Astrid Shutting Down, Yahoo! To Blame

Earlier today, popular todo list manager Astrid was bought by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Is giving Astrid’s 4 million users 90 days to continue using the service and to export their todo lists. The ability to purchase a premium account has been permanently suspended. According to the original announcement, refunds will be given out to those who purchased an Astrid service.

It’s a shame that such a great service was acquired and then shut down. I really enjoyed Astrid. In fact, Astrid was the only todo list manager that really stuck with me. I guess for now I’ll go back to paper and maybe give Wunderlist another go.

I can’t help but feel like I should blame Yahoo! for this. Lately, Yahoo! has been shutting down some of their services in order to ‘trim the fat’. This has been happening ever since Marissa Mayer , whom I have a great deal of respect for by the way, joined the Yahoo! team. While I believe that this is an overall good goal for Mrs.Mayer, I’m not sure that it’s enough. Yahoo! isn’t exactly known for its great services and innovations. While the acquisition of Astrid might mean that Yahoo! will be releasing their own todo list manager, or incorporating it into one of their products, I don’t think that it will be quite as good as Astrid was. Had it been any other company, I don’t think I would be as disappointed since at least Astrid would have a future. As I see it, Yahoo! is on life support, and we just need to pull the plug before they kill anything else that people love.

Why I’m Going Google Free

When most people go on the internet, what do you think one of their first pages open is? If you said Google, then you get a gold star! Let’s face it, nowadays Google isn’t just something on the internet, Google IS the internet.

Google is a central place that owns all of your information. Do you use Google+? Cool, Google owns your vacation photos to the Bahamas. What about an Android phone? Yep, Google knows who you called, when you called them, and they know what it’s about. I don’t care who you are, that’s really creepy. The best part about Google having your information is that they sell it to companies. I mean, who wouldn’t want all of their personal information such as browsing history, personal photos, and phone messages shared with unknown companies?

Okay, okay. Google isn’t all bad. Just for a minute, I’m going to put the privacy policy aside and look at the actual products. I have to admit that they have some of the best products. For example, Gmail is the king of internet email. Nobody can beat it in terms of features and compatibility. And Google Voice is the only thing of its kind (well, that I’ve discovered anyway). However, Google hasn’t been innovating as of late, besides Google Glass of course. Google Glass, in my opinion, is pretty much a $1500 risky, privacy invading investment that may or may not be successful.

Let’s take a look at Google Keep. It’s a note taking application that syncs between your desktop and phone, but only if it’s an android device running ICS 4.0.3 or higher. It’s a shameless Evernote clone that doesn’t have nearly as many features. If Google is going to rip of something, they should at least make it better. Also, Evernote is available on nearly every platform, not just Android 4.0.3 or higher.

Now let’s talk about the elephant in the room (besides the elephant on the Evernote logo), Google Reader. I’m not going to lie, I never really got into Google Reader. It’s always been one of those “oh hey! I’m a feature of Google that lots of people love”. That’s not to say that the closing of Reader isn’t one of the reasons I’m leaving. Google shutting down Reader seemed rather unnecessary and it makes me wonder what beloved service they’re going to shut down next. Who knows? Maybe Google Voice is on that list.

So here’s what I’m going to do. Over the next couple of months, (let’s have July 1st be my deadline in honor of Reader) I’m going to be dropping Google. I’ve already dropped search for DuckDuckGo and I use App.Net and Twitter for my social networking needs. The hardest part of leaving is going to be Gmail, and Google Voice.

Have you tried leaving Google or are thinking about it? Sound off in the comments and tell me about your experience with going Google-free.

 

Gram: What is it and what does it mean for the future of WebOS?

Ever since the death of WebOS, fanboys have been wondering what was going to happen to their beloved mobile operating system. Their first ray of sunshine came from a project called “Open WebOS”. This was great and all until it was announced that none of the current WebOS hardware would be supported. Fanboys went back to installing Android on their Touchpads and hoping that one day WebOS would be resurrected from the dead. Well today is that day folks. HP sent around a flyer to their employees about Gram. The flyer describes Gram as “Potent. Light. Nimble. At the core of all things big and small”. This could suggest that Gram will be used on phones (small) and tablets (big). Although, it doesn’t look as if Gram (or HP for that matter) will be producing the hardware. Gram describes itself strictly as a software company, and it appears that HP will be making Windows 8 tablets (which hopefully will be better than the TouchPad). That leads us to ask, who is going to manufacture phones for Gram?

Photo from Web OS Nation

Gram also sent out an email to WebOS employees. Web OS Nation managed to get their hands on a copy of it.

 
Hi everyone,

Thank you for all of your enthusiasm at yesterday’s new brand announcement: GRAM. We hope you will fall in love with the brand just as lots of us have already.

Please note that our Mission, Values and Plan of Action are the same. We are continuing to march forward on our timelines as usual—nothing new there.

We have much work to do, and, again, I solicit your help.
Yes, this is a new brand—it is just the beginning, and there is so much more to do. And yet unveiling the new brand is also a Call to Action:

Try it on. We don’t expect you to love it overnight. We are no longer a consumer hardware brand, we are a different company with focus on software, User Experience, Cloud, engineering and partnering. This change in identity will take some getting used to and that’s normal.

Stealth mode. We are an incubation company, and we are trusting you to keep this company name and product under the radar to give it time to take root and grow. You can wear the logo, help build the momentum of the new identity, talk to your families and friends about it. If someone from the outside asks, you can say, “GRAM is a new company. We are in stealth mode on our product offering.”

Tap your network. Help us hire the best and the brightest, refer your friends and help us in our shared purpose as we continue our rise to the top. You can use the name to help us to recruit.

Be the culture. Spread our Values: People Matter. Integrity and Trust. Deliberate Innovation. Act small, deliver big.

For those of you who could not attend yesterday’s unveiling – we really missed you. Please be on the lookout for the gift bags with our new cool branded items, which we be mailing out to you this and next week. All of you should get one, if not – let me know.

Best
Martin

Gram is going to have to do a lot in order to solidify themselves as a contender to iOS and Android. It has taken Microsoft years in order to control a small percent of mobile computing and lets face it, Blackberry is done. Gram will also have to contend with the newcomer Mozilla who is developing Firefox OS. I wish Gram the best of luck and I hope that they create something amazing!

Have any thoughts about Gram? Sound off in the comments.