Google Video(s)

(As always the opinions expressed here are my own only, not those of my company.)

One thing I really like about Google are the videos that get put out for various products. I like that we let our engineers and product managers and what have you get to speak for their own work, and I like that we let these normal people represent the company, because one of the best things about Google is how enthused and committed the employees are to their products and the company's mission and most importantly to the users. From the very bottom up. The people "on the line," by which I mean the hundreds of software engineers or everyday non-executive employees are the heart of the company and I like that. So as a result I like our videos. Here are a few lately that I think are cool.

This one is cool because my roommate is in it and helped make it (she is the third person):



And this one is cool because I love how committed people are to Gmail. I am also a huge huge Gmail fan (my favorite Google apps are Maps, Gmail and Reader, without a doubt, but Gmail comes first) and I really think it's a great product so I like that our Gmail videos lately have been very much about user feedback and participation.



Finally on a non-video related note we released the Google Zeitgeist last week. It's basically our top gaining searches -- not the top ten searches period, but the ones that happened more this year than last year, a lot more. The site with all the data is here -- you can click on the menu to the left that shows a few subcategories of searches, like politics and entertainment and stuff. Most interesting for me was this one, showing the top results for questions like "what is" or "who is" etc. What are they? "What is love" "Who is God" and "How to kiss."

Important questions, eh. It's amazing how something as simple as an aggregation of popular search queries can give you a bit of a window into human nature.