Googleholic for April 25, 2008



Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!

In this edition:



  • Google Finance gets a revamp
  • Google Product Search updated; still lousy
  • Google Docs initial offline rollout complete
  • Goolgle annoyances

Google Finance gets a revamp


Google Finance has received a nice facelift. The U.S, Canadian and U.K. outposts all sport the new look -- as well as the newest member of the Google Finance family: China. The new language-specific site covers all the latest Chinese financial news and also offers links to other global markets.


Google Product Search updated; still lousy


Google Product Search, nee Froogle, has received an important update that only underscores the lameness of the service. Now, if you search for a generic item, like "computer" - a list of popular search results will appear with price comparisons, product reviews and more. Unfortunately, searching for an individual product (or a less generic term) still leads to one giant list of product mash-ups, sans the comparable price table or product description.


As Google Operating System pointed out, even the old Froogle service had this ability. Way to innovate Google. Even with the updates Google's Product Search still reminds us of a crappier version of MySimon circa 1999.


Google Docs initial offline rollout complete


After its soft launch last month, the initial rollout for offline Google Docs access is now complete.


In the early stages of the rollout, only word processing documents could be viewed or edited offline. Now Google has added view-only access to spreadsheets and presentations as well. The service is still English-only, and Google Apps users need to specify that they want the service in their preferences, but offline access is developing at a quick pace.


Google Annoyances


We might love our Google, but Google isn't perfect. In fact, lots of aspects of Google and their never-ending list of services annoy us. We aren't alone. The guys over at Google Operating System list some of their top pet-peeves.


Some of our favorites:



  • Constantly having to re-enter our password when using Google Analytics, even when already logged in
  • The craptasticness of Blogger's commenting system
  • The inconsistent nature of the navigation bar

[Via: Google Finance Blog ]
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