"It's Alive!!!" at Google Labs

Well, the good folks over at Google never cease to amaze me. I just got through browsing some of their latest "creations" over at the labs, and it's pretty cool to see what they're coming up with. Here's a quick review of a few of the features I explored:

Google Sets:

I'm not sure how useful it is (although, come to think of it, I guess the point is to sort of imitate the "cluster" concept found on other sites such as Clusty and Mooter) but it was definitely fun seeing whether or not it could predict and/or find relationships for the items I entered in. For example, I typed in "Keira Knightley," "Johnny Depp," and "Orlando Bloom" and Google came up with a list of other actors from "Pirates of the Caribbean" and various other films. I typed "Big Bird," "Cookie Monster," and "Grover" and Google came up with Bert, Ernie, and the rest of the Sesame Street gang. Trying to be clever I typed in "Donald Trump," "grilled cheese," and "Survivor" but unfortunately Google couldn't find any direct correlation. Isn't it obvious? Oh well, nobody's perfect.

Google Suggest:

This is a great feature, and to be honest, I don't understand why they aren't using it yet. Yahoo already does this sort of thing on their site. It seems pretty handy in case you're not really sure of the spelling, or maybe you want to see related topics, or maybe you're just looking for a quick time-saver. Also, it seems to me that the suggestions are shown in order of popularity, so in a way it already fills the role of Google Trends.

Google Trends:

I thought it was interesting but I didn't really see the point. When I visited this site I noticed that Star Jones' popularity had recently spiked (due to her recent divorce announcement.) Isn't it sad that that's what it takes in order to get noticed these days! How do the folks at Google decide which "hot trends" to post anyway?

Google Extensions for Firefox:

This had several cool applications. Namely, "Google Browser Sync" (synchronize your browser settings across computers, restore tabs and windows from your previous session) and "Google Send to Phone" (send text messages of web page content to your mobile phone.) I was wondering if Google Browser Sync might allow an individual to access their favorites from any computer. If so, there goes the necessity for sites like Del.icio.us (which in all honesty is fine by me.)

Google Mars:

I'm already a HUGE fan of Google Earth (WARNING: THIS PROGRAM IS HIGHLY ADDICTIVE!!!) so by all means, why not throw in another planet? It looks like for now they've only got a portion of Mars displayed which they're then repeating over and over . . . but I'm sure this will increase in time.

It looks like Google has some pretty neat stuff in the works. It's exciting to see what's out there as well as what's waiting just around the corner. Now if only Google could come up with some sort of fool-proof dating service. I can see it now - "Google Dating . . . where you're guaranteed to find your perfect match every time." Hey, a guy can dream can't he?