Martian

Well, that's a fun list.

I'm old enough and nerdy enough to remember when Google launched. The consensus at the time was that it was far better than any of the competing search engines (and there was far more than just Yahoo). Even today, nobody outside Google knows precisely what goes into the pagerank algorithms but they're considered the defacto standard for determining search relevance.

Gmail was big because it introduced several innovative features. Not least of these was the unprecedented amount of storage -- I believe it launched with 2 GB, in a time when some of the competition was offering a meagre 10 MB. "Never delete another email" was the tagline, and by and large I haven't. Making your entire mail archive searchable was also new and exciting, and I occasionally consider moving my own personal email to them just for the labeling system which is incredibly powerful if you know how to use it.

Google video was offering videos over an hour in length when Youtube was limited to ten minutes. It finally folded after Google's purchase of Youtube made it effectively redundant. Google also managed to make Youtube profitable, something it's founders were incapable of.

Android is interesting as compared to iPhone because it's open source, and effectively takes the opposite stance to Apple's walled garden approach. I like that I can get an app from pretty much anywhere, without it being subject to review by committee. Android being a far more flexible platform also leads to much greater choice in devices. You want a hardware keyboard? You can get one on Android. There's no app for that.

If you want to get nitpicky on the social network stuff, Google was actually first on the market with Orkut, although that never took off outside of a few overseas markets (Brazil being the largest, I believe). I suspect it'll get folded into Google+ down the road.

I'm not saying that you have to like Google, but it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that none of their products were innovative.

What's interesting about Google+ as a product is how it integrates with Google's current offerings, or more accurately how they integrate with it. We're seeing the very beginnings of it with +1 buttons popping up everywhere, but if it's successful it could represent a paradigm shift in how people use Google products (and by extension, the internet itself). This is personal bias, but I'm also far more willing to trust Google with my personal info than I am Mark "dumb fucks"* Zuckerberg.

* Facebook CEO Admits To Calling Users 'Dumb Fucks'

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame