…Big Mess.

So yesterday I thought I’d give Google a try and move my calendar and contacts over the the cloud. I didn’t realize it’d turn into such a nightmare - my assumption was that Google’s online tools such as Gmail and Calendar are well tested, since they have been out there for a while, and that they are well-suited to handle personal information management. What a big surprise.

First of all, I was never enthusiastic about keeping these things online due to security and privacy concerns. BUT, there are practical advantages, too. The most important one is having the same information on a few different devices. (Provided that you use more than 2 terminals - cause if you only use 1 PC and 1 cellphone, then it’s easy to keep them both in sync.) The other advantage is that when you get robbed or when your house burns down, you can still access your data Finally, the one reason that made me pull the trigger is that I just decided to buy an Android-based phone, which in theory should work perfectly with Google services. (It doesn’t, I’ll write about it in a different post soon.)
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I’ve been skeptical about the Google Reader for a long time. I’ve really tried hard to get to like it but it was lacking features present in many popular feed reader programs that were available long before GR came out. OK, I did found some power user functionality that I’m sure you all Google Reader fans love, like for instance using keyboard shortcuts to quickly jump back and forth between the posts as well as to switching between the expanded and list view of the feeds. Obviously, there is also a way to set up folders to categorize feeds. That’s all good, but still, the main issue is, what if you have a few hundred subscriptions and don’t really have time to browse them?

The first desktop-based RSS readers, created a few years ago already contained simple mechanisms allowing to create saved searches, often called “watches”. Watches let you key in the keywords you care for, associate them with a group of feeds, and then quickly scan what’s fresh on topics that interest you. Why did Google forget about such a simple enhancement?

The benefits of having it all online was tempting, so I didn’t give up and tried to find a workaround for this issue. The basic idea was to aggregate content by sharing a folder to the public. (You can set it up in Google Reader’s “Settings”) Then, I wanted to grab its feed and plug it in to Yahoo Pipes, create a set of filters and finally release filtered content as a new feed, which I could then subscribe back to in the Google Reader :).

Unfortunately, there is one major problem. The way Google exports the aggregated feed is by placing only 20 newest items in it. So if you have 1000+ messages in your folder, you end up with a mix of messages from the last few hours! There seems to be another workaround for it (which I won’t describe in this post just to keep it short), but hey, this should be easier that that.

Let’s hope this problem will soon be solved by Google engineers, in the meantime, we’re left with desktop-based tools, such as the popular FeedDemon. This piece of software actually has a free web-based viewer which the main program synchronizes with, but its functionality is limited.

The finalists of this year’s crunchies have been announced. Over 110 thousand internauts voted in 20 categories.

I’ve taken a quick peek at the list and the first impression is that a) it is questionable whether companies like Digg or Facebook should be considered - they’ve been on the market for a long time and are already widely recognizable, b) there are obviously lots of innovative concepts, e.g.:

23andMe
Service that will read & interpret your DNA. All that’s required is sending them a saliva sample and… covering the cost of research. Seems like a bargain: $999 + shipping. Company was funded by Google a while ago with Sergey Brin’s wife being involved since its inception.

WeatherBill
Their tag line says it all: “Get Paid for Bad Weather”. Innovative risk management service allowing to purchase customized contracts to protect businesses against weather changes. Hopefully, they’ll soon expand their offering and allow for online weather change orders.

Attributor
Service that will crawl the web to check whether your copyrighted content might be used by somebody else without permission. Less innovative, but practical!

It’s been over one month since Google announced Google Gears (May 30th), plug-in for IE and FX browsers allowing web applications to go offline. Adobe didn’t even wait two weeks to introduce their Adobe AIR runtime environment. (June 11th) Both tools may at first appear to be similar, but they are not.

Google Gears is a platform enabling websites to operate when Internet connection is not present. It features its own web server that’s installed on user’s local computer, as well as the database. Obviously, the online app must be coded using the Google Gears tools so that it can be served from the the local drive.

Adobe AIR is a runtime environment that makes it possible to build offline apps using well-known web technologies and then launch them on PCs. The difference is significant as AIR is not made to solve the “Offline Problem”. It will rather enable the growing web developers’ community to use their existing skill set so that they tap into the area of desktop-based applications.

While AIR is definitely something to keep an eye on, GG attempts to solve some important problems that the online world is dealing with. The promise is that our applications will not only work offline, but will also run faster and be more reliable. User interface, images and other media will be instantly accessible and users will be able to open up and start using their website while it makes contact with the server to pull down updated/new content.

Yesterday (Jun 5th, 2007), Google announced global strategic alliance with Salesforce.com, the current market leader providing software in an on-demand model. Salesforce.com’s online CRM package was enriched by the integration of Google Adwords, which will now enable the CRM users to create ads and manage them from one place.

Partnership seems to make a lot of sense for a few reasons. One, it will strengthen Google’s #1 position in the SAAS area while their Microsoft is striving to rollout more live.com services. Two, it will open up new distribution channels for their partners’ core services. Finally, it may eventually lead to integration of their platforms and deployment of a common environment, allowing third-party developers to get their piece of the action in the SAAS world.