The first thing I did when first firing up my new netbook was install google gears. Then I setup gears with docs, gmail and calendar…which automatically created Chrome application shortcuts. Immediately, I understood where Google is heading with their announced release of Chrome “OS.”

My netbook is incredibly portable, and doesn’t sacrifice a whole lot in terms of keyboard and interface. And it’s completely built for the web. Combined with gears backing up all of my docs, gmail and calendar data locally, a netbook is a powerful tool, if used for what it’s intended for.

With gears, I can read and queue emails when not on a wireless connection, just like I would using Outlook offline. I can read and edit docs and spreadsheets offline, and they just sync with my online docs when I get to a connection. Works the same with google calendar. I’m free from the dependency on an internet connection and retain all the benefits of a web application:

• All documents and revisions are stored on one web host to be used by my multiple computers, instead of different versions being scattered on different hard drives;
• All the sharing and collaboration benefits of google documents;
• Did I mention google apps are free (for personal use anyways)?

Netbooks are cheap, portable and extremely productive when utilized correctly. I now see what the buzz is about. Granted, gears would work just as well on any computer, and I don’t know why it took me this long to finally get what gears is all about. Something tells me it has to do with Office not being pre-installed on my netbook.

With Chrome “OS” slated to come out in a year or two, and the continued expansion of gear supported web applications, the possibilities are just beginning.  Working on the same document from any device, from anywhere and easily keeping your data in sync is a promising proposition.

If you have a netbook, check out google gears. It’s really a must have.

In Nielsen’s latest Global Online Consumer Survey, “recommendations from people known” was the most trusted form of “advertising.” Nothing shocking here. The survey of 25,000 internet consumers released last week also found opinions posted online sharing 2nd place, alongside brand websites, for the most trusted forms of advertising.

Interestingly, consumers reported a higher level of trust for all forms of advertising surveyed, er, except for newspapers. Something I found even more interesting, the surveyed internet consumers reported a higher trust for TV, newspapers, magazine and billboards than for opt-in email, search engine ads and text ads. Here’s the breakdown, per Nielsen:

Word of mouth is dominant, as it always has been. The internet has empowered word of mouth to spread much further and faster. We’re sharing the same product opinions with each other that we always have, we’re just doing it online and with an exponentially larger audience to exchange our product experiences with.

Of course, smart companies are using their website (2nd most trusted) as a place for consumers to have those opinion conversations. And the even smart companies are out on the web monitoring the off-site conversations about them.

I was a bit perplexed by the “emails signed up for” being in the latter half of the pack. Afterall, the recipients did sign up to receive them.