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I spend my days dealing with technology, reading tech sites, and trying to keep up with the latest and greatest. A typical day involves reading all of my feeds, clicking on links and seeing how much relevant information I can absorb from this journey of clicks. The results are a mixed bag.

There are re-hashes of press releases, there are details about what someone cooked up in his/her garage, the inevitable Internet find of the day, something steampunk, an article about how people in power don’t really get digital, something anthropological, something local, links from my friends, and if it’s a good day then there’s a real technology announcement I should try and wrap my head around.

It’s a lot of information, and honestly most of it is shallow content, announcements and trumpeting fanfare that leads nowhere.

Then there are Google announcements. Google announcements are a decent length, they’re easy to read, and they’re informative. They cut to the chase, but more importantly, they all contain links to documentation. Lots and lots of easy to read, clear, understandable documentation.

OpenSocial? Documentation
Android? Documentation
Google Gadgets for Mac Dashboard? Documentation

As someone who actually builds technology, Google is light years ahead of the competition in terms of delivering concrete information and clear documentation when announcing a new product or initiative. It makes it incredibly easy to get involved with their environments. Yahoo has a lot of documentation for their developers, but have you ever tried to find anything in it? Facebook developer documentation is better, but just getting started requires downloading, installing, signing up, and stepping through more hurdles than are necessary before you actually can start coding.

My point is that Google’s documentation allows me to get started immediately. And when I can start immediately, I can answer questions and evaluate the platform faster. Google’s not the perfect solution for everything, but if I can realize that after 30 minutes instead of 4 hours of setup and installation, then it’s going to make my clients happier because I spend a whole lot less time and energy (and their money) before telling them, “Sorry, it’s not going to work for you.” And when Google tech is appropriate for a job, then I can typically crank out a prototype or some proof of concept in the first sitting.

I’m interested in a lot of different web and mobile technology but what plays a big role in my personal choices about what to develop for is the time I need to invest in a learning curve. Google does an amazing job of keeping that learning curve to a minimum, so there’s little incentive to go with someone else.

Are there any other great examples people have of online web APIs or tools with great, easy to use developer documentation? Please, add away in the comments.