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?
So I Came Up With This Really Great Idea
Not too long ago, Gabor came up with an idea - Throw out IMAP. As anyone that has ever had to fiddle with email settings should know, IMAP is an email transfer protocol. It allows a client to communicate with a server and keep email data synchronized between the two. It was a good idea for its time (1994), but now its old and is no longer as well suited to email tasks as it should be.
Think about it. How much has email changed in the last twenty years? Not a lot, if any. The most revolutionary features are GMail's labels and Gmail/Outlook's server-side email rules/filter settings. To me, this is ridiculous. I was born in 1991, played around on the internet when it was on dialup, and had a free Juno account when I was old enough.
Since then I'd moved through Yahoo, Hotmail, and finally rested on Gmail. But all-in-all, everything is still pretty much the same. It was because of this that Gabor's idea to scrap IMAP really intrigued me. I wanted this. Google and Microsoft had both come up with newer, proprietary synchronization standards, and creating a new, open protocol would be the way to usher in a new age of compatibility and extensible feature sets.
Since this initial bit of intrigue, I've spent some time working on protocol documentation whenever I can get a bit motivated and have some spare time to do so. I continue to push my creativity and find new things to throw in to the protocol, ideas that wouldn't have to be there when the first part hits, but that its extensibility would make possible. Ideas such as receiving push notifications from web services, that could also be synced to mobile devices through the protocol, or using OpenID as a base and creating a new single-login/password system that uses your email address., or even ideas such as being able to query an email server for a person's contact information, and store/update it in a syncable address book.
Once we leave the defining bounds of IMAP and proprietary protocols like Exchange, we can really start work on building something terrific that would allow a flood of innovation that email has never seen before.
Unfortunately, my voice is small - and is very largely unheard. I can't even get Gabor, the original creator of this idea to @mention me on twitter regarding it anymore, and so I've been stuck working on it by myself.
So yes, this is a call to action, and I do so hope that you'll oblige me. I need help revolutionizing email. I can't do it all on my own, and the protocol being open is the important part. I need other people's ideas, not just my own. I need their thoughts and their knowledge. I'm only a college student after all, and as much as I'd like to do this all by myself and use it as my claim to fame - I'd much rather just be a person that helped start and organize it and get things moving.
So please, join me in discussing my ideas, submitting your own, and if you feel like it even work on defining the protocol!
Please join the discussion on 'MSAP' at Google Groups.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas.
Making Google Analytics Work in XHTML
I was moving my website, Google Voice for Outlook, over from HTML5 to XHTML5 today, and as soon as I did the basic content negotiation filters in PHP so that it would send the appropriate headers if the client supported XHTML as well as only outputting the <?xml if the client supported XHTML, I checked my developer tools to find a JavaScript error. It was Google Analytics, of course. document.write doesn’t exist in XHTML, after all.
The fix was simple, replace the current four line inclusion code with:
<script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); var script = document.createElement("script"); script.src = gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js"; script.type = "text/javascript"; document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(script); </script>
This will work fine, unless of course you have no head tag. In which case you should replace getElementsByTagName(“head”) with getElementsByTagName(“html”).
Beautiful New YouTube Video Player
I was going through my YouTube subscriptions when a video from BGSU popped up, and it struck me as odd because it had a different and much, much more beautiful video player. At the moment, it seems all videos from BGSU are showing up using this player (on their individual video page). From what I can tell, this seems to be the normal for all YouTube EDU videos. I hope that soon we’ll get to see these for all videos.
Google Voice is still Lacking
I’ve been a religious Google Voice user for awhile now, so it really bothers me that it is still lacking feature wise. Of course, I’ve been helping with some of these missing features (re: Google Voice for Outlook) but there are still plenty more missing as well as some minor issues I have with the service.
Multimedia Messaging (MMS)
For some reason, Google Voice still lacks this functionality. It can’t be THAT difficult, can it? I mean, the iPhone managed to add it before Google Voice, and if you really want to compete in the mobile business, its kind of necessary to have MMS, as SMS is pretty much irrelevant now.
Not only that, but any MMS that is sent to a Google Voice number is just lost. Couldn’t they at least be forwarded to my email address? I don’t like the fact that I could be losing incoming messages to /dev/null, and its even more annoying having to give out two different phone numbers (one for MMS and one for SMS).
Shortcodes
It is all well and good that Google’s own shortcodes work through Google Voice, but not so fantastic that nobody else’s does. I don’t want to be passing around two sets of phone numbers, and I’d love the ability to just set to spam a shortcode that is getting out of hand and won’t let me unsubscribe (if that ever happens). Developers pay tons of money to set up shortcodes, so why doesn’t Google Voice support them?
API
Google Voice is a Service. I use it with my cell, with my home phone, and with my computer. But in order to make desktop apps or things like Google Voice for Outlook possible, an API is almost necessary. I’ve managed to do it without one, but it still pretty much sucks.
Outlook Mobile Service
Companies charge tons of money for people to have the ability to send text messages through Microsoft Outlook. Adding the very simplistic SOAP server to the Google Voice backend would allow anyone with Microsoft Office to send text messages, forward emails, and receive reminders and notifications for FREE, something that is usually charged 10 cents or more per message. (Combine this with MMS as mentioned above, and it gets EVEN BETTER!)
Internet Fax Service
Google Voice already has “Receive Faxes” as a “Suggest a Feature.” Adding this and providing users on computers a way to send faxes would increase productivity and make the service even more useful to small companies and freelancers.
Keep in mind, these are just a few ways that Google could improve Google Voice, there are tons more.
What do you want to see added?
How Google Could Change The Industry (And Take Over Your Life)
So, the one thing that you’ll find on any and all news websites who are of any quality at all would be the brand new Google Phone, the Nexus One – the one device that’s making me cringe and go “WHY DIDNT I CREATE A YOUTUBE SHOW BEFORE NOW?” Since, you know, just about every single YouTube partner has gotten a free Nexus One. FEEL MY ENVY, YOUTUBERS.
But, there is definitely one thing that could be different. One thing that they could change the entire industry with. And all they’d have to do is partner up with cell phone providers, and convince them to let you get an account without a phone number.
What? What’s that Navarr? You’re absolutely INSANE! You can’t get a cell phone without a cell phone number? Why would you want to? What possible use could that be? What would you do??
Well, if you really are asking all those questions, than shut the hell up and think for a moment. What two things does Google own that would allow them to do something so spectacularly crazy?
Google Voice, and Gizmo5. Gizmo5 would only be necessary if they decided to do Voice over Data, which I personally am not sure the cell phone backend is ready for – but could you imagine purchasing a Nexus One, signing in with your Google (apps?) Account, and then if you already have Google Voice it simply works? And if you don’t it gets you started on creating an account, including choosing your own phone number (for life, although changeable).
Google would store your basic account numbers and information, and if you ever wanted a new android phone, you would simply log in. It’d automatically use your phone number and all your other details, too.
Maybe though, just maybe Google could do this – and make actual cellular calling free, with the only thing you’re paying for being data.
Quickly Romanize Japanese using Google Translate
For those starting to learn Japanese, you may be stuck trying to figure out how to pronounce some new Kanji you just found (at least, in their current sentence). Normally, you’d have to look in a Jisho (Dictionary) and try to figure out how they might be modified in their current form. Luckily, Google Translate is much, much more helpful.
Just plug in the Japanese, tell it to translate from Japanese to Japanese, and then click the “Show Romanization” button and voila! You have instant Romanization of your unknown kanji. Of course, in order for you to make use of Google’s output, you might need to know some language constructs.
For example, in the image above we see Google says “Ganba~tsu te” where we had “頑張って.” Knowing how っ works, we’re able to deduce that Google meant Ganbatte.
Google Voice OMS Code on Github
I pushed the 子猫ちゃん Google Voice OMS service’s code to github, so you can now download it – albeit, to make it work it’ll take a lot of hacking and a lot more editing.
Either way, I’ve gotten no donations and no offers for free SSL hosting, so it looks like this project just will not be seeing the light of day. It’s a shame, I worked a long time to make it work, and it’s obviously something a lot of business professionals would be able to find a use for.
Oh well, you can find the project on github.
Remember to abide by the Usage License!
Google Voice in Outlook
EDIT: I managed to bring this into being thanks to other people generously letting it run on their servers (though unfortunately I can't vouch for the security). You can check it out at http://www.gvoms.com.
Additionally, I've also made the source code available over at https://github.com/navarr/Google-Voice-OMS
If you’re a regular reader to my blog, I’m sure you read yesterday’s post about how Google Voice could gain a head in the business world. At that time, my dream of connecting Google Voice and Outlook via OMS was far from completion, with the only work I’d managed to accomplish being a simple reading over of the related technologies.
Well, late last night a certain gear clicked in my brain, and I spent the entire night awake and coding PHP on a local XAMPP server. But my end result was fruitful – I finished successfully coding an Outlook Mobile Service that allows the delivery of SMS through the Google Voice system.
Here is a video showing it off:
I’m not yet prepared to release the source code for this, though. (Messy, Messy, Mess! as Double D would say). There’s a lot in my mind about it, it took a lot of work and I’m not ready to see forks and duplicate services pop up. (Sorry guys =S). Be on the look out for follow up posts that describe some of the technologies I had to learn to make this possible.
Oh, also – If you’d like; Help sponsor this project (I can’t afford to make it public ATM) with either Free (VERIFIED) SSL Hosting for a subdomain of a domain I own [contact me], or the money to make it public using my current host ($62.40/yr) [donate through my host]. I would be most appreciative if you could offer either of these to get this thing up and running!
How Google Voice Could Gain a Head in the Business World
Google Voice, albeit still in Beta, is a very popular Google application for creating a single phone number to manage all your phones, with texting, and times to ring and not ring them. It’s very powerful.
One of the nicest additions is the ability to read and reply to SMS on your computer. I, personally, find this one of Google Voice’s best features. Even if you don’t have a Cell Phone – you can sign up for Google Voice and now you have free texting. What could be better?
Well, I can think of one thing – Connecting it with Outlook
Outlook has, in the last few versions, supported adding a SMS Bridge using whatever protocol it is they use in addition to a MAPI store. It wouldn’t be very hard for Google Voice to tap into this, and provide free text messages for all Outlook Users – It would even gain a competitive edge over other service providers, in that your text messages from outlook would come from your actual phone number, and replies to them would be sent to your computer and your phones.
Now, I was going to be mean and keep this idea all to myself – but not only do I NOT have hosting with SSL (I can’t afford it~) but I don’t know anything about the various protocols I would need to know in order to make this work.
So Google, don’t you think it’s time to take the Business World by storm with your revolutionary phone service?
(PS: I would also like MMS. Even the iPhone got it before you did, and that’s sad.)