My 5 Favorite Google Applications


Google applications have helped me become more efficient and productive in both my business and personal life. Below are my 5 favorites:

Google Reader – I use to visit a bunch of sites daily to stay informed or just to be entertained. Now I have those sites send me their updates through my Google Reader. The Reader saves me tons of time surfing and I’m less likely to get distracted and wander off into Cyberspace.

Gmail – I found that I spent too much time checking my different e-mail accounts, such as, Yahoo!, Hotmail, and old Gmail accounts. Now I funnel all my personal e-mail to one Gmail account. I still like to keep my business e-mail separate, but now I have 2 e-mail accounts to check instead of 7 or 8.

Google Docs – Way back when I use to e-mail documents back and forth to myself. With Google Docs I can just store all of my documents online and have them accessible from any where as long as I have an internet connection. Very useful.

Google Analytics – This is the most sophisticated, free traffic tracking sites that I’ve seen. One of the main uses I have for it is to see organic traffic vs paid traffic for The GreenTech Shop. I especially like the Site Overlay feature where you can see where people are clicking on your actual site. The motion graphs that display traffic data instead of the old line graphs are pretty cool too.

Google Calendar – I use this app mainly for all of my appointments, important dates, and birthdays. The features I like are E-mail reminders, the ability to see other people’s calendars, and being able to create different color coded calendars within the same calendar. For example, I could have my business appointments in blue and my personal appointments in red within the same calender.

Those are my Top 5. I’ve just started using Google Wave and Voice and maybe over time they will become one of my favorites. What are your Top 5 Google apps?