Google Continues Web Services Expansion
And now for a ton of Google News...
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Ok, today is a flood of Google news, so instead of three separate posts, I'm just going to wrap them all up in one...
Last week it was the re-launch of the web-based word processor, Writely. This week Google has rolled out two new website administrator toolsets and announced a new deal with eBay.
First off, there's the newly announced Google Webmaster toolset, a bundling of existing services such as the Sitemap indexing service, as well as site statistics and diagnostic tools. These are just the beginnings of the tool offerings likely to be made available by Google. Currently, Google Analytics is not bundled into this set, though it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect its inclusion in the near future.
Check out Google Webmaster Central for tools, discussion areas and more.
The second bit of Google news this morning is the launch of Google Apps for Your Domain, an expansion of the service which allowed you to use the Google Mail interface and engine to handle your domain's email needs. Now, you can add Google Calendar, Google Talk and Google Pages (their web page creation tool) to your site with a few clicks and some modifications to your DNS records (MX for Google Mail, CNAME for Google Pages). Again, expect the inclusion of additional applications such as Google Spreadsheets and Writely in the future. As always the service is free, but expect your data to be mined and used as part of Google's attempt to establish a New World Order
Check out Google Apps for Your Domain.
And finally, Google announced today that it has struck a deal with online auction house, eBay, to serve up text ads on auction pages for the non-US eBay sites (Yahoo has a deal for domestic advertising). In addition to ads, they're also launching a new service that will allow users to place phone calls via their PCs, laptops or mobile devices by clicking a simple link on an auction website. The "click-to-call" service is intended to allow potential buyers to contact sellers to obtain further information. The new technology will use both eBay-owned Skype and Google's own Google Talk voice and text chat system, though details are sketchy on how this will be accomplished.
For more on the eBay/Google deal, check out the article at Forbes.com
