There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t use Google. Especially as a graduate student, I find myself on their website more often than I’d like to admit. I’ve even stopped taking notebooks to class and use Google’s notebook to take notes instead. With so many features, it’s no wonder that their share price has spiked in recent months.

I do think that, as a user, Google has a lot of good things to offer and this is a list of my favorite things I get from Google.

Gmail

Gmail has really changed the way in which I do email. I used to have 5 or 6 email accounts that I looked at daily. It was quite a pain to switch from website to website, enter lots of passwords, and fight all that spam in my mailbox. Not to mention that whenever I had to find a certain message I’d have to waste a lot of time finding it. Additionally, I’d almost always be running out of space with those email services of old.

With Gmail, I am now able to manage more email accounts in a much more efficient manner than ever before. For starters, all of the domain names that I own have email addresses associated with them and I’ve set it up so they go directly to Gmail. Secondly, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to run out of space on Gmail. Thirdly, finding messages is a snap. If you don’t have Gmail, you’re missing out.

Google Search

As a curious person, grad student, web developer, webtrepreneur, and web jockey, I must use Google’s search engine at least 50 times per day. With Google, I really don’t think there is much that can’t be found online. Not much more needs to be said about this, so if you’re not using Google search, you’re missing out.

Google Notebook

Google Notebook is one of those things that a lot of people I know don’t even know exist. It’s one of the features that at first I thought: “huh, that’s nice” but now find that it’s very useful. Google Notebook lets you create a seemingly unlimited number of “notebooks” and write as much as you want in each book. I use my Notebooks for class notes, business ideas, plans for blogs, to-do notes, to paste interesting things I find online, and whatever else I can think of.

Google Notebook also has an extension for Firefox that allows you to cut and paste into the notebooks much more efficiently (right click > send to notebook).

Google Documents

Google Notebook’s big brother, Google Documents is a productivity suite that keeps growing. With Docs, it is possible to create Microsoft Word like documents, Excel like spreadsheets, and PowerPoint like presentations. In addition to being full featured, Google Documents is completely free and the best part is that you can share your documents and work in a collaborative environment with others (as long as they also have a Google account).

Google Maps

I gave up using Mapquest a long time ago. Mapquest always seemed to get me lost and turning at the wrong place at the wrong time. Their descriptions weren’t very good either…one time it told me to drive “slightly straight”. I mean, what the heck does that mean? That’s why I was so glad when Google launched their alternative to Mapquest. Since then, my driving directions have been more accurate and nearly fun to get. The map interface is detailed and using it is a breeze.

Bonus: Google Reader

RSS Feeds have become a daily part of information getting and analyzing for me. It’s so simple to go to one place and find my favorite sites’ contents all in one place. Google reader is full featured, easy to use and organize, and with me wherever I go. If you have Google Reader or are about to, make sure to subscribe to my RSS feed!

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Since its public offering in 2004, Google’s share price has kept skyrocketing. Unmatched, Google host grown to be the 5th biggest company in the US, with a market cap of nearly $220 BILLION.

Would you have invested in Google back in 2004? If you would have invested just $1000, today it would be worth more than $7000! In just 3 years, your money would have grown by $6000.  Nice!