Google-branded merchandize shows up from time to time, and we here at Pingdom were kind of wondering where people outside of Google get hold of this stuff. And lo and behold, Google has its very own online store, GoogleStore.com.

There is some pretty neat stuff in there, so here is our (highly subjective) pick of the coolest (and sometimes strangest) merchandize from Google.

(There are no affiliate links or anything in this post. We just thought it would be fun to list the items we liked the most. The links below just go to regular product pages at the Google Store.)

Google flashing yo-yo

Who doesn’t like yo-yos? Especially ones lit up by flashing lights…

Google crank flashlight

An emergency flashlight with an FM radio, siren, and cell phone charger. The whole thing can be charged by cranking it.

Google lava lamp

The classic Lava Lamp, Google style.

Google bike stereo speakers

Portable speakers you can place on your bike, which will of course also carry your MP3 player.

Google sonic rocks

Two powerful magnets to play around with. Seems like fun!

Google bean bag

It’s apparently exactly the same kind as the ones in the Googleplex.

Google tumbling tower wooden block game

Build that Google tower as high as possible before it tumbles back down.

Google baby blanket

Want your toddler to get Googlified as soon as possible? Look no further than this.

Trailblazers, creatives and innovators have taken the Internet to where it is today and made it an essential part of our everyday lives. We have selected a number of interesting “firsts” from the history of the Internet (and the Web) for your reading pleasure.

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Facebook has announced that it now has 400 million active users. Just one year ago Facebook had 150 million users, so 2009 was an incredible year for the social media giant.

There can be no doubt that Facebook is pretty much unstoppable at the moment, a real juggernaut. For some perspective on Facebook’s amazing growth, we have put together this infographic. We hope you’ll enjoy it!

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Sometimes you want an easy way to share your Pingdom monitoring data with others. So far we’ve had public report pages that you can use, but now we’ve added one more sharing method that is very flexible and easy to use.

Enter our new “report banners”.

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Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock lately, you’ll know that last week Apple announced the iPad, its new tablet device. Reactions have been a mixed bag, and a storm of discussion has swept through the blogosphere about various features the iPad should or shouldn’t have had.

One of the main complaints so far has been the iPad’s lack of multitasking. (To be precise, multitasking is a bit of a misnomer here; the iPhone OS has multitasking. What people really mean is only allowing one app at a time to run.)

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The tech industry is littered with billionaires. We all enjoy a good income, but some clearly have earned more than others. Much, much more. The question is, how much money do the really big names in tech actually have?

To find out, we went through the Forbes 400, a list of the wealthiest Americans, and filtered out the people who work within the tech field, or more specifically: IT.

So here they are, the 20 richest Americans in tech today.

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