Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Lack of "Security" May Hinder Future Google Adoption

I better make this clear: I am not talking about encryption, password, hashes, etc.
 Not that kind of security.

No, I'm talking about reliability.
 Something Google has had for a very long time, and one of the many reasons I'm such a Google fanatic.

Until
recently, at least as far as I can remember, Google products that existed did not see the end of the tunnel
very often.  (The question and answer service excluded).

Recently, however, Google has
been trying to expand into many markets.  From what I can take away, Google wants to be the hub of
information exchange on the Internet.  After all, knowing all of that powers their search - and their search
powers their ads.

Recently though, several Google services have announced that they
will be discontinued.  Among these: Wave, PowerMeter, and Health.

PowerMeter and Health
did not see large enough adoption for Google to continue putting forth the funds for them.  To me, this is
disappointing.  Being able to get this information so easily and readily through Google was really exciting.
 After all: Google has the technological know-how to keep my data secure and provide at least decent user
interfaces to said data.  In fact, I used Google Health - although since I don't have many issues it was
currently just to store my insurance information.

Now though, these services will be
disappearing.  Who is to say that other less-mainstream services won't disappear in the future?  Buzz?
Voice?  Google+?  Well, there's no way that last one could disappear... right?

If I'm
going to rely on Google to provide a service, I'm going to need the security of knowing that the service is
going to continue to exist.  I might be asking a bit much as a free user, but its still a very important
consideration.

If Google loses this trust; this security; this reliability - won't it
hinder future adoption of Google's services?

1 comment:

  1. Wave is an awesome piece of technology, and it is in many ways a lot more useful than
    alternatives like a Google Doc, email, or chat. Hopefully elements of it will be integrated into other
    services.

    PowerMeter was something I looked forward to immensely. I hoped to have it
    somehow when it became bigger. So much for that.

    Health was very useful for keeping
    track of personal statistics (height, weight, sleep, etc.) as well as listing immunizations and such for the
    inevitable Health Report forms I would have to fill out. Google fails for referring all of us to Microsoft
    HealthVault, which sucks.

    ReplyDelete