Google is really on a rocket ride of creating new tools, technologies and applications. I can hardly keep up as I’m reading different blogs and news stories about their latest gadget. Some of them seem like they will be incredibly useful so I thought we’d sort them out for you here:

Google Chrome is Google’s browser to compete with Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer. They promise faster, more efficient browsing and the ability to customize more than the others. Are you using this? I’d like to know.

Goo.gl URL shortener. At last, for the Google Toolbar, a URL shortener! A no-brainer. Now, if Twitter will add one to their dashboard…

Google Wave is a new live collaboration tool. It is in beta testing, invitation only. It merges email, instant messaging, discussion forums, wikis and blog to allow for real time collaboration on projects. Some tech writers are predicting it will change the way we communicate entirely like email did. Here’s a more in-depth explanation:

Googsystray (for Windows and Linux only): After installing Googsystray, you can configure which services you want it to watch and what you want it to do for each—upon receiving a new email, SMS, calendar alert, RSS article, or wave, you can have it play a sound and even run a command. The icon of the given service will also pop up in your system tray. Right clicking on it gives you a Growl-style popup with more detailed information about the notification, such as email subject or SMS content. You also have limited actions you can take depending on the service. (From Lifehacker.com)

Google Voice is on a path to overtake Skype for a free to low-cost VoIP (voice over internet protocol) phone system. It offers a single voice mail system (so if you have multiple phone lines, you’ll check one voice mail), allows you to get transcriptions of voice mail, check voice mail via email and more. It isn’t up to speed compared to Skype yet and there is a lot of industry talk on who will win this one. Hard to imagine it won’t be Google given their size and might.

Google Docs. This web-based application is Google’s version of Microsoft Office. It doesn’t have the heft that MS Office does (a particular pet peeve is the lack of “paste special” on the word processor), but it is awfully handy because it is available online. I draft documents there and download as Word as needed. Google Docs offers the equivalent of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Highly recommended.

Tagged as: chrome, goo.gl, google, internet phone, search engine, URL shortener, VoIP, wave