My Google Life
Tags: gmail, google, google adsense, google analytics, google calendar, google sitemap, wordpress.
I was sitting at my computer, typing an e-mail the other day while checking my calendar for upcoming appointments and events and looking over my website stats when I realized just how much I depend on Google for much of my day-to-day web stuff.
Gmail is my main e-mail client. I use Outlook on my PC at work, but I have been about 95% successful in re-routing any non-work-related e-mail away from my work account. When I moved my personal site over to Dreamhost, I started using IMAP for my domain e-mail, but still forward a copy of everything I get there to Gmail. I also have several other e-mails (forwards rom IPSA, other domains that I own, etc) that end up in my Gmail account as well. I also have several friends that I talk to only on Google Chat, whether it is via the in-browser chat of Gmail or the stand-alone GTalk program.
In addition to Gmail+Talk, I have started using Google Calendar a little bit to keep track of some things. I still use iCal on my MacBookPro for the majority of my calendar needs, but it has been fun to tinker with Google Calendar a bit and see how I like it. I think that Calendar and Gmail have integrated nicely so far (the “Add Event Info” is a nice touch when composing e-mails), but I could see the integration getting better. I am not super-sold on the idea of the Calendar link at the top of the Gmail site opening a new windows. It would be supa-cool if it could just open up as another “pane” in the Gmail interface, maybe shortening up the list of messages and opening below that or something.
Google is my #1 search engine of course. I discovered this week that I am the #3 or #4 Jeremy on Google. It seems to jump around from time to time, but I definitely in the top 10. Anyway, I use it as the default search tool in Firefox and Flock. I also keep track of several Google Groups, including the new BarCampBirmingham Google Group.
From the webmaster side of things, I run Google Adsense on just about all of the sites I have. I don’t really make any money off of them, but they can provide a nice quick snapshot of the kind of traffic that each site is getting.
I have recently started tinkering with Google Sitemaps. The benefits of this tool are still sort of unknown, but it is definitely useful. I can see which search strings my site is showing up in, the average top position in those searches, as well as what other sites are linking to mine. The Google Sitemap plugin for WordPress has made this super easy, and I think I have noticed a slight increase in traffic to my sites from Google searches.
I am using Google Analytics on a few of my sites as well. This is a great stat program which is basically a hosted version of the popular Urchin software that Google aquired not long ago. This gives some great site information. We found the site overlay tool to be a tremendous help on a recent project at work that will help direct some changes to the navigation soon for that site. If I were running any kind of Adwords campaign, I could integrate that into Google Analytics and see how well those are performing in addition to the standard traffic stats for my site.
I have had an alpha account at MeasureMap for some time now, and have really enjoyed using it on my MState Sports Blog. Now that Google has aquired it, along with most of the team that was working on it, I am looking forward to see what else they add to the application.
One of the newest Google apps I have been playing around with is Writely. I have used Word for a long time, but always find myself only needing about 5% of the tools that are available. Writely helps me fill that void by letting me quickly create a document, apply some simple formatting to the copy, and save it for later. The beta is looking really smooth and I have really taken to using it for document creation.
So looking over this list, Google has just sort of become a cornerstone of my online life, plugging itself in to various facets of what I do on a daily basis. If I were a PC user away from the office, I would probably be even more tied in to Google, making use of their Desktop Search, Picasa, or many of their other apps and services.
June 28th, 2006
You too, huh? Scary that we’ve willingly given a company this much of our data without blinking an eye. Being a PC user primarily, I do use Picasa, Google Earth, SketchUp, and others… in addition to the list of online apps you’ve mentioned. I don’t think I’d use any of them unless I found them useful… but I am growing more concerned with how much freedom I’ll have with my data in the future.
June 28th, 2006
I can quit Google anytime, yes, yes. *shakes, sucks thumb*
June 28th, 2006
It’s scary. I’m actually finding that I like gmail far better than outlook. Having access to all of my email regardless of which of the 4-5 computers I regularly use is priceless. And none of the other online email services can really touch it in terms of functionality. Hotmail really just seems kinda cheesy now.
Haven’t really gotten into using google’s calendar application other than just playing around with it. However, this is an application that will take off as more people realize it’s there. Why schedule a meeting in outlook when EVERYONE ANYWHERE has access to google calendar.
I keep meaning to play around with sitemap and do plan to try it out in the next couple of weeks. Just haven’t gotten a chance yet.
It’s also going to be really cool to see where there are able to go with the spreadsheet application in terms of functionality. However, people put really sensitive information into spreadsheets so I’m not sure how it’s going to fly.