Whoever first said it’s better to give than to receive wasn’t on a budget. For those of you looking to give generously this holiday season without shaking every last cent out of that snowglobe penny bank you were stuck with at last year’s white elephant exchange, we have good news: lots of creators on YouTube are sharing DIY gifts and money saving ideas.
While socks are very useful, after several years of giving them as gifts you might want to try something new. Consider making coasters, a tablet case made from an old plaid shirt, a crochet beanie, or even some homemade BBQ sauce you can bottle up and just add a bow.
Looking for something a bit more decorative? From a ‘no sew’ clutch, to vintage teacup candles, or homemade earrings with a DIY earring holder, there are plenty of gifts you can give that require little to no crafting skills.
If you’re convinced your grumpy uncle is the Grinch in disguise, help him get into the holiday spirit by tantalizing his senses with a holiday favorite: peppermint. Try a delicious peppermint bark recipe, relaxing peppermint bath salts or even peppermint lip products.
Finally, try adding a little cheer to a gift you already have. Make a DIY wine bottle sock bag (also great for apple cider), add a homemade potholder or oven mitt to a basket of your favorite holiday cookies, or even give cash on a cool DIY money tree.
Happy Holidays!
Jessica Mason, Communications Associate, recently watched “Damon Claus for a Cause - Water.org.”
Monday, December 19, 2011
Make your own online scrapbook with 2011 green search trends
Last week we unveiled this year’s Zeitgeist, including the fastest rising searches in 2011. Those of us on the Google Green team were pleased that the search trends include several popular searches related to the environment (as you can see from the highlights video). So we created the Green Scrapbook to help you explore these green trends, choose your favorites, and reveal videos and surprising facts about them. As you click around, you create your very own collection of what green meant to you this year, which you can personalize with your name and share with your friends.
People have already started creating and sharing their Green Scrapbook. For example, Adam created one showcasing a video of a tapir (Belize’s endangered “mountain cow”) and highlighting what an LED light is. I created my scrapbook, too, where I could tell people about the microorganisms that light up Puerto Rico’s famous “bioluminescent bay.” I also let people know that if I could win an eco-friendly car, I’d choose a Tesla (there’s still time to get me one for Christmas!).
Once you complete your own scrapbook, you can share it on Google+ or anywhere you’d like by grabbing the unique URL to your scrapbook with the “get URL” link at the top right.
We’re working hard to create a better web that’s also better for the environment. We hope the Green Scrapbook sparks conversation and gets people thinking about all the ways they can make greener choices in their lives—whether it’s about the merits of rooftop [solar energy], or prompting people to think about [garbage islands] and then reach for a [reusable water bottle].
People have already started creating and sharing their Green Scrapbook. For example, Adam created one showcasing a video of a tapir (Belize’s endangered “mountain cow”) and highlighting what an LED light is. I created my scrapbook, too, where I could tell people about the microorganisms that light up Puerto Rico’s famous “bioluminescent bay.” I also let people know that if I could win an eco-friendly car, I’d choose a Tesla (there’s still time to get me one for Christmas!).
Once you complete your own scrapbook, you can share it on Google+ or anywhere you’d like by grabbing the unique URL to your scrapbook with the “get URL” link at the top right.
We’re working hard to create a better web that’s also better for the environment. We hope the Green Scrapbook sparks conversation and gets people thinking about all the ways they can make greener choices in their lives—whether it’s about the merits of rooftop [solar energy], or prompting people to think about [garbage islands] and then reach for a [reusable water bottle].
Google+: A few big improvements before the New Year
Today we’re pleased to announce a goodie basket full of Google+ features and functionality for you to unpack and enjoy over the holidays. Some of these were on nearly everyone’s wishlist... and some we hope will be welcome surprises. These features will be rolling out over the next couple of days, and we hope you’ll find them useful this holiday season and beyond.
Pump up (or down) the volume!
Sometimes important posts you wouldn’t want to miss from close friends or family can get lost amongst posts from others who post dozens of times a day. We’re adding fine-grained controls that will enable you to “graphic-equalize” and fine-tune your stream. When viewing the stream for a particular circle, you’ll now see a slider at the top that lets you adjust how posts from that circle should be blended into the main stream. That way you’ll never miss a post from that special someone, and you can tweak these settings to form your own “perfect stream.”
More useful and attractive notifications
One of the most useful and valuable features of the redesigned Google bar is the red notifications indicator. (You could even say it glows!) You know when you have tasty social content to consume, but the notifications themselves have been a little cryptic, often requiring you to navigate to the content itself to understand what happened. We now have easy-to-read “sneak previews” that immediately present what’s new and why you might care. We’ve polished these notifications up and made a few other meaningful improvements too, including the ability to see the +1’s and shares your posts have received since you last checked.
Improvements to Google+ Pages
Google+ Pages have already provided brands and businesses a new means of connecting to and deeply engaging with consumers. In the weeks since launching pages, we’ve been listening to your feedback and we’re pleased to make some of the most oft-requested features available.
A more beautiful and usable photos experience
Finally, we’re making a bevy of improvements to the Google+ Photos experience, just in time for the holiday photo-sharing season. Viewing a photo in Lightbox has been completely redesigned with improved navigation, enhanced comment legibility and better overall utility. This design makes the photo the hero, letting the content itself shine through. And we’re introducing a completely new photo-tagging experience that’s both fun and fluid, and lets you quickly focus on the people in your photos.
We hope that you enjoy these improvements and continue to provide us feedback. It’s been an incredible year for us on the Google+ team. While this indeed has been a #seasonforshipping, Google+ users know that we believe that shipping is always in season! We’ve been busy making some resolutions for 2012, and we think you’re going to love them.
Pump up (or down) the volume!
Sometimes important posts you wouldn’t want to miss from close friends or family can get lost amongst posts from others who post dozens of times a day. We’re adding fine-grained controls that will enable you to “graphic-equalize” and fine-tune your stream. When viewing the stream for a particular circle, you’ll now see a slider at the top that lets you adjust how posts from that circle should be blended into the main stream. That way you’ll never miss a post from that special someone, and you can tweak these settings to form your own “perfect stream.”
More useful and attractive notifications
One of the most useful and valuable features of the redesigned Google bar is the red notifications indicator. (You could even say it glows!) You know when you have tasty social content to consume, but the notifications themselves have been a little cryptic, often requiring you to navigate to the content itself to understand what happened. We now have easy-to-read “sneak previews” that immediately present what’s new and why you might care. We’ve polished these notifications up and made a few other meaningful improvements too, including the ability to see the +1’s and shares your posts have received since you last checked.
Google+ Notifications
Improvements to Google+ Pages
Google+ Pages have already provided brands and businesses a new means of connecting to and deeply engaging with consumers. In the weeks since launching pages, we’ve been listening to your feedback and we’re pleased to make some of the most oft-requested features available.
- You can now delegate up to 50 named managers as administrators for a page.
- A new notification flow will ensure that these managers stay in the loop on all the activity that takes place on a page, giving managers the ability to stay involved in page conversations.
- We’ll now show an aggregated count of users that have engaged with your page, either by +1’ing it or by adding it to a circle. This way, both you and your page’s visitors can get an at-a-glance summary of who is interacting with your page.
A more beautiful and usable photos experience
Finally, we’re making a bevy of improvements to the Google+ Photos experience, just in time for the holiday photo-sharing season. Viewing a photo in Lightbox has been completely redesigned with improved navigation, enhanced comment legibility and better overall utility. This design makes the photo the hero, letting the content itself shine through. And we’re introducing a completely new photo-tagging experience that’s both fun and fluid, and lets you quickly focus on the people in your photos.
We hope that you enjoy these improvements and continue to provide us feedback. It’s been an incredible year for us on the Google+ team. While this indeed has been a #seasonforshipping, Google+ users know that we believe that shipping is always in season! We’ve been busy making some resolutions for 2012, and we think you’re going to love them.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Join Our Flash Mob....FOR GOOD!
On a typical Friday afternoon at YouTube, you can expect to see most people scrambling to finish their work or getting ready for Google’s weekly TGIF meeting. This past Friday, something different occurred: the first-ever YouTube Holiday Giving Flash Mob. Flash mobs? Aren’t those mainly for hipsters dancing in shopping malls and subway stations? Yes, many are, but we thought it would be cool to channel the crowd-sourced energy of your standard flash mob and put it towards a good cause.
Hundreds of YouTubers across various offices came together to give back to DonorsChoose.org, an organization doing wonderful work for kids across the US. One great thing about DonorsChoose is that they’re crowd-sourced giving -- public school teachers from across America post classroom project requests on the site. Requests range from pencils for a poetry writing unit, to violins for a school recital, to microscope slides for a biology class. You can browse project requests and give any amount to the one that inspires you. Once a project reaches its funding goal, they deliver the materials to the school.
In total, our YouTube Flash Mob raised thousands of dollars across several different projects. Thanks to Google’s Corporate Giving Match program and DonorsChoose offering to match the first $100 of each YouTube employee’s donation, we should eventually be able to double our initial total donation.
But it doesn’t stop there - we want to invite you to be part of our Flash Mob. DonorsChoose has generously agreed to also match all donations through Dec 31, 2011. All you need to do is enter the word “YOUTUBE” in the “I have a gift or match code” field during checkout on the site and DonorsChoose will match up to $100 of your gift*. So find a project and give what you can. While DonorsChoose is a U.S. based organization, we don’t want to limit the giving to within our borders. You can tell us what other organizations and charities hold a special place in your heart by leaving a comment on the YouTube Google+ page. In January we’ll report back on the total donation amount and other global charities you’ve brought to our attention!
Happy Giving!
Hunter Walk, Product Manager, who recently watched “DonorsChoose.org: The Colbert Report’s Charity of Choice”
*DonorsChoose has agreed to match $100 of all gifts using the promotional code ‘YouTube’ up to a certain point.
*Gift matching does not apply when one individual fully funds a project in its entirety, so feel free to spread the love across multiple projects to take advantage of the matching funds.
Hundreds of YouTubers across various offices came together to give back to DonorsChoose.org, an organization doing wonderful work for kids across the US. One great thing about DonorsChoose is that they’re crowd-sourced giving -- public school teachers from across America post classroom project requests on the site. Requests range from pencils for a poetry writing unit, to violins for a school recital, to microscope slides for a biology class. You can browse project requests and give any amount to the one that inspires you. Once a project reaches its funding goal, they deliver the materials to the school.
In total, our YouTube Flash Mob raised thousands of dollars across several different projects. Thanks to Google’s Corporate Giving Match program and DonorsChoose offering to match the first $100 of each YouTube employee’s donation, we should eventually be able to double our initial total donation.
But it doesn’t stop there - we want to invite you to be part of our Flash Mob. DonorsChoose has generously agreed to also match all donations through Dec 31, 2011. All you need to do is enter the word “YOUTUBE” in the “I have a gift or match code” field during checkout on the site and DonorsChoose will match up to $100 of your gift*. So find a project and give what you can. While DonorsChoose is a U.S. based organization, we don’t want to limit the giving to within our borders. You can tell us what other organizations and charities hold a special place in your heart by leaving a comment on the YouTube Google+ page. In January we’ll report back on the total donation amount and other global charities you’ve brought to our attention!
Happy Giving!
Hunter Walk, Product Manager, who recently watched “DonorsChoose.org: The Colbert Report’s Charity of Choice”
*DonorsChoose has agreed to match $100 of all gifts using the promotional code ‘YouTube’ up to a certain point.
*Gift matching does not apply when one individual fully funds a project in its entirety, so feel free to spread the love across multiple projects to take advantage of the matching funds.
Project for Awesome 2011 Begins Today!
Today’s guest post comes from Hank and John Green, aka the VlogBrothers, with a reminder about how you can dramatically increase the level of awesome that exists around the world this year.
Last week, we asked you to participate in this year’s Project for Awesome. Today, December 17th at 12PM ET, is when all the awesomeness begins.
We’d love for you to join Project for Awesome by doing one of the following:
Thanks again for being awesome!
Posted by Hank and John Green, the VlogBrothers, recently watched, "Josh Sundquist - P4A: Pimp My Disabled Ski Team Van [NSCD]."
Last week, we asked you to participate in this year’s Project for Awesome. Today, December 17th at 12PM ET, is when all the awesomeness begins.
We’d love for you to join Project for Awesome by doing one of the following:
- Upload a video for your favorite charity and tag it with “p4a.”
- Share your and your friends’ videos on YouTube, your favorite social networks, and everywhere else. Also like, ‘favorite’ and comment on the videos and be sure to use #P4A.
- Donate to your favorite charities and causes.
Thanks again for being awesome!
Posted by Hank and John Green, the VlogBrothers, recently watched, "Josh Sundquist - P4A: Pimp My Disabled Ski Team Van [NSCD]."
Friday, December 16, 2011
Ho-ho-hold the phone: Santa’s on the line
This year, Santa wants you to reach out to him (after all, reindeer are only so-so conversationalists). If you or your family members have a special request for Santa, you can call him right from Gmail* and leave him a message at his Google Voice number: 855-34-SANTA. Santa won't be able to return messages himself—it’s a busy time of year for him—but he's promised to keep us up to date on happenings in the North Pole day by day.
You also can create and send a unique, customized phone call from Santa to anyone you know, from your nieces and nephews to old college friends, over the phone (to U.S. numbers only). Listen to a sample phone call, and send a message of your own from SendaCallFromSanta.com.
Of course, Santa is never one to fall behind the technological times (word on the street is that Rudolph’s nose was recently upgraded to an energy-efficient LED). So while the red suit may never go out of style, this year Santa has come up with an extra special way to spread the holiday cheer. But you’ll have to wait until it’s closer to Christmas to find out what it is. So no peeking—but keep checking the site!
Happy Holidays from your friends at Gmail.
*Calls from Gmail are free for U.S. and Canadian users, but will cost people outside those areas $.01/minute (plus any applicable VATs).
Google Apps highlights – 12/16/2011
This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.
The elves got an early jump on the holidays this year by leaving us some surprises in Google Apps over the last few weeks. Sharing from Gmail got a whole lot easier, and Google Calendar can make better use of precious screen space. We also have 10 new Google Apps customer stories to share from the tens of thousands that have gone Google in recent weeks.
Gmail gets more social
Last week we sprinkled a touch of Google+ into Gmail, making it easier to connect and share with people from your inbox. You can add people to circles right from an email thread through Gmail’s people widget, share photo attachments with friends and family on Google+ without leaving Gmail, and view a filtered version of your inbox only showing messages from people in your circles. We also improved Gmail’s address book by incorporating contact information shared by your friends, family and colleagues in their Google+ profiles.
New features in the Gmail iOS app
Just yesterday we added several new improvements to the Gmail app for iOS 4+. Now you can set up a custom email signature for mobile messages, manage your vacation responder, and view nested labels from your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. We also added scribbles, a fun way to spice up messages by adding a quick hand-drawn sketch. You can create scribbles using a range of colors, brush sizes, lines, erasers and spray paints from your touchscreen device.
More free calls right from Gmail
Last year we introduced free domestic calling in Gmail within the U.S. and Canada, and we’re extending this free service for the whole year of 2012. We’re happy to help you keep in touch with those special people in your life, for free.
Hide morning and night hours in Calendar
If you don’t often have appointments early in the morning or late at night, a new trick in Google Calendar might be useful. Now you can hide morning and night hours, leaving more screen real estate for the times of day when most of your events take place. Give it a try in Calendar Labs.
Who’s gone Google?
Businesses and schools are switching to Google Apps in droves these days. From tiny startups to large enterprises and nonprofits to college campuses, we love hearing the inspiring stories that our customers share. Here’s a new batch of stories for your reading pleasure: TripIt, IPSEN, Ebby Halliday, Ticket River, VigLink, HeyZap, The Great Books Foundation, Utah K-12 schools, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and UC Santa Cruz. Welcome one and all!
For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog, and keep an eye out for this series here after the holidays. We launched more than 150 improvements to Google Apps in 2011, and we have a ton more in store for 2012!
The elves got an early jump on the holidays this year by leaving us some surprises in Google Apps over the last few weeks. Sharing from Gmail got a whole lot easier, and Google Calendar can make better use of precious screen space. We also have 10 new Google Apps customer stories to share from the tens of thousands that have gone Google in recent weeks.
Gmail gets more social
Last week we sprinkled a touch of Google+ into Gmail, making it easier to connect and share with people from your inbox. You can add people to circles right from an email thread through Gmail’s people widget, share photo attachments with friends and family on Google+ without leaving Gmail, and view a filtered version of your inbox only showing messages from people in your circles. We also improved Gmail’s address book by incorporating contact information shared by your friends, family and colleagues in their Google+ profiles.
New features in the Gmail iOS app
Just yesterday we added several new improvements to the Gmail app for iOS 4+. Now you can set up a custom email signature for mobile messages, manage your vacation responder, and view nested labels from your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. We also added scribbles, a fun way to spice up messages by adding a quick hand-drawn sketch. You can create scribbles using a range of colors, brush sizes, lines, erasers and spray paints from your touchscreen device.
More free calls right from Gmail
Last year we introduced free domestic calling in Gmail within the U.S. and Canada, and we’re extending this free service for the whole year of 2012. We’re happy to help you keep in touch with those special people in your life, for free.
Hide morning and night hours in Calendar
If you don’t often have appointments early in the morning or late at night, a new trick in Google Calendar might be useful. Now you can hide morning and night hours, leaving more screen real estate for the times of day when most of your events take place. Give it a try in Calendar Labs.
Who’s gone Google?
Businesses and schools are switching to Google Apps in droves these days. From tiny startups to large enterprises and nonprofits to college campuses, we love hearing the inspiring stories that our customers share. Here’s a new batch of stories for your reading pleasure: TripIt, IPSEN, Ebby Halliday, Ticket River, VigLink, HeyZap, The Great Books Foundation, Utah K-12 schools, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and UC Santa Cruz. Welcome one and all!
For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog, and keep an eye out for this series here after the holidays. We launched more than 150 improvements to Google Apps in 2011, and we have a ton more in store for 2012!
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