Tony, what is Picasa?
Tony: It’s a photo management/ organization application. You can
download a program that allows you to manipulate your images.
What is Google Talk?
Tony: It’s an IM – Instant Messenger – application that allows online
conversations and VoIP, Voice over IP.
What is Google Earth?
Tony: It’s fantastic! I’ve told my friends that it’s arguably the best thing
to appear on the Internet this year! Seriously though, it’s a program that
allows you view the earth from space. You can zoom in and view certain
areas really close up.
What is Google Labs?
Tony: In my view, Google Labs isn’t really a service as such. It’s simply a
name they give to many new releases that don’t quite make it to Beta. ItPage 35
8. What is Google, and what do people consider fun about it?
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often consists of smaller projects that some of the Google Employees
create in their 20% time.
What is Google Local?
Tony: It’s pretty much like an online service directory, like the Yellow
Pages. In fact, Google Local UK uses Yell.com for its results, I think.
It’s recently been integrated with Google Maps so that it’s easier to see
where the businesses are located.
What is Google Scholar?
Tony: It’s an online search that searches educational papers and theses,
things like that.
What is Google Video?
Tony: It’s a video search that searches for videos that have been
uploaded by the public or by a number of different associations who
have agreed to let their content be available for free. I think it only
searches the description or transcript that’s been provided by the user.
What is Google Answers?
Tony: Google Answers is an “ask the expert” service where you can
submit a question, name your price and, hopefully, get an answer from
an expert in the field.
What is Froogle?
Tony: It’s an online price comparison service to help you with your
online shopping.
What are Google Alerts?
Tony: Basically, Google will send you an email whenever something new
appears in the Google web results or Google News.
What is Google Desktop?
Tony: Google Desktop started off as a desktop application – Google
Desktop Search – that enabled you to search your PC for information. I
think it’s turned into something much bigger now, where you can add
your own bits to it. I’ve never used it.
What are Google Groups?
Tony: Google Groups encapsulates Usenet groups as well as Usenet-
style groups that have been created by Google Account owners. They
are basically discussion forums/ mailing-lists.
What was Google X?
Tony: I think it was a service similar to the existing home page that used
a Mac OS X style interface. It appeared in Google Labs but thenPage 36
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disappeared. Presumably because of legal reasons... but we don’t know. I
never saw it, but I’ve seen some copies of it.
What is Google Base?
Tony: Good question. It seems to be everything! It’s an online
repository where people can upload practically any data that has a
structure. It can be used for storing things like recipes, people profiles
and classified ads. So you can advertise anything you might have for sale
– although there’s no way to take payment via Google Base at the
moment. In short, it’s an online database application.
What is Google Analytics?
Tony: It’s a web stats analysis application. You place some JavaScript in
your website which then collects data from your visitors using cookies.
Google Analytics takes all this data and analyzes it, creating graphs and
reports about your visitors’ trends.
What is Google Sets?
Tony: It’s in Google Labs. I looked at it a long time ago so I’ve
forgotten exactly what it does! I think it’s a service that lets you provide
several items – up to five, I think – and Google will suggest some more
items that are in the same group.
What do you think is fun about Google?
There are a lot of things that make Google fun. It can be used to settle
the most basic of arguments. We often use it in the office when we
don’t believe what someone is saying. We run the risk of being fooled by
the “If it appears on Google, it’s true!” rule!
Their services are always interesting. Waiting for a new service can be
exciting. It gets people talking...
Very often, the services aren’t ground-breaking – but the way Google
present them is. Take Gmail and Google Maps. These types of services
had been around for years, yet all of a sudden you could just sit and play
with Google Maps for hours