Over the last couple of months I've completed a couple of big software/service migrations:
1) I moved from using MS Outlook and a Hosted Microsoft Exchange service to Gmail for mail and Plaxo for calendar and contacts. The main incentive for the move was to be able to handle large volumes of email more efficiently and effectively, but also I didn't see the Outlook/Exchange solution keeping web trends and I see see things will only get worse rather than better (although I wish Xobni was around when I was an Outlook user). Here's a few specific items I listed off the top of my head.
- Basically unlimited storage (i.e. nearly 7GB and counting with Gmail). No need to worry about archiving.
- Tagging data rather than using folders (i.e. Gmail again)
- Web interface has option to remember password (I always have to enter with Outlook online)
- Online store integrates directly with web services (e.g import address book to social media services or sync with services like Plaxo). With Exchange everything has to go via Outlook or CSV.
- Toolbars and additional functionality in web interface (e.g. LinkedIn toolbar which displays a logo next to email sender's name so you can easily see there profile). Again with Exchange I have to go via Outlook.
- Mobile interface for email
- Auto linking addresses to maps
- Being able to publish a calendar (without using a desktop client like Outlook)
- Easily being able to create appointments from an email using web interface
The reasons I'm using Plaxo rather than Google for calendar and contacts are a) The Plaxo sync client for Windows Mobile works better than any of the Google sync clients I tried b) Managing contacts in Google is not user friendly and I haven't had much luck getting all my contacts into Google. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Google resolves these problems and gets my custom for these services too.
2) I moved from using Newsgator (after being a loyal user for many years) to Google Reader. I just didn't see enough innovation and new enhancements from Newsgator (as an individual user - I think they may be focusing on corporates). Although their FeedDemon software is functionally very nice, everything these days happens in the browser. When it came down to it - I just wasn't able to keep pace with the volume of feeds I wanted to read. Now in Google Reader I'm catching up and adding more feeds. I have 10,000+ unread posts to catch up on, but I'm skim reading the latest posts and forgetting the rest. There are still some enhancements I'd like to see in Google Reader though:
- Sharing groups (i.e. Can share a specific items with a predefined group of friends)
- Easier ways to find friends using Google Reader (currently it's somewhat strangely dependent on whether they are contacts in Google Chat)
- One click subscribe (without leaving site you are viewing) or add tags & confirm in pop-up window
- Easier tagging (Comma separated input with auto-suggestion)
- Renaming tags
- Get RSS feeds, blog rolls and 'clips' for tag combinations (and, or, not)
- Better filtering in subscriptions management page (Currently does a fuzzy match of a number of fields which is sometimes not desirable)
- Collapse All option in folders list
- Auto resizing large pictures in blog entries so they fit within one screen + link to full size version
- Tag groups (Is there a best practice organization or standard for tagging?)
- Google toolbar of Firefox button that shows whether you are already subscribed to the feed of the page you are viewing (a la Google Bookmark button for Google Toolbar)
- Starring feeds (Currently you can only star posts. I created a !!!FavoriteFeeds tag to work around this though.
- Finally I sense that there would be some benefit of integration between bookmarks and feeds. For example, it would be useful to be able to browse the feeds from all sites you have bookmarked and be able to subscribe. Conversely, it would be useful to automatically see bookmarks for the sites belonging to the feeds you are following. Similar enhancements could apply for Google History too. (Del.icio.us still has may custom for bookmarks but I'm sensing it may only be a matter of time until I switch to Google for bookmarks too).
- NEW (2008/05/08): Mark items as read from Google Reader 'Home' page.
- NEW (2008/05/08): Subscribe to feed but automatically mark all posts as read (Usefull for blogs you want in your blogroll and in Reader search results, but with new posts not popping up all the time).
It takes a little while to migrate to a new service, get things organized and get over the learning curve so that your productivity equals and then surpasses the service you were previously using. For services you only use a little it's not such a big issue, but for mission critical services you use every day like email, calendar, contacts and news it can be challenging so it's important to time and plan the move. This is just for a one person business. I can understand why it's difficult for larger organizations to change so fast.
2008-09-04 Update: I've since moved to Google Calendar rather than Plaxo Calendar. Plaxo still has my contacts but I see this as temporary until Google comes out with something better. With the new release of Picasa 3 and PicasaWeb I may also end up moving my Photos from Flickr to Google. I basically don't have a lot of hope that Flickr will do as many innovative and interesting things, and using Yahoo! maps really kills it for me as their maps of Japan are basically non-existent. With the release of the Google Chrome web browser Google are getting a bigger and bigger share of all my computing activities.
2009-08-01 Update: Newsgator announced they are going to drop their own online reader and sync with Google Reader. I'm sure I had that on my wishlist somewhere :-) This brings lots of good alternative offline reading options to Google Reader.
