I’ve got a Google personalized home page (google.com/ig) but it’s not one of my go-to Google apps yet – unlike Gmail, Google Docs and search. This could change, however, with the launch of a new and improved Google Talk, which features a flash-based widget called the Talk Gadget that you can put on your home page to chat and talk with other people. You can also put it on you blog or Web site, which could add an interesting dimension if you’re willing to talk with your readers.
-
Mark’s Blogs
Find ME Online
-
2 Comments
I hope GTalk catches on, I prefer it to the other IM applications.
By the way, it looks like adding it to your own blog or site will just let the user access their own contacts. I don’t think it lets the user contact you directly like MeeboMe does.
Go-to Google apps might be happening a little less, especially in light of Google’s recent announcement on privacy practices.
I’ve been disabling cookies in random searches for quite some time, and in cases where I am using Google services which require them enabled, I clear them immediately afterwards.
I look at this level of savviness in the same way as a tradeshow attendee who deliberately provides a gmail account at sign-up as opposed to their corporate email address, purely as a way to keep the spam baddies at bay.
I think the appeal for go-to apps both now and in the future will be tricky and must somehow look at moving away from this idea of capturing information about its users because there will always be a segment of the audience that gets put off by it.
In the end, it comes down to usefulness, and if its something I absolutely can’t live without, then I might look someplace else, particularly those places where data collection isn’t a part of the service model.