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Saturday 4 May 2013

What is up with Google

What is up with Google.

If you are reading this, I can assume that you know Google. Well why is that so. What is so special with it. There is something to it..

Everyone likes Google for their own reasons and I do have mine. One of the notable things is that if you sign into one, you are signed into many. I am not sure whether I have used a Open-id for logging into these many sites. I am synchronizing my Chrome Canary in PC using Google account so that I can have my browser customization on all my devices. I can even continue to start where I left on the other device. For example, I was writing a blog in Chrome canary in my windows PC in my office. I left in the middle and continued in Chrome beta in my laptop which runs Fedora Beefy-miracle in my home or I can pick it up at my bedroom with my smart phone. Life is so simplified. No wonder, Chrome is one of my favorite Google offerings.

Once I sign into Google for applying my search preferences and tracking my search history, I am automatically signed into many other things. I can just go to YouTube to upload my new video or to watch my favourite channels. When Google announced acquistion of YouTube in November 2006, many wondered what can Google benefit from this acquistion. Eventhough YouTube was famous then, many couldn't see what monetory benefits YouTube could offer. Now there are plenty folks who make handsome money using YouTube. Google shares a good part of revenue with the publishers.

Do you want to write a blog, just visit Blogger.com and you are already signed in. Blogger is another amazing service launched by Pyra Labs and it is a gift to bloggers. You may point your blogspot website to your custom url. The blogs looks so cool with new live designs. There is no forced ads placed on your sites and If you want you may place ads and earn revenue from them. Adsense could help you a lot to make some money from your blog and it is again from Google.

Do you want to create a website and are you looking for some real free hosting service. Google Sites is the one stop solution for you. You can use upto 100 MB and you can also point a custom url to your site. You can add the photos from Picasa Web Albums with few clicks.

If you are looking for some serious photo sharing, try panaromia.





Products and Services offered by Google are numerous. Below is a list of them ( from Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products ). It may not be all inclusive.




This list of Google products includes all major desktop, mobile and online products released or acquired by Google Inc. This list also includes prior products, that have been merged, discarded or renamed.

Web-based products


These products must be accessed via a web browser:


Search tools


  • Google search – web search engine, which is Google's core product. It was the company's first creation, coming out of beta on September 21, 1999, and remains their most popular and famous service. It receives 100 billion search queries per month and is the most used search engine on the Internet. Google also offers regional search by its regional level domains, it has 189 different regional domains, see List of Google domains
  • Accessible Search – search engine for the blind and visually impaired. It prioritizes usable and accessible web sites in the search results, so users incur minimal distractions when browsing.
  • Google Alerts – email notification service, which sends alerts based on chosen search terms, whenever there are new results. Alerts include web results, Groups results news, and video.
  • Blog search – weblog search engine, with a continuously-updated search index. Results include all blogs, not just those published through Blogger. Results can be viewed and filtered by date.
  • Google Books (was Print) – search engine for the full text of printed books. Google scans and stores in its digital database. The content that is displayed depends on the arrangement with the publishers, ranging from short extracts to entire books.
  • Google Custom Search – allows a user to create a customized search experience for his/her own website. Renamed from Google Co-op, which in turn replaced Google Free Search.
  • Directory – navigation directory, specifically for Chinese users.
  • Experimental Search – options for testing new interfaces whilst searching with Google, including Timeline views and keyboard shortcuts.
  • Google Finance – searchable US business news, opinion, and financial data. Features include company-specific pages, blog search, interactive charts, executives information, discussion groups and a portfolio.
  • Google Groups – web and email discussion service and Usenet archive. Users can join a group, make a group, publish posts, track their favorite topics, write a set of group web pages updatable by members and share group files. In January, 2007, version 3 of Google Groups was released. New features include the ability to create customised pages and share files.
  • Google Hotel Finder - Provides searches similar to other Online Travel Agencies (Travel website) that searchers can search for check-in and check-out dates.
  • Google Image Search – image search engine, with results based on the filename of the image, the link text pointing to the image and text adjacent to the image. You can also make a search by uploading a picture from your computer.When searching, a thumbnail of each matching image is displayed.
  • Language Tools – Collection of linguistic applications, including one that allows users to translate text or web pages from one language to another, and another that allows searching in web pages located in a specific country or written in a specific language.
  • Life Search (Google China) – Search engine tailored towards everyday needs, such as train times, recipes and housing.
  • Movies – specialised search engine that obtains show times of films near a user-entered location and provides reviews of films compiled from several different websites.
  • Google News – automated news compilation service and search engine for news. There are versions of the aggregator for more than 20 languages. While the selection of news stories is fully automated, the sites included are selected by human editors.
  • Google News archive – feature within Google News, that allows users to browse articles from over 200 years ago.
  • Google Patent Search – search engine to search through millions of patents, each result with its own page, including drawings, claims and citations.
  • Google Schemer - A social search to find local activities to do at home and around the world.
  • Google Scholar – search engine for the full text of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and scholarly fields. Today, the index includes virtually all peer-reviewed journals available online.
  • Google Shopping (was Google Product Search and Froogle): price engine that searches online stores, including auctions, for products. Beginning in Fall of 2012, it will become a fully commercial product, only indexing paid listings.
  • SMS – mobile phone short message service offered by Google in several countries, including the USA, Japan, Canada, India, Pakistan and China and formerly the UK, Germany and Spain. It allows search queries to be sent as a text message. The results are sent as a reply, with no premium charge for the service.
  • Suggest – auto-completion in search results while typing to give popular searches.
  • Google Video – video search engine and online store for clips internally submitted by companies and the general public. Google's main video partnerships include agreements with CBS, NHLand the NBA. Also searches videos posted on YouTube, Metacafe, Daily Motion, and other popular video hosting sites. Google Video will no longer host video content after August 20, 2012
  • Voice Local Search – non-premium phone service for searching and contacting local businesses
  • Web History (was Google Search History, Personalized Search) – web page tracking, which records Google searches, Web pages, images, videos, music and more. It also includes Bookmarks, search trends and item recommendations. Google released Search History in April 2005, when it began to record browsing history,[4] later expanding and renaming the service to Web History in April 2007.
  • Knowledge Graph – a knowledge base used to enhance search results with semantic information gathered from several sources.
  • Google Trader – a free online classifieds service that allows people to post or find jobs and buy or sell goods and services. Currently available in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Thailand and Nigeria.






Advertising services


  • AdMob – Mobile advertising network.
  • Google AdSense – Offers a contextual advertising solution to web publishers, and delivers text-based Google AdWords ads that are relevant to site content pages.
  • Google AdWords – advertise with Google AdWords ads in the Sponsored Links section next to search results to boost website traffic and sales.
  • Adwords Express –Local online advertising made easy
  • Google Certification Program – Google AdWords partner certification program, providing AdWords qualifications to agencies that pass exams and other criteria. Replaced Google Advertising Professionals in April 2010.
  • DoubleClick – ad management and ad serving technology foundation for buyers, creators and sellers of digital media.
  • DoubleClick for Publishers by Google – Set of tools for driving direct sales revenue and maximizing yield on non-guaranteed inventory.
  • Google Grants – in-kind donation program awarding free AdWords advertising to select charitable organizations.
  • Google Website Optimizer – free website testing and optimization tool, allows a user to increase the value of his/her existing websites and traffic.
  • Meebo – Create a profile and advertise on the network.


Communication and publishing tools


  • FeedBurner – news feed management services, including feed traffic analysis and advertising facilities.
  • Google Keep – news feed Note Keeping (Like Evernote)
  • Google 3D Warehouse – online service that hosts 3D models of existing objects, locations (including buildings) and vehicles created in Google SketchUp by the aforementioned application's users. The models can be downloaded into Google SketchUp by other users or Google Earth.
  • Google Apps – service for businesses, enterprise and education providing independently customizable versions of several Google products under a custom domain name. Features included are Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Contacts, Google Video, Google Groups, Google Buzz, GTalk, Google Maps, Google Mars, Google Moon, and Google Earth.
  • Blogger – weblog publishing tool. Users can create custom, hosted blogs with features such as photo publishing, comments, group blogs, blogger profiles and mobile-based posting with little technical knowledge.
  • Google Bookmarks – free online bookmark storage service, available to Google Account holders[7] launched on October 10, 2005.
  • Boutiques.com – personalized shopping experience that let users find and discover fashion goods. Boutiques.com was launched in November 2010, and consolidated with Google Product Search on October 14, 2011.
  • Google Business Solutions – collection of services offered by Google specifically directed at webmasters and businesses. Products included are Feedburner, Google AdWords, Google AdSense, Google Analytics, Google Enterprise Search solutions, Google Apps, Google Checkout, Google Local Business Center, Google Merchant Center, Google Trusted Stores, Postini,Google Webmaster Central, Google Ad Manager, Google Maps and Earth Solutions, Google Website Optimizer, Google Site Search, and Google Friend Connect.
  • Google Calendar – free online calendar, includes Gmail integration, calendar sharing, and a "quick add" function that allows inserting events using natural language input. It is similar to those offered by Yahoo! and Windows Live.
  • Google Docs – document, spreadsheet, drawing and presentation application, with document collaboration and publishing capabilities.
  • Google Drive – an online backup service and storage space. This service is connected with Google Docs.
  • Google Friend Connect – an online service that allows website and blog owners to add social features to their websites. It also allows users to connect with their friends on different websites that have implemented Google Friend Connect on their website.
  • Gmail (also termed Google Mail) – free Webmail IMAP and POP email service provided by Google, known for its abundant storage, intuitive search-based interface and elasticity. It was first released in an invitation-only form on April 1, 2004. Mobile access and Google Talk integration is also featured.
  • Goo.gl – URL shortener for both Google and non-Google websites.
  • Google+ – Google's social networking service.
  • iGoogle (was Google Personalized Homepage) – Customizable homepage, which can contain Web feeds and Google Gadgets, launched in May 2005. It was renamed to iGoogle on April 30, 2007 (was used internally by Google). iGoogle will be discontinued on November 1, 2013.
  • Marratech e-Meeting – Web conferencing software, used internally by Google's employees. Google acquired the software from creator Marratech on April 19, 2007. Google has not yet stated what it will do with the product.
  • Orkut – Social networking service, where users can list their personal and professional information, create relationships amongst friends and join communities of mutual interest. In November 2006, Google opened Orkut registration to everyone, instead of being invitation only.
  • Panoramio – Photos of the world.
  • Picasa Web Albums – Online photo sharing, with integration with the main Picasa program.
  • Picnik – Online photo editing service. Picnik closed on April 19, 2012. They’ve packed up and moved some of their most popular tools and effects to Google+.
  • Google profile – allows controlling how users appear and present themselves on Google products, to other Google users, and tell others a bit more about who they are.
  • Questions and Answers (Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Thai) – Community-driven knowledge market website. Launched on June 26, 2007 that allows users to ask and answer questions posed by other users.
  • Google Sites (was Jotspot) – Website creation tool for private or public groups, for both personal and corporate use.
  • SMS Channels (Google India only) – Launched September 2008, allows users to create and subscribe to channels over SMS. Channels can be based on RSS feeds.
  • Speak To Tweet – telephone service created in collaboration with Twitter and SayNow allowing users to phone a specific number and leave a voicemail; a tweet is automatically posted on Twitter with a link to the voice message stored on Google's SayNow.
  • Google Voice (United States only) – known as "GrandCentral" before 2009-03-11, Google Voice is a free voice communication system. GVoice provides a phone number, but is not a last mile provider (unlike POTS, which does provide the last mile connection). It includes a follow-me service that lets users forward their Google voice phone number to simultaneously ring up to 6 other phone numbers. It also features a unified voice mail service, SMS and free outgoing calls via Google's "click2call" and 3rd party dialers.
  • Web Fonts – interactive directory of free hosted web font-API's.
  • YouTube – free video sharing Web site which lets users upload, view, and share video clips. In October 2006, Google, Inc., announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for $1.65 billion USD in Google stock. The deal closed on 13 November 2006.(Hughes.K)



Development resources

  • AngularJS – AngularJS is a toolset for building the framework most suited to your application development .
  • Google App Engine – tool that allows developers to write and run web applications.
  • Google Closure Tools – Javascript tools used by Google products such as GMail, Google Docs and Google Maps.
  • Google Code – Google's site for developers interested in Google-related development. The site contains Open Source code and lists of their API services. Also provides project hosting for anyfree and open source software.
  • Dart – it is a structured web programming language developed by Google.
  • Google Go – compiled, concurrent programming language developed by Google.
  • OpenSocial – set of common APIs for building social applications on many websites.
  • Page Speed – tool for helping developers to optimize the performance of their webpages.
  • Google Swiffy – tool that converts Adobe Flash files (SWF) into HTML5.
  • Google Web Toolkit – open source Java software development framework that allows web developers to create Ajax applications in Java.
  • Webmaster Tools (was Google Sitemaps): Sitemap submission and analysis for the Sitemaps protocol. Renamed from Google Sitemaps to cover broader features, including query statistics and robots.txt analysis.
  • Google Developers – a documentation site dealing with the platforms provided by Google.
  • Translator Toolkit – collaborated translation tool – http://translate.google.com/toolkit



Map-related products

  • Google Building Maker – web based building and editing tool to create 3D buildings for Google Earth. It will be retired on June 1 2013.
  • Google Map Maker – a map editor.
  • Google Maps – Mapping service that indexes streets and displays satellite and street-level imagery, providing driving directions and local business search.
  • Google Maps Coordinate – an enterprise-only "workforce management tool".  introduced on June 21, 2012.
  • Google Mars – imagery of Mars using the Google Maps interface. Elevation, visible imagery and infrared imagery can be shown. It was released on March 13, 2006, the anniversary of the birth of astronomer Percival Lowell.
  • Google Moon – NASA imagery of the moon through the Google Maps interface. It was launched on July 20, 2005, in honor of the first manned Moon landing on July 20, 1969.
  • Google Sky – Internet tool to view stars and galaxies, can be used via browser version of "Google Sky".
  • Google Transit – Public transport trip planning through the Google Maps interface, now fully integrated with maps. Released on December 7, 2005.
  • Zygote Body (previously Google Body) – 3D anatomical model of human body.


Statistical tools


  • Google Analytics – Traffic statistics generator for defined websites, with strong AdWords integration. Webmasters can optimize their ad campaigns, based on the statistics that are given. Analytics is based on the Urchin software and the new version released in May 2007 integrates improvements based on Measure Map.
  • Google Correlate – Search patterns relating to real world trends.
  • Google Fusion Tables – Tool for gathering and visualizing arbitrary data.
  • Google Insights for Search – Google Insights for Search was a service by Google similar to Google Trends, providing insights into the search terms people have been entering into the Google search engine. Google Insights for Search has been discontinued since September 27, 2012 by Google and Now Google Insights has merged in Google Trends.
  • Google Public Data Explorer - Provides public data and forecasts from a range of international organizations and academic institutions including the World Bank, OECD, Eurostat and the University of Denver. These can be displayed as line graphs, bar graphs, cross sectional plots or on maps.
  • Google Refine – Tool for data cleansing and processing.
  • Trendalyzer – data trend viewing platform to make nations' statistics accessible on the Internet in an animated, interactive graph form. Acquired from the Gapminder Foundation in 2007.
  • Google Trends – graph plotting application for Web Search statistics, showing the popularity of particular search terms over time. Multiple terms can be shown at once. Results can also be displayed by city, region or language. Related news stories are also shown. Has "Google Trends for Websites" sub-section which shows popularity of websites over time.
  • Zeitgeist – Collection of lists of the most frequent search queries. There used to be weekly, monthly and yearly lists, and topic and country specific lists. Closed 22 May 2007 and replaced by "Hot Trends, a dynamic feature in Google Trends". An annual Zeitgeist summary for the US and other countries is still produced.



Operating systems


  • Android – an operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers.
  • Google Chrome OS – Linux-based operating system designed by Google to work exclusively with web applications. Runs on the "Chromebook" and the nettop "Chromebox", the first of which (Samsung Series 3) was released in May 2012.
  • Google TV – smart TV platform that integrates Android and the Linux version of Google Chrome to create an interactive television overlay on top of existing internet television and WebTV sites to add a 10-foot user interface.



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