Doug Bowman, of Stopdesign, has signed on with Google with the goal of improving and standardizing the user interface across the Google empire.

The cat’s out of the bag. I made the announcement here in New Zealand at Webstock, so I’ll confirm that, yes, the rumors are not just rumors. After a bit of negotiation and a lot of internal debate, I recently accepted an offer to join Google as Visual Design Lead, a position that did not previously exist there. I’m charged with helping the company establish a common visual language across all their collaborative and communication products. This includes products I’ve already had some hand in like Blogger and Calendar. But it will also include other highly used products like Gmail, Writely, Page Creator, and other projects in the pipeline.

Doug is the designer behind the designs of many popular web sites including Blogger, Wired News, Capgemini, and Adaptive Path.

It sounds like we can expect a face lift at Google in the not so distant future.

About Douglas Bowman

Going to Google

For the third year in a row, Google has been rated the #1 website worldwide by Byte Level Research.

Tekrati.com is reporting on the 2006 edition of The Web Globalization Report Card, from Byte Level Research, and Google is on the top once again.

Wikipedia finished in second place, proving that you don’t need to be a global corporation to develop a successful global Web site. HP finished in third place, down from second place in 2005. IKEA, Volvo and DHL also rank in this year’s top ten.

“Since 2003, Google has nearly doubled the number of languages it supports — to 116 — making it one of the most global commercial Web sites ever built,” said John Yunker, chief analyst at Byte Level Research and author of the report. “But Google is not alone in having expanded language support over the past few years. From BMW to DHL to Starbucks, Web globalization is now a fact of life for most global companies.”

Read the full story from Tekrati.com

Hello to everyone! My name is Carl Vancil and, as of today (and as posted on Syntagma), I am assuming the helm of Google Future Watch.

I was the About.com guide for PC Support, for the past 2 1/2 years, when real life forced me to, relunctantly, leave About earlier this month.

I have been using Google for years and can remember when it was just another search engine. Now it has become embedded in our culture and vocabulary.

I’m really looking forward to keeping you all up to date as I Google Google.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt issued a call to politicians to stop trying to control internet content and to bring web access to poorer countries.

Schmidt predicted that mobile phones would be the only means of access in third-world countries in Africa, where fixed-line networks don’t exist.

“The prize is a world in which every human being starts life with the same access to information,” he said, “the same opportunities to learn and the same power to communicate.”