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The Cloud Ate My Homework
theodp writes "Over at CNET, James Urquhart sings the praises of cloud computing, encouraging folks to 'really listen to what is being said, understand how the cloud is being used, and seriously evaluate how this disruptive model will change your projects, your organization, and even your career.' Fair enough. Over at the Google Docs Help Forum, some perplexed cloud computing users spent the month of November unsuccessfully trying to figure out why they've been zinged for inappropriate content. Among the items deemed inappropriate and unshareable include notes on Henry David Thoreau ('the published version of this item cannot be shared until a Google review finds that the content is appropriate'), homework assignments, high school yearbook plans, wishlists, documents containing botanical names for plants, a list of websites for an ecommerce class, and a list of companies that rent motorcycles in Canada. When it comes to support in the cloud, it kind of looks like you might get what you pay for."
This is a concern, but remember we're talking about the free service here. Google's free services are great while everything works, but if you need a human being's attention, you're likely to be waiting a long time. I've had bad experiences with YouTube publishing glitches.
I'd hope that the paid Google Apps service has much better support. Can anyone confirm?
Meanwhile, in these cases, all that these people were unable to do was make their docs public. They could continue to edit them. They could presumably share them with specific contacts.
I think there needs to be a fix for this, but I don't think it's the end of the world for SaaS.
But, "review" suggests somebody at Google *will* look at that content. Imagine that -- some drone at Google will be looking at your private work
This part is certainly a big, big concern. I can understand why Google feels the need to do it -- they want to avoid facilitating a paedophile ring or whatever -- but normal users should expect that their data is not ordinarily looked at.
OTOH I'm sure there's something in the Google TOS about this. Ah here we go:
- 8.3 Google reserves the right (but shall have no obligation) to pre-screen, review, flag, filter, modify, refuse or remove any or all Content from any Service.
IMO just the possibility of this happening at all makes the whole thing suspect, and could bite you in the ass right in the worst moment. "Sorry boss, I can't share that report because Google thinks there's porn in it. We'll have to wait until somebody at Google looks at it". I'm sure that would make for an interesting day.
To be fair, you can always save-as HTML/RTF/DOC/etc. and send your boss that.
"Disruptive" is both positive and negative, it just depends on who you are.
By definition, a "disruptive" technology is a technology that is going to be laying down a little of the old Schumpeterian creative destruction on somebody's business model and/or existing capital base. For the incumbents, "disruptive"=bad.
However, for everybody else, the incumbents are a bunch of sluggish, reactionary, rent-seeking parasites. Hurting them is an important aspect of progress.
Wiki?
Isn't this sort of the whole point of the wiki platform?
I'm not really into the "collaboration" stuff (never ended up in a situation where it applied - always had someone who 'owned' a doc and handled changes).
I don't buy into the cloud for the same reason that I bought a microcomputer in the first place. I wanted my stuff to be my stuff. Not under the control of anyone but me. At work we have always used shared folders and such - but I can't be the only one where everyone has their own annotated version of their docs?
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.