10 Popular Social Media Tools Owned By Google

We all know that Google leads the search engine market since a very long time. It’s market share is unmatched and is way beyond other search engine players’ like Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com, etc. However, not many of us know that Google is also in a very strong position in the social media world.  It has various social media tools and applications that are used by millions all over the world today.

Following is a comprehensive list of all the popular social media tools owned by Google:

Picasa:

Picasa is a software download from Google that helps you organize, edit, and share your photos with people across the globe. It’s free, and easy to use.

Orkut:

Orkut is an online community, a social network used especially in Brazil and India. Though the initial target market of Orkut was US, it failed to dominate MySpace and Facebook, eventually becoming immensely popular in Brazil and India alone.

Blogger:

Blogger is a free blog publishing tool that allows you to share your thoughts with the world easily. The service was actually created by Pyra Labs, and later acquired by Google in 2003. The main advantage of using Blogger is that you get the opportunity to earn money through AdSense, a contextual advertising platform managed by Google.

YouTube:

YouTube is a leading video-sharing site that allows users upload and share videos with others. It was acquired by Google in 2006 for a whopping US $1.65 billion, and acts as a crucial strategic business unit for Google today.

Jaiku:

To compete with Twitter and other micro-blogging sites, Google bought Jaiku in 2007 from Jaiku Ltd. The site also provides an opportunity for users to connect with their friends and enjoy lifestreaming features, like Twitter.

FeedBurner:

FeedBurner is a news feed management service that allows Weblog owners, podcasters and other Web-based content publishers the ability to manage their RSS feeds and track their subscribers’ usage.

iGoogle:

iGoogle is a useful social media tool that allows you to customize your Google homepage and add news, photos, and various stuff from across the Web to it.

Friend Connect:

Google Friend Connect allows you to connect with your friends on different sites. Friend Connect users can interact with others by inviting them from other social networks and contact lists to join their site or blog.

OpenSocial:

OpenSocial has a common API (Application Programming Interfaces) for social applications across several sites. It was developed by Google in accordance with MySpace and several other social networking sites.

Google Video:

Google Video is a similar service like YouTube, but not in terms of popularity. Users can upload videos for free and share it with others.