My Daily Dose of Google

I was talking with a friend this afternoon and we were discussing the different products that Google recently announced like the Google Website Optimizer, Google Notebook, Gmail being open for sign-ups etc. and he asked me, "How much of Google do you use in a day?"

I said, "A lot."

I use Google products a lot because it is very convenient and easy to use. And besides, it's easier to speak about things when you are a user yourself. Well, I promised my friend I'll post about how much I use Google products in a day, so here it is.

The first thing I do when I wake up is turn my PC on and the first thing that greets me are messages from Twitter from my Google Talk window and while that's ongoing a little window pops up and appraises me about new mail I got on my Gmail. And then, of course, I check my mail, click on the Google Reader link to check up on new feeds from blogs I regularly read.

After I finish reading my mail I click on the "all my services" link in my Gmail account and then click on Blogger to moderate comments I received for my blogs. I may blog or I may not, depending on my free time or if my muse is around and depends on whether I have updates for my personal, work, wedding, or ghost blog. Or I may decide to upload some photos in my Picasa account. And I also use Google Blog Search to check out stuff I'm interested in.

I then sometimes tinker on my Google Adwords account and practice on making text ads and check on statistics in the Google Analytics tab. It's really so cool to have information about blogs/websites you maintain and Google Analytics is one of my favorite Google products. But, it's been a while since I checked on my Google Adsense account.

I used Google search a lot when I was going through graduate school. I still do and I wish I knew about the Google cheatsheet back then, well anyway I still search on Google a lot of times in a day. I've also personalized my own Google page to show news and other stuff that's important to me (including Pacman!). I've been using Google Notebook a lot to clip interesting websites and blogs, and I find it really useful since I can put little comments about the website easily.

And, of course, I try to get in touch with my brother and sister who are abroad regularly by sending them email updates about what's happening back home. I created a family Googlegroup more than a year ago and that's how we communicate with the whole clan. And badminton announcements and other plans are announced by my friends in our Googlegroups as well.

I'm now brushing up on Google Apps for Your Domain - planning to use it for our family as well.

Whew! It seems quite overwhelming to be using so many different products, but it's become second nature. I'm not as techie as my tech blogger or programmer friends, but I like trying out new things and that's how I learned how to use all these products and it's made me a whole lot more productive :)