The First Week

In the first week of my journey, I learned that Google has become the King of the World in ways that anyone not involved in ecommerce, wouldn't even know.

Each time I think I have at least a view into everything that Google does that relates to my business, I find out that I barely know the mile high view, let alone the details.

Google has:

• Google Merchant
• Google Analytics
• Google Blogger (right here!)
• Google AdSense
• Google AdWords
• Google Sites (I don't use that one)
• Google Webmaster Tools
• Google Checkout

And that's not even getting into their other areas of telephony, voicemail, social networking, photos, documents, and other consumer and enterprise applications.

Google now owns me. Google knows everything I do. Everything must talk to Google. I must learn all of their interfaces and study all of their reporting.

I pour through documentation and tutorials every day.

Google may have a reputation for great usability, but in fact, all of it seems ponderous and much of it remains obscure to me. There are google things I should be doing that I haven't even discovered yet.

I am certain of this.