Try Out Google Wallet in Your City

Google Wallet is teaming up with Sprint and Samsung on a roadshow to introduce you to Google Wallet and give you the chance to try it, in stores. Over the next three months, we’ll be visiting merchant locations in New York, Chicago, Washington DC, San Francisco and Los Angeles for half-day events to demo Google Wallet and help you pay for your purchase. You’ll not only get to see Google Wallet in action, but you’ll also get $10 towards your purchase when you tap and pay using one of the Samsung Nexus S demo phones.

We’ll be visiting different store locations in the five cities including Duane Reade, Jamba Juice, Walgreens, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Foot Locker, Fat Witch Bakery in Chelsea Market and others.

Calendar of Events:
All event times, regardless of location, are in Eastern time, and events are subject to change. We’ll be in each city during the following dates:

• New York: Oct. 17 - Nov. 13
• Chicago: Oct. 17 - Nov. 13
• Washington, DC: Nov. 15 - Dec. 12
• San Francisco: Nov. 15 - Dec. 12
• Los Angeles: Dec. 14 - Jan. 12

We’re excited to give you a chance to try out Google Wallet and experience paying with a mobile phone. Take a look at our full calendar of events above (or by clicking this link), and come check out Google Wallet at a location near you.

Posted by Keren Michelson, Product Marketing, Google Wallet

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Introducing more local deals, personalized to your interests

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

There’s a universe of amazing daily deals out there, but it's hard to find them all in one place—and even harder to discover the ones that really matter to you.

We’re making improvements to Google Offers that help address this challenge. First, we’re delivering more amazing deals from a bunch of new categories including outdoor adventure sports, luxury experiences, family-friendly events, classes and more. We’re also introducing a personalization quiz to help you find just the deal you want, all in one place.

Google Offers subscribers in the San Francisco Bay Area will have access to these new deals, and the quiz is now available in all cities. We'll gradually roll out an expanded offers inventory to new cities in the months to come.



To make all this happen, we’ve partnered with the best deal providers in the industry including Dealfind, DoodleDeals, Gilt City, GolfNow, HomeRun, Juice in the City, kgbdeals, Mamapedia, Plum District, PopSugar Shop, ReachDeals, Active.com Schwaggle, TIPPR and zozi. Now, with one account you can easily purchase, manage and redeem all your offers in one place.

Visit Google Offers today to purchase this great deal from the leading luxury experience site Gilt City

Our new personalization quiz is a first step towards bringing you more relevant deals. You can tell us what categories you’re interested in and where you hang out so we can send you just the tailored offers that match your interests—all in one email. If you’re not the outdoorsy type or interested in cosmetic treatments, then we won’t send you deals for zipline adventures and laser hair removal. Don’t worry, if your interests change you can always update your preferences.

You can select what categories of deals you’d like to receive with the personalization quiz

You can subscribe to receive deals that match your interests and learn more about Google Offers at google.com/offers. If you’re a deal provider interested in partnering with Google Offers, please submit your application using this form.

Finally, thanks to The Dealmap team that recently joined Google. They definitely helped on this one and we’re looking forward to working with them to develop many new ideas in the months and years to come.

Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Group Product Manager, Google Offers

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Upcoming Developer Events

Online commerce continues to see explosive growth rates around the world. At the same time, new technologies make the online shopping experience easier for both merchants and shoppers. Over the next month, the Google Commerce Developer Relations team will be travelling to Japan, Australia, Spain and Germany to meet with developers and talk about the latest developments in online commerce.

We'll cover various topics from monetizing web apps and games with Google In-App Payments and AdSense Media Ads, to using the Google Shopping APIs (Search and Content) to build innovative applications. If you haven’t registered yet, here is the complete list of locations and dates:

• Google Developer Day, Tokyo - November 1, 2011
• Google Developer Day, Sydney - November 8, 2011
• Google DevFest, Barcelona - November 8, 2011
• Google Developer Day, Berlin - November 19, 2011

We’re looking forward to talking to you at one of the developer events.

Posted by Mihai Ionescu, Commerce Developer Advocate

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Google Offers Beta Launches in Baltimore, Minneapolis, San Diego and San Jose

We’re on a roll! Today we’re launching Google Offers in four new cities including Baltimore, Minneapolis, San Diego and San Jose. Here’s more on today’s offers in our newest locations:

• In Baltimore the first Google Offer is for Blue Hill Tavern -- “one of Baltimore’s most impressive dining spaces” according to Baltimore Magazine. The artfully designed dishes are as eye-catching as they are palate-pleasing. Enjoy delicious comfort foods and views from the rooftop patio with today’s offer: $15 for $30 worth of food and drinks.
• Visit the acclaimed cultural mecca of the Twin Cities with today’s offer for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. For $1 you’ll get admission to the MIA’s special exhibition: “Edo Pop: The Graphic Impact of Japanese Prints” (up to $8 value), where you can enjoy the finest of rendered color and texture from the Far East and beyond. The Edo Pop exhibit runs Oct. 30, 2011- Jan. 8, 2012.
• Burgers are on the menu in Sunny San Diego. Our day-one offer is for the famous local eatery, Crazee Burger. Choose from more than 25 creative burger types (including wild boar, ostrich, alligator and more!), fresh salad and savory sweet potato fries. Today’s offer is $10 for $20 toward delicious grub at this favorite local spot.
• Enjoy the “best of Silicon Valley” at Sonoma Chicken Coop, which serves up an award-winning combo of fresh fare, fast service, and friendly prices to all corners of Silicon Valley. Grab today’s Google Offer for San Jose and get $30 toward food and drinks for just $15 at participating locations.

To subscribe to deals in these cities and to find great deals in other cities across the country, please visit www.google.com/offers.

Posted by Eric Rosenblum, Director of Product Management, Google Offers

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Implementing the new Google Product Search feed specification

On September 22, the new Google Product Search feed specification that we announced in July went into effect. Since then, we’ve been gradually enforcing the new requirements by implementing additional checks over time in order to ensure a smooth roll out and give our merchants more time to react to errors and data problems.

We’re well on our way toward implementing all compliance checks, including those for Google Product Category, Tax & Shipping, and Variant attributes. Here are a few ways that you can make sure your product data feed is in good shape:

1. Review the information on the “Data Quality” tab in Google Merchant Center to see data quality errors. We recently changed this tab to give you a clearer view of the status of your items and to make it easier to see which errors are most critical. Where possible, we’ve also provided actionable advice and feedback on how to fix errors.

2. Also be sure to also check the “Data Feeds” tab in your Merchant Center account. This is where you’ll find error reports for feed-level issues (e.g. errors in syntax of submitted attributes).

3. Use the “New Test Data Feed” functionality (on the Data Feed tab) to submit a new test feed. This test mechanism also allows you to download a full feed processing report and get detailed insights into potential issues with your feed. Note that this functionality is currently only available for test feeds.

As we head into the holiday season, we want to thank our merchants for investing in making the necessary changes to their feeds and sending high-quality product data. We’re committed to maintaining a high bar for data quality and are working hard to make Google Product Search even better in the coming months.

Happy Shopping!

Posted by Mayuresh Saoji, Senior Product Manager, Google Product Search team

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Google Catalogs presents the coveted Neiman Marcus Christmas Book and debuts the Fantasy Gifts Retrospective--for free on your tablet

Neiman Marcus is known for the outrageously beautiful and unique merchandise showcased in their annual Christmas Book. Think of the most amazing gifts you can imagine -- a beautiful Chanel handbag, a Orefici watch, or perhaps your very own tailored mermaid suit or customizable cupcake car.

For this holiday season, Google Catalogs has collaborated with Neiman Marcus to offer you a free, browsable copy of this year’s Christmas Book. We’ve also created the very first historic compilation of Neiman Marcus Fantasy Gifts from the past ten years. It’s called the Fantasy Gifts Retrospective and you’ll only find it on the Google Catalogs app for iPad, available for free in the App Store.

To celebrate the Fantasy Gifts Retrospective, we’ve picked out our favorite gifts from the past 10 years! Sadly, gifts from prior years are no longer for sale, but we trust you'll enjoy the 2011 gifts and the walk down memory lane.

Posted by Madhu Punjabi, Strategic Partner Manager Associate, Google Catalogs Team

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Tap, Pay...and Ride

Today NJ TRANSIT became the first public transit agency to partner with Google Wallet. With a quick tap of a phone, NJ TRANSIT rail and bus customers can now use Google Wallet to tap and pay to travel at New York Penn Station, Newark Airport Station, and on select bus routes.

Rushing to catch the 5:45 PM from New York Penn Station to Montclair? Racing to catch that last flight from Newark Airport to Boston? Navigating through a sea of umbrellas to catch the no. 87 bus to Hoboken in the rain? When seconds count, don’t waste valuable time fumbling for change. Just use Google Wallet to tap, pay, and ride. It’s that simple.

Our partnership with NJ TRANSIT is just the first step for Google Wallet and transit. In the coming months we look forward to announcing several innovative transit solutions with our partners. Stay tuned for more.

Posted by Marlo McGriff, Business Product Manager

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