Beauty Queen Infamy, Winter and Weather Search Queries Mark This Week's Google Zeitgeist

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Google Year-End Zeitgeist Highlights Most Popular Search Queries and Trends of 2006

Announcement
December 19, 2006

Social networking sites top the list this year’s most searched queries

Google today announced its annual Zeitgeist, featuring lists and charts of the most popular and fastest-rising global search terms that people have typed into Google.com. If you’re interested in revisiting this year’s top scandals, or learning who wins in a Suri vs. Shiloh face-off, or which sport is most popular – visit www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2006.html to read all about what spurred people’s collective curiosity in 2006.

This year’s Google Zeitgeist reveals the following trends:

• What’s hot: the who, what and how of what’s being searched
• Current events: top searched scandals, political figures and global regions
• Milestones: most searched divorces, weddings, deaths and births of 2006
• Entertainment: what movies and TV shows were hot this year
• Sports: top searched sporting events, who retired and whose jerseys were most sought after

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Seasonal Grab-Bag Of Queries Mark This Week's Google Zeitgeist

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Adding the "D" to Google Apps for Your Domain

Announcement
December 14, 2006

Getting powerful communication and collaboration tools up and running for your organization just got a little easier. That’s because we’ve added domain registration services to Google Apps for Your Domain, a platform that allows organizations to offer tools like email and shared calendaring to all of their users – and have them all hosted by Google so there’s no hardware or software to install or maintain.

Starting today, we’re partnering with eNom and GoDaddy.com, two industry leaders in domain registration, to offer users without a domain an easy way to find, register, and buy a domain and start immediately using our services. When you register a new domain as part of the sign-up process for Google Apps for Your Domain, we’ll work with our partners behind the scenes and automatically configure everything so it works with all of the services available through Google Apps for Your Domain right out of the gate. We also give you full control of your domain settings, so you can use your domain for other services not provided by Google.

We are offering domains for $10 per year, which includes private registration to protect your personal information. We currently support .com, .org, .net, .biz, .info, and expect to support more domains over time.

Google Apps for Your Domain includes Gmail web email, Google Calendar shared calendaring, Google Talk instant messaging, Google Page Creator web page creation tools, and the Start Page feature for creating a personalized home page for users on your domain. It’s available now to organizations of all sizes at www.google.com/a.

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Google Now Searches More Than 7 Million US Patents

Announcement
December 14, 2006

Have you ever wondered who invented the zipper, the lawn mower – or maybe the eraser? Well now Google makes it easier than ever to search the over 7 million patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). With patents dating back to 1790, users can search inventions just like they search on Google today, or by criteria, such as patent number, inventor, or filing date. Our goal with Google Patent Search is to make this public domain government information more easily accessible using web search technology.

For more information on this new search capability, check out our blog post at googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/now-you-can-search-for-us-patents.html.

To try out Google Patent Search for yourselves, just visit www.google.com/patents! You’ll be sure to find everything from the bizarre to the fascinating.

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Google Adds New Features to the Google Toolbar for Firefox

Announcement
December 14, 2006

Firefox users can customize their search experience with the latest version of Google Toolbar

The latest version of the Google Toolbar for Mozilla Firefox® is now available. This new beta version of the Google Toolbar includes new features that enable users to personalize their search experience and browse their favorite content more efficiently.

Google Toolbar was designed to make the Internet easier to use and help people find the information they are looking for as quickly and easily as possible. With the Google Toolbar, users can access Google search capabilities from any website, without first having to visit the Google homepage. Google Toolbar 3 Beta offers Firefox users all the features of the Toolbar for Internet Explorer and more, including custom buttons, online bookmarks, Google Docs & Spreadsheets integration and new sharing capabilities.

Users can now personalize their Toolbar through the addition of custom buttons. Custom buttons enable users to visit, search and get the latest RSS/Atom feeds from their favorite sites with just the click of a button. For example, news enthusiasts can now add buttons for their favorite news sites and view the latest headlines for each site directly from their Toolbar, putting the information they need at their fingertips, right when they want it.

The new beta version of the Google Toolbar also enables users to create, label and manage bookmarks for their favorite sites with a single click. Bookmarks are now saved to a user’s Google Account, making them accessible from any computer. For example, if a user bookmarks an interesting news article at work that they want to read later, they can now easily access the saved bookmark from their home computer by simply logging in to their Google Account.

With the Google Docs & Spreadsheets (docs.google.com) feature enabled in Toolbar 3 Beta, users can save time by automatically opening files from their browser. Users who turn on the feature can choose up to three ways to open most popular files types in a new Firefox window using Google Docs & Spreadsheets:

• click a link to a file on a web page
• drag a file icon from their desktop into the browser
• double-click on a file icon

Additionally, enhanced sharing capabilities enable users to easily send and share web page content via Gmail, SMS and Blogger by selecting the section of the page they want to share and clicking the new "Send To" button.

Google Toolbar 3 Beta for Firefox is now offered globally in 26 languages. Some features may vary by language and/or region. Google Toolbar 3 Beta is a free downloadable application that requires Windows XP/2000 SP3+, Mac OS X 10.2+ or Linux. Toolbar 3 Beta can be downloaded from tools.google.com/firefox/toolbar/FT3/intl/en/

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Google Inc. to Launch Transferable Stock Option Program for its Employees

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., December 12, 2006 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today a program that will enable employees to sell vested stock options in an online auction. Under the Transferable Stock Option (TSO) program, employees will still be able to exercise their options, but will also be able to sell their options to financial institutions as an alternative.

This program represents an innovative way to compensate employees and will increase the efficiency of Google’s equity compensation by increasing the per-option value of employee stock options. Google will amend the terms of eligible employee stock options to make vested options transferable. The auction will be managed by Morgan Stanley. Smith Barney will serve as the employee stock option administrator. Google is working with multiple financial institutions to participate as bidders in the auction.

The ability to sell options is not a novel concept – today people can buy and sell options to purchase Google stock and the stock of many other companies on the public markets. What is novel is that Google is extending this ability to trade options to employee stock options. If an employee chooses to sell options in the TSO program, he or she will use an internal online tool built by Morgan Stanley to sell them to the highest-bidding financial institution. The financial institutions buying the options will then likely hold them until maturity and then settle with Google.

Google’s employee stock options typically have a ten-year term from the grant date. Under the TSO program, Google’s employee stock options, upon transfer, will have a lifespan of the lesser of two years or up to the remaining term under the original grant.

Google expects this program will go into effect in the second quarter of 2007. Only stock options issued since Google’s initial public offering will be eligible for this program, and Google’s Executive Management Group may not participate in the program.

This program will not result in a change to the accounting method used for employee stock options. However, in the near term Google expects that the amount it recognizes as stock-based compensation will be greater than it would otherwise have been after the program goes into effect.

Google has discussed the TSO program with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Google will ensure the program complies with applicable securities laws.

For more information about this new program, please visit the Google Blog at googleblog.blogspot.com.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Google may file a registration statement (including a prospectus) with the SEC for the offering to which this communication relates. Before you invest, you should read the prospectus in that registration statement and other documents Google has filed with the SEC for more complete information about Google and this offering. You may get these documents for free by visiting EDGAR on the SEC Web site at www.sec.gov. Alternatively, Google will arrange to send you the prospectus after filing if you request it by calling toll-free 1-866-468-4664 or sending an e-mail to investors@google.com.

Contacts:

Media
Steve Langdon
650.253.4950
slangdon@google.com

Investors
Maria Shim
650.253.7663
marias@google.com

###

Google is a registered trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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Worldly Concerns Characterize This Week's Google Zeitgeist

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Christmas Season Hits The Ground Running In The Weekly Google Zeitgeist

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Google to Present at the NASDAQ 18th Investor Program

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., November 28, 2006 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced today that George Reyes, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Omid Kordestani, Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Business Development, will present at the NASDAQ 18th Investor Program in London. The session is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. London Local Time (7:30 a.m. Eastern Time / 4:30 a.m. Pacific Time) on Wednesday, December 6, 2006.

To access the audio webcast of the session, please visit investor.google.com/webcast.html.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Contact:

Maria Shim
Investor Relations
650-253-7663
marias@google.com

###

Google is a registered trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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Holiday Food And Shopping, Celebrity Controversies Foremost In The Weekly Google Zeitgeist

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Google Checkout Adds New Merchants, Charity Donations and Promotions to New Holiday Site

Announcement
November 27, 2006

Looking for the perfect holiday gift this past weekend might have been enough to send most shoppers over the edge. That’s why Cyber Monday, November 27, is expected to attract a crowd of online shoppers for this year’s holiday season. And now, Google Checkout is working with even more merchants to help gift givers quickly and easily buy exactly what they want.

Just in time for the holidays, Toys "R" Us, Babies "R" Us, Golfsmith, Linens ’n Things, PETCO, and J&R; Music and Computer World have joined the thousands of merchants who have already added Google Checkout to their sites. Shoppers can buy directly from these merchants’ sites and use their Google Checkout login to speed their purchase process. On average, Google Checkout eliminates an average of 15 steps from the online checkout process, in many cases making checking out as simple as entering a single login.

For those who like to give back (in addition to giving gifts) during the holidays, donations to eight international charities can be made with a Google Checkout login. Google will add $10 to every user’s first donation of $30 or more.

Shoppers can donate to these charities and shop from their favorite Google Checkout merchants by visiting a new site launching today, checkout.google.com/holiday. The site lists popular gift items from Google Checkout merchants – everything from coffee to cameras. And it provides information about Google Checkout’s holiday promotions, including incentives of $10 or more for holiday purchases (offers vary by merchant). Google Checkout holiday incentives are reusable, no special registration is necessary, and there are none of the delays that come with rebates – users will automatically see the credits applied as they make their purchases.

We wish you a happy (and convenient) holiday season!

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Students Speak Out with Google Technology to Address Climate Change

Announcement
November 27, 2006

When you were in school, you probably had limited interaction with students at other schools in your county, never mind students halfway around the world. You might have seen them on the soccer field a couple of times a year, met them at a regional math bee, or engaged in a pen pal program. Getting great young minds working together on one project all together, across geographies, used to be a rare occurrence and a logistical challenge. Technology is changing things, though, and educators can increasingly take advantage of the web to create interesting and interactive ways to reach their students, connect them to the world we live in and engage them in critical thinking exercises. The Global Warming Student Speakout, a joint effort over the last several weeks led by Google and the Global SchoolNet Foundation, has been one such opportunity.

Here’s how the Global Warming Student Speakout worked: We invited students from all over the world to brainstorm ideas on how to address the effects of climate change and share their ideas with each other. We provided them with Google Docs & Spreadsheets (docs.google.com) as a tool for capturing and building on their ideas – that way students could access their class’ list of ideas from any web connected computer, at home or at school, and keep their ideas saved in one place over time. Then more than 80 classes and science clubs from more than 20 countries around the world entered their best suggestions into one of several regional spreadsheets (also on the web on Google Docs & Spreadsheets).

From tax incentives to transportation changes, from suggesting new technologies to changing old behaviors, what’s apparent is the students’ enthusiasm for this global collaboration and their deep concern about the world we live in.

Harry Konnor Tetteh, a teacher at the Opuku Ware School in Kumasi, Ghana, told us, "This project has really made my students learn about the practices to prevent global warming. It was just fun brainstorming about these measures. The students were divided into groups of five and given a specific task for research. It was all positive!"

You can view all of the ideas – which came from classrooms as distant as Ghana, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Romania – at www.google.com/educators/globalwarmingideas. And we’re sharing the results of this project by publishing one of the students’ ideas in a full-page ad in today’s USA Today.

More details about the Global Warming Student Speakout project are available at www.google.com/educators/globalwarming.html. For educators who want to explore other ways to use technology to encourage collaboration and exploration and creativity in their classrooms, we have lesson ideas, videos and other resources for K-12 educators available on an ongoing basis at www.google.com/educators.

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Google Checkout Makes Holiday Shopping Even Faster and Easier This Year

Announcement
November 21, 2006

New Survey Says Forty Percent of Americans Expected to Shop Online From Work This Holiday Season

The Monday after Thanksgiving – Cyber Monday – is expected to draw another record crowd of online shoppers this year, as people log on after spending the holiday weekend fighting the crowds and browsing through stores.

According to a new survey conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by Google Checkout, 40% of employed U.S. adults say they’ll be doing at least some of their online holiday shopping from work this year, with 1 in 4 of those shoppers logging on to track down that perfect gift on Monday, November 27 (57% plan to shop during coffee and lunch breaks, while 34% will wait until the end of the workday).

Trying to squeeze online holiday shopping into already busy schedules, shoppers will be looking for even more speed and convenience this year. And while there are many online shopping options to make finding the right gift relatively easy, online shoppers still have to deal with hassles, such as entering billing, shipping, and contact information multiple times as they move from site to site. Google Checkout eliminates an average of 15 steps from the online checkout process, in many cases making checking out as simple as entering a single login. This can save a lot of time for online shoppers, who will visit an average of 5.5 websites for holiday gifts this season, according to the survey.

For the holidays, Google Checkout will also be offering users a variety of promotions for their holiday shopping. Through Tuesday, December 26, users will receive $10 off purchases of $30 or more, or $20 off purchases of $50 or more, depending on the merchant. And best of all, these promotions are reusable, no special registration is necessary, and there are none of the delays that come with rebates – users will automatically see the credits applied as they make their purchases. For example, if users visit an average of five participating websites, they can redeem the promotion on each of those sites and save at least $50 on their holiday shopping.

Since the launch in June, thousands of merchants have added Google Checkout to their sites. So shoppers trying to cross things off their lists will be able to do so quickly and easily on a wide range of sites, including Buy.com, Starbucks Store, The Sports Authority, Ace Hardware, Timberland and many more.

"We understand that more and more holiday shoppers are looking to beat the crowds by heading online to cross items off their list," said Troy Brown, senior director of e-commerce at Timberland.com. "That’s why we’ve partnered with Google Checkout to offer our customers another fast, easy, and secure checkout process to help them take advantage of our online holiday offers."

Shoppers will be able to find participating merchants and special promotions on a new Google Checkout holiday site (checkout.google.com/holiday) that will be launching on Cyber Monday. The site will provide information on the promotion and offer gift ideas in the most sought-after categories this year – which, according to the survey, include clothing, gift certificates, toys, electronics, DVDs, and music.

If you’d like to learn more about the survey results, the Google Checkout holiday site and promotions, or the ways that Checkout makes online shopping faster and more convenient, you can visit checkout.google.com/holiday on Cyber Monday, November 27.

Survey Methodology

Harris Interactive® fielded the study on behalf of Google from November 7-9, 2006, via its QuickQuery℠ online omnibus, among 2,559 U.S. adults age 18 and over, including 1,639 who are employed and 655 who plan to do online holiday shopping at work. Data were weighted to be representative of the total U.S. adult population on the basis of region, age within gender, education, household income, race/ethnicity, and propensity to be online. Select data were weighted to be representative of the total U.S. online adult population on the basis of region, age within gender, education, household income, race/ethnicity, and amount of time spent online.

With a pure probability sample of 2,559, one could say with a ninety-five percent probability that the overall results would have a sampling error of +/- 3 percentage points. Sampling error for data based on sub-samples would be higher and would vary. However, that does not take other sources of error into account. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

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Sitemaps for Google News

Announcement
November 21, 2006

On the heels of Thursday’s Sitemaps.org announcement, Google has launched a new Sitemap protocol and additions to Google webmaster tools for Google News. This is only available to Google News publishers, so it does not pertain to any efforts around the new Sitemaps.org protocol.

Sitemaps are an XML-based open source protocol that enable webmasters to inform search engines about their websites, enhance web crawling efforts by search engines, and deliver better search results to users. Our goal with the additions to webmaster tools and the Google News-specific protocol is to give publishers and news organizations greater control over the content Google crawls for inclusion in Google News, and ultimately provide their online readers with the freshest news stories possible. Here’s how it works:

English-language publishers who are currently included in Google News can now use their existing RSS feeds, or define a more advanced News-specific Sitemap of their current news articles, to tell us exactly which articles our crawlers should look at. While publishers have always been able to govern which portions of their site are crawled and included in Google’s services via robots.txt, this will give publishers more granular control over the process.

We also want to provide news organizations more visibility into which articles are ultimately included in Google News. To that end, we’re providing error reports specific to Google News that will inform webmasters of any problems we experienced crawling or extracting news articles from their pages. Although we try to make our crawl and analysis as comprehensive as possible, there are always a small number of sites and articles we are not able to correctly analyze and include. We hope these new tools will help publishers resolve these issues.

For more information on the News Sitemap tool, please visit www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=42747. We also have blog posts on the topic on both webmaster central and the main Google blog that offer additional details. Those are available at googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2006/11/introducing-sitemaps-for-google-news.html and googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/and-now-google-news-sitemaps.html, respectively.

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Major Search Engines Unite to Support a Common Mechanism for Website Submission

Sitemaps protocol will enable Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft to provide more comprehensive and fresh search results

Las Vegas, November 16, 2006 – In the first joint and open initiative to improve the Web crawl process for search engines, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft today announced support for Sitemaps 0.90 (www.sitemaps.org), a free and easy way for webmasters to notify search engines about their websites and be indexed more comprehensively and efficiently, resulting in better representation in search indices. For users, Sitemaps enables higher quality, fresher search results. An initiative initially driven by Yahoo! and Google, Sitemaps builds upon the pioneering Sitemaps 0.84, released by Google in June of 2005, which is now being adopted by Yahoo! and Microsoft to offer a single protocol to enhance Web crawling efforts.

Together, the sponsoring companies will continue to collaborate on the Sitemaps protocol and publish enhancements on a jointly maintained website www.sitemaps.org, which provides all of the details about the Sitemaps protocol.

How Sitemaps Work

A Sitemap is an XML file that can be made available on a website and acts as a marker for search engines to crawl certain pages. It is an easy way for webmasters to make their sites more search engine friendly. It does this by conveniently allowing webmasters to list all of their URLs along with optional metadata, such as the last time the page changed, to improve how search engines crawl and index their websites.

Sitemaps enhance the current model of Web crawling by allowing webmasters to list all their Web pages to improve comprehensiveness, notify search engines of changes or new pages to help freshness, and identify unchanged pages to prevent unnecessary crawling and save bandwidth. Webmasters can now universally submit their content in a uniform manner. Any webmaster can submit their Sitemap to any search engine which has adopted the protocol.

The Sitemaps protocol used by Google has been widely adopted by many Web properties, including sites from the Wikimedia Foundation. Any company that manages dynamic content and a lot of web pages can benefit from Sitemaps. For example, if a company that utilizes a content management system (CMS) to deliver custom web content – (i.e., pricing, availability and promotional offers) – to thousands of URLs places a Sitemap file on its web servers, search engine crawlers will be able discover what pages are present and which have recently changed and to crawl them accordingly. By using Sitemaps, new links can reach search engine users more rapidly by informing search engine "spiders" and helping them to crawl more pages and discover new content faster. This can also drive online traffic and make search engine marketing more effective by delivering better results to users.

For companies looking to improve user experience while keeping costs low, Sitemaps also helps make more efficient use of bandwidth. Sitemaps can help search engines find a company’s newest content more efficiently and avoid the need to revisit unchanged pages. Sitemaps can list what is new on a site and quickly guide crawlers to that new content.

"At industry conferences, webmasters have asked for open standards just like this," said Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Watch. "This is a great development for the whole community and addresses a real need of webmasters in a very convenient fashion. I believe it will lead to greater collaboration in the industry for common standards, including those based around robots.txt, a file that gives Web crawlers direction when they visit a website."

"Announcing industry supported Sitemaps is an important milestone for all of us because it will help webmasters and search engines get the most relevant information to users faster. Sitemaps address the challenges of a growing and dynamic Web by letting webmasters and search engines talk to each other, enabling a better web crawl and better results," said Narayanan Shivakumar, Distinguished Entrepreneur with Google. "Our initial efforts have provided webmasters with useful information about their sites, and the information we’ve received in turn has improved the quality of Google’s search."

"The launch of Sitemaps is significant because it allows for a single, easy way for websites to provide content and metadata to search engines," said Tim Mayer, senior director of product management, Yahoo Search. "Sitemaps helps webmasters surface content that is typically difficult for crawlers to discover, leading to a more comprehensive search experience for users."

"The quality of your index is predicated by the quality of your sources and Windows Live Search is happy to be working with Google and Yahoo! on Sitemaps to not only help webmasters, but also help consumers by delivering more relevant search results so they can find what they’re looking for faster," said Ken Moss, General Manager of Windows Live Search at Microsoft.

The protocol will be available at sitemaps.org, and the companies plan to have Yahoo Small Business host the site. Any site owner can create and upload an XML Sitemap and submit the URL of the file to participating search engines.

Media Contacts:

Katie Watson
Google
kwatson@google.com
1-650-253-0097

Aaron Ferstman
Yahoo!
aaronf@yahoo-inc.com
1-408-349-4902

Jim Pinter
Waggener Edstrom c/o Microsoft Corporation
jpinter@waggeneredstrom.com
1-425-638-7185

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Google Enterprise Search Superstar Award Celebrates Excellence in Business Search

Announcement
November 15, 2006

The search is on. Google is looking for the best uses of Google search technology from our enterprise customers.

The Google Enterprise Search Superstar award, launching today, celebrates the people and companies that help make searching inside of business as easy as searching on Google.com.

Whether they are using the Google Search Appliance to share information in a global company, or the Google Mini to help their small businesses compete against larger ones, Google search customers are finding innovative ways to improve customer satisfaction and employee efficiency.

But we’ll let the winners speak for themselves. At www.google.com/enterprise/superstars winners tell their stories in podcast interviews and company profiles.

We created this award to say "thank you" to our customers, share best practices, and demonstrate some great search experiences for business.

The first Superstars we’ve chosen are three companies among the more than 6,000 customers of Google enterprise search products. We will be adding more winners continuously.

All Google Search Appliance and Google Mini customers can submit their own success stories for consideration in the Google Enterprise Search Superstar Award program.

We’ll keep searching for more Search Superstars. And keep sharing our results.

For more information on the awards, please visit
www.google.com/enterprise/superstars

The Google Enterprise team

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The University of Virginia Library Joins the Google Books Library Project

Announcement
November 14, 2006

Today, Google welcomes its newest partner – the University of Virginia Library – to the Google Books Library Project. Built by Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States, the U.Va. Library carries a wealth of early American historical material among its rich collections.

Google will digitize hundreds of thousands of books from the Library, including selected portions of the Library’s American history, literature, and humanities works collections, and make them searchable online through Google Book Search. With 13 physical locations as well as the original Rotunda, the Library contains more than five million volumes, 17 million manuscripts, rare books and archives, and rapidly-growing digital collections.

For scholars and readers all over the world, this offers even more access to the great works of history and culture. By simply searching online, researchers across the globe can discover books held on the shelves of the U.Va. Library, including a broad range of materials from American literature to Buddhist studies.

"This is an historic moment," said University President John T. Casteen III. "When Jefferson designed the University, he placed the library at its center – both physically and academically. Reading and the quest for knowledge were all-important to him. Reaching out into the world – what we now call Globalization – was central to his vision of what an American university must do to promote the knowledge that sustains personal freedom. To have the library that is the clearest single emblem of this vision now assume a role in a vast, international digital library has special meaning here. It puts a distinctly contemporary meaning to our founder’s dream of making knowledge accessible to all people."

Anyone will be able to freely view, browse and read U.Va.’s books in the public domain. For books protected by copyright, scholars searching on Book Search will be able to see the basic background of relevant books (such as the title and the author’s name), and at most a few lines of text related to their search. They can also find information about where they can buy or borrow a book.

The University of Virginia becomes the latest partner in the Google Books Library Project, which also includes the University of California, Harvard University, University Complutense of Madrid, University of Michigan, the New York Public Library, Oxford University, Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Google is also conducting a pilot project with the Library of Congress.

The Google Books Library Project digitizes books from major libraries around the world and makes their collections searchable on Google Book Search. More information can be found at: books.google.com.

Also see today’s blog post on the Google Book Search about the announcement: booksearch.blogspot.com.

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Civic Lessons & Celebrity Dramas Signify The Weekly Google Zeitgeist

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Google Apps for Your Domain Expands to Include the Start Page for Organizations

If we sprinkled pixie dust on the Google Personalized Homepage and onto Google Apps for Your Domain, and threw them together on a server, what would happen?

We’d launch the Start Page for organizations, a new feature now part of Google Apps for Your Domain. Available today, the Start Page brings organizations of all sizes a customizable homepage, hosted by Google, that serves two main functions:

• It’s your users’ central access point for logging in to the communication and collaboration services they get through Google Apps for Your Domain, like Gmail and Google Calendar.

• And it’s a page with your own branding that lets you present useful and relevant content to your users – including your own content, Google Gadgets and RSS feeds.

With the Start Page, organizations can make their users’ online experience a little more convenient and useful – capitalizing on those fleeting moments of user attention to deliver information like company news, information on the industry, or links to important resources, like a company directory.

Here’s how it works: Domain administrators create and manage the start page through a simple online interface, locking in the branding and design features and the content modules they’d like all users to see every time they use the page. The content options range from the simple to the sophisticated. Administrators can drop in text, images, or HTML; add RSS feeds; or create a new module of their own. Then the organization’s users can customize the Start Page for themselves by mixing and matching from the set of modules selected by their domain administrator, adding in other gadgets from Google, and incorporating RSS feeds from around the web. There’s also a Google search box on the page.

Companies, schools, and other organizations of all sizes that would rather spend their time and resources on things other than building static web pages from scratch can have a fresh, customizable Start Page up and running for their employees, students and members quickly. Or, for ISPs, retailers, and other businesses that want to extend their customers’ relationship with their brand, the Start Page is a scalable yet customizable way to reach out to individuals.

The Start Page is free, hosted by Google, and available starting today in US English. Organizations can sign up for Google Apps for Your Domain, Google’s powerful set of hosted communication and collaboration services for organizations, at www.google.com/a.

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Google Celebrates Geography Awareness Week with New Innovations for Google Earth

New Featured Content Pays Tribute to Africa and Introduces Users to Historical Maps from the David Rumsey Map Collection

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Nov. 13, 2006 – In celebration of Geography Awareness Week, Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) today released new Featured Content for Google Earth that connects users to information about the history of the world through one of the largest private map collections in the US. Map overlays from the David Rumsey collection, which integrate historic cartographic masterpieces dating as far back as the 17th century, have been brought to life for the first time using advanced digitization techniques and innovative software tools in Google Earth. Also available with this release in partnership with National Geographic is an interactive geography quiz that enables users to test their knowledge of this year’s Geography Awareness Week focus region of Africa.

“We are excited to partner with National Geographic to celebrate and encourage the study of geography with Google Earth,” said John Hanke, director of Google Earth and Maps. “Our work with David Rumsey to bring some of the finest privately held historical maps to users worldwide further demonstrates how Google Earth can serve as a dynamic tool for geographic discovery.”

“National Geographic has been exploring and inspiring people to care about the planet for more than a century,” said Terry Garcia, National Geographic’s Executive Vice President for Mission Programs. “Today, anyone hooked into the Web can explore any place on Earth at the click of a mouse. Caring begins with seeing, and there’s no better way to see a place than to be there. So we know new geographic tools such as Google Earth and the National Geographic-ESRI MapMachine mean better stewardship of our world’s extraordinary places, animals, and cultures.”

“I am thrilled to be able to share maps from my collection with users worldwide in Google Earth,” said David Rumsey. “As a longtime maps enthusiast, it is wonderful to see the cutting edge technology of Google Earth introduce people to the geographic history of our world in a new and innovative way. The cartographers who made these historical maps hundreds of years ago would be amazed and pleased to see their treasures in Google Earth.”

More details about this release:

• David Rumsey Historical Maps – Dating from 1680 to 1892, 16 historical maps representative of various regions around the world are available for navigation in Google Earth, including Cassini’s Globe of 1790, a map of Africa from 1787, and a 1710 Japanese-Chinese map of Asia. When overlaid with other data layers in Google Earth, these historical maps show in vivid detail how places have evolved over time and how people’s perception of geography has changed.

• National Geographic Quiz on Africa – An interactive educational quiz on Africa tests users knowledge of this year’s Geography Awareness focus region as an overlay within Google Earth.

• Tracks 4 Africa – This overlay incorporates community-generated data about Africa from Tracks4Africa, an eco-travel community of users who have collected data on roads, trails, track data, lakes, rivers, and tourist points of interest.

• Spotlight on Africa – Featuring flags and information about the 53 sovereign nations of Africa, this overlay provides additional context for this year’s focus region.

More information about these Featured Content overlays is available at www.google.com/educators/gaw.html. Users can access these new Featured Content layers in the left sidebar of Google Earth.

Designed to promote the study of geography in the U.S. and across the globe, Geography Awareness Week was first organized by the National Geographic Society and was officially recognized as the third week in November by President Ronald Reagan in 1987.

Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to make the world’s geographic information easily accessible and useful. There have been over 100 million downloads of Google Earth since the product’s launch in June, 2005.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Contact:

Megan Quinn
meganq@google.com
+1 650.253.4944

###

Google is a registered trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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Google Closes Acquisition of YouTube

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., November 13, 2006 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has closed its acquisition of YouTube, the consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos. In connection with the acquisition Google issued an aggregate of 3,217,560 shares, and restricted stock units, options and a warrant exercisable for or convertible into an aggregate of 442,210 shares, of Google’s Class A common stock. The number of shares of Class A common stock issued and issuable by Google was calculated by dividing $1.65 billion less certain amounts (approximately $15 million) funded to YouTube by Google between signing and closing by the average closing price for the 30 trading days ending on November 9, 2006. 12.5% of the equity issued and issuable in the transaction will be subject to escrow for one year to secure certain indemnification obligations.

"We are excited to have closed the acquisition in order to begin collaborating to offer the best in quality and depth of content, user experience and new business opportunities for our partners," said Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google. "YouTube and Google will together provide innovative and exciting services for our users that will add a new dimension to on-line media entertainment. We look forward to working with content creators and owners large and small to harness the power of the internet to promote, distribute and monetize their content."

"Google’s expertise, technology leadership, and resources will provide us with the flexibility to innovate and build the best, most entertaining service on the Internet. In the coming months, we will roll out many new exciting features and programs to benefit the creativity and participation of our community," said Chad Hurley, CEO and Co-Founder of YouTube. "The community will remain the most important part of YouTube and we are staying on the same course we set out on nearly one year ago. We will continue to gather and listen to its feedback and are looking forward to the many opportunities that lie ahead."

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

About YouTube

Founded in February 2005, YouTube is a consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos worldwide through a Web experience. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips on www.YouTube.com and across the Internet through websites, blogs, and e-mail. YouTube currently delivers more than 100 million video views every day with 65,000 new videos uploaded daily and it has quickly become the leading destination on the Internet for video entertainment.

Contacts:

Media
Gabriel Stricker
650.253.0139
gstricker@google.com

Julie Supan
650.827.6168
press@youtube.com

Investors
Maria Shim
650.253.7663
marias@google.com

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Google is a registered trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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Google to Present at the ThinkEquity Media/Tech Convergence Summit

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., November 9, 2006 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that John Hanke, Director of Product Management, will participate in a question-and-answer session at the ThinkEquity Media/Tech Convergence Summit in New York City. The session is scheduled for 9:55 a.m. Eastern Time (6:55 a.m. Pacific Time) on Wednesday, November 15, 2006.

To access the audio webcast of the session, please visit investor.google.com/webcast.html.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Contact:

Maria Shim
Investor Relations
marias@google.com
650-253-7663

###

Google is a registered trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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Politics, Holidays And Celebrity Dish Dominate The Weekly Google Zeitgeist

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Email On-the-Go Now Even Easier – Google Launches New Mobile Application for Speedier Access to Gmail

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., November 2, 2006 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the release of an innovative new mobile client, Gmail for mobile devices. This freely downloadable Java application delivers Gmail users the look and feel of Gmail through a fast, feature-rich interface that’s optimized for handheld devices. With the release of this client, Google is taking one more step toward its goal of providing users with quick and easy access to the information they need, when they need it.

Gmail users can already access their accounts through the browser on their mobile devices, but this application brings users the same great Gmail experience – complete with search, conversation view, and automatic synchronization with the desktop version – with the following new benefits:

• Up to five times faster access and use, thanks to automatic pre-fetching of messages
• Drastically reduced clicks and scrolling to access email
• Fewer keystrokes for reading, composing, or searching mail
• Attachments, including files and photos, viewable and automatically resized to fit the user’s phone

"Google’s mobile products are designed to enable people to quickly and easily get the information they want on the go," said Deep Nishar, director of product management at Google. "We realize the role mobile phones play as a key driver for balancing online and offline worlds, and we’re committed to developing products that help people stay connected when they’re away from their computers. Gmail for mobile devices delivers on that commitment."

Getting started is easy: users can go to gmail.com/app from their mobile browser to download the app. If users don’t already have a Gmail account, they can sign up for an account via SMS by going to gmail.google.com and clicking on “sign up for Gmail.”

The application is available completely free of charge from Google (carrier mobile data charges may still apply). It is currently compatible with all J2ME-enabled phones in the U.S. and works with a variety of carrier service plans.

In a separate release today, Google and Sprint (NYSE:S) announced that Gmail for mobile devices can also be easily downloaded directly from the Sprint PCS Vision℠ or Sprint Power Vision℠ home page. Google and Sprint worked closely to ensure that Gmail is only a few clicks away for Sprint customers.

To learn more about Google’s mobile offerings, check out mobile.google.com.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Media Contact:

Erin Fors
Google Inc.
efors@google.com
415-939-0582

###

Google is a registered trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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October State Of Mind Characterizes The Weekly Google Zeitgeist

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Google Announces Winner of Global Code Jam 2006

Petr Mitrichev of Russia bests field of 21,000 to take home top prize in New York City

2006 Winner
Petr Mitrichev

NEW YORK, NY – Oct. 27, 2006 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced that Petr Mitrichev won today’s Global Code Jam competition and was awarded with a $10,000 first prize. Mitrichev topped a field of over 21,000 registered competitors from around the world, a record number for GCJ. Second place went to Ying Wang of the United States. Andrey Stankevich came in third. Second through tenth places carry a cash prize of $5,000.

Additional cash prizes went to the other top 100 finalists, who represented 24 different countries. Each finalist was flown to New York this week to compete in the championship round and see firsthand what is happening in the Google New York office. Last year, Marek Cygan of Poland took home the grand prize.

"We’re thrilled to bring together such a talented, diverse group of programmers here in New York to celebrate the best in engineering," said Craig Nevill Manning, engineering director. "Google is passionate about fostering a community of people who want to build the next generation of tools for users around the globe and providing them with the opportunity to meet and discuss challenging problems."

This is the fourth annual Global Code Jam, which is produced in conjunction with TopCoder, the leader in online programming competition, skills assessment and competitive software development. Google’s Global Code Jam is a celebration of the art of computer science and demonstrates the value Google places on excellent coding.

The competition, which began Sept. 5, attracted 21,000 registrants from more than 100 countries. All entrants participated in an initial qualification round, and 1000 of those went on to a two-round competition field. The top 100 scorers from round two of this phase came to Google’s New York offices for the finals. All of the programming for any round could be done in Java, C++, C#, Python or VB.NET.

More information about Google Code Jam 2006 can be found at www.google.com/codejam.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Media Contact:

Megan Lamb
Google Inc.
703-926-5292
mlamb@google.com

###

Google is a registered trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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Celebrity Foibles, Showings And Celebrations Dominate Weekly Google Zeitgeist

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The Power of Google Search is Now Customizable

Announcement
October 23, 2006

Today, Google is launching the Google Custom Search Engine, a new way to bring tailored search to websites and blogs. In just minutes, anyone can use the Google search platform to create a search engine focused on any content they like – from Hollywood heartthrobs, to favorite sports team, to personal hobbies, and more.

Google Custom Search Engines empower users to choose which pages they want to include in their index, how the content should be prioritized, whether others can contribute to their index, and what the search results page will look like. With this launch, we’re extending the power of Google search beyond Google.com.

A number of sites have already created Custom Search Engines. For example, Intuit’s JumpUp.com site, which provides information and resources to small businesses, is combining a Custom Search Engine with its years of experience in small business to provide the most useful resources on the Web to its users. Or take RealClimate.org, a site that offers expert opinion on the science of climate change. They have created a searchable subset of the Web to provide reliable scientific information to its visitors. In a more everyday use of the product, users can create search engines pointing their friends to sites about their favorite pop stars and place them on their personal homepages.

"We want to make it easy for anyone to create a search engine about all of their favorite topics, without needing a Ph.D.," said Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. "Everyone – businesses, organizations, moms, dads, teenagers, and teachers – can harness the power of Google technology to create a personalized search experience that reflects specific knowledge and interests."

Here’s how a Custom Search Engine works: organizations or individuals simply go to www.google.com/coop/cse and select the websites or pages they’d like to include in their search index. Users can choose to restrict their search results to include only those pages and sites, or they can give those pages and sites higher priority and ranking within the larger Google index for their site. Users can then customize the look, feel and functionality of their search engine.

Custom Search Engines are monetized through the Google AdSense program so they can even generate revenue with it. Universities, non-profits and government organizations can choose not to run ads on their search results if they’d rather not.

Google Custom Search Engine is available at www.google.com/coop/cse. We plan to expand the offering internationally in the coming weeks.

Some comments from our partners:

JumpUp.com from Intuit
"Finding the most useful resources on the web is a challenge for small businesses," said Lisa Gevelber, general manager of Quicken Small Business. "That’s why we created JumpUp.com and added Google Custom Search Engine. We combined Google’s technology with our nearly 15 years of small business experience to evaluate and select the most useful small business resources on the web and provide them to JumpUp.com users."

RealClimate
"RealClimate.org is a site that tries to give credible expert opinion on the science of climate change. Unfortunately, since this topical subject has become rather politicized, the quality of information available on the web is very variable, ranging from the excellent to the atrocious. With the Custom Google Search facility, we are able to create a searchable subset of the web that in our expert judgment provides solid and reliable information. Hopefully, it will allow users to get to the good stuff faster, without some of the confusion that currently occurs." – Gavin Schmidt, RealClimate

Macworld
"Macworld is excited to implement Google’s Custom Search as our site’s search engine," said Jason Snell, Vice President and Editorial Director of Mac Publishing, LLC. "Implementing Google Custom Search for our site took very little time, and we expect it to improve our site’s traffic by dramatically improving our users’ search experience."

Penton Media, Inc.
"Utilizing the Google Custom Search Engine, Excavator gets immediate results for the user while acting as a filter for unwanted information. The topic targeting and site filtering has created an all-in-one opportunity to find independent Microsoft news, product information, and resources that have been technically vetted by Windows IT Media content experts," said Chad Phelps, Group Director of eMedia, Windows IT Pro / SQL Server Magazine / MSD2D. "We have an unparalleled network of sites available to us, all of which we’ve made accessible through Excavator in conjunction with the Google Custom Search Engine."

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Google Releases 2006 Google Earth Election Guide

Combination Will Create New Opportunities for Users and Content Owners Everywhere

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – October 23, 2006 – Google (NASDAQ: GOOG):

WHO: Google Earth

WHAT: Google Releases 2006 Google Earth Election Guide

WHERE: Available in Google Earth (download at www.google.com/earth)

WHEN: Monday, October 23, 2006 – Countdown to the 2006 US elections

WHY: Today Google Earth celebrates the election season with the launch of the 2006 Google Earth Election Guide.

Conceived by Google Earth engineers who found it difficult to find aggregated election information online about races country-wide, the 2006 Google Earth Election Guide serves as an easily accessible resource for users to find information about candidates, voter registration, and campaign financing for the November 7th elections.

"We’re excited to connect voters across the country to timely and locally relevant information about the upcoming elections and the candidates," said John Hanke, director of Google Earth and Maps. "We continue to believe that Google Earth can serve as the ultimate tool for organizing and sharing similar geo-based information."

The 2006 Google Earth Election Guide includes clickable place marks for all 435 Congressional districts. Each place mark includes:

• The slate of candidates running for office in that district, with live feeds from Google Web, Image, and News Search for each candidate
• Campaign finance information from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and Center for Responsive Politics (www.opensecrets.org) for the district’s candidates
• A link to voter registration and voter information sites, localized to each state

The 2006 Google Earth Election Guide is available under the Layers tab of the Google Earth sidebar.

Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to make the world’s geographic information easily accessible and useful. There have been over 100 million downloads of Google Earth since the product’s launch in June, 2005.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Press Contact:

Megan Quinn
Google Inc.
meganq@google.com

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Google Hispanic College Fund Scholarship

Announcement
October 11, 2006

We congratulate the 18 winners of the inaugural Google Hispanic College Fund Scholarship who will be recognized at the Hispanic College Fund’s Gala tonight in Washington, D.C. This accomplished group of men and women demonstrated excellence in the field of computer science, and we are pleased to be able to assist them in their educational pursuits.

2006-2007 Google Hispanic College Fund Winners

• Jesus Abrego, University of Texas at San Antonio
• Daniel Catarino, University of Texas at San Antonio
• Carolina Gomez, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Sandra Gonzalez, University of Colorado at Denver
• Asad Kalantarian, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Roxanne Martinez, Stanford University
• Josh Morales, University of Texas-Pan American
• Richard Morris, Del Mar College
• Eilyn Quesada, DeVry University
• Susann Revolorio, Dominican University
• Alejandro Rodriguez, University of Illinois at Chicago
• Andres Rojas, Midwestern State University
• Amanda Ryan, University of Houston-Victoria
• Marlies Santos Deas, Miami-Dade Community College
• Christopher Soghoian, Indian University-Bloomington
• Yuly Tenorio, University of California-Berkeley
• Guikubi Van Woerkom, Indiana University-Bloomington
• Joshua Zuniga, Oregon State University

The Google Hispanic College Fund Scholarship provides $5,000 to a junior or senior who has demonstrated academic excellence in the field of computer science and computer engineering. Winners will also be invited to Google’s Mountain View Campus in April 2007. This scholarship program is a part of Google’s ongoing commitment to removing barriers to pursuing a career in advancing computing and technology, providing scholarships to encourage students to excel in their studies and become active role models and leaders. The various Google scholarship programs are described at www.google.com/jobs/scholarships.

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Google Announces Third Quarter 2006 Results*

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Website Optimizer Now Available in Beta for AdWords Advertisers

Announcement
October 18, 2006

Google is always considering new ways to help advertisers make smart business decisions and increase the return on their marketing investments. Today at the Emetrics Summit in Washington, D.C., Google announced the beta launch of a new tool, Website Optimizer. Website Optimizer is designed to help AdWords advertisers test different landing pages in order to determine which one drives the most conversions – whether they are sales, sign-ups or downloads. This multivariate landing page optimization tool enables marketers to test different ideas for variations of headlines, promotional copy, or images and provides easy-to-read graphs showing which variation resonated best with their site visitors.

The beta launch of Website Optimizer is a limited release that is offered to AdWords advertisers on a sign-up and acceptance basis. Website Optimizer is fully integrated with Google AdWords and is free to AdWords advertisers. By giving website owners the tools they need to improve their website content, Google is helping improve user experience on the internet as a whole.

Any advertiser who is interested in increasing conversions on their website will find Website Optimizer useful. It is a self-service tool that enables non-technical users to set-up and run multivariate landing page experiments. Website Optimizer uses Google Analytics technology for tracking and reporting which landing page variation had the highest conversions.

Google is collaborating with partners to leverage their expertise to provide a range of professional, consulting and implementation services for customers. For example, we’re working closely with EpikOne and Optimost, who include Website Optimizer within their suite of professional services offerings.

"As a Web and Search Analytics Consultancy we help clients identify the key conversion elements of their site,” said Alex Broussard, Vice President, EpikOne, “Google’s Website Optimizer enables us to quickly and confidently implement our recommendations and determine the best placement for those elements."

"We are excited to be working with Google on the launch of their Website Optimizer tool. Website Optimizer will provide an exceptional opportunity for companies of all sizes to experience the benefits of multivariable testing. The Website Optimizer tool will fit perfectly within our portfolio of technology and services," said Mark Wachen, CEO of Optimost.

This tool does not require consulting or professional services to implement. By allowing site visitors to determine what content is most useful, as indicated by the highest conversion rate, we are removing the guesswork and trial-and-error experiments that used to be the norm for determining landing page optimization.

For more information, please visit the Google AdWords Blog: adwords.blogspot.com or the Google Analytics Blog: analytics.blogspot.com.

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Highs, Lows, And Daily Life Characterize The Weekly Google Zeitgeist

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Google Announces Google Docs & Spreadsheets

Announcement
October 11, 2006

Ever found yourself trading email attachments with several colleagues, trying to collaborate on a document, only to have someone chime in at the last moment with corrections to an outdated version? Or emailing yourself a document just so you can move it from one computer to another? What about trying to manage a large guest list – say, for a wedding – when you have updates coming at you from all different directions and at all different times of the day, with other people trying to make their own changes?

Today, at the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, Google launched a solution to these collaborative and document-management challenges. Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a web-based word-processing and spreadsheet product that makes it easier for people to create, manage, and share documents and spreadsheets online. Google Docs & Spreadsheets integrates Writely and Google Spreadsheets into a single, easy-to-use product that takes an innovative approach to a very specific problem in the productivity-software space: enabling people to manage and collaborate on the documents and spreadsheets they rely on in their personal and professional lives, no matter where they are or when they need to access them.

With Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google is taking a set of important tasks and offering an online solution to completing them individually or with a broader group. With a Google Account, a compatible web browser, and an Internet connection, users will now easily be able to:

-- Create documents and spreadsheets, and then manage and access them in a single, secure location

-- Easily collaborate with others, online and in real time

-- Export to and import from a wide variety of file formats

-- Share them with others as view-only

-- Publish them to a blog or as an HTML page

Simply put, Google Docs & Spreadsheets is focused on providing users with an innovative and efficient way to create and share information on the Web.

There are many products in the productivity-software space, addressing a broad range of user needs, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets is intended to both complement these existing solutions and introduce new ones, adding its collaboration and document-management features to the productivity options people already enjoy.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets is currently in beta, available for free, and open for sign-ups. To learn more about the product, visit docs.google.com.

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K-12 Educators Put New Google Resource Center to the Test

Announcement
October 11, 2006

We’ve been hearing stories from classrooms across the US where teachers at all grade levels are using Google products to bring assignments to life, shine light on new sources of information, and encourage sharing and collaboration. What we also heard loud and clear was teachers’ desire for more information about our products and more connections to other educators who are using the web creatively. That’s why we’ve launched a set of resources for K-12 educators today at www.google.com/educators.

A teacher in Virginia uses Picasa with his students to create picture collages of famous Americans. At a school in California, teachers use Google Calendar to schedule events and reserve resources such as the computer lab and projectors. One teacher in Chicago has her students practice graphing data using Google Earth, the spreadsheets in Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and earthquake data from the U.S. Geological Survey. And students across the country completing their English homework on the word processor in Google Docs & Spreadsheets will always be able to find that assignment, no matter what computer they’re working on.

At the new site, you’ll find teachers’ guides for 12 Google products, including basic information about each tool, examples of how educators across the country are using them, and lesson ideas. The featured products are:

• Google web search
• Google Earth
• Google Book Search
• Google Maps
• Google Video
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets
• Blogger
• Google SketchUp
• Google Calendar
• Picasa
• Google Apps for Your Domain
• Google Personalized Homepage

We’re also offering educators some additional multimedia content. We have lesson plans and videos on Google Earth and SketchUp from Discovery Education, and a series of podcasts from WestEd at www.infinitethinking.org that showcase innovative ways to use the web in the classroom.

So much for that "my dog ate my floppy disk" excuse…

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University of Wisconsin-Madison and Google Make Rich Historical Collection Available Online

Announcement
October 11, 2006

If you’re a history buff – whether it’s the history of government, medicine, engineering, or even Wisconsin cheddar – searching for historical information just got a little bit easier, as the University of Wisconsin-Madison becomes the latest library to join the Google Books Library Project.

Together, the UW-Madison and Google will expand access to hundreds of thousands of public and historical materials from the UW-Madison libraries and the Wisconsin Historical Society Library. Some wonderful examples from their collection can be found here: www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/libraryGoogle.html.

The combined 7.2 million holdings of these libraries comprise one of the largest collections of historical documents and books to be found in the United States. The collections are ranked 11th in North America by the Association of Research Libraries in Washington, D.C.

"Wisconsin is in a position to take a leading role in making the primary documents of U. S. government history freely accessible on the Internet for anyone to find and use," says UW-Madison Provost Patrick Farrell.

The Wisconsin project will initially focus on library collections that are free of copyright restrictions. An individual looking for information will be able to use Google Book Search to search the full text and locate the printed works digitized from the UW-Madison and WHS collections.

Anyone will be able to freely view, browse, and read the UW-Madison’s public domain documents, including many of the treasures in the libraries’ historic and special collections. For books protected by copyright, users just get basic background (such as the book’s title and the author’s name), at most a few lines of text related to their search, and information about where they can buy or borrow a book. If publishers or authors don’t want to have their books digitized, they will be excluded.

UW-Madison is the latest partner to join the Google Books Library Project, which also includes the University of California, University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, the New York Public Library, Oxford University and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Google is also conducting a pilot project with the Library of Congress.

The Google Books Library Project digitizes books from major libraries around the world and makes their collections searchable on Google Book Search. More information can be found at: books.google.com.

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Google to Announce Third Quarter 2006 Financial Results

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. October 11, 2006 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) today announced that it will hold its quarterly conference call to discuss third quarter 2006 financial results on Thursday, October 19, 2006 at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time (4:30 p.m. Eastern Time).

The live webcast of Google’s earnings conference call can be accessed at investor.google.com/webcast. The webcast version of the conference call will be available through the same link following the conference call.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Contacts:

Maria Shim
Investor Relations
650-253-7663
marias@google.com

Jon Murchinson
Corporate Communications
650-253-4437
jonm@google.com

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Google Announces Education News at Educause

Announcement
October 10, 2006

This week, at the Educause tradeshow in Dallas, Google is introducing new ways that educational institutions can use Google technologies to power communication, collaboration and search for their campus communities. These updates include new features of Google Apps for Education, as well as new partnerships for our search products.

Since launching Google Apps for Your Domain at the end of August, tens of thousands of businesses and schools have begun using Google’s communication applications for free. The service requires no hardware or software other than a standard internet browser, and the user interfaces can be customized easily by each organization. In one of the largest implementations of Google Apps for Education, starting today Arizona State University will transition the university’s campus community of more than 65,000 students to Google’s customizable email, calendar and instant messaging tools.

At Educause, Google is also announcing the beta release of APIs that make it easier for organizations to integrate their user directory, single sign-on systems, and mail gateways with Google Apps for Education. Schools such as Arizona State University have already integrated into Google Apps for Education through this API.

For more information about Google Apps for Education, visit https://www.google.com/a/edu/.

Finally, Google Enterprise also is announcing today that Blackboard will be the first Google Enterprise Professional partner to focus primarily on the education market. As part of this partnership, Blackboard will help integrate Google enterprise search technology for schools, as well as integrate the Blackboard Learning System with Google Scholar, giving quick and easy access to millions of scholarly references directly from courses within the Blackboard learning environment.

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Real-World News, Musical Notes Define This Week's Google Zeitgeist

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Google Signs Agreement with SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT to Give Users Access to Expansive Catalog of Music Videos

Ad-supported video models give users unparalleled access to SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT’s content online and creates new monetization opportunities

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., and NEW YORK, NY – Oct. 9, 2006 – SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced a strategic business relationship designed to make the music company’s expansive music video collection available for online streaming at no cost to users. Starting this month, users can watch thousands of videos from SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT on Google Video. In the coming months, users will also be able to access content from SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT artists through Google’s partner websites in its AdSense network.

SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, Google and web publishers will now be able to monetize professional video content while respecting copyrights through these video distribution models.

"Google is a defining force in the ongoing development of the Internet, and we’re extremely pleased to be expanding our video relationship with them," commented Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business, SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT. "We see this agreement as an important part of our overall strategy to innovate, find new ways for our artists to connect with their fans, and develop new revenue streams. We look forward to working closely with Google as we roll out this ambitious new effort."

"Continuing to give users access to premium online content is a key strategic focus for Google," said David Eun, Google’s vice president of content partnerships. "By combining our network of hundreds of thousands of advertisers, unequaled distribution via our publisher network and high quality content like SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT’s music video library we can meet online user demand, provide advertisers a new way to communicate with their customers and give content holders a way to monetize their content while respecting important copyrights."

Monetizing through Ad-Supported Content

SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT will be able to monetize its music video content online by leveraging Google’s extensive advertiser network of hundreds of thousands of advertisers. SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT’s expansive music video catalog will be sponsored by Google advertisers making it free to all users. The advertising revenue generated will be shared by SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT and Google.

Unmatched Distribution through AdSense Partner Sites

In the coming months, SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT will also work with Google to distribute select videos from its vast archives to websites around the world via Google’s extensive AdSense publisher network, making it even easier for music fans to access streaming premium content while surfing the Web, all at no cost to the user. Web publishers will be able to easily display videos that match the tone of their sites adding value to their online content and creating a new way to earn revenue from their sites. For example, a fan site devoted to a particular artist can run ad-supported music videos from that artist. Each time a user is interested in the accompanying ad and clicks on the video, the web publisher, SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, and Google accrue revenue.

Facilitating User-Generated Content

SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT and Google will also work together to create a groundbreaking new service that will allow music fans to access user-created music video content featuring certain material from SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT’s library of recorded music, while at the same time respecting the rights of artists and copyright holders.

About SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT

SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT is a global recorded music joint venture with a roster of current artists that includes a broad array of both local artists and international superstars, as well as a vast catalog that comprises some of the most important recordings in history. SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT is 50% owned by Bertelsmann A.G. and 50% owned by Sony Corporation of America.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Press Contacts:

Jennifer Hakes
Google
650.253.1894
jhakes@google.com

John McKay
Sony BMG Music Entertainment
212.833.5520
john.mckay@sonybmg.com

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Google and Warner Music Group Announce Agreement to Offer Google Video Users WMG’s Music Video Content

Ad-supported video model provides Warner Music Group with content monetization opportunities and unmatched distribution in the online world Google developing technology to enable user-generated content

NEW YORK, N.Y. and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Oct. 9, 2006 – Warner Music Group Corp. (NYSE: WMG) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced a strategic business relationship designed to give Google users the ability to stream on-demand WMG’s extensive music video collection for free, through an ad-supported revenue sharing agreement, or to purchase videos online for download. Starting this month, users in the U.S. can watch any of the thousands of music videos, artist interviews, "behind-the-scenes" footage and other artist-related content from WMG on Google Video. In the coming months, users can also access audio-visual content from WMG through Google’s partner websites in its AdSense network. In addition, Google will develop technology that, when implemented, will enable users to include certain content from companies such as Warner Music Group in the videos they create and upload to Google Video.

"Our partnership with Google is rooted in the pioneering approach we’ve used to offer fans more music, while benefiting artists and protecting copyrights," said Alex Zubillaga, Warner Music Group’s Executive Vice President, Digital Strategy and Business Development. "Viewing the online world as a significant opportunity, we are transforming Warner Music from a traditional ‘songs-and-records’ company into one that delivers rich music-based content on multiple platforms, in a variety of ways. We are proud to partner with an online innovator like Google to further our efforts in this space and we are gratified to see that other major music and technology companies are beginning to embrace these new models as well."

"In support of our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, we’re excited to organize and make available to Google Video users the music video library of Warner Music Group," said David Eun, Google’s vice president of content partnerships. "This agreement also allows us to realize a threefold goal of meeting online user demand, providing advertisers with a new way to communicate with their customers, and giving content holders a way to monetize their content; we achieve this by combining Google’s network of hundreds of thousands of advertisers, unparalleled distribution via our publisher network and high quality content like Warner Music Group’s music-video library. At the same time, this agreement is a highly visible platform to highlight our continued commitment to protecting copyrights."

Monetizing through Ad-Supported Content

WMG will be able to monetize its music video content online by leveraging Google’s extensive advertiser network of hundreds of thousands of advertisers. WMG’s music video catalog will be sponsored by Google advertisers, making it free to all users. The resulting generated advertising revenue will be shared by WMG and Google. Besides providing ad-supported content on Google Video, select WMG’s music videos will immediately be available for purchase as downloads on Google Video for $1.99.

Unmatched Distribution through AdSense Partner Sites

In the coming months, WMG will also work with Google to distribute its substantial video collection to websites around the world via Google’s extensive AdSense publisher network, making it even easier for users to access free premium content while surfing the Web. Web publishers will be able to easily display videos that match the tone of their sites adding value to their online content and creating a new way to earn revenue from their sites. For example, a fan site devoted to a particular WMG artist can run ad-supported music videos from that artist. Each time a user is interested in the accompanying ad and clicks on the link, the Web publisher, WMG and Google will share in the resulting revenue.

Facilitating User-Generated Content

WMG and Google are working together to allow users access to music from WMG’s recorded music library for use in their creative user-generated productions. Once Google’s technology is implemented, content companies such as Warner Music Group will have the opportunity to monetize the use of music in user-generated content, or if they choose, have the content removed from the platform.

About Warner Music Group

Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) became the only stand-alone music company to be publicly traded in the United States in May 2005. With its broad roster of new stars and legendary artists, Warner Music Group is home to a collection of the best-known record labels in the music industry including Atlantic, Bad Boy, Elektra, Lava, Maverick, Nonesuch, Reprise, Rhino, Rykodisc, Sire, Warner Bros. and Word. Warner Music International, a leading company in national and international repertoire operates through numerous international affiliates and licensees in more than 50 countries. Warner Music Group also includes Warner/Chappell Music, one of the world’s leading music publishers. For more information, visit www.wmg.com.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Press Contacts:

Jennifer Hakes
Google
650.253.1894
jhakes@google.com

Will Tanous
Warner Music Group
(212) 275-2244
will.tanous@wmg.com

Amanda Collins
Warner Music Group
(212) 275-2213
amanda.collins@wmg.com

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Google To Acquire YouTube for $1.65 Billion in Stock

Combination Will Create New Opportunities for Users and Content Owners Everywhere

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., October 9, 2006 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has agreed to acquire YouTube, the consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos through a Web experience, for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction. Following the acquisition, YouTube will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community.

The acquisition combines one of the largest and fastest growing online video entertainment communities with Google’s expertise in organizing information and creating new models for advertising on the Internet. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience for users interested in uploading, watching and sharing videos, and will offer new opportunities for professional content owners to distribute their work to reach a vast new audience.

"The YouTube team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful," said Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google. "Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers."

"Our community has played a vital role in changing the way that people consume media, creating a new clip culture. By joining forces with Google, we can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive entertainment experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners," said Chad Hurley, CEO and Co-Founder of YouTube. "I’m confident that with this partnership we’ll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for serving media worldwide."

When the acquisition is complete, YouTube will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Google’s own fast-growing video business. YouTube will continue to be based in San Bruno, CA, and all YouTube employees will remain with the company. With Google’s technology, advertiser relationships and global reach, YouTube will continue to build on its success as one of the world’s most popular services for video entertainment.

The number of Google shares to be issued in the transaction will be determined based on the 30-day average closing price two trading days prior to the completion of the acquisition. Both companies have approved the transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Webcast and Conference Call Information

The company will host a conference call and webcast at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time (4:30 p.m. Eastern Time) today to discuss the acquisition. To access the conference call, please dial 800-289-0572 domestic and 913-981-5543 internationally. A replay of the call will be available until midnight Monday, October 16 at 888-203-1112 domestically and 719-457-0820 internationally. Confirmation code for the replay is 2260624.

A live audio webcast of the conference call will be available at investor.google.com/webcast.html.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

About YouTube

Founded in February 2005, YouTube is a consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos worldwide through a Web experience. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips on www.YouTube.comand across the Internet through websites, blogs, and e-mail. YouTube currently delivers more than 100 million video views every day with 65,000 new videos uploaded daily and it has quickly become the leading destination on the Internet for video entertainment.

Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This document includes certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding Google’s and YouTube’s ability to improve their services, create new business models and content-owner opportunities, integration plans, the expected timing for the closing of the acquisition and the plans to operate YouTube independently. These statements are based on the current expectations or beliefs of management of Google Inc., and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Actual results may vary materially from those expressed or implied by the statements herein due to (1) changes in economic, business, competitive, technological and/or regulatory factors, (2) failure to receive regulatory approval for the acquisition, (3) failure to retain the levels of traffic on the YouTube site, (4) failure to compete successfully in this highly competitive and rapidly changing marketplace, (5) failure to retain key employees, (6) other factors affecting the operation of the respective businesses of Google and YouTube, and (7) the failure of YouTube and Google to work together effectively. More detailed information about these factors may be found in filings by Google, as applicable, with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including their respective most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Google is under no obligation to, and expressly disclaims any such obligation to, update or alter their respective forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Press Contacts:

Google Media:
Jon Murchinson
650.253.4437
jonm@google.com

Investors:
Maria Shim
650.253.7663
marias@google.com

YouTube Media:
Julie Supan
650.685.6401
press@youtube.com

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Google Code Search

Announcement
October 5, 2006

Furthering Google’s commitment to building innovative tools and services for the developer community, today Google launched Google Code Search. Google Code Search enables professional programmers, computer science students and code enthusiasts alike the ability to search over billions of lines of the world’s publicly accessible source code. This makes it easier for developers to find sample code and obscure function definitions, which will help them discover code they didn’t know about and increase collaboration within the developer community.

Google Code Search makes public source code accessible that historically has been difficult to find in web search. By crawling data that web search crawlers usually ignore – such as .zip files and source code repositories like CVS and Subversion – we are able to connect users to information that has previously been difficult to access.

For precise searching, users can restrict search queries by programming language, software license, or to a specific software package. Google Code Search also supports advanced regular expression searches, which are way to match patterns of words or characters rather than simple keywords.

Google Code search is available at www.google.com/codesearch and on Google Labs, a showcase of a few of our favorite ideas that aren’t quite ready for prime time. We look forward to hearing how this product can be enhanced and improved to better serve our user’s needs.

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The Literacy Project – a resource for literacy organisations, educators, and anyone interested in reading

Announcement
October 4, 2006

Each year at the beginning of October, thousands of publishers, authors, and book lovers gather in Frankfurt, Germany for the world’s largest book fair. What better place, then, to launch "The Literacy Project" – a resource for teachers, literacy organisations and anyone interested in reading promotion and education, created in collaboration with the Frankfurt Book Fair literacy campaign (LitCam), and UNESCO’s Institute for Lifelong Learning.

As a problem that touches all countries and populations, there’s a pressing need to share ideas, successful projects, information, and statistics about literacy – as well as find new ways to collaborate. Google believes that the Internet can be a powerful tool in connecting the organisations leading this fight. The more people that have access to reading tools, project ideas, and resources, the further we will go in combating this problem.

From Bollywood-inspired e-learning tools and book clubs, to classic children’s books and scholarly articles about phonological awareness – users can find books, videos, articles, blogs, and groups about literacy, as well as share all of their own ideas and projects.

• Books: find and search within books about literacy, reading promotion, and education.
• Academic Texts: search for literacy-related content in peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
• Video: See what literacy organisations, schools, and educators around the world are doing to promote literacy – or share your own project with the world.
• Blogs: Share your knowledge and ideas about literacy with the world by creating a "blog" – short articles and stories that you write for others to read.
• Groups: Discover forums on literacy projects and ideas or start your own debate.
• Maps: From Kenya to Bangladesh, Canada to Mexico. Find literacy organisations around the world.

For more information about the site go to: google.com/literacy

QUOTES

"Litcam is excited to have partnered with Google on this site. A global problem deserves a global solution, and we believe that cooperation and the sharing of best practices is key in the fight against illiteracy."
— Karin Plötz, Director of Education for the Future, LitCam

"Education for All is UNESCO’s first priority. Literacy is at the heart of Education for All and is an issue of vital importance for individuals, families, communities and societies. Literacy and Basic Education give individuals chances to succeed, open a world of limitless opportunities, contribute to equality, improve health and economic self-sufficiency. The aim of this site reflects one of the key missions of UNESCO, and in particular of its Institute for Lifelong Learning: to encourage the promotion of literacy around the world to build capacity and to enhance access to information about the issue."
— Adama Ouane, Director, UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL)

"Literacy changes lives. The new Google literacy site is a brilliant opportunity for literacy organisations around the world to share imaginative ideas and research about what really works. The opportunity to view videos showing how to engage a wide range of audiences to help raise standards is inspiring. We hope all relevant organisations and interested individuals will not only use the site but contribute to it. Together we can help to get the whole world reading, writing and communicating."
— Julia Strong, Deputy Director, National Literacy Trust

"Booktrust exists to encourage people of all ages and cultures to discover and enjoy reading. This new site could be a powerful tool for sharing information and ideas to improve literacy and encourage access to books across the planet – we’re very pleased to be involved."
— Chris Meade, Director, Booktrust

"The Literacy Project has great potential to improve literacy and promote reading for pleasure and I welcome this exciting new initiative."
— Lord Andrew Adonis, UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools

"In India, PlanetRead’s Same Language Subtitling programme enhances the entertainment value of Bollywood film songs while providing subconscious reading practice literally, for over two hundred million early-literates. The Google-Litcam Literacy Project presents a fascinating opportunity for PlanetRead to partner with literacy groups around the world who understand the power of a song… or even a story."
— Dr. Brij Kothari, Founder and President, PlanetRead & BookBox, Inc.

"Only with combined efforts will we have the opportunity to fight illiteracy effectively. This initiative is a great move in that direction."
— Ulrich Aengevoort, Director of The German Adult Education Association

"Fighting illiteracy is all about communication. Communication to get rid of the taboo, communication to raise awareness and communication so that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but make the wheel turn faster. Therefore I’m really happy with The Literacy Project. It gives us the chance to share our ideas and research but also to learn from and be inspired by other organisations in the world. After all, we can only fight illiteracy effectively if we work together."
— Margreet de Vries, Director, Stichting Lezen & Schrijven, the Netherlands

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