Google and AOL

May 20th, 2011 § Leave a Comment

Google and AOL just launched this cool new functionality where Gtalk users can message AIM users and vice versa.

Gtalk users have been able to sign into AIM with their AIM screen names through Gtalk for a while, but this is the next step in integrating the two services. And, to make the functionality even cooler, AOL built a import tool to help Gtalk users import their AIM contacts. Pretty cool right? I thought so… at first.

Excited about the newly integrated services, I started to go through the import process. And, then I stopped. Why would I want to clutter my Google contact list with old AIM contacts that I haven’t really used for close to 10 years.

After thinking about it more, I decided that this integration really wasn’t all that exciting.

What Google and AIM should do, if they really want to integrate their services, is allow people to set up their Gtalk screen names and AIM screen names as aliases. That would allow the two services to be seamless.

Here’s the problem, with the new integration method, I’m not going to sign into AIM. All of my AIM contacts can now be in Gtalk so there’s no longer a need for AIM. The only issue for me is that my old AIM buddies aren’t going to know how to find me because I’ll be using my Gtalk screen name. But that’s a issue I’m willing to deal with.

I’m betting this will be the case for a lot of users. It’s bad news for AOL. The best solution is to move to an aliases integration, as I mentioned above. That would be a win for both Google and AOL. What do you think?

Change Your Name

August 19th, 2010 § Leave a Comment

Have you heard? Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, thinks that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites.
 
Interesting food for thought, and yet I’m left wondering what happens to accountability?  How can we hold children accountable when their slate will be wiped clean upon reaching adulthood? I realize there will still be laws and rules, but this seems like a free pass for children to act out?  There has to be another solution.  How about parents who parent? Just a thought.

Google Buzz

February 11th, 2010 § Leave a Comment

Odds are you have now heard about Google Buzz.  And, if you're a Gmail user, you might have even seen it in your Gmail inbox. Google's been rolling it out to everyone with Gmail accounts since Tuesday. But what is Google Buzz? People are still trying to figure that out.
 
If you're only point of contact with Google is Gmail, Buzz seems to be a Twitter-like aggregator for sharing ideas and content.  It links with other social media services like Flikr, Twitter, etc. 
 
If, like me, you use other Google services, Buzz becomes a little more interesting.  For example, if you have a phone with the latest version of Google Maps, you can now see Buzz posts laid out on a map according to where the person who made the post was located at that point in time. There's also another view in Maps where you can see a Twitter-like list of all the posts of people physically near you. With this functionality, you can leave tips, comments and reviews for any location you visit, and people will see these posts when they check out the Buzz.
 
If you have an iPhone or an Android phone with Android 2.0+ you can also access a web app, which I can only guess incorporates the features available in Maps and Gmail. My Android phone only has Android 1.6 so I haven't been able to see the app. Please feel sorry for me.
 
All these features make Buzz a look a little like Foursquare + Twitter + Friendfeed on crack.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Foursquare has been growing quite rapidly in recent months so, for Google to drop Buzz right now is an interesting and maybe smart move.
 
The question that remains is will people adopt this new platform? Only time will really tell.  I think it will largely depend on whether Google works out some of the kinks with Buzz, and if you haven't noticed there are some kinks.
 
Perhaps the biggest kink in my mind is that content pulled in from Twitter and other sites is slow to show up in your Buzz stream. And to make matters worse, communication with these services is only one way.  For Buzz to succeed it'll need to be able to push and pull data instantly from services like Twitter and Facebook. Otherwise, what's the point?
 
I would be very happy to have Buzz essentially replace the need for all of these separate services, and the convenience of having access to it all in Gmail, makes it even more alluring. Interestingly though, with the addition of Buzz, Gmail has become more a communication's platform and less a webmail portal.  It has chat, email, and now an aggregation/broadcasting tool.  Strange huh?
 
It'll be interesting to see how that progresses. For now, I'm going to continue exploring Buzz and hope that Google continues to improve it over the course of time.  I've been really impressed with their work in Gmail and I hope that Buzz can live up to it's name.

Android Market Rant

January 26th, 2010 § Leave a Comment

Best Email Options

November 6th, 2009 § Leave a Comment

Another friend (yes I have more than one friend) asked me this question today.

If you were to pick an email for the rest of your life would it be a gmail account? It’s popular now, and the company looks like it will be here for a while, but at one point everyone had @aol.com and then everyone had @yahoo.com.

My response to him was that it’s hard to say what will be around forever. Regarding Google and Gmail, I don’t think there’s a better option, unless you were to purchase your own domain. The biggest downside to having your own domain is that you’re paying for your email. To me, Google seems like the best bet right now if you want free email.

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