This blog has moved!

After being on Blogspot for the last few years and running into some issues it was time to finally move it over to WordPress and link it to my own domain in the meantime as well. I will leave my old blog here intact to ensure links to it aren’t broken but new updates will not appear on there.

Hope to see you on http://FemkeGoedhart.com in the future!

Google Apps & advertising

Stumbled upon a blogs on Google Apps today that mentioned ads in Google Mail even for payed business accounts. Now this got me wondering as I always figured the adds would automatically be turned off once you bought a licensed account but apparently this is not the case. The domain admin can disable it but by default it is on, even for payed accounts.

Reading this help description on how to disable this I couldn't help but notice the little text about Web Clips that won't be disabled with that setting and that can apparently still contain sponsored links...



Ok, yes you can individually disable the Web Clips on a mailbox but I can't seem to find anything about disabling this for a full domain so if that is the case Google Ads are sneaking their way into their corporate clients domains anyway.

Interesting! Especially as the (paying) customer doesn't seem to get the revenue for the ads being shown in their corporate environment as far as I can see. Seems like Google is making money off their corporate accounts twice. Once for the licenses they sell them and once for the ads & sponsored links they show them.... smart cookies.

Or am I missing the point here?

Deleted tweet and heated discussions

Ok, this one just rubbed me the wrong way.

Yesterday I followed a heated twitter discussion between @MatNewman and @APACloud (Andy Pattinson - ProQuest) on Lotus Notes vs Google Mail.
I'm always interested to learn what makes/breaks the products I work with so I followed the twitter exchange although I must say it all got rather direct... (nasty?)

What I mostly got from it was that it wasn't a real discussion. Mat, asking (in his own unique enthusiastic way) for substantiation on some statements about Lotus Notes vs Google mail was replied with  statements in which he was called a lunatic and on crack.  

Regardless of the form, I think it's always important to keep the focus on the topic, not on the person.
So, although I must admit I was a bit annoyed by the unwarranted insults (even if meant in a jokingly way), I couldn't help but wonder whether @APACloud actually had anything to say on the topic (Google Mail vs Lotus Notes) or was just trying to get out of a discussion he wasn't up for but doing it the wrong way (getting a bit childish instead of admitting he had just made a rash statement he was not about ready to have a debate on).

And to test that I asked him to elaborate a bit on his claims about Gmail being so much better then Lotus Notes. Something that was asked by @MatNewman as well but just didn't seem to be getting an answer.

 

Now at this point I kind of got that he really wasn't up for it and I was about ready to leave it at that when he replied my tweet saying (something like) "Perhaps we could do a call on this, would love to elaborate". Surprised I accepted.



I was genuinely up for it as I love to get the perspective of someone else. I only have limited experience with Google Mail so having a chance to talk to, and get the perspective of, someone who claims having used both professionally, as well as knows something about Salesforce (a topic I'm also interested in) was something I wouldn't pass.

Notice how I included every tweet form our little exchange except that one in which he invites me for a call?

Well guess what, this morning, reading back the exchange (yes I do that sometimes) I noticed he had actually deleted that particular tweet. Apparently it was just a way to get out of the discussion and to shush me up. So I expect no call on this and to be honest after this, I'm not even up for it either.

Next time, be a man and just say you're not up for the discussion.