Googlers are productive

Recent Google software and services updates:

• Google Video gets a facelift. Now offering three ways to view video search-results (list, grid and TV view), showing a timeline view that lets you see what was popular in the past (most blogged, most shared) and they updated the homepage of Google Video too. Though one thing I would have expected is to give up the frame usage for viewing a video - I like to be able to scroll below the video too, like on YouTube, and is annoying I can't do that when watching a Google Video.
• Google Website Optimizer and Urchin are out of beta. What's more interesting is that now Google Website Optimizer is accessed through its own website as a standalone service (using the login you have for Google Analytics) and not part of Google Adwords only as it was before. Urchin is the commercial desktop version of Google Analytics (sold through Google Analytics Authorized Consultants for the price of $3000) and comes with a couple more features than Google Analytics (like logging server errors, offering analytics for intranets, processing previous logs).
• Google Earth reaches 4.3 (beta). Now it offers real photos of buildings from some cities, a Sunlight feature that lets you how does the sunrise look on Himalaya for instance, navigate from Google Sky view to the Streetview one.
• And Picasa for Linux is updated to version 2.7 (I know, not an important update, but it's good to see they don't forget the Linux users.

I'll be covering soon the new beta version of Google Earth since it's one of the most interesting updates.