Some call them an evil company because it is one of the few companies with evil in its slogan, others call them an innovative company while many others just see them as an opportunistic company that exposes the privacy of their users in exchange for money. Whatever name you call them or however you choose to see them, the fact us that Google is a super innovative company that warmed its way into the hearts of millions of users. I love this remark by the Chairman, Eric Schmidt;
“Google was founded to get information to everybody. A by-product of that strategy is that we invented an advertising business which has provided great economics that allows us to build the servers, hire the employees, create value.”
Fact is that my life online is intricately tied to Google. This column will not be enough to mention all the Google tools I use frequently. I remember getting a call from a prominent Nigerian who was very impressed that a tool like Google alerts does exist after reading my article on how the service will ensure you stay on top of all that happens around your brand outside social media though because for that you need a different kind of monitoring i.e. Hootsuite
Google’s Interesting History
Google is a very innovative company whose business model is centred around offering free services and then selling
adverts to users. Let me state that I am not an employee of Google, neither am I totally in agreement will all their strategies as a business but that is a different ball game. The fact is that Irrespective of my opinion, I like to face facts and one fact is that Google provides people access to a whole range of high quality services at not cost but certainly in exchange of their private details which is then monetized. The Founders of Google Sergey Brin and Larry Page met at Stanford University in 1995.
By 1996, they had built a search engine (initially called BackRub) that used links to determine the importance of each webpage. Larry and Sergey named the search engine they built “Google,” a play on the word “googol,” the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google Inc. was born in 1998, when Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a check for $100,000 to that entity—which until then didn’t exist.
Tools created by Google you should be using
This piece is not intended to be just about theory rather more of practical, therefore I will mention a number of Google services and how I get to use them effectively. I will starting with a tool known as What Do You Love? www.wdyl.com – isn’t the name cool? It is possible this is the very first time you are hearing about the tool, I want to assure you it is a very cool tool that I find very effective for research and brand monitoring.
WDYL simply aggregates and presents information that relates to specific keywords entered by the user, from across the whole of Google. Let’s use money for example, as soon as you type money and hit the love sign, it will return results based on the following services; Groups, News, Books, Chrome, Mobile, Translate, Earth, Maps, Patent Search, Alerts, SketchUp, Blog Search, Gmail, Youtube, Trends, Moderator, Voice, Calendar, Image Search and it ends with more coming soon.
What does this mean for your research? This simply means that at the click of a button you will have before you a storey building load of information, each click opens up another tab with more information than you can probably handle. How about your Internet presence? Try searching for your name or your company name and then devote some time to look through hoping your will find more positive stuff than negative about your brand.
Other Google Tools to Try
There are some other remarkable services that I find very useful although they are not mentioned on the What do you Love page, I still find them extremely useful. Google Contacts; did you know that with this service you can actually sync your contact across all platforms that means you do not need to back-up your seem manually or pay anybody for backup, simply import into Google contact on desktop or connect your Gmail with your Internet enable smart phone and the rest is history. Another useful service is Google Tasks, it helps you keep track of what you need to do. Just click and type to add new tasks, set due dates or add notes, and (most satisfyingly) check them off as you’re done. Your task list stays up to date no matter how you access it. It’s a simple list that’s with you everywhere you go.
Another silent tool people do not really know is called Google Authenticator, an app from Google that allows you to protect your account by providing another layer of security that further links your account to your mobile phone or email address (in certain cases) where a code will be sent for you to access your account each time you want to login (depending on your settings).
Truth is that I can go on and on mentioning different products and services Google is offering for free in exchange for my data and preferences which they in turn monetize to their favour. For those who complain about Google’s monopoly the truth is that their are some many alternative tools out there. Let me give you so examples instead of using Google keep, I use Evernote. Instead of using Google task, I use Any.do. Instead of using Google calendar, I use Cal etc. as you can see their are other popular alternatives that you can use. However, the moment you decide to use Google then do not complain because you are all theirs.
