A Few More Reasons to Worship Google

As an advertising and PR student at the University of Minnesota, one of my required classes is “Information for Mass Communication.” While I’ve learned a lot about the information that’s out there and where to find it, there’s one source in particular that continues to come up in lecture, whether we’re talking about tracking, searching, or… anything really.  Hint: Where does one first automatically go to find any sort of information about any possible subject?  Google, of course.

This summer, I wrote a blog about Google and Yahoo, declaring my undying support for the former, a search engine I felt was far superior. I thought my love for Google had reached an all time high, but the things I’ve learned about its capabilities and the advanced features of the site have me more excited than ever. For all the die-hard Google fans out there, here are a couple of its best—and to me, recently discovered—features.

Advanced search –At the Google homepage, you can choose to search images, videos, news, and maps in addition to the most popular general Google search. When you click the “more” link though, a whole list pops up with alternate search options such as blogs, finance, documents, labs, and even patents. This feature allows you to refine your search to a specific topic area, which saves a ton of time.  A recent post on Lifehacker also highlighted the Google Books search feature, and the newest edition to the topic-specific searches is a public code search.

These specific search options are easy to use and can be helpful to the millions of people who use Google regularly. The advanced search options are often overlooked as well, but can be helpful when searching for only PDF files or files written only in Chinese, for example.

iGoogle – Attention Windows Users: you can now add your favorite desktop gadgets to your personalized iGoogle page. My Journalism professor showed us how to do this, and Lifehacker also mentioned it. (The application is also available to Mac and Linux users, but apparently it’s not working quite yet.) Pretty soon, Google will be the only program anyone will need to use, since the homepage will provide access to absolutely everything. 

As Google continues to expand its services (and as other search engine portal sites struggle to keep up), it will be interesting to keep an eye on what they come up with next. Check out this creative video about Web 2.0 for a look at how “The Machine is Us/ing Us.” And don’t worry, Google has a supporting role.