Moving off Google to Google.
Google Apps excited the heck out of me from the day it was announced. The prospect of being able to manage my own domain on the world class Google stack of services for free was too good to pass by. By and large it's far exceeded my expectations and been a fast, safe, cost-effective method for managing my email and setting up business applications. But it falls apart when you start to step outside of the prescribed set of services and use some of the more cutting edge Google offerings like Adwords, Google Voice, Android and Google+ (none of which rolled out with support for Google Apps).
Most of the new services Google provided didn't initially integrate with Google Apps accounts and there was never (that I knew of) any roadmap to let Google Apps users know when they'd be able to join in on the fun. So, if you were like me and wanted to get in early you'd just use a Gmail account that gave you carte blanche access to all that Google had to offer. All the while not realizing that you'd been snared in a trap of wasted time, confusion and hassle when 'The Goog' finally let Google Apps users integrate with their rest of the population.
Let's say you registered a Google Voice account on your Gmail account before they allowed Google Apps accounts to register phone numbers. You had to register a mobile number with that account. Guess what, that's a permanent decision. You cannot remove the number, only replace it. Which means you have to figure out how to provide an alternative number for that account so you could transfer the mobile over to your Google Apps account. This problem exists whether you registered with Gmail first or later with Google Apps, but it's indicative of the problem of entanglement that having multiple parallel personal accounts on Google causes. If I'd just used their system for id and didn't try to get clever with my own personal identity then I would never have gotten into that situation.
Finally it dawned on me that while Google Apps is a great service for businesses and organizations who benefit from the powerful and vast infrastructure provided on Google, but for individuals who wish to participate in the full range of Google offerings that it's not a good choice. The Gmail account is just that, an account on Gmail. I have user names on Facebook, Twitter and a thousand other sites that don't provide the same level of service that Google provides and I haven't confused my personal accounts with their internal system of identity. Why did I expect Google to be different?
I will continue to host my personal just3ws.com domain on Google Apps, because it's an awesome way to handle my email. But pretty much everything else will be moved back over to my just3ws@gmail.com account. This way I don't have to worry about which account is which and what services I can access with Gmail and which with my personal email. They all just go through the one-true Google identity: Gmail.
Now I just need to figure out how to deregister my mobile phone from my Google Voice account! :P
Most of the new services Google provided didn't initially integrate with Google Apps accounts and there was never (that I knew of) any roadmap to let Google Apps users know when they'd be able to join in on the fun. So, if you were like me and wanted to get in early you'd just use a Gmail account that gave you carte blanche access to all that Google had to offer. All the while not realizing that you'd been snared in a trap of wasted time, confusion and hassle when 'The Goog' finally let Google Apps users integrate with their rest of the population.
Let's say you registered a Google Voice account on your Gmail account before they allowed Google Apps accounts to register phone numbers. You had to register a mobile number with that account. Guess what, that's a permanent decision. You cannot remove the number, only replace it. Which means you have to figure out how to provide an alternative number for that account so you could transfer the mobile over to your Google Apps account. This problem exists whether you registered with Gmail first or later with Google Apps, but it's indicative of the problem of entanglement that having multiple parallel personal accounts on Google causes. If I'd just used their system for id and didn't try to get clever with my own personal identity then I would never have gotten into that situation.
Finally it dawned on me that while Google Apps is a great service for businesses and organizations who benefit from the powerful and vast infrastructure provided on Google, but for individuals who wish to participate in the full range of Google offerings that it's not a good choice. The Gmail account is just that, an account on Gmail. I have user names on Facebook, Twitter and a thousand other sites that don't provide the same level of service that Google provides and I haven't confused my personal accounts with their internal system of identity. Why did I expect Google to be different?
I will continue to host my personal just3ws.com domain on Google Apps, because it's an awesome way to handle my email. But pretty much everything else will be moved back over to my just3ws@gmail.com account. This way I don't have to worry about which account is which and what services I can access with Gmail and which with my personal email. They all just go through the one-true Google identity: Gmail.
Now I just need to figure out how to deregister my mobile phone from my Google Voice account! :P