I’m going to come right out and say it…I love Google. Yes. I’m totally sold out for Google. I use Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Search, Google Image Search, and Youtube (owned by Google). Now most of these are well known to people, but on this Tech Wednesday I want to share a few Google features that aren’t as well known.

These are like the red-headed-step-children of the Google world. They’re just as good as the other Google features. They’re just not as widely known. So let me introduce you to the step-kids of Google.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts automatically updates you with an email when something is added to the internet based on the search terms you give it. I mainly use this for two things. One, to see if anything is put up on the net about me (yeah it’s egotistical…but kinda helpful too). Two, to see when someone talks about beer and Christianity (I use this search term for theBeerean.com).

Goog411

I haven’t used this one that much since I got my iPhone (Google Maps on the iPhone replaced it), but before the iPhone it was a staple. It’s basically a free 411 service. I would explain it some more, but the video below explains it a lot better than I could.

Google Reader

I’ve talked about this a little bit in the past, but I felt the need to bring it up again. Google Reader is a feed reading program offered by Google. It allows you to keep up with all of your blogs in one place. Once again I’ll let Google tell you more about it (if you start using Google Reader make sure to add me as your friend glqualls [at] gmail [dot] com and to subscribe to my feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/gregquallsfeed).