It seems that there's nothing Google doesnt offer anymore... you want it... they have it. They started off as a great search engine... and if they had been less ambitious they might have stopped there. But being Google, they had to be better at simply everything... and you know what? They are!
First it was gmail- which opened with much fanfare- the whole gmail id by invite only added to the mystique of it, and of course it made sure that people didn't go around randomly creating id's they didn't use, at first, and the humungous amount of space they were giving us to store mails- made everyone sit up and take note- What's the 250 MB that Hotmail offers to Googles 2+ GB huh?
But, MSN (and yahoo and others) still had Chat going for them. And then Google brought along Gtalk- granted you can't use emoticons the way you can with MSN and Yahoo- you can't have interesting profiles like Yahoo- or send funny "knocks" and "Hallos" but you can send enormous attachments easily, and in less time, on Gtalk- and you can talk- I mean actually listen to another person's voice at the other end, clearly- without the sort of static that still bothers Yahoo's voice messaging for instance - when it comes to substance over form , google's got it any day!
They've pulled out all the stops these days- Picasa for pictures, Blogger for blogging, Earth to look for places and find directions,Maps, News... And now they offer to look not only through the web, but through books and through Journals(Scholar) . And there's Froogle- the shopper's paradise (and I love the name- Froogle- Frugal- cheap joke, but makes me smile everytime)... and it goes on... there's still some stuff in the labs- (Try Google labs) - Google video, Google Transit for checking out public transportation... whoa... these guys are not runnin out of ideas anytime soon!
Of course there are always naysayers, the conspiracy theorists... the ones who say that "Google is Evil "- who knows they may be right- mybe we're just blinding ourselves with the plethora of facilities that Google offers, and overlook these things that get privacy advocates so riled up:
1. Google records everything they can : Your IP address, your cookie ID(Google's cookie expires in 2038- it places a uniqueID number on your hard disk, and notes it everytime you make a search), your browser configuration, search terms, time and date...
2.They retain data indefinitely, and won't say why they need this data.
3. And gmail- did you know that mail you get may never get deleted from Google's system? http://gmail-is-too-creepy.com/... and other such things here...
Well.. actually I really don't care too much... if anyone wants to know how many E-geeting I got... the bad (occasionally good) forwards I keep gettting... news or(lack thereof) from home... I don't even have any interesting love letters that I'd want to hide... I'm assuming that all those spooky points are for people with "interesting" lives. Google seems perfectly good for the vast mass of perfectly dull and normal people like me though.
5 comments:
You are right. At the end of the day, google provides free service to the customer and a thumping good service too (including blogger ). The only fact that this country's government can get access to all of the info stored by google if it wants to. It is not gmail which is creepy but the policies by which this country runs.
You hit the nail right on the head!..We aren't a secret government agency trying to track the movments of UFOs, either!...After all, we are all the "the great unwashed"(as deepti's blog is named)!! :D
seriously, google is amazing...haven't seen u around for a while..
hey!! that was so interesting!! never knew those facts abt google!! but i do agree with you.. like everyone else.. i aint go no plot to bomb U.S.A *sigh* (i wish...), or kill Bush or any such ambitious plans for me 2 worry abt privacy!!!
@monk... was travelling and sightseeing for a while
@deepti :D
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