Site: Google Voice
Category: Editors' Choice, Oncoming Train award
The giant telecom industry is about to meet another giant force: Google. Its new telephony service is a real threat to traditional phone systems. Google Voice gets the "Oncoming Train" award since it's the product most likely to disturb existing services and companies.
While at the moment Google Voice needs existing phone networks to function, there's reason to believe the company will at some point begin offering phone service of its own, or at the very least work with mobile carriers (as it is with its Android mobile phone operating system) to create a Google-branded telecom experience. But unlike other Internet-based telephone solutions that require users to transfer their numbers and contacts to the new system, Google Voice will also work for people who don't move over all at once to the new system.
People who start giving out their Google Voice number instead of their existing landline or mobile numbers get value from the service even if they're not in front of their computers, since Google Voice works very well with existing users' phones. In many ways, Google Voice is a superior front-end to existing phone services, due to the ways it does visual voicemail (with voice recognition, spotty though it may be), SMS, and rule-based call routing. Google Voice is a very strong "gate" to other phone products, just as the Google search engine gates the Web for a lot of people.
This "last foot" position, the interface people use to access their other network services, is arguably the most valuable place a service can live. Google could well end up owning it for telephone services just as it does for the Web.
Google Voice handles voicemail, SMS, and all your mobile and landline phones.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)Site: Google.com
Category: Search & Reference
Google is the most popular search engine on the Internet and has quickly become a household name associated with Internet search. Google works by crawling sites on the Internet and forming associations on what pages are the most relevant. Search "spiders" go out and continuously crawl sites to make it possible to search for anything and get fairly up-to-date results.
The service became immensely popular because of its simplicity and speed. Google.com still takes you to a stark, white start page with a simple form to write in your search. In addition to an enter button, Google has also become somewhat famous for its eclectic "I'm feeling lucky" button, which takes users straight to the top search result's page, skipping the ads that usually associate the results--a move that costs the company hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
In addition to regular Web results, over the years Google has also added search options for pictures, videos, news, blogs, and more than a dozen other Google services.
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CNET)
Site: Calendar.google.com
Category: Productivity
Google Calendar is a free, Web-based calendar. Users can add events in multiple calendars and access them on their mobile phone or using Google's Gmail. Like many other Google applications, Google Calendar has a collaborative nature. Users can share and subscribe to one another's calendars or import them from third-party services that offer things such as national holidays, movie releases, or moon cycles.
In addition to a calendar view that can be toggled by day, week, or month, you can also create your own custom view that lists anywhere from two days to four weeks. To keep track of any upcoming events, there's also an agenda view that lists everything that's on your calendar in a chronological and color-coded view.
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CNET)
Site: Docs.google.com
Category: Productivity
Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a free, Web-based collaborative office suite. Users can make and share documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with anyone. What makes the service really useful is that multiple users can be concurrently working on the same document. Also, all files are stored for free on Google's servers, and can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection.
While you need to be connected to the Internet to use these applications, you're also able to export Google Docs & Spreadsheets files to work with Microsoft Office and several other formats. Google Docs also offers the capability for users to edit their files while offline using Google Gears, which can be useful if you're jumping in and out of range of Wi-Fi or cellular data while out and about.
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CNET)
Site: Earth.google.com
Category: Location-based services
Google Earth is a desktop software program that lets users browse and search the Earth and its topography. The program takes advantage of specially created data layers that can add all sorts of features to the surface of the Earth, including local landmarks, businesses, and any other set of data that have been specially coded to match up with the Earth's geography.
In addition to static layers, Google Earth is also capable of displaying moving sets of data, a feature that has been used to show changes to Earth over time, both long and short. One of the most notable uses of this was to show hurricane Katrina's movement into the Gulf Coast back in 2005.
The most recent version of Google Earth added the capability for users to record themselves using the software to share with others, as well as change what time the satellite imagery was taken to see past landmarks or features.
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CNET)
Site: Maps.google.com
Category: Location-based services
Google Maps lets you get directions and find places online. It shows streets, traffic, and satellite images. Users can type in an address and get a pinpoint location or pull up driving directions. Users with a Google account can also partake in the My Maps service, which provides users with simple drag-and-drop tools to chart their own customized maps and share them with others.
Google Maps' biggest claim to fame is Street View, a view level of the map that lets you see a 360-degree view of a street at eye level. Users can explore a photograph of their local streets if they live in one of the cities that has been mapped by the service. This technology has since shown up on mobile handsets including Google's Android platform, and on Apple's iPhone.
(Credit:
CNET)
Site: Google.com/Chrome
Category: Browsing
Chrome is Google's Web browser. Announced in late 2008 by mistake, the company released it as a Windows-only download. The browser came with several forward-thinking features, like having each tab exist as its own process, as well as the capability to drag it outside of the browser to become its own application or new window. It also made every new tab its own start page with some of the most recently and frequently visited sites showing up in thumbnail form.
Chrome remains a Windows-only product for most consumers, however early versions exist for Mac and Linux users. Google is expected to release full versions for those platforms in late 2009.
(Credit:
CNET)
Site: iGoogle.com
Category: Browsing
iGoogle is Google's customizable start page. Users can add any number of gadgets to their page that can be custom-tailored to link up with all sorts of Web services and serve as mini applications or newsfeeds.
One of the features that makes iGoogle especially neat is it can be customized with different themes that change by what time of day you're looking at the page. Users can create their own themes that go into the same directory that houses the thousands of developer-created gadgets.
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CNET)
Google Groups is Google's Web-based answer to e-mail discussion groups. It integrates forums, file sharing, group e-mailing, and collaborative document creation to take the discussion away from your e-mail client and put it in your browser.
There are thousands of groups on Google, and if you can't find what you're looking for you can start your own. If you've got a Google account, Google Groups will simply reuse some of that information to create a profile. Groups users can also custom tailor the information they share with others for each group they're in.
There have already been several interesting uses of Google Groups, including company tech support pages and product knowledge bases. Like other Google projects, users have taken the tools provided and bended them to match.
Winner: Google Groups (Groups.Google.com)
Category: Social
Google Maps lets you get directions and find places online. It shows streets, traffic, and satellite images. Users can type in an address and get a pinpoint location or pull up driving directions. Users with a Google account can also partake in the My Maps service, which provides users with simple drag-and-drop tools to chart their own customized maps and share them with others.
Google Maps' biggest claim to fame is Street View, a view level of the map that lets you see a 360-degree view of a street at eye level. Users can explore a photograph of their local streets if they live in one of the cities that has been mapped by the service.
Winner: Google Maps (Maps.Google.com)
Category: Search
