Little Box Challenge Academic Awards

Posted by Maggie Johnson, Director of Education and University Relations

Last July, Google and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Power Electronics Society (IEEE PELS) announced the Little Box Challenge, a competition designed to push the forefront of new technologies in the research and development of small, high power density inverters.

In parallel, we announced the Little Box Challenge award program designed to help support academics pursuing groundbreaking research in the area of increasing the power density for DC-­to­-AC power conversion. We received over 100 proposals and today we are proud to announce the following recipients of the academic awards:

Primary Academic Institution	Principal Investigator
University of Colorado Boulder	Khurram K. Afridi
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology	Huang-Jen Chiu
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid	José A. Cobos
Texas A&M University	Prasad Enjeti
ETH Zürich	Johann W. Kolar
University of Bristol	Neville McNeill
Case Western Reserve University	Timothy Peshek
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	Robert Pilawa-Podgurski
University of Stuttgart	Jörg Roth-Stielow
Queensland University of Technology	Geoff Walker

The recipients hail from many different parts of the world and were chosen based on their very strong and thoughtful entries dealing with all the issues raised in the request for proposals. Each of these researchers will receive approximately $30,000 US to support their research into high power density inverters, and are encouraged to use this work to attempt to win the $1,000,000 US grand prize for the Little Box Challenge.

There were many submissions beyond those chosen here that reviewers also considered to be very promising. We encourage all those who did not receive funding to still participate in the Little Box Challenge, and pursue improvements not only in power density, but also in the reliability, efficiency, safety, and cost of inverters (and of course, to attempt to win the grand prize!)

Keeping the GA Web Experience Modern

We're continuing to bring you new features and technologies in the design of Google Analytics to provide the best a user experience. With this in mind, starting January 31, 2015 we will no longer support official compatibility of Google Analytics with Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 (IE9). While you can continue to use IE9 after we discontinue support, some features may not work properly going forward. This update maintains our practice of supporting the newest browsers while discontinuing support for the third-oldest version, as we previously announced in September 2013.

We will continue to support the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer 10 or higher, Safari and other modern browsers. Of course, you will still be able to measure visits from users of all browsers, including IE 9. We will send further reminders prior to the deprecation, but do advise you begin preparing and implementing plans for this change at your earliest convenience.

Posted by the Google Analytics team

Call for Research Proposals to participate in the Open Web of Things Expedition

Posted Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, Roy Want and Max Senges, Google Research

Imagine a world in which access to networked technology defies the constraints of desktops, laptops or smartphones. A future where we work seamlessly with connected systems, services, devices and “things” to support work practices, education, and daily interactions. While the Internet of Things (IoT) conjures a vision of “anytime, any place” connectivity for all things, the realization is complex given the need to work across interconnected and heterogeneous systems, and the special considerations needed for security, privacy, and safety.

Google is excited about the opportunities the IoT presents for future products and services. To further the development of open standards, facilitate ease of use, and ensure that privacy and security are fundamental values throughout the evolution of the field, we are in the process of establishing an open innovation and research program around the IoT. We plan to bring together a community of academics, Google experts and potentially other parties to pursue an open and shared mission in this area.

As a first step, we are announcing an open call for research proposals for the Open Web of Things:

• Researchers interested in the Expedition Lead Grant should build a team of PIs and put forward a proposal outlining a draft research roadmap both for their team(s), as well as how they propose to integrate related research that is implemented outside their labs (e.g., Individual Project Grants).
• For the Individual Project Grants we are seeking research proposals relating to the IoT in the following areas (1) user interface and application development, (2) privacy & security, and (3) systems & protocols research.

Importantly, we are open to new and unorthodox solutions in all three of these areas, for example, novel interactions, usable security models, and new approaches for open standards and evolution of protocols.

Additionally, to facilitate hands-on research supporting our mission driven research, we plan to provide participating faculty access to hardware, software and systems from Google. We look forward to your submission by January 21, 2015 and expect to select proposals early Spring. Selected PIs will be invited to participate in a kick-off workshop at Google shortly after.

Refreshing “The Customer Journey to Online Purchase” - New Insights into Marketing Channels

Last year we introduced “The Customer Journey to Online Purchase” -- a tool that helped marketers visualize the roles played by marketing channels like paid search, email and display ads in their customers' journeys.

The goal was to help marketers learn more about the customer journeys for their industries. If social makes your customers aware, and email makes them convert -- or vice versa -- you can make sure you're in both places with the right kind of message.

Today we're happy to introduce a new improved version of the Customer Journey to Online Purchase, with a few key enhancements.  We’ve refreshed the data based on millions of consumer interactions, updated the industry classifications, and we’ve split out paid search so you can see the influence of brand and generic search terms on the purchase decision.

In each industry you can now see journeys for small, medium and large companies, which can often be quite different.

Click to enlarge image

For instance, the above image shows the journey for customers of small businesses in the shopping industry. Note that organic search is very often an "assist" interaction for these customers.

Click to enlarge image

Now here's the same journey for large shopping businesses. Note that display clicks and social are strongly assisting interactions -- while display didn’t even appear for the small businesses above. For both small and large businesses, a direct website visit is most likely to be the last interaction. Across industries, the differences from small to large businesses illustrate how different marketing strategies and customer profiles may lead to different buying behavior.

And there's more! Now you can drill down into each marketing channel for a closer look at the role it plays based on its position in the purchase path. Channels that occur more frequently in the beginning of the path are more likely to help generate awareness for your product, while the end of the path is closer to the customer’s purchase decision.

Click to enlarge image

In these charts, for example, we see the different roles that different channels play in the Shopping industry. One interesting insight is that all channels -- even those traditionally thought of as “upper funnel” or “lower funnel” -- occur throughout the purchase path, but a given channel may be more common at particular stages depending on its role (and depending on the industry).

Each marketing campaign and channel may have a different impact on customers depending on when they interact with it. Using what you learn from this tool, you can help adapt your marketing messaging to be more relevant and useful for your customers.

Try the Customer Journey to Online Purchase today. And for more helpful marketing insights, check out Measure What Matters Most: our new guide chock-full of suggestions on how to measure the impact of your marketing -- across channels -- to complement what you learn from the Customer Journey tool and take action to improve your marketing.

Happy analyzing!

The Customer Journey to Online Purchase »

Posted by Sara Jablon Moked, Product Marketing Manager, Google Analytics

Learning Digital Skills online with Google Activate

Posted by Michel Benard, University Relations Manager and Cova Soto, Product Marketing Manager, Business Marketing Madrid

According to Eurostat data, over 5 million people under age 25 are currently out of work in Europe, in contrast to an increasing demand for people with digital skills such as Digital Marketing, Big Data, Ecommerce, Mobile App Development and Cloud Computing. In particular, Spanish employers are finding it difficult to find individuals with the right skills, due to the lack of the digital education available.

In an effort to make contributions towards solving Spain’s unemployment in this sector, Google Spain, the Spanish Ministry of Industry through their business school EOI, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) are collaborating to build Google Activate, a series of massive open online courses (MOOCs) dedicated to teach digital skills to the young unemployed people in Spain. This is an example of how online education can be scaled to address educational and economic issues.

The inspiration for Google Activate began with the summer 2012 launch of Course Builder, an experimental platform developed on Google technologies designed to provide the capability for anyone to create an online environment that can be used for a wide variety of education-related activities. In September of that same year, Course Builder was made available in Europe, as part of the Google Faculty Summit in London.

Among the early adopters of Course Builder in Europe was a partnership that included the University of Alicante, who in October 2012 launched Unimooc Aemprende, a MOOC for entrepreneurs. This is just one example of the use of Course Builder to build a MOOC designed to solve a broad problem, in this case the acquisition of skills for launching a small business. More than 30,000 people have participated in Unimooc since its launch.

As of today, more than 148,000 people have registered for Activate with 13% of participants earning a certificate, which is obtained after 13 exams certified by either the EOI, Universidad Complutense de Madrid or or the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau). Such certificates are being used by the awardees in their LinkedIn profile to position themselves for a job in the digital economy, where many jobs are being created. More than 19,000 students are already certified in one of the 5 digital areas.

Google Activate has plans to increase the number of students with digital skills reaching 160,000 with plans to expand further to other countries in the world.

Google Analytics in AdMob helps mobile app developer Eltsoft go global

Cross-posted on the Inside AdMob Blog 

Since March 2014, Google Analytics has been fully available in AdMob, and now app developers are increasingly seeing results by combining data from both platforms. Here’s one story that illustrates the power of AdMob and Google Analytics together.

Passion for languages and learning

Jason Byrne, and business partner Robert Diem, are passionate about making a difference in education. They came together during their time as professors in Japan to found Eltsoft LLC, a company that builds mobile language learning apps for iOS and Android. Together, they started creating a series of fun tools  that allow users to study whenever they want, wherever they are.

Global expansion

Their most popular app is English Grammar, which has been downloaded by more than a million people looking to sharpen their English-language skills in nearly 120 countries.

All of the company’s apps are available for free or as paid versions. To increase revenue, they chose AdMob to earn money from the free versions of their apps with advertising. “AdMob monetization is central to our success because it delivers high-quality, appropriate ads to our audience in their native languages, wherever they live,” says Jason. 

The Google Analytics data within AdMob helped them understand more about their users. "Our app, English Grammar, has users from all around the world, so we turned to data from Google Analytics and AdMob to understand which languages we should consider for localization. For example, we knew we had to prioritize German and French, but we discovered other languages that we didn't expect, such as Russian and Japanese."

A data-driven approach to marketing 

Eltsoft uses data to focus their marketing campaigns and assess where to use their resources most effectively. “Google Analytics keeps making campaign analysis simpler and clearer,” Jason says. “Data from various sources - Google Analytics and Google Play, for instance - are now all in one place. That helps me understand what’s happening with our ad campaigns.” 

While data analysis helped Eltsoft validate some of their hypotheses, it also uncovered opportunities according to Jason: “The greatest takeaway for me is that the results are never really what I expect. I am often surprised. Analytics has given us great insights into who our users are, and has provided a very important lesson in the value of surveying our user base. Our simple assumptions are often inaccurate.”

Replicating successful strategies

Eltsoft has developed a way to calculate the value of users by using a combination of AdMob metrics (like ad request values) and Analytics metrics (like user counts and sessions per user). Having Google Analytics in AdMob has unlocked such analysis because the data is available in the same interface.

As a result, Eltsoft can now understand what works best for their users. “For example, we’ve made changes to our apps, and Analytics has really helped us to track the effectiveness of those changes. I would say six months ago, that our success was a mystery. The data said we were doing well, but the whys were not clear. Therefore, we couldn’t replicate or push forward. But today, we understand what’s happening and can project our future success. We have not only the data, but can control certain variables allowing us to understand that data.”

“Google Analytics data is literally a goldmine,” says Jason.

If you want to learn more about how Eltsoft is using Google Analytics and AdMob, download the full case study. 

Want to learn how to get the most from Analytics in AdMob? Sign up for our free online course, Mobile App Analytics Fundamentals.

Posted by Russell Ketchum, Lead Product Manager, Google Analytics for Mobile Apps

MOOC Research and Innovation

Posted by Maggie Johnson, Director of Education and University Relations

Recently, Tsinghua University and Google collaborated to host the 2014 APAC MOOC Focused Faculty Workshop in Shanghai, China. The workshop brought together 37 professors from 12 countries in APAC, NA and EMEA to share, brainstorm and generate important topics that are of mutual interests in the research behind MOOCs and how to foster MOOC innovation.

During the 2-day workshop, faculty and Googlers shared lessons learned and best practices for the following focus areas:

• Effectiveness of hybrid learning models.
• Topics in adaptive learning and how they can tailor to individual students by Integrating MOOCs into a student's timetable / semester / curriculum.
• Standards and practices for interoperability between online learning platforms.
• Current focuses and important topics for future MOOC research.

In addition to discussing these focus areas, here was ample time for participants to brainstorm and discuss innovative research ideas for the next-steps in potential research collaboration. Emerging from these discussions were the following themes identified as important future research topics:

• Adding new interactions to MOOCs including social and gamification
• Building a data & analytics Infrastructure that provides a foundation for personalized learning
• Interoperability across platforms, and providing access to online content for audiences with limited access.

Google is committed to supporting research and innovation in online learning at scale, through both grants and our open source Course Builder platform, and we are excited to pursue potential research collaborations with partner universities to move forward on the topics discussed. Stay tuned for future announcements on research and collaboration aimed at enabling further MOOC innovation.