Google is what many would call a "substantial" company by now, which means it has influence in a considerable amount of Internet activities.
Google offers e-mail, Web search and a smorgasbord of software applications and suites. These tools have been well explored because many people regularly search from its minimalist home page, use Gmail, route road trips with Google Maps and fiddle a great deal with Google Earth in an attempt to complete a list of worldwide crop circles.
So what's left after throwing out all of Google's staple products?
A great deal, and it's not surprising because Google has had more ideas kicked around the office and fleshed out into full-scale, tangible distractions than the weird lady down the street has cats.
Because of my well-documented penchant for mobile-enabled services, I highly suggest anyone with an interest in daily efficiency and faking texts in sticky situations to look into Google SMS.
Essentially, this free service brings Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button to your mobile device.
People can take advantage of it by texting a query to GOOGLE (466453) or meandering to m.google.com/sms with their phone to get immediate answers. Going by the SMS route, users will get a response from Google with what the creators hope is a correct answer to the question asked.
When I get up in the morning and want to check the weather, I usually text "weather Lubbock, TX" to Google SMS and get back enough information about whether I should wear my Members Only Jacket, throw on those fashionable Bermuda shorts or go back to sleep until Christmas. Almost anything people can search with Google, they can search with Google SMS. Product prices, quick facts, movie showtimes, language translations and unit conversions - all can be accomplished with Google SMS.
Users can personalize their location so certain queries are customized for his or her area. The only problem a person could expect to encounter with Google SMS is that some queries will not work as expected. The text "Price ipod player" will, oddly enough, come up with prices for Logitech portable speakers, but it's pretty rare to find a broken query.
Similarly, you could also check out GOOG-411, a free 411 directory search service.
Completely unrelated to mobile search, Google offers a pretty sweet 3D modeling program called SketchUp. Admittedly, the application is rudimentary when compared to other 3D programs like LightWave 3D or Cinema 4D, but is complex enough to compete.
One of the main draws of the program is its ease of use. Rather than working from point to point with an innumerable amount of polygons, SketchUp allows the user to focus more readily on extruding click-and-drag basic shapes. Also, the program allows for finer vector controls.
One nice feature is a "smart" drawing system that allows users to draw 3D objects in a 2D environment. Once a user finishes modeling in SketchUp, he or she can either animate camera and sun movements with the program or export the model to be used in various other applications, such as renders like Kerkythea or Google Earth, to fill the world with his or her own objects.
If someone wants to get into some easy 3D modeling before diving into mind-bending applications like Maya or 3ds Max, he or she should see what SketchUp can offer.
If anything can be extrapolated from these little tidbits of information, it is that Google takes functionality and ease of use to be the greatest assets of any service or application, regardless of intent.
One product generally under-utilized but incredibly effective in keeping up with copious amounts of information are feed readers.
Google offers a product of this nature called Google Reader, a web-based aggregator that can read in Atom and RSS feeds. If you have no idea what a feed reader or aggregator is, you're missing out. Aggregators collect syndicated web content of your choosing from blogs, web comics and almost anything nowadays.
Even Facebook offers an RSS feed for a person's own notifications so he or she doesn't have to log in to his or her account or e-mail to check up on what people have been doing. Aggregators can collect news from outlets like The New York Times or recommended videos from YouTube. Almost anything that provides new content from day to day can be placed into feeds for the user's convenience.
Google Reader's interface is as Google as it gets, sparse but functional, but features under the hood are what make it fantastic.
These include keyboard shortcuts, an extremely handy search function, widespread integration across products such as mobile devices, Google Gears for offline viewing, built-in functionality with Mozilla's Firefox and automatic markings of viewed and new items on subscribed feeds.
If people are not using Google Reader or some other feed reader, they are making life much harder on themselves when it comes to keeping up with their favorite sites.
Although some Google products hog the spotlight when it comes to the number of users or necessity on the web, some lesser known gems are cherished by those who already use them and will soon be indispensable to those just discovering them.
It's just too bad that Google took down the Swiss cheese from Google Moon.
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