Google Earth Comes to Android

Google has launched Google Earth for Android, which is currently only available for the Nexus One (which runs Android 2.1). Google calls it the fastest mobile version of Google Earth yet.

Along with the release, comes the Roads layer, which has been popular on the desktop version of Google Earth. The layer is meant to give users a better sense of where they are, with road labels drawn on top of satellite imagery.

"As with other versions of Google Earth, you can also browse photos, places, and local businesses, whether it is in your local community or on the far side of the globe," says Product Manager Peter Birch. "Click on an icon to see photos, videos, and read about prominent places in the world. You can easily customize your version of Google Earth to display the layers that most interest you."

Google Earth for Android also takes advantage of voice recognition that "responds to your every command," according to Google. "With Google Earth for Android, we have brought together the convenience of Google Search by voice with the power of Google Local Search to make it easier than ever to navigate the globe and find whatever you are looking for," says Birch.

Google Earth will be available in the Android Market for devices that have Android 2.1 or higher. As older Android devices get upgraded to 2.1, they will be able to get it.

Google Earth Comes to Android

Google has launched Google Earth for Android, which is currently only available for the Nexus One (which runs Android 2.1). Google calls it the fastest mobile version of Google Earth yet.

Along with the release, comes the Roads layer, which has been popular on the desktop version of Google Earth. The layer is meant to give users a better sense of where they are, with road labels drawn on top of satellite imagery.

"As with other versions of Google Earth, you can also browse photos, places, and local businesses, whether it is in your local community or on the far side of the globe," says Product Manager Peter Birch. "Click on an icon to see photos, videos, and read about prominent places in the world. You can easily customize your version of Google Earth to display the layers that most interest you."

Google Earth for Android also takes advantage of voice recognition that "responds to your every command," according to Google. "With Google Earth for Android, we have brought together the convenience of Google Search by voice with the power of Google Local Search to make it easier than ever to navigate the globe and find whatever you are looking for," says Birch.

Google Earth will be available in the Android Market for devices that have Android 2.1 or higher. As older Android devices get upgraded to 2.1, they will be able to get it.

Google Integrates AdSense For Feeds, FeedBurner, Analytics

The desire to integrate products is strong at Google; it’s not hard to imagine that the company would eventually like to offer one great, big search/video/email/advertising ball.  And today, it took a tiny step along that path by rolling together some analytics products.

A post on the AdSense for Feeds blog announced, “If you use either AdSense for feeds or Google FeedBurner to track item clicks and also use Google Analytics, as of today, you will automatically start to see your feed item click analytics show up in Google Analytics with some additional information added to help you understand how distributing your feed with FeedBurner leads to traffic on your site.”

The post then continued, “Specifically, we will help you classify your links by tagging the Source as ‘feedburner,’ the Medium as the channel in which we sent out your feed such as ‘feed’ or ‘email,’ and the Content as the actual endpoint application in which the user viewed your feed content such as ‘Google Reader’ or ‘Yahoo! Mail.’”

More distribution endpoint labels are on the way, too.

Hopefully this update will help people earn a little extra money heading into the holidays.  At the least, it may simplify FeedBurner and AdSense for Feeds users’ lives a little, which would also represent a nice treat this time of year.

Have You Read This?

> Google Launches Analytics For Mobile Apps

> Correcting Your Web Analytics Mistakes

> FeedBurner/Google Alum Goes To Twitter

Gmail Gets a New Label Feature

Today Google introduced a new Gmail Labs feature, which lets users hide labeled messages that have already been read, when browsing through labels. The ones that have been read can be found under the "more" menu.

"A lot of people want to see their labels in order to see which ones have unread messages, but they don't want a long list of label names cluttering up the left hand side of their inboxes," says Gmail software engineer David de Kloet.

"This is particularly handy if you use your inbox as a to-do list where unread messages are the outstanding things you need to take care of," adds de Kloet. "If you use that method along with labels like "Home" and "Project X," it's easy to see all your to-dos in context. With this Labs feature on, labels with outstanding to-dos will be bold and have a number next to them; everything else will be hidden in the "11 more" section."

The feature can be accessed by turning it on from the labs tab under Settings.


Gmail has a number of other label-related features that users can turn on in the labs section. They have "customre label colors," which let you create your own combination of colors for labels. The "go to label" feature lets users enable keyword shortcuts "g" and I' to display a popup for selecting a label to go to. The "multiple inboxes" feature lets you add extra lists of emails in your inbox. New lists of threads can be labels, starred messages, drafts, or other searches. The "hide unread counts" lets you hide the number of unread messages in your labels. The "hide labels from subjects" feature lets you eliminate labels from subjects to save space on smaller screens.

That last one might be of particular interest to a number of Gmail users, now that Google has announced the push for iPhone feature, which allows users to sync their Gmail accounts to thier iPhones.

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