Google+ on Monday announced it would gradually roll out its “Hangouts on Air” feature to the masses over the coming weeks. The feature lets you broadcast live sessions for anyone to watch — just like Barack Obama did in January.

Hangouts on Air can be posted on your Google+ stream, YouTube channel or website by checking “Enable Hangouts on Air.” It also allows you to monitor the number of views, record the live session and share it.

The feature previously was available only to a small group of broadcasters starting in 2011. Google touts the creative Hangouts those people have produced such as live concerts from a living room, classes anyone can attend, town halls with politicians and roundtables about any topic, among other sessions.

“So if you have something to say — as an aspiring artist, a global celebrity, or a concerned citizen — you can now go live in front of a global audience,” Google engineering director Chee Chew wrote in a blog post.

SEE ALSO: Google+ Hangouts Get Furry: Now You Can Chat With Cat and Dog Masks [VIDEO]

To learn more about Hangouts on Air, watch the videos above and below.

More About: Google, google plus hangouts, Live Stream, Social Media, trending, video chat

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Cross-posted on the Google Developers Blog.

BigQuery enables businesses and developers to gain real-time business insights from massive amounts of data without any upfront hardware or software investments. Imagine a big pharmaceutical company optimizing daily marketing spend using worldwide sales and advertisement data. Or think of a small online retailer that makes product recommendations based on user clicks. Today, we are making BigQuery publicly available, an important milestone in our effort to bring Big Data analytics to all businesses via the cloud.

Since announcing BigQuery in limited preview last November, many businesses and developers have started using it for real-time Big Data analytics in the cloud. Claritics, a social and mobile analytics company, built a web application for game developers to gain real-time insights into user behavior. Crystalloids, an Amsterdam-based analytics firm, built a cloud-based application to help a resort network analyze customer reservations, optimize marketing and maximize revenue. This just scratches the surface of use cases for BigQuery.

BigQuery is accessible via a simple UI or REST interface. It lets you take advantage of Google’s massive compute power, store as much data as needed and pay only for what you use. Your data is protected with multiple layers of security, replicated across multiple data centers and can be easily exported.

Developers and businesses can sign up for BigQuery online and query up to 100 GB of data per month for free. See our introductory pricing plan for storing and querying datasets of up to 2 TB. If you need more than that, contact a sales representative.

We hope you’ll be able to gain real-time business insights using BigQuery. Share your BigQuery use cases and feedback in our user forums or on our Enterprise G+ page.

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There's no shortage of online storage and file syncing services these days, which is great—but can make picking just one to use confusing, especially if you need to pay for more space. Luckily Ars Technica has collected details on the most popular services in handy comparison charts. More »

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Google Drive is finally here: It’s real, but is it spectacular? We kicked the tires and then took it for a spin around the block, all in an effort to answer those burning questions you might have about Google’s new cloud storage endeavor.

After being leaked all across the internet over the last several weeks, Google Drive has finally launched, putting its short-lived status as a mythical beast to rest. The real question is: What can it do for you, and why should you install it? Let’s have a look into everything you’ll need to know in order to use it.

Where Can I Install Google Drive?

Google Drive is currently available in English only on four platforms: Mac, Windows, Android or any modern web browser. The search giant claims it’s working on an iOS client for the iPhone and iPad, but there’s no indication of when it might hit the App Store — but we’d bet on later than sooner, judging from the way Google worded its announcement.

What Does It Do?

The easiest way to explain Google Drive is to compare it to Dropbox, the company and service who helped pioneer the current crop of cloud storage offerings. The concept is simple: Install the client software on any or all platforms you want, drop some files into its local folder and they’ll soon be available from the cloud as well. How fast that happens ultimately depends upon your broadband speed, but smaller files like photos and documents get synced pretty quickly.

How Is Google Drive Different from Google Docs?

Google Docs is incorporated right into Google Drive — as soon as you install the client software and sign in, your existing Docs content gets synced onto that computer or mobile client and is available for use. If you’re new to Google Docs, you’ll notice that trying to access that service now takes you straight to Google Drive, so it appears the search giant may be trying to actually melt the two cheeses into one vat of fondue, as it were.

How Much Storage Do I Get?

Every Google Drive user gets 5GB of cloud storage free, but in reality, Google Docs users are simply getting a bump from that service’s original 1GB to 5GB — in fact, eagle-eyed users noticed the storage increase ahead of the public launch on Tuesday, one of a number of clues Google dropped like bread crumbs over the last week or two.

Can I Buy More Storage?

But of course — and Google probably hopes that you will, since they’re not exactly making any money off the moochers who sign up just for the 5GB. The company is making 25GB available for $2.49 per month ($29.88 per year) or 100GB for $4.99 per month ($58.88 per year), but another amounts are also available: 200GB, 400GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 8TB. Heck, there’s even a 16TB upgrade available for a whopping $799.99 per month! Paid accounts will also get a bonus, with Gmail storage bumped to 25GB. Those figures compare favorably to competitors, although Microsoft SkyDrive — which added a Mac client a day prior to Drive’s launch — is a bit cheaper in the long run.

Does That Mean Picasa Can Use My 5GB, Too?

Slow down, son — not so fast. Free accounts will still be limited to 1GB for Picasa, but the good news is that your photo storage opportunities will really expand once you start coughing up cold, hard cash. That’s because 25GB worth of Google Drive storage is also shared with Picasa — likewise for 100GB and up.

How Does Drive Affect My Gmail Storage?

It doesn’t, but Google is feeling generous and has decided to bump Gmail storage up to its own 10GB bucket at the same time as it’s handing out only half that amount to Drive users. Doesn’t make much sense to us, but hey, we’re not about to poo-poo on free storage here.

So What Can I Save to Google Drive?

Far be it from us to dictate what you choose to store! And Google probably feels the same way, despite their often-draconian EULA terms. As long as you’re not saving anything illegal or potentially immoral (come on, don’t make us spell it out here, folks!), feel free to toss all the PDF files, images, videos, documents and what not onto your Drive — at least until Google slams the brakes on your wild ride when the storage limit kicks in.

Is There a Maximum File Size?

As with life itself, everything has a limit, and Google Drive will immediately put your upload into park should you try to upload a single file bigger than 10GB — but take heart, that’s far bigger than any of the competitors will allow.

What About Google Docs Files?

A-ha! Good for you, discovering a neat little trick to getting more Google Drive storage. As detailed in Drive settings, your storage limit only counts toward files you upload — native documents in the Google Docs format “don’t use up your storage space,” according to Google. So, that’s like, pretty cool and stuff.

So What Happens When I Upload a Word/Excel/PowerPoint File, Then?

Glad you asked. Google Drive includes upload settings that determine how Google will treat your uploaded documents. By default it’s set to “Confirm settings before each upload,” which puts the user in control — but you can also tick a couple of options here, including “Convert uploaded files to Google Docs format.” In case you haven’t figured it out, this option changes a Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint document into its matching Google Docs format. While you won’t be able to edit these files natively on the desktop, you’ll be optimizing your space as outlined above, where a native Word file, for example, will count toward your 5GB limit.

So I Can’t Natively Edit Docs Files on My Mac?

Sorry, no. After you’ve installed Google Drive, you’ll notice that existing Docs appear with an extension — .gsheet for spreadsheets or .gdoc for text documents, for example. There’s currently no Mac app to directly edit such files, and double-clicking on one will simply open your default web browser with that file ready and waiting for you to make changes.

Can I Share Other Files on My Computer?

Like Dropbox, Google Drive limits its sharing to the “Google Drive” folder it adds to your Home folder. So, anything you want to sync to Drive has to be copied or moved into this folder. That said, users can also choose to share only select subfolders — simply choose Sync options from the Google Drive preferences, tick “Only sync some folders to this computer” and then select or deselect folders at will. There’s a separate box for syncing Google Docs files, which essentially enables or disables offline viewing for them.

Where’s the iOS Client?

Beats us. Google’s announcement only included client software for Mac, PC and Android, while cruelly teasing, “we’re also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices” without so much as an idea of when it might arrive. Judging from the search giant’s history, we’re guessing it will arrive as a universal app so one download will take care of your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, but you’ll have to consult a fortune teller if you want to know when you can get your hands on it.

Anything Else I Need to Know?

Not really. Not surprisingly, search is being touted as a key feature of Google Drive. Text in uploaded PDF or image files can be scanned with optical character recognition so when the time comes to find it again later, simply typing a few words into a search field should turn up whatever you’re after. Google Drive also integrates nicely with Google+, and developers have access to an SDK so they can start integrating the service with their own apps and services.

Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter

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Want Google to analyze your email habits? The search engine giant highlighted on its Official Blog on Thursday a program called Google Meter that allows Gmail users to learn more about their inbox, from whether they’re more likely to write long emails to information on how long it takes you to typically reply.

Called Gmail Meter, the program analyzes email patterns to give a better sense of overall inbox activity. Gmail Meter was developed by Romain Vialard, a Google Apps Script Top Contributor, so it wasn’t created by Google but the site supports it.

Gmail Meter runs on the first day of every month and sends users an email containing different statistics about your Inbox.

For example, Gmail Meter provides stats about the number of important and starred messages in your inbox, as well as how often you email with others. Additional features include a tool that reveals stats on how you manage your inbox and how you how long it takes for you to reply (and how long it takes for them to respond).

It also tracks whether you are prone to writing short or long emails, and averages what your usual word count might be.

SEE ALSO: Beyond Signatures: BrandMyMail Adds Analytics to Email for Cheap

For those interested in installing the feature, there’s a few steps you need to take. Go to Google Docs and create a new spreadsheet (and save it). Click on Tools, followed by Script Gallery, then search for “Gmail Meter” and click Install. Although the creator’s email address may appear near the install button, Google confirmed to Mashable that the download is completely safe and no information will be shared.

An authorization prompt will ask for you to grant the tool access.

A new menu item called Gmail Meter will appear on the spreadsheet. Select Gmail Meter and then Get a Report. You will get an email once the report is ready.

If you’re having problems with the install button — in some cases, it’s been taking awhile to download — Google said that the influx of people trying to access the feature has slowed the process. It’s working to correct the issue soon.

Last month, Google announced a feature called “Account Activity” that gives you a monthly summary as to how you use the site.

UPDATE: This story has been updated from its original version to reflect that Gmail Meter was not created by Google, but supports the tool which was created by a Google Apps Script Top Contributor. We regret the error.

Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, alija

More About: email, gmail, Google, trending

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The amount of harried printing situations I’ve been party to has dropped dramatically since I finished school, but Google’s new update to their Cloud Print service should have you covered if you can’t say the same.

According to a post on the official Chrome blog Google has baked the ability to print to any FedEx Office location right into Cloud Print, so you’ll be push your documents from Chrome, Google Docs, or your Android device to a participating store and pick up it whenever you need to.

When I took the service for a spin, the process of actually creating the job took a shade under 30 seconds seconds — from there, I was greeted with an email mentioning that my document was now ready to print at a local FedEx Office. As long as you’ve remember to keep the retrieval code from the email handy, you’re all set to pick up your sales report (or printed copy of Charge of the Like Brigade) when you need to.

It isn’t a dealbreaker if you can’t get down there immediately though, as the document will continue to live in the cloud for ten days. After that, you’re plumb out of luck (unless you pop into Chrome and Cloud Print it again). I imagine that not everyone will be too pleased with this development — companies like Breezy have working to remove the friction from mobile printing for quite a while, and now they’ve got other competitor to deal with.

Strangely enough, Google also announced that Cloud Print can now send documents to Ice Cream Sandwich-powered devices that have the Chrome for Android beta installed. It doesn’t strike me as a huge improvement over, say, just sticking it in Google Docs, but it’ll do in a pinch if you’re ever in need of a slightly-clunkier version of Instapaper.

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suraj.sun writes “We’ve seen quite a few Android malware discoveries in the recent past, mostly on unofficial Android markets. There was a premium-rate SMS Trojan that not only sent costly SMS messages automatically, but also prevented users’ carriers from notifying them of the new charges, a massive Android malware campaign that may be responsible for duping as many as 5 million users, and an malware controlled via SMS. Ars Technica is now reporting another Android malware discovery made by McAfee researcher Carlos Castillo, this time on Google’s official app market, Google Play, even after Google announced back in early February that it has started scanning Android apps for malware. Two weeks ago, a separate set of researchers found malicious extensions in the Google Chrome Web Store that could gain complete control of users’ Facebook profiles. Quoting the article: ‘The repeated discoveries of malware hosted on Google servers underscore the darker side of a market that allows anyone to submit apps with few questions asked. Whatever critics may say about Apple’s App Store, which is significantly more selective about the titles it hosts, complaints about malware aren’t one of them.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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If you needed any more proof that Google Drive was alive, look no further than this screenshot of the OS X app. I’ve been able to download and run the app and it is currently idle, sitting quietly in the corner, unable to connect to the mothership.

The version we were given is 1.0.2891 and seems to run without issue. I was able to log in using my Gmail account and I suppose I’ll have to wait to play with it further. It currently throws an error stating that “Google Drive is not yet enabled for your account.”

Though not definitive proof that the service will launch next week, it’s clear that this is a full, working app. I dug around a bit in the files and found that there is native support for Google filetypes like files produced in Gdraw and Google Docs.

The tipster pointed us to a Google.com URL to download a .DMG package. This app came directly from Google.

The news broke earlier today stating that Google was set to launch the much-rumored Google Drive service as early as next week. The service is said to offer 5GB of storage space although that is also an unconfirmed rumor.

At this point the app is pretty much useless. It seems Google needs to activate the service from their end in order to enable the functionality. But it’s just one more piece of the Google Drive puzzle.

Thanks for the tip, anonymous!

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Another day, another feature added to Amazon Web Services (AWS). This time around, it’s a managed search service called CloudSearch that delivers search results in JSON or XML. According to Amazon, the service will cost less than $100 a month for the lowest tier of usage. Oddly enough, Amazon has beaten Google to the punch.

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Google Analytics has one little setting that will calculate all of this for you. You’ll be able to break down your revenue by campaign, keyword, or referral. You’ll even have the per visit value of every traffic source. That sounds like some delicious data if you ask me.

It’s called goal values. Google Analytics allows us to define goal values for each of our goals and populates our reports with data on where our revenue is coming from.

How to Setup Goal Values

This is pretty straightforward:

1. Go to your Google Analytics standard reports
2. Click on the “Admin” button in the top right
3. Click on “Goals”
4. From one of the Goal sets, click “+ Goal” (goal sets are just a way for you to easily group goals) if you’re setting up a new goal. For a goal you’ve already created, click on the goal you want to edit.

For each goal type, you have the option of entering a goal value. If the goal value is $10, simply punch in 10 and Google Analytics will handle the rest.

Here’s where to find the Goal Value setting for each type of event:

URL Goals

Visit Duration

Pages/Visit

Events

On events, you can choose to have the Goal Value use the Event Value, which you define when you create the event. For the lowdown on events and how to set them up, check out Google’s Event Tracking Guide.

If you’re having trouble finding the Event Goals, make sure you’re in the new version of Google Analytics (v5). Events Goals are a new feature and weren’t available in prior versions.

Always Use Ecommerce Tracking First

Goal values are not a substitute for ecommerce tracking in Google Analytics. So if you have an ecommerce site, don’t try to use use goals values to track revenue. Your ecommerce reports give you much better insights on your products, transactions, and how long it takes your customers to purchase. Seriously, these reports are a goldmine. You can practically mint money with this data.

And if you already have ecommerce tracking set up, there’s no reason to use goal values (or goals) for your transactions. Google Analytics does all the work for you.

If you have an ecommerce site, take the time and get ecommerce tracking set up. Go to oDesk or Elance right now and find someone to do this for you.

Single Product Websites (The One Exception)

There’s one situation where it makes sense to ignore my recommendation to use ecommerce tracking over goal values. And that’s if you have a single product website. But for this to work, your site must truly have a single product. You can’t have alternate versions or upsells. One product, one SKU, one price.

In fact, I actually recommend doing this if you’re testing a new product. In this case, you’re not even sure if your idea is going to work. So don’t invest any more money that you absolutely have to. Instead of paying a developer in India to set up ecommerce tracking, just punch in the goal value and find out if you can actually make money. Keep it simple when you’re just starting. Then spend the money on getting ecommerce tracking enabled once you’re committed to your new business model.

If this is the case, take the price of your product and use it as the goal value.

The Most Popular Use for Goal Values: Leads

Leads are perfect for goal values. There’s no purchase so ecommerce tracking isn’t an option. And since leads are generally easy to quantify, let’s bust out those goal values.

To figure out your goal value for a lead, work backwards.

Let’s use a travel agency in Southeast Asia as an example. They received 10 leads during the month which produced $12,500 in revenue. Take the total revenue ($12,500) and divide it by the number of leads (10) which means each lead is worth $1,250. That’s the goal value.

Now, this example assumes that ALL their leads came from their site. Your sales funnel is probably a bit more complicated. When calculating your total revenue and the number of leads you received, don’t include leads that come from any other source like word-of-mouth referrals, social media, affiliates, etc. This keeps your data as clean as possible so you can make better business decisions later.

If you have multiple ways for people to become a lead on your site (like a newsletter and a contact form), separate the data you have on your leads and calculate goal values for each.

When calculating your revenue and leads, use data from the past month or quarter.

Bonus Point Round: If you want your goal values to be as accurate as possible, there’s another step.

Instead of calculating the goal value based on the average value of the first order, you calculate it using the average Lifetime Value (LTV) of your customers.

Most businesses have repeat customers. And lifetime value is the total amount that customers spend on your products or services before they move on. This data isn’t easy to track, you’ll need a solid customer database. Talk to your finance and IT teams about tracking lifetime value, they’ll be able to point you in the right direction. If you’re small enough that you don’t have finance and IT teams, just worry about the first sale.

Other Examples of Using Goal Values for Leads

Newsletters: Take the total revenue you receive from newsletter subscribers and divide it by the total number of subscribers you have. BAM, that’s your goal value for a new subscriber.

Document Downloads: Maybe you give away a free ebook or white paper to draw in leads. Calculate how much you made from leads generated from the document and divide it by the total downloads.

Webinar Signups: Find out how many people click through to your webinar signup page and how much you make from a typical webinar. Divide your revenue by your clicks.

Affiliate Links: You’ll have to go into your affiliate program for this one (Amazon, Commission Junction, ClickBank, etc). Find your total revenue and divide that by the number of clicks your affiliate links received. If you want to be a power user, calculate this for each link and assign individual values to each link through Event Goals.

Trial/Free Accounts: Figure out how much revenue you generate on upgrades to paid accounts. Then divide by the number of trial/free accounts you have.

What if you don’t have this data?

Then you don’t have enough customers. If you’re building a business and it’s small enough that you don’t receive regular leads or purchases through your site, stop worrying about Google Analytics goal values and go get more customers.

Update Your Goal Values Regularly

All of your business metrics will change over time. Just about every industry deals with seasonality. You’ll also have to cope with business cycles (economic booms and busts). So you’ll need to revisit your goals regularly and recalculate everything. If you don’t, your data will slowly drift off course. And over time, your reports will become completely useless.

You should update your goals monthly. But many of us don’t have this luxury simple due to time constraints. At a bare minimum, update your goals every 3 months. Stick a reminder in your calendar and make sure this happens.

Don’t Create Goal Values for Kicks And Giggles

For every example we’ve discussed so far, the goal had a clearly defined impact on your bottom line. What about other goals like pages per visit, time on site, and other types of “engagement”? It’s simple: don’t assign goal values.

Why? Because it makes it impossible to pull out insights from your data.

Say we decide that getting someone to view 5 pages on your site is worth $1. But you don’t sell ad space, you have B2B lead generation site. Then we discover that Google Organic search traffic produced $1,382 for the month (the most on your site). Should we dump our marketing budget into SEO? Maybe. Just because someone viewed 5 pages on your site doesn’t mean they’ll become a customer.

When we create goal values that aren’t based on real business outcomes, it gets much more difficult to figure out how to grow your business. If you’re having trouble calculating your goal value, don’t guess. We tend to vastly overestimate the value of our marketing. The entire point of goal values is to give us an accurate assessment of where the money is coming from.

Keep your data clean so you can easily see where you’re making money. This is especially important for small businesses that don’t employ a web analytics team. Focus your efforts exclusively on business outcomes that can be quantified. Leave the ROI-of-a-Facebook-Like calculations for later.

Unless you really know what you’re doing, avoid assigning goal values to these metrics:

• Visit Duration
• Pages/Visit
• Social Media actions
• Comments
• Any action on your site that doesn’t directly produce a lead or purchase

Go get your goal values set up so you can start tracking the ROI of your website. This is a high priority task for you and your team.

How else have you used goal values? Tell us in the comments

About the Author: Lars Lofgren is an online marketer specializing in copywriting, conversion optimization, and analytics. Learn how to grow your business at his marketing blog or follow him on Twitter @larslofgren.

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