GOOGLE TOOLS – A PRODUCTIVITY GEM
GOOGLE TOOLS – A PRODUCTIVITY GEM
I know many of you probably have a Gmail account and may use Google Alerts and track your RSS feeds with Google Reader. But are you leveraging the wide array of Google tools to maximize your productivity?
I am currently having a “love affair” with Google tools as I find that the more I incorporate the web apps into my daily work activities, the more organized and productive I am. Here is why I am loving Google these days
I am tracking my work emails with a Gmail account and have actually added my other work emails via the POP tool into Google Mail to consolidate all my mail activity into one location.
I am then using Google Calendar to track my schedule, meetings, and urgent time-sensitive tasks. Google Calendar has a cool feature that delivers email alerts at 5am in the morning with your scheduled appointments and activities. From a multi-tasking standpoint, I like that I can be writing an email and then quickly jump into Google Calendar to update my schedule.
I then track all my spreadsheets and work documents with Google Docs, which again is nicely integrated into the Gmail Interface. I have all the VAs and contractors I work with use Google docs which enables us to quickly share and collaborate on documents.
Not to mention, you can track all RSS feeds with Google Reader, which makes it easy to review existing feeds and add new ones.
Now, I know there are many other great productivity tools and web apps on the market, but my personal opinion is that it is hard to match up against the integrated, user-friendly and easy to access elements of Google Tools.
In short, Google Tools ROCKS!
ARE YOU READY TO TELL GOOGLE BUZZ TO BUZZ OFF?
There s a new kid on the block in the world of Social Networks, and if you use Gmail, he s already living on your street! Google recently unveiled Google Buzz, a Social Network that s built right into Gmail. If you have a Gmail account, you might have noticed a colorful balloon that showed up on the left-hand side of the page – that s Buzz!
Google had some great ideas when they unveiled Buzz. Check out this YouTube video posted on the Official Google Blog to introduce Buzz:
Unfortunately, despite these good intentions, Buzz has caused some frustration among loyal Gmail users. For example, the blog post “Buzz off, Google: Social networks should always be opt-in, not opt-out” highlights the fact that all Gmail users were enrolled in Buzz without being asked first. Furthermore, Google automatically made a social graph of your most-emailed people and made sharing of that graph opt-out instead of opt-in. As this article explains, “it s super easy to miss the check box, and the default should always be the safest choice.”
In Google s defense, they listened to users feedback and have introduced some improvements. The Official Gmail Blog reports that the following changes have been made to Buzz:
1. There is a more visible option to not show followers/people you follow on your public profile.
2. You have the ability to block anyone who starts following you.
3. There is more clarity on which of your followers/people you follow can appear on your public profile.
Given Google s popularity and history of creating quality products, there is definitely the possibility that Google Buzz could someday rival Facebook and Twitter.
What do you think? Are you ready to tell Google Buzz to buzz off, or do you think Google can rise to the challenge of making Buzz the best Social Network around?
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