This blog's M.O.

Posted by Elliot Schrage and Karen Wickre, Global Communications & Public Affairs

Just about 3 years ago, we launched this blog as a fast and direct way to reach Google users, friends and anyone else interested in our goings-on. Even though it's a blog from Google, it's by Googlers, not from a single executive (or founder). We've encouraged hundreds of people to write about news and ideas from all their respective corners of the company. A lot of the posts you read are news and updates about products, because that's what the bulk of Googlers work on. But with an eye towards transparency, we also share our positions on issues -- for example, our role in China, our perspective on digitizing books, our comment on a lawsuit. And occasionally we're keen to share snippets of our culture or highlight industry developments we find noteworthy.

Our communications team manages the blog, but consistent with our grassroots way of doing things, it's Googlers who propose content and write the posts (and likewise, develop new blogs). When it comes to editing copy, we aim for a very light touch -- focusing mainly on clarity of information, not sanitizing style.

Since this blog first appeared, another 52 Google blogs have also launched. At present, 18 of them are not in English, and we expect that number to grow as we expand around the world. All of these other Google blogs (the full list is on the righthand side of the main blog) have smaller readership because they are more tightly focused on the details of a specific product (like AdWords or AdSense or they represent Google in a country (including Poland and Brazil), or they speak to a niche audience, like librarians or webmasters. Typically they don't feature the same topical expanse we think will be of interest to most Google users.

In short, we're relying as always on the power of the Internet -- in this case, the incredibly easy-to-use publishing platform known as the blog -- to help interested folks understand how we work, and what we do. As new resources and media tools come into being, we want to make use of those too. One of these is the Google Channel on YouTube, where it's a priority to post videos and presentations by Googlers, including our executives, as quickly as we can following public events.

Through all of these means and others -- podcasting, video blogs, forums -- we plan to continue being as direct as possible with you concerning our news and views. So thanks for reading, and stay tuned.