I bet you love the Google Apps as much as I do. (And, maybe like me, you at times hate them?!?)
I especially love the popular ones the Google apps. Gmail. Drive. Alerts. Search. Analytics. Images. Calendar.
There are many that I personally (and professionally) use every day. I hate when I rely too much on them. With all the power and nuances of apps within the apps, it's easy to make them part of your daily work process. Do you use the features inside Drive with Docs, Presentation, Sheets and more. Docs is how I was able to write my Branding & Marketing book called Simple Steps, Big Results. It made it so simple to collaborate!
I want to embrace them all. But I have to continue to remind myself that there are downsides to these FREE apps as well.
- "If it's a free service, YOU are the product." I think we are all familiar with this concept. Sometimes just giving your email to get a white paper or article and instead, you realize you've downloaded the "lead magnet". Using a product or service is even more. But RELYING on it. Well, that leads me to the next downside:
- Sometimes free services sometimes dry up and go away. Who remembers Google Wave? Buzz? Google Places? Google Local? Feedburner? (This one refuses to be discarded!)
- Sometimes the Google version isn't nearly what other free competitors provide. (Google Sites, Google's Blogger and BlogSpot, vs WordPress.) Getting used to working with a Google app makes it harder to switch to something that is actually better. I started this blog in Blogger in 2006 and moved it 2 1/2 years later into WordPress. I'm thankful that I did, but it was definitely a process to move all those posts and photos at that time! (Now it's much easier with import/export!)
I am reminded that in just a few days, Google Plus will be a thing of the past. Of course I have a G+ account. One for me professionally, one personally, one for the business... etc. Hmm. I found that it never grew like say Linked In or Twitter. But because it was Google, I filled out the account and posted.
Since Google Plus shuts down April 2, this becomes just the latest Google app to be discontinued. If you have a lot of content, you'll want to beat the rush and start on March 31 to download and offload your content.
Google Apps - the Pros and Cons
