Google seems to be undecided about the purpose of the navigation links (also known as "corner bookmarks") from Gmail, Google Calendar and other applications. While the only change I see is the replacement of Groups with Google Checkout, other people saw links to Google Reader, Google Maps, Blogger and other services. Maybe users should select their favorite services and the navigation links should be displayed consistently and extensively. It's weird that Google tested a page that let you customize those links but decided not to use it.
I am still slightly disappointed that they haven't set is to display on personlized homepages yet.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely NOT the Google-way to make you choose the services. Google is intelligent enough to find out *what* you use and combine it with what they *want* you to use.
ReplyDeleteSo they have the best of both worlds: marketing for new services and better overview for the existing ones.
Btw: I hope that one day, Google takes Google Reader serious and releases it as a beta, not as a damn labs-alpha. That sucks. They should have more resources for that product.
i saw this last night. mine replaced docs&spreadsheets with blogger. i don't use blogger, but i do use docs. wtg google
ReplyDeleteMy "Docs and Spreadsheets" is now "Documents", and I have links to "Photos" (which I played with once) and "Groups" (which I almost never use). I have been thinking, like Sebastian, that Google would eventually figure out what I use and provide links accordingly. I keep a number of tabs open and "frozen" throughout the day, most of them Google services. How great would it be if I could just load Gmail and then ctrl-click my way to the rest of the tabs using these links?
ReplyDeletehttp://khantzawaung.blogspot.com/2007/03/gmail-links.html
ReplyDeleteThis is what appears in my Gmail. I use Groups and Picasa; they were there but now are removed. Maps is one which I rarely touch.
It's disappointing to see the way Google is doing this.
I just found out that the links in Docs were preserved as before while those in Calendar were changed.
ReplyDeleteI wish Google includes this quick link in all services.
It would be really good if Google worked on moulding their services together a little more, in some places they work well together but in many others they don't. If you could flick between calendar, mail and docs for example within one window it would make the whole idea of using Google as a replacement for outlook (as I try to do) a lot more usable.
ReplyDeleteOn the integration front one useful one would be to pick up dates from Gmail mail, when you click it in Gmail it allows you to open a new appointment straight into Google calendar, with integration back to gmail.
I'm dreaming too much!
There was a Greasemonkey script that let you customise the links at:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sitening.com/blog/2006/11/22/customize-your-google-service-links/
But unfortunately i've never managed to get it to work (even after altering the inclusions to the secure Gmail site).
It looks like Google started to do something about these links (which are pretty unusable so far by my opinion) so let's hope they will make it work well.
ReplyDeleteHey Ionut. You have forgotten to label this post. Please apply some label, coz I depend heavily on your labels to browse through a 'specific' topic.
ReplyDeleteLooks like they made be doing a lot of smaller nav tweaks to certain sites. Google Reader also appears to have new gray buttons for 'mark all as read' and 'refresh'...a small thing but makes it look even a bit more like Gmail.
ReplyDeleteGoogle did some changes on Reader also. The Links - Refresh,mark all as read,feed settings now appear as clean buttons (similar to next and previous) ones.
ReplyDeleteJesus, just let them work-out the bugs. Personally, my life was destroyed by the new link switch around, but I think the rest of you can hang-in there. :-)
ReplyDeleteI see two very different sets of links on two different accounts.
ReplyDeleteOne set:
Google/Gmail/Calendar/Photos/Blogger/Groups/my.services
Second set
Google/Images/News/Maps/Gmail/Calendar/Docs/more>>
I am sure this change didn't affect anybody's life. I was just curious to see what they test.
ReplyDeleteSo we have the two sets above.
Third set
Google/Gmail/Calendar/Photos/Docs&Spreadsheets/Checkout
mine like this:
ReplyDeleteGoogle Gmail Calendar Docs Images News Maps more »
The customisation can be done using a greasemonkey script. It is very simple, and I am using it now.
ReplyDelete