Google (duh!)
How long have I had my homepage set to Google? Well, actually, at work it’s set to my Protopage, but I’ll save that for another post.
A vast majority of my time online is spent looking up information and I have yet to find a better place to start than Google. I might even go so far as to say that it has made me (and the rest of us) smarter. Of course, when I’m not online and don’t have easy access, and want to look something up, I start feeling dependent! Regardless, it’s a great tool and has helped expand my knowledge base. And I’m just focusing on their search tool, the wealth of other tools available — Maps, Reader, Video (a.k.a GooTube), GMail, etc. — are deserving of their own entries (and will probably get them in due time).
So, we all know Google works well, but its simplicity of design only adds to its spectacularness (is that a word?). All that white space with a minimal number of elements (I just counted 28 words, 1 input box, and 2 buttons): they certainly cut to the chase. This makes it one of the most user-friendly sites around. And just to throw in some additional value, especially for those who don’t embrace a minimalist aesthetic, there is the ever-morphing homepage graphic.
They may appear to be taking over the world, one Web 2.0 app after another, but for some reason I don’t really seem to care. Viva Google!