Kathy\’s Tech Blog

Google Stuff and Google Clout August 27, 2009

Have you noticed all the free applications Google is giving away?

Of course, there’s the popular Gmail. But there’s also Google Calendar for online calendars, and Google Docs for online document storage and sharing. Recently Google came out with a new web browser called Chrome to compete with Internet Explorer and Firefox. And that’s not all; if you want to see everything Google has to offer, check out this page.

But these applications aren’t feature-bereft, get-what-you-pay-for offerings slapped together by a programmer with a little free time.  They are robust.  Google Docs reads PDFs and Microsoft Office documents and allows you to share and collaborate with them.   Google Analytics plugs into your web site for no-cost statistical analysis of your traffic.  Google Earth has literally revolutionized the way we see the world.  And can anyone say YouTube?

Granted, Google acquired most of these technologies rather than inventing them.  Who can blame them?  It’s pretty darned good stuff, and I realize I’ve come to rely on many of these products almost exclusively.

People think it’s Microsoft that dominates the computing landscape, but it’s not.  If Microsoft owns your computer, Google owns the Internet.  Hmm: Which would I rather have?