BloggerApplication type: Weblog*Launch date: February 2003*Competition: MySpace, LiveJournal, Xanga*Awards: Best Blogging Tool at .Net Magazine’s Best of the Net Awards 2005*Information: Google’s answer to the popularity of online blogging is Blogger, an application it acquired from Pyra Labs out of San Francisco. Blogger is HTML-based, so users familiar with HTML can add literally anything to their blogs, from message boards and polls to pictures and guest books. Each blog includes an additional profile page, so blog visitors can learn more information about the user.*Criticism: Abandoned blogs, or ones that haven’t been accessed for long periods of time, do not expire. Also, when Blogger upgraded in 2006, with increased reliability and services, it required users to create a Google account. Accounts are free, but irritating nonetheless.*Also check out: AudioBlogger, which allows users to call Blogger from their phones and leave messages that are immediately posted on the users’ blogs. Blog visitors can listen to the messages by clicking on the embedded MP3 files.

Gmail*Application type: Web-based e-mail*Launch date: April 1, 2004*Competition: Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail*Awards: Forbes Magazine’s Best E-mail 2006, Ranked No. 2 in PC World magazine’s ‘The 100 Best Products of 2005’*Information: If Google’s Web Search is the company’s flagship application, Gmail is its runner-up. Gmail revolutionized Web-based e-mail, with huge inbox capacities – 2,836 megabytes at press time and growing daily – the ability to instant message other Gmail users within its inbox and the renaming of e-mail messages to conversations, paving the way for replied e-mails to appear side by side, instead of being separated like in other services.*Criticism: Accounts are temporarily unavailable from time to time. Also, computers scan all e-mails so relevant advertisements appear, raising privacy concerns.*Also check out: Gmail Notifier, which alerts users of new Gmail conversations without logging in. Also, Google Alerts, which e-mails users up-to-date information in areas relevant to the specific user.

Google Book Search*Application type: Searchable novel and textbook database*Launch date: October 2004*Competition: Windows Live Book Search*Awards: None*Information: One of Google’s most controversial applications is Google Book Search, which allows people to search full texts, or select pages of books depending on its copyright. Out-of-print works or works in the public domain can be downloaded. Scanned texts are mostly in English, but other languages – like Spanish, French and Italian – are also available. Some search results, such as Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘Slaughterhouse Five,’ returns a brief synopsis, related texts, key terms and locations the book mentions, including a map.*Criticism: Some claim Google infringes copyright rules by scanning texts for public use. Also, some pages are poorly scanned, leading to text buried in shadows or pages prematurely cut off.*Also check out: Google Scholar, which is similar to Google Book Search, but is a searchable database of scholarly papers.

Google Calendar*Application type: Web-based calendar*Launch date: April 13, 2006*Competition: Yahoo! Calendar, Windows Calendar, iCal*Awards: Forbes Magazine’s Best Calendar 2006*Information: Google Calendar is easy to use and user-friendly. Events can be added with one click; choose a date, type in the event name and it’s added. Other information – like the time, whether it repeats and a description – can always be added later. Two or more users can also share calendars. So keeping tabs on friends becomes fairly simple: open your calendar and your friends’ events appear alongside yours.*Criticism: Google Calendar has no sync capabilities. Events can be imported from other programs, but users cannot integrate their calendars onto client programs or handheld technology.*Also check out: Public Events search, which returns events from other calendars that share the searched term. Any searchable event can then be copied to a user’s calendar.

Google Desktop*Application type: Desktop search software*Launch date: Oct. 14, 2004*Competition: Spotlight, Beagle, Window’s Desktop Search*Awards: Best PC Utility at Best of DigitalLife 2004*Information: Google Desktop indexes everything on a user’s computer, from e-mail and documents to photos and previously viewed Web sites, so the user can search it at any time. Along with this searchable index, Google Desktop also includes a sidebar feature, with includes a Web search, stock quotes and personalized news.*Criticism: Initially it indexes just 10,000 files per drive. So a search for a specific document or music file may not be successful until the drive is fully indexed. It is only compatible with Windows. *Also check out: Google Gadgets, which are addable applications to a user’s sidebar, such as a clock or media player.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets*Application type: Web-based word processor and spreadsheets*Launch date: Oct. 10, 2006*Competition: Microsoft Word/ExcelAwards: Forbes Magazine’s Best Spreadsheet 2006*Information: All basic necessities of a word processor or spreadsheet – like fonts, lists, columns and table – are included. Users can upload documents on their computer into this application – with their formats intact. Additionally, users can share their documents or spreadsheets, and documents attached to a Gmail conversation can be downloaded directly into Google Docs.*Criticism: Footnotes cannot be added.*Also check out: Users can e-mail a service that will convert the e-mail’s text into a Google Docs document. The e-mail’s subject serves as its title.

Google Earth*Application type: Satellite imagery of the Earth*Launch date: June 28, 2005*Competition: Flash Earth, Windows Live Map*Awards: Editor’s Choice Award at the Macworld Conference & Expo 2006*Information: Google Earth, in many ways, is a one-of-a-kind application. Acquired from Keyhole, Inc. in late 2004, Google Earth combines aerial photography and satellite imagery to reproduce an electronic Earth for users to endlessly navigate. Simply search your street address to see your home or broaden your search – like to New York City or Paris – and then zoom in to observe the details.*Criticism: Cloud cover, shadows and low-resolution imagery leave some places, such as small islands or rural areas, without much detail. Other areas are at times out of date. For example, Newhouse III and the Life Sciences Complex have yet to begin construction, according to Google Earth.*Also check out: Google Moon, Google Mars.

Google Page Creator*Application type: Web site editor and publisher*Launch date: Feb. 23, 2006*Competition: Yahoo! Geocities*Awards: None*Information: Google Page Creator offers 100 megabytes of storage space, Web templates and page layouts, eliminating the need to learn HTML and complex coding. Web page editing takes place within the Internet browser, so users can literally see how the site appears as they update it. Editing is also automatically saved, thus keeping users from losing unsaved work.*Criticism: Due to popularity, initially signing up for the service is oftentimes limited. Also, the unique domain names given to users match their e-mail addresses, making it easy for spammers to flood their inboxes.*Also check out: Since fall 2006, users can create up to four additional Web pages, instead of the original one.

Google Talk*Application type: Instant messenger*Launch date: Aug. 23, 2005*Competition: AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger*Awards: The Google Talk team received the Google Founders’ Award, the highest employee award at Google.*Information: Google Talk arrives in two forms: Google Talk Gadget and Google Talk Client. Gadget is Web-based and is located on a user’s personalized Google homepage. Client, on the other hand, must be installed on the user’s computer. While both Gadget and Client allow users to instant message one another, Client also makes PC-to-PC voice calls and can transfer unlimited files.*Criticism: It is only compatible with Windows. Also, users complain the application tends to freeze during long conversations.*Also check out: Voicemail, which allows users to leave audio messages, up to 10 minutes in length, to their friends. After recording a message, it is sent to the recipient’s Gmail inbox as an MP3 attachment.

Google Maps*Application type: Web map*Launch date: Feb. 8, 2005*Competition: Yahoo! Maps, Mapquest*Awards: People’s Choice Winner at 2006 Webby Awards, winner in the Online Applications category of the 2006 Bottom Line Design Awards*Information: Google Maps provides streets and business names, as well as driving directions when starting and ending points are fed into the system. One of its best features is its ability to search for any U.S. business or service. Searching ‘Mexican restaurants in Syracuse, N.Y.,’ will return simply that: all the Mexican restaurants in Syracuse, along with their addresses and phone numbers. Upon finding the restaurant of your choice, hit the ‘call’ button and Google will connect your phone to the restaurant for free. Also, Google recently opened up Google Maps in parts of Canada and Europe, with new locations continually added.*Criticism: Street data may at times be out of date or contain errors.*Also check out: Google Traffic Info, which gives up-to-date traffic conditions in 30 major U.S. cities.

Google Web Search*Application type: Search engine*Launch date: Sept. 21, 1999*Competition: Yahoo!, Ask.com*Awards: Time magazine’s Top Ten Best Cybertech list in 1999*Information: Google’s Web Search is where it all began. Unlike competitor Yahoo!, with a homepage filled with news, entertainment and endless links to its services, Google’s homepage is the definition of bare bones: it contains hardly anything more than a search box, a search button and a few links to some Google services. And conducting a search takes hardly any time. Searching the term ‘Syracuse,’ for example, yields more than 33,000,000 results in about six-hundredths of a second.*Criticism: Even though users can customize the Google search engine by setting a default language and amount of search results per page, long-term cookies are added to users’ computers in order to manage and store their preferences.*Also check out: Google Trends, which exposes how often a term has been searched since 2004 in top cities, regions and languages. Also, separate two terms by commas and see how they compare in the same criteria.

Picasa*Application type: Digital photo organizer and editor*Launch date: July 13, 2004*Competition: iPhoto, Flickr, F-Spot*Awards: Editor’s Choice Award in January 2005’s PC Magazine, Innovative Product Award in February 2005 by the Digital Imaging Marketing Association*Information: Picasa is the brainchild of a company based in Pasadena, Calif., which Google acquired in 2004. Photos can be tagged, shared online with Web albums and included in slide shows and image timelines. Picasa provides all basic photo-editing tools – like red eye reduction, color enhancement and cropping. Also, Picasa’s search feature returns results that match a user’s search by photo filenames or folders.*Criticism: When Picasa initially scans the system for digital photos, users either choose to scan the entire hard drive or the ‘My Documents’ folder – nothing in between.*Also check out: Hello, which allows users to send images to other users – similar to instant messaging. However, instead of text, Hello issues digital photos.

Published on April 3, 2007 at 12:00 pm