Google Quietly Conquers With Irresistible Apps

Despite near-total lack of marketing, Google finds its way into Web lovers’ hearts with an irresistible bundle of applications. “Having grown up in the vapor trail of the ’60s, I learned to be wary of large, centralized organizations,” David Carr writes in the New York Times. “And yet Google, a huge enterprise with a market value of $80 billion, is my ever-present wingman.”

Google’s free, come-hither apps—email, maps, chat, video, RSS reader—have seduced Carr into using its products almost exclusively. “Most data privacy experts would call me a fool to index my life into any one company so deeply,” he concedes. “Some people worry that Google will take over the world. Through the sins of competence and innovation, the company has quietly and efficiently surrounded me.” (More Google stories.)