Google updates apps and blog search

Google has improved a number of its applications and search tools, offering users extra capabilities and more precise results.

Starting with the updates to its Apps service, Google has added additional template features, meaning that companies can use specific presentation styles or add their own materials such as logos to the documents. Templates can be saved and shared privately, and can be applied to the four types of documents offered by the firm: documents, presentations, spreadsheets and forms.

Valerie Blechar, software engineer on the Google Apps team, said: "Since we launched the public template gallery last year for Google Docs, people who use Google Apps have been asking if they could have their own template galleries to share templates (everything from branded presentation designs to document letterhead to spreadsheet templates) with their co-workers.

"Today, we've enabled these template galleries for Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers."

Firms looking for more precise and informed search results might also enjoy the additions to Google's Blog search tool which offers the ability to view regularly updated 'feeds' without subscribing to, or using, specific feed readers.

Instead of viewing up-to-the-minute posts through a feedreader, Google is instead offering a 'gadget' that lets the user embed the information directly into their iGoogle homepage.

"You can browse topics and drill into stories from within the widget, and you can customise the gadget to choose which topics you want to follow," said Akshay Patil, software engineer, in a blog post.

The firm is also extending its support for the more traditional methods of using RSS, and is providing RSS and Atom feed options directly on its blog search homepage.

"There's a lot of great, fresh content being published in blogs every day. We hope these new features help you discover more of it, faster," said Patil.