LinkedIn, FaceBook, Blogger, Twitter, Jaiku…these days it’s not unusual for web workers to maintain membership in multiple online communities. The problem with this is that at some point you hit a level of diminishing returns: you can spend so much time managing and maintaining your online identity that you can’t actually get any work done or remember which contacts you met where. As always, one person’s problem is another’s opportunity, and now we’re seeing a number of attempts at identity aggregation: sites and services that promise one-stop management of all of your social networking. Here are three of the players in this new space.
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Recently, Google rolled out a new look for its Google Docs & Spreadsheets software application … not exactly a major upgrade, as the tools themselves remain the same, but it’s still a new interface for organizing your documents.
Google Docs is beginning to emerge as a productive tool for the web worker, and today we’ll take a look at some ways to make the most of it.
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Now here’s a welcome surprise for my fellow AT&T wireless customers who aren’t on, or planning to be on, an iPhone line today. According to Wired, Endgadget, and this Howard Forums thread AT&T has flipped a switch on this fine iPhone launch day, and EDGE download speeds are considerably faster. Some are reporting a pretty dramatic increase. Makes sense, given that the #1 reviewer complaint on the iPhone seems to center around the slow EDGE data.
Of course, EDGE itself is as fast as it’s going to get. It’s no 3G. But if AT&T is doing whatever they need to do on their end to squeeze every last drop of bandwidth out of it who are we to complain? Let’s just hope that it isn’t a temporary burst.
I can’t accurately test on my Blackberry, but I do perceive a difference this morning. DSL reports has a mobile test application that works well on Windows Mobile devices. (via a tweet from Steve Rubel)
Are you phone-surfing a little faster this morning?
I’m scratching my head over Google’s latest money-burning effort in which they plan to lure more gadget developers with the promise of cash. The first part of it sounds okay; they’re going to reward successful developers and lure new hopefuls with grants of $5,000 a piece for further development:
The program will provide two kinds of funding. First, we’ll invite promising gadget developers (individuals or businesses) to apply for $5,000 grants to fund further development. These are not loans or equity investments; they’re simply grants for gadgets that already have a thriving user base and we think have potential for even more improvement. To be considered for a grant, your gadget needs to have more than 250,000 pageviews per week, and you need to provide a one-page proposal on how you’d like to improve your gadget. This is a no-strings-attached grant; we won’t ask for repayment of any kind. We simply ask that you work on your project in good faith.
I guess if you’re sitting on billions of cash, why not buy developers for your platform? That part makes sense. But they’re also offering bigger bucks to those who bet their business on gadgets — or who fortuitously develop a business with a “large Google Gadget component.”
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An anonymous blog entry, “Life at Google - the Microsoftie Perspective,” has been widely linked in developer circles in recent days. It purports to be a report by a Microsoft manager of an interview with an ex-Google employee, comparing the working environment at those two high-tech powerhouses. Let me throw a third data point into the comparison: the life of the independent web-working consultant.
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Even the most dedicated telecommuter must make occasional forays into the Real Office. Whether you go in once a week or once a quarter, making the most of your face time is critical. Here are five ways to do that.
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Let’s add another category to the different ways you can be a web worker: franchise ownership. New Internet-based management systems allow franchise owners to manage their brick-and-mortar stores from a distance or run a franchise business as a side job alongside another career:
The franchising world is letting loose. Gone are the days of one owner being chained behind the counter of a single store day in, day out. Today, there are absentee owners who oversee their operations from laptops and Treos, and owners who maintain dual careers or run multiple franchises. At Hollywood Tanning Systems Inc., more than half of the 330 franchise owners have another job. The chief executive of Sport Clips Inc. hair salons estimates that 10 hours a week is a “generous allowance” for owners to physically be in stores. And franchisees for the Decor&You Inc. interior-design business can receive decorating and product training at home whenever they like via online video seminars. [The Wall Street Journal, subscription required]
This is classic web workerhood: using information technology to work in more flexible ways than you could before, picking the geography and set of income streams that suit you. What makes this possible? Internet-based applications that support tracking sales from a distance, replenishing inventory automatically, and online training in business processes.
Of course running a franchise successfully requires a ton of hard work and know-how, especially if you want to do it remotely or as a side job (or both!) There are many resources online for would-be franchisees including Entrepreneur.com’s Franchise Zone and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Guide to Buying a Franchise.
We’ve all devoted a tremendous amount of effort to figuring out how to move forward in this new world of web work. Ask us to set up a laptop or organize a task list or find a way to network with our peers and we’ve got a pretty good idea how to get started. But some other parts of the web work story are less clear. For instance, have you ever thought about the ethics of web work? That is, how do you know what behavior is right and wrong in this new sort of workplace?
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