At trade shows, I used to go on about how much information the Google Search Appliance could discover on an organization's intranet. Turns out, that promise can be about as exciting as telling people how much lint they can find under their couch. For many companies, the official intranet is a relatively tiny set of company-approved web pages containing such gems as the cafeteria menu and company holiday calendar.I realized that here at Google, we use the term intranet to refer to an entirely different beast – a mash-up of content that includes literally anything that's accessible over our corporate network. Our Google Search Appliance hoovers up employee file shares, product team databases, marketing Wikis and engineering blogs and adds them to our internal searchindex. As a result, I can quickly find everything from recent sales presentations to product launch plans right from the search box.
Your organization probably has these content sources and more, but may not refer to them as part of the official intranet. Maybe we just need a new word to get us on the same page. Something like “Enternet,” for Enterprise-network, could work. So next time you're looking for that revised customer proposal or product launch plan, consider taking a wing dip at the intranet and then rocketing over to the Enternet to get the freshest organic content...I like it.
As millions of people tune into the Olympics over the next two weeks, we'd like to highlight the NBCOlympics website with search powered by (can you guess it) the Google Search Appliance. A search for TV will help you keep track of events throughout the Olympics on 5 different channels. Curious where Michelle Kwan was born? (Michelle’s from Torrance, CA.) Or to learn more about Jeremy Bloom – the freestyle mogul skier (and medal contender) who is expected to be drafted into the NFL in April as a wide receiver - after taking 2 years off football!
To get a bird’s eye view of Torino and some of the Olympic terrain, load up Google Earth which has new high resolution imagery for Torino and the surrounding area. Once you have Google Earth installed, you can click on the following KMZ file, which will load placemarks for all the major venues in the Torino area. And if you want to get pumped for the athletic competition check out this Olympic preview video.
"Last Fall we heard about the Google Mini and decided to give it a shot on one of our sites. Previously we were using an open source search technology that worked 'ok'. Our users found it gave poor search results and conversions were low. Once we got the Google Mini up and running, our complaints all but disappeared. The feedback from our users was overwhelming, so much so that we ordered 7 more.
We rolled the Minis out across several of our sites and noticed an instant increase in our conversion ratios. We contribute that to features like spell check and the over all great results that the Mini returns. As a Webmaster, the thing I love most is 'set it and forget it.' The Mini updates our search index on the schedule we set and there is nothing else we need to do to keep our index fresh. Here are 2 thumbs up for the Google Mini!
Thanks again!"
Mike - DirectEssays.comThe Mini six-pack might not be a bad idea for DirectEssays.com, but our new 200,000 and 300,000 Minis should fit the bill for those of you with New York apartment-style server closets.
