I'm excited about GoogleTalk, but can't figure out how to tell who is already a gmail user and invite them to show me their status. I've been invited by several other gmail users to show my status to them, and accepted. But I only see links to invite people to "chat" -- I don't want to chat with them right now, I'd just like to see when they are online. And differentiating between people who already use gmail and people who don't, although it may not mean much to Google, is important to me. It's less intrusive to invite someone who is already signed up than to ask someone to register.
I've been using gmail for probably a year or so now, in conjunction with Eudora which downloads my mail to my hard drive. I prefer to work primarily off my hard drive, since I don't yet live in the "IP Everywhere" world of David Reed. Yet I LOVE the backup Google offers me, and although I'm a little skeeved out about the privacy implications, I'm rolling with it for now. There's a weird bug somewhere in the Eudora-Google interface that causes it to crash once in awhile when sending mail using Google's server. This is annoying but I can use an alternate SMTP server as a workaround until they figure it out.
Another asset: If I send mail from my gmail account, it cc's a copy of what I've sent to my inbox, with myself as the "from" contact -- but of course I would prefer to see who they were sent to, not who they are from. If I transfer these mails from my inbox to my outbox in Eudora, the "to" contact automatically shows up. The mails don't show up as "sent" (how could Eudora know?), but at least they are there as a record, which is what I need them for.
Google and Skype both recently invested in a company called FON; the dynamic Rebecca MacKinnon and the inimitable Jerry Michalski are on their board of advisors. The name is oddly old-fashioned considering what they are attempting, which is to build a network of users who make their connectivity available to other members so that all can ride free (connecting through any device) while traveling.
There are a bunch of issues with getting a large enough network to make it functional: namely, that the service providers aren't interested in letting their subscribers share wireless, and that providing free connectivity has limited allure for retail establishments (coffee shops, airports) who want a cut of profits. But obviously if enough people and partners get on board FON will overthrow the powers that be, a communist revolution of a sort. Swimming upstream, but the goal is so worth it! Kind of reminds me of Sxip. Call me crazy, but I'd love to join a company like FON that really leverages the possibility of the Internet for great, future-thinking goals.
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