Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Dave? Is that you?

Saturday, August 06, 2011

I've been Googleized

Normally I like Google. I've been using their search engine since it first came out. I wasn't concerned as they acquired products I was already using like Picasa and You Tube, because Google either left them along or made subtle improvements. However, now I'm a bit perplexed. As part of the Google+ strategy all Google products are being more tightly integrated. While this is arguably a good thing the path to integration has so far been a bit bumpy.

For a couple of months I was receiving emails saying that my business account needed to be ported over to the NEW Google system. If I didn't do it for all my business account users (I'm the ONLY user) than it would happen automatically some time in the near future.  Since I'm the one user of the business account and I use the same email address for my personal Google account I didn't worry about it. Perhaps I should have. Turns out the "near future" was August 1. Starting this week, every time I logged in to Blogger or Picasa or Google+ (jury is still out on that one) I was told I would have to separate my personal and business accounts before I could use the product. Some of the products provided an easy upgrade path, as in "click here and you're done". Some times it even allowed me to upgrade other Google products at the same time. But not everything is that way. A product I use a lot is Blogger and it's causing me the most consternation.

I write or contribute to five different blogs using Blogger. I also write for three others using Word Press, but that's getting off topic. Any upgrades I do have to work across all the blogs. Blogger is not one of the products for which Google offers the automatic upgrade path. It must be done manually. There is a multi-page PDF file that explains how to do it, but the process is daunting. Currently I have to use a temporary log in account to access my material. I'm sure at some point Google will take that away so I'll have to get to the upgrade soon.

I'm all for progress and as one of my developer friends said yesterday, "The only constant on the internet is change." Still, it would be nice if the changes we're a bit more subtle and streamlined. But I guess there's a lot of work to do when you're trying to take down Facebook.