A quick look at how Google has changed over the years. What products have gone? What's new?
I was discussing Google Glass with a bunch of librarians recently and we got talking about how much Google has changed over the years. It made me have a look at Google's homepage to see what exactly has changed. There are less products in the homepage navigation bar and drop down menu than there used to be. I guess Google is trying to streamline things and get rid of services that aren't popular.
Google Labs has gone - an interesting feature where you could see new products they were testing. So has Google Buzz, a social networking tool designed to compete with Facebook which never took off. Google Dashboard disappeared a few years ago. This was a personalized home page that you could customize with various widgets for Facebook, Gmail, eBay, news feeds, etc. I quite enjoyed playing around with it but I suppose mobile apps replaced the need for it. Google Reader (for RSS feeds) has been discontinued. RSS readers have been overtaken by social media services like Twitter and news aggregators like Flipboard and Feedly. Google Blog Search is no longer offered. For a full list of discontinued services see here.
Google+ is also still there although I'm not sure how useful it is considering most people are on Facebook. Google Scholar was removed from the navigation bar of Google Search a while back - there were fears that Google was going to discontinue it but this has obviously not been the case.
The new apps button at the top right of the page is handy - it takes you to Gmail, YouTube, Drive and other apps. Another feature (under settings) I never noticed before is the option to request Google to remove sensitive personal information from search results. This might include bank account details or nude or sexually explicit images that were uploaded or shared without your consent. Google says it will not normally remove addresses, date of birth or phone numbers.
If you go into "My Account" you can try navigating the labyrinth of personal account settings which seems to have grown and grown. After a lot of fiddling around I managed to change my profile name recently which I wasn't able to do before (I removed my full name). Google has more of your personal information that you think, for example it has my mobile phone number and birthday. It also has your searching history going back several years if you care to look. I find that quite scary!
Of course Google has changed its algorithm many times over the years, not that most of us would notice when it happens. According to Google it changes its algorithm 500-600 times a year. Wow! You can read about all the changes here. Google actually gives each major change to its search results ranking algorithm a name, e.g. Panda, Penguin, Pirate.
It's amazing how many Google products we use now when you think about it. Google Search is now completely dominant with Yahoo having faded away. Then there's YouTube Chrome, Android, Blogger, Google Drive and Google Scholar - most people use at least some of these products. For a full list of Google products see here. I clicked on Bookmarks and found an ancient set of bookmarks of mine, including one for Delicious, the social bookmarking site. Remember it? How times have changed.
Google Labs has gone - an interesting feature where you could see new products they were testing. So has Google Buzz, a social networking tool designed to compete with Facebook which never took off. Google Dashboard disappeared a few years ago. This was a personalized home page that you could customize with various widgets for Facebook, Gmail, eBay, news feeds, etc. I quite enjoyed playing around with it but I suppose mobile apps replaced the need for it. Google Reader (for RSS feeds) has been discontinued. RSS readers have been overtaken by social media services like Twitter and news aggregators like Flipboard and Feedly. Google Blog Search is no longer offered. For a full list of discontinued services see here.
Google+ is also still there although I'm not sure how useful it is considering most people are on Facebook. Google Scholar was removed from the navigation bar of Google Search a while back - there were fears that Google was going to discontinue it but this has obviously not been the case.
The new apps button at the top right of the page is handy - it takes you to Gmail, YouTube, Drive and other apps. Another feature (under settings) I never noticed before is the option to request Google to remove sensitive personal information from search results. This might include bank account details or nude or sexually explicit images that were uploaded or shared without your consent. Google says it will not normally remove addresses, date of birth or phone numbers.
If you go into "My Account" you can try navigating the labyrinth of personal account settings which seems to have grown and grown. After a lot of fiddling around I managed to change my profile name recently which I wasn't able to do before (I removed my full name). Google has more of your personal information that you think, for example it has my mobile phone number and birthday. It also has your searching history going back several years if you care to look. I find that quite scary!
Of course Google has changed its algorithm many times over the years, not that most of us would notice when it happens. According to Google it changes its algorithm 500-600 times a year. Wow! You can read about all the changes here. Google actually gives each major change to its search results ranking algorithm a name, e.g. Panda, Penguin, Pirate.
It's amazing how many Google products we use now when you think about it. Google Search is now completely dominant with Yahoo having faded away. Then there's YouTube Chrome, Android, Blogger, Google Drive and Google Scholar - most people use at least some of these products. For a full list of Google products see here. I clicked on Bookmarks and found an ancient set of bookmarks of mine, including one for Delicious, the social bookmarking site. Remember it? How times have changed.
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