Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker » Frustrated by Web 2.0's lack of multi-site integration

June 27, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Frustrated by Web 2.0's lack of multi-site integration

TAGS: Applications

I assume that if you read this blog then you spend a fair amount of your life online. Sadly some of us spend all our time connected to some screen, be it monitor, Crackberry, Treo or Tv. As such, I am always looking for ways to better manage my information and share things with my cohorts. Today I came to the realization that there is no simple way to manage all of your disparate stuff in one centralized manner. Nor is there a way to then collaborate with your cohorts on all of these things (wikis simply are not great for to-do lists.) I need to go beyond MyYahoo and get to MyDave where I have my vast array of crap centralized.

Case in point. I refuse to use Windows unless absolutely necessary. I came to the realization for the hundredth time that there are not many business viable unified email/PIM/calendar apps except Outlook (Lotus sucks, Novell is pointless) or Evolution on Linux (a little crashy for business users and then forces OpenOffice.org) Really, Outlook is what is maintaining Microsoft's stranglehold on the corporate desktop. On the Mac I use the not-really-well-integrated iCal, Address Book and Apple mail pretty much exclusively. It's not a great setup but it's usable. It's the browser-based applications that are killing me now. I have been a long-time user of both MyYahoo and Gmail and in bouts of self-flagellation am on and off with RSS readers...RSS is annoying to me in that I want to interact with the data as I do with sites like Backpack. Adding to the pain, today we decided to re-introduce Basecamp into the mix.

If you haven't seen any of the 37 Signals stuff, it's great. Easy to use, well-designed etc. But even they don't offer a completely integrated suite of all of their own apps. I need Basecamp integrated with MyYahoo and Salesforce.com to really be productive. I want all my stuff on one page at one URL, in sync across multiple computers and visible on my handheld. This was the promise of portals but it remains unfulfilled. It was actually my visit to Zimbra and their unbelievably well integrated application that made me so frustrated that this problem isn't being better addressed across the major players.

To me the big opportunity of Web 2.0 development is the ability to create a better user experience based on features etc. Instead we are ending up with a morass of social-networking, photo-sharing redundancy. And while much of this stuff is cool and potentially usable, it's not enough.

Dear Web 2.0 companies,

Please make us all more productive.

XOXO
-dave

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on June 27, 2006 09:36 PM

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