Now anyone can Talk

Posted by Mike Jazayeri, Product Manager, Google Talk

Last year, we launched Google Talk, a free and easy service for making voice calls and sending instant messages. It used to be that only Gmail users could use Google Talk but now anyone can sign up for Google Talk. If you haven't tried the service yet, here are 5 good reasons to give it a try:

• now anyone can use the service (Gmail accounts no longer required)
• free and crystal clear voice calls to your friends and family anywhere in the world
• transfer files and folders to others
• free voicemail messages (MEEP!)
• IM from your BlackBerry

Just sign up, invite some friends, and you can be chatting with them in minutes. There are millions of people around the world to chat with! There are, however, still some features including chat histories and mail notifications that will only work if you sign into Google Talk with a Gmail account. Either way, we encourage you to give it a try.

Your inbox for the web

Posted by Nicholas Baum, Product Manager, Google Reader

Do you ever wish that finding interesting stuff on the web was as easy as watching TV? Some nights, I just want to relax, tune in to HBO and see what's on. Other times, I know exactly what I want to watch: all those Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes that I've recorded, for one thing. But on the web, the only way to "tune in" is to go to the websites themselves and see what's there. What I really want is for the websites to come to me instead, so I can read them when I feel like it.

Enter Google Reader. Today there's a new version that makes it even easier to keep track of your favorite websites. Think of Google Reader as your inbox for the web. When you check your email, you don't go to each of your friends' mailboxes to see if they sent you anything — you just check your inbox. Google Reader does the same thing for the Internet, by putting all the sites that interest you in one convenient location and indicating when something has been updated. Here's a quick video intro for you:



We've also made sharing a lot more fun. Everyone who uses Google Reader now gets their own public page to which they can post items of interest. Kind of like a blog with training wheels — it creates a whole stream of your favorites on a page your friends and family can see or even subscribe to. This is definitely my favorite feature — I use it all the time to share pictures from my favorite photoblogs with my friends and family.

So go ahead and try it out. If you're already a regular, we hope you'll like the new look. If you've never used Google Reader before, we invite you to discover a brand new way to keep track of the sites that interest you. We still have a lot of features we want to experiment with, so it's in Google Labs for the time being. And keep up to date with the latest developments via our Reader blog... in Google Reader, of course!

Happy trails with Google Transit

Posted by Chris Harrelson, Software engineer & Transit team tech lead

A little less than a year ago we announced the launch of a new Labs product, Google Transit Trip Planner. We made it easier for Portland commuters to find the fastest and most effective way to get around the city using public transportation.

Today, we're thrilled to tell you that we've added five more cities to our coverage:

• Eugene, Oregon
• Honolulu, Hawaii
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Seattle, Washington
• Tampa, Florida

Now riders in these cities (and Portland, of course) can use Google to plan trips using public transportation, and in some cities, compare the cost of public transportation with the cost of driving. You can also specify when you want to leave or arrive, and see different route possibilities. Here are some things you can find out:

• In Seattle, how to get from UW to Google's Kirkland office
• In Pittsburgh, how to get from brunch at Pamela's to a 1pm matinee at the Waterfront
• In Honolulu, how to get from the airport to Waikiki Beach

Stay tuned, as we'll be making many improvements in the weeks and months ahead based on your feedback. If you have comments or ideas about how this site could be even more helpful, don't hesitate to send us email.

The transit agencies in Google Transit Trip Planner now serve a population of more than 6 million people with over 1 million transit trips per day. For us, that's a fivefold increase in transit riders that we can help -- but we realize that it's still only a small fraction of the world's transit riders. To help expand coverage and to make it easier for transit agencies to get their schedules included, today we're announcing a lightweight Google Transit Feed Specification. If you're from a transit agency interested in being included in this Labs product, just write to us.