We're excited to announce Google Ventures, Google's new venture capital fund. This is Google's effort to take advantage of our resources to support innovation and encourage promising new technology companies. By borrowing the best practices of top-tier, financially focused venture capital firms and bringing to bear Google's unique technical expertise and brand, we think we can find young companies with truly awesome potential and encourage their development into successful businesses.
At its core, Google Ventures is charged with finding and helping to develop exceptional start-ups. We'll be focusing on early stage investments across a diverse range of industries, including consumer Internet, software, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care and, no doubt, other areas we haven't thought of yet. Central to our effort will be our fellow Googlers, whom we view as a critically important resource to help educate us about potential investments areas and evaluate specific companies.
Economically, times are tough, but great ideas come when they will. If anything, we think the current downturn is an ideal time to invest in nascent companies that have the chance to be the "next big thing," and we'll be working hard to find them. If you think you have the next big idea, or if you just want to to learn more, please see our website at www.google.com/ventures.
Showing posts with label GOOGLE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GOOGLE. Show all posts
Monday, April 13, 2009
Google's newest venture
Friday, April 10, 2009
Getting your Medicare records in Google Health
Google Health is working with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on a pilot program in Arizona and Utah that lets Medicare beneficiaries import their Medicare claims data into Google Health.
The pilot is one of several CMS programs to test out how the government can give beneficiaries secure access to their medical data online. Before I came to Google, I worked at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which houses CMS. At the time, the idea of giving beneficiaries access to their own Medicare claims data in electronic format was just that — an idea. Today, it's becoming a reality. And given the more than $19 billion investment the government is making in Health IT as part of the stimulus package, now is the perfect time.
As a part-time caregiver to my mother who has a serious chronic illness and someone who just lost both elderly grandparents in the past four months to illness, I can see the benefit of having all of my family’s medical information organized in one place. When Google Healthlaunched last year, I promptly set up accounts for my mother and both grandparents. But at the time, I found it frustrating that I was not able to access electronic copies of my grandparents' Medicare claims — where most of their medical data resided.
The Medicare Arizona and Utah pilot is designed to give beneficiaries choice in the tools they use to manage their medical records online. Google Health is one of four personal health records (PHR) that beneficiaries can choose from. While only traditional fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare beneficiaries with a primary residence in Arizona and Utah are eligible to participate, this includes nearly 1.1 million beneficiaries living in those regions.
For beneficiaries who choose to participate, it's important to know that Medicare does not have access to information in your Google Health Account — Medicare will only be sending data to your Account. Beneficiaries who participate in the pilot will still have access to data imported into their Google Health Accounts after the pilot concludes at the end of 2009. And with the recently launched Google Health sharing feature, any beneficiary enrolled in this pilot can now share this data with family members and doctors in their care network.
If I had this type of electronic access to my grandparents' medical records during my family's medical crisis, it would have been a huge help to me. I applaud CMS for taking this big step towards empowering consumers with access to their own health records.
If you're a Medicare beneficiary living in Arizona or Utah and are interested in participating in the pilot, you can get started here.
The pilot is one of several CMS programs to test out how the government can give beneficiaries secure access to their medical data online. Before I came to Google, I worked at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which houses CMS. At the time, the idea of giving beneficiaries access to their own Medicare claims data in electronic format was just that — an idea. Today, it's becoming a reality. And given the more than $19 billion investment the government is making in Health IT as part of the stimulus package, now is the perfect time.
As a part-time caregiver to my mother who has a serious chronic illness and someone who just lost both elderly grandparents in the past four months to illness, I can see the benefit of having all of my family’s medical information organized in one place. When Google Healthlaunched last year, I promptly set up accounts for my mother and both grandparents. But at the time, I found it frustrating that I was not able to access electronic copies of my grandparents' Medicare claims — where most of their medical data resided.
The Medicare Arizona and Utah pilot is designed to give beneficiaries choice in the tools they use to manage their medical records online. Google Health is one of four personal health records (PHR) that beneficiaries can choose from. While only traditional fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare beneficiaries with a primary residence in Arizona and Utah are eligible to participate, this includes nearly 1.1 million beneficiaries living in those regions.
For beneficiaries who choose to participate, it's important to know that Medicare does not have access to information in your Google Health Account — Medicare will only be sending data to your Account. Beneficiaries who participate in the pilot will still have access to data imported into their Google Health Accounts after the pilot concludes at the end of 2009. And with the recently launched Google Health sharing feature, any beneficiary enrolled in this pilot can now share this data with family members and doctors in their care network.
If I had this type of electronic access to my grandparents' medical records during my family's medical crisis, it would have been a huge help to me. I applaud CMS for taking this big step towards empowering consumers with access to their own health records.
If you're a Medicare beneficiary living in Arizona or Utah and are interested in participating in the pilot, you can get started here.
Google AdSense: Dos for Using the Google AdSense Program
Google AdSense is really a fun and fairly easy way to make extra money. It is important that you follow the rules though, as Google is very serious about the integrity of their AdSense program. Choosing knowingly or unknowingly not following the rules could result in your Google AdSense account being terminated as a worst case scenario. Here are a few dos for using the program:
DO
Read the terms and conditions and program policies thoroughly.
Read up on everything you can about Google AdSense. Learn from others experiences and mistakes.
Learn how to optimize your web site for the most enjoyable and profitable Google AdSense experience. Realize it does and will take some time and hard work. That is why it is so important that you choose to write about something you care about. Hard work can prove to be even harder if you don't like what you're doing.
Visit other web sites that you know are benefiting from Google AdSense. Click on the ads only if you are truly interested in the product or service being advertised. Read other people's blogs and comment on them. Only offer a comment though if it is truly sincere.
Hopefully, these helpful tips outlined will ease you into using the program and help you avoid mistakes that could possibly cost you a lot of time or money.
Google AdSense: familiarize yourself with the Google AdSense preview tool
The Google AdSense preview tool allows you to preview the ads that may show on any web page thereby letting you make an educated decision on whether to add Google AdSense to your existing pages.
You can also view sample ad formats and colours which will allow you to see how the colours and formats you want to appear in your ads will look before they actually launch on your pages.
You can also view borders, backgrounds and text colours from the preview tool and by clicking preview you can see how these will look with actual ads.
You can also see geo-targeted location ads meaning you can see what ads users in Canada can see even if you live in Japan.
The preview tool is available in all active AdSense languages and is easy to install. For specific installation instructions, you'll need to go to the Google AdSense support site. Follow the instructions and click on the link provided and you'll be a previewing genius in no
DO
Read the terms and conditions and program policies thoroughly.
Read up on everything you can about Google AdSense. Learn from others experiences and mistakes.
Learn how to optimize your web site for the most enjoyable and profitable Google AdSense experience. Realize it does and will take some time and hard work. That is why it is so important that you choose to write about something you care about. Hard work can prove to be even harder if you don't like what you're doing.
Visit other web sites that you know are benefiting from Google AdSense. Click on the ads only if you are truly interested in the product or service being advertised. Read other people's blogs and comment on them. Only offer a comment though if it is truly sincere.
Hopefully, these helpful tips outlined will ease you into using the program and help you avoid mistakes that could possibly cost you a lot of time or money.
Google AdSense: familiarize yourself with the Google AdSense preview tool
The Google AdSense preview tool allows you to preview the ads that may show on any web page thereby letting you make an educated decision on whether to add Google AdSense to your existing pages.
You can also view sample ad formats and colours which will allow you to see how the colours and formats you want to appear in your ads will look before they actually launch on your pages.
You can also view borders, backgrounds and text colours from the preview tool and by clicking preview you can see how these will look with actual ads.
You can also see geo-targeted location ads meaning you can see what ads users in Canada can see even if you live in Japan.
The preview tool is available in all active AdSense languages and is easy to install. For specific installation instructions, you'll need to go to the Google AdSense support site. Follow the instructions and click on the link provided and you'll be a previewing genius in no
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