More on Google

Perhaps you have noticed that Google seems to be a bit of a favorite topic on this blog. Thanks to Les, our handy tech news watcher, you learned about Gmail's new group contacts feature, their integration of Google Talk with Gmail, and various other cool new snippets of web beauty coming out of the Silicon Valley giant. The thing you might not have noticed, however, is that it's no small coincidence that their name keeps coming up so many times on so many different sites. They are actively working on enough different Ajax-enabled web technologies right now that I'm really not sure how Misters Brin and Page are keeping up with their company.

There were vicious rumors a few months ago about Google planning to enter into the productivity software market. Rumors which were promptly swatted down by Google itself. But Sunday, the Official Google Blog told us the news that Writely, a web-based word processer, was absorbed by the software company. Then there's also the new CL2 calendaring application that is now in a limited Beta, but will more than like likely be a part of Gmail soon. And the list goes on: Google Page Creator, Google Base, Google Buy, Goobuntu (a potential future Linux distribution), and even more nasty rumors of Google offering a free online storage database. Needless to say, they are on the move.

It is going to be interesting to see the things that will stream out of that place in the near future. Despite their bouts of legal trouble, Google seems to keeping their developers happy and motivated (I know I dream of a job where 20% of my time could be spent on personal software projects). In the meantime, I will continue to love my Gmail account and the ease with which I can find information using their stuff. We'll see if their "Don't be evil" motto is something they stick with, and that they truly can turn out to be "A different kind of company."

-Forrest