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Nov 14

Google Gives an Inside Look at the Tools They Use

Posted in: Google, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on March 13, 2008 by CyberNet.

Google Blogoscoped noticed that there was a presentation given by Google at KMWorld the other day, and while there they gave an inside look at some of the tools they use internally to stay productive. There’s really no need to to say that a lot of what they had to show were their own products, such as Google Docs, Calendar, and Gmail, but they also showed off some things that aren’t available to the public.

What’s even better is that if you look closely in the screenshots they provide you might even be able to catch a glimpse of some upcoming features that may or may not be released. Read on to see what I’m talking about…

–Google Ideas–

When a Google employee has an idea for the “next big thing” they don’t just keep it bottled up inside. Instead they submit it to an internal site where other Googlers can vote and comment on it:

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–Moma–

This is Google’s internal search engine, and it can even be used to search through a database of Google employees.

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–Google Docs–

And this is where those “new features” I was talking about come into play. Google Docs as you know is a public service that is available to anyone who wants it. Back in January there were some hints that offline access to Google Docs was going to be coming soon via Google Gears, and the screenshot below on the left appears to confirm that. In the upper-right corner there is a link that says Experimental Offline Access, which matches what we saw in January.

The screenshot on the right shows off what appears to be another Google Docs redesign. This time around they have created what appears to be a menu structure along the top (File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Tools, and Table) instead of using the tab-like system currently implemented. Also, did you notice that the document is centered on the screen instead of taking up the full width?

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