Do you use Gmail? What about Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, or any of the other “free” e-mail options? Wait; you’re surprised by my use of quotes on the word free?
You’ve probably noticed that when you send e-mail using the services I mention they get appended with ads. You may have noticed that the ads are smart, too; they aren’t random, but refer to products or services that you and your correspondents might be interested in. Well, hold on to your hat:
Gmail, Google’s free, previously-by-invitation-only e-mail service, has a very cool new feature built in: if you use Gmail, when there’s a link to something stored in Google Docs, hovering over that link will pop up a preview of that document. Cool. A time saver. Real Business Change.
See what isn’t free here? While giving you something that makes your day just . . . a . . . bit . . . easier . . . , Google is also roping you into using Gmail, which, while the best of the bunch, is stored in their servers, controlled by them, etc. They’re sucking you in. Again.
I don’t wish to go off on Google for this, and I use their stuff everywhere, all the time. I do want you to keep in mind just what you give up if you blindly start using Google’s every new toy.
Have a great weekend!
They provide a great service, which cost millions of dollars to devolope through R&D, and even more to maintain through physical servers. And they are evil for what, wanting to be rewarded for their hard work and innovation? Also, I have been using Gmail for years along with many of their other FREE services, and I have never not even once seen an advertisement appended to my messages. Oh and of all the free email clients only Gmail allows you to store your messages on their server, and access them from anywhere, from any device and have all you “synced correctly” without having to download any special 3rd party applicataions to do so. Their IMAP email protocol take care of it all for you. Yahoo, will not even allow you to access your email from you phone without a fee for premium service, and WIndows Live Mail is such a hassel to use with Microsoft Outlook, its hardly worth the trouble. From reading your post, I almost get the impression that you would rather be charged money for these services!!!???
I agree with you. And just as in the December 7 2009 post found here, my only issue with the guys at Google is that they don’t seem to be revealing their ulterior motives.
As both a parent and a business coach (important piece of who I am) I believe in telling your charges what they need to know rather than everything, but this isn’t that. Google is giving away great stuff, but if they withhold what they are “charging” it feels like they’re as dirty as everyone else. Odd behavior indeed from a company with the official motto “Don’t Be Evil”.