Google Is Great! Should We Count the Ways?
One of my favorite bloggers, Craig Daniels, (he's always such a fountain of information) has put together this great list of Google applications - introducing us to many that we may not have known about. If you missed his blog and if any of them are new to you, check them out. The best part about all of them, is that they're all FREE!!
Today on Facebook, we had great participation in a little "Friday Quiz" that I held. Google is AMAZING. The different tools in addition to SEARCH are numerous. I had quickly scratched out a count of 20 in a quick tally in my notes. Our quiz revealed 21 items plus several bonus items. What is remarkable is that these tools are FREE too! Here is the results of our Facebook Friday Online QUIZ - you will see who came to class today!
(1) Google Places
google.com/places - Put your business on the map.
answered by: Bill Spear
(2) Gmail
www.gmail.com - web based email with excellent support on all devices
answered by: Happy Grasshopper "Here is how to use it like a pro. http://actvra.in/8l7"(3) Google Calendar
google.com/calendar - Keep your schedule organized - cloud based - also syncs with Outlook!
answered by: Lynda White(4) Google Alerts
google.com/alerts
get notified when google finds new content matching particular target keywords
answered by: Tammy Emineth "Love it for getting the latest on my business, news and info related to SEO."(5) goo.gl URL Shortener
http://goo.gl - shorten a long URL to a short version that is more appropriate in Twitter and other instances track the clicks that the link is generating - create a QR code for the link to use for mobile device access
answered by: Lynda White(6) Google Docs
docs.google.com - Online authoring of documents and sharing with others.
Collaboration and cloud-computing!
answered by: Nyssa Smith(7) Google Voice
google.com/voice - get a google number that has some really great features for calls
answered by: Debra A Walsh(8) Google Maps
maps.google.com - online, web-based app for mapping and directions, includes satellite and street view imagery
answered by: Leah Stern(9) Google Earth
earth.google.com - downloadable app (also now available inside google maps website)
3D viewpoints and exploration of our world
answered by: Leah Stern(bonus) TeachParentsTech.org
Leah Stern "It's designed for the non tech savvy parents who can't get ahold of their kids when they need them the most and has simple short tech tutorials.. The kids can send Mom and Dad a tech support care package. Its a fun site. I blogged about it a couple of weeks ago ( http://actvra.in/8ls)."(10) Google Reader
for keeping up to date with all of your RSS feeds
Craig: "I blogged about at this Google Reader/RSS article"(11) Google Bookmarks
google.com/bookmarks - save your favorite pages - tag the bookmarks for easy search and find later!
Craig: "I wrote this blog post on it yesterday - http://goo.gl/jOaCI"(12) Google Chrome
google.com/chrome - web browser - modern and FAST!
Craig: "here is a series of articles that I have wrote on Google Chrome"(13) Google Analytics
google.com/analytics for tracking visitors to your website, pages they visited, where they are from, etc!
did you also know you can use analytics on your ActiveRain outside blog?(14) Picasa
picasa.google.com - downloaded app for photo organizing, editing, sharing app
answered by: Lynda White
Craig adds: "you can find my articles on Google Picasa at that link"(bonus) google goggles
google.com/mobile/goggles
mobile app for your iPhone or Android-based smart phone "Use pictures to search the web"
Lynda White(15) Google Talk
google.com/talk - IM chat client that can run on a desktop app (for PC) - or as web client in gmail - voice and video calls as well as text chats - I love that text chats are saved in gmail for later reference to items discussed(16) Google Feedburner
feedburner.google.com - helps in the syndication of your work based on a source RSS feed - gives a clean interface for others to see your feed and decide how they want to subscribe to you... including by email subscription - provides stats to how many have subscribed
Craig: "my feedburner page is here http://feeds.feedburner.com/activerain/mdwC"(17) Picnik
picnik.com - Mar 2010 Google acquires picnik -
online, web based photo editing tools - similar and complementary to picasa app which resides on your computer(18) YouTube
youtube.com - acquired by google in Mar 2006 -
more than 2 billion views per day - 35 hours of video uploaded every minute!(19) Google Desktop
desktop.google.com - windows based app - I'm not interested in the search files as much as the gadgets - RSS feed and google talk gadgets as well as system monitor gadget are much better IMO than the built in windows gadgets(20) Google Adwords
adwords.google.com - even if you don't buy the ads you can search for keyword popularity for SEO targeting
answered by: Eric Michael(bonus) Google Profile
a place to make sure you have a good description about yourself and links to your sites
René Fabreand finally, coming in at my final list position - last but not least -
(21) iGoogle
google.com/ig - a dashboard for news, weather, rss feeds, and about any gadget you can imagine - some make it their home page and it is a good choice
About the Author - Craig loves technology and loves to teach others about it!
If you'd like to learn more about Craig, see recent post "Who Is Craig Daniels?"
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