Dear Google,
I think it’s pretty clear that I love you. I mean, I did everything I could to get into the Gmail beta as soon as possible, I held contests to give away Gmail invites, I try to convince everyone I know to use Google products, and I only ever use Google for searching. Every product you guys come up with, I’m willing to try. And most of them I like!
So when the Google engineer who was fixing our search appliance at my old job tried to talk me into using Google Apps for Your Domain (GAfYD) to host my email, I was a willing convert. I mean, it’s Gmail but with my (not so) cool domain name! I dutifully updated my MX records, forwarded all of my old mail, and started enjoying the high life. Sort of.
You see, half of your apps don’t seem to know about GAfYD. My Google Reader account has to be tied to my Gmail account. Since I don’t ever get any email from the Reader team, this isn’t a big deal. But today I got an email from the AdSense team letting me know that I could no longer use my GAfYD Gmail address to access AdSense, and must instead use my plain old Gmail address. That I don’t use. That just forwards to my GAfYD Gmail. Which is kinda dumb.
I know you’re a big company. And I know that coordination between teams is hard. But can we please straighten this out? I know that you guys employ some of the smartest people in the world (Hey Kev!) over there, so let’s put those big brains to use!
With love,
Jemal
From the guy who gave us the Segway:
Seriously: that’s awesome. Prior to the Segway, he was working an a powerchair.
Just to emphasize why he gets paid to speak at conferences and I don’t, Clay Shirky decided to piece together all the things that make participatory culture great, and put them into one short presentation: