Google today announced that it is bringing web fonts to Google Docs. Thanks to this update, you can now use 450 new fonts in your Google documents. These are the same 450 fonts Google already features on its Web Fonts site for web designers. In addition, Google also announced that it added over 60 new templates to its template gallery over the last month, improved support for screenreaders in Docs and added more options for inserting images into documents, including support for Google Drive and webcams. Docs users can now also search for images in the LIFE photo archive and insert them into their documents.

The highlight of this update is definitely the ability to use web fonts in Google documents. Until now, the selection of fonts in Google Docs was limited to standard like Arial, Georgia, Trebuchet, Courier, Verdana and Comic Sans.

Thankfully, the new fonts won’t just suddenly all appear in a long drop-down menu. Instead, you will be able to select the fonts you want to add to your selection one by one.

Here is the full list of recent Google Docs updates:

• Google Drive launched as a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all your stuff.
• There are now a few more options for inserting images in Docs, including inserting from Google Drive, searching for images from the LIFE Photo archive, or taking a snapshot with your webcam.
• Charts in spreadsheets now has support for minor gridlines and options to customize the formats of axis labels
• Accessibility in Docs got better with support for screenreaders in presentations and with the addition of NVDA to our list of supported screenreaders.
• From File > Page setup… you can now set the default page size for your new documents.
• It’s now easier for speakers of right-to-left languages by automatically showing bidirectional controls when you type in a language that might use them.
• Apps Script had many improvements, including
  • A new ScriptService for programmatically publishing your scripts and controlling when they run.
  • A new function to find the root folder of someone’s Drive.
  • An increase in the allowed attachment size in emails from 5MB to 25MB.
  • An increase in the size of docs files you can create from 2MB to 50MB.
• There are now over 60 new templates in our template gallery.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

At the Goldman Sachs Internet and Technology Conference in San Francisco Thursday, Groupon Founder and CEO Andrew Mason took to the stage to talk about the daily deal behemoth’s newly-minted position as a public company, its roller coaster ride both leading up to and since its IPO, as well as plans for the future.

There was a lot of pressure bearing down on Groupon in the months leading up to its emergence on NASDAQ, with many grumbling about its overvaluation and undercooked business model, among other things. After listing its initial offering at $26 a share in November, the company’s stock today has dropped to $20 a share, after a series of ups and downs.

It also recently shared its first earnings report as a public company, missing expectations, losing $350 million overall and seeing $137 million in international operating losses. Most of this loss, however, could be attributed to the company aggressive international expansion, as 70 percent of its some-10,000 employees are now overseas.

Though one might be able to say this about any number of points in a company’s history, it does seem that Groupon is entering a crucial phase of its development. In just three years, it skyrocketed to domination in the deals space, raised multiple massive rounds of funding, and piloted a successful (and huge) IPO. The quiet period (pre-IPO was tough on the company, exposing many of its inherent weaknesses, but “toughening it up,” Mason said today.)

That’s all well and good, but there are appallingly low barriers to entry in the daily deals space, and while Groupon deserves much credit maintaining a firm grasp on market share in spite of a slew of competition (much of which has now receded), it must now transition from Groupon 1.0 to Groupon 2.0. The company is well aware that it needs to deliver longer-term value to both merchants and customers if it is to continue outpacing competition.

Groupon is focused on closing the redemption loop on its platform, and enabling merchants to encourage repeat visits to their stores, and distance itself from its reputation as platform that encourages bargain hunting and not loyalty. Mason says that he and the team believe in the success they’ve had in bringing marketing to small businesses, and that they are eager to continue expanding on their mobile services by shipping mobile devices with pre-installed merchant apps, for example, that can be used by its merchants to track redemption and collect data on customer spend.

It has been piloting Groupon Rewards, a program that serves rewards to repeat customers based on their credit card information, and Mason said that he believes that the “paper model of redemption” is on its way out.

Over the last few quarters, Groupon has been spending an increasing amount on international marketing efforts, and questions from the audience brought up the discrepancy between the company’s U.S. business and its international efforts. “There are big differences now in Groupon’s business in the U.S. versus internationally,” Mason said, “but we’ve seen the model work wherever we take it — besides China.” The company’s efforts in China have been a widely-covered disaster, but Mason was firm in the belief that Groupon would still be successful elsewhere.

He attributed some of its problems in international markets to the fact that the company is just simply farther along technologically in the U.S. “But that’s starting to change,” he said. Why? Well, the CEO clearly has big hopes for rolling out deal personalization overseas, as the company already serves personalized deals in the U.S. based on location, gender, past buying behaviors, and other criteria.

Up until now, Groupon hasn’t offered any of the same deal personalization features on its international platform, but that will be “starting to change later this quarter,” the Founder assured the crowd. Groupon has taken an approach to global expansion that involves replicating its playbook in city after city, but questions remain over whether or not it can sustain its growth on a diet of daily deals alone.

And now it appears that there is some evidence that Groupon is testing an Amazon-like commerce platform abroad, with the company now using international markets as testing grounds for new services. With personalization moving abroad, and it testing more robust shopping experiences, Groupon is hoping that its aggressive spending on its global business (and transactional advertising) will be a valuable investment in the long-term.

And perhaps a VIP service, too.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch