A quick overview of some interesting Google products
Written on May 30, 2007I think that every single person - who is familiar with a computer and the internet - knows the company Google. And I would be surprised if it wasn't for searching the internet. But, Google Web Search is only one of the incredible amount of products that Google provides. And there's even more: most of them - if not all - are free. I will now describe some of the famous products that Google provides. Afterwards, I'll try to introduce some new products where most of you never heard of. And to conclude this article, I will say something about my own experiences with Google, and I'll have to admit that they're not all that positive.
Famous products
The most famous Google products are:
- Google Web Search
Used by millions of people to search the internet for interesting websites. - Google Images
As expected, to search the internet for images (small or large with different file extensions). - Google Video & YouTube
Yes indeed, this service gives you the opportunity to find, view or upload a specific video. Just for the record, Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion. - Gmail
This intuitive, efficient and useful webmail gives you a free storage of approximately 2.8 GB (still counting). And there's also a built-in chat function to chat with your Gmail contacts. This function is also downloadable as a stand-alone program: Google Talk. - Google Docs & Spreadsheets
A web-based word processor and spreadsheet, which allow you to share and collaborate online. - Google Maps
Quite a handy tool to find maps and get directions to a location.
New products
Once there was a time where you could count all Google services and products on one hand. But that time is over. And now you wouldn't even dare to count them, because you always will forget some. I'll tell you! So, I'll describe their most recent products at this moment, because for all we know there could be much more products next month.
- iGoogle
Your own personalised Google homepage. You can add news, games, your other Google products (like your Gmail) and other stuff to this page. Tabbing ensures multiple pages. And there are also themes available to personalise it a little more. Also quite handy is the function to move or reorganise all your stuff. Worth checking out. - Google News
Well, I can't say that much about this service. The name explains everything. You can search for news articles or browse them by category and location. - Google Notebook
A very simple but yet handy tool. You find something interesting on the internet and want to save this information? Well, this tool serves your demands. - Google Books
As you could expect, this service let you search for books and let you discover new ones. But that's not all, you can also search the full content of books, which makes it much easier to find the information you are searching for in a specific book. As you might know, I am studying at the University of Ghent (in Belgium). The reason why I'm telling you this, is because Google made an agreement to digitalize 300.000 books of the University of Ghent. So this means no more walking to the public library. - Google Code
Search the internet for public source code to find out a solution for an algorithm or a specific problem. - Google AdSense
You could earn money from relevant ads on your website. Google matches ads to your site's content, and you earn money whenever your visitors click on them. - Google Apps
This service involves simple, powerful communication and collaboration tools for an organisation. I'm using this service too and it really rocks. Perhaps you can check out my webmail: mail.sholva.org.
So far for the new products. If you would like to learn something more about new projects and/or projects in development, check out Google Labs.
My own experiences with Google
Actually, all my experiences with Google are quite positive, except one.
So, let me start with this one negative experience.
It goes about Google AdSense.
Not so long - and by not so long I mean a few months - after I created my account
and set up the ads on my website, I received an email that my account was closed due to invalid clicks.
I had no idea what they were talking about, so I send Google an appeal
with the fact that I am quite certain I did not click on my own ads. Because that is logically not allowed.
I got a mail back and guess what, they told me that I cannot participate anymore with Google AdSense.
However in time, I've found out why invalid clicks were generated.
I have a router at home and my brother must have clicked on my ads.
This gives invalid clicks because of the same IP address.
So I've sent Google another appeal, but I never got a response back.
Not that good customer service if you're asking me.
But except for this one negative experience,
I've tried all other Google products that I've described above with no negative comments.
Each of them are great.
Oh, and if you don't know much about these Google services/products, well then you should certainly check the following ones out:
I hope you learned something new about Google and its services/products, or else this article was quite useless.
