Growing the digital economy, one small business at a time

Today at CeBIT Sydney, Minister Stephen Conroy outlined the government’s plan for making Australia a leading global digital economy by 2020. Having this sort of vision -- and the investment behind it -- is crucial for Australia.

We’ve been seeing the digital economy come to life, one small business at a time, through the Getting Aussie Business Online program from Google and MYOB. The digital economy isn’t just something that benefits big companies or people who were born with a special technology gene. For small businesses it opens up opportunities to reach new customers. And it makes it easy for all of us to find the services we rely on in our daily lives.

Fiona Carver from Goolwa, SA, is one face of the Australian digital economy. Fiona runs Ezyassist, a small business that specialises in bookkeeping and financial advisory services for wine makers in the Barossa Valley. She set up her new website through the Getting Aussie Business Online program and created a simple online advertising campaign. She has had more than 80,000 views to her web page and has converted some of those visitors into paying customers -- customers she wouldn’t have if she hadn’t been online.

A recent report by the McKinsey Global Institute shows that “small and medium businesses heavily using web technologies grow and export 2x as much as others.” Yet according to the MYOB Business Monitor, two-thirds of Aussie small businesses don’t even have a website. Getting Aussie Business Online is starting to close this gap; since its launch in March, the campaign has helped set up over 12,000 new websites. Interesting fact: Western Australian businesses are punching above their weight and getting online at a faster rate than other states and territories; we’ve seen nearly 1,400 businesses there sign up.

Posted by Iarla Flynn, Head of Policy, Google Australia

Tips for National Cybersecurity Awareness Week

This week is National Cybersecurity Awareness Week and we thought we’d pull together some ideas on how you can stay safe and secure online. In most cases, staying safe online is about a combination of practicing safe behaviors and making sure you’re using the latest, most secure tools and products.

When it comes to passwords, choose wisely

It’s best to use unique passwords for your accounts, especially important accounts like email and online banking. Selecting a password with a mix of numbers and letters will make it harder for someone to guess or crack. For more tips on choosing smart passwords, check out this blog post.



Be mindful of phishing attempts, and avoid getting hooked

“Phishing”: when someone masquerades as someone else in an effort to fool you into sharing personal or other sensitive information with them. This could include account numbers, user names and passwords, or other personal information. Most legitimate businesses will never ask for this information via email. Google doesn't. You can find out more in this blog post.



Develop safe Internet browsing habits

Be careful to sign-out of your account when you’re finished, especially when using a public computer, such as those at libraries or Internet cafes. Don’t share personal information on untrusted sites, and use your judgement when opening files online or in your email. If you happen to get an email from a friend with an attachment you didn't expect, don't be afraid to ask the sender what it is before you decide whether to open it.



Look out for extra security features in services, like HTTPS

Any time you visit a webpage, your computer needs to send and receive information across the Internet. HTTPS encrypts data as it is transmitted between computers on the Internet. You can look for the "https" in the URL bar of your browser to make sure the data is being sent over a secure connection.

Posted by Ishtar Vij, Public Policy Team, Google Australia & New Zealand.

Weekend Reading: McKinsey Global Institute Research on the Economic Impact of the Internet

This week at the e-G8 Forum in Paris the McKinsey Global Institute unveiled a new research report that attempts to show “how the web in its entirety contributes to global growth, productivity, and employment.”

The McKinsey researchers looked at the Internet economies of the G-8 nations as well as Brazil, China, India, South Korea, and Sweden. Here are a few of the findings that we in Sydney thought were most interesting:

• “The Internet accounts for 21% of GDP growth in the last 5 years in mature countries”
• “Most of the economic value created by the Internet falls outside of the technology sector, with 75% of the benefits captured by companies in more traditional industries.”
• “Small and medium businesses heavily using web technologies grow and export 2x as much as others”
• “Infrastructure investment is essential” -- it’s an “irreplaceable prerequisite” for countries that want to maximize the economic benefits of the web

The report also mentioned some government funded programs around the world that were designed to encourage Internet usage among individuals and businesses. For example, the South Korean government launched the “Ten-Million-People Internet Education” program to reach demographic groups, like the elderly and farmers, who are not typically associated with Web activity.

This research provides some very relevant food for thought as we debate the future of the Digital Economy here in Australia.

Posted by Iarla Flynn, Head of Policy, Google Australia

5 days, 5 Tips: Get your website basics right

In the last three months, we’ve seen thousands of businesses from across Australia create a free website as part of Getting Aussie Business Online, a nationwide initiative to give small businesses a site that’s easy to set up and maintain. Accountants, plumbers, wholesalers, and even free range farmers can now be found by the millions of Aussies looking for local business information online.

But we’ve heard from many businesses that after they push go and publish their website, they’re not quite sure what to do next. So we’ve created five tips for making simple improvements. Try out one each day for the next week, and see what a difference you can make in five days.

TIP #1 -- Pick a good domain name. Your domain name is part of your identity online. This is the address that customers type into the address bar in their Internet browser to reach your website. It’s how they remember your site, so it’s important that it’s short, simple, and relevant to your business name or products and services. Try to keep it under 10 characters, and avoid special characters like hyphens. Check your domain name by reading it aloud and having a friend take a look.

TIP #2 -- Describe your business clearly. Pretend you’re describing your business to a total stranger who knows nothing about you, what you sell, or how to find you. Keep your language simple and easy-to-understand and include essentials like location, opening hours, and contact information. Use short sentences, headings, and bullet points.

TIP #3 -- Explain why you stand out. What makes you better than big chains or other competitors? It could be a service or an expertise not offered by others, such as a bike shop that offers same-day service for repairs or a personal consultation to get the right frame fit. Back up any claims with clear examples. For example, “accountant with 30 years of experience in tax law” is better than “experienced accountant”.

TIP #4 -- Be a stickler for details. Your website is not the place to be fuzzy on details like opening hours or contact information. Use precise language to describe your hours of operations and how to contact you. Instead of “open some Sundays”, make it clear that you’re “open first Sunday of every month” or ask your customers to “call to arrange an appointment on Sunday”.

TIP #5 -- Spellcheck. At best, typos can make your website look sloppy and unprofessional. At worst, they can leave potential customers wondering whether you pay attention to more important business details. Review your website for misspellings, extra letters and characters, and incorrect grammar. You don’t have to be the comma police, but you should have the right number of “o”s in Woolloomooloo.

Remember that a website is a living thing, so you can log in and update it any time you like. Let these tips guide you and stay tuned for more.

Posted by Kate Conroy, Product Specialist

Dame Nellie Melba honoured with a Google Doodle

You might have noticed that the Google Doodle today is celebrating Dame Nellie Melba’s 150th birthday.



A grand dame in Australian opera, Dame Nellie was one of the most famous singers in our country’s history. In fact, she was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician, and along with May Whitty, she was one of the first stage performers to be granted a damehood of the Order of the British Empire. Melba was also the first Australian to appear on the cover of Time magazine in April 1927 (and you also may recognise her from her appearance on our $100 note).





Over the years, doodles on the Google homepage have made searching on Google more fun and enjoyable for its users worldwide. We hope you enjoy seeing Dame Nellie’s doodle today.



Posted by Kate Mason, Google Communications

Showcase your business with a 360-degree perspective

The George Hotel, South Melbourne.

Last week we launched Business Photos in Australia and New Zealand, a new use of Street View technology where businesses can let people who visit their Places pages walk virtually into their restaurants or shops.



With our Business Photos pilot, we’ve been busy photographing businesses, with their permission, to highlight the qualities that make their locations stand out.



We can look at Melbourne, the city of alleyways and arcades, as a great example of how you can research shops, restaurants and bars right from your computer or smartphone. Looking for a birthday cake? You can have a look at the desserts right up close at the Melbourne Bake House. Researching where to hang out with some mates? You can take a peek inside the Railway Hotel. You can even admire the baby grands at Melbourne Piano Sales!



With this pilot, you'll begin to see additional photo experiences on the Place pages of a growing number of businesses. As additional imagery becomes available for more locations in the coming months, you’ll also be able to enter the interior perspective of businesses directly from the Street View images of nearby roads on Google Maps.



We’re continuing this program with businesses in select cities in the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, UK, South Korea, and France. If you would like to highlight your business to Google Maps users, please visit the Business Photos site to learn more and apply.

Posted by Andrew Foster, Product Manager for Google Maps.

What you should know about click fraud

You might have seen some headlines in the last couple of days claiming that click fraud, or invalid clicks on online ads, is on the rise in Australia. If you’re an advertiser, does that mean a large percentage of your ad spend is suddenly going to these fraudulent clicks? We want to reassure you that the answer is no!

We use “invalid clicks” to characterize any clicks that Google does not charge to advertisers because they have little or no value. We call these “invalid clicks” instead of “click fraud”, because we have no way to judge the intent of the click and whether it’s deliberately fraudulent or just accidental. For example, some people habitually ‘double click’ when using a mouse. The second click in a double click is not fraudulent, but we still consider it invalid. Regardless of the intent, Google doesn’t charge advertisers for invalid clicks.

Here’s what you need to know about invalid clicks:

The real number: less than 0.02 percent
Invalid clicks are similar to email spam. The absolute volume of spam that exists on the Web goes up and down, but the only number that matters to you is the volume that appears in your inbox. Similarly, the only number that matters when in comes to invalid clicks is the rate at which it goes undetected. That number is minuscule: less than 0.02 percent. Put another way, for every ten thousand clicks on Google AdWords ads, fewer than two are reactively detected cases of possible click fraud. And no matter what...you don’t pay for them.

Advertisers don’t pay for invalid clicks
The most important thing to remember is that advertisers do not pay for invalid clicks. The vast majority of invalid clicks never appear in advertisers’ accounts, and advertisers never pay for these clicks. Google proactively detects and filters invalid clicks so that advertisers never see them. In the relatively rare cases in which advertisers are affected by undetected click fraud, we investigate, mark those clicks as invalid, and refund the advertiser. If you’re an AdWords advertiser, you can see for yourself how many invalid clicks have been proactively filtered from your Google AdWords account.

Google leads the industry in proactive detection
Click fraud protection is something we take very seriously, and it requires a great deal of research and development to do effectively. We believe we lead the industry in our level of investment as well as the effectiveness of our tools. We have a three stage-system for invalid click detection: (1) real-time filters, (2) offline analysis, and (3) reactive investigations. You can read a full description of this system on our Inside AdWords blog.

But is the problem of click fraud getting bigger or not?
As with all things you read, you should consider the source; those hyping the issue are usually those who have the most to gain. It’s true that invalid clicks, like email spam, aren’t a solved problem. We have teams of engineers who continue to innovate and invest in this area of our advertising system to stay a step ahead. It’s in the long term interests of Google and the industry to protect advertisers against invalid clicks.

Posted by Kate Conroy, AdWords Product Specialist

Remembering fallen journalists on video

This is a cross-post from the Official Google Blog

We live in a world that feels smaller every day. As we become accustomed to nearly ubiquitous coverage of the news and events unfolding around the world, it’s easy to forget the price that is sometimes paid to obtain quality, accurate reporting on important stories—particularly in areas of conflict or in cases of government repression of the media. With this in mind, today, the Newseum in Washington, D.C., Google and YouTube are together launching the Journalists Memorial channel on YouTube to remember the journalists who have died in the last year while reporting news around the world.



Their stories are incredible: heading into a street battle with no weapon other than your camera; talking about politics over the radio, only to be beaten to death with iron bars by a group of thugs on the way to work. The risks and sacrifices that many have made in order to provide us with accurate information is remarkable. On the Journalists Memorial channel you can watch a collection of videos representing these journalists’ lives and their work.

This channel will become a digital version of the Newseum’s Journalists Memorial, which is re-dedicated annually to honor journalists worldwide who have died during the preceding year. This year, 77 names are being added to the list of the more than 2,000 journalists who have been recognized for their sacrifices since 1837. At today’s rededication ceremony, Krishna Bharat, the founder and head of Google News, will be delivering the keynote address, which the Newseum will post to the new YouTube channel later today.



In tribute to those who are being honored at today’s ceremony, we would like your help finding videos that profile or represent the work of all journalists who have risked or lost their lives doing the important work they do. We invite you to go to the Journalists Memorial channel and submit videos you think deserve recognition to the Moderator platform on the channel. The Newseum will be featuring additional submissions there.



Posted by Steve Grove, YouTube News and Politics

3D dreams in the modern browser

This is a cross-post from the Official Google Blog.

Some of the most compelling experiences on the web come when inspirations of old are brought to life with modern technologies. Last August, “The Wilderness Downtown” brought the wistful feeling of nostalgia to the browser as you run down the streets where you used to live in an HTML5 music experience based on the Arcade Fire song “We Used to Wait.”



“3 Dreams of Black” is our newest music experience for the web browser, written and directed by Chris Milk and developed with a few folks here at Google. The song, “Black,” comes off the album ROME, presented by Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi, featuring Jack White and Norah Jones on vocals and soon to be released on the record label Parlophone/EMI. ROME is inspired by Italian soundtracks from the 1960s and the classic Italian Western genre. In fact, the album was recorded with the original orchestra from Italian director Sergio Leone’s westerns (remember The Good, The Bad & The Ugly?).



“3 Dreams of Black” is a visual voyage through three dream worlds, told through rich 2D drawings and animations that are interspersed with interactive 3D sequences. At various points in this web experience, you can take control with your computer’s mouse and guide your journey through the unfolding narrative. You can even contribute to the dream by creating your own relics using a 3D model creator. Some of the best user creations will be integrated into the experience and become a part of others’ “3 Dreams” exploration.

In “3 Dreams in Black”, the browser is transformed into a theater for these lucid virtual dreams through WebGL, a new technology which brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the browser. With WebGL in modern browsers like Google Chrome, you can interact with 3D experiences with no need for additional software. For curious web developers out there, we’ve made all the code completely open and available so that you can dig in, have a look around and try it out for yourself.



Because “3 Dreams in Black” is an experiment built with the latest web technologies, it requires a browser that supports WebGL like Chrome, and Windows Vista / Mac OS X 10.6 or above to help ensure that your computer has up-to-date graphics drivers. For those of you who may have hardware constraints, we’ve put together a short video that we hope will provide a glimpse into this unique experience. To explore these dreamscapes, visit www.ro.me.



Posted by Aaron Koblin, Google Data Arts Team

An Aussie’s Take on Google I/O

I spent last week at Google I/O, Google’s annual conference for developers held in San Francisco. This conference is all about making the web a better place -- the nuts and bolts of software development that most folks don’t ever think about when they add apps to their Android phones or when they log into their Gmail. What’s interesting about all these developers getting stoked about building the apps of the future is that they take one thing for granted: high speed Internet connectivity. That’s not to say they don’t recognise that sometimes connectivity is slow or erratic -- they do, and we’re all trying to find ways to make sure our apps can work in those situations. What I mean is that their starting assumption is that high speed connectivity is fast becoming like electricity or running water -- never far away when you need it, and plenty of it. I love this optimism -- and it’s this optimism that is bringing the National Broadband Network to Australia.

Out of all the exciting announcements that came out of Google this week, every single one of them relies on high speed broadband. YouTube movie rentals -- tick. Syncing your music library and movies from Android Market across your PC and your Android tablet and phone -- tick. Using a Chromebook, where your apps, games, photos, music, movies and documents will be accessible wherever you are and you don't need to worry about losing your computer or forgetting to back up files -- tick. These products will run on the networks we we have now, but just imagine their potential -- and the potential of the ideas of all the developers in Moscone Center and those around the world watching Google I/O streamed over YouTube -- when we have high speed Internet everywhere.

Most of us in the Sydney office wish we had a dollar for every time someone asked us about the NBN, “Yeah, but what are you going to do with all that speed?” or “What’s Google’s vision for how to use all that bandwidth?” I think we saw a taste of it at Google I/O.

Posted by Alan Noble, Engineering Director, Google Australia

Seven Days of Searching

In the last seven days, one of the busiest news week of the year, the fastest rising search term on Google worldwide has been “bin laden”. Osama-related searches have rated as the fastest rising search term this year.

Australia and New Zealand have followed this trend, with Osama bin Laden rating as the fastest rising search, followed by the Royal Wedding. In Australia, the Logies made it into the top ten list, and in New Zealand. Auckland’s Albany tornado activity came in a no. 7.



Pippa Middleton is clearly an Aussie and Kiwi favourite, with searches for the Duchess’s sister also coming in above Kate Middleton!



Times have definitely changed: while the only viewing platform for the wedding of Charles and Diana was television back in 1981, last week’s royal wedding had us watching the live stream of the service and procession on YouTube - with the British Monarchy’s official YouTube channel TheRoyalChannel receiving almost 28 million views.



The week leading up to the wedding saw an abundance of royal wedding-related searches including everything from Kate’s dress to Prince Harry. Now, amidst the flurry of post-game analysis, people are focusing on highlights from the day - with the Middleton sisters being a standout in search even a week after the event.



Osama bin Laden and tornado coverage, both being breaking news, have immediately gone straight to the list of breakout searches. The three biggest news stories of the last week have certainly dominated search engine and newsrooms alike.



Fastest rising searches in Australia over the last seven days:

1. bin laden

2. bin laden dead

3. osama

4. osama bid laden

5. osama dead

6. pippa middleton

7. logies

8. royal wedding

9. kate middleton

10. biggest loser



Fastest rising searches in New Zealand over the last seven days:

1. bin laden

2. bin laden dead

3. osama

4. osama bin laden

5. osama dead

6. pippa middleton

7. tornado auckland

8. tornado

9. kate middleton

10. royal wedding

Posted by Kate Mason, Google Australia

Privacy Awareness Week 2011

You might have noticed the talk around privacy this week. It just so happens to have been Privacy Awareness Week.



Privacy Awareness Week 2011 is all about you: what can you do to protect your personal information?



This week we’ve been tweeting some tips about protecting your privacy:

• The Google Dashboard is where you can change your privacy settings on all Google products from one easy location.
• You can find more information about protecting your privacy online at Your Online Choices.
• Check your privacy policy and settings on social networks you use.
• Have a look at our Privacy Centre, which contains specific info about all of our privacy tools and products.

As part of Privacy Awareness Week, the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities are interested in hearing about your experience of privacy and social media. Take part in their survey and tell your story here.

Posted by Ishtar Vij, Public Policy and Government Affairs.

Privacy Impact Assessment for Street View in Australia

This week is Privacy Awareness Week — a week to put privacy front and centre. Last year, we worked with the Privacy Commissioner to support the investigation into what happened with our mistaken collection of publicly broadcast payload data (information sent over unencrypted WiFi networks) through our Street View cars. When the Commissioner concluded the investigation last year, we committed to working even more closely with them on the privacy implications of our product launches going forward. This blog post is an update on what has happened since that time.



First, you may remember that our ultimate goal was to delete the payload data. We can report that this was completed in February under independent supervision.



Second, one of the commitments we made to the Commissioner was to conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) on any further Street View activities in Australia. Today we are publishing that PIA. We have carefully considered the potential privacy impact of Street View and how to manage present and future privacy issues.



In summary, we will continue to:

• Ensure Street View images are not real time.
• Use automatic technology to blur faces and licence plates before publishing imagery. If one of our images contains an identifiable face (for example, that of a passerby on the pavement) or an identifiable licence plate, our technology will blur it automatically, meaning that the individual or the vehicle cannot be identified.
• Provide the “Report a problem” tool which allows users to request further blurring or removal of any image or let us know if our detectors miss something.

In addition, we have made some changes to our process. We removed all WiFi equipment from our Street View cars and will not be collecting any WiFi data via the Street View cars. We have also taken steps to strengthen our internal privacy controls. Last October Google appointed Alma Whitten as our director of privacy across both engineering and product management. Her focus is ensuring that we build effective privacy controls into our products and internal practices. We have also enhanced our privacy training program for employees, and we require every engineering project leader to maintain a privacy design document for each initiative they are working on. This document records how user data is handled and will be reviewed regularly by managers, as well as by an independent internal audit team.



We want to reiterate to Australians that our collection of payload data was a mistake for which we are sincerely sorry. Maintaining people’s trust is crucial to everything we do, and we have to earn that trust every single day.



We are now looking forward to getting Street View cars back on the roads and continuing to provide a product that is useful for all Australians.



Posted by Alan Eustace, Senior Vice President, Engineering and Research

Google Shopping arrives in Australia

It’s fair to say a growing number of Australians are turning to the web to shop. That’s why we’re delighted to announce that Google Shopping is now available in Australia.



Google Shopping is a product search engine that helps people discover product information online, compare prices and find a retailer from whom they can make a purchase.



Let’s say I was looking to buy a digital camera for my upcoming trip to Tasmania. I enter my search into google.com.au, as usual, and click the ‘Shopping’ tab on the left hand side, so I get a full page of product results relevant to my query.

I’d like to find a camera for under $250, so I select the price range from the filters on the left hand side so that I only see results that meet these criteria. Results are ranked according to relevance.

To help me make a decision, Google also shows product reviews so I can see what other people thought of each camera before clicking through to a store to buy my chosen model.

To try out Google Shopping for yourself, visit google.com.au/shopping



If you’re a retailer, large or small, wishing to reach more customers in Australia, Google Shopping can make it easy for Web users to discover your products and bring traffic and sales to your site. Retailers can sign up to Google Shopping for free by submitting a catalogue of their products to the new Google Merchant Center, also launching today. To learn more, check out the this ‘Getting Started’ guide.



In conjunction with Google Shopping, retailers that choose to advertise their products can now do so through AdWords Product Extensions. Product Extensions use the product information submitted by the retailer and automatically displays this information within ads, where relevant. To learn more about Product extensions, click here.



Happy shopping!



Posted by Amy Gepfert, Program Manager, Google Shopping