Power Searching with Google

Google is hosting a new MOOC -- Massive Open Online Course Power Searching with Google is a free online course featuring powerful techniques to solve real, everyday problems using Google. Visit the course homepage to learn more. By the end of this course, you'll know several new techniques that will make you a Google Power Searcher and help you find out information about whatever you can imagine.

Register now. The Google Lessons will be released daily starting on July 10. Work alongside a worldwide community, while you take the lessons on your own schedule during a two-week window.

FindThatFile: Media Search Engine

Continuing my posts about search engines, there is a new site called FindThatFile. FindThatFile is a media file search engine. It locates media for you (documents, audio, video, etc). It has two flavors: edu.findthatfile.com specifically searching for library, education, and and government resources; and the broader www.findthatfile.com. My first question is, why is this better than using Google tricks for limiting to file type and specific types of sites (filetype:ppt or site:gov)? I was skeptical that this new search engine would be different/better, but there are some features that make it worth checking out.

The site searches the web, FTP, upload services, torrents, emule and usenet. According to their About page, they "search more places than anyone else including 47 file types and 558+ file extensions including over 70 million domains. And, they "open each file, identify its author, title, contents, text extracts and all kinds of goodies that nobody else does."

FindThatFile also provides searching options to narrow your search by file type, date, and size. You can also sort your results by size, date, ratings, and sources. You can also get email alerts when new files are found based on your search. We Librarians do love the facets and alerts!

Give it a spin at:

Short & Sweet Google Tool

Maybe I'm the last person to know about this, but my friend just told me about the Google url shortener. It works like other shorteners, you just paste in the URL you want shortened so it can easily be shared, emailed, or tweeted. But leave it Google to take it a step further. Goo.gl also provides analytics and a QR code for each link.  Login to your Google account, enter the URL and follow the Details link to get to the QR code and the analytics. Nothing they are doing is new, but it's all in one place and the analytics for the QR code are easy. I love it!

Google's Think Insights on Word of Mouth Advertising

Google's Think Insights recently published their study "Word of Mouth Advertising and the Internet". Based on the fact that there are 2.4 billion conversations per day that involve a brand name totally 3.3 billion mentions of brands, Google did a study to look at the effects of the internet on these brand conversations and the effect on Word of Mouth (WOM). They had 3,000 adults respond to questions on how they used media or marketing sources before the conversation (triggered or sparked the brand talk), during the conversation (checked facts, referenced a source, shared content), and after the conversation (shared more widely, took action, or to learn more). Here are some of their key findings:

• 94% of Word of Mouth still take place face-to-face
• Google was the #1 source for sparking WOM conversations and the #1 place for finding more information after the conversation
• WOM conversations that start with search are more 25% more credible and 17% more likely to lead to a purchase than that those stared with social media sites

You can see the full report here. It's interesting that vast majority of these brand conversations are still taking place in person. And, it makes sense because I see my closest friends, those that influence me the most,  in person more than online. I'm not surprised that Google is the top site for sparking interest for these conversations, it is the top search engine. According to the study, search (and therefore Google) are still the most referenced sites used before, during, or after a conversation. Social Media is lagging back at 3.2%, do you think this will change in the next few years? Will my friends see where I'm shopping, eating, and what brands I "Like" and make purchase decisions based on that?  Is it still Word of Mouth if we aren't really talking about it, just doing it and being seen? I still think search will be a huge factor after the WOM conversation for research. We know what Google thinks, what do you think?

The Mobile Movement from Google Think Insights

Google's Think Insights has a great video out about understanding smartphone user behavior. Did you know that 39% of us use our smartphone while in the bathroom? Does this mean smartphones are the new magazines? Also, about 1 out of 3 smartphone users say they'd give up chocolate before giving up their phone. Other things we'd give up before our phones include beer, high heels (that's an easy one!),  Super Bowl tickets and Cable TV. You can see the complete report here and check out the video below for the highlights.

More Ways to Google for Market Research

Last week in the Tracking Down Free Market Research post, Laura revealed one of our secrets to finding expensive market research reports using Google. Here's another trick to use when you aren't lucky enough to find the entire research report. Look for excerpts of  that report, especially charts and graphs, highlighted in PowerPoint presentations. You can look in SlideShare, where you will find lots of presentations posted, but don't limit yourself just to that site. Do an advanced Google search and limit to the specific presentation file types or just add the shortcut filetype:PPT or filetype:PPTX to your keywords. Here's an example of a slide about the US Biodiesel Market that features a graph from Euromonitor International:

Casual Friday: Google Chrome Ads

Everyone get your Kleenex ready, Google just launched it's Chrome TV ad campaign - their biggest offline campaign ever - and the first two ads are real tearjerkers.  There is a tactical reason for all that emotion. As explained in the New York Times article, Google wants to appeal to users who are not interested in the technical benefits, but just want to see see what they can do with Chrome. The Dear Sophie ad shows a father creating an online scrapbook for his daughter in Gmail by sending her notes, photos from Picasa,  Google mapping their first house, and videos of dance classes and birthday parties. The It Gets Better ad , first aired this week during Glee, shows people using Chrome’s toolbar to record videos for the Dan Savage project of the same name to encourage gay teenagers that they can make it through the tough times.  How can you not tear up during these ads? Makes me want to switch to Chrome right now, so I guess it's working!

Common Craft Explanations Made Fun

At the Texas Library Association last week I had the pleasure of meeting Lee and Sachi LeFever from Common Craft. Those names might not sound familiar, but I just bet that you have seen their work. Those short explanatory videos with the paper cut outs that explain complex things "in plain English" - yep, those are from Common Craft. The Lee founded Common Craft in 2003 and now both Lee and Sachi work to create these 3 minute educational videos that seem deceptively simple. Their first video, RSS In Plain English has been viewed 1.6 million times on YouTube. Lee is the voice of the videos. He comes up with the outline and Sachi is the detail oriented part of the team. She fleshes out the script and then Lee begins the sketching and filming and Sachi does the editing.

Common Craft videos are really cute, but the trick is that the LeFevers know how to explain! They are so good that Google hired them in 2007 to explain their newfangled Google Docs product. Google Docs changed the way people thought about sharing documents and they needed Common Craft to explain that new way of thinking. That is exactly what Common Craft does so well. They take a foreign concept and create a story around it so that we understand what it means, and more importantly, what it means for us personally and why we should care. Plus they are memorable - I still think of camping whenever I think of wikis because of their Wikis In Plain English video.

Common Craft still does custom corporate videos and now they are also creating more educational videos and offering subscriptions for libraries and classrooms. So if your library or your company has some 'splaining to do, look no further than Common Craft.

Casual Friday: A Google a Day!

A Google a Day is the new game from Google. It's trivia with a search twist. You aren't expected to know the answer, you have to Google for the answer. The cool thing is that the answer can't be found with just one search - that would be way too easy. The answer can only be found by answering one piece of the puzzle and then using that information to lead you to another piece of puzzle until you finally find the answer. You know, like real research! Don't worry about spoilers, Google thinks of everything. You play the game on a day old archived version of Google called Deja Google. They describe it as "a wormhole inspired time machine that searches the Internet as it existed before the game began."

This could be a great teaching tool or just for fun because we like solving puzzles! Take a break today and check it out.

Google's +1 is active--Do you "like" it?

Google just launched their new +1 service which allows you to "publicly give something your stamp of approval". Or in Facebook terms, "like" it. Right now it's still part of Google Labs and you have to opt-in to try it out, which you can do here.  I gave it a spin today and there are some cool and not-so-cool things about it.  It all depends on how comfortable you are having your name publicly associated with the links you choose to endorse.  And "endorse" is a good word since your +1's can be used in Google Ads.  So it's important to have your Google Profile set up with the right privacy settings so that you can make sure your Picasa Web Albums and the like aren't available to just anyone. That said, I like that once you've opted in, you'll have a new tab on your Google Profile keeping track of all the links you've +1'd along the way. Do we say +1'd now instead of "liked"? So hard to keep up. You can choose to make your tab public or not, but either way it's a nice handy list to refer back to: The video below will tell you a bit more about how it works and you can read more about it on Google's +1 Page. Tell us what you think about +1 in the comments section.

Casual Friday: Austin Margaritas in Google Fusion Tables

Amy Rushing, Metadata Librarian extraordinaire,  shows bizologie how to put Google Fusion Tables to good use. Amy has spent two years testing margaritas around Austin and rating them. Using Google Fusion she has given us Margarita Ratings: Austin, Texas - a map of restaurants and their margarita rating. You can see her rating scale in the File>About section of the Table. With Google Fusion you can create charts, graphs, and all sorts of different visualizations including maps. And, you don't have to be a metadata librarian to do it. It's easy. To create a map, make a spreadsheet with the data in Excel or Google Docs. One of the columns has to be address with zip code to map the locations. Amy used HTML code to create to the stars and fractions for her ratings. Then just import the spreadsheet into Google Fusion.

Let us know if you are inspired to use Google Fusion to map your passion. We'd love to see your masterpiece. And, Amy, we here at bizologie commend you and hope you continue your good work.

Google just got more Delicious

With the news that Yahoo is going to sunset Delicious, it was just a matter of time before Google jumped in to save the day. Google's own Bookmark feature, launched back in 2005, never got the traction that Delicious did. Now is their chance to change all that. Google is offering a Delicious import feature. And of course Google makes it easy to do: Open Google Bookmark, find the Import Delicious link at the top. You'll sign into your Delicious account, and import the bookmarks. The Google Bookmarks are private, but there is a List feature you can use to make your bookmarks public. You create a list and make that public, then you can move your bookmarks over to the public list. Voila, bookmarks saved and crisis averted!

Google Bookmarks also has an "Add to List" bookmarklet" so it's just as easy to add pages to your Google Bookmarks List as it was to Delicious.