The mission of Google is to organise the world’s data; well, it’s dawned on me that they are doing a jolly good job with mine… I’ve been using Google as my search engine since it was launched.
I’ve been using Gmail as my secondary email account for a year or two. I use GoogleTalk as my main instant messaging protocol as it’s the only IM client I have been able to install and get to work through draconian corporate firewalls at my last two employers.
I’m now using Google Calendar as my electronic diary as I can add/edit/update from both home and work, and iCal can sync with it – although sadly only one way. Apple really needs to add a web app interface of the quality of their new web mail to iCal for .Mac users.
I’ve just started using the updated Google Reader as my RSS feed reader, as I can have a single set of RSS feeds that I can read at both home and work.
Update: since I started writing this, I’ve stopped using Google Reader as it was just too slow. I’m using Newsfire again on my Macs, but being frustrated by the lack of syncing between my Macs, let alone with an online, visible version at work. I hope that Google will create or open up an API for Google Reader that will allow offline RSS readers to sync with Google Reader. I know that NetNewsWire and NewsGator will do this, but I like neither the online or offline part of that equation. I may go back to Google Reader yet.
So let’s see… I’m using five, yes five, Google products. So just how much of my data is now sitting in Google’s server farms? Possibly a little too much. With the exception of the whole China censorship thing, I ‘trust’ Google as a corporate entity, but I’m still starting to feel a little uneasy about how much of my data is ‘out there’ in the Googleverse…
So what is the solution? Stay offline? Don’t use web apps? Use multiple providers of web apps? Be careful what data you keep online in somebody else’s application.