Tag Archives: Google

TechSoup pro searching

Jane Anderson writes to tell us about a neat article at TechSoup:

Search Engines Help Nonprofits Raise Funds, Get Publicity

“I found this article in techsoup and have started using the search engine at work daily. It’s such a great idea and I’m suprised it wasn’t around sooner!”

From the article:

“Two search engines offering such services are GoodSearch , which funnels 50 percent of its ad-generated revenue to various nonprofits each time one of their supporters types in a new search term, and Google, whose Grants program allows nonprofits to spread their messages to a wider audience by providing them with free advertisements that show up alongside Google search results.”

Google balancing out?

googleGoogle is not perfect, but sometimes they do things that make them look they are trying to be wonderful to all people. Their motto is “don’t be evil.” Even though they are self-censoring in China, unlike Wikipedia (something that all ThingsAreGood readers already know), Google has released banned books.

Now you can read books that have been censored somewhere, as long as they are free of private censorship and are in the public domain.

“To Kill a Mockingbird. Of Mice and Men. The Great Gatsby. 1984. It’s hard to imagine a world without these extraordinary literary classics, but every year there are hundreds of attempts to remove great books from libraries and schools”

(Via /.)

Google Does Good

Some recent news about that massive search engine Google. The company has announced that it has joined a US lobbying group, the ODF Alliance, that supports the Open Document file format. Open Document is a Free (as in free speech) document format, an alternative to the standard Microsoftâ„¢ .doc format. It is nice because it allows for a more accessible document than propriety software formats.

Having Google throw it’s weight behind supporting ODF will hopefully have a positive impact on the adoption of the open file format. ODF is also supported by Sun Microsystems, IBM and Novell, among others.

Google has also decided that they want to try to save the world with their vast wealth through their charitable organization Google.org. Wired has a nice interview with the man who is in charge of this billion dollar initiative from Google.

Google makes Adsense, which we use here at ThingsAreGood.

Who’s Green: Google or Microsoft?

CNet has a fun article looking at which big tech company is greener – Microsoft or Google. I actually had no idea that Microsoft has so many environmentally friendly policies.

“In 2005, Microsoft was recognised as one of the top five best workplaces for commuters by the US Environmental Protection Agency, said Joan Krajewski, chief environmental counsel for the company. More than 11,000 workers at the Redmond, Washington, main campus commute, she said.
…
Microsoft has a silver certification level for the US Green Building Council’s LEED program for environmental design. Microsoft also works with the Carbon Disclosure Project to track kilowatts of usage.
Microsoft also had taken steps to reduce waste from the packaging of its software products and eliminated from its packaging PVC (polyvinyl chloride), which releases dioxins that can cause cancer and harm the immune and reproductive systems.”