Favorite Google Applications

Google is perpetually busy at work developing a growing number of online applications. Some Google applications found immediate and global success while others have simply not. Since online applications don’t have the same release cycle that shrink wrap software does, all of Google’s applications are labeled beta. This simply means that the application is live, continually being updated from week to week with minimal end user disruption. The anatomy of a Google application is sheer simplicity, great user interface and experience, accessible data API, and instant scalability.

Google is always updating and adding new applications. If you like to discover the latest offerings from Google you may want to log into your Google account. With that, here is a short list of Google applications that I have found useful and use on a daily basis.

Google (REUTERS/Erin Siegal)

Google Search
Google was founded on search and the Google Search is the most widely recognized web page. But in addition to the web search, Google has invested in niche search engines such as Blog Search, Book Search, Patent Search, Product Search, and custom search.

Google Docs
Google Docs is not a Microsoft Word killer, but it is a valid replacement in many instances. I regularly use Google Docs to create online documents that I am later going to collaborate and share with friends, family, or colleague. Again, Google Docs does not replace every feature in Microsoft Word, but it doesn’t have to. I does basic text formating just fine. In addition to creating documents, Google Docs can also create online spreadsheets and presentations. Once saved, Google documents can be exported into a variety of formats. I use Google Docs to share files between office and home and to share documents with other folks.

Google Notebook
Think of Google Notebook as a scrapbook for quite notes or text. You can create different notebooks for different subjects and in each notebook you can write notes. Notes have similar text formating that you will see in Google Docs such as bold, italics, bullets, etc. You can promote a notebook to Google Docs by converting it to a document. Like with many of Google’s online applications, you can share notebooks with colleagues, friends, and to the general public or keep them them private. For the layperson Google Notebook’s functionality will seem to overlap with Google Docs for some situations, but I have found it useful for keeping track of quick notes. The feature that I like most about Google Notebook is that it is available from Google Search.

Google Calendar
Google Calendar best features is its online collaboration capabilities. Google Calendar makes it easy to create different calendars, each with its own privacy levels. You can share a calender with select people or with everyone. Another great feature is that there are a lot of publicly available calendars that you can import and add to you calender.

Google Apps for your Domain
Google Mail really did revolutionize online mail systems. Now your users can use GMail too with Google Apps for you Domain. Google Apps for your Domain allows you to have all of Google applications such as GMail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, etc for your own domain.

Google Alerts
Instead of going to Google for search results, let Google Alerts send you periodic emails with the most current search results for given search terms. You can manage a multile search terms and restrict results to blogs, groups, news, video, or web. You may receive updates everyday, once a week, or as they happen.

Google Analytics
If you have a website of any sort, weather it be a blog, forum, or just static HTML files you need to add Google Analytics to it. To add Google Analytics to any page you simple add a bit of JavaScript and that is all that Google needs to track the traffic to your site. Google Analytics can be used to track your visitors by geographical location, language, browser, referrer, etc.

Google Maps
We’ve all used Google Maps and there isn’t much to say other that it is perhaps the best online map application online. Google Maps has a ton of features such as different views (map, satellite, terrain, street view). Like much of Google’s other applications, Google made it incredibly easy to search a location. Prior to Google Maps, online map applications asked you to enter the street address, city, zip code in separate fields. Google Maps uses a single text field to search a location. That kind of simplicity is what makes Google applications so useful and intuitive for end users.

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