For this "thing", we're supposed to explore two Google applications that we haven't used yet. I decided to use two that I had never used before--there weren't very many, I use a lot of Google products (Google Maps, Google Shopping, etc)
I first looked at Google Trends. It provides information about what the current trends are in online searching on Google at the moment. This could provide a lot of good current information for reference librarians who are asked to look up current topics. The current trends when I was looking at the site were for football players (Adrian Peterson, Greg Jennings, Jordy Nelson), recipes for Thanksgiving (stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, pies), Black Friday ads, UC Davis (due to the pepper spraying of the occupy protesters there) and Rhodes scholarship--the results of the scholarship were released today (11/20/2011). I think this would be a useful tool for reference librarians.
I also looked at Google Offers, which seems to be Google's attempt at competing with Groupon and Living Social to provide deals for people at local restaurants, stores, and events. I looked and it doesn't look like Google Offers has deals for Madison, WI yet, but they do have deals for Milwaukee and they'll notify me once Google Offers expands to Madison.
Which Google tools have you used? Which ones do you find the most useful?
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