible disease that it really is." Polio is such a disease, as it can ruin the lives of children even before they are old enough to understand how to prevent it.

We're proud to announce The Final Inch, a 38-minute film about the historic global effort to eradicate polio. Here, the story told is as much about the messengers as the message. You'll meet Munzareen Fatima, one of the thousands of community "foot soldiers" across India working to sway reluctant families to vaccinate their children, and Dr. Ashfaq Bhat, who travels into the backwaters of India's Ganges Basin by boat and foot to detect emerging cases of polio. Martha Mason and Mikail Davenport bring us into their lives and describe the paralyzing challenges of childhood polio, reminding us how endemic polio once was in the United States.

Filmed in high-definition (HD) in cinematic style — wide open shots to give a strong sense of place — The Final Inch captures their stories, and we hope it is both a tribute and an inspiration of hope. With a final push, this is a disease that can, and should, be eradicated finally.

The Final Inch will air nationally on HBO in 2009. We invite you to check out TheFinalInch.org, where you can view clips from the film and learn more about the people and the organizations tirelessly working on this global effort. You can also check out the film trailer here:


[ Google blog ]

One of my favorite things to do while I'm on a business trip -- wherever I am -- is to find great coffee shops. Knowing I can relax with locals and get a strong cup of coffee helps get me through the jet lag and long days that usually accompany these trips. However, I'm usually busy doing all sorts of things on the web, like creating presentations, updating spreadsheets, or checking my flights.
To find a new destination for my coffee fix without having to leave the site I'm on, all I need to do is use the Google Maps gadget on the new Google Toolbar 5 (for Internet Explorer or Firefox). Every time I click on the "compass" icon on my Toolbar, a Google Maps window pops under it: inside the gadget I can search for "Seattle Cafe" and get listings of local coffee shops, along with reviews and driving directions. You can find more interesting gadgets to add to your Toolbar in our gallery.




[ Google LatLong ]

The Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination; The Mansell Collection from London; Dahlstrom glass plates of New York and environs from the 1880s; and the entire works left to the collection from LIFE photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gjon Mili, and Nina Leen. These are just some of the things you'll see in Google Image Search today.

We're excited to announce the availability of never-before-seen images from the LIFE photo archive. This effort to bring offline images online was inspired by our mission to organize all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. This collection of newly-digitized images includes photos and etchings produced and owned by LIFE dating all the way back to the 1750s.

Only a very small percentage of these images have ever been published. The rest have been sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints. We're digitizing them so that everyone can easily experience these fascinating moments in time. Today about 20 percent of the collection is online; during the next few months, we will be adding the entire LIFE archive — about 10 million photos.

It has been a thrill for us to explore this archive, filled with images captured by LIFE's famous photographers. See masters like Alfred Eisenstaedt and Margaret Bourke-White documenting pivotal world events, capturing the evolution of lifestyles and fashions, and opening windows into the lives of celebrities and everyday people.

One of our favorites is this classic Eisenstaedt image of children watching a puppet show.



Alfred snapped this in 1963, at the climax of Guignol's "Saint George and the Dragon" in the Tuileries Garden in Paris. Just as the dragon is slain, some children cry out in a combination of horror and delight, while others are taken aback in shock. Every child is consumed with emotion, masterfully captured by Eisenstaedt's camera. These amazing photos are now blended into our Image Search results along with other images from across the web.

Once you are in the archive, you'll also notice that you can access a rich full-size, full-screen version of each image simply by clicking on the picture itself in the landing page. If you decide you really like one of these images, high-quality framed prints can be purchased from LIFE at the click of a button. Think of the holiday gift possibilities! It doesn't get much easier than that.

So please take a look for yourself and experience these great photos. Your exploration will be limited only by your imagination and your desire to keep on clicking. Be sure to check back often as more photos from the LIFE archive will be added regularly to Google Image Search. We hope that you enjoy them as much as we do!
[ Google blog ]