MarketingVOX: Google cofounder Sergey Brin had some harsh words for competitor Microsoft - it is a "convicted monopoly," he said - on Wednesday as it unveiled several new products during its annual press day, writes the San Francisco Chronicle. Other execs, however, played good cop, downplaying rivalries and saying they are focusing on their own products. Among the new Google services was, as anticipated, a health-related search feature - which turns out to have been merely one facet of a larger effort.

Many of the new products that Google introduced are intended to help users find and organize information - Google's core business - including Google Notebook, Google Co-op, Google Trends and updates to Google Desktop.

Google Co-op is a social search service that lets self-described experts in a certain field label or tag websites that Google will then include on the main search page for that topic - in effect creating vertical searches, writes CNET. Two areas already populated by content are health and city guides. Searchers can also receive information from partner content providers to which they have "subscribed" - including Digg, Wine Spectator and Fandango - which are not paying to participate; search results from those content providers are marked to show that they are a subscribed link.

Google Trends analyzes Google searches to compute the popularity of certain terms - up to five can be compared - and also includes a news-volume graph that shows the number of times a topic has appeared in Google News, writes Micropersuasion's Steve Rubel. He writes, "This tool is a must-bookmark for every PR person and marketer worldwide. Search is so important to how brands are perceived...it's critical to understand how people are searching for you and your competitors. The news volume tool is an awesome value add for PR measurement."

Google Desktop, version 4, now comes with "Google Gadgets" - mini-applications like clocks, weather globes, media players - that enable visual effects and animation, according to Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped. Google Desktop also enables sharing of gadgets and settings between computers, and synchronization of data between computers, according to CNET. It can be configured to automatically create a customized home page base on the user's online search behavior.

Google Notebook is a scratch pad on which users will be able to store text, links or images as they sift through search results; they can also share the contents. It's an add-on to the main search page that opens a small window to which search results can be added, writes MediaPost. The window can then be expanded to rearrange and annotate the saved search results.