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| Path: Main Street > Resources/Library > Research Articles > Feature Article |
More groovy Google tricksBy Gillian Kerr, RealWorld Systems
The information in this article is current as of August 18, 2003.Google is continuing to develop amazing free tools and services for the web. In a previous article, I described how to use Google's news engine. In the last few weeks, Google has added several tools that show it's beginning to overtake Yahoo in the stakes to become the most useful web portal. (However, Yahoo is still a leader in the provision of robust free or cheap web services, and anyone looking for free or cheap utilities like email, web site hosting, scheduling, and team sites should continue to check it out.)
Google has launched a test version of News Alerts, a free automatic email notification of news stories, at www.google.com/newsalerts. This service enables you to track relevant keywords in over 4,500 online news publications. It's a simple tool that will probably get more complex over the next few months; in the meantime, you must create a news alert for each search. To test the search string, plug your search string into the regular news site at news.google.com to ensure you are getting accurate results. This is the best free service I've seen for tracking media coverage. (For paid media tracking services, see Micromedia ProQuest.)
Google has introduced a plug-in for Internet Explorer browsers that makes web browsing a lot more powerful. The toolbar, available at toolbar.google.com, includes a pop-up ad eliminator, an automatic form-filler for all of those online forms, a faster way to search the various modules of Google itself (groups, news, images), and a built-in weblog that can keep track of all the sites you want to remember and comment on. The functions of the toolbar are described here.
Blogging is part of the Google Toolbar, above, but merits its own description. Google recently bought Blogger.com and has incorporated the free weblogging service into its toolbar. Weblogs, or blogs, are increasingly popular self-publishing web sites that enable bloggers to post items as often as they wish. Many post rambling thoughts several times a day; others use it to post breaking news or updates. You can create team blogs that several people can post to, and you can (for a small extra annual fee) password protect your blog or assign your own domain name to your blog. For example, my blog is called http://blog.realworldsystems.net. It is easy to link to a blog from a corporate web site: just create a link from your home page (for example) to your blog. It's really convenient if you want to update news and events.
The blogging tool works like this: whenever you want to post an update to your blog, you click on the 'Blog This' button on your Google toolbar, which is part of your Internet Explorer browser. A box pops up with the URL of whatever web page you are currently on. If you just want to make a comment without referring to the web page, you delete that line and write your comment. Then click on 'Post and Publish'. It is instantly published onto your public blog, along with the date and time of posting.
A warning about blogs: blogging software, including Radio Userland, Blogger.com and Movable Type, is often written by software enthusiasts who are pretty bad at documenting instructions. That means they are powerful, functional and confusing. Unless you like tinkering with software, stick to the basic functions of blogging until the help manuals improve. The basic functions are very, very easy to use, which is why blogs are becoming so popular.
For more information on blogging in general see this Wired article and this blog.
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Gillian Kerr, Ph.D., C.Psych.
President, RealWorld Systems
gkerr at realworldsystems.netRead my weblog at http://blog.realworldsystems.net
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