Frog's Digital Design Blog » google

Google release a Font API & Directory for web developers

Gary Hartley — Wed, 19 May 2010 22:39:54 +0000

Today Google has released something very interesting, a Font API and directory that offers high quality open source web fonts for web developers. At first glance these fonts are extremely easy to integrate with just a few lines of code needed.

The Google Font API provides a simple, cross-browser method for using any font in the Google Font Directory on your web page. The fonts have all the advantages of normal text: in addition to being richer visually, text styled in web fonts is still searchable, scales crisply when zoomed, and is accessible to users using screen readers.

The interesting part of the subject of baking fonts into images and using font replacement scripts is actually how ‘searchable’ they are. Now with Google Font API you should be more comfortable in the fact that if Google have developed this, they ‘must’ be search engine friendly… right?

How to integrate the Google Font API

Getting started using the Google Font API is easy. Just add a couple lines of HTML:



body { font-family: 'Tangerine', serif; }

Google explains more

The Google Font API hides a lot of complexity behind the scenes. Google’s serving infrastructure takes care of converting the font into a format compatible with any modern browser (including Internet Explorer 6 and up), sends just the styles and weights you select, and the font files and CSS are tuned and optimized for web serving. For example, cache headers are set to maximize the likelihood that the fonts will be served from the browser’s cache with no need for a network roundtrip, even when the same font is linked from different websites.

These fonts also work well with CSS3 and HTML5 styling, including drop shadows, rotation, etc. In addition, selecting these fonts in your CSS works just the same as for locally installed fonts, facilitating clean separation of content and presentation.

The fonts in the Google Font Directory come from a diverse array of designers, including open source developers and highly regarded type designers, and also include the highly acclaimed Droid Sans and Droid Serif fonts, designed by Ascender Corporation as a custom font for Android. We invite you to browse through the directory and get to know the fonts and designers better. Since all the fonts are open source, you can use them any way you like. We also have a separate project hosted on Google Code for downloading the original font files. Since they’re open source, they can be used for just about any purpose, including for print.

We’re hoping designers will contribute many more fonts in coming months to the Google Font Directory. If you’re a designer and are interested in contributing your font, get in touch with us by completing this form.

To showcase the Google Font API, Smashing Magazine has relaunched their site using the open source Droid font hosted by Google. We’re excited about the potential for integrating the Google Font API into many types of publications and web applications. For example, the new themes for Google Spreadsheet forms are a great example of a rich visual experience using web fonts.

This is just the beginning for web fonts. Today, we’re only supporting Western European languages (Latin-1), and we expect to support a number of diverse languages shortly.

Google Font Directory

A seemingly small number of fonts currently available, but we’re sure it won’t be long until that grows.

Font page

As we have come to expect from Google, the font page is simply laid out. A font summary followed by four tabbed areas, Specimen, Character Set, Description and Get the code.

Useful Links

Google.com UNLOCKED For Transfer

Gary Hartley — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:44:33 +0000

It seems the domain Google.com has been UNLOCKED for transfer. I wonder where it’s going? Maybe if nobody else wants it it can come and pay my account a visit. Hmmm, to request transfer or not to request transfer, that is the question.

Infographic: Google facts and figures

Gary Hartley — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:08:40 +0000

Google is massive, let’s face it. Soon they’ll be running the number 10 bus through your village and sponsoring the local school sports day but the question is ‘How big is Google?’. Pingdom have answered this by creating this massive infographic on Google’s facts and figures.

Infographic copyright Pingdom.

Google Takes Another Bite

John Bates — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:37:20 +0000

Quietly, and almost overnight, Google have moved into another market. At the time of writing there is not yet any announcement on the Official Google Blog but it looks as though Google have begun the process of unveiling maps based on their own data.

The Google Maps product that we have all grown so used to was driven by data from Tele Atlas, a Netherlands-based company, as witnessed by the map data copyright notice that appears in the bottom right hand corner of a Google Map.

But now Google Maps, in the US at least, have started to replace these with Google map data copyright notices. We should probably expect to see these changes rolled out elsewhere in due course too.

Although Google have not revealed the sources of their map data, the suggestion is that it is a by-product of the work they did in building Google Street View with additional data coming from other public domain sources, such as the rather poor quality TIGER data in the US. Interestingly, Google did blog about the introduction of the Street View Trike in the UK and how they are being used to reach those parts that they cannot easily reach by car – they even invite readers to suggest locations that are poorly mapped.

The other big map data provider is NAVTEQ who provide data for roughly 85% of the world’s in-car navigation systems as well as for portable GPS devices from Garmin and Magellan and for Bing, MultiMap and Yahoo! online maps. Last year NAVTEQ was acquired by Nokia and Tele Atlas was acquired by TomTom. I would imagine that both NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas are now feeling rather relieved.

Map Quality

One of the first indications of a change was that users had noticed a sudden degradation in the quality of Google’s maps. Roads that used to be mapped no longer appeared on the maps and roads appeared where buildings had recently been built. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the quality seems higher in those areas that have been visited by a Street View car and lower elsewhere. Google has started to aggregate data from a number of public sources and to combine them with their own map data, in particular, US land parcel data is now also visible on the maps. Some users have observed that buildings which had previously been unlabelled, for security reasons, are now clearly labelled.

Data Liberation

Google have introduced a link at the bottom of the map inviting users to report problems that they spot. They must be aware that the map quality is not as good as it used to be but they must also be confident that any failings can be rectified by their enormous user community. Perhaps this early lack of quality is the main reason why the whole process has been kept quiet. Rather hypocritically, for a company that started the Data Liberation Front whose mission statement says:

“Users should be able to control the data they store in any of Google’s products.
Our team’s goal is to make it easier for them to move data in and out.”,

Google don’t provide a mechanism for users to retrieve the map corrections that they have submitted to Google. I wonder if that will change.

Good News for Mobile Users

All of this is probably very good news for users of mobile map devices. The licence that Google had previously signed with Tele Atlas precluded the use of the map data for turn-by-turn applications. Such navigation applications are often expensive because of the extra cost of purchasing such a licence which has to be passed on to the end user. Google will now be able to move forward without being tethered by such restrictions.

An advantage to Google of owning their own data is that a mobile Google Maps application will now be able to pre-download map data to the device, enabling the maps to work where either there is no reliable mobile signal (such as in the Lake District in the UK) or in places where the cost of downloading the map data over the mobile network could be prohibitively expensive (such as when travelling abroad with a mobile data plan). Currently, on the iPhone at least, this kind of offline mapping is only available at no cost to applications that use the excellent OpenStreetMap data, such as the OffMaps application.

The value to Google of the flow back of data from mobile devices that are using Google Maps is enormous. Feedback from Android phones and other devices that allow background processing will almost certainly be used to enhance map data. As an example, consider a GPS enabled mobile device travelling in a vehicle along the road network. The Google Maps application running on the device will be able to feed back to Google not only information about the likely locations of new and unmapped roads, about one-way streets and permanent and temporary speed restrictions, but also information about the average speed at any given time of day on any road. This kind of information can be used to provide accurate and optimum routing. And once you know all of this information, it is not difficult to see how, by comparing it with new real-time data, it can be used to spot traffic incidents and hotspots as they occur. Nokia and TomTom already have agreements in place with mobile phone providers that allow such data to feed back but Google will be cutting out the middle man.

OpenStreetMap

If you haven’t already contributed towards the construction of the map of your own town or city you should really take a look at OpenStreetMap and contribute at least a little of your time to enhance the excellent free and open map of the world whose data belongs to everyone.

OpenStreetMap is the Wikipedia of the mapping world. As other Wikipedia-like sites prove there is really only room for one such successful system at a time (remember Google Knol, Citizendium, and the late Encarta). Both Knol and Citizendium still exist, but how many times a year do you refer to them? The ease with which ordinary people can contribute towards the construction of accurate maps of the world and the effects of such crowd sourcing is evident in the surprisingly high quality of the OpenStreetMap maps. It is still a work in progress and some parts of the world are better covered than others. But at the current rate of improvement it has been estimated that within a year or two, OpenStreetMap will also contain enough good quality routing data to start to compete with the commercial offerings from Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ.

OpenStreetMap is possibly already the biggest threat to Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ but now that Google has entered the mapping market other large companies may be persuaded to lend their support to OpenStreetMap. Yahoo has already allowed OpenStreetMap to use their aerial imagery for the purposes of tracing map features. What if Microsoft or Apple were to get involved? It is likely that within a 12 to 24 month time span Microsoft may well re-enter the mobile market with a competitive operating system. It seems unlikely, however, that they will be happy to display the Google logo on their maps.

With feedback from mobile applications and the input of ordinary users OpenStreetMap could well be the map data source of the future. But there is clearly going to be a lot of competition from all of the data providers to gather a good deal of accurate and useful data and to offer it at a reasonable price. In the meantime, for those of us who are mobile map users, I think we are in for a good time.

Google Wave described in 140 characters!

Gary Hartley — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:56:04 +0000

Google Wave is getting a lot of people excited, but if you’re anything like me and have no idea what it is or why it’s making so many people sweat in antipication of getting an invite to test it then look no further. We asked Twitter “Explain what Google Wave is in 140 characters”, we got the following replies:

Helpful descriptions of Google Wave in a nutshell

It’s a communications (email + instant messaging) + social networking tool, with various commun. threads neatly compiled

By EamonSpotlight on Twitter

Google Wave is a rethinking of electronic communication, combining email, instant messaging, status updates & other collaboration features.

By Wabbit42 on Twitter

Think email crossed with instant messaging crossed with forums crossed with chat crossed with rich media… and more

By Aaronrussell on Twitter

I think of wave as email meets IM meets twitter meets facebook wall, perhaps. Will be more obvious when it gets some use.

By Vextasy on Twitter

From what I’ve gathered, it’s the ultimate collaboration tool. Hopefully I’ll be one of the lucky 100,000 testing it.

By Genericsteele on Twitter

Less helpful descriptions of Google Wave…

Its like a mexican wave but online

By Xobman on Twitter

Googles new shiny toy that makes gmail look boring and all the cool kids want an invite and the uncool ones have them!

By Tnash on Twitter

I don’t know

By Savamaloy on Twitter

140 characters? Now, that’s a challenge! Srsly, you should watch the video.

By Raph_ms on Twitter

“Roll the tape!”

Google Sidewiki: A top tip for site owners

Gary Hartley — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:28:41 +0000

You may already know about this, but Google has rolled out “Sidewiki”, whereby Google Toolbar users can comment directly (and permanently) on webpages. The basic idea is that every page on your site now comes with a publicly accessible discussion board that cannot be moderated.

Google Sidewiki is a new browser plug-in that adds a universal commenting system to the web, allowing users to comment and read other people’s comments on any page on the internet. It’s not a new idea, but, well, it’s Google.

Immediate reactions

Jeff Jarvis from the Buzzmachine comments, concerns for blog owners:

Google is trying to take interactivity away from the source and centralize it. This isn’t like Disqus, which enables me to add comment functionality on my blog. It takes comments away from my blog and puts them on Google.

Sean Carton on what Google Sidewiki means to marketers:

There’s an algorithm that determines which comments are more relevant and moves them to the top of the sidebar. Of course, exactly how relevance is determined has yet to be explained (and probably never will be), leading to yet another SEO type battle, where “experts” duke it out over whether they can get your comments to the top of the heap.

Top tip: How to claim your website’s Google Sidewiki

An important aspect is that if you register a site as yours in your Google profile, you can leave a comment as the site owner which stays at the top. This would be good for your clients for pushing USPs and contact details etc.

1. Install the latest Google Toolbar with Google Sidewiki.

2. Once installed, you will need to restart your web browser, I use Firefox, so you will probably get a message telling you that you need to restart Firefox.

3. Visit your website, the website home page where you want to claim your Google Sidewiki.

4. Make sure that Google Sidewiki is turned on in the Google Toolbar. You may need to log in to your Google account and adjust your Google Toobar settings so that it’s turned on. While you browse the web, you will see the Google Wiki sidebar on the left side of your web browser, it will look like this:

5. Open up the Google Sidewiki. If you aren’t signed into your Google Account, you need to sign into your Google account first.

6. Once signed in, you will see the name of your site, as well as an area to “Edit your name” – Change the name of your website if necessary, you might want to include your company name and a few keywords if you feel so inclined to do so.

7. Add a title of the Entry, perhaps “Welcome to Vizion Interative”.

8. Add your entry:

Thanks for visiting The Floating Frog. If you’re reading this, then you most likely have the Google Sidewiki turned on.

The Floating Frog provides a daily dose of web, design, social, dev and current trends. If you’re interested in any of these issues, you might want to subscribe to my RSS Feed, which is at http://feeds.feedburner.com/thefloatingfrog

Thanks for visiting.

9. Once you’ve entered the text you want and the title of the entry, click the “Write as Owner” checkbox, and hit the “Publish” button.

Don’t forget to authenticate your site first!

What you’ll need to do first is verify your website in Google Webmaster Tools (http://www.google.com/webmasters). You’ll need a Google Account. Log into your Google Webmaster Tools account and add the site.

Then to verify the site you’ll need to add a file that Google specifies or an HTML Meta Tag to your site. Once one of those are added, then you log into Google Webmaster Tools and click on “verify”.

Once it’s verified in Google Webmaster Tools and you have the new Google Toolbar installed, you will need to go to your site’s home page. Click on the Sidewiki on the Toolbar and you should then see the “write as owner” area.

Found this article useful?

Let us know below in the comments.

How 20 popular websites looked when they launched

Gary Hartley — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:53:31 +0000

A look back at the humble beginnings of some of the internets biggest websites. This post was originally posted by the Telegraph and we feel it fits as a sturn reminder to all those companies and individuals who wait and wait and wait in launching their website while messing over the little details. We say – ‘Just launch it!’, as as we can see from the following screenshots you have to start somewhere.

1. Google.com – launched in 1996

2. Facebook.com – launched in 2004

3. Myspace.com – launched in 2003

4. Yahoo.com – launched in 1994

5. Youtube.com – launched in 2005

6. Wikipedia.org – launched in 2001

7. MSN.com – launched in 1995

8. Apple.com – launched in 1987 (screenshot from 1996)

9. Drudgereport.com – launched in 1997

10. Amazon.com – launched in 1995

11. Twitter.com – launched in 2006

12. Whitehouse.gov – launched in 1994

13. Craigslist.org – launched in 1995

14. Nytimes.com – launched in 1995

15. News.bbc.co.uk – launched in 1997

16. Dell.com – launched in 1996

17. Friendsreunited.com – launched in 2000

18. Telegraph.co.uk – launched in 1994

19. Blogger.com – launched in 1999

20. Flickr.com – launched in 2004

Had a website in development for over a year?

Direct your client to this page, prove to them it doesn’t have to be perfect from day one! Web design is NEVER perfect!

We have a new site: Suggestoftheday.com

Gary Hartley — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:58:34 +0000

Frog (me) and Piggynap have created another pointless website to help us waste as much of our free time as possible. It’s called Google Suggest of the Day. We post a daily Google Suggest that we have stumbled across. Why? Why not!

Suggestoftheday.com just loves to mock! We find the strangest questions asked on Google (via the suggest feature) and plaster it here for your amusement. If you find any strange suggests yourself and feel we should be notified of it then please let us know.

There is a Suggest feature so if you stumble across a funny or shocking Google Suggest, let us know.

Top 20 Websites and Search Engines in the UK

Gary Hartley — Thu, 28 May 2009 02:29:19 +0000

According to Hitwise, here are the top websites and search engines ranked by visits ending 23/05/2009. These stats are based on the UK internet users only, not worldwide.

Top 20 Websites

The following report shows websites for the industry ‘All Categories’, ranked by Visits for the week ending 23/05/2009.

Top Search Engines – Volume

The following report shows search engines for the industry ‘All Categories’, ranked by Volume of Searches for the 4 weeks ending 23/05/2009.

Top Search Engines – Visits

The following report shows websites for the industry ‘Computers and Internet – Search Engines’, ranked by Visits for the week ending 23/05/2009.

Top Social Networking Websites

The following report shows websites for the industry ‘Computers and Internet – Social Networking and Forums’, ranked by Visits for the week ending 23/05/2009.

Top Entertainment Websites

The following report shows websites for the industry ‘Entertainment’, ranked by Visits for the week ending 23/05/2009.

Big Tech Buyouts: How 10 Internet Startups cashed in Big

Gary Hartley — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:21:30 +0000

This is a special snippet post summarising the Big Tech Buyouts article from BusinessWeek, by Douglas MacMillan. All images copyright of BusinessWeek.

Silicon Valley angel investor Jeff Clavier “It’s a good time to be an investor because there are tons of opportunities out there that are interesting,”.

What’s good for investors is an outright bonanza for entrepreneurs. Not only are established Internet acquirers such as Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), and News Corp. (NWS) spending lavishly on budding properties, companies such as Hearst and Getty Images (GYI) are placing smaller, strategic bets.

But what changes when these company founders see their handiwork snapped up by the highest bidder? Sure, some of these lucky ducks will plow proceeds into the next big thing. But many opt to stick around, keeping a hand at the tiller long after the ownership changeover.

Mozy

Founder: Josh Coates
Acquisition Price: $76 million
Buyer: EMC
Funding: $1.9 million from Wasatch Venture Fund, Tim Draper, and Drew Major

Sling Media

Founders: Blake Krikorian (pictured), Jason Krikorian
Acquisition Price: $380 million
Buyer: EchoStar Comunications
Funding: $10.5 million from Doll Capital Management, Hearst, and Mobius Venture Capital; $46.6 million from Allen & Co., EchoStar Communications, Goldman Sachs (GS) and Liberty Media

Zimbra

Founders: Satish Dharmaraj (pictured), Ross Dargahi, and Roland Schemers
Acquisition Price: $350 million
Buyer: Yahoo!
Funding: $5.5 million from Benchmark Capital and Redpoint Ventures; $15 million from Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, and Redpoint Ventures; $14.5 million from Duff Ackerman & Goodrich, Inventures Group, and Presidio STX

Kaboodle

Founders: Chetan Pungaliya, Manish Chandra, and Keiron McCammon
Acquisition Price: $30 million to $40 million, according to TechCrunch
Buyer: Hearst
Funding: $1.5 million from Garage Technology Ventures, Shea Ventures, Kanwal Rekhi, Jeff Clavier, Ron Conway, Georges Harik, Rajeev Motwani, Iggy Fanlo; $3.5 million from Shea Ventures

Parakey

Founders: Blake Ross (pictured), Joe Hewitt
Acquisition Price: Less than $4 million, according to TechCrunch
Buyer: Facebook
Funding: Less than $2 million from Sequoia Capital, according to TechCrunch

Photobucket

Founders: Alex Welch, Darren Crystal
Acquisition Price: $250 million, according to TechCrunch
Buyer: Fox Interactive Media
Funding: $3 million from Insight Venture Partners; $10.5 million from Trinity Ventures

Postini

Founder: Scott Petry
Acquisition Price: $625 million
Buyer: Google
Funding: Undisclosed, from August Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Mobius Venture Capital, Pacific Fund, Summit Partners, and Sun Microsystems (JAVA)

Feedburner

Founders: Eric Lunt, Steve Olechowski, Dick Costolo, Matt Shobe
Acquisition Price: $100 million, according to TechCrunch
Buyer: Google
Funding: $8 million from Mobius Venture Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Portage Ventures, Sutter Hill, and Union Square Ventures

Pump Audio

Founder: Steve Ellis
Acquisition Price: $42 million
Buyer: Getty Images
Funding: $2.5 million from Greycroft Partners and High Peaks Venture Partners

StumbleUpon

Founder: Garrett Camp
Acquisition Price: $75 million
Buyer: eBay
Capital: $1.5 million from Ram Shriram and Mitch Kapor