10 reasons to love Google
I love Google.
There. I said it. One time Google was my friend but lately it has become more than that – I just don’t know what I’d do without it!
I don’t think I’m alone, and today I hope to show you 10 reasons to love Google. Or at least get to like it very much. From their Search Engine to Maps, I use Google all the time, everyday. Here are ten of the Google services and apps that I use regularly.
Google Search
This one has to be in first place. I use it constantly. It’s the most popular search engine, accounting for 64% of all online search. Almost four times that of its nearest competitor – Yahoo! which accounts for 17%. Microsoft gets 9%.
Google Mail
I use Gmail for my personal mail and find it far superior to any other web-based email I’ve used before(Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, and several others). Gmail gives you plenty of storage space. Gone are the days of 100MB, I currently have over 7GB available to me in my free Gmail account. The spam filtering is excellent as is the labeling system for mails. Whats more Gmail is always evolving with new features coming online regularly. I particularly love Gmail Tasks, a simple and effective task list application.
Google Calendar
I can be very disorganised, so this service from Google has been a life saver. It’s very simple to use. You can also see, at a glance, what you’re schedule is like for the day/week/month. Like most Google Services, it is readily accessible from your mobile phone which allows you to keep track of appointments and add new ones when you’re on the move.
Google Webmaster Tools, Analytics and Adwords
These are crucial tools in my business, and should also be in the arsenal of anyone involved in the management or ownership of a website. Webmaster Tools lets you see how Google has indexed the pages of your site. Analytics allows you to track visitors to your site, not to specific details but to things like pages visited, time spent on site, origin, etc. Adwords is a great way for you to advertise your site, to the very people who are looking for you and what you do.
YouTube
OK, so this may be cheating a little, as YouTube was acquired by Google as opposed to being developed by Google. But it’s still a Google product now. YouTube is a great site for watching and sharing video.
Google Reader
If you like to read blogs, or read news online, you may be familiar with site feeds. This site has one. The johnbehan.net feed lets you subscribe to this site so when a new article is posted it can be delivered to you. To use this service you need a feed reader. There are many feed reader’s available, the browser you are using may have one, so might the email client you use. The one I use is Google Reader.
Google Maps and Google Earth
Planning a journey? – Checkout Google Maps. Zoom in on your house or the Taj Mahal with the nifty Google Earth application.
Picasa
There are loads of online photo sharing and storing websites. The most popular one being Flickr. Whether it’s my contrary nature, or the fact that I was using all these other great Google apps and services, I chose Picasa. I find it great for sharing photos online, and it’s offline, desktop, application is excellent.
Google Alerts
Enter a search term. Pick the areas you’d like searched. Pick how often you’d like to search. Set where you’d like the results delivered. Simple. Google does the rest. Invaluable tool, particularly for businesses. Say your company sells Doowacky2000s. Set that as the search term and be alerted whenever Google finds it in one of its indexed webpages.
Google Chrome
I’m a little sceptical when it comes to new web browsers. Why Bother? Firefox does everything I need. I decided to give Chrome a whirl the other day. I’m converted. It’s very fast and beautifully designed. I still love Firefox, but for everyday web browsing, I think Chrome has won it’s way into my heart.
There are many more Google apps and services that I could add to this list.
But if you haven’t used any of these 10 then I recommend you give them a try. You won’t have to sign your soul away or be pestered by relentless spammy emails. You may even find one of these tools useful and become a Googleite!