Google Labs

I saw "beta project" and thought, "Oh, my sorority sisters are doing something fun." [Ok, no I didn't; I know what a beta version is... I just don't like boring blogs.]

Anyway, there were some very interesting projects being tested over at the Google Labs. I've been spending a lot of time in the trip planner for King County Metro lately. The "Google Transit" project is useful because you can toggle between a transit map and a driving map. It is, however, only useful for travel within one of the preset cities (metro areas). I could see using it to help a traveler look at ways to get from their hotel to the museum by bus in San Diego. However, the travel would need to already know the addresses of both starting and ending points.

The "Music Trends" project was fun to spend some time in. This gives users a list of song titles that are being discussed in Google Talk. It's possible to get song lyrics, a list of CD's the song appears on, and download options for personal devices. I tried to listen to Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" on Rhapsody, but didn't take the time to download the program that would run the music. I love the ability to choose a genre of music or see what is popular in other countries. I really enjoyed this service.

The Google Mars project was fascinating. Students doing a project on the planet could find some interesting and useful articles, along with some great images.

I did, also, poke into Google Trends but did not see the point of the trend charts (not that I quite figured out how to generate charts in the first place.) I did enjoy quickly being able to pop into todays hot news topics (I'm trying to figure out if I should drop the Tahoe leg of my Nevada vacation in a few weeks....) I'll keep playing around with some of these, just to see what new fun Google is devising.