Reviews of Google Products and Services

Although you can often find products directly from the main Google search engine, you can't sort those products by price or separate the stores from Web sites that just talk about the product. Google Product Search is Google's shopping search engine. It was formerly known as Froogle. It lets you search directly for things to buy.

Google Apps is Google's service that allows you to manage custom branded flavors of Google's services on your domain.

Google Calendar is a free Internet calendar that lets you keep track of your own events and share your calendars with others. It's the ideal tool for managing personal and professional schedules. It is both simple to use and very powerful.

Picasa Web Albums lets you post photos to the Web directly from Picasa on Windows computers or iPhoto on Macs. Picasa Web Albums also lets you sort and share your photos into public and private areas and post those photos to your blog.

Google News is a custom Internet newspaper with articles from 4,500 different news sources and the search functions of Google.

Writely was purchased by Google and folded along with Google Spreadsheets into Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Although Google claims the two applications are integrated, you can't insert a spreadsheet into a word processing document, so the only real integration is that they have a common log-in. Because they're really separate applications, they'll get separate Reviews.

Google Maps is Google's search engine for locations and directions. It resembles a miniature Google Earth that runs in your web browser instead of on your desktop.

Google Spreadsheets is a Google Labs project. That means it’s in the early stages of development, and it may or may not be developed further. That said, Google Spreadsheets has the potential to be extremely useful for anyone with the need to deal with spreadsheets in a group setting.

Blogger is Google’s free tool for creating blogs. Blogs, short for web-logs, are a form of online journal. You can use them for everything from updating your friends and family about your life, giving your own advice column, discussing your political views, or relating your experience in a topic of interest.

Orkut is a social networking tool designed to help you maintain your friendships and meet new friends. Orkut was named after its original programmer, Orkut Buyukkokten.