Google is the one and only reason why I would, had I not switched to a Mac, still be using a PC today. It has made the Windows experience much more bearable amidst the ubiquitous viruses, security flaws, and general unamicable user experience.
Before I switched a little bit more than a year ago, Google's search engine was a knowledge haven, Gmail was just gathering momentum, and Google Desktop's beta was so much faster to look for things in your computer. Image search and Froogle (shopping search) were both available and useful, but so many Google products have come out of Beta since then that it's absolutely mind-boggling.
In terms of search and the web experience, most people know about the Maps, Books, and Video, but few (academics and students) know about Scholar. You can search Blogs for personal takes on issues or an independent stance, or News for professional op-eds. Or if you just want to see the world, flying across the globe is now much easier (and cheaper) than crossing the duck pond for 17 hours.
But what really made the PC user experience phenomenal is all the software made available to the masses, by none other than the legendary "Don't be evil" Google.
For email, there is virtually unlimited storage at Gmail. For photos, I'm enviously drooling at Picasa's new webhosting feature as well as its old sharing program, even though iPhoto is bundled with the iLife suite. For communication, you can talk, talk and talk (or type) with Google Talk. For organizing your life, use the virtual Calendar, and as for bullshitting, they have this.
Their labs churn out amazing products, if you like procrastinating, being cliquey or are an SMS addict, Google is your best bud. But their smartest decision was to acquire other smaller companies. Keyhole, Picasa, Hello, and best of all, Sketchup, the completely free 3D modelling software for poor idealistic architecture students.
The purchase is only one of many. This other one is the first step towards taking over Microsoft Office's monopoly.
For word processing there's Writely, for spreadsheets there's Google Spreadsheets. Makes it so much easier to collaborate online, lifting Outsourcing to another level. Want to publish webpages in 2 clicks? Check out Google pages. It's the PC version of iWeb.
As for upcoming products (developing in the refinery) I personally adore Google Trends for comparing the most mundane things. I haven't tried the online Notebook yet, mainly because I believe it's only available through Firefox, like many Google products. And there are dozens more that I opted not to mention. Just think that all of that came about in one short year (or two if you will). And there's more and more coming up. Watch out for Gbuy, the Paypal nemesis. As for Google's not-so-secret weapon: data centers, warehouses of processors and disks are popping up like mushrooms as Microsoft and Yahoo try desperately to keep up.
"Google has constructed the biggest computer in the world, and it's a hidden asset,"Today, it's Google Earth's 1st birthday, Shakespeare just joined Google, and the Internet will be run by Google WiFi.
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