Tuesday, October 10, 2006
What Google Did On Their Own Dime
by
As Greg mentioned in his post today, the internet is buzzing with thoughts on GoogTube and what it means. What struck me as amazing is that by spending a billion and a half dollars, the stock rose four billion dollars. Heck, go buy some more risky and expensive stuff, it seems to be working for the shareholders.
Along with spending a lot of money, Google has again been pretty active lately but most of it was overshadowed by the rumors of the impending purchase of YouTube. So in as few words as possible, I present “What Google Did On Their Own Dime"…
Google Reader
A product of Google Labs (meaning it isn’t even ‘beta’ yet), Google Reader saw a big upgrade and the app which previously wasn’t thought much of has been getting rave reviews from all over the blogosphere.
Google Code Search
Now you can spend hours searching through code after you’ve run out of other things to search for. Of course the first thing people did with the new search tool was look for hidden comments left in the code by developers.
The Official Google Mac Blog
Support for the Mac has been a hit and miss deal with Google’s products, so the arrival of an official Google blog covering its Mac team is a good sign. Maybe the Google CEO being on Apple’s board is already paying off.
Google Book Search Sells Books
It turns out the controversial Google Book Search actually helps publishers sell books when people are allowed to browse them ahead of time. Who would have thunk that? I wonder what would happen if people could listen to music for free?
Google Groups is a Google Beta product that got an upgrade which I hear was a major step forward. Having never really used it, I wouldn’t know, but it looks similar to Reader. Maybe they’re finally going for a unified look across applications.
Finally, Google Gadgets for your site…
If your homepage isn’t cluttered enough already, you can add hundreds of Google Gadgets easily. Just like I did here with Google Fight. Have fun.
