The Google

Google really is the coolest company on the planet. Every week, it seems, I start using a new offering from them, or I start using a previous offering more deeply.

I'm convinced that Google and the tools/services they provide are becoming so integral in people's lives that soon we won't remember what life was like without them. In fact, I'll go so far as to say some time in the not-too-distant future, the terms "the internet" and "the web" will be deprecated in favor of "The Google". "The Google" will be the generic term for the storage medium, the data stored there, the method of retrieval, and the interconnections. Google won't own the data, but people will be clamoring to get their data (and their own storage medium) plugged in to The Google. They pretty much already are.

Seriously. We've seen a glimpse of what it will be like ... Watch Star Trek. In Star Trek and other Sci-Fi shows/movies and they always produce a ton of facts/images/video at a moment's notice for whatever context they're in. Where does that data come from? The Google.

I hear you in the back saying "Kyle, Sci-fi movies aren't real." You're right ... they're not real yet. But take a look at the gadgets people are creating and we are consuming every day. Would we have bluetooth headsets if Uhura didn't have one first? Aren't Internet tablets an attempt to recreate the ubiquitous tablets Kirk and Picard were always asked to sign? Aren't those Nextel push-to-talk phones the same as the original Star Trek communicator? Geeks love Sci-fi, and geeks are creating the toys we'll be using in the future. (Next up: holodecks) The geeks at Google are creating the massive data retrieval system we'll need, and I salute them.

For the curious, this week, I stopped using Microsoft OneNote as the repository for development notes on the project for my current client, and started using Google Notebook instead.

I'm also using Google Notebook to track notes I keep on poker players on different online sites. This way, the notes are available no matter what computer I'm playing poker from.

Speaking of poker, I just converted over to Google Spreadsheets to tract statistics on the games I've played, for the same reason.

And, Travis just told me about version 4 of Google Toolbar (surprisingly, it wasn't pushed automatically, so I had to go get it), which has spiffy new things like roaming bookmarks. I'll have to get this installed on all my machines now.

I was already using the Desktop on all my machines, using their Maps and Local searches when I needed something, and watching Google Videos while waiting for someone else to join me on Google Talk. Clearly they're doing something for me. Rock on, Google.