Googleholic for March 4, 2008

Find parking spaces with Google Maps

If you're looking to squeeze more out of your Google Maps, try the in house mapplet that will help you find parking spaces - but only if you live in Santa Monica. Google has teamed up with the Information Systems Department there to get an up to the minute status overview of parking spaces in the area. Which is great if you live in Santa Monica, but not so much elsewhere. Hopefully this is just the beginning, as this seems like something that would be appreciated just about everywhere.

Google's attempt to improve Ads and how it's not working

After comScore's report on Google's falling click-through rates, Google's shares took a hit. So Magid Abraham and James Lamberti at comScore decided to take it upon themselves to clarify matters, and explore the reasons as to why the click-through rates are falling. The culprit? Google's very own project to create more value for advertisers, by getting better lead generation and reducing accidental click-throughs. This is done by doing things such as removing the clickability of white space around an ad and placing high-quality ads higher than low-quality ads. What a nice concept - too bad it isn't quite working out for Google.

Google backs human genome project

Although Google Health is currently only available to those at Cleveland Clinic, Google is making its intentions clear by having given a donation to Harvard's George Church, who is planning on doing what will be the "largest human genome sequencing project in the world." Maybe, someday, you can use Google for not only storing your entire medical history, but also having your genes sequenced!

Other things Google we have been covering at Download Squad:

• Google Gears goes mobile, takes web apps with it - Forget Office Mobile, use other web applications with Google Gears.
  
• Google offers a peek at Google Health - If you're wondering what the service may look like, Google has released some eyecandy.
  
• Google relaunches Jotspot as Google Sites - A long time after originally acquiring Jotspot, Google releases the service as part of the Google Apps package, with the new name, "Google Sites."
  
• Google Summer of Code 2008 - applications accepted soon - The 4th year of Google's Summer of Code is about to begin, where students get paid to code for open-source projects.

Tags: adsense, comscore, genome project, GenomeProject, Google, google maps, googleholic, GoogleMaps