Google Products You Forgot All About

Googling Yourself writes "Lifehacker has an interesting blog post on the 'Top 10 Google Products You Forgot All About' that includes stalwarts like Google Trends and Google Alerts and a few others that may not be quite so familiar like Google Personals, Google's WYSIWYG web site creation tool, and Flight Simulator for Google Earth."

No replies?

[Coldness (829686)]

Guess everyone's busy trying out the "new" flight simulator!

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[dynamo52 (890601)]

That's what took me so long to get to the comments, but I can't get the damn landing gear up with my joystick.

Google Google

[flyingsquid (813711)]

The best is called Google Google. It's by Google. It's a search engine, which searches Google, to find all the various products and services which have been released as beta (of course, Google Google is still in beta).

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[MrEricSir (398214)]

Do you know of a way to use Google to find other pages, which may not be created by Google or in beta?

+1 Redundant

[Smordnys s'regrepsA (1160895)]

Do you know of a way to use Google to find other pages, which may not be created by Google /deleted/?

There, fixed that for you.

I am head of IT, and I have it on good authority..

[by Anonymous Coward]

If you type "Google" into Google, you can break the Internet. So please, no one try it, even for a joke.

Re:I am head of IT, and I have it on good authorit

[Tim Browse (9263)]

I don't think that's right.

The little known product that is most impressive

[eclectro (227083)]

Actually, the best google product that no one has heard about is their airplane business [freakingnews.com]. I hear that you can have really cool parties on it.

Wired did it so much better.

[ascendant (1116807)]

I'm pretty sure this is from Wired's Alt Predictions for 2007 [wired.com], and it was a lot more funny there.

• After another round of acquisitions, including MySpace, Flickr, Yelp and Barry's Totally Awesome Whitesnake Tribute Page, Google runs out of websites to buy. It decides accordingly to acquire itself for an unprecedented $10.4 billion in stock. "Google is the leader in search and a strong competitor in several other online venues," says a Google spokesman. "It's only natural that Google would want to partner with such an internet powerhouse. That's why we're proud to announce Google Google, which will be in beta for the next 15 years."

Google personals is not Google Personals

[Paktu (1103861)]

Google "Personals" isn't really Google Personals, it's just a feature of Google Base that links to personals on outside websites

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[DrEldarion (114072)]

It grays out depending on the location you search in. Try searching in San Francisco, for instance.

If the people submitting data for that location didn't include the sexual orientation information, then there's nothing to narrow down by, and therefore that drop-down box is useless, so it's grayed out.

Re:Google personals is not Google Personals

[zcat_NZ (267672)]

WRONG.

It greys out until you select male or female... This seems pretty logical, how can Google search for a partner the same gender as yourself if you haven't yet told them what gender that is?

I thought this looked familiar

[Daengbo (523424)]

This article is over two months old. I read it in November. Geez. Just because it's New Years eve, we can put any top 10 list from the year on?

Re:I thought this looked familiar

[niceone (992278)]

Just because it's New Years eve, we can put any top 10 list from the year on?

Not any top 10 list - just the top 10 top 10 lists.

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[TheSkyIsPurple (901118)]

Top numbers from 1 to 10:

1. 10
2. 1
3. 9
4. 2
5. 5
6. 3
7. 8
8. 4
9. 6
10.7

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[Nullav (1053766)]

And why doesn't anyone like seven? Seems a bit unfair to me.

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[TheSkyIsPurple (901118)]

7 still says it made the top ten though, so it's not all bad.

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[kaka.mala.vachva (1164605)]

The top 10 part isn't important. This is slashdot - we like old stories and reruns here.

google SMS 466453

[Lehk228 (705449)]

best is google SMS. it gives you many smart phone / web phone like features on any SMS capable phone text queries such as "weather [zip code]" "pizza [zipcode]" "define catemite" "price someBrand someModel ionizer filter replacement" (yes i used that one in a thrift store once to see if the ionizer they were selling for $5 still had filters available and for a reasonable price, turns out the filters only run $12 so i got the ionizer) to 466453 (google)

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[peipas (809350)]

It's in my phonebook. You can just dial 46645.

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[SeaFox (739806)]

I use Google-SMS. It's cheaper than paying for web access on my cell phone.

BTW, it's 46645, you don't need the 3.

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[Lehk228 (705449)]

i used 46645 for a long time, for a few days that one went out and it worked with 466453, so i never bothered to go back and see if 46645 was back on.

Didn't forget.

[aussie_a (778472)]

Actually I didn't forget any of those. Instead:
* I didn't know about 5 of them.
* I haven't needed to use 4 of them.
* I've stopped using the one I did need and know about (Notebook) due to Google's habit of changing their functionality which can infringe on someone's privacy that they didn't want.

I doubt very many people thought those were fantastic features, and then simply forgot about them.

Re:Google alert ...

[benji fr (632243)]

I guess the one that may be very useful (at least for me) is Google Alert ...
Remember : you just type a web search phrase and Google send you an Email each time there is something new on the web for this research.
Yes, it doesn't really work in realtime as we may want to, but it's still a killer feature for the web imho.
And other "forgotten" apps are quite crappy. I hope Google will still develop Google Alerts : it deserve it.

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[TheSkyIsPurple (901118)]

I spend an unfortunate amount of time in VBScript land, and find it amusing that the main language I actually need to search for info on isn't in Google CodeSearch.
(No, I don't want VB, and no they're not the same thing, though they are annoyingly close)

Code Search

[katterjohn (726348)]

I certainly didn't forget about this. This and Koders are very handy!

GoogleFight

[10e6Steve (545457)]

I liked GoogleFight [googlefight.com].

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[aussie_a (778472)]

Easy to reverse the outcome. [googlefight.com]

Driving Simulator

[dze (89612)]

Google should really do a driving simulator based on Google Earth, similar to the flight simulator. You could drive around any city virtually, which would be pretty useful if you wanted to learn the streets of a city you were visiting. I'm sure there are a ton of other possibilities too, which I'll refrain from spelling out in detail since I've played a few too many hours of Grand Theft Auto.

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[Jack Malmostoso (899729)]

Yes they should. And then I'd be rich because I registered a similar project on sourceforge three years ago: https://sourceforge.net/projects/impressionante/ [sourceforge.net]


Not that I ever wrote a line of code, obviously ;)

That would be an awesome idea, anyway, especially using the data collected for the 3D cities.

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[ConceptJunkie (24823)]

I hope you filed a patent for it. You don't need to actually have invented anything or made anything, just patent any idea that comes into your head and litigate your way to wealth, fame and fortune!

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[skiman1979 (725635)]

Yes that could be useful, even while you're actually driving through the real city. Stuck in a traffic jam and want to find an alternate route? Have a passenger "drive" onto that side road to see where it takes you. Looking for a place to eat in an unfamiliar city? Each passenger can "drive" separate ways to find something. Well yes, then there's the whole 'GTA' aspect of it too. :-)

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[UbuntuDupe (970646)]

I'm sure there are a ton of other possibilities too, which I'll refrain from spelling out in detail since I've played a few too many hours of Grand Theft Auto.

What, like beating up virtual hookers, and having Google look up the amount of money hookers in that area are likely to be carrying?

Many of you use Google Base dat and don't know it.

[DrEldarion (114072)]

It's how data gets into Google Product Search.

What about Picasa?

[shirai (42309)]

Don't know if they thought it was not forgotten about but Picasa is the best photo organizer I've found and it's free.

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[SCHecklerX (229973)]

I'd use picasa, but their linux version is a horrid pile of crap.

Uh? It is pretty much the same.

[jotaeleemeese (303437)]

As a matter of fact it runs using Wine in Linux.

No sir !

[OricAtmos48K (979353)]

Google don't forget you, you have no right !

gapminder

[managementboy (223451)]

this one will open your mind:

http://tools.google.com/gapminder/ [google.com]

Sketchup!

[Quiet_Desperation (858215)]

It's something they bought, but my God is it easy to model things in 3D once you learn the tools.

Seriously, Apple should have bought it first and called it iCAD. It's *that* fricken sweet.

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[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

I have a friend who's an architect and he uses Sketchup all the time to throw together quick models/diagrams for clients. Of course, he still uses AutoCAD for the actual plans and everything, but he swears by Sketchup for quick 'n dirty stuff.

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[Quiet_Desperation (858215)]

I just use it as a modeler for my 3D art, which means I had to buy the Pro version to export to formats that Bryce and Vue can read.

It pissed me off at first, but then i realized it was a pretty clever way to divide the audience. People who just want to add things to Google Earth get to use it for free. People who want to use it as an actual modeler for other things pay the price that it cost anyway before Google bought it out.

What about google sets?

[SCHecklerX (229973)]

See subject

Try Google earth with a Space Mouse....

[Joce640k (829181)]

You haven't lived 'til you've done google earth with a Space Mouse (or whatever they're called these days - I've got one of those old fashioned ones).

Googling Google

[jjjolton (790173)]

If you Google Google, you'll break the Internet.

I use google alert routinely

[peter303 (12292)]

I have it set for my name, my company's name, and few friends.

Someone at Google trends has a sense of humour ...

[RockDoctor (15477)]

Seeing as I get so much spam on the subject ... I thought I'd see how effective the spam is being at generating searches. This spam search [google.com] returns the result:

Your terms - penis extension,breast enhancement - do not have enough volume to show graphs.

But that's exactly the problem - I don't have enough volume in my pests or breanis to satisfy my horde of lovers and wanabees.

We demand more and better spam!

See - the Nigerians [google.com] are working!

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[aussie_a (778472)]

Actually no it really is Auto suggest!

MyMinicity

[i.of.the.storm (907783)]

Parent is a myminicity. Do not click or whatever.

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[gmuslera (3436)]

They are not "chaotic" stuff, all or at least most share the same general direction, under the surface the goal is the main one of google, to do a better search, giving tools around it or helping people to move content to a better (? at least they control it) searchable environment. And maybe more important, there are some increasing interaction between the "chaotic" google products. Things that maybe are less used now may evolve into something more integrated with the rest in a future.