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
Dear Google Talk,
You know I love you, right? And now that you’re integrated with Gmail, you’re my favorite instant messager. If you could handle multiple networks like the third-party clients, you’d be just about perfect. But I understand the difficulties there – stupid un-interoperable networks.
Since we can’t get that level of perfection, howzabout we implement these new exciting emoticons? I can’t believe that we’ve survived this long as a species without them.
Thanks,
Jemal
Paul Thurrott has had a peek a the new version of Hotmail, due out next year, and has some nice things to say about it.
It seems quite nice – but I can’t imagine switching from Gmail for a couple of reasons:
I mean, take a look at this screenshot and let me know how you’re suppposed to read a message through all of that. And am I missing something, or is the entire right side of the message M.I.A.?
Granted, the screenshot is at 1024 by 768, but that’s pretty close to the width of my browser. And you know that the bar on the right, which is now a helpful tip on how to use their program, will eventually be horizontal banners. And what exactly does it say about the ease of use of your product when you have to devote that much of the screen to telling people how to use the thing?
They mention the Mac programmers that they brought on to help them, but who are the usability geniuses that said, “Screw the message – what we need space for is ads and interface”? Helpful tip to Microsoft: Fire those idiots.
How they plan on competing with Gmail is beyond me. Maybe they could ditch the ads and get an Adsense account.
