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5 Useful Google Tools You Might Not Know About
0 Comments | Posted by Steven in Google, Web Design Resources
Chances are you probably know about Google’s email service, GMail, and have heard of some of their other tools like the new Google Buzz and the time-killing Google Earth. But did you know Google has a ton of other tools that they have developed that can be extremely useful, and sometimes entertaining, for anybody who uses the internet. We’ve decided to make a list (which, by the way, isn’t in any particular order) of 5 not-so-well-known Google products so that you can take advantage of them and see the real power Google has to offer.
5. Google Trends
One of the brainchilds of Google engineer Artem Boytsov is Google Trends. Google Trends lets you look up what trends are happening on the web. In the screen-shot above you can see I compared the search terms “Google”, “Facebook”, “Myspace” and “Twitter” and Google Trends returned a nice graph displaying the search volume (on top) and news reference volume for each of the terms since 2004. You can filter the results to see a different time frame if you want. Google Trends also gives you charts showing where in the world the terms are being search for the most. This tool is great for finding the amount of interest in competing brands or figures in pop culture.
4. Google City Tours
Are you going on vacation? Maybe you’ve got a free day and want to do something new in your own city. Google City Tours suggests walking tours of a city based on a starting location of your choice. It finds nearby points of interest for your tour or you can create your own tours with “My Maps”. This is a great way to see hot spots around town without getting lost or wasting time walking aimlessly.
3. Google Audio Indexing
Yet another innovative and useful tool from the engineers at Google is Google Audio Indexing. With this tool you can search videos on Youtube for spoken words and Google will return videos with those words spoken in it. It uses speech recognition software to find out what is being said in each video. Google tells you how many mentions your search term gets in each video and, even more useful, Google lets you jump right to the portion of the video where your search term is spoken.
2. Google Related Links
Since a big part of what we do is web design we thought it would be a good idea to include one of Google’s many web developing tools in this list. Google Related Links helps webmasters increase web page traffic within their sites by suggesting related pages and search terms in a widget right on your website. Just tell Google what page you want to put the widget on and it will automatically generate a list of similar pages within your site to help keep your visitors on your site.
1. Google Transit
Google Transit is one of those tools that is insanely helpful when you need to get around town. Just tell Google where you’re leaving from, where you’re headed, and what time you want to leave. Google will give you step-by-step directions, even on your phone, on how to use your city’s mass transit to get where you need to be. View station information and schedules and more. Google suggests multiple routes, tells you how much you’re going to spend on things like bus fares, and even tells you how much money you will save compared to driving.
There are a whole lot more tools Google has to offer and they come up with new and exciting projects all the time, so check out Google Labs regularly to see what is the latest and greatest out of the Google headquarters.
