Tag Archives | Google

The Google+/Picasa Connection

Posted by Harry McCracken on July 1, 2011 at 1:44 pm

One of the big questions about Google+ is “how does all this new stuff relate to all of Google’s old stuff?” In some cases, new features (like Google+ photo sharing) will be connected to existing ones (such as Picasa Web Albums). In others, I’m pretty positive, Google+ will replace weaker Google offerings (you can read Buzz within G+, which just makes it all the more clear that Buzz will be redundant if G+ catches on).

For now, things are a tad confusing. Over at ReadWriteWeb, Sarah Perez explains how Google+ interconnects with Picasa. The good news is that you can now get unlimited photo storage; the bad news is that there are catches and complications.

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Gmail: What a Difference a Little White Space Makes

Posted by Harry McCracken on July 1, 2011 at 12:51 pm

Almost every week is a big week for Google news–but this one has been particularly jam-packed. There’s Google+, its pretty cool answer to Facebook. There’s the refreshed Google home page. There are rumors that it’s interested in buying Hulu.

But my favorite Google news of the week is an item that doesn’t sound all that explosive: it released a couple of new themes for Gmail. I’m using one of them now. All it does is to give Gmail a bit of the new look that’s also visible in Google+ and the revised home page. And that turns out to be a big deal.

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My Favorite Google+ Feature: It Pesters

Posted by Jared Newman on June 30, 2011 at 10:02 am

I haven’t spent a lot of time with Google’s new social networking project, Google +, but little by little, it’s drawing me back. That’s not because of the dozen or so people I’m following, or because of the promising 10-way video chat, or even because of the new approach to privacy that makes you sort contacts into groups.

No, my attraction to Google+ lies mostly in the fact that it won’t go away. Every time I run a Google search or check my Gmail, Google+ lurks in the top right corner of the screen, alerting me to new activity and letting me post status updates. The bare essentials of Google+ are embedded in every service that Google offers.

This might sound a little odd, but I like the fact that Google+ bothers me.

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Google Plus: The Early Reaction

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 29, 2011 at 10:30 am

I’m in at Google+, Google’s new offering that’s less of a monolithic “Facebook killer” and more of a loose network of socially-oriented services. Right now, Google has opened it up to only a small number of folks: it’s an odd world in which nearly everyone is a journalist, a blogger, or a Google employee. But it’s engaging in ways that Buzz and Wave never were–thanks in part to an inventive interface designed by Mac legend Andy Hertzfeld.

(“Often inventive” is probably the better way to put it–there are also parts of + that are borrowed directly from Facebook, like the organization of the home page.)

This post isn’t a Google+ review–I’m cranking away on an unrelated deadline which I’m behind on, in part because I keep taking breaks to check out +. For the moment, here are some other folks’ impressions, most of which are guardedly positive. (The “guardedly” is pretty much a given, considering Google’s patchy reputation when it comes to anything relating to social networking.)

Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan: “…this is a much better and more thoughtfully designed product than Buzz.”

TechCrunch’s MG Siegler: “I’ve spent the last several hours using Google+. That’s a good sign.”

PCWorld’s Megan Geuss and Mark Sullivan: “In general we thought the service borrowed some good ideas from the reigning king of social networks, Facebook, but also offers some cool new approaches to sharing content and managing privacy.”

PCMag’s Mark Hachman: “Put simply, Google+ is a social network for geeks.”

More thoughts to come…

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Google Goes Social (Again) With Google+

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 28, 2011 at 11:10 am

Google has announced its most ambitious Facebook killer clone rival alternative to date.  It’s called Google+–which is kind of confusing since it’s not the same thing as Google’s +1–and unlike the unfortunate Google Buzz, it’s not just one thing. It’s a bunch of services–both desktop-based and for phones–and it sounds interesting, at least. I can’t get in yet, so I’m reading up on it via Danny Sullivan’s coverage. If you’re in, let us know what you think.

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“Why Should Somebody Buy This Instead of an iPad?”

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 20, 2011 at 1:20 pm

It’s been fifteen months since the first iPad shipped. Nearly every sizable company that makes anything that looks even sort of like a computer or a phone has rushed into the market that Apple created. Many of these companies haven’t yet shipped the tablets they’ve announced. Still, a critical mass of major iPad alternatives are now here–tablets such as Motorola’s Xoom, RIM’s PlayBook, and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1.

And yet no Apple competitor has started selling anything that clearly answers a fundamental question: “Why should somebody buy this instead of an iPad?” Sure, it’s easy to point at specific things that other devices do better (or at least differently) than the iPad, and some of the people reading this article can explain why they chose another tablet and don’t regret the move. (If you’re one of them, please do!) Still, sales figures for tablets show that when consumers compare the iPad to other choices, an overwhelming percentage conclude that the iPad is the best option.

As a reviewer of gizmos, I think that the iPad 2 is easily the best tablet on the market–and that most of the competition so far is too half-baked to be credible. As a lover of competition, though, I’m itching to see other tablets arrive that deserve to do well, too. So that question–“Why would somebody buy this instead of an iPad?”–is stuck in my head. I’ve been trying to figure out how an Apple rival can come up with a tablet that pretty much answers that question for itself. And I’ve come up with thirteen ways it could happen.

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Google’s (Unpleasant, Heavy-Handed) Father’s Day Surprise

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 20, 2011 at 10:46 am

To celebrate Father’s Day, Google inserted a line underneath the Google Voice calling feature in Gmail’s Chat feature: “Reminder: Call dad.” Sounds innocuous, huh?

Well, no. Some people who don’t have dads were understandably upset by the note. Eventually, most of us won’t have a dad to call; I’m surprised that nobody at Google figured out that the message would be at best irrelevant and at worst an unhappy little moment for a meaningful percentage of Gmail users.

Companies like Hallmark and 1-800-Flowers presumably don’t worry much about Father’s Day and Mother’s Day advertising hurting anyone’s feelings. But Google’s “reminder,” while promotional in nature, was presented as a task-like item within a piece of Web-based productivity software. That made it feel more personal. It also involved Google futzing around with an application used by millions of people. Microsoft wouldn’t insert a Father’s Day requirement reminder into Outlook–and even though Outlook is a paid product and Gmail isn’t, Google crossed a boundary which it apparently didn’t realize existed.

It’s a safe bet that Google won’t commemorate Father’s Day or Mother’s Day in this particular way again. But I hope it comes away from this with another lesson: it needs to tread gingerly when it comes to messing around with Gmail and other apps for any reason except making them better. And sometimes even then.

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I’m Feeling Endangered

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 18, 2011 at 6:28 pm

According to Google Operating System, Google is testing a spruced-up home page and search results with one striking change: they remove the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button that’s been part of Google forever (or  at least since 1998).

Google has a gazillion tests going on at any one time, many of which never turn into permanent, pervasive changes, so it’s a tad early to mourn the loss of I’m Feeling Lucky. And I’m not sure when I last used it–or used it at all, except as an experiment rather than a feature I liked and needed. Still, I’d miss it. I think that’s because it’s a reminder that Google wasn’t always the Web’s dominant company–there was a time when it was an up-and-coming search engine invented by a couple of Stanford students.

 

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