For those of you who follow college basketball in the US, today is National Bracket Day where millions are frantically filling out their brackets and preparing to follow their favorite teams' bids to the national college basketball championship. Luckily, I can use apps from the Chrome Web Store to help me follow the tournament like a pro.

Whether you're a loyal fan of your alma mater or college basketball powerhouses, you can get the most current news, scores, videos and photos all in one place with apps like FanFeedr and LockerPulse.



If you're watching multiple games at once, don't miss an upset with Are You Watching This?! Sports. This app shows you a scoreboard of all games you care about happening right now. You can also create personalized TV channel lineups for local cable and satellite TV providers that are automatically adjusted to your time zone.



You can even relive some of the best plays of the tournament with photos delivered by the Sports Illustrated Snapshot and create your own channels around your favorite college basketball teams.

These are just a few apps to help you stay on top of your games and bracket. You can find these and more sports apps in the Chrome Web Store or learn how other Google products can enhance your game experience on www.google.com/collegebasketball2011.

Posted by Koh Kim, Associate Product Marketing Manager

The winter holidays are my favorite time of the year: I get to spend quality time with friends and family and eat lots of delicious food. However, between booking airplane tickets, sending greeting cards and looking for the perfect gifts, the pre-holiday season can be busy...and even a bit stressful. This year though, I feel much more in control thanks to the apps I discovered in the Chrome Web Store’s Holiday collection.

If you are looking for last minute holiday gifts, try Gilt for Chrome. Within the app, you can find the latest designer fashion items on sale and search for specific items and sizes like “men’s shoes size 11.”



I also recommend Amazon Windowshop. You can use the app to browse through millions of products in a slick way. For example my cousin really likes cupcakes: a search in the app shows me cupcake related products organized across categories like books, groceries and clothing, helping me find unique gifts.



For those of you still planning your trip home, check out Hipmunk. Hipmunk sorts all available flights to your destination by “agony” -- a mix of price, duration, and number of connections. You can see all the flights that meet your needs in a single view.



Finally, if you are late like I am in sending holiday cards, I suggest checking out Stupeflix Video Maker. In the app you can select a theme (my favorite one is “Celebrate”), insert pictures, text, and music, and create a free 60-second greeting that you can email or post on YouTube and Facebook. Or, you can simply create beautiful photo slideshows with DropMocks and comemories.

There are hundreds more apps to discover at the Chrome Web Store.

Happy Holidays!

Posted by Christos Apartoglou, Product Marketing Manager