Stepping away from internet marketing for a minute (I’m technically on holiday), I’d like to draw attention to a charity that particularly grabbed my attention when we met at a trade fair a couple of weeks ago.

In Kind Direct take goods which are unwanted by big business and distribute them to charities. You should definitely have a look at their website.

Look out for some other Upstream peeps posting on this blog next week… have a great weekend.

If you want an idea of where Google is going in the coming months and years, Google Labs is generally a good place to start.

We all know that Google is an organisation that likes to put time and effort into development. While Microsoft made a song and dance (of sorts) about the “release” of Internet Explorer 8 while still in a very early Beta, Google’s fantastic Gmail is still in beta after over four years.

What’s great about Labs is that you can watch a new idea grow from seed to fruition.

One great program to come out of Labs is Google Desktop. This is a free, downloadable program that adds a little bit of search magic to your desktop. Click the CTRL button twice and a box pops up from which you can search your computer and the internet for any particular keywords. One or two other features are a little more annoying – feeds with Facebook status updates and images can pull up some embarrassments when they are least welcome. Still, you can always switch these off.

Another great “graduate” from the labs is Google Maps, which is well on its way to squashing the opposition. It’s rather like Multimap but somehow “Googlier”.

Rather like an emperor with hundreds of children by various concubines, not all of the labs’ spawn are fit to rule. Google Video was dwarfed by YouTube. Froogle died in its sleep one night. Google Reader… meh.

Of the current tools in development, my two favourites are:

Trends, which is very useful for SEO companies like Upstream Connections. This allows you to compare the search volume for up to four keywords over a period of months and years. Results are presented as line graphs and are shown alongside related news stories.

Google Mars. Which is rather like Google Earth but with maps of the Red Planet. Sadly, after hours of searching, I have been unable to locate any of the familiar landmarks from Total Recall, but that Cohaagan always was a sneaky one.

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Upstream Connections – SEO Brighton

Techcrunch thinks so:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/07/google-microsoft-bidding-for-digg/

This is hardly surprising. Google likes to let companies develop a strong infrastructure before swallowing them up. Also, what with search and social media sites becoming increasingly intertwined concepts, it is little wonder that Google would make every effort to tie in with the largest social media site.

Microsoft are also said to be interested, although Google appear early favourites to seal the deal.