Yet Another Google Tool

[jducoeur]

Google continues to quietly roll out their versions of everyone else's applications. And while their product names aren't very imaginative, they do usually get the point across. Today's example is Google Shared Stuff. It's more or less a dumbed-down version of del.icio.us: at the moment, all it allows you to do is create your page of "shared stuff" -- basically, links.

It doesn't do much yet: it doesn't even appear to have tags, which I think of as the most primitive feature of such systems. OTOH, it *does* have social networking right out of the gate -- it shows you the Shared Stuff of people you know. That, in turn, is rather interesting: my best guess is that "people you know" means your address book, which implies that they are mining the address book for social-networking purposes. Also, they provide a front end for the other major link-sharing services, as well as making it easy to mail links to friends on Google. And I assume that, in usual Google fashion, they will gradually add more features to the thing until it actually becomes useful.

Anyway, I've put in one link, just to try it out (the tutorial for the Oz language, since I had the page sitting around). I encourage friends to play with it, so I can see what it is like to see other peoples' Stuff...

Comments

Seriously

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

While I like the down-to-earthness, I guess, they really couldn't think of a better name than "Shared Stuff"?

Re: Seriously

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

BTW, I don't know your Google username...

I get the impression(and I'm sure this is no big insight here) the deal with them rolling out everyone else's stuff isn't just the whole "we ownz ur data" thing, but it gets everyone to use Google and peer pressure others to use Google, even if they don't want Gmail or whatever, for convenience's sake. Witness my request, for example, that other baronial officers get a Gmail login so that I can share documents and calendars with them privately.

Of course, the convenience of a monopoly brings us toward the dangers of a monopoly...

Re: Seriously

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

Our Gmail logins are the same as our LJ logins. :)

Re: Seriously

[jducoeur]

Yep, absolutely. They're playing the network-effects game masterfully, by interlinking their applications, so it gets more powerful the more you buy into their ecology. Which is, of course, exactly what Microsoft does as well.

And I'm jducoeur pretty much everywhere. I've stopped bothering to pick up that handle on every single system I see, but it's what I use when possible, and I do tend to claim it on any system that I might someday care about...