Looks like they’re trying to catch up with Skype, but you know you know those Google engineers are eating their wheaties. Check out Google Talk.

Just in time for Christmas… okay, this one needs some work (lots of outdated materials), but Google Catalog has me pretty excited. I am a confirmed internet-only shopper, especially around the holidays, so anything that makes it so I don’t have to keep a 4 foot stack of mail order catalogs is an amazing thing.

The newest of the bunch is Google Video. Amateur film makers everywhere are salivating over this one… I bet music isn’t far behind.

1. Google Earth Type in an address and zoom in from space. This one has a lot of countries and governments nervous about being used by evil-doers.
2. Google Toolbar. Translate foreign language pages at a touch of a button, block popups, and Spellcheck your forum posts among other things. Also shows the PageRank of the page you’re visiting.
3. Picasa Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that helps you organize the pictures on your PC.
4. Google Local If you’re a business and you’re not listed- what are you waiting for?
5. Blogger Not sure you can handle running your own Blog? Google not only makes it FR-E-E but it doesn’t get easier than this. Try it out.
6. Gmail Are you still using Hotmail or Yahoo? GMail kicked it into high gear and now the rest are trying to catch up.

Seriously, what is Google feeding all their magic genius elves and where can I get some? Seemingly coming out with something new everyday, Google really may take over the world (and what a fun and cool world it can be sometimes.)
I’ll try to inform you of the highlights or just plain curiosities. But no, I won’t try to keep up with it all- unfortunately, I don’t have any magic elves of my own. If I did, I think they would start by cleaning my house…