Official Google India Blog: July 2009

Google Transliteration now Available in Urdu and Punjabi

July 30, 2009

We firmly believe that users deserve a great online experience regardless of the language they speak. This belief is what inspired us to build our transliteration service to provide an easy and intuitive way to type in languages for which keyboard support was not available or not widely used. We are happy to announce the launch of transliteration support for Urdu and Punjabi. Transliteration allows users to type words phonetically using their english keyboard. For example, in Urdu, you can type "shukriya" to get شکریہ and in Punjabi, you can type "duniya"to get ਦੁਨਿਯਾ . If a word did not get transliterated correctly, hit the backspace key or select the word to see list of alternatives to select from. Typing Control + G allows you to switch between english and local language typing.

Launching Urdu and Punjabi has been a true labour of love for our team. Urdu brought with it some unique challenges: since it is written right to left, we needed to ensure that editing functions such as backspace, tab, etc all work as expected. Urdu diacriticals, or 'Aerabs', also needed special attention as they map the vowel sounds but are not necessarily visible in the word. For Punjabi, the 'addak', 'tippi' and 'bindi' posed its own challenge as they change the intonation of the previous character. We hope that Urdu and Punjabi speakers in India, Pakistan and elsewhere in the world find this tool useful to type in their native language.

With this launch our transliteration service now supports twelve languages, including: Hindi,Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Gujarati,Marathi, Nepali and Arabic

As always, we would love to hear from you; let us know what you think.
Posted by Sridatta Chegu and Anupama Dutta, Software Engineers

Internet Bus arrives in Andhra Pradesh

July 21, 2009

Google India is continuing it's efforts to increase awareness about benefits of the Internet in India. Google Internet Bus is an initiative to reach out to people with limited knowledge and exposure to Internet. After an overwhelming response from people in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, we are excited to announce the arrival of the bus in Andhra Pradesh. The bus will visit educational institutes and public places in 16 towns of Andhra Pradesh in the next 48 days. The campaign will focus on four themes – education, information, communication and entertainment. Interactive content - in English and Telugu - will be used to highlight benefits of Internet in people's daily lives.
The Internet bus has traveled across 35 towns so far, reaching thousands of first-time Internet users in each town. The interest we have seen has surpassed our expectations. It has been very exciting to see people from different walks of life, visit the bus and learn about what Internet could do for them. The Bus has helped introduce the Internet to many people, such as a group of farmers in Karnataka, who explored the Internet for agro-development, and a local artist, who learned how tools like Picasa can be used to showcase his work to a global audience.
Mobile based products have been a big hit. In Andhra Pradesh, we will lay special emphasis on this medium and showcase how people can access Internet even on low cost data plans and handsets. We will also engage cyber café owners with an aim to build local advocacy for this powerful medium.
Users across India can follow the bus through its journey, see pictures & videos,and join online communities by simply visiting http://www.google.co.in/internetbus.They can also subscribe to receive SMS alerts in Telugu and English with usefultips on the Internet.

Posted by Srikanth Belwadi and Nishant Nair

Get Google Analytics Ready!

July 17, 2009

Most customers do not make purchases in their first visit to an e-commerce website. Most clients do not make potentially multi-million dollar RFP submissions on their first visit to a corporate website. And very few visitors become staunch followers of a website immediately after their first visit. These facts reflect a trend that suggests an evolution of the way in which we interpret data and website-metrics. Stand-alone metrics such as visit volume and average time spent on the site may often not paint a complete picture of website performance.

So how does one identify the best metrics to understand how long it takes to complete a sales cycle, or improve customer loyalty? To help marketers make smarter business decisions, the Google Analytics team brings to you Google Analytics Conversion University - a one-day live event in Gurgaon.Polish your Google Analytics skills and better understand your website visitors, and what they want. Marketers new to the online analytics can get an overview here of what makes Google Analytics a must-have. And for the more seasoned Analytics users we have incorporated an eclectic variety of experts in the field including in-house Analytics product experts and GA partners (Google Analytics Authorized Consultants). In addition, we also have our resident analytics celebrity Jesse Nichols, a Google Analytics guru involved in increasing awareness and adoption of Google Analytics among online marketers, presenting at the event. Ready to slice and dice your web analytics data? Join us for the marathon on August 8, 2009. Venue and Time: The Google Gurgaon Office on August 8, 2009 For registration and more details, please visit: www.getGAready.in

Posted by Diana Vincent and Akanksha Shukla for the Google Analytics Team

India Blog

Google Transliteration now Available in Urdu and Punjabi

Internet Bus arrives in Andhra Pradesh

Get Google Analytics Ready!

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