Googlepedia Second Edition Now Shipping!

Just published: The new second edition of Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource. This new edition is updated with everything new at Google in the past year, including YouTube, Blogger, Google Reader, Google Maps, and the like. The new edition is a big honkin' 822 pp. long, and sells for $34.99. Look for it at a bookstore near you, or read more (and order it) online: Googlepedia web page.

Google Reader Search

If you use Google Reader to keep track of your RSS feeds and such, you can now search across all your feeds via a new top-of-page search box. Nice!

Google Book Search Virtual Library

Google Book Search now lets you create a virtual online library of your favorite books. Add a book to your library by searching for it and then clicking the Add to Library link. Or you can import a list of ISBNs. Your choice.

This creates a list of the books you've selected. You can share your book list with others, thanks to the list's public URL. You can also categorize your books, write reviews, and rate the books. Cool!

What Time is It?

Here's a new query option for Google search. To display the local time for any location in the world, simply enter the query what time is it in location. Google then displays a OneBox result with the current local time.

Blogger Play

Here's a cool new Blogger-related toy. Blogger Play is a site that displays the most recently-uploaded photos to Blogger blogs, in a never-ending slideshow. It's a great time waster!

Google News Videos

Google News is now more than just text stories. Google has added news videos from CBS, Reuters, the BBC, and other sources. The videos are actually hosted by YouTube, and accessible from the Google News site.

Embed Google Maps on Your Site

Google has finally added a much-requested feature to Google Maps, the ability to easily embed any Google Map you create into your own website. It's similar to the way you can embed YouTube videos; on each Google Maps page you now find HTML code to both link to the map and to embed the map. Just cut and paste this short little snippet of HTML into your web page or blog, and Google will embed the map onto your page. It's easy enough just about anyone can do it. Good job, Google!

Google Video Refund Update

When Google decided to close down the Google Video Store, which lets you buy and rent videos, it initially said it would close down access to purchased videos almost immediately and refund users' purchases via a Google Checkout credit. Users balked at this; they wanted continued access to the videos they'd bought, and thought the Google Checkout credit was a blatant promo for Google's own payment service. Google has responded to the complaints by (1) Extending access to purchased videos for the next six months (2) Refuding all user purchases, from day one, to their credit cards, and (3) Keeping the Google Checkout credit as a kind of "we're sorry" bonus to users. That's a fast and above-the-call-of-duty response to user complaints, and shows a very customer-focused attitude on the part of Google management. Good decision!

Video Ads in YouTube

Google has finally figured out a way to serve video ads in YouTube. For videos from selected partners, YouTube now displays an ad overlay that appears about 15 seconds into the video. The overlay takes up the bottom half of the screen; you can click to close the overlay, or it will disappear on its own after 10 seconds. To view the associated ad, just click the appropriate part of the overlay.

Right now, these ad overlays are added only to videos from YouTube's major content partners, and Google shares the ad revenue with those partners. You don't have to worry about Google popping an ad onto your own personal video. (At least not yet, anyway.) The response to this development is divided -- advertisers love it, while the YouTube community hates it. And so it goes.

Google Sky

Google Earth isn't Earth-bound any more. The latest version of Google Earth (new download required) includes a feature called Sky, which includes high-resolution images of hundreds of millions of stars from more than 200 million galaxies. The images are gathered from a variety of giant telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope.

To switch to Sky mode in Google Earth, click the planet icon on the toolbar. Alternately, pull down the View menu and select Switch to Sky. Click on any point in the sky to zoom into a closer image, and to display information about that star, planet, or galaxy.