Among the providers of online hosted applications that appeal to web workers, I don’t know of any players who provide quite as diversified sets of tools as Google and Zoho. As noted at Mashable, Zoho has now launched a new service called Zoho Status, designed to show uptime and performance metrics for all of Zoho’s individual applications.
The metrics Zoho provides are quite detailed. After taking a look, I’d say that all applications hosted online could benefit from this level of kimono-opening.
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In these tough economic times, it’s never a bad thing to trim our spending. Last month, Aliza Sherman asked us how much we spend on web apps, and while some claimed to spend nothing at all, there were others who paid more than $100 each month. Although web apps are a necessary part of our work, it’s still important to keep our overhead expenses as low as possible without sacrificing the benefits we receive from these paid apps.
Know your needs and the true value of your purchase
We should take a look at the features the free app offers and see whether they’re enough for our needs. Other criteria you might want to consider include the ease of the interface, reliability of service, and the kind of value it brings to your web work.
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As I search high and low for tools to make my work easier, more efficient and more productive, I start having dreams about the Perfect Web App. I become obsessed, thinking through the details of the features, functionality and even toying with names.
Unfortunately, I’m not a programmer, so the ideas for these apps simply take up valuable space in my brain. So I thought I’d do a brain dump of a few of them to make some space. When someone actually comes up with a Web App that gives you more brain capacity, let me know. I’ll sign up for the beta. But until then, here are two of the apps I wish existed (and if they do, please point me to them).
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If you’re like us here at WWD, you may have been wondering if Google was ever going to do anything with JotSpot…a company Google acquired over a year ago. Now we know. According to blogger Andrew Miller who attended a Google presentation in Ann Arbor (of all places), JotSpot’s technology will be the foundation for the new & improved Google Page Creator Sites.
Other tidbits of info from Miller’s blog post on the presentation include:
Wider rollout of Google Gears for offline app access, addressing one of the biggest issues around storing one’s entire productive life on a remote server. Ironic that Google isn’t the first to bring offline support to documents or tasks using their own Gears plug-in. Better late than never.
Integration of GrandCental into other Google apps is a “huge priority.” All well and good..as long as they don’t fundamentally change the service by siphoning off the technology into smaller pieces they only apply to other apps.
K.I.S.S. philosophy remains. Seems obvious enough, but still nice to have confirmation. Google apps will never have everything-but-the-kitchen-sink bloat.
