5 Google Services You’ve Never Used
Sure, you’re a pro with Gmail and Google search, but what about Google’s lesser-known services? Here’s five you’ve probably never heard of.
At first, Apps seems like a repackaging of its popular services. That’s because it is… but not in a redundant or sneaky way. Apps is software-as-a-service for business email, information sharing and security. These re-tooled Google applications (Gmail, Gtalk, Calendar, etc.) are specifically intended for business use.
Apps comes in two varieties. A free Standard Edition and a paid Premier Edition ($50 / user account / year). Some of the features of the Premier version include:
- Gmail and Google Calendar
- Gmail storage (25GB / account)
- Resource scheduling in Google Calendar
- Google Docs and Google Sites
- Google Video for private, secure video sharing
- Email routing and email gateway support
Having implemented the free edition on multiple domains, I’ve been very satisfied with how easily it installs and how easily the sometimes computer-literate end-users have been able to pick things up.
Strangely, this service has nothing to do with the internet. GOOG-411 allows anyone to dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone to find local businesses at absolutely no charge. It doesn’t get much easier than this:
- Dial 1-800-GOOG-411 from any phone
- State the location and business type
- Connect to the business for free
In dozens of uses, only once have I had to listen to an advertisement while I was being connected. It’s no shocker that Google likes to monetize it’s services with ads though, so don’t be surprised if Google continues to introduce more advertisements into this service as it grows.
Of all of Google’s services, this seems to be the most unexpected. Health offers Googlers a single, searchable place to store all of their medical records. Better said, Health can:
- Organize your health information all in one place
- Gather your medical records from doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies
- Keep your doctors up-to-date about your health
- Be more informed about important health issues
Like many of you, I thought that a service like this would only be useful to a small few. That may be true, but if that’s the case, I’m in that small few. I recently bumped up my left ankle and developed a surprisingly painful bruise. It made a bit more sense when I opened up Health and was reminded of a left-ankle injury I sustained in May of this year. I’d totally forgotten that I’d taken a softball directly to the ankle off a bat and had heavy bruising and swelling for 2 weeks. For me, just having a quick and easy place to make notes about any medical conditions has been enough motivation to actually write them down.
Health is likely to prove even more useful as time ticks by. It will likely be much easier to spot patterns and characteristics as data is entered over the years. This could potentially lead to diagnosing a problem that may have gone otherwise unnoticed.
Right now, this service is not very marketable as a product to end-users, but it does offer a bit of insight into what technologies Google plans to bring to the table. The big G explains that…
Google Audio Indexing is a new technology from Google that allows users to better search and watch videos from various YouTube channels. It uses speech technology to find spoken words inside videos and lets the user jump to the right portion of the video where these words are spoken.
Though the content appears to be limited to the upcoming US Presidential Election, the tagging technology is impressive. Look for more of this technology to be integrated into other services.
In Quotes reminds me an awful lot of Audio Indexing but has a new twist.
The “In Quotes” feature allows you to find quotes from stories linked to from Google News. These quotations are a valuable resource for understanding where people in the news stand on various issues… Google News compiles these quotations from online news stories and sorts them into browsable groups based on who is being quoted.
That’s impressive – especially if this were to be applied on a much larger scale. There are major downfalls, however. Google offers an appropriate disclaimer about the product…
Similar to article selection and placement on Google News, quotes and their speakers are determined automatically by a computer program and we don’t guarantee the completeness or accuracy of the information you may see.
Again, it is difficult to see how valubale or worthless this service may be until it is opened up to a larger range of content, but it’s worth keeping an eye on. Did we miss your favorite, little-known service?
October 8th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Never heard of goog-411, will definitely be using it in the future.
Good article!
October 9th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
great article, it was very useful….
October 14th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Thanks dude, these were great. Stumbled for ya.
January 31st, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Wow. As always, some powerful tools from the folk at Google. I plan on integrating these in my client’s website right away.
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:35 am
Useful info here, thank you. If possible can you visit my site and let me know what you think, its got free internet secrets and hacks, tricks and loopholes, free money tricks, free phone tricks etc etc, you get the idea lol… hope to see you there soon.