Google - starting to set standards

Google is truly an incredible company. Despite being in a dog-fight for web searching superiority with Yahoo and now Microsoft, Google continues to set new standards in web technology and information retrieval. Now everyone must catch up to them. Google recently unveiled it's map feature. It's a totally interactive web application that needs no special software to use and is so fast and powerful that you could spend an hour or so just dragging a map around with your cursor to see which roads lead to where. It also offers Mapquest-like driving directions and a detailed view of each turn you make on the way. Even though the map is still beta as of this entry, Google now provides a satellite service on top of the mapping. With this service, you can actually see your house from space. Microsoft has had this capability for a few years now, but it is buried in their site and not at all as user-friendly or current as the Google version. You can actually drag the satellite picture around with the mouse and see your whole city from space - that's hot.

I don't know why I love this company so much - I just do. My gmail account now has 2 gigs (!) of space, and they say that even more storage space is on the way. How can anyone not like that? If I didn't think their stock price was so over-valued (ever hear of a stock split guys?), I'd be investing in them right now. The site that hosts this blog is also owned by Google - they are Microsoft's biggest challenge in the next 5 years.