This year of Google blogging
Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog
team
It's that time again, the end of a year - time to tote up
Google's blogging activity for the last 365 days. First, a few
bits of data about this particular blog:
Number of posts this year: 300
New product announcements: 15 (not counting our
href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/April 1"
id="arw6" >April 1 release
News about upgrades and additions to products: 87
Announcing products in more languages and countries: 30
Acquisitions: 12
Unique visitors: 6,738,830 (for 8,655,830 visits)
Languages: 511 (preferred language configured on
computers)
Top non-Google referrers: Yahoo, Digg, Slashdot, Fark
Beyond these basics, this year saw many more posts on privacy (9), href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/environment" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/healthcare" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/australias-election-map-redrawn.html"
id="q2e_" >accessibility (10), and
id="w10l" >energy and the environment
deal about Google's
id="r7nx" >people and culture, our various offices around the
world, and the pastimes and passions of Googlers (26, including 2
id="v-ic" >recipes). We talked about
id="ecq0" >healthcare issues
were competitions including Google Code Jam and events for
developers, educators and others (29). Through YouTube, there has
been much
id="eutf" >political activity (7) in the U.S. as well as in
id="olp8" >Australia
The posts that elicited the most reaction in terms of views and
linkbacks include:
- the much-discussed
id="pii." >"Gphone" news
- our thinking about the upcoming
id="q8w:" >FCC spectrum auction
- what the
id="tpxx" >OpenSocial APIs could mean
- how a
id="dj35" >black screen might not save energy
- announcing the
id="m0x8" >Knol test project
- building
id="c6w-" >your own Google homepage
Of course, there's more than business to write about. We href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/strawberries-are-red-stems-are-green.html"
celebrated
id="yir4" >National Gorilla Suit Day,
id="m.xv" >deconstructed the Valentine's Day doodle
then
id="clv." >a snake went missing.
As for the Google family of blogs, there's been lots of growth href="http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=ktewBXNbyTw" id="ftjw" >June href="http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=rQpNsTzbgqM"
this year: 42 new ones launched, for a total to 83
active company blogs. Increasingly, Googlers want to quickly and
regularly convey product news and updates to various constituents,
and blogs are a great way to do that. Among the most popular of
this newest crop are the
(nearly 1.5 million unique visitors), the Orkut blogs (in
id="ecs7" >English - 3.5 million uniques; and
id="dm6w" >Portuguese - 8.8 million), and
id="q5yh" >Google Lat Long, with 824,000 unique visitors, which
covers everything geographical. In addition, readers can now turn
to new product blogs including those for
Finance,
News, and
Reflecting keen interest in activity outside the U.S., the YouTube
blog had the greatest number of comments for its
post
countries, followed by the August post
id="wbkt" >announcing InVideo ads
On the ads side: there are now 6 more non-English blogs for AdSense href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/"
publishers (
id="o_ss" >Turkish,
id="a8.y" >Korean,
id="s1wm" >Chinese). The AdWords team opened blogs for
id="bost" >Brasil and the
Japan now has
Analytics blog, and there are now
id="ya-8" >German and
id="v6nl" >Chinese versions of the popular
id="xksc" >Webmaster Central
is the one for
nearly half a million unique visitors, followed by closely
id="n7.u" >Inside AdSense and then
AdWords.)
To keep current and share their work, developers got a raft of new
blogs, too, including those focused on APIs for
id="x3qt" >Checkout,
id="eo80" >Mashup, and
Needless to say, there are now also blogs for
id="q9s:" >Android and
id="bwub" >OpenSocial.
Two new country blogs, for the href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/" id="utt." >online
and
id="k.4." >Australia, went public, to talk about all things
Google in their regions. Yet more readers congregated around the
new
Policy and
id="zawg" >Google.org blogs, as well as one dedicated to
security
Despite all this activity, and the fact that a growing number of href="http://www.socialtext.net/bizblogs/index.cgi"
companies also host corporate blogs, the
id="zdsn" >Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki
collaborative project begun by Wired Magazine and SocialText)
indicates that even today, just 46 of the Fortune 500 companies
(about 9%), have active public blogs produced by company employees
that focus on the company and its products. Let's hope in 2008
that number goes up. We think such blogs can serve users,
journalists, critics, investors, and fans more effectively and
directly than more traditional approaches. Apparently, so do
41,395,926 people around the world - the number of visitors to all
of our blogs this year.