Multiple Services, 1 Login, All Online and FREE!

You might have that title and asked, “What has multiple services, only requires 1 login and it’s online and free?”.

About 10 years ago, this would have been unheard of. Free services…on the internet!

Well, you may know a company known as “Google” that originally started as just a search engine, but you might not have thought that Google did more. If you already have a Gmail account or even a YouTube account, you already have a “Google Account”.

But, what is there other than Gmail and YouTube to someone who has a Google Account.

Here is some of my favorite Google Services, which is, for the most part, pretty damn awesome!

  1. **Google Drive!
    **Formally known as “Google Docs”, Google Drive allows the users to create, edit, share documents online and in sync all the time. Everyone has a 5GB allowance  which is plenty for you to upload your documents and files that you want to share with other people, groups and more.

I would consider that Google Drive is “my” Word Processor”. I use it because A) It’s free (Unlike Microsoft Office), it’s easy to use and you can share documents on the fly to other people! You can protect you documents by not sharing them at all which means that you can only see and edit those documents.

And not just documents, spreadsheets, presentations and just simple photo uploads. So it is perfect for anyone at home, or in business.

2) Google Play/Android

Some people wouldn’t know that Android belonged to Google and that the Play Store is the marketplace for apps for Android.

Android is one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) mobile Operating System out there, next to Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8.

Most of you have a Samsung, LG, Motorola phone that you have purchased in the past couple of years, and you may not know it, but it has been running Android. You may be asking, what has this got to do with a Google Account? Well, when you set up your Android, you were asked for a Google Account, so then you can download apps to your phone.

Because you linked it with Google, Google Play will show you what you have purchased (apps (Music, Books in other countries)) and allows you to re-download those apps/books/music without having to create a new account everytime when you purchase a brand new smartphone every couple of years.

It also tracks what free apps you currently have installed on your device and allows you to download them to multiple Android phones if you have them.

3) Google Reader

Do you like news? Do you like blogs? Do you want somewhere to store all your favorite news sites stories?…and let them bring in new stories?

You would? Then that’s where “Google Reader” comes into play!

Google Reader is a RSS feed viewer, that you can add any site that has RSS feed and will automatically update by showing you new stories without you having to do anything at all.

So, you can throw out the bookmarks to all your favorite news sites, and just use Google Reader to see all the stories that you want to see. And you can even share those stories, blog posts etc, with your friends over different social media websites outside of Google.

4) Google Chrome

Google Chrome is one of the biggest web browsers out there on the market. You can customise it with extensions, apps, themes and it’s simple to use. But, did you know that you can link you Google Account to it, so you can sync your bookmarks, apps and extensions across all your computers!

I used to use different computers and re-install Windows a whole bunch of times and I got really tired of backing up my bookmarks manually, so I decided to take advantage of Google Chrome’s features and actually sync my bookmarks, so when I would be going to a new computer, I can just log into my Google Account and actually see all my bookmarks and the extensions that I use and have the same experience over and over and over again, which is awesome!

  1. YouTube

Do you have family videos, or do you want to get started in Film-Making, well it all begins with YouTube.

You can log into YouTube with the same Google Account that you have been using for the other services that have been listed in this post today.

Upload your videos, share them on Social Media sites and then sit back and watch all the views come in, so you can start making your next big video for people to see.

Maybe you want to share that embarrassing video of your friends being drunk, sure! Upload it, it might become the next big thing on YouTube and separate itself from all the cat videos 😛

Hopefully you learned something today about what Google has to offer other than the regular search and what you can do with you Google Account. It ain’t just for emails and YouTube, but to show you what it could be used for.

If you liked this, I might do more of these, leave a comment below. Your feedback would be appreciated 🙂

If you have other suggestions for a Google Account, leave those in the comments below aswell. I would like to hear from the community about the services that YOU use with your Google Account 🙂