i-Google

Google has always been a fascination for me, ever since I saw it for the first time I saw the net in the year 2003 after passing my class XII exam. I started using Internet thoroughly from the next year starting properly from Jan '04 and becoming a regular from the July-August of the same year when I got an admission to the college. Thus, I was late to start with the google compared to other students of my age and for the reason I felt I was a late entrant for the other services of google, too, such as gmail and orkut. But later I realized it wasn't so as I had started using both gmail and orkut at the time they were barely an year old.

Today, when I think of the Internet, the first thing that comes to my mind is Google. I have not the seen the net of pre-Google age and therefore, I reasonably do not know about many search engines other than Google. But today, its not just the search engine that makes me think of the Google. Today its Orkut, Gmail, Blogger and Adsense. Today its the Google Desktop search I find my songs with. And Picasa with which I organise the bunch of pictures on my computer.

Of all the services of Google, I found Orkut the second best, after the Google search, of course. Orkut has been a contacts list, a friend finder, a great time pass and a lot more to me. I searched the names of the old contacts I had lost , and found them. I went to forums and discussed about colleges when I needed knowledge about colleges for my nephew's admission, and i have chatted scrapping endlessly to one friend or more at times when I didn't have messengers with myself. Though, I still think there are many poeple who do not know how they can use Orkut for various important purposes.

Then, there has been Gmail, providing services at a level where more secrecy is required. And an embedded messenger which must have made many people use a messenger for the first time, who have not been old users of the Yahoo messenger. In those times, the Yahoo messenger was almost the only platform for people who used to chat and as I wasn't a user of the YM, I thought I'd never been into chat, but Google guys did that, and seeing a small chat box in my mail window, I started chatting, which went on and on.

Later I started using Blogger and Adsense. Actually I had tried them both earlier too but I wasn't as regular on the net. Also, the limited availability of net has always been a constraint with me.

Anyways, however much or less of the net I use, whenever I open the browser, the first letter I type in the address bar happens to be 'O', for orkut, as long as I am not 100% conscious that I'm there on net to do something very specific and important, other than Orkut. And even in those cases, half the times, the site happens to be Gmail or Google home.

In short, I cannot think how will the Internet be and what shall I do on the net if only the services of Google are not there. And, being an addict i am, should I call myself a net addict or a Google addict?