It’s been a joke for years that Google will one day take over the world. They have a product in just about every market imaginable, and usually their product is either the best, or right up there with the leaders. What this does is makes it so that Google is sometimes the “default choice” if they offer a product in X market for many users.

I’ll be the first one to say that I don’t like relying on one company for too much. You run many risks, and I didn’t realize how much of a Google Puff I was until I actually started writing a list.

Google Products I use regularly:

Gmail
Google Voice
Google Apps
Google Docs
Google Calendar
Google Search
Google Analytics
Google Maps
Google Reader
Google Listen
Google Chrome
Android
Google News
Google+

Sounds like they have me by the balls right? Well, I’m fully in their universe now, and I’ve got to say, that I’m loving every minute of it. Not only are these services all free*, but I have actually used the alternatives provided by their competitors, and Always end up coming back to the Google product.

Gmail offers insane uptime, great conversation view, awesome spam filtering, labels instead of folders, and awesome search.

Google voice gives me the ability to change phones whenever I want and keep my original number, receive voicemails/sms when I have no cell coverage, and check for and reply to missed calls when my phone is dead or lost.

Google Apps gives me free email/calendar for my domain, and the domains of my customers.

Google docs lets me keep a backup copy of documents offsite, share documents with people, and just quickly jot down a thought wherever I am and be able to come back to it later (this post was a Google Doc originally).

Google’s calendar is just like what I get on exchange at work, I can share it with friends, and I use it to schedule events all the time, not to mention keep track of when bills come due.

Google’s Search has been dominant for years, and continues to give me the best results.

Google Analytics gives me more insight into my site’s visitors than I could ever get on my own without spending thousands of dollars on specialized software or services, all for free and requiring very little work on my behalf.

Google maps works great both on the web and on my phone, drag and drop route reorganization, and great organized printouts, and street view make it a keeper.

Google reader lets me stay caught up with all my RSS feeds from one interface. No longer do I have to wade through duplicate news that I read on my phone when on my computer. If I read an article on my phone, it takes it out of the list anywhere else that I happen to check Google Reader.

Google Listen does the same as Reader except for podcasts instead of articles.

Google Chrome offers a fast, feature rich, expandable, and setting syncing browser for use on all my computers, including my *nix installations (this is very important).

Android is my OS of choice for my phone, but that will require a whole other article to explain.

Google News curates news for me, scouring the web and putting all the stories for a specific thing under one headline, with the most popular at the top. Why read 30 articles on The State of the Union address, when I can just read those generating the most interest?

Google+ allows me to selectively share my posts based on the intended audience. My grandma doesn’t care about the latest MySQL vulnerabilty, and my nerd friends probably don’t care that my sister just got a new car. Top that off with great group video/text chat, and a streamlined interface with no mafia wars invitations, and I’m a happy camper.

I welcome our new Google overlords, they have made my computing life alot easier, and they did it all for free.

I do still have concerns about having everything under one roof, specifically for my communications, so I always make sure that I have a backup. But Google’s track record has actually been surprisingly good when it comes to keeping my free services up, and keeping my information safe**. That being said, I can’t ever totally rely on them, I have backup browsers, search engines, analytics, news sources, etc.. which I periodically re-evaluate as possibly being my primary. Because of this, I don’t see myself switching to Chrome OS anytime soon, but you never know, maybe they will offer it with Firefox installed as an option in the future? :)

*Google Apps is free for <10 users, and It’s just me, so its’ free!
**Apart from that Google Buzz fiasco