Google vs eBay Netball Challenge: The Re-Mix

Posted by Christine Knight, Creative Maximiser (retail, media and entertainment team)

After our crushing defeat to the advanced netball forces of eBay in May, we were keen to challenge the eBayers to a rematch to prove our supremacy on the netball court.

With new team members recruited since the last event, and the will to get back our trophy, we threw down the gauntlet once more.

The big rematch took place on December 12. eBayers turned out in large numbers to support their team, including Simon Smith, eBay VP. (Simon was also kind enough to run our half-time auction of a Google Doodle signed by the Google Doodler, Dennis Hwang). In addition to the Doodle auction, we held a half-time shooting competition, with the money raised from both events (over $2000) going to the RSPCA.

The eBay team started the game hard and fast, trying to wear us down with their superior fitness. They took an early advantage of four points while we Googlers were still finding our feet.

Further into the quarter though, we made our comeback, gaining a small lead and keeping it for the rest of the game.

Finally, victory and a large shiny trophy were ours. A fitting end to 2007!

Google centre, Foxy, and eBay centre, Phuong, try intimidation tactics before the game.

Action close-up!

Wrestling the trophy back from eBay

Smiling, happy Googlers and eBayers

A change is as good as a holiday

Posted by Carl Sjogreen, Group Product Manager, Australia & New Zealand

With summer holidays coming up, I regret to say that we aren't slowing down - we continue to work on finding the best ways to make your experience on Google as easy and useful as possible. To this end, you might have noticed a slight change to the Google Australia homepage to help you better navigate our site and find the information you're looking for.

We have introduced a new navigation bar at the top of the page to provide easier navigation to your favorite Google products, such as Google Maps and our popular email product, Gmail.

As well as being able to use this bar to navigate to your favourite Google products, using this navigation bar, you can "drill down" to specific types of information when you search. For instance, if you search for [Great Barrier Reef], you can click on the links for "web," "images", "maps, "news", "video" and "more" (under which you can see results in books, blogs, scholarly articles and more) to immediately find more results.

This is part of our vision of consistent navigation across all Google search properties. We recognise that the search result you are looking for may not be a web page - it may be a geographic location, a news article, an image, a blog post, a video or in a book. The new navigation bar makes it easier for you to find exactly what you want with a single click of the mouse.

Hope you find the new look and feel useful and, as always, feedback is most welcome!

Doodle 4 Google: The winner is...

Posted by Ashley Gorringe, Doodle 4 Google Team

We were thrilled on Wednesday to announce the winners of Doodle 4 Google, our initiative for young Australians to draw their own version of the Google logo around the theme of 'My Australia'.

All four age group winners were decided by the Australian public in an online vote over the past month and Dennis Hwang, the original Google Doodler, selected the overall winner from these. Dennis said, "Choosing the successful entry was not easy. I was blown away by the creativity of all the doodles and wide array of Australian imagery which was used."

The national winner was Janelle San Juan, a 12 year old student from The School of the Good Shepherd in Victoria. The title of her drawing was 'A scene of sheer formality' and among other things, incorporated the distinctive beach sheds found at Brighton Beach in Victoria. Janelle's doodle will appear on the Google Australia homepage on Australia Day 2008. Dennis noted: "Her design was both unique and at the same time instantly recognisable as being Australian. The depiction of the sun, the kangaroo sign in the outback, the bathing box at the beach and the people relaxing in the shade of the tree make this the perfect doodle for Australia Day."

Congratulations Janelle! (She also wins $10,000 of technology equipment for her school and a MacBook Pro).


The other age group winners were Clayton Rowlings from Tasmania (Years 1-3), Madeline Spooner from South Australia (Years 7-8) and Angela Jones from South Australia (Years 9-10). Brilliant job by these guys who all win an interactive whiteboard for their schools.

To acknowledge the huge achievement on the part of our 32 finalists, we brought them to Sydney from all over Australia for our grand finale. The culmination of the event was our prizegiving, when Dennis announced the overall winner.

I'm sure many of you are already familiar with the various doodles, but we'll be putting the winners up on our site in the next couple of days. And don't forget to visit the Google Australia homepage on Australia Day next year to see the winning doodle taking centre stage.

Engineers should not wear suits

Posted by Raul Vera, Engineering Manager - Geo

It's against the laws of nature. If God had wanted engineers to wear suits, he would have given us social skills and motor coordination. I violated this law on Tuesday night, and woe befell me.

Google Maps won the Australian PC Authority Magazine award for Best Web Application (we were co-winners with Facebook). We were naturally thrilled to get this recognition. Our Head of Engineering, Alan Noble and I attended the awards ceremony.

The invite made it clear that this was a gala event, in the Grand Ballroom of the Star City Casino, for which the attire was "Suited and Booted" for men, and "Dressed to Impress" for women. In a fit of conformity, I chose to wear a suit. Once wearing the suit, I couldn't bring myself to take my grotty old backpack, as it really would ruin the look. Bad move.

The awards ceremony was great. The wine hit the spot, the food good, and the people at our table friendly. When the Google Maps award was announced, I went up to accept it and was photographed with the magazine editor, just as I was meant to, then came back and sat down.

So the whole thing was winding down just fine, when I noticed that some of the other award recipients had been given protective boxes to put their heavy, pointy lucite awards into. I looked around for someone distributing the boxes, but the room was emptying. So I picked up the award and my umbrella, and headed out the door. Outside, the issue of PC Authority featuring the award winners was available. So I grabbed one and headed down to the Star City light rail station. I caught the train, put the award, magazine, and umbrella on the seat next to me, and pulled out my book to read. When we reached my station, I plopped the book onto the pile and picked up the lot by basically wrapping it all up in the magazine, then got off the train.

Except the award is heavy, the magazine is slick, and the book was one thing too many. The award slid out the front and fell, pointy end down, onto the train platform, which is made of concrete. Oops. Not so pointy any more. The photo shows the award, with a severely dented corner in front, a rather mangled hole of missing lucite at the back, and grotty scratches on the front right edge.


Why do I blame the suit? Because if I hadn't worn one I would have taken my backpack, and the award would have been safely tucked inside it next to the laptop, not tumbling onto a train platform. Geekiness was conserved, because only a clumsy geek would try to walk while carrying that pile of stuff wrapped in a magazine.

So the suit goes back into the closet until the next funeral.

Ed: Last awards ceremony you get sent to....;)

Great to be on board...

Posted by Karim Temsamani, General Manager, Google Australia and New Zealand

It's clear that the volume of online content is increasing at an incredible rate - Google's core job is to find needles in an ever-growing haystack. So I thought there's no better way to start my time as the new GM of Google Australia and NZ than to contribute to that haystack with a post on our blog.

The online ecosystem in Australia is buoyant at present, and I'm buoyant about its growth in the coming years. As you know, Australians are spending more time online, purchasing products, reading blogs, starting websites, running businesses, and using technology to find and share information.

To match this, Google is investing significantly in our team in Australia, as Australian consumers and businesses navigate the growing online world.

We want to provide you with more of those "aha!" moments - whether it's finding the exact search result you want, finding driving directions and local businesses on Google Maps, getting instantaneous news feeds on your iGoogle page, or collaborating in real time with friends in other countries through Google Docs. Behind the scenes, there's a large team here that is working to ensure that you get access to the latest Google products, and that we continually improve our existing products.

At the same time, we want to continue providing small and large Australian businesses with the opportunity to connect with customers, and use our range of technology and products to grow their businesses.

So as Christmas parties and the festive season in Australia are just starting to kick off, my work is just beginning. It's a thrill to start at Google and I promise to grow that haystack a little more, with more posts here.