Google Grand Central Why Are You Not Integrated with Gmail
March 14th, 2008 by Michael Gray in GoogleIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
Um Hey Google can I ask why Google Grand Central isn’t part of the “Google Accounts” thing? I’m not saying turn it on by default, but at least make the systems talk to each other the way other google apps do. Heck even dodgeball (which could have been way cooler than twitter if you didn’t ignore it) uses a google universal login.
Why do I want to to be part of the google account? Um you know since GMail has contacts and Grand Central has contacts it might be nice and good for the users if the two shared data. I mean heck everyone and their brother can import data from gmail now, you guys have to have an easier way to keep that stuff in sync.
Now of course I won’t tell you how wickedly cool it would be if we could play grandcentral voice mail stright from gmail without having to hit the intermediate screen and how it would totally be good for the users, but just sayin’ ya know.
Of course I also think you should buy Jott and hook it in with Gmail and Grand Central. Because I use Jott all the time and when I show people how I use it to update my calender via voicemail they all have a light bulb moment and get how it would be good for the users.
Because you know when you do stuff that you say is good for the users (but really isn’t good for anyone but you) it’s nice if you do a little cosmic karma and actually do something is good for the users.
You know it’s not like I could have shared interesting ideas froma real google pwith the google team IF I had been invited to the top secret google meetup that really never happened.
Sphere It
March 14th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Integrate GC and GMail. Great idea. Grand Central is one of the coolest things I have come across on the web in some time. I tried hooking my friends up with invites and most of them scratched their heads. Guess they will figure it out in a year or two.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Very cool idea! Grand Central looks awesome, I haven’t used it, but I get it. Whoa…love that you can personaliz
the greetings for callers - I can see how your idea would be helpful with that feature since you can easily transfer
your gmail contacts on an as needed basis. I would just send Google an invoice for your idea. LOL!
Michael, if it isn’t too much to ask, could you send me an invite for Grand Central - I have been looking for
something like this to help me run my side businesses. Thanks for the post! It couldn’t be more timely for my
situation.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
First off I’m bummed you won’t be firing up one of the SES panels, but I digress. Great idea on this post, but how do you square that with your warnings about Google getting too much data, they are not the gov’t etc.? Doesn’t this sort of thing just continue that trend?
March 14th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
My guess is that since Grand Central is all about phone stuff, it’s more difficult to integrate than just another web service. But I’ll ask.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
S Pearson »
hmm looks like the invite feature is closed or I just can’t find it, try signing up here and see what happens
http://www.grandcentral.com/home/reserve
March 14th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Jamie »
if they already have the data in gmail they aren’t getting anything new. I suppose some call logging data but not much else.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Matt Cutts »
good deal, but c’mon we all know it’s just computers talking
March 14th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Okay thanks for checking Michael - again great post!
March 15th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
I absolutely agree. When I think of all the places I have to sync my addresses - it just riles me that I have to sync addresses between two applications owned by the same company.
Of course, there’s also the utility of combining the interfaces so that GrandCentral users are simply able to see voice mail messages with there other messages (chat and mail). It has to be a win-win for all of the product managers.
As for Jott, yea - I like the product and use it. It just seems like it would be easier to add the functionality to GrandCentral then to integrate Jott with everything else.
Generally, Google would benefit from better cross product integration - but that’s the same for all of the web app companies.
March 25th, 2008 at 7:39 am
It is possible that Grand Central will be a revenue generator for Google. Most of the applications that are in a person’s Google account are all free. This one looks like a user will have to pay.